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diff --git a/38291.txt b/38291.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ec6fac --- /dev/null +++ b/38291.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5235 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A Witch of the Hills, v. 1-2, by Florence Warden + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Witch of the Hills, v. 1-2 + +Author: Florence Warden + +Release Date: December 13, 2011 [EBook #38291] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WITCH OF THE HILLS, V. 1-2 *** + + + + +Produced by Matthew Wheaton, Beginners Projects, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + A WITCH OF THE HILLS + + BY + + FLORENCE WARDEN + + + AUTHOR OF 'THE HOUSE ON THE MARSH,' ETC. + + IN TWO VOLUMES + VOL. I + + LONDON + + RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET + + Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen + + 1888 + + + + +A WITCH OF THE HILLS + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Poor little witch! I think she left all her spells and love-philters +behind her, when she let herself be carried off from Ballater to +Bayswater, a spot where no sorcery more poetical or more interesting +than modern Spiritualism finds a congenial home. What was her star +about not to teach her that human hearts can beat as passionately up +among the quiet hills and the dark fir-forests as down amid the rattle +and the roar of the town? Well, well; it is only in the grave that we +make no mistakes; and life and love, God knows, are mysteries beyond +the ken of a chuckle-headed country gentleman, with just sense enough +to handle a gun and land a salmon. + +And the sum and substance of all this is that the Deeside hills are +very bleak in December, that the north wind sighs and sobs, whistles +and howls among the ragged firs and the bending larches in a manner +fearsome and eerie to a lonely man at his silent fireside, and that +books are but sorry substitutes for human companions when the deer are +safe in their winter retreat in the forests, and the grouse-moors are +white with snow. So here's for another pine-log on the fire, and a +glance back at the fourteen years which have slipped away since I shut +the gates of the world behind me. + +The world! The old leaven is still there then, that after fourteen +years of voluntary--almost voluntary--exile, I still call that narrow +circle of a few hundreds of not particularly wise, not particularly +interesting people--the world! They were wise enough and interesting +enough for me at three and twenty, though, when by the death of my +elder brother I leapt at once from an irksome struggle, with expensive +tastes, on a stingy allowance of three hundred a year, to the full +enjoyment of an income of eight thousand. + +How fully I appreciated the delights of that sudden change from +'ineligible' to 'eligible!' How quickly I began to feel that, in +accepting an invitation, instead of receiving a favour I now conferred +one! My new knowledge speedily transformed a harmless and rather +obliging young man into an insufferable puppy; but the puppy was +welcomed where the obliging young man had hardly been tolerated. +Beautifully gradual the change was, both in me and in my friends; for +we were all well bred, and knew how to charge the old formulas with +new meaning. 'You will be sure to come, won't you?' from a hostess to +me, was no longer a crumb of kindness, it was an entreaty. 'You are +very kind,' from me, expressed now not gratitude, but condescension. A +rather nice girl, who had been scolded for dancing with me too often, +was now, like the little children sent out in the streets to beg, +praised or blamed by her mother according to the degree of attention I +had paid her. I did not share the contempt of the other men of my own +age for this manoeuvring mamma and the rest of her kind, though I +daresay I spoke of them in the same tone as they did. In the first +place, I was flattered by their homage to my new position, interested +as it was; and in the second, in their presence we were all so much +alike, in dress, manner, and what by courtesy is called conversation, +that the poor ladies might well be excused for judging our merits by +the only tangible point of difference--our relative wealth. + +In our tastes, our vices, real or assumed, there was equally little to +choose between us. We knew little about art and less about literature. +In politics we were dogged and illogical partisans of politicians, and +cared nothing for principles. Religion we left to women, who shared +with horses the chief place in our thoughts. Nature having fortunately +denied to the latter animals the power of speech, there was no danger +of the two classes of our favourites coming into active rivalry. + +In the intoxication of early manhood, while the mind was still in the +background to the senses, the surface of things provided entertainment +enough for us. Characters and even characteristics were merged in a +uniformity of folly without malice, and vice without depravity. If we +gambled, we lost money which did no good while in our hands; if we +gave light love, it was to ladies who asked for no more; if we drank, +we only clouded intellects which were never employed in thought. + +Looking back on that time from the serene eminence of nine and thirty, +I can see that I was a fool, but also that I got my money's worth for +my folly, which is more than I can say for all my later aberrations of +intellect. And if, on the brink of forty, I find I can give a less +logical account of my actions and feelings than I could at the opening +of life, it is appalling to think what a consummate ass I may be if I +live another twenty years! I begin to wish I had set myself some less +humiliating task, to fill my lonely hours by a mountain winter +fireside, than this of tracing the process by which the idiot of five +and twenty became the lunatic of five and thirty. Well, it's too late +to go back, now that I have called up the old ghosts and felt again +the terrible fascination of the touch of the now gaunt fingers. So +here's for a dash at my work with the best grace I can. + +I had been enjoying my accession to fortune for about eighteen months, +during which I had devoted what mind and soul I possessed wholly to +the work of catering for the gratification of my senses, when I fell +for the first time seriously in love, as the natural sequence of +having exhausted the novelty of coarser excitements. + +Lady Helen Normanton was the third daughter of the Marquis of +Castleford, a beauty in her first season, who had made a sensation on +her presentation, and had attracted the avowed admiration of no less a +person than the Earl of Saxmundham, such a great catch, with his +rumoured revenues of eighty or ninety thousand a year, that for a +comparative pauper with a small and already encumbered estate like +mine to dare to appear in the lists against him seemed the height of +conceit or the depth of idiotcy. But Lady Helen's eyes were bright +enough, and her smile sweet enough, to turn any man's head. They +caused me to form the first set purpose of my life, and I dashed into +my wooing with a head-long earnestness that soon made my passion the +talk of my friends. I had one advantage on my side upon which I must +confess that I largely relied; I was good-looking enough to have +earned the sobriquet of 'Handsome Harry,' and I was quite as much +alive to my personal attractions, quite as anxious to show them to the +best advantage, as any female professional beauty. It was agony to +think that, having already exhausted my imagination in the invention +of devices by which, in the restricted area of man's costume, I should +always appear a little better dressed than any one else, I could do +nothing more for my love than I had done for my vanity. As a last +resource I curled my hair. + +The boldness of my devotion soon began to tell. The Earl of Saxmundham +was fifty-two, had a snub nose, and was already bald. Lady Helen was +very young, sweet and simple, and perhaps scarcely realised yet what +much handsomer horses and gowns and diamonds are to be got with eighty +thousand a year than with eight. So she smiled at me and danced with +me, and said nothing at all in the sweetest way when I poured out my +passion in supper-rooms and conservatories, and giggled with the most +adorable childlikeness when I kissed her little hand, still young +enough to be rather red, and told her that she had inspired me with +the wish to be great for her sake. And the end of it was that the +Earl began to retreat, and that I was snubbed, and that these snubs, +being to me an earnest of victory, I became ten times more openly, +outrageously daring than before, and my suit being vigorously upheld +by one of her brothers, who had become an oracle in the family on the +simple basis of being difficult to please, I was at last most +reluctantly accepted as Lady Helen's betrothed lover. + +My success gave me the sort of prestige of curiosity which passionate +earnestness, in this age when we associate passion with seedy +Bohemians and earnestness with Methodist preachers, can easily excite +among a generation of men who, having no stimulating iron bars or +stone walls between them and their lady-loves, can reserve the best of +their energies for other and more exciting pursuits. I was the +respectable Paris to a proper and perfectly well-conducted Helen, the +Romeo to a new Juliet. My wooing and engagement became a society +topic, the subject of many interesting fictions. Spreading to circles +a little more remote, in the absence of any Downing Street blunder or +Clapham tragedy, the story became more romantic still. I myself +overheard on the Underground Railway the exciting narration of how I +forced my way at night into the Marquis's bedroom, after having +concealed myself for some hours behind a Japanese screen in the +library; how, revolver in hand, I had forced the unwilling parent to +accede to my demand for his daughter's hand, and much more of the same +kind, listened to with incredulity, but still with interest. + +It was hard that, after the _eclat_ of such a beginning, our +engagement should have continued on commonplace lines, but so it did. +My love for this fair girl, being the first deep emotion of a life +which had begun to pall upon me by its frivolity, had struck far down +and moved to life within me the best feelings of a man's nature. I +began to be ashamed of myself, to feel that I was a futile coxcomb, +only saved from being ridiculous by being one of a crowd of others +like me. I gave up betting, that I might have more money to spend on +presents for her; less legitimate pleasures I renounced as a matter of +course, with shame that the arms which were to protect my darling +should have been so profaned; vanity having made me a 'masher,' love +made me a man. Unluckily, Helen was too young and too innocent to +appreciate the difference; her eyes still glowed at the sight of +French bonbons, she liked compliments better than conversation, and +burst into tears when one evening, as she was dressed for a ball, I +broke, in kissing her, the heads of some lilies of the valley she was +wearing. The little petulant push she gave me opened my eyes to the +fact that no sooner had I discovered myself to be a fool in one way +than I had straightway fallen into as great an error in another +direction. It dawned upon me for the first time, as I sat opposite to +Helen and her mother in the barouche on our way to the ball, what a +horrible likeness there was, seen in this halflight of the carriage +lamps, between Helen with her sweet blue eyes and features so +delicately lovely that they made one think of Queen Titania, with an +uncomfortable thought of one's self as the ass, and the placid +Marchioness, whose features at other times one never noticed, so +utterly insignificant a nonentity was she by reason of the vacuous +stolidity which was carried by her to the point of absolute +distinction. Would Helen be like that at forty? Worse still, was Helen +like that now? It was a horrible thought, which subsequent experience +unhappily did not tend to dispel. My first serious love had worked too +great a revolution in me, had made me conscious of needs unfelt +before, so that I now found that mere innocence in the woman who was +to be the goddess of my life was not enough; I must have capacity for +thought, for passion. + +All this I had taken for granted at first, while the struggle to win +her occupied all my energies; but when from the mad aspirant I became +the proud betrothed, I had leisure to find out that the beautiful, +dreamy, far-away eyes of my _fiancee_ in no way denoted a poetic +temperament, that her romance consisted merely in the preference for a +handsome face to an ugly one, and in the inability to understand that +she, an Earl's daughter and a spoilt child, could by any possibility +fail to obtain anything to which she had taken a fancy. I was +surprised at the rapidity with which I, a man seriously and deeply in +love, came to these conclusions about the girl who had inspired my +passion. I could even, looking into the future, foretell the kind of +life we should lead together as man and wife, when she, fallen from +the ideal position of inspiring goddess to that of a tame pet rabbit, +bored to death by my solemnity when I was serious, and frightened by +my impetuosity when I was gay, would discover, with quick woman's +instinct, that the best of myself was no longer given to her, and +cavilling at the neglect of a husband whose society oppressed her, +would find compensation for her wrongs among more frivolous +companions. So that, weary of frivolity myself, my wife would avenge +my defection. + +I suppose almost every man, in the sober hours which alternate with +the paroxysms of the wildest passions, can form a tolerably correct +forecast of his life with the woman who likes to believe that she has +cast him into an infatuation whose force is blinding. The picture is +always with him, showing now in bright colours, now in dark; varying a +little in its outlines from time to time, but remaining substantially +the same, and more or less accurate according to the measure of his +intellect and experience; not at all the picture of even an earthly +paradise, but yet with charms which satisfy human longings, and make +it hard to part with. So I, having made up my mind that beauty, +gentleness and modesty, good birth and fairly good temper were the +only attributes of my future wife on which I could rely, +philosophically decided that they formed as good an equipment as I had +any right to expect, doubled my offerings of flowers and bonbons, and +transferred the disquisitions on art, literature, religion and +politics, in which I had begun to indulge, to her brother. + +Lord Edgar Normanton was a tall, fair, broad-shouldered young man, +who, while joining in all the frivolous amusements of his age and +station, did so in a grave, leisurely, and reflective manner, which +caused him to be looked up to as one capable of higher things, whose +presence at a cricket match was a condescension, and who appeared at +balls with some occult purpose connected with the study of human +nature. I had always looked upon his special friendship for me as an +honour, of which I felt that my new departure, in deciding that I had +sown wild oats enough, made me more worthy. It never occurred to me to +ask myself or anybody else whether his wild oats were sown. It was +enough for me that he was glad when mine were. With the loyalty of +most young men to their ideals of their own sex, I would far rather +have discovered a new and unsuspected flaw in Helen's character than +have learnt anything to shake my respect for her brother. Women, when +not considered as angels, can only be looked upon as fascinating but +inferior creatures, whose faults must be overlooked as irremediable, +in consideration of their contributions to the comfort or the pleasure +of man. One may argue about them, but, except as a relaxation, one +cannot argue with them. + +Edgar was openly delighted at my engagement with his sister, which he +considered merely in the light of a tie to bring us two men closer +together. Such a little nonentity as I found he considered his sister +to be might think herself lucky to be honoured by such a use. + +This was the position of affairs when a memorable shooting party in +Norfolk, of which both Edgar and I formed members, resulted in an +accident which was to bring my love affair to an end as sensational as +its beginning. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +We were engaged upon that hospitable abomination at a shooting +party--a champagne luncheon. Having made a very fair bag for my +morning's work, and being tired with my exertions, I was inclined to +think that the serious business of the day was over for me, and that I +might take it easy as regarded further effort. Edgar, who, since his +discovery that my fervour on the subject of his sister had grown less +ardent, was inclined to assume more of the character of mentor towards +me than I cared about, had seated himself on the ground beside me; but +I had found an opportunity of changing seats, for I felt less +well-disposed towards him that morning than I had ever been before. + +The fact was that the gentle Helen had snubbed me two evenings +previously for a demonstration of affection which I had carefully +prepared, lest she, too, should have noticed the waning in my love. +Upon this I had retreated, with a very odd mixture of feelings towards +my _fiancee_, and there had been a reserve between us for the whole of +the evening, which Edgar somewhat unwisely interfered to break. +Looking upon myself as the injured person, I had resented the homily +he felt himself called upon to administer, and though I made my peace +with Helen next day, I avoided her brother. He made two or three +good-natured overtures to me in the manner of an experienced nurse to +a froward child, but on the morning of the shooting party I was still +as far as ever from being reconciled to the paternal intervention of +Edgar the Wise and the Good. + +'The Ladies!' cried one of the party, leaning lazily back on his arm +and raising his glass. + +'Say "Woman,"' I amended; 'it's more comprehensive.' + +'Well, but "The Ladies!" ought to be comprehensive enough for you just +now, Maude,' said some one, glancing mischievously at Edgar, whose +solemnity was increasing, and scenting something warmer than +controversy. + +'Not now, nor ever!' said I, with more daring than good taste. 