The Railway Man and His Children by Mrs. Oliphant - HTML preview

CHAPTER XLVIII.

“YOU put Mrs. Rowland on my traces,” said Eddy; “why did you do so, you little witch? Wait till I find out some bad trick I can play you.”

“It has all turned out very well,” said Marion sedately. “I am not at all sorry I did it. I knew that man was about something wrong. And you should not know such people, Mr. Saumarez. I was bound to tell them anything I knew.”

“Miss Rowland,” said Eddy, “your father is going to pay all my debts, and send me out to California, or somewhere, to a ranch, to expiate all my sins; and when I come back in three years or so, as a reward, if you are not the Duchess of So-and-so, we may, if we please, marry.”

“Who may marry?” said Marion astonished.

“The only people whom I know who really suit each other,” said Eddy calmly. “You and I.”

“You and—me,” cried Marion in great wrath. “You are just very impudent to say so. Me marry you!—without ever being asked—without a word! In three years or so! I just tell you I will do nothing of the kind.”

“That is exactly what I said. I said, if you think Marion will wait three years for me! She will take the first Duke that offers, and she will be one of the ornaments of Queen Victoria’s court long before I come home.”

“I was not saying exactly that,” said Marion. “Where am I to get the Duke? There are none but old bald-headed men.”

“An Earl then,” said Eddy. “There are always lively young Earls or Viscounts in hand, more to be counted on than plain Eddy Saumarez, who is nobody. That’s what I said to your father, Miss May. Why should you wait for me? I told him I saw no reason.”

“Especially when I was never asked,” Marion said.

“Yes,” said Eddy. “You see how good I am at bottom, after all that has happened. I said I would play you a nasty trick if I could find one, but I haven’t. You should be grateful to me. I haven’t asked you—so far as words go.”

“I don’t know,” said Marion with a little quiver in her lip, “how a person can be asked except in words.”

“Don’t you?” he said, and then they gave each other a look, and burst into mutual laughter, of the emotional kind.

They were walking down the slope of the bank towards the Clyde, under trees now bare with the surly winds of winter. It was a dull November afternoon, and everything was done in tints of grey; the skies in long bands, here darker, there lighter, as the vapours were more or less heavy, the opposite shore a tinge more solid than the long weltering line of the water which had the ghost of a reflection in it, the points standing out like black specks upon the grey, the wreaths of smoke half-suspended in the still air over the town of Clydeside, putting in an intermediate tone between the two. The edge of the great stream grew a little lighter as it crept to their feet over the shallows, and broke on the beach with a faint white line of foam.

“I will always maintain,” said Eddy, “that there never were two people so fit to go together as you and I. We haven’t any wild admiration of each other; we know each other’s deficiencies exactly; we don’t go in for perfection, do we? But we suit, my little May, we suit down to the ground. You would know what you had to expect in me, and I could keep you in order.”

“You are just very impudent,” she said. “I never gave you any encouragement, Mr. Saumarez, to think that I was willing to be—to do—I mean anything of that kind.”

“Ah, Marion,” he said, “you may be as stern as you like, but I know I would suit you better than that duke. You would get dreadfully tired of being called your grace, and having him, a stupid fellow, always stuck there opposite to you; but you would not get tired of me.”

“How do you know that? I am often just very tired of you,” said Marion. “You think too much of yourself. We would not agree, not for two days without a fight.”

“That is just what I say. There would be no gêne between us, we know each other so well. Don’t you think, after all, you would perhaps wait for me, Marion, supposing the duke did not come? I never could pretend to stand against him. Say you will, and I’ll do what your father says, and go ranching: though most likely I shall break my neck the first year, and then you will be free of your promise, May.”

“Why should you go ranching, as you call it, and what does it mean?”

“That’s what I don’t know. It means riding about after cows, but why I can’t tell you. I know nothing in the world about cows. I scarcely know one when I see it, but your father thinks it’s the right thing. I’ll go if you’ll wait for me, May.”

“And what would you do, Eddy,” she said, stealing a little closer to him, “if you didn’t go?”

“That’s more than I can tell you. But I’ll tell you what I’d do, May, if old aunt Sarah would only die. I’d settle with the governor about Gilston, and we’d furbish it up and live there. In the spring we’d have a little turn in town, and in winter we’d hunt, and have the house full. We should be as jolly as the day’s long, and nobody to interfere with us. And I promise you, you’d go out of the room before Mrs. James Rowland, though he is the great railway man. I could do that for you, Marion, though I couldn’t make you Her Grace, you know.”

