CHAPTER IX
ON FOOT AND ON WHEELS
THE yellow cabriolet stood at the entrance to the close. The iron-gray mare, though no longer in her first youth, abhorred delay, and was tossing her head and moving restlessly, to the great annoyance of the very small English groom who stood a yard in front of her nose, and whose remonstrances were completely lost on her. Now and then she would fidget with her forefeet, spoiling the ‘Assyrian stride’ which had added pounds to her price and made her an object of open-mouthed amazement to the youth of the Kaims gutter.
A crowd of little boys were collected on the pavement; for the company which emerged from the Miss Robertsons’ house on Sundays was as good as a peep-show to them, and the laird of Whanland was, to their minds, the most choice flower of fashion and chivalry which this weekly entertainment could offer. Not that that fact exempted him from their criticism—no fact yet in existence could protect any person from the tongue of the Scotch street-boy—and the groom, who had been exposed to their comment for nearly twenty minutes, was beginning, between the mare and the audience, to come to the end of his temper.
‘Did ever ye see sic a wee, wee mannie?’ exclaimed one of the older boys, pointing at him.
‘He’s terrible like a monkey.’
‘An’ a’m fell feared he’ll no grow. What auld are ye, mun?’ continued the other, raising his voice to a shout.
‘Hech! he winna speak!’
‘He’ll no be bigger nor Jockie Thompson. Come awa here, Jockie, an’ let’s see!’
A small boy was hauled out from the crowd and pushed forward.
‘Just stand you aside him an’ put your heedie up the same prood way he does.’
The urchin stepped down off the pavement, and standing as near the victim as he dared, began to inflate himself and to pull such faces as he conceived suitable. As mimicry they had no merit, but as insult they were simply beyond belief.
A yell of approval arose.
The groom was beginning to meditate a dive at the whip-socket when the solid shape of Jockie Thompson’s father appeared in the distance. His son, who had eluded him before kirk and who still wore his Sunday clothes, sprang back to the pavement, and was instantly swallowed up by the group.
By the time that the groom had recovered his equanimity the mare began to paw the stones, for she also had had enough of her present position.
‘Whoa, then!’ cried he sharply, raising his hand.
‘Gie her the wheep,’ suggested one of the boys.
Though there was an interested pause, the advice had no effect.
‘He’s feared,’ said a boy with an unnaturally deep voice. ‘He’s no muckle use. The laird doesna let him drive; ye’ll see when he comes oot o’ the close an’ wins into the machine, he’ll put the mannie up ahint him an’ just drive himsel’.’
‘Ay, will he.’
The man threw a vindictive glance into the group, and the mare, having resumed her stride, tossed her head up and down, sending a snow-shower of foam into the air. A spot lit upon his smart livery coat, and he pulled out his handkerchief to flick it off.
A baleful idea suggested itself to the crowd.
‘Eh, look—see!’ cried a tow-headed boy, ‘gie’s a handfu’ o’ yon black durt an’ we’ll put a piece on his breeks that’ll match the t’other ane!’
Two or three precipitated themselves upon the mud, and it is impossible to say what might have happened had not Gilbert, at this moment, come up the close.
‘Whisht! whisht! here’s Whanland! Michty, but he’s fine! See, now, he’ll no let the mannie drive.’
‘Gosh! but he’s a braw-lookin’ deevil!’
‘Haud yer tongue. He doesna look vera canny the day. I’d be sweer[1] to fash him.’
Gilbert got into the cabriolet gathering up the reins, his thoughts intent upon what he had heard in the house. The mare, rejoiced to be moving, took the first few steps forward in a fashion of her own, making, as he turned the carriage, as though she would back on to the kerbstone. He gave her her head, and drew the whip like a caress softly across her back. She plunged forward, taking hold of the bit, and trotted down the High Street, stepping up like the great lady she was, and despising the ground underneath her.
However preoccupied, Speid was not the man to be indifferent to his circumstances when he sat behind such an animal. As they left the town and came out upon the flat stretch of road leading towards Whanland, he let her go to the top of her pace, humouring her mouth till she had ceased to pull, and was carrying her head so that the bit was in line with the point of the shaft. A lark was singing high above the field at one side of him, and, at the other, the scent of gorse came in puffs on the wind from the border of the sandhills. Beyond was the sea, with the line of cliff above Garviekirk graveyard cutting out into the immeasurable water. The sky lay pale above the sea-line. They turned into the road by the Lour bridge from where the river could be seen losing itself in an eternity of distance. In the extraordinary Sunday stillness, the humming of insects was audible as it only is on the first day of the week, when nature itself seems to suggest a suspension of all but holiday energy. The natural world, which recognises no cessation of work, presents almost the appearance of doing so at such times, so great is the effect of the settled habit of thousands of people upon its aspect.