'In +"Woman" we can secretly worship an ideal better than ourselves. In +"The Ladies" we must bow down to creatures lower than ourselves, whose +beauty deceives us, whose frivolity degrades us, and whom nothing more +sacred than our care and their own coldness protects from the fate of +fellow-women whom before them we do not dare to name.' + +Everybody looked up in astonishment, and Edgar's red healthy face +became purple with anger. + +'A man who holds such opinions concerning ladies is probably better +qualified to judge that other class which he has the singular taste to +mention in the same sentence with them.' + +'Perhaps. It is easier to find mercy for victims than for tyrants.' + +Edgar rose to his feet with the ponderous dignity of an offended +giant. + +'If I had known your opinions on this subject a little earlier, Mr. +Maude, I should never have allowed you to form an alliance with my +family.' + +I rose too, as hot as he; and secretly alarmed and repentant at the +lengths to which my recklessness had carried me, I was not ready to +submit to the didactic rough-riding of the man who had long ago +himself instilled into me his own supreme contempt for the weaker sex. + +'Perhaps I, Lord Edgar, should have thought the honour too dearly +bought if I had known that it involved my acceptance of a +self-appointed keeper of my conscience.' + +Our host, Sir Wilfrid Speke, now interfered to calm the passions which +were rapidly getting the better of us, and thrusting my gun under my +arm, he literally carried me off, and marching me to a covert on the +slope of a hill where was a noted 'warm corner,' he told me +good-humouredly to 'let the birds have it,' and left me to myself and +them. + +I was in a very bad temper. Enraged by the recollection of Helen's +simpering coldness, by her brother's recently-assumed dictatorship, +and by my own reckless want of self-control a few minutes before, I +was not in the mood for sport. Was this to be the result of my +determination to take life more seriously, that I discovered my +_fiancee_ to be a fool, my most honoured friend a bore, and myself +capable of undreamt-of depths of bad taste and ill-temper? I would go +back to my old life of languid chatter and irresponsible dissipation, +I would content myself again with my fame as the 'handsomest man in +town,' would accept my future wife for what she was, and not for what +she ought to be, give her the inane, half-hearted attentions which +were so much more to her taste than earnestness and devotion, and see +thought and Lord Edgar at the devil. + +I felt much more inclined to shoot myself than to open fire on the +pheasants, but head-long carelessness, and not tragic intention, +caused the accident which ensued. In getting through a gap in a hedge, +my gun was caught by a briar as I mounted to the higher ground on the +other side; I tried to free it, and handling it incautiously, a sudden +shock to my face and right shoulder told me that I had shot myself. I +was blinded for the moment, and trying to raise my right arm I felt +acute pain, and the next instant I felt the warm blood trickling down +my neck. + +I tried to walk, but I staggered about and could make no progress, so +I leaned against a tree and shouted; but my head growing dizzy, I soon +found myself on the ground, filled with one wish--that I might live +long enough for some one to find me, and receive the last instructions +by which I could atone to pretty Helen for the vulgar earnestness of +my love. + +My next recollection is of a dull murmur of voices heard, as it +seemed, in the distance, then of pain grown suddenly more acute as I +was moved; all the time I could see nothing, and I had only just time +to understand that I was being carried along by friends whose voices I +recognised, when I fell again into unconsciousness. + +I recovered to find myself back at Sir Wilfrid's; a doctor was +dressing my wounded head and examining my shoulder; there was a +bandage across my eyes, and on trying to speak I found that the right +side of my face was also bound up. I passed the night in some pain, +and must have been for part of it light-headed, as I discovered two or +three days later, when Edgar, much moved, told me that I had implored +everybody who came near me to witness that I left all I possessed to +Lady Helen Normanton, and had begged for the pen and paper I could not +have used, to execute my proposed will. + +During the next few days Edgar hardly left my bedside. My head and +eyes were still kept tightly bandaged, so that I could neither see +nor speak, nor take solid food. Seeing me in this piteous condition, +Edgar, like the good fellow he was, decided that sermons were out of +season, and that I must be amused. His humour, however, being of a +somewhat slow and cumbrous kind adapted to his size, I took advantage +of my enforced silence to let him joke on unheeded, while my own +thoughts wandered dreamily away to my life of the past few years, and +to the odd, quickly discovered mistake in which it had lately +culminated. I was surprised by the persistency with which Helen's +placid silliness tormented me, fresh instances of it coming every hour +into my mind until I began to ask myself whether the little blue-eyed +lady had really been born into the world with a soul at all. And so, +no longer suffering bodily pain, I lay day after day, very much +absorbed by my own self-questionings, and by strange dreams of a new +Helen, who came to me with the fair face and soft eyes of the old, but +with bright intelligence in her gaze, whispering with her delicate +lips words of love and tenderness. + +I woke up suddenly one night, still hot with my sleeping fancy that +this revised edition of my _fiancee_ had been with me. I had seemed to +feel her breath upon my cheek, even to feel the touch of her lips upon +my ear, as she told me my illness had taught her how much she loved +me. I thought I was answering her in passionate words with a great +thrill of joy in my heart, when I woke up and found myself as usual in +darkness and silence. + +'Edgar!' I called out; 'Edgar!' + +He answered sleepily from a little way off, 'Yes. Do you want +anything?' + +'No, thank you.' + +A pause. + +'I say,' I went on a few moments later, 'nobody has been in the room, +have they?' + +'No, no-o-body,' with a yawn. 'At least, I may have dozed, but I don't +think----' + +'No, of course not.' But I was horribly wide awake by this time. Some +of the bandages round my head having been removed for the first time +the evening before, I had liberty of speech again, of which I seemed +resolved to make the most. 'I say, Edgar, there's a fire flickering in +the grate, isn't there?' + +'Yes, why?' + +'Well, if I can see that quite well, why on earth do they still keep +the bandages over my eyes? I know they were afraid of my going blind. +But I haven't; so what's it for?' + +'I don't know,' mumbled Edgar, rather blankly. He added hastily, 'I +suppose the doctor knows best; you'd better leave them alone.' + +'Oh yes.' + +A long silence, during which Edgar, under the impression that it was +part of a sick nurse's duty when the patient showed signs of +restlessness, pottered about the room, and at last fell over +something. + +'I say, Edgar,' I began again, 'isn't my face a good deal battered +about on the right side?' + +I heard him stop, and there was a little clash of glasses. Then he +spoke, with some constraint. + +'Yes, a little. I daresay it will be some time before it gets all +right. But you've no internal injuries or broken bones, and that's the +great thing.' + +The last statement was made so effusively that it was not difficult +for me to gather that my face was more deeply injured than he liked to +admit. + +'I know quite well,' said I composedly, 'that I shall have to swell +the proud ranks of the plain after this; I must cultivate my intellect +and my virtues, like the poor girls whom we don't dance with! I've +lost a finger, too, haven't I? On my right hand?' + +'Only two joints of it,' answered Edgar, with laboured cheerfulness. + +'What would poor Helen say to me if she could see me now?' I +suggested, rather diffidently. + +'Say! Why, what every true woman would say, that she loved you ten +times better now you were disfigured than she did when you were the +counterpart of every other good-looking popinjay in town!' + +This, uttered with much ponderous vehemence, was by no means +reassuring to me. In the first place, it confirmed the idea that my +injuries would leave permanent marks. In the second place, it led me +to ask myself whether, Helen's chief merit in my eyes having been +good looks, my chief merit in her eyes might not have been the same. + +As I said nothing, Edgar, now fully awake, came nearer to the bed, and +said solemnly: 'You do Helen injustice, Harry.' + +'And you taught me to do her injustice, Edgar.' + +At first he said nothing to this, and I knew that he understood me. +But presently I felt his hand laid emphatically on my left shoulder, +and he began in a low earnest voice: 'Look here, old chap, that's not +quite fair. I may have inveighed against the intellectual inferiority +of women scores of times when you encouraged me by feeble protest. I +may have spoken of my own sister as an example of the sweet and silly. +When you saw her and became infatuated about her I listened to your +rhapsodies in silence because I couldn't endorse your opinion that she +was an angel. But I was glad you had taken a fancy to the child, and +I knew that you might have done much worse. Well, my opinions have +undergone no transformation. The women of the middle class, whom it is +now the fashion to educate, the women of the lower class, who have to +work, may be considered as reasoning creatures, varying, as men do, in +their reasoning powers. But the women of the upper classes, _pur +sang_, who are equally above education and labour, may be ranked all +together, with the exception of those whom alliance with the class +below has regenerated, as more or less fascinating idiots, whose minds +are cramped by unnatural and ignorant prejudices, and in whom an +occasional ray of intelligence disperses itself in mere freaks of art, +of philanthropy, or of religion.' + +'Then, if you are logical, you may end by marrying a barmaid.' + +'I think not. Barmaids are young women who, by the exacting demands of +their calling, are bound to be healthy, active, intelligent and +shrewd. Consider how such a woman would be thrown away in the +ridiculous and empty existence led by our wives! How she would laugh +at the shallow interests of the women around her, and despise her +do-nothing husband! Without counting that she might be demoralised by +her new position, and add the mistakes of a parvenue to the foibles of +the class into which she was admitted!' + +'Then, on the whole, you will----' + +'Remain single, or take for wife the usual fool of my own class, who +will have the usual fool of her own class for a husband.' + +'But, Edgar,' said I, after a short pause, 'I am not so calm as you +are, and my mind is less well-regulated than yours. I want something +in my wife that you would not want from yours. The docile acceptance +of my love would never content me; I want it returned.' + +But this view of the case had the effect of irritating Edgar, who +naturally resented the idea of any other nature having deeper needs +than his own. + +'It is unreasonable to expect, from our physical and mental inferior, +powers equal to our own,' he said, in a tone of dismissal of the +subject. + +'Then how am I to expect from Helen the power of looking at my +disfigured face without horror, when I am by no means sure that I +could have felt redoubled devotion if a similar accident had happened +to her?' + +'Women are different from us, and not to be judged by the same rules. +Beauty--of some sort--is a duty with them, while every one knows that +an ugly man makes quicker progress with them than a handsome one.' + +'Well, I should like to judge what sort of progress with them my +ugliness is likely to make. Give me a looking-glass.' + +But he would not. He said the doctor had forbidden me to use my eyes +yet, that my face was still unhealed, and the bandages must not be +moved. And finally he declined to talk to me any longer, and told me +to go to sleep. + +I was not satisfied. I knew that I was getting well fast, that there +was no need to keep me in bed, and I felt curious as to the reason of +my still being kept so close a prisoner. So I found an opportunity +when I had been left, as they thought, asleep, to remove the bandage +from my eyes with my left hand. My sight seemed as good as ever, but +the skin round about my right eye seemed to be tightly drawn. The +window-blinds were down, and as evening was coming on there was only +light enough to distinguish dimly the objects in the room by the help +of the flickering flame of the fire. I got out of bed and walked to +the toilet-table, but the looking-glass had been taken away; to the +mantelpiece, with the same result. I grew impatient, angry, and rather +anxious. There was a hand-glass in my dressing-bag, if I could only +find that; I remembered that I had left it in the dressing-room. I +dashed into the room, and as that, too, was darkened, I turned to draw +up the blind. By that movement I came face to face with a sight so +appalling that, of all the misfortunes my accident has ever brought +upon me, none, I think, has given me a shock for the first moment so +horrible. I saw before me the figure of a man with the face of a +devil. + +The right eyebrow, the right side of the moustache were gone, and the +hair as far as the back of the right ear. The whole of this side of +the face, from forehead to chin, was a puckered drawn mass of +blackened shrivelled skin, distorted into grotesque seams and furrows. +The right end of the eye and the right corner of the mouth were drawn +up, giving to the whole face a sinister and evil expression. + +After a few moments' contemplation of my new self, I turned away from +the glass, feeling sick with disgust and horror. In the first shock of +my discovery, no reflection that I was looking upon the fearful sight +at its worst, and that the healing work was still going on underneath +the scarred and desiccated skin, came to console me. + +My back turned upon my own image, my stupefaction gave place to rapid +thought. I saw in a moment that the old course of my life was at one +blow broken up, that I must begin again as if I had been born that +day. I must go away, not only from my own friends, but from the chance +of coming in contact with them again. I must leave England. Also, +since if I were to make my resolution known I should be inundated with +kindly meant dissuasions, I must breathe no hint of my intention +until I was quite able to carry it into execution. I was sure that no +one but the doctor, and perhaps Edgar, had seen my face in its present +condition, and that no description could give to others any idea of +its appearance. I felt that my bodily health and strength were all +that they had ever been, and that nothing but the wish to keep the +knowledge of my disfigurement from me as long as possible had prompted +the doctor's orders to me to remain in bed and to retain the bandages. +It now, too, occurred to me that delay might bring some slight +modification of my hideousness, and I resolved to let nature do what +little she could, and not to set out on my travels until the mask +which now covered one-half my face had fallen off, and disclosed +whatever fresh horrors might be underneath. Then I would, without +letting any one see my face, start for some German Spa for the benefit +of my health; before I had been away three months I should be +forgotten, and free to wend my way wherever I pleased. This idea, to a +man to whom life had begun to present something like a deadlock, was +not without charm. Society was a bore, love a delusion; now was the +chance to find out what else there was worth learning in life. + +I heard Edgar's voice in the distance, and had only time to rush back +to bed, put on the bandages round my face, and turn on my side as if +asleep, before he came into the room. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +As I heard Edgar creaking softly about the room, giving the +impression, even as I lay with my eyes shut, unable to observe his +elaborate movements, of great weight trying to be light, my heart +smote me at the thought of deceiving him with the rest. 'The +elephant,' it had been a joke between ourselves for me to call him; +and like a great elephant he was, huge, intelligent, gentle, not +without a certain massive beauty, with keen feelings of loyalty, and a +long slow-smouldering memory, with inclinations towards a laborious +and somewhat painful sportiveness. Rebel against his sententious +homilies as I occasionally might, he was a good old fellow, and I was +fond of him. I moved a little to show him I was awake, and then said: + +'Hallo, Edgar, is that you?' + +'Yes. How do you feel?' + +'Oh, ever so much better. I shall be getting up soon now.' + +'Well, you mustn't be in too great a hurry. You have been patient so +long, it would be a pity to destroy your credit just at the last.' + +'I am only waiting for my face to heal now, of course. But, I say, +Edgar, it will take a long time for that to get all right. Why, part +of my cheek was completely blown away. It will be months, at least, +before I dare show myself. I think I shall go to some German baths, +and, you know, I don't know how long I may have to stay there. In the +meantime----' + +'In the meantime, what?' + +'Your sister--Helen--must know that she is free.' + +'But supposing she doesn't want to be free? Supposing----' + +'Supposing she has a fancy for being tied to a death's-head? No, +Edgar, she must be released at once. I want you to write a letter from +me to her, if you will. The sooner it is over the better for both of +us.' + +I suppose Edgar felt that my attitude was not one of pure resignation, +for he made no further effort to dissuade me, but went instantly in +search of pens and paper. He was so very submissive, however, in +taking this step, which I knew to be distasteful to him, that I was +quite sure, before the letter was half written, that he was 'up to' +something. So, when it was finished, I was mean enough to insist on +his leaving it with me, together with the directed envelope; and after +reading it carefully through myself as soon as I was alone, I made +the housekeeper fold it and seal it up in my presence, and directed +her to get it posted at once. + +The letter said: + + MY DEAREST HELEN--You have no doubt long ago heard the reason + of my silence, and forgiven me for it, I am sure. I am sorry to + tell you that my head [I felt an odd shyness of saying "my + face"] has been injured so seriously that it will be a long + time before I can return to town; I am going straight to + Germany as soon as I am able to leave here, and cannot yet tell + when I shall be in England again. Under these circumstances, + although I know that you would overlook my new imperfections + with the same sweetness with which you have forgiven my older + defects, I feel that I cannot impose again upon your + generosity. I therefore set you free, begging you to do me one + last kindness by not returning to me the little souvenirs that + you have from time to time been good enough to accept from me. + And please don't send me back my letters, if you have ever + received them with any pleasure. Burn them if you like. I will + send back yours if you wish; but, as no woman will ever look + with love upon my face again, your womanly dignity will suffer + but little if you let me still keep them. There are only eight + of them. And there is a glove, of course, and a packet of dried + flowers, of course, and the little silver match-box. All these + I shall insist upon keeping, whether you like it or not. They + could not compromise anybody; the little glove could pass for a + child's. You will trust me with them all, will you not? You see + this isn't the usual broken-off match with its prelude of + disastrous squabbles and wrangles. Some jealous demon who saw I + did not deserve my good fortune has broken my hopes of + happiness abruptly, and released you from a chain which I am + afraid my ill-temper had already begun to make irksome to you. + Forgive me now, and bear as kindly a recollection of me as you + can. God bless you, Helen. I shall always treasure the + remembrance of your little fairy face, and remember gratefully + your sweet forbearance with me.--Yours most sincerely and + affectionately, + + HENRY LYTTLETON MAUDE. + +I hoped the child would not think this letter too cold and formal. My +heart yearned towards her now with a longing more tender than before; +I felt oppressed by the necessity of foregoing the shallow little love +which, as the handsomest man about town, I had begun to consider far +beneath my deserts. + +Two days later I received an answer from Helen. I waited until I was +alone to read it, for I still guarded my face carefully from all eyes +but the doctor's. The touch of the letter, the sight of the sprawling, +slap-dash handwriting which it delighted Helen to assume, in common +with the other young ladies of her generation, moved me; for I could +not but feel that this was the last '_billet_' by any possibility to +be called '_doux_' which I should ever receive. I opened it with an +apprehension that I should find the contents less moving than the +envelope. I was mistaken. + + MY DEAREST HARRY--I am afraid you have a very poor opinion of + me if you think I care for nothing but personal attractions. + You have always been most kind and generous to me, and you need + not think because I am not intellectual myself I do not care + for a man who is intellectual and all those things. I am coming + down to see you myself and then if you wish to give me up you + can do so--but I hope you will not throw me over so hastily. I + am so sorry for your accident and that it has made you so ill, + but I do not mind what else it has done.