“Oh, be quiet, Eddy! and if your aunt Sarah doesn’t die?”

“Ah, there you pose me, May. I must either go back where the bad boys go, to town, and sink or swim as I can, and farewell to my pretty Marion; or else I must go and ranch, or whatever you call it, as your father says.”

“It is strange,” said Marion very seriously, “that old people should make such a point of going on living, when there are young ones that want their money so very much—and when they know they have had their day.”

“One may say it is inconsiderate,” said Eddy with a twinkle in his eye, “but then the thing is, why should she take all that trouble for us? I am sure we would take none for her: and here we are just back again, Marion, where the four roads meet—Gilston or California, the ranch or the—devil: that’s about what it is.”

“You had, perhaps, better go to the ranch, Eddy.”

“And you’ll wait for me, May!”

“Perhaps,” said the girl, with tears which were honest enough, in her eyes. “If I don’t see somebody I like better,” she added with a laugh.

“Most likely,” said Eddy philosophically, “I shall break my neck the first year—and then you need not hold to your promise. But don’t marry any one under the rank of a marquis, for my credit, if you love me, May.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that,” Marion said.

It was after she had come in from this conversation, and had thought it all over in her own room, and made several calculations, that Marion walked very sedately downstairs, and knocked at her father’s door. She was slightly disconcerted when she saw that Mrs. Rowland was with him, but, having quite distinctly made up her mind what she was going to do, her confusion was slight and soon passed away. She did not sit down, but stood by the writing table at which he was seated, leaning her hand upon it, which was a token that she meant business, and did not intend to waste words.

“Can I speak a word to you, papa?”

“As many as you please,” said Rowland. “Sit down, May; but if you are coming to ask explanations——”

“Explanations?” she said with some surprise. “Oh, you will perhaps be meaning about Archie? There is no occasion. I was always very clear about that; and it was me that gave mamma the first hint, as she will perhaps mind. I was coming to speak to you, papa, about what may perhaps be my own affairs.”

“Shall I go away, Marion, and leave you alone with your father?”

“Oh, no, there is no need. You will be better here: for sometimes there are times when a woman has more sense—I will not beat about the bush. Why is it, papa, that Mr. Saumarez has to go away?”

“Oh, he has been telling you, has he? And do you mean to wait for him, Marion?” said her father.

“That is a different question,” said Marion, with a toss of her head, which was perhaps intended to toss away a little heat that had come to her cheeks. “I would like to know, in the first place just as his friend, papa, what end is going to be served by sending him away?”

“And what would your wisdom suggest instead?” said Mr. Rowland. “The end to be served is to take him away from ill friends and connections, and make him work—which is the best thing I know——”

“Work!” said Marion with a certain contempt; “and how would Eddy work that does not know the way? Work is maybe very grand, and I am not sure but I could do it myself if there was any need. And Archie might maybe do it. And perhaps it would do him good. But not Eddy; I’ve read in books about that: if the half of the men out there work, the other half just go all wrong. Boys are not all alike,” said Marion, with a little wave of her hand, as if delivering a lecture on the subject; “the boys at the Burn have that in them that they can just never be quiet—they’re on the hill or out in the boat, or wrestling and throwing things at each other, if there’s nothing else to do. But Eddy is not of that kind. He would no more work out there than he would work here. He will go if you make him, though I can not tell why he should do what you say. But he will go just helpless, with no use of his hands, and he will fall into the first net that’s spread for him. Oh, he’s clever enough!” cried the girl, some angry moisture springing to her eyes; “he will see it is a net: but he will go into it all the same: for what is he to do? He has just about as much work in him as Roy and Dhu.”

“Then he’d better disappear off the face of the earth!” cried Rowland angrily, “with other cumberers of the soil. A man like that has no right to live.”

“His Maker would maybe know that best,” retorted Marion undismayed; “and me, I’m willing to take him as he is. But I will not be a consenting party,” the girl cried raising her voice, “to sending any person away to his ruin. You think one way is just good for everybody all the same, as if we were not made dark and fair, and big and little, to show the difference! And I will not say I will wait for him, papa,” Marion added more calmly, after a pause for breath. “For I might miss a very good match in the time, and never get such a chance again; and he might never come back, as I think most likely, and I would have nobody at all. So I will not promise, for it would be bad for us both,—both him and me.”