The monotony of the motion and the balm of the day began to intoxicate Gilbert. It is not easy to feel that fate is against one when the sun shines, the sky smiles, and the air is quivering with light and dancing shadow; harder still in the face of the blue, endless sea-spaces of the horizon; hard indeed when the horse before you conveys subtly to your hand that he is prepared to transport you, behind the beating pulse of his trot, to Eldorado—to the Isles of the Blessed—anywhere.
His heart rose in spite of himself as he got out of the cabriolet at the door of Whanland, and ran his hand down the mare’s shoulder and forelegs. He had brought her in hotter than he liked, and he felt that he should go and see her groomed, for he was a careful horse-master. But somehow he could not. He dismissed her with a couple of approving slaps, and watched her as she was led away. Then, tossing his hat and gloves to Macquean, who had come out at the sound of wheels, he strolled up to the place at which he had once paused with Barclay, and stood looking up the river to the heavy woods of Morphie.
‘If she were here!’ he said to himself, ‘if she were here!’
*****
As Speid’s eyes rested upon the dark woods, the little kirk which stood at their outskirts was on the point of emptying, for public worship began in it later than in the kirks and churches of Kaims.
The final blessing had been pronounced, the last paraphrase sung, and Lady Eliza, with Cecilia, sat in the Morphie pew in the first row of the gallery. Beside them was Fullarton’s nephew, Crauford Fordyce, busily engaged in locking the bibles and psalm-books into their box under the seat with a key which Lady Eliza had passed to him for the purpose. His manipulation of the peculiarly-constructed thing showed that this was by no means the first time he had handled it.
The beadle and an elder were going their rounds with the long-handled wooden collecting-shovels, which they thrust into the pews as they passed; the sound of dropping pennies pervaded the place, and the party in the Morphie seat having made their contributions, that hush set in which reigned in the kirk before the shovel was handed into the pulpit, and the ring of the minister’s money gave the signal for a general departure not unlike a stampede. Lady Eliza leaned, unabashed, over the gallery to see who was present.
When the expected sound had sent the male half of the congregation like a loosed torrent to the door, and the female remainder had departed more peacefully, the two women went out followed by Fordyce.
Lady Eliza was in high good temper. Though content to let all theological questions rest fundamentally, she had scented controversy in some detail of the sermon, and was minded to attack the minister upon them when next he came in her way. Fordyce, who was apt to take things literally, was rash enough to be decoyed into argument on the way home, and not adroit enough to come out of it successfully.
Robert Fullarton’s nephew—to give him the character in which he seemed most important to Lady Eliza—belonged to the fresh-faced, thickset type of which a loss of figure in later life may be predicted. Heavily built, mentally and physically, he had been too well brought up to possess anything of the bumpkin, or, rather, he had been too much brought up in complicated surroundings to indulge in low tastes, even if he had them. He took considerable interest in his own appearance, though he was not, perhaps, invariably right in his estimate of it, and his clothes were always good and frequently unsuitable. He was the eldest son of an indulgent father, who had so multiplied his possessions as to become their adjunct more than their owner; to his mother and his two thick-ankled, elementary sisters he suggested Adonis; and he looked to politics as a future career. Owing to some slight natural defect, he was inclined to hang his under-lip and breathe heavily through his nose. Though he was of middle height, his width made him look short of it, and the impression he produced on a stranger was one of phenomenal cleanliness and immobility.
The way from the kirk to Morphie house lay through the fields, past the home farm, and Lady Eliza stopped as she went by to inquire for the health of a young cart-horse which had lamed itself. Cecilia and Crauford waited for her at the gate of the farmyard. A string of ducks was waddling towards a ditch with that mixture of caution and buffoonery in their appearance which makes them irresistible to look at, and a hen’s discordant Magnificat informed the surrounding world that she had done her best for it; otherwise everything was still.
‘We shall have to wait some time, I expect, if it is question of a horse,’ observed Cecilia, sitting down upon a log just outside the gate.
‘I shall not be impatient,’ responded Fordyce, showing two very large, very white front teeth as he smiled.
‘I was thinking that Mr. Fullarton might get tired of waiting for you and drive home. The mails will have been given out long ago, and he is probably at Morphie by this time.’
‘Come now, Miss Raeburn; I am afraid you think me incapable of walking to Fullarton, when, in reality, I should find it a small thing to do for the pleasure of sitting here with you. Confess it: you imagine me a poor sort of fellow—one who, through the custom of being well served, can do little for himself. I have seen it in your expression.’
Cecilia laughed a little. ‘Why should you fear that?’ she asked.
‘Because I am extremely anxious for your good opinion,’ he replied,—‘and, of course, for Lady Eliza’s also.’
‘I have no doubt you have got it,’ she said lightly.
‘You are not speaking for yourself, Miss Raeburn. I hope that you think well of me.’
‘Your humility does you credit.’
‘I wish you would be serious. It is hard to be set aside by those whom one wishes to please.’