--Believe me, dearest + Harry, with best love, hoping you will soon be quite recovered, + yours ever lovingly, + + HELEN. + +Childish as the letter was it touched me deeply. Edgar must be right +after all; I had misjudged a simple but loyal nature that only wanted +an emergency to bring its nobler qualities to the surface. I told him +about the letter, and added that it made giving her up harder to bear. + +'Why should you give her up?' said he eagerly. 'You see she herself +will not hear of it.' + +'Because she does not understand the case. I am disfigured past +recognition; she would shrink with horror from the sight of me. It +would be a shock even to you, a strong unromantic man, to see what I +have become.' + +'You are too sensitive, old fellow. However shocking the change in you +may be, you cannot fail to exaggerate its effect on others.' + +'We shall see.' + +A few days later, when the horror of my new appearance was indeed a +little mitigated by the falling off of the withered outer skin which +had covered the right side of my face, I tried the effect of my +striking physiognomy on Edgar. + +Whether he had expected some such surprise, or whether he was endowed +with a splendid insensibility to ugliness, he stood the shock with +the most stolid placidity. + +'Well?' said I defiantly, looking at him from out my ill-matched eyes +in a passion of aggressive rage. + +'Well?' said he, as complacently as if I had been a turnip. + +'I hope you admire this style of beauty,' I hurled out savagely. + +'I don't go quite so far as that, but it's really much better than I +expected.' + +'You are easily pleased.' + +He went on quietly. 'The chief impression your countenance gives one +now is not, as you flatter yourself, of consummate ugliness, +but--forgive me--of consummate villainy.' + +'What!' + +'You are preserved for ever from the danger of being anything but +strictly virtuous and straightforward in your dealings, for no one +would trust the possessor of that countenance with either a secret or +a sovereign.' + +This blunt frankness acted better than any softer measures could have +done; it made me laugh. Looking again at myself in a glass, for I was +now up and dressed, I noticed, what had escaped me before in my +paralysed contemplation of the change in my own features, that the +drawing up of the right-hand corners of my mouth and eye, together +with the removal of every vestige of hair from that side of the face, +had given me the grotesquely repulsive leer of a satyr. To crown my +disadvantages, the left side of my face, seen in profile, still +retained its natural appearance to mock my new hideousness. + +'But I think I see a way out of all difficulties,' Edgar went on, more +seriously. 'You will advance objections, I know, but you must permit +your objections to be overruled. Accident can be combated by artifice, +and to artifice you must resort until nature does her work and +relieves you from the new necessity.' + +We fought out the question, and at last I very unwillingly gave way, +and submitted to the adoption of a false eyebrow, a false moustache, +and a beautiful tuft of curly false hair much superior to my own, to +hide the bald patch left by the accident. + +Rather elated by this distinct improvement, assumed for the reception +of Helen's promised visit, and encouraged by assurances that my own +hair would soon grow again and enable me to discard its substitutes, I +was ready to believe that the discoloration and disfigurement still +visible were comparatively unimportant, and that the repellent +expression, which no artifice much abated, might indeed affect +strangers, but would not, in the sight of my friends, obscure their +long-established impression of my amiability and sweetness. + +Sir Wilfrid and Lady Speke had by this time gone up to town, leaving +the place, with many kind wishes for my early and complete recovery, +entirely at the disposal of myself and my unwearied nurse Edgar. So a +day was fixed for the arrival of Helen and her mother. On that +eventful afternoon Edgar settled me in a small sitting-room on the +same floor with the room I had been occupying, before starting for the +station. The blinds were drawn, and I sat with my back to this +carefully-softened light. I wished, now that the ordeal was getting so +near, that I had not let myself be dissuaded from my intention of +sneaking quietly away without showing my disfigured face to any one. +What was the use of my seeing the child again? I did indeed long +foolishly for a few last words with her since she had shown +unexpected depth of feeling towards me in my misfortune; but it could +not end, as Edgar still obstinately hoped, in a renewal of our +engagement, which I persisted in regarding as definitely broken. The +meeting was only for a farewell. I was ashamed of the artifices I had +used to conceal the traces of my accident, and I was feeling half +inclined to tear off my false ornaments and present myself in my true +hideousness, when the arrival of my visitors luckily stopped me. The +room where I sat was at the back of the house, so that I had no +warning of the return of the carriage until I heard Edgar's voice. I +sprang up with one last look of agony at my reflection in the glass, +which seemed to me at that moment a ghastly caricature of my old self, +and then sat nervously down again, feeling like a doomed wretch with +the executioner outside his cell. + +The door opened, and Edgar bounded up to me, dragging Helen, who +seemed shy and nervous, forward on his arm. + +'Here he is, Nellie. Getting well fast, you see. Where is mother? I +must fetch her up.' + +I saw in a moment through the dear clumsy fellow's manoeuvres. He +prided himself on his strategy, fancying he had only to leave us +together for us to have a touching reconciliation. But I knew better. +I saw her turn pale and cling to her brother's arm, and I said +hastily-- + +'No, no. Lady Castleford is not far behind, you may be sure. I am glad +to see you, Lady Helen; it is very kind of you to come. It is +easier----' + +'Helen has come to persuade you to get well in England among your +friends instead of going abroad to be ill among strangers,' said +Edgar, cutting me short. 'He's getting on well, isn't he, Helen? +Come, he's well enough to have his hand shaken now.' + +He drew her forward, to my inexpressible pain, for I saw the +reluctance in her face. Before I could attempt a protest, a reassuring +word, she had held out her hand, which I timidly took. Then she lifted +her eyes to my face for the first time. For the first and last time I +saw the expression of the most vivid, most acute emotion on the fairy +face. The muscles were contracted, the pupils of the eyes were dilated +with intense horror. + +'I am very glad----' she began. + +Then, before she could finish her sentence, even while I still held +her little hand in mine, she fell like a crushed flower unconscious in +her brother's arms. + +Poor fellow! How contrite, how miserably, abjectly humble and +despairing he was when he appeared later in my room, to which I had +fled, like a wounded beast to its den, when little Helen's unwilling +blow gave me my social death-warrant. I was able to laugh then, and to +tell him truly that my only regret was for the pain the injudicious +meeting had caused poor Helen. + +'It was you who dictated her letter to me,' I said. + +Edgar did not attempt to deny it. + +'She ought to be ashamed of herself,' said he, reddening with +indignation. + +'No, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. I for my vanity in thinking +there was any charm in my dull personality to compensate for the loss +of the only merit I could have in a girl's eyes; you for your generous +idiotcy in carrying that mistake farther still. Are they gone?' + +'Yes. My mother wanted to see you, but----' + +'That's all right. And now, old fellow, you mustn't make any more +blunders on my account; you must let me make my own. I leave England +in a few days.' + +'Well, I suppose you must do as you like. I'll come and see you off.' + +'No,' said I firmly. 'I shall say good-bye to you here, Edgar. I have +very particular reasons for it, and you must give way to me in this.' + +He tried to change my mind; he wanted to know my reasons; but he was +unsuccessful in both attempts. I knew how obstinate he was, and that +if I once allowed him to go with me to town, he would be sure to +subject me to more painful meetings in the endeavour to persuade me to +remain in England. Luckily for me, the very next day the Marquis +telegraphed to his son to join him immediately in Monmouthshire; and +no sooner had Edgar left the house, with the sure knowledge that he +should not see me again, than I fulfilled his fears by instant +preparation for my own departure. I had discarded all disguises, and +contented myself by masking my face as much as possible with a +travelling cap and a muffler; on arriving in town I went to an hotel +in Covent Garden, where I was not known, and by the evening of the +following day I had provided myself with the outfit of a Transpontine +villain, a low-crowned, wide-brimmed soft hat and a black Spanish +cloak. + +In this get-up, which, when not made too conspicuous by a stage-walk +and melodramatic glances around, is really a very efficient disguise +both of form and features, I knew myself to be quite safe from +recognition anywhere, and having decided to start from Charing Cross +for Cologne by way of Ostend on the following morning, I devoted the +evening of my second day in town to a last look round. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +It was Saturday evening; a week of fog having been succeeded by a week +of rain, the pavements were now well coated with black slimy mud, in +which one kept one's footing as best one could, stimulated by +plentiful showers of the same substance, in a still more fluid state, +flung by the wheels of passing vehicles. + +Oh, wisely-governed city, where there is work for thousands of +starving men, while thousands of men are starving for want of work! If +a boy can keep a crossing clean in a crowded thoroughfare, could not +an organised gang of men, ten times as numerous and twice as active +as our gentle scavengers, save the sacred boots, skirts, and trousers +of the respectable classes from that brush-resisting abomination, +London mud? I respectfully recommend this suggestion to my betters +with the assurance that, if it is considered of any value, there are +plenty more where that came from. + +Starting from Covent Garden, I made my way through King Street, +Garrick Street, Cranbourne Street, Leicester Square and Coventry +Street, into Regent Street, and was struck by a hundred common London +sights and incidents which, in the old days, when my own life was so +idle and yet so absorbing, had entirely escaped my notice. Oxford +Street, Bond Street, Piccadilly, St. James's Street, I made the tour +of them all; past the clubs, of many of which I was a member, +brushing, unrecognised, by a dozen men who had known me well, into +Trafalgar Square, where the gas-lamps cast long glittering lines of +light on the wet pavement, and the spire of St. Martin's and the dome +of the National Gallery rose like gray shadow-palaces above in the +rainy air. + +I dined at a restaurant in the Strand, and then, growing confident in +the security of my disguise, I thought I would take a farewell glance +at an old chum who had run Edgar pretty close in my esteem. He was an +actor, and was fulfilling an engagement at a theatre in the Strand. +When I add that he played what are technically called 'juvenile' +parts--that is to say, those of the stage lovers--my taste may seem +strange, until I explain that Fabian Scott was the very worst of all +the fashionable 'juveniles,' being addicted to literary and artistic +pursuits and other intellectual exercises which, while permissible and +innocuous to what are called 'character' actors, are ruin to +'juveniles,' whose business requires vigour rather than thought, +picturesqueness rather than feeling. So that Fabian, with his thin +keen face, his intensity, and some remnant of North-country stiffness, +stood only in the second rank of those whom the ladies delighted to +worship; and becoming neither a great artist nor a great popinjay, +gave his friends a sense of not having done quite the best with +himself, but was a very interesting, if somewhat excitable companion. +For my own part I had then, not knowing how vitally important the +question of his character would one day become to me, nothing to wish +for in him save that he were a little less sour and a little more +sincere. + +The stage-door was up a narrow and dirty court leading from the +Strand. At the opening of the court stood a stout fair man, who looked +like a German, and whose coarse, swollen face and dull eyes bore +witness to a life of low dissipation. He was respectably but not well +dressed, and he swung the cheap and showy walking-stick in his hand +slowly backwards and forwards, in a stolidly swaggering and aggressive +manner. I should not have noticed him so particularly, but for the +fact that he filled the narrow entrance to the passage so completely +that I had to ask him to let me pass. Instead of immediately +complying, he looked at me from my feet to my head with surly, +half-tipsy insolence, and gave a short thick laugh. + +'Oh, so you're one of the swells, I suppose, who come hanging round +stage-doors to tempt hard-working respectable women away from their +lawful husbands! But it won't do. I tell you it won't do!' + +I pushed him aside with one vigorous thrust and went up the court, +followed by the outraged gentleman, who made no attempt to molest me +except by a torrent of abusive eloquence, from which I gathered that +he was the husband of one of the actresses at the theatre, and that +she did not appreciate the virtues of her lord and master as he +considered she ought, but that, nevertheless, he persisted in +affording her the protection of his manly arm, and would do so in +spite of all the d----d 'mashers' in London. + +At this point the stage-doorkeeper came out of his little box, and +informed the angry gentleman that if he went on disgracing the place +by his scandalous conduct his wife's services would be dispensed with; +'and if there's no money for her to earn, there'll be no beer for you +to drink, Mr. Ellmer,' continued the little old man, with more point +than politeness. + +The threat had instant effect. Mr. Ellmer subsided into indignant +mumbling, and went down the court again. + +I had forgotten myself in interest at the rout of Mr. Ellmer, to whom +I had taken a rabid dislike, and was standing in the full, if feeble +light of the gas over the stage-door, when an inner door was thrust +open, and the next moment Fabian Scott was shaking my hand heartily. + +'Hallo, Harry! I am glad to see you again. I was afraid you were going +away without a word to your old friends; but you were always better +than your reputation. Got over your accident all right--eh?' + +'As well as could be expected, I suppose. I start for Germany +to-morrow.' + +'Ah!' By this one exclamation he signified that he understood the +case, and knew that my mind was definitely made up. Actors are men of +the world, and I felt the relief of talking to him after the stolid +and obstinate misapprehension with which dear old Edgar persisted in +meeting my reasons for saying good-bye to society. 'It was good of you +not to go without coming here,' he went on, appreciating the fact +that my visit must have entailed an effort. + +'To tell the truth, I meant to see you without your seeing me; but I +got interested in a moral victory just obtained by your doorkeeper +over an eloquent visitor, and so you caught me.' + +Scott glanced at the swaggering Ellmer. + +'Drunken brute!' said he, with much disgust. 'His wife--a hard-working +little woman, who acts under the name of Miss Bailey--has had to bring +her child to the theatre with her to-night, for fear he should get +home before her and frighten the poor little thing. Look! here they +come. One wonders how a wild beast can be the father of an angel.' + +Scott was an ardent worshipper of beauty; but I, a cooler mortal, +could not think his raptures excessive when he stood aside to make way +for a slim, pale, pretty woman, to whose hand there clung a child so +beautiful that my whole heart revolted at the thought that the tipsy +ruffian a few paces off was her father. Both mother and child were +shabbily dressed, in clothes which gave one the idea that November had +overtaken them before they could afford to replace the garments of +July. The little one was about eight years old, a slender creature +with a flower-like face, round which, from under a home-made red +velvet cap, her light-brown hair fell in a naturally curly tangle. +Something in her blue eyes reminded me of the childlike charm of +Helen's. Scott stopped them to say good-night, effusively addressing +the child as his little sweetheart, and telling her that if the boy +who gave her an apple last Sunday gave her another the next day, he +should find out where he lived and murder that boy. + +'Beware, Babiole, of arousing the jealousy of a desperate man,' he +ended, folding his arms and tossing back his head. + +The child took his outburst quite seriously. + +'If he offers me another apple I must take it,' she answered in a +sweet demure little voice. 'It would be rude to refuse. But you +needn't be angry, for I can like you too.' + +'Like me _too_!' thundered Scott, with melodramatic gestures. 'Heaven +and earth! This is how the girl dares to trifle with the fiercest +passion that ever surged in a human breast!' + +'If you're fierce I shan't like you,' said the little one, in her +measured way. 'Papa's fierce, and he frightens me and mamma.' + +'Will you like me, little madam?' I ventured; and, knowing that my +disfigured face was well concealed, I held out my hand. 