“You little calculating cutty,” cried her father; “is this what you call being in love with a man?”

“I never said a word on that subject,” said Marion. “I said I was willing to take him as he is. And I suppose,” she said, coming down suddenly from her oratorical platform to the calm tone of ordinary affairs, “I suppose you will be meaning to give me some kind of a fortune, more or less, when I’m married and go away.”

“I suppose so—to get rid of you,” said her father with a laugh.

“That was just what I meant,” said Marion seriously; “then what would ail you, papa, to settle about Gilston, and just let him take up the way of nature there? He could do what was wanted there.”

Rowland sprang from his seat in wrath and high indignation. “Preserve the game and shoot it in the season, and play your idiotic games all the summer——”

(“No, papa,” said Marion demurely, “we would be May and June in town.”)

“And hunt in the winter, and play the fool all the year round—on my money, that I’ve worked hard for, every penny! I will see him—and you—far enough first!”

“Papa,” said Marion, “I have been talking to Rosamond upon that subject, and she thinks that men like you are under a great delusion. For she says you are not an old man now, but just in your prime, and you’re neither worn out nor a bit the worse. And she says she knows men that have worked far far harder and actually have worn themselves out, and never made any money at all. So that it’s not hard work, as you suppose, but just that you’re awfully clever, and have had tremendous luck. Oh, you can ask Rosamond what she means. It is not me; but that’s my opinion too.”

To imagine a man more bewildered than Rowland, thus assailed in his very stronghold by two “brats of girls,” as he himself said, who could know nothing about the matter: yet subtly flattered all the same by the statement that he was still in his prime and awfully clever, things which no man, especially when he is sur le retour, objects to hear—would have been impossible. He glared upon his little daughter, standing dauntless, purling forth her iconoclastic remarks, and then he gave a short laugh, or snort of angry contempt, and smote her lightly (yet enough to make her shake from head to foot) on the shoulder, and bade her stick to her own plea and her lad’s, and let other people speak for themselves.

“Well,” said Marion, “I will just call her in, for she is in the hall, and she will tell you herself: for I have said my say; and I hope you will think it over, and come to a better judgment, papa.”

All this time Evelyn had been sitting silent by, supporting her head on her hand. But, truth to tell, it was not the self-denial of a supporter leaving her principal to fight for himself, but simple incompetence which silenced Evelyn. With her head bent down, she had been doing her best to master and conceal the laughter which was almost too much for her. Mrs. Rowland was for once on Marion’s side; and the composure of the little girl’s attack, and its radical character, startled the elder woman. When Rowland sat down again by her side, with that snort of dissipating and modified fury, she put her hand upon his arm, and raised her face to him for a moment. And the good man was more bewildered than ever to see the fun that was dancing in his wife’s eyes.

“James!” said Evelyn, her laugh bursting forth in spite of her; “she had you there.”

“The little witch!” cried the bewildered man. He began to laugh too, though he could scarcely have told why. And then Rowland raised his head to find quite a different figure standing in front of him in the same position which Marion had occupied a moment before, but half as tall again as Marion, with head held high, and a slim, long hand leant upon his table. She stood like Portia about to make her speech, a simile which, it need not be said, did not occur to Rowland, but to Evelyn by his side.

“You called me, Mr. Rowland,” Rosamond said.

“You are to tell him,” said Marion’s voice behind, “what you said about work, Rosamond: for I’m only his own daughter, and he will not listen to it from me.”

“You little cutty!” Rowland said again, under his breath.

“What did I say about work? it is the thing I wish for most,” said Rosamond. “As soon as ever I am of age I am going in for it. My father and people won’t let me now. I do not think they have any right to interfere, but they do. Mabel Leighton, who is my dearest friend, is going in for medicine; but I have no distinct turn, I am sorry to say. But we think that something is certain to turn up.”

“So you are wanting to work, are you, Miss Rosamond? If it had been your brother, it would have been more to the purpose: for women’s work is but poorly paid. I never heard yet of one that made a fortune by her own exertions,” Rowland said.

“A fortune?” said Rosamond. “No, we never thought of that. We thought we could live on very little, two girls together. And Mabel has something of her own, and we hoped that grandmamma, as she is all for work, might make me a small allowance if she saw that I was in earnest. Lodgings are not dear, if you don’t insist upon a fashionable quarter, and as we shouldn’t care for meat, or anything expensive in the way of living——”

“Eh?” said Rowland surprised. “And do you think, my dear, you could make money by saving off your meat?”