‘But I do not set you aside. You are speaking most absurdly, Mr. Fordyce,’ said Cecilia, who was growing impatient.
‘But you seem to find everyone else preferable to me—Speid, for instance.’
‘It has never occurred to me to compare you, sir.’
Her voice was freezing.
‘I hope I have not annoyed you by mentioning his name,’ said he clumsily.
‘You will annoy me if you go on with this conversation,’ she replied. ‘I am not fond of expressing my opinion about anyone.’
Fordyce looked crestfallen, and Cecilia, who was not inclined to be harsh to anybody, was rather sorry; she felt as remorseful as though she had offended a child; he was so solid, so humourless, so vulnerable. She wondered what his uncle thought of him; she had wondered often enough what Fullarton thought about most things, and, like many others, she had never found out. It often struck her that he was a slight peg for such friendship as Lady Eliza’s to hang on. ‘Il y’a un qui baise et un qui tend la joue.’ She knew that very well, and she had sometimes resented the fact for her adopted aunt, being a person who understood resentment mainly by proxy.
As she glanced at the man beside her she thought of the strange difference in people’s estimates of the same thing; no doubt he represented everything to someone, but she had spoken with absolute truth when she said that it had not occurred to her to compare him to Speid. She saw the same difference between the two men that she saw between fire and clay, between the husk and the grain, between the seen and the unseen. In her twenty-four years she had contrived to pierce the veils and shadows that hide the eyes of life, and, having looked upon them, to care for no light but theirs. The impression produced on her when she first saw Gilbert Speid by the dovecot was very vivid, and it was wonderful how little it had been obliterated or altered in their subsequent acquaintance. His quietness and the forces below it had more meaning for her than the obvious speeches and actions of other people. She had seen him in a flash, understood him in a flash, and, in a flash, her nature had risen up and paused, quivering and waiting, unconscious of its own attitude. Simple-minded people were inclined to call Cecilia cold.
‘I am expecting letters from home to-day,’ said Fordyce at last. ‘I have written very fully to my father on a particular subject, and I am hoping for an answer.’
‘Indeed?’ said she, assuming a look of interest; she felt none, but she was anxious to be pleasant.
‘I should like you to see Fordyce Castle,’ said he. ‘I must try to persuade Lady Eliza to pay us a visit with you.’
‘I am afraid you will hardly be able to do that,’ she answered, smiling. ‘I have lived with her for nearly twelve years, and I have never once known her to leave Morphie.’
‘But I feel sure she would enjoy seeing Fordyce,’ he continued; ‘it is considered one of the finest places in Lanarkshire, and my mother would make her very welcome; my sisters, too, they will be delighted to make your acquaintance. You would suit each other perfectly; I have often thought that.’
‘You are very good,’ she said, ‘and the visit would be interesting, I am sure. The invitation would please her, even if she did not accept it. You can but ask her.’
‘Then I have your permission to write to my mother?’ said Crauford earnestly.
It struck Cecilia all at once that she was standing on the brink of a chasm. Her colour changed a little.
‘It is for my aunt to give that,’ she said. ‘I am always ready to go anywhere with her that she pleases.’
The more Fordyce saw of his companion the more convinced was he, that, apart from any inclination of his own, he had found the woman most fitted to take the place he had made up his mind to offer her. The occasional repulses which he suffered only suggested to him such maidenly reserve as should develop, with marriage, into a dignity quite admirable at every point. Her actual fascination was less plain to him than to many others, and, though he came of good stock, his admiration for the look of breeding strong in her was not so much grounded in his own enjoyment of it as in the effect he foresaw it producing on the rest of the world, in connection with himself. Her want of fortune seemed to him almost an advantage. Was he not one of the favoured few to whom it was unnecessary? And where would the resounding fame of King Cophetua be without his beggar-maid?
The letter he had written to his father contained an epitome of his feelings—at least, so far as he was acquainted with them; and, when he saw Lady Eliza emerge from a stable-door into the yard, and knew that there was no more chance of being alone with Cecilia, he was all eagerness to step out for Morphie, where his uncle had promised to call for him on his way home from Kaims. Fullarton might even now be carrying the all-important reply in his pocket.
He wondered, as they took their way through the fragrant grass, how he should act when he had received it, for he had hardly settled whether to address Miss Raeburn in person or to lay his hopes before Lady Eliza, with a due statement of the prospects he represented. He leaned towards the latter course, feeling certain that the elder woman must welcome so excellent a fate for her charge, and would surely influence her were she blind enough to her own happiness to refuse him. But she would never refuse him. Why should she? He could name twenty or thirty who would be glad to be in her place. He had accused her of preferring Speid’s company to his own, but he had only half believed the words he spoke. For what was Whanland? and what were the couple of thousand a year Speid possessed?
Yet poor Crauford knew, though he would scarce admit the knowledge to himself, that the only situation in which he felt at a disadvantage was in Speid’s society.