'I will love +you very gently.' + +I made my voice as soft as I could, but the deep tones or the sombre +black figure frightened her. The quaint matronly demeanour suddenly +gave way to a child's fright, and she hid her face in the folds of her +mother's black cloth jacket. Then mamma began to rebuke in a voice and +manner oddly like the child's; and Fabian seized Babiole and lifted +her up to kiss her. + +'And now will you give me a kiss?' said he to her. + +'Yes, Mr. Scott.' She gave him a kiss with the same demure simplicity. + +'And will you promise to kiss nobody but me till you see me again?' + +'Really, Mr. Scott,' interrupted the mother rather tartly, 'you +shouldn't put such ideas into the child's head. They'll come quite +soon enough of their own accord.' + +She had one eye upon her husband, who was waiting farther down the +court; and the wifely desire to be 'at him' seemed to put a little +extra vinegar into her tone. With a hasty good-night to Fabian, and a +frosty little bow to the unknown black figure, she said, 'Come, +Babiole,' and hurried away with the child. + +Scott put his arm through mine, and we followed them slowly back into +the Strand, where, amidst the throng of people who had just poured out +of the theatres, we soon lost sight of them. We did not go far +together, for Fabian had an appointment to supper; but before we +parted, he, more ready-witted than Edgar, had talked me into a promise +that, when the summer came round and he had a chance of a holiday, I +would let him know where I was, that he might invite himself to come +and see me. + +'You don't think I shall come back among you again, then?' I said +curiously. + +'I don't know. The taste for wandering, like all other tastes, grows +with indulgence. Good-bye, Harry, and God bless you whereever you +go.' + +I wrung his hand, scarcely able to speak. His words were a prophecy, I +knew; and at the moment of taking this last outsider's look at the +scenes of my old life, it seemed to me that a dungeon-door had swung +to on youth and hope and happiness, shutting me in for ever to a very +lonely solitude. + +'Good-bye, good-bye, Fabian,' said I, and I walked hastily away lest I +should keep on wringing his hand all night. + +For three hours more I walked about the London streets, unable to tear +myself away from them, sneaking again past the clubs, with a feeling +of gushing affection towards a score of idiotic young men and prosy +old ones who passed me on the pavement on their way in or out, +devoured by a longing to exchange if only half a dozen words with men +whom I had often avoided as bores. Near the steps of the Carlton I +did try to address one quiet old gentleman whom, on account of his +rapacity for papers, I had cordially hated. A ridiculous shyness made +me hoarse; and on hearing a husky voice close to his ears in almost +apologetic tones, he started violently, cried, 'Eh, what? No, no! +Here--hansom!' and I retreated like one of the damned. + +I got into Grosvenor Square, passed through a throng of carriages, and +saw the bright lights in a house where they were giving a birthday +dance to which I had been specially invited months before. Helen would +be there, I knew; I felt a jealous satisfaction in remembering that +old Saxmundham was away, nursing his gout at Torquay. What of that? +There were plenty of other men to step into my shoes. At first I +thought I would stay, and walk up and down the square for the chance +of one more look at her. How well I knew how she would come down the +steps, in a timid hesitating way, half-dazzled by the lights she had +just left, poising each little dainty foot a moment above the next +step, flit into the carriage like a soft white bird, and drop her +pretty head back with a sigh, 'Oh, I'm so tired, mamma!' her white +throat curved gently above the swansdown of her cloak, the golden +fringe of curls falling limply almost to her eyebrows. I must wait--I +must see her again! What! On the arm of another man! The blood rushed +into my head as these incoherent thoughts rose rapidly in my mind; all +the passions of my life, of my youth, dammed up as they had suddenly +been by my accident and its fatal consequences, seemed to surge up, +break through the barriers of resignation and resolve, and make a +madman of me. I was not master of myself, I could not count upon what +I should do if I saw her; seeing my way no more than if I had been +blind or intoxicated, I turned away, and finding myself presently in +silent Bond Street, I got into a hansom and went back to my hotel. + +I fancied that night that sooner or later I should end by suicide; but +in the morning I had to pack, to buy things for my journey, and to set +out on my travels. The worst wrench was over; before I had left +England a week, I was almost a philosopher. + +For five years I lived a wanderer's life, and found it fairly to my +liking. I hunted the boar in Germany, the wolf in France, went +salmon-fishing in Norway, shot two tigers in India; got as far as +California in search of adventures, of which I had plenty; passed a +fortnight with Red Indians, whom on the whole I prefer in pictures; +and began to acquire a distaste for civilisation, mitigated by +enjoyment of meetings once a year with Edgar and Fabian Scott. + +I retained the lease of a shooting-box and of a few miles of +deer-forest by the Deeside, between Ballater and picturesque little +Loch Muick. Larkhall, as the house was called, became, therefore, our +yearly rendezvous. On our second meeting, the party was increased by a +new member, Mr. William Fussell, a gentleman who was 'something in the +City.' I never could quite make out what that something was, but it +must have been some exceedingly pleasant and lucrative profession, +since Mr. Fussell, while constantly describing himself as one of the +unlucky ones, was always in spirits high, not to say rollicking, and +was gifted with powers of enjoyment which could only be the result of +long and assiduous practice. I had met him at a German hotel, where I +had been struck by the magnificent insolence of his assertion that he +had acquired a thorough command of the German language in three weeks, +and by the astonishing measure of success which attended his daring +plunges into that tongue. He was serenely jolly, selfish, and +sociable, pathetically complaining of his wife's conduct in letting +him come away for his holiday by himself, and enjoying himself very +much without her. He was so envious of my good fortune when I said +that I was going boar-hunting, that I invited him to accompany me; and +as he showed much pluck in a rather nasty encounter we had with an +infuriated boar, and much frankness in owning afterwards that he was +frightened, I forthwith invited him to Scotland, and he accepted the +invitation, as he did all good things which came in his way, with +avidity. + +At the third of our yearly meetings a fifth and last member joined us. +This was a clever young Irishman, of good family, small fortune, +sickly body, and still sicklier mind, to whom accident had put me +under a small obligation, which I was glad to repay by enabling him to +visit the Highlands, to which his doctor had prescribed a visit. He +had been making an exhaustive and strictly philosophical inquiry into +the iniquities of Paris, in the corruption of which he appeared to +revel; indeed, he was clever enough to find so much depravity in every +spot he had visited, that I wondered what repulsive view he would be +able to take of our sweet-scented fir-forests, and the long miles of +the rippling winding Dee; or whether, in the absence of labyrinthine +mazes of dirt and disease, vice and crime to explore and minutely +expose, he would pine and die. + +Except these two, I had, during those five years of wandering, made no +new friend. My appalling ugliness, mitigated as it was by time, had, +together with the reserve it taught me, to a great degree isolated +me. But perfect independence has its pleasures, and I was not an +unhappy man. Until the end of the fourth year I had not even a +servant, and I avoided all women; at that point, however, I yielded to +the fatal human weakness of attaching to one's self some +fellow-creature, and engaged as my personal attendant a cosmopolitan +individual, whose qualifications for the post consisted in the fact +that he had been a lawyer's clerk in England, a cow-boy in Mexico, had +had charge of a lunatic at Naples, and was a deserter from the +Austrian army. Plain to begin with, deeply marked with smallpox, and +disfigured by a sabre-cut across the nose, he was even uglier than I, +a fact which seemed, from the frequency with which he alluded to it, +to gratify him as much as it did me. His name was John Ferguson, but +it did not occur to me to connect his name with his origin until the +time came to prepare for my fifth annual visit to Scotland. + +'I should have thought one plain countenance about you was enough, +sir, without your wanting to see them at every turn,' he said +ill-temperedly, when told to pack up. + +'I suppose you come from Auld Reekie yourself, then, since you're so +reluctant to go back to it?' + +'Well, sir, and where's the harm of being born there, provided you get +away from it as early as you can, and never go back to it till you can +help!' + +'Why, Ferguson, that's spoken like a true patriot.' + +'Indeed, sir, I hope I am wise enough not to hold a place the better +for having produced such a poor creature as myself,' said John, who +could always give a good account of himself in an argument. + +But once established at Larkhall, Ferguson found himself so +comfortable that, at the end of the fortnight's visit of my friends, +he again made objection to packing up, which I was in the mood to +listen to indulgently. + +'It seems a pity like to leave the place till the shooting season's +over, don't it, sir?' he hazarded one morning. + +'Yes, Ferguson, perhaps it does.' + +'The Continent wouldn't run away if it was left to look after itself a +few weeks longer, would it, sir?' he went on. + +'No, Ferguson, perhaps it wouldn't,' said I. + +'Shall I leave the packing till to-morrow, sir?' he then asked. + +'Well, yes, I think you may.' + +From which it is clear that Ferguson had already been shrewd enough to +assume a proper authority over his nominal master. + +I had become a little weary of wandering, and although I by no means +intended to give up the nomadic life which I had led for five years, +I thought a couple of months' rest would be a pleasant change; I could +be on the move before the cold weather set in. But September passed, +and October and November came, and it grew very bleak; and still I +stayed on, finding a new pleasure in the changed aspect of the gaunt +hills, in seeing the snow patches grow larger and larger on Lochnagar, +in outstaying the last of the late visitors, and in finding a spot +where solitude needed no seeking. + +The railway runs from Aberdeen to Ballater. One morning, arriving at +the little station for my papers, I found a train just starting, and +was seized by an impulse to pay a short visit to the granite city. A +feeling left by my wandering life made it always difficult for me to +see a train or a boat start without me. So I sent a boy to Larkhall +with a message to Ferguson, who, with a lad under him, constituted my +entire household, took my ticket and started. It was past five when I +reached Aberdeen; after a sharp walk to the brig o' Balgownie and +back, I hired a private room at an hotel, and dined by myself. Making +inquiries about the theatre, I learnt that the entertainment that week +was very poor, and further that it had been so badly patronised that +it was doubtful whether the unfortunate players would get their meagre +salaries. I was glancing at the yellow bill which advertised _Rob Roy_ +as a Saturday night attraction, when I read the names of Miss Bailey +and Miss Babiole Bailey. + +I got up at once and walked quickly down to the little theatre. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +I remember very little of the performance that night, except the +painful impression produced upon me by the sight of the effort with +which a tall spectre-like woman, with sunken hollow face and feeble +voice, in whom I with difficulty recognised pretty Mrs. Ellmer, +dragged herself through the part of Diana Vernon. Babiole I utterly +failed to distinguish. Looking out as I did for my little eight-year +old fairy, with gold-brown hair curling naturally in large loose rings +over her blue eyes, I could not be expected to know that an awkward +sparrow-legged minion of the king, wearing high boots, a tabard, and +a parson's wideawake pinned up and ornamented with a long white +feather, was what five years and a limited stage wardrobe had made of +the lovely child. + +I waited for them at the stage door a long time after the performance +was over, saw the rest of the little company come out in twos and +threes, one or two depressed and silent, but most of them loudly +cursing their manager, the Scotch nation in general, and the people of +Aberdeen in particular. Then the manager himself came out with his +wife, a buxom lady who had played Helen Macgregor with a good deal of +spirit, but who seemed, from the stoical forbearance with which she +received the outpourings of her husband's wrath at his ill-luck, to be +a disappointingly mild and meek person in private life. 'But what will +they do, Bob? I believe the mother's dying,' I heard her protest +gently. 'Can't help that. We must look out for ourselves. And Marie +will make a better juvenile at half Miss Bailey's screw,' said her +husband gruffly. Last of all came Mrs. Ellmer, thinner and shabbier +than ever, leaning on the arm of an overgrown girl a little shorter +than herself, whose childishly meagre skirts were in odd contrast with +the protecting old-fashioned manner in which she supported her mother, +and whispered to her not to cry, they would be all right. + +I made myself known rather awkwardly, for when I raised my hat and +said, 'Mrs. Ellmer, I think,' they only walked on a little faster. The +case was too serious with them, however, for me to allow myself to be +easily rebuffed. I followed them with a long and lame speech of +introduction. + +'Don't you remember--five years ago--in the Strand, when you were +acting at the "Vaudeville"--Mr. Fabian Scott?' + +Babiole stopped and whispered something; Mrs. Ellmer stopped too, and +held out her hand with a wan smile and a sudden change to a rather +effusive manner. + +'I beg your pardon, I am sure. I remember perfectly, Mr. Scott +introduced you to me as a very old friend of his. You will excuse me, +won't you? One doesn't expect to see gentlemen from town in these +uncivilised parts. Babiole, my dear, you remember Mr.----' + +'Maude,' said I. 'It is very good of you to remember me at all, after +such a long time. But I couldn't resist the temptation of speaking to +you; one sees, as you say, so few beings up here whom one likes to +call fellow-creatures. Miss Babiole, you've "growed out of knowledge." +I suppose you haven't seen much of our friend Fabian lately, Mrs. +Ellmer?' + +'No, indeed. I went on tour at the end of the season when I first had +the pleasure of meeting you, and we have been touring ever since.' + +'Don't you get tired of the incessant travelling? I suppose you seldom +stay more than a week at each place?' + +'Sometimes only two or three nights. It is extremely fatiguing. In +fact, I am going to take a rest for a short time, for I find the +nightly work too much for me in my present state of health,' said she, +with a brave attempt to check the tremor in her voice, which was +unspeakably piteous to me who knew the true reason of the 'rest.' + +'If you are going to stay in Aberdeen, I hope you will allow me to +call upon you. I live near Ballater, forty miles away in the country, +so you may guess how thankfully I snatch at a chance of seeing a +little society.' + +At the word 'society' Mrs. Ellmer laughed almost hysterically. + +'I am afraid you would find solitude livelier than our society,' she +said, with a pitiful attempt to be sprightly. + +'Well, will you let me try?' + +'Really, Mr. Maude, when we are in the country we live in such a very +quiet way. Of course it's different when one is in town and has one's +own servants; and these Scotch people have no notion of waiting at +table or serving things decently.' + +'I know, I know,' I broke in eagerly. 'I'm used to all that myself. +Why, I live in a tumble-down old house with a monkey and a soldier for +my household, so you may judge that I have got used to the discomforts +of the North.' + +I saw Babiole stealthily shake her mother's arm, and move her lips in +a faint 'Yes, yes,'. Reluctantly, and with more excuses for having let +the agent-in-advance take lodgings for them which they would not have +looked at had they known what a low neighbourhood they were in, Mrs. +Ellmer at last consented that I should call and take tea with them +next day. + +I went back to my hotel and engaged a room for the night. The poor +woman's sunken face haunted me even in my sleep; and I grew nervous +when half-past four came, lest I should hear on arriving at the bare +and dirty-looking stone house which I had already taken care to find +out, that she was dead. However, my fears had run away with me. On my +knocking at the door of the top flat of the little house, Babiole +opened it, pretty and smiling, in a simple dress of some sort of brown +stuff, with lace and a red necklace round her fair slim throat. She +had not seen my face before by daylight; and I saw, by the flash of +horror that passed quickly over her features and was gone, how much +the sight shocked her. + +'I was afraid you would forget to come, perhaps,' she said, in the +prim little way I remembered, as she led the way into a small room, in +which no one less used to the shifts of travel than I was could have +detected the ingenious artifices by which a washhand-stand became a +sideboard, and a wardrobe a book-case. The popular Scotch plan of +sleeping in a cupboard disposed of the bed. + +Mrs. Ellmer looked better. Whether influenced by her daughter's keen +perception that I was a friend in time of need, or pleasantly excited +at the novelty of receiving a visitor, there was more spontaneity than +I had expected in her voluble welcome, more brightness in the +inevitable renewal of her excuses for the simplicity of their +surroundings. To me, after my long exile from everything fair or +gentle in the way of womanhood, the bare little room was luxurious +enough with that pretty young creature in it; for Babiole, though she +had lost much of her childish beauty, and was rapidly approaching the +'gawky' stage of a tall girl's development, had a softness in her blue +eyes when she looked at her mother, which now seemed to me more +charming than the keen glance of unusual intellect. She had, too, the +natural refinement of all gentle natures, and had had enough stage +training to be more graceful than girls of her age generally are. +Altogether, she interested me greatly, so that I cast about in my mind +for some way of effectually helping them, without destroying all +chance of my meeting them soon again. + +Babiole brought in the tea herself, while Mrs. Ellmer carefully +explained that Mrs. Firth, the landlady, had such odd notions of +laying the table and such terribly noisy manners, that, for the sake +of her mother's nerves, Babiole had undertaken this little domestic +duty herself. But, from a glimpse I caught later of Mrs. Firth's +hands, as she held the kitchen-door to spy at my exit from behind it, +I think there may have been stronger reasons for keeping her in the +background when an aristocratic and presumably cleanly visitor was +about. + +Babiole did not talk much, but when, in the course of the evening, I +fell to describing Larkhall and the country around it, in deference to +poor Mrs. Ellmer's thirsty wish to know more of the rollicking luxury +of my bachelor home, the girl's eyes seemed to grow larger with +intense interest; and, after a quick glance at my face, which had, I +saw, an unspeakable horror for her, she fixed her eyes on the fire, +and remained as quiet as a statue while I enlarged on the good +qualities of my monkey, my birds, my dog, and the view from my study +window of the Muick just visible now between the bare branches of the +birch-trees. + +'I should like to live right among the hills like that,' she said +softly, when her mother had exhausted her expressions of admiration. + +'Would you? You would find it very lonely. In winter you would be +snowed up, as I shall most certainly be in a week or two; and even +when the roads are passable you don't meet any one on them, except, +perhaps, a couple of peasants, whose language would be to you as +unintelligible as that of wild animals going down into the village to +get food.' + +'But you can live there.' + +'Circumstances have made me solitary everywhere.' + +She looked up at me; her face flushed, her lips trembled with +unutterable pity, and the tears sprang to her eyes. + +Custom had long since made me callous to instinctive aversion, but +this most unexpected burst of intelligent sympathy made my heart leap +up. I said nothing, and began to play with the tablecloth. + +Mrs. Ellmer, in the belief that the pause was an awkward one, rushed +into the breach, and disturbed my sweet feeling rather uncouthly. + +'I am sure, Mr. Maude, no one thinks the worse of you for the +accident, whatever it was, that disfigured you. For my part, I always +prefer plain men to handsome ones; they're more intelligent, and don't +think so much of themselves.' + +Babiole gave her mother an alarmed pleading look, which happily +absorbed my attention and neutralised the effect of this speech. I +could have borne worse things than poor Mrs. Ellmer's rather tactless +and insipid conversation for the sake of watching her daughter's +mobile little face, and I am afraid they must have wished me away +long before I could make up my mind to go. Babiole came to the outer +door with me, and I seized the opportunity to ask her what they were +going to do. + +'Mrs. Ellmer doesn't look strong enough to act again at present,' I +suggested. + +The girl's face clouded. + +'No. And even if she were, you see----' She stopped. + +'Of course. Her place would be filled up?' + +'Yes,' very sorrowfully. Then she looked up again, her face grown +suddenly bright and hopeful, as with a flash of sunshine. 