“Money! oh, we never thought of money, so long as we could get on, and work.”

“And what would you work for, if I may inquire, if you had no thought of money?” Rowland asked, almost dumb in face of this enigma, which was beyond all his powers.

“I have said,” she exclaimed with a little impatience, “that unfortunately I have no distinct vocation. Mabel is medical, luckily for her. She has no difficulty. But there is always as much work as one can set one’s face to in the East End.”

“But for what, for what? Give me an answer.”

“I allow,” said Rosamond, faltering slightly, “that it is a difficult question. To be of a little use, we hope: though people say that the results are not always so satisfactory as—— But at all events,” she added, more cheerfully, “it is WORK. And that must always be the best thing, whatever one may do.”

Rowland sat listening to all this, aghast. The lines of his ruddy countenance grew limp, his lips fell a little apart. “I thought I was a great one for work,” he said. But the words fell in a sort of apologetic manner from his lips, and he did not add anything about a change of opinion, which might have been supposed to be implied.

“Ah!” said Rosamond, “I know! in a different way: which chiefly means, I believe, getting other people to work for you, and directing them, and planning everything, and making money—like you, Mr. Rowland! who, in a few years, without hurting yourself in the least, have got so much money that you don’t know what to do with it. One sees that in the world. I have heard of men—not like you, who are a great engineer and a genius, everybody says—but mere nobodies, with shops and things, people one would not like to touch—” Rosamond made a slight gesture of disgust, as if she had drawn the folds of her dress away from contact with some millionaire. “But that is not WORK,” said the girl, throwing back her head. “I know people in society—well, perhaps not quite in society—who have gone on working for a whole lifetime, gentlemen, yes, and women too, working from morning to night, and even have been successful, yet have never made money. So it is clear that work is not the thing to make a fortune by. But I am of opinion that it is the first thing in the world.”

Rowland once more blew forth with a snort from his nostrils the angry breath. He felt sure there were arguments somewhere with which he could confound this silly girl, and show her that to work was to rise in the world, and make a fortune, and surround yourself with luxury, with the certainty of a mathematical axiom. But he could not find them; and he found himself instead saying in his mind, “If you have ordinary luck, if you don’t play the fool,” and so forth, evidently adding the conditional case from his own point of view. And the result was that he contented himself with that snort and a strong expression of his opinion that girls should marry, and look after their men’s houses, and not trouble their heads about what was never intended for them.

He broke up the discussion after this, and led his wife forth by the arm, taking her off to look at the view—Clyde coming in softly on the beach, and all the world clad in those sober coats of grey. And standing there an hour after, when the talk might have been supposed to have evaporated, and the day was dying off into evening, he cried suddenly, “Where would I have been without work? Not here with my lady-wife upon the terrace at Rosmore!”

Evelyn did not say, what perhaps rose to her mind, “You might have been, with a great deal harder work, a respectable foreman in the foundry, as good a man, and as admirable an example of what labour and honest zeal can do.” She did not say it, but her historian does for her. Mrs. Rowland only pressed her husband’s arm, and said, “The young ones, perhaps, are not without reason too.”

At all events, Mr. Rowland said no more of the ranch for Eddy, and in due time, when the young pair were old enough, they married, and settled at Gilston, which was relieved and rescued by Marion’s money, and restored to its dignity as one of the finest places in the county, where, if they did not perhaps live happy ever after, they were at least a great deal better off than they deserved, and fulfilled all their own prophecies, and suited each other—down to the ground, as Eddy said. Old Aunt Sarah died in the course of time, and completed their prosperity. And there was not a livelier house in England, nor a couple who enjoyed their life more.

As for Archie, his complete development into a man, on a different level from his father, with other aims, and an ambition which grew slowly with his powers, cannot be here entered into. It would exceed the limits permitted in these pages, and might touch upon graver problems than are open to the historian of domestic life.

Rosamond has not yet married any more than he, and has had full opportunities of testing the power of work and its results. Mabel Leighton, of course, was soon drawn off from that eccentric career, and is now a mother of children, much like what her own mother was before her. But the further history of those two, if it is ever written, will demand a new beginning and an extended page.

THE END.