'But you +needn't be afraid for us. Mamma is so clever, and I am young and +strong; we shall be all right. We should be all right now if only----' + +'If only?' + +'Why, you see, you mustn't think it's mamma's fault that we are left +in a corner like this; you don't know how she can save and manage +on--oh! so little. But whenever she has, by care and making things do, +saved up a little money, it--it all goes, you know.' + +The sudden reserve which showed itself in her ingenuous manner towards +the last words was so very suggestive that the true explanation of +this phenomenon flashed upon my mind. + +'Then somebody else puts in a claim,' I suggested. + +The girl laughed a little, her full and sensitive red lips opening +widely over ivory-white even teeth, and she nodded appreciation of my +quick perception. + +'Somebody else wants such a lot of things that somebody else's wife +and daughter can do without,' she said, with a comical little look of +resignation. And, encouraged by my sympathetic silence, she went on, +'And he has so much talent, Mr. Maude. If he would only go on painting +as poor mamma goes on acting, he could make us all rich--if he liked. +And instead of that----' + +'Babiole!' cried her mother's voice, rather tartly. + +'Yes, mamma.' Then she added, low and quickly, with a frightened +glance back in the dusk, towards the door of their room, 'It's high +treason to say even so much as this, but it is so hard to know how she +tries and yet not to speak of it to any one. I don't mean to blame my +father, Mr. Maude, but you know what men are----' + +It seemed to occur to her that this was an indiscreet remark, but I +said 'Yes, yes,' with entire concurrence; for indeed who should know +what men were better than I? After this she seemed as anxious to get +rid of me as civility allowed, but I had something to say. + +I gabbled it out fast and nervously, in a husky whisper, lest mamma's +sharp ear should catch my proposal, and she should nip it in the bud. + +'Look here, Miss Babiole; if you like the hills, and you don't mind +the cold, and your mother wants a rest and a change, listen. I was +just going to advertise for some one to act as caretaker in a little +lodge I've got--scarcely more than a cottage, but a little place I +don't want to go to rack and ruin. If you and she could exist there in +the winter--it is a place where peat may be had for the asking, and it +really isn't an uncomfortable little box, and I can't tell you what a +service you would be doing me if you would persuade your mother to +live in it until--until I find a tenant, you know. In summer I can get +a splendid rent for the place, tiny as it is, if only I can find some +one to keep it from going to pieces in the meantime. It's not badly +furnished,' I hurried on mendaciously, 'and there's an old woman to do +the housework----' + +But here Babiole, who had been drinking in my words with parted lips +and starlight eyes like a child at its first pantomime, dazzled, +bewildered, delighted, drew herself straight up, and became suddenly +prim. + +'In that case, Mr. Maude,' said she, with demure pride that resented +the suspicion of charity, 'if the old woman can take care of the +house, surely she doesn't want two other people to take care of her.' + +'But I tell you she's dead!' I burst out angrily, annoyed at my +blundering. 'There was an old woman to look after the place, but she +was seventy-four, and she died the week before last, of old +age--nothing infectious. Now, look here; you tell your mother about +it, and see if you can't persuade her to oblige me. I'm sure the +change would do her good; for it's very healthy there. Why, you know +the Queen lives within eight miles of my house, and you may be sure +her Majesty wouldn't be allowed to live anywhere where the air wasn't +good. Now, will you promise to try?' + +She said 'Yes,' and I knew, from the low earnest whisper in which she +breathed out the word, that she meant it with all her soul. I left her +and almost ran back to my hotel, as excited as a schoolboy, longing +for the next morning to come, so that I could go back to Broad Street, +and learn the fate of my new freak. Any one who had witnessed my +anxiety would have decided at once that I must be in love with either +the mother or the daughter; but I was not. The promise of a new +interest in life, of a glimpse of pleasant society up in my hills, and +the fancy we all occasionally have for being kind to something, were +all as strong as my pity for the mother, my admiration for the +daughter, and my respect for both. + +I was debating next morning how soon it would be discreet to call, +when a note was brought to me, which had been left 'by a young lady.' +I tore it open like a frantic lover. It was from Mrs. Ellmer, an oddly +characteristic letter, alternately frosty and gushing, but not without +the dignity of the hard-working. She said a great deal ceremoniously +about my kindness, a great deal about her friends in London, her +position and that of 'my husband, a well-known artist, whom you +doubtless are acquainted with by name.' But she wound up by saying +that since her health required that she should have change of air, and +since I had been so very kind that she could scarcely refuse to do me +any service which she could conscientiously perform, she would be +happy to act as caretaker of my house, and to keep it in order during +the winter for future tenants, provided I would be kind enough to +understand that she and her daughter would do all the work of the +house, and further that they might be permitted to reside in a +strictly private manner. + +'Strictly private!' I laughed heartily to myself at this expression. +The dear lady could hardly wish for more privacy than she would get +with four or five feet of snow piled up before her door. I was quite +light-hearted at my success, and I had to tone down my manner to its +usual grave and melancholy pitch before I knocked again at their door. + +Mrs. Ellmer opened the door herself, thus disappointing me a little; +Babiole's simple confidences, which I liked to think were the result +not only of natural frankness, but of instinctive trust in me, were +pleasanter to listen to than her mother's more artificial +conversation. We were both very dignified, both ceremoniously +grateful to each other, and when we entered the sitting-room and began +to discuss preliminaries in a somewhat pompous and long-winded manner, +Babiole sat, quiet as a mouse, in a corner, as if afraid to disturb by +a breath the harmonious settlement of a plan on which she had set her +heart. + +At last all was arranged. It was now Monday; Mrs. Ellmer and her +daughter were to hold themselves in readiness to enter into possession +by the following Friday or Saturday, when I should return to Aberdeen +to escort them to Larkhall Lodge. I rose to take my leave, not with +the easy feeling of equality of the day before, but with deep +humility, and repeated assurances of gratitude, to which Mrs. Ellmer +replied with mild and dignified protest. + +But, in the passage, Babiole danced lightly along to the door like a +kitten, and holding up her finger as a sign to me to keep silence, +she clapped her hands noiselessly and nodded to me several times in +deliciously confiding freemasonry. + +'I worked hard for it,' she said at last in a very soft whisper, her +red lips forming the words carefully, near to my ear. 'Good-bye, Mr. +Maude,' she then said aloud and demurely, but with her eyes dancing. +And she gave my hand a warm squeeze as she shook it, and let me out +into the nipping Scotch air in the gloom of the darkening afternoon, +with a new and odd sense of a flash of brightness and warmth into the +world. + +Then I walked quickly along, devising by what means that cottage, +which my guilty soul told me was bare of a single stick, could be +furnished and habitable by Friday. And a cold chill crept through my +bones as a new and hitherto unthought-of question thrust itself up in +my mind: + +What would Ferguson say? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +I made a hasty tour of the second-hand shops in Aberdeen, being wise +enough to know that if she were to find the cottage too spick and +span, Mrs. Ellmer would in a moment discover my pious fraud. Having +got together in this way a very odd assortment of furniture, I was +rather at a loss about kitchen utensils, when I was seized with the +happy inspiration of buying a new set of them for my own service, and +handing over those at present in use in my kitchen to Mrs. Ellmer. Not +knowing much about these things, I had to buy in a wholesale fashion, +more, I fancy, to the advantage of the seller than to my own. +However, the business was got through somehow, the things were to be +sent on the following day, and I sneaked back to Ballater by the 4.35 +train, wondering how I should break the news to Ferguson, and wishing +that by some impossible good luck the immaculate one might have +committed in my absence some slight breach of discipline which would +give me for once the superior position. If I could only find him +drunk! But though second to none in his fondness for whiskey, nobody +but himself could tell when he had had more than enough; so that hope +was vain. + +It was not that I was afraid of Ferguson; far from it. But his +punctuality, his unflagging mechanical industry, his many +uncompromising virtues made him a person to be reckoned with; and it +would have been easier to own to a caprice inconsistent with one's +principles to a more intellectual person than to him. + +It was getting dark before the train stopped at Ballater, a few +minutes before six. I had to go through the village, over the rickety +wooden bridge--for the new one of stone was not built then--and along +the road which lies on the south side of the Dee. The hills were on my +left, their bases covered with slim birch-trees, whose bare branches +swayed and hissed like whips in the winter wind; on the right, below +the road, ran the crooked turbulent little stream of Dee, now swollen +with late autumn rains, swirling round its many curves, and rushing +between the piles of the bridge till the wooden structure rocked +again. Would those two delicate women be frightened away by the cold +and the loneliness from the nest I was building for them, I wondered, +as I turned to the right to cross the little stone bridge that arches +over the Muick just before that stream runs into the Dee. I stopped +and looked around me. There was a faint white light over the western +hills which enabled me to see dim outlines of the objects I knew. Just +beyond the bridge was the forsaken little churchyard of Glenmuick, +which not even a ghost would care to haunt, where now a cluster of +gaunt bare ash-trees thrust up spectral arms from the ground among the +mildewed grave-stones. The lonely manse, a plain stone house shadowed +by dark evergreens, stood back a little from the road on the opposite +side. A mile away, with the rushing Dee between, the spire of Ballater +church stood up among the roofs of the village, flanked by fir-crowned +Craigendarroch on the north, and the Pannanich Hills on the south. +Straight on my road lay between flat Lowland fields to a ragged fringe +of tall firs behind which, on a rising ground, the shell of an old +deserted dwelling, known as Knock Castle, served in summer as a meagre +shelter for the Highland sheep in sudden storms. At this point the +road turned sharply to the left, the fringe of fir-trees growing +thicker upon the skirts of the forest; a few paces farther this road +divided into two branches which struck off from each other in the form +of a V, the southernmost one leading to Larkhall through a mile of +fir-forest. Would the very approach to their new abode through this +dark and winding road depress the poor little women into looking upon +the cottage as a prison, after the life and movement they were used +to? + +The private road which led through my own plantation to the house was +divided from the public thoroughfare by no lodge, no gate, but ran +modestly down between borders of grass, which grew long and rank in +the summer time, for about half a mile, until, the larches and Scotch +firs growing more sparsely to the south, one caught wider and wider +glimpses of broad green meadows where two or three horses were turned +out to find a meagre pasture. Here the drive was carried over a little +iron ornamental bridge, which crossed a stream that was but a thread +in the warm weather; and leaving the grass and the trees behind, one +came upon a broad lawn which ran right up to the walls of the house, +flanked to the north by more grass and more trees, which shut out the +view of the stables and of the unused cottage. To the south the land +made a sudden dip, and the hollow thus formed was laid out as a +garden, while the great bank that sheltered it formed a succession of +terraces from which one caught glimpses of the rushing Muick between +the birches that lined the banks of the impetuous little stream. + +The house was a most unpretentious building, in the plainest style of +Scotch country-house architecture, with rough cream-coloured walls, a +tiled roof, small irregular windows, and a mean little porch. It was +only saved from ugliness by a growth of ivy over the lower portion and +by a freak of the designer, whereby one end was raised a story above +the rest, and the roof of this portion made to slope north and south, +instead of east and west, like that of the rest of the building. At +the back the firs and larches rose to a great height, the house +seeming to nestle under their protection whenever the winter storms +burst over the bleak hills around. + +Ferguson was glad to see me, and welcomed me back with a cordiality +which made my mind easier on the subject of the announcement I had to +make to him. I went up to my room and, finding everything prepared for +me, told him I was ready for dinner. Instead of going downstairs, he +only said, 'Yes, sir; it is coming up,' and knelt down to pull off my +boots. + +'All right,' said I; 'I can do that. I'm very hungry.' + +'No doubt of it, sir,' he answered, but did not stir. 'The fact is, +sir, that knowing you would come home hungry, and maybe very much +fatigued, and that to be in the kitchen serving dinner and up here +attending upon you at the same time is a moral impossibility, I made +bold to ask an old and very respectable female that was staying in the +village to give me a little help--just for this evening, sir. She is +very clean in her ways, sir, and a most respectable and God-fearing +body.' + +I jumped at the news, and congratulated him upon his forethought with +great heartiness. + +'I have no more objection to seeing a woman's face about the place +than you have yourself, Ferguson,' I said cordially; 'in fact I have +just given permission to two poor ladies to pass the winter in the +cottage at the back, and I want you to help me to put the place +straight a bit for them. They come in on Friday. I don't want the +place to fall to pieces with dry rot for want of some one to live in +it.' + +'Ladies won't keep the dry rot out of a place, sir,' answered +Ferguson, with dry contempt. 'However, you know best, sir, what kind +of cattle you like to harbour in your own barns, and I daresay they'll +be snug enough till the snow comes.' + +This dark suggestion was but the echo to my own fears. I was so +anxious to secure a co-operation in my plan, not merely perfunctory, +but zealous, knowing well, as I did, the highly-sensitive mood in +which the elder at least of my new tenants would arrive, that even +after this scantily-gracious speech I humbled myself more than was +meet. + +'By the bye, Ferguson,' I began again after a short pause, during +which he helped me on with my coat, 'I'm thinking of having the little +north room upstairs fitted up for you, as a sort of--sort of +housekeeper's room, butler's room, you know.' Mine was such a +nondescript household that it was not easy to find a designation for +any of the apartments, but I wished thus neatly to intimate that if my +mayor of the palace had matrimonial intentions, his do-nothing king +would not stand in his way. 'Now that my household is becoming larger, +I daresay you would like to have some place where you and Tim and +Mrs.--Miss--what did you say her name was? could sit in the evenings.' + +'Neither Mrs. nor Miss anything did I say was her name,' answered +Ferguson, with grave deliberation. 'Plain Janet, sir; she leaves +titles to her betters. And the kitchen does very well for me, sir, and +for Janet too if you care to engage her as housekeeper, after due +trial of her capabilities.' + +'Oh, if she satisfies you she will satisfy me.' + +'None the less I should wish you to see her, that you may understand +it was for your better service and not for my own pleasure that I +introduced her here. I have no opinion of women, sir, until they are +past the age for frivolity, and I'm not handsome enough to go courting +myself.' + +Whether this was a warning to me not to be beguiled into a fatal trust +in the power of my own beauty, and an obscure hint that in his opinion +I was in danger of making a fool of myself, Ferguson's face was too +wooden to betray; but the manner in which he gave his services towards +putting the cottage in order was unsatisfactory, not to say venomous. +He veiled his displeasure with my new freak under an officious zeal +for the comfort of the coming tenants, which was much harder to deal +with than stubborn unwillingness to work for them would have been. My +assurances that one was an invalid and the other a child only supplied +him with fresh forms of indirect attack. He was surprised that I did +not have one of the two rooms on the ground-floor fitted up as a +bedroom, as invalids cannot walk up and down stairs; he was kind +enough to place in one of the upper rooms, which he persisted in +calling 'the nursery,' a small wooden horse of the primitive +straight-legged kind, a penny rattle, and a soft fluffy parrot; and +when I impatiently pitched the things out at the door he seemed +dismayed, and said 'he had thought they would please the wee bairn.' + +That old beast took all the pleasure out of the little excitement of +furnishing. On the morning after my return, he took care to present to +me the respectable Janet; he had, indeed, not overrated her +magnificent lack of meretricious charms; for in the wooden face and +hard blue eyes I recognised at once the features of my faithful +attendant, additional wrinkles taking the place of the sabre-cut. She +was his mother. As, however, neither made any reference to this fact, +I treated it as a family secret and made no indiscreet inquiries. + +The eventful Friday came. I was in the cottage as soon as it was +light, making for the last time the tour of the two bedrooms, kitchen, +and sitting-room, trying all the windows to see that they were +draught-tight, passing my hands along the walls in a futile attempt to +find out if they were damp. In the sitting-room I stayed a long time, +moving about the furniture, a second-hand suite, covered with dark red +reps; I was disgusted with the mournful bareness of the apartment, and +wondered how I could have been so stupid as to forget that women +liked ornaments. I went back to my house and ransacked it furtively +for nicknacks, without much success. First, I reviewed the pictures: a +regular bachelor's collection they were, not objectionable from a +man's point of view, but for ladies----. No, the pictures were +hopeless, with the exception of huge engravings, 'The Relief of +Lucknow,' and 'Queen Philippa Begging the Lives of the Burgesses,' +which, though perfectly innocuous to a young girl's mind, were not +exhilarating to anybody's. Besides, fancy being caught by Ferguson +staggering under the burden of those ponderous works of art! I had not +known before how meagre were the appointments of my home; my five +years of wandering had given me a traveller's indifference to all but +necessaries, so that, as I looked round the study, where I spent +nearly all the time that I passed indoors, I saw little that could be +spared. It was a comfortable-looking room enough, with its three big +windows, two looking south over the terraced garden and the wooded +valley of the Muick, the remaining one east over the lawn and the +drive, and more trees. The west wall of the room was filled from floor +to ceiling by book-shelves of the plainest kind; these were filled, +not with the student's methodically-arranged collection of sombre and +well-worn volumes, not with the 'gentleman's' suspiciously neat and +bright 'complete sets' in morocco and half-calf, which to remove seems +as improper as to scrape off the wall-paper would be; but with the +oddest of odd lots of literary ware, in a dozen languages, in all +sizes and all varieties of binding and lack of binding, no two volumes +of anything together, and not a book that I didn't love among them, +from Montaigne, in dear dirty paper covers, hanging by a thread, to +Thackeray in a beastly _edition de luxe_. + +On the north wall was the fireplace--wide, high, old-fashioned and +warm--with a discoloured white marble mantelpiece, decorated with fat +bewigged Georgian cupids. Above it hung an old cavalry sword with +which my father had cut his way through the Russians at Inkermann. +Close to the fireplace, and with its back to the book-shelves, stood +my own especial chair--big, roomy, well worn--covered with dark red +morocco, like the rest of the furniture. A reading-table stood in the +corner beside it, and on the right hand was a bigger table, piled high +with books and papers, cigars, bills and rubbish. There was a +writing-table in one corner, at which I never wrote; a sofa covered +with more literary lumber; two cabinets crammed with curiosities +collected on my travels, tossed in with little attempt at arrangement; +a card-table on which stood a quantity of old-fashioned silver, such +as tall candlesticks, goblets, a punch-bowl and a massive last-century +urn. A stuffed duck, a Dutch tankard, a pair of elk's horns, and a +bust of Dante surmounted by a fox's brush, occupied the top of the +book-shelves. A high plain fourfold screen, as dark as the rest of the +time-worn furniture, hid the door; and close to the screen a +dog-kennel, with the front taken out and replaced by a strong iron +grating, formed the winter home of a large brown monkey, which I had +bought at a sale with the fascinating reputation of being dangerous, +but which had belied its character by allowing me to bring it home on +my shoulders. To-to, so called for no better reason than that my +collie, whose favourite resting-place was now well defined on the +goatskin hearthrug, was named Ta-ta, had from our first introduction +treated me with such marked tolerance that I, in my loneliness, had +begun to feel a sort of superstitious fondness for the brute, and +fancied I saw more reason and affection in his blinking brown eyes +than in any of the Scotch pebbles which served as organs of vision to +my Gaelic neighbours. When I first bought him it was mild enough for +him to live in the yard; but when the weather grew cold, and he was +brought into the kitchen, he got on so ill with the powers there that +I had to take compassion upon him and them, and remove To-to to the +study, where he justified his promotion by the reserve and gravity of +his manners, his only marked foible being a furious jealousy of Ta-ta, +whose resting-place was just beyond the utmost tether of the monkey's +chain. Rarely did an evening pass without some skirmish between the +two. Perhaps Ta-ta, seeing me smile over the book I was reading, and +anxious to share my enjoyment, even if she could not understand the +joke, would incautiously get up and wag her tail. Whereupon To-to +would dash across the hearthrug and assist her, and much +unpleasantness would follow, the dog barking, the monkey chattering, +the master swearing--all three members of the menagerie trying to come +off conqueror in the _melee_. Or else To-to would fall from the top of +his kennel to the floor, with a loud noise, and would lie stiff and +still on the rug, as if in a fit; and then the simple Ta-ta would walk +over to investigate the case, and the monkey would seize her ears and +twist them round with jabbering triumph. I kept a small whip to +separate the combatants on these occasions, but I only dared use it +very sparingly; as, though its effect upon To-to's coarser nature was +salutary in the extreme in reducing him to instant love and obedience, +as the boot of the costermonger does his wife, the gentler Ta-ta would +look up at me with such piteous protest in her dark eyes that I felt +a brute for the next half hour. + +From this room, the scene of most of my domestic life, I took a pair +of silver candlesticks and a Dresden cup and saucer. Into the unused +drawing-room, which I had had fitted up years ago in the Louis Quinze +style, I just peeped; but there was nothing very tempting in white and +gold curly-legged furniture tied up in brown holland on a cold +polished floor, so I locked the door again, and carried away my prizes +to the cottage, where they certainly improved the look of the +sitting-room mantelpiece. + +I had no sort of carriage more convenient than a Norfolk-cart, so on +my way to Aberdeen I ordered a fly to be at Ballater Station on my +return with my new tenants. Both the ladies were already dressed for +their journey, and we started at once, Mrs. Ellmer hastening to inform +me that she had sent most of her luggage to some friends in London, +to account, I fancy, poor lady, for having only one shabby trunk and +two stage baskets. Babiole sat very quietly during the railway +journey, looking out of window at the now dreary and bleak landscape; +and I spoke so little that any one might have thought I would rather +have been alone. But, indeed, I was only afraid, from the happy +excitement which glowed in the faces of both talkative mother and +silent daughter, lest their bright expectations should be disappointed +by the simplicity and desolation of the place they persisted in +regarding as a palace of delights. + +'It's a very homely place, you know,' I said solemnly, after being +bantered in a sprightly manner by Mrs. Ellmer upon my artfulness in +building myself a fortress up in the hills where, like the knights of +old, I could indulge in what lawless pranks I pleased. 'And I assure +you that nothing could possibly be more simple than my mode of life +there. Whatever of the bold bad bandit there may have been in my +composition ten years back has been melted down into mere harmless +eccentricity long ago.' + +'Ah! you are not going to make me believe that,' said Mrs. Ellmer, +with a giddy shake of the head. 'Why, the very name Larkhall betrays +you.' + +I believe the dear lady really did think the name had been given in +commemoration of 'high jinks' I had held there; but I hastened to +assure her that 'lark' was simply the Highland pronunciation of +'larch,' a tree which grew abundantly in the neighbourhood. However, +she only smiled archly, and seeing that the imaginary iniquities she +seemed bent on imputing to me in no way lessened her exuberant +happiness in my society, I left my character in her hands, with only a +glance at Babiole, who seemed, with her eyes fixed on the moving +landscape, to be deaf to what went on inside the carriage. I was rather +glad of it. + +When we got to Ballater the little shed of a station was crowded by +rough villagers, all eagerly enjoying the splendid excitement of the +arrival of the train. A dense, wet Scotch mist enveloped us as we +stepped on to the platform, chilled by our cold journey; still, they +both smiled with persistent happiness, which grew rapturous when we +all got into a roomy fly which Mrs. Ellmer called 'your carriage.' +They were charmed with the village, which looked, through the veil of +fine rain, a most depressing collection of stiff stone and slate +dwellings to my _blase_ eyes. They were delighted with the cold and +dreary drive. They pronounced the dark fir-forest through which we +drove 'magnificent'; and, finally, after a hushed and reverential +silence as we went through the plantation, both were transfixed with +admiration at the sight of my modest dwelling. Mrs. Ellmer even went +so far as to admire the 'fine rugged face' of Ferguson, who was +standing at the hall door scowling his worst scowl. I did not risk an +encounter with him, but led the ladies straight into the cottage, +where a peat fire was glowing in each of the lower rooms. We went +first into the sitting-room; a lighted lamp was in the middle of the +table, the tea-things were at one end. I glanced from mother to +daughter, trying to read their first impression of their new home. +Mrs. Ellmer's eyes, sharpened by sordid experience to hungry keenness, +took in every detail at once with critical satisfaction, while her +lips poured forth commonplaces of vague delight. The climax of her +pleasure was the discovery of the cup and saucer on the mantelpiece. +By the way in which her thin face lighted up I saw she was a +connoisseur. In looking at it she forgot me and for a moment paused +in her enraptured monologue. + +Babiole took it all differently. She seemed to hold her breath as she +looked slowly round, as if determined to gaze on everything long +enough to be sure that it was real; then, with a little sob, she +turned her head quickly, and her innocent eyes, soft and bright with +unspeakable gratitude, fell on me. + +You must have been for years an object of horror and loathing to your +fellow-men to know what that look, going straight from soul to soul +with no thought of the defects of the bodily envelope, was to me. +Perhaps it was because my life had so long been barren of all +pleasures dependent on my fellow-creatures that I could neither then, +nor later that evening when I was alone, recall any sensation akin to +its effect in sweetness or vividness except the glow I had felt after +Babiole's girlish confidence to me at the door of the Aberdeen +lodging. I suppose I must have stood smiling at the child with +grotesque happiness, for Mrs. Ellmer, turning from contemplation of +the cup and saucer, drew her thin lips together very sourly. + +'And now I will leave you to your tea,' said I hastily. 'I told Janet +to put everything ready for you.' + +'Thank you, Mr. Maude, you are too good. We require no waiting on, I +assure you,' broke in Mrs. Ellmer, with rather tart civility. + +'Oh no, I only told her to put the kettle on in the kitchen,' I +protested humbly. And, with ceremonious hopes that they would be +comfortable, I retreated, Babiole giving my fingers a warm-hearted +squeeze when it came to her turn to shake hands. The child was +following me to let me out when her mother interposed and came with +me to the door herself. + +She took my hand and held it while she assured me that she was so much +overpowered by my distinguished kindness and courtesy that I must +excuse her if, in the effort to express her feelings adequately, she +found herself without words. I'm sure I wished she would, for she went +on in the same strain, making convulsive little clutches at my fingers +to emphasise her speech, until both she and I began to shiver. She did +not let me go until Babiole appeared behind her, flushed and smiling, +in the little passage. Then Mrs. Ellmer's fingers sprang up from mine +like an opened latch and, dismissed, I raised my hat and hurried off. + +I had not gone half a dozen yards when I met Janet on her way to the +cottage; she curtseyed and told me, in answer to my question, that she +was taking some tea to the ladies. After a moment's hesitation I +turned and followed her, proposing to ask them whether they would like +some books. + +Janet opened the door quietly without knocking, and went into the +kitchen on the left, while I stood on the rough fibre mat outside the +sitting-room, having grown suddenly shy about intruding again. I heard +Babiole's clear childish voice. + +'Oh, mamma, if only papa doesn't find us out, how happy we shall be +here! Mr. Maude is a good man, I am sure of it!' + +'As good as the rest of them, I daresay,' answered her mother in tones +of pure vinegar. 'Understand, if you ever meet him when I'm not with +you, you are not to speak to him. It makes me ill to look at his +hideous wicked face. There's someone in the kitchen, run and see who +it is.' + +And the poor Beast, thinking he had heard enough, and afraid lest +Beauty should catch him eavesdropping, slunk away from the door-mat +and made his way home with his tail between his legs. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Those unlucky few words that I had overheard created a great breach +between me and my tenants, and, moreover, brought on in the would-be +philosopher a fit of misanthropical melancholy. I could not get over +the poor little woman's cynical hypocrisy for some days, during which +I never went near the cottage; and if I met either mother or daughter +in my walks or rides, I contented myself with raising my hat +ceremoniously, and giving them as brief a glimpse of my 'wicked +hideous face' as possible. Ha! ha! I would show them whether or not I +was dependent on their society, and how much of selfish libertinism +there had been in my wish to house them comfortably for the winter; a +pair of idiots! + +But this noble pride wore itself out in a fortnight, at the end of +which time I began to think it was I who was the idiot, to nourish +resentment against a pair of helpless creatures who, too poor to +refuse an offer which saved them from brutality and starvation, had +seen enough of the dark side of human nature to put small faith in +disinterested motives, and had no weapon but their own wits wherewith +to fight their natural enemy--man. Besides, my solitude had grown ten +times more solitary now that, sitting alone in my study at night, with +To-to languidly stretching himself on the kennel in front of me, +paying no attention to me whatever, and Ta-ta, who really had +capacities for sympathy, lying asleep on the rug at my feet, I knew +that, not a hundred yards away, there were slender women's forms +flitting about, and girlish prattle going on, by a little modest +fireside that was a home. + +So I suddenly remembered that I ought to call and ask them if they +found their new home to their liking. Anxious, for the first time for +five years, to make the best of a bad business, so far as my person +was concerned, I exchanged the coarse tweed Norfolk suit I usually +wore for a black coat and gray trousers I used to wear in town, which, +though doubtless a little old-fashioned in cut, might reasonably be +supposed to pass muster in the wilds, and even to give me a rather +dashing appearance. But, alas! It did not. It showed me, on the +contrary, how far I had slipped away from civilisation. My hair was +too long, what complexion I had left too weather-beaten, while the +seamed and scarred right side of my face looked more hideous than +ever. I changed back quickly to my usual coat, scarcely acknowledging +to myself that some sort of vague wish to live once more the life of +other men was disappointed. + +I found Mrs. Ellmer and her daughter in their outdoor dress; they had +been driven in by a snow shower, one of the first of the season. The +sitting-room looked now cosy and habitable, if a little untidy, the +habits of the touring actress being still manifest in a collection of +unframed cabinet photographs--not all uncalculated to bring a blush to +the Presbyterian cheek--which stood in a row on the mantelpiece. It +occurred to me that old Janet might have let out the fact that I +turned back with her to the cottage and, perhaps, overheard something +to my disadvantage, for Babiole looked frightened and shy, and Mrs. +Ellmer's manner was almost apologetically humble. There was constraint +enough upon us all for me to make my visit very short, but as I left +I formally invited them to dine with me on the following evening. + +With what shamefaced _nonchalance_ I told Ferguson that day to have +the drawing-room opened and cleaned on the following morning! With +what stolid lowering resignation he extracted my reason for this +unparalleled order! However, he made no protest. But next morning, +while I was at breakfast, he entered the room in his usual clockwork +manner, but with a glow of pleasurable feeling in his cold eyes. + +'If you please, sir, Janet would be obliged if you would step into the +drawing-room and see if you would still wish to have it prepared for +the party this evening.' + +Party! I could have broken his neck. But I only followed him in an +easy manner into the hall. It was full of blinding smoke, which was +pouring forth from the open door of the drawing-room. I dashed +heroically into the apartment, only to be met with a denser cloud, +which rushed into my mouth and made my eyes smart and burn. Some +winged thing, either a bird or a bat, flapped against the walls and +ceiling in the gloom. Janet was choking at the fireplace, in great +danger of being smothered. + +'What is all this?' I choked angrily, getting back into the hall. + +'Nothing, sir,' answered Ferguson, with grim delight. 'Nothing but +that Janet lit the fire to air the room in obedience to your orders, +and that the chimney smokes a little. Would you still wish to have the +room got ready, sir?' + +But he had gone too far; he had roused the lion. + +'Come in here,' I said, in a tone which subdued his happiness; and he +followed me back into the room. 'Now t-t-take the tongs,' I +continued, as haughtily as coughing would permit, 'and r-ram it up the +chimney.' + +Cowed, but exceedingly reluctant, he obeyed, and I would not let him +relax his efforts until, smothered with soot and dust, dry twigs and +blackened snow, he pulled down upon himself a sack, a couple of +birds'-nests, and other obstacles which, some from above and some from +below, had been deposited in the unused chimney. + +'Now,' said I, purple in the face but content, 'you can relight the +fire.' + +And, satisfied with this moral victory and the prestige it gave me in +the eyes of the whole household--for Tim and the outdoor genius who +gardened twelve acres and looked after four horses had both enjoyed +this domestic scandal from the doorway--I marched back to my cold +coffee and congealed bacon. + +There were no more difficulties, though, at least none worth +mentioning. It is true that on returning from my morning's ride I +found the hall so stuffed up with furniture that I had to enter my +residence through one of the study windows, five feet from the ground; +and that I had to picnic on a sandwich in the study instead of +lunching decorously in the dining-room; but these discomforts might be +necessary to a thorough cleaning, and could be borne with fortitude. +At six o'clock my guests arrived, and, having left their cloaks in a +spare-room opened for the occasion, they were led to shiver in the +drawing-room, which still smelt of smoke and soap and water. Mrs. +Ellmer, with chattering teeth, admired the painted ceiling, the white +satin chairs bright with embossed roses, the pale screen, and all the +fanciful glories of the room, the magnificence of which evidently +impressed and delighted her. Babiole seemed unable to take her eyes +off two oil-paintings, both portraits of the same lady, which, in +massive gilt oval frames, occupied a prominent position at the end of +the room opposite the fireplace. + +'Babiole is fascinated, you see, Mr. Maude,' said her mother, with the +little affected laugh which gave less the idea of pleasure than that +of a wish to please. 'If she dared she would ask who those ladies +are.' + +'They are both the same, mother,' said Babiole, so softly, so shyly, +that one could think she guessed there was some story about the +portraits. + +Mrs. Ellmer's eyes began to beam with a less artless curiosity. + +'Would it be indiscreet to ask her name?' + +'Her name was Helen.' + +'Ah, poor lady! She is dead, then?' + +'No, I believe she is alive.' + +Babiole glanced quickly from the pictures to my face and pressed her +mother's hand, as that lady was about to burst forth into more +questions. I don't know that my countenance expressed much, for my +feelings on the subject of the original of the portrait had long +ceased to be keen; but I think the little one, being very young, liked +to make as much as possible out of any suggestion of a romance. I took +the girl by the arm and led her to the end of the room, where the +portraits hung. + +'Now,' said I, 'which of these two pictures do you like best?' + +Babiole instantly assumed the enormous seriousness of a child who is +honoured with a genuine appeal to its taste. After a few moments' +grave comparison of the pictures, she turned to me, with the face of a +fairy judge, and asked solemnly-- + +'Do you mean which should I love best, or which do I admire most as a +work of art?' + +This altogether unexpected question, which came so quaintly from the +childish lips, made me laugh. Babiole turned from me to the pictures, +rather disconcerted, and Mrs. Ellmer broke in with her sharp high +voice-- + +'Babiole understands pictures; she has had a thorough art education +from her father, Mr. Maude.' + +'Oh yes,' said I, wondering vaguely why mothers always show up so +badly beside their daughters. Then I turned again to the girl. 'I +didn't know how clever you were, Miss Babiole. Supposing I had two +friends, one who had known this lady and loved her, and the other who +was a great art collector. Which portrait would each like best?' + +Babiole decided without hesitation. 'The art collector would like this +one, and the one who had loved her would like that,' she said, +indicating each with the glance of her eyes. + +'But the art collector's is the prettier face of the two,' I objected. + +'Yes; but it isn't so good.' + +I was astonished and fascinated by the quickness of the girl's +perception. + +'You ought to grow into an artist,' I said, smiling. 'The pretty one +was in the Academy this year, painted by a famous artist. I heard it +was a wonderful portrait, and I commissioned a man to buy it for me. +The other is an enlargement, by an unknown artist, from half a dozen +old photographs and sketches, of the same lady five years ago.' + +'And is it exactly like her--like what she was, I mean?' + +'No; she was prettier, but not so--good.' + +I used the word 'good' because she had used it, though it was not the +word I should have chosen. I wanted her to say something more, for she +was still looking at the pictures in a very thoughtful way; but at +that moment Mrs. Ellmer, skipping lightly along the polished floor in +a way that made me tremble for her balance, thrust her head between +us, and laid her pointed chin on her daughter's shoulder. + +'And what are you two so deeply interested about?' she asked +playfully. + +Babiole put her tender little cheek lovingly against her mother's thin +face, and I began talking about art in a vague and ignorant manner, +which incautiously showed that I disliked the interruption. Ferguson +came to my rescue with the solemn announcement of dinner. + +From Mrs. Ellmer's rather critical attitude towards the different +dishes, I gathered that she prided herself on her own cookery, and +Babiole ingenuously let out that mamma had once superintended a very +grand dinner of some friends of theirs--'Oh, such rich people!'--and +it had been a great success. Mamma seemed a little uneasy at this +indiscretion, but hastened to add that they were such dear friends of +hers that when they were left in a difficulty by the sudden illness of +their man-cook--a man who had been in the first families, and had come +to them from Lord Stonehaven's--she had overwhelmed them by the offer +of her services. + +'I think all ladies should learn cooking, Mr. Maude; and, indeed, many +do now. The lessons are very expensive, certainly; but one never +regrets either the time or the money when it is once learned,' said +she. 'Servants never understand how things ought to be done unless +there is some one able to give them a little guidance.' + +To all this conversation Ferguson listened with the amiability of an +enraged bear restrained by iron bars from making a meal of his +tormentors. + +Babiole had little attention to spare for any one but Ta-ta, with +whom she had struck up a rapidly ripening friendship. + +'Ta-ta has taken a fancy to you,' I said, smiling. 'She always likes +the people I like,' I added, with the common fatuity of owners of pet +animals. + +Upon this Mrs. Ellmer piped out 'Ta-ta, Ta-ta, Ta-ta!' until, to stop +her, I beckoned the dog to her side of the table. But the collie, +seeing that she had nothing better than a raisin to offer, merely +sniffed at it, avoided the threatened caress, and slunk back to her +old place by Babiole, in whose lap she rested her head contentedly. + +While her mother was still laughing shrilly at this misadventure, the +child asked if they might see my monkey. + +'Shall I take you to my study now,' said I, 'and show you how an old +bachelor passes his evenings?' + +'Is the monkey fond of you too, Mr. Maude?' asked Babiole, as I +opened the door for them. + +'I flatter myself that he is. At least I can boast that he flies at +any one whom he suspects of doing me harm. Two months ago a doctor was +attending me for a swelling on my neck. He came day after day, and +To-to treated him with all the courtesy due to an honoured guest, +until he decided one day that the swelling ought to be lanced, and +took from his pocket a case of instruments. He had scarcely opened it +when To-to, chattering and grimacing, sprang across the hearthrug with +such violence that he broke his chain, and fastened his teeth in the +doctor's hand.' + +'What a savage brute!' exclaimed Mrs. Ellmer. + +Babiole thought it out as we crossed the hall, and then spoke +gravely-- + +'But the monkey was wrong, for the doctor never meant to hurt you,' +she said, in her deliberate way. + +'I suppose you gave him a good beating,' said Mrs. Ellmer. + +'No, I didn't. I scolded him till we were alone together, for the sake +of the doctor's feelings. But when he was gone I sneaked up to To-to's +kennel and stroked him and gave him a beautiful bone. The scolding was +for the mistake, you know, and the bone for the devotion.' + +We entered the study, Mrs. Ellmer first, I last. The alarmed lady, on +coming round the screen, was close to the monkey before she saw him. +To-to only blinked up at her composedly, with no demonstration of +hostility; but to my horror and amazement, no sooner did he catch +sight of Babiole, who came up to him bravely by my side, with her +little hand cordially outstretched towards him, than he made a savage +spring at her, his teeth and eyes gleaming with malice. I was just in +time to draw her back in my arms, so that he fell to the ground +instead of fastening on her poor little wrist. Mrs. Ellmer screamed, +Ta-ta began to bark and make judiciously-distanced rushes at the +monkey; while Babiole recovered herself, very pale, but quite quiet, +and I, strangely excited, gave To-to a sharp blow. + +'Oh, don't!' cried the child; but then, smiling archly, though the +colour driven away by the little fright had not yet come back to her +cheek, she added, 'but you will give him a bone as a reward when we +are gone.' + +'Do you think so?' said I, in a rather constrained voice. Then, seeing +that Mrs. Ellmer's eyes were fixed curiously upon me, I added, 'The +first mistake, you see, was excusable; there was a reason for it. But +this attack was unprovoked.' + +'Yes,' said Babiole naively; 'for how could I do you any harm?' + +'Yes, how indeed?' said I. + +But even as I said this, and looked at her blue-eyed face, I thought +that perhaps the monkey might prove to be wiser than either of us, +unless I grew wiser as she grew older. + +The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough in the ransacking of +my cabinets of curiosities; Mrs. Ellmer, who proved to be a +connoisseur of more things than china, took delight in the value of +the treasures themselves, while Babiole pleased herself with such as +she thought beautiful, and enjoyed particularly the stories I told +about the places I had found them in, and the ways in which I had +picked them up. She grew radiant over the present of a Venetian bead +necklace, such as can be bought in the Burlington Arcade for a few +shillings; but when I told her it was a souvenir from a woman whose +child I had saved from drowning, her joy in her new treasure was +suddenly turned to reverence. How did I do it? It was a very simple +story; a little boy of four or five had slipped into one of the +canals, and I, passing in a gondola, had caught his clothes, or rather +his rags, and handed the choking squalling manikin back into the +custody of a black-eyed, brown-skinned woman, who had insisted, with +impulsive but coquettish gratitude, on presenting me with the beads +she wore round her own neck. + +'Wasn't she in rags, too, then?' asked Babiole. + +'Oh no, she was rather picturesquely got up.' + +'Then, I should think, she was not his mother at all.' + +'Perhaps not. But all mothers are not like yours.' + +'I _know_ that,' cooed the girl, tucking her hand lovingly under the +maternal arm. Then, after a pause, she said, 'What a lot of nice +places and people you must have seen in all the years you have +travelled about, Mr. Maude.' + +'How old do you think I am, then?' I asked, struck by something in her +tone. + +She hesitated, looking shyly from me to her mother. + +'No, no,' said I. 'Tell me what you think yourself.' + +She glanced at me again, then suggested in a small voice, 'sixty?' + +Both Mrs. Ellmer and I began to laugh; and the child, blushing, rubbed +her cheek against her mother's sleeve. + +'How much would you take off from that, Mrs. Ellmer?' + +'Why, I'm sure you can't be a day more than forty-five.' + +She evidently thought I should be pleased by this, the good lady +flattering herself that she had taken off at least five years. My +first impulse was to set them right rather indignantly, but the next +moment I remembered that I should gain nothing but a character for +mendacity by telling them that I should not be thirty till next year. +So I only laughed again, and then Babiole's voice broke in +apologetically. + +'I only guessed what I did, Mr. Maude, because you are so very kind; +you seem always trying to do good to some one.' + +'Here's a subtle and cynical little observer for you,' said I, +glancing over the child's head at the mother. 'She knows, you see, +that benevolence is the last of the emotions, and is only tried as a +last resource when we have used up all the others.' + +Babiole looked much astonished at this interpretation, which she +understood very imperfectly, and Mrs. Ellmer shook her head in arch +rebuke as she rose to go. They went upstairs together to put on their +cloaks, but Babiole came flying down before her mother to have a last +peep at the portraits which had fascinated her. I followed her into +the drawing-room, where lamp and fire were still burning, and she +started and turned as she saw my reflection in the long glass which +hung between the pictures. + +'Well, are you as happy at the cottage as you thought you would be?' I +asked. + +'Oh, happier, a thousand times. It is too good to last,' with a +frightened sigh. + +'Don't you miss the constant change of your travelling life, and the +excitement of acting?' + +She seemed scarcely to understand me at first, as she repeated, in a +bewildered manner, 'excitement!' Then she said simply, 'It's very +exciting when you miss the train and the company go on without you; +but it's dreadful, too, because the manager might telegraph to say +you needn't come on at all'. + +'But the acting; isn't that exciting?' + +'It's nice, sometimes, when one has a part one likes; but, of course, +I only got small parts, and it's dreadful to have to go on with +nothing to say, or for an executioner, or an old woman, with just a +line.' + +'And don't you like travelling?' + +'I like it sometimes in the summer; but in the winter it's so cold, +and the places all seem alike; and then the pantomime season comes, +and you have nothing to do.' + +'What do you do then? What did you do last winter, for instance?' + +'We went back to London.' + +'Well?' + +But Babiole had grown suddenly shy. + +'Won't you tell me? Would you rather not?' + +'I would rather not.' + +At that moment Mrs. Ellmer's voice was heard calling, in sharp tones, +for 'Babiole!' + +'Here we are, Mrs. Ellmer, taking a last look at the pictures,' I +called back, and I led the child out into the hall, where her mother +gave a sharp glance from her to me, and wished me good-night rather +curtly. I stood at the door to watch them on their way to the cottage, +as they would not accept my escort; and through the keen air I +distinctly heard this question and answer-- + +'You want to get us turned out, to spend another winter like the last, +I suppose. What did you tell him about your father?' + +'Nothing, mother, nothing, indeed!----' + +The rest of the child's passionate answer I could not catch, as they +went farther away. But I wondered what the secret was that I had been +so near learning. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +I enjoyed that evening so much that I was quite ready to go through +another preparatory penance of smoking chimneys and general +topsyturveydom to have another like it. But Fate and Ferguson ruled +otherwise. I mentioned to him one day that I proposed inviting the +ladies again for the following evening, and he said nothing; but when +I made a state call on Mrs. Ellmer that afternoon, she brought forward +all sorts of unexpected excuses to avoid the visit. Circumstances had +made me too diffident to press the point, and I had to conclude, with +much mortification, that the sight of my ugly face for a whole +evening had been too distressing to their artistic eyes for them to +undergo such a trial again. They, however, invited me to dine with +them on Christmas Day, but I was too much hurt to accept the +invitation. It was not until long afterwards I found out that, on +learning my intention of giving another 'party,' my faithful Ferguson +had posted off to the cottage and informed Mrs. Ellmer that his poor +mother was so ill she could scarcely keep on her legs, and now master +had ordered another 'turn out,' and he expected it would 'do for her' +altogether. I only knew, then, that when I told him there was to be no +'party,' his wooden face relaxed into a faint but happy smile, and +that my feet ached to kick him. + +That winter was what we called mild up there, and it passed most +uneventfully for my tenants and for me. We saw very little of each +other since that chill to our friendship; but I soon began to find +that the little pale woman, who was too acid to excite as much liking +as she did pity and respect, had no idea of allowing the obligations +between us to lie all on one side. Under the masculine _regime_ which +had flourished in my household before the irruption of Mrs. Ellmer, +her daughter and Janet, the art of mending had been unknown and +ignored, and the science of cleaning my study had been neglected. With +regard to my own raiment, the Brass Age, or age of pins, succeeded the +Bone Age, or age of buttons, with unfailing regularity; and when, with +Janet, the Steel Age, or age of needles came in, I sometimes thought I +should prefer to go back to primitive barbarism and holes in my +stockings rather than hobble about with large lumps of worsted thread +at the corners of my toes,--which was the best result of a process +which the old lady called 'darning.' + +The road to Ballater was for weeks impassable with snowdrifts; no +possibility of replenishing one's wardrobe even from the village's +meagre resources. At last, being by this time lamer than any pilgrim, +I boldly cut out the lumps in my stockings, and thereby enlarged the +holes. This flying in the face of Providence must have been an awful +shock to Janet, for she related it to Mrs. Ellmer with some acrimony; +the result of this was that the active little woman overhauled my +wardrobe, and everything else in my house that was in need of repair +by the needle; she tried her hand successfully at some amateur +tailoring; she hunted out some old curtains, and by a series of +wonderful processes, which she assured me were very simple, +transformed them from crumpled rags into very handsome tapestry +hangings for a draughty corner of my study; she carried off my old +silver, piece by piece, and polished it up until, instead of wearing +the mouldy rusty hue of long neglect, it brightened the whole room +with its glistening whiteness. I believe this last work was a sacred +pleasure to her; Babiole said her mother cooed over the tankards and +embraced the punch-bowl. The way that woman made old things look like +new savoured of sorcery to the obtuse male mind. Ferguson would take +each transfigured article, neatly patched tablecloth, worn skin rug, +combed and cleaned to look like new, or whatever it might be, and hold +it at arm's length, squinting horribly the while, and then, with a +sigh of dismay at the disappearance of the old familiar rents, cast it +from him in disgust. The climax of his rage was reached when, one +evening at dinner, surprised by an unusually savoury dish, I sent a +message of congratulation to Janet. Like a Northern Mephistopheles, +his eyes flashed fire. + +'I didna know, sir, ye were so partial to kickshaws,' he said +haughtily, with the strong Scotch accent into which, on his return to +his native hills, he had allowed himself to relapse. + +I saw that I had made some fearful blunder, and said no more; but I +afterwards learned from Babiole, as a great secret, that her mother +had prevailed upon Janet to yield up her daily duties as cook as far +as my dinner was concerned; and my heart began to melt and soften as +the winter wore on, towards the strictly anonymous little chef who had +delivered me from the binding tyranny of haggis and cock-a-leekie. + +When the snow melted away from all but the tops of the hills, and +there came fresh little sprouts of pale green among the dark feather +foliage of the larches, a change came over the tiny household of my +tenants. From early morning until the sun began to sink low behind the +hills Babiole was never to be found at the cottage. Sometimes, +indeed, she would dash in at midday to dinner, as fresh and sweet as +an opening rose; but more often she would stay away until evening +began to creep on, taking with her a most frugal meal of a couple of +sandwiches and a piece of shortbread. Even that was shared with Ta-ta, +whom I encouraged to attend the venturesome little maiden on her long +rambles; the dog would follow her now as willingly as she did me, and +could be fierce enough upon occasion to prove a far from despicable +bodyguard; while I generally contrived to be about the grounds +somewhere when she started, and, having noted the direction she took, +I went that way for my morning ride. Often I passed them on the road, +the girl walking at a sort of dance, the dog leaping and springing +about her. At sight of me, Ta-ta would rush to her master, barking +with joy; then, seeing that I would not take the only sensible course +of allowing her to follow both her favourites together, she would run +from the one to the other, in delirious perplexed excitement, until by +a few words and gestures I let her know that her duty was with the +beauty and not the beast. + +Sometimes I would see the two climbing up a hill together, the collie +not more sure-footed than the child. Sometimes as I passed there would +be a great waving of handkerchief and wagging of tail from some high +cairn, to show me triumphantly how much more they dared than I, +trotting on composedly some hundreds of feet below. I was always +rather uneasy for the child, wandering to these lonely heights and +along such unfrequented roads without any companion but the dog; but +her mother, with the odd inconsistency which breaks out in the best of +us, could fear no danger to the girl from coarse peasant or steep +cliff, while against the wiles of the well-dressed she put her +strictly on her guard. As for the child herself, I could only tell her +to be careful of her footing on rugged Craigendarroch, the nearest, +the prettiest, the most dangerous of our higher hills: to tell her not +to wander whithersoever her fancy led her would have been like warning +a star not to mount so high in the sky. + +Then as evening fell and I began, like any old woman, to grow anxious, +I would hear Ta-ta's tired step in the hall outside my study, and a +scratching at my door which gave place to a piteous sniffing and +whining if I did not immediately rise to let her in. Then with a +gentle wag of the tail she would trot up to the hearthrug and lie +down, giving a sideways glance at To-to, who would hop down from his +perch and make a grab at her tail to punish her for gadding about, +and, finding that appendage out of reach, would sneak quietly back +again and resume his hunt for the flea who would never be caught, to +try to persuade us that his fruitless attempt had been a mere +inadvertency. How hard Ta-ta would try, when a nice plate of gristle +and potato at dinner time had revived her flagging energies, to +describe to me the events of the morning's walk! And how the sound of +a bright childish laugh from the kitchen would stimulate her +remembrance of that jolly run up-hill! I knew, though I said nothing, +that Babiole used to come across to find her mother, busy with my +dinner; and I could guess, from the altercations I often heard, that +the hungry girl stole her share, and laughed at any one who said her +nay. The dining-room always grew too hot when that bright laughter +penetrated to my ears, and I would say carelessly to Ferguson-- + +'You can leave the door open.' + +_He_ knew, you may be sure, why I liked to sit in a draught while +March winds were about; but the stern Scot, however much he might +still cherish enmity against the diabolical cleverness of the mother, +had had a corner of his flinty heart pulverised by the blooming child. + +And so the cold spring passed into cool summer, and I began to notice, +little as I saw of her, a change in the pretty maiden. As the season +advanced, her vivacity seemed to subside a little, her dancing walk to +give place to a more sedate step, while her rambles were often now +limited to a climb up Craigendarroch, which formerly would have been a +mere incident in the day's proceedings. I remarked upon this to Mrs. +Ellmer; for she and I had now, in our loneliness, become great chums. + +'Oh, don't you know?' said she, with her grating little laugh, +'Babiole's in love!' + +'In love!' said I slowly. 'A child like that!' + +'Oh, it's not a first attachment by any means,' said she, making merry +over my surprise, as she swung her little watering-pot with one hand, +and put her head on one side to admire a row of handsome gladioluses +which she had reared with some care. 'Her first, what you may call +serious passion, was at seven years old, two whole years later than my +earliest love. By the bye, Mr. Maude, I really must beg you to let me +make some cuttings from your rose-trees; I have two excellent briars +here, and I flatter myself I can graft as well as any gardener.' + +'You can do everything, Mrs. Ellmer,' said I gravely, with honest +gratitude and admiration. 'You can make cuttings from every tree in +the garden, if you please, and they will all hold their heads the +higher for it.' + +The poor lady liked a little bit of simple flattery, and indeed it by +no means now seemed out of place. The Highland air had brought the +pink colour back to her wan face, and brightened her eyes, so that one +now noticed with admiration the extreme delicacy of her features; +while the rest and the relief from worry had softened both her +careworn expression and the haggard outline of her face. She now, with +coquettish sprightliness, tapped my shoulder and shook her head to +show me that she had no faith in my blandishments. + +'Don't talk to me,' she said, but with a smile which contradicted the +prohibition; 'I'm too old for compliments, a woman with a grown-up +daughter!' + +Now I was quite glad to go back to the subject suggested by her last +words. + +'Who is the happy object of the young lady's preference?' I asked, +trying to speak in a tone of badinage, though indeed I thought Babiole +much too young and too pretty to bestow even the most make-believe +affection on any one north o' Tweed, or south of it either, for that +matter. + +'It's one of the young Duncans, at Fir Lodge; the pretty-looking lad +with the curly fair hair.' + +I gave a little 'hoch!' of disgust. A great freckle-faced lout of a +boy--I knew him! I remembered, too, that the Duncans had joined +heartily in a scandalised murmur, far-off sounds of which had reached +my ears, at the enormity of my bringing play-acting folk to my +Highland seraglio. With very few more words I left Mrs. Ellmer, more +put out than I cared to show. However, after looking angrily at the +rhododendrons in the drive for a little while, I happily remembered +that the annual visit of my four oddly-assorted friends was due +within a month, and that then I should have something more interesting +to occupy my mind than the flirtations of a couple of children. 'And +after that,' I said to myself, 'I think I shall set off on my +wanderings again for a little while, and the Ellmers can remain here +until they, too, are tired of it, and so we shall avoid any wrench +over the break-up.' That the break-up must come I knew, and, on the +whole, I felt that it had better come early than late--for me, at any +rate. + +I climbed up Craigendarroch next day, and every day for a week after; +I never met any one, and every time I was alarmed by the steepness of +those rocks to the south, where a poor young fellow who was out +fern-hunting fell down the perpendicular cliff one summer's day, and +was found a shapeless, lifeless heap four days after on the side of +the hill. He was a stranger, and might have lain there till his bones +whitened on the rocks and ferns among the young oak-trees, if a +couple of Ballater lads had not stumbled upon his body in their Sunday +walk, and called out all the village to see the sight. And these made +the most of the excitement in a singular way, holding a highly +decorous and Presbyterian wake, settling themselves in a business-like +manner like a flock of crows on the broken ground around the stone on +which the dead man, scarcely more silent and unconcerned than they, +held his mournful levee. This incident had already given a tragic +interest to the south side of the pretty hill; and although Babiole +knew the place well, and was as sure-footed and nimble as one of its +native squirrels, I felt anxious every day when there was no answer to +my call of 'Ta-ta! Ta-ta!' and was not satisfied until I had made the +circuit of the hill, pushed my way through the barriers of uprooted +firs with which the gales of early spring had encumbered the hillside +on the north, and going on in that direction, came to the bare and +almost precipitous slope which forms the southern wall of the Pass of +Ballater. + +On my eighth visit I heard a faint bark from the ridge of hill to the +north-west of the pass; considering this as a clue, I made my way down +Craigendarroch, across the meadows round Mona House, a white building +of simplest architecture, flanked by a garden where straight rows of +bright flowers looked quaintly picturesque against a dark background +of fir and hill. Crossing the road which ran at the foot of the ridge, +I began to climb. A rough steep path had here been worn among the +bracken, and was widened at every ascent by falls of loose soil and +stones. I knew what a pretty little nook there was at the top, just +the place where a lovelorn maid would delight to make a nest. The path +grew steeper than ever towards the top, and led suddenly to a grassy +hollow, one wall of which was a perpendicular gray cliff, broken by +narrow and inaccessible ridges on which slender little birch-trees +contrived to grow. On the opposite side the mossy ground sloped +gently, and the wild rabbits scurried about among the stumps of fallen +pines. + +I had only gone a few steps along the soft ground when I caught the +sound of a light girlish voice; it came from the miniature chasm at +the foot of the cliff. I wondered who the child was talking to. But as +I came nearer, hearing no voice but hers, I supposed she must be +reading aloud. + +'Oh no, Roderick,' at last I was close enough to hear, 'I love you +passionately, with the love one knows but once. But it is impossible +for me to do as you wish. You speak to me of your father; you urge +upon me that he would forgive my lowly birth, that he would welcome +to his ancestral halls the woman of your choice, whoever she might be. +But do not forget that I too have pride, that I too have a duty to +perform to my parents.' Then came a change of tone, and a sort of +practical parenthesis, hurried through quickly like a stage direction: +'I don't mean my father of course, because he was so clever that he +had to think of his art and wasn't like a father at all.' Then her +tone became sentimental again: 'But my mother--mamma is worthy to have +all the wealth of kings showered at her feet. She is beautiful, and +clever, and good; Mr. Maude--indeed everybody, admires and loves her. +No, Roderick, I will not allow my mother to become a mere +mother-in-law.' + +The bathos of the conclusion upset my gravity; I came close to the +edge of the pit and looked down. The little maid was not reading, but +was sitting by herself on a tree-trunk among the stones, with the dog +asleep on the edge of her frock, living in a world of her own, and +holding converse with the people there. I crept away as quietly as I +could and went back home in an amused but rather rapturous state: the +next time I saw my goddess, though, she was devouring slice after +slice of bread and jam with prosaic ravenousness at the kitchen door. + +And I concluded that at fourteen, even with a face like a flower and a +voice like a bird's, 'the love one knows but once' and perfect peace +of mind are not incompatible things. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +It was Fabian Scott who, being by his profession less of a free agent +than any other member of my little circle of friends, fixed the date +of their yearly visit. As soon as he made known to me the first day +when he would be free, I summoned the rest, and not one of them had +ever yet failed me. Fabian wrote to me this year, giving the fifteenth +of August as the day on which the closing of the theatre at which he +was playing would leave him free. + +The news of the expected arrivals quickly reached the ears of Mrs. +Ellmer, who came skipping along the garden towards me one morning +about a week before the visit, and attacked me at once with much +vivacity. + +'Aha!' she began, 'and so we were to be left in ignorance of the gay +doings, were we?' + +'If you allude to the meeting of half a dozen old fogeys on the +fifteenth, Mrs. Ellmer, I assure you I was coming to the cottage to +tell you about it. But we shall be about as sportive as a gathering of +the British Archaeological Association, and as we shall be out on the +moors all day, I am afraid you won't find the place much livelier than +usual. I think,' I added, coming to the pith of the matter with some +feeling of awkwardness, 'that you had better keep Miss Babiole +more--more with you, while--while the gentlemen are here. Or--or if +you would like a trip to the seaside we might see about a couple of +weeks at Muchalls or Stonehaven, and that would give us an +opportunity of--of having the cottage whitewashed, you know,' I +finished up, with a sudden gleam of tardy inventive genius. + +The fact was, I had begun to tingle at the thought of the merciless +'chaff'--as much worse to bear than slander as the stigma of fool is +than that of rogue--which the importation of my fair tenants would +bring down upon me. Besides, though my four visitors were all old +friends, and very good fellows, yet a pretty face may work such +Circe-like wonders, even in the best of us, that I thought it better +that our bachelor loneliness should be, as before, untempered by the +smiles of any woman lovelier than Janet. But Mrs. Ellmer, at my +hesitating suggestion, grew rigid and haughty. + +'Of course, Mr. Maude,' she said, 'if you wish now to make use of the +cottage my daughter and I have done our best to keep in order for you, +we shall be ready to pack up at any time. We can go to-morrow, if you +like. I have no doubt that I shall be able to find an opening for the +autumn season with some company.' + +'No, no, no!' interrupted I emphatically and with some impatience, +'Pray do not think of such a thing. There is plenty of room in my own +place for all my friends. My sole object in making the suggestion I +did was to prevent your being pestered with the attentions of a lot of +rough sportsmen, who, when they were tired of shooting, would find +nothing better to do than to worry you and Miss Babiole to death. And +you remember,' I ended, as a happy thought, 'how, when you came here, +you insisted on privacy.' + +'One may have too much even of such a good thing as one's own +society,' said she, with an affected little laugh. 'I think I could +bear a little attention now, with much equanimity, even from a +sportsman who "could find nothing better to do." Of course, I could +expect no more than that from gentlemen of such rank as your guests,' +she added, rather venomously. 'But for a change even that might be +acceptable.' + +Good heavens! The woman would not understand me. + +'But Babiole!' I suggested quietly. + +'Babiole is only a child; but even if she were not, a daughter of mine +would be perfectly able to take care of herself, Mr. Maude.' + +After this snub, I could only bow and take myself off, spending the +interval before my guests' arrival in schooling myself for the +approaching ordeal. + +The first to arrive on the fifteenth were Lord Edgar Normanton and Mr. +Richard Fussell, the latter, anxious to make the most of his annual +taste of rank and fashion, having lain in wait for the former at +King's Cross, and insisted on bearing him company during the entire +journey. I met them at Ballater station at 2.15 in the afternoon, and +was sorry to hear from Edgar, who never looked otherwise than the +picture of robust health, and who was, moreover, getting fat, that he +was far from well. + +'I tell his lordship that he should take rowing exercise. Nothing like +a good pull every day on the river to keep a man in condition,' urged +Mr. Fussell, who was fifty inches round what had once been his waist, +and who seemed to radiate health and happiness. + +They informed me that Fabian Scott had also travelled up by the night +mail, but in another compartment; so I went to meet the train, which +came into Ballater at 5.50, and found both Fabian and Mr. Maurice +Browne disputing so violently that they had forgotten to get out. +Fabian had indeed taken advantage of the stopping of the train to +stride up and down the confined area of the railway carriage, +gesticulating violently with his hatbox, rug, gun, and various other +unconsidered trifles. I guessed that they could only have travelled +together from Aberdeen, for there had been no bloodshed. They had been +having a little discussion on realism in art, of which Maurice Browne +was an ardent disciple. They were still hard at it, in terms unfit for +publication, when I mounted the step and put my head in at the window. +Excitable Fabian, with his keen eyes still flashing indignation with +'exotic filth,' shook my hand till he brought on partial paralysis of +that member, while he fired a last shot into his less erratic +opponent. + +'No, sir,' he protested vehemently, 'I deny neither your ability nor +your good faith, nor those of your French master; but I have the same +objection to the fictions of your school, as works of art, as I +should have to the performance of a play written by cripples for +cripples. It would be a curiosity, sir, and might attract crowds of +morbid-minded people, besides cripples; but it would be none the less +a disgusting and degraded exhibition, antagonistic to nature and +truth, to which the feeblest "virtue victorious and vice vanquished" +melodrama would be as day unto night. With minds attuned to low +thoughts, you seek for low things, and degrade them still further by +your treatment. You have a philosophy, I admit, sir, but it is the +philosophy of the hog.' + +And, having poured out this persuasive little harangue with such +volubility that not even an Irishman could get in a word edgeways, +Fabian allowed himself to be enticed on to the platform, and began +asking me questions about myself with childlike affection. Maurice +Browne followed, somewhat refreshed by this torrent of abuse, since +the aim of his literary ambition was rather to scandalise than to +convince. He was tall, thin, and unhealthy-looking, with a pallid face +and pink-rimmed eyes, and an appearance altogether unfortunate in the +propagator of a new cult. I believe he was, on the whole, fonder of me +than Fabian was. My disastrous ugliness appealed to his distaste for +the beautiful, and having once, as a complete stranger, very +generously come to my aid in a difficulty, he felt ever after the +natural and kindly human liking for a fellow-creature who has given +one an opportunity of posing as the deputy of God. These two +gentlemen, with their strong and aggressive opinions, formed the +disturbing element in our yearly meeting, and, each being always at +deadly feud with somebody else, might be reckoned on to keep the fun +alive. Both talked to me, and me alone, on our way to the house, with +such sly hits at one another as their wit or their malice could +suggest. Fabian raved about the effects of descending sun on heather +and pine-covered hills, Maurice Browne bemoaned the stony poverty of +the cottages, and opined that constant intermarriages between the +inhabitants had reduced the scanty population to idiots. Then Fabian +told me how many inquiries had been made about me by old +acquaintances, who still hoped I would some day return from the wilds, +and Maurice instantly tempered my satisfaction by asking me if I had +heard that the Earl of Saxmundham was going to divorce his wife. The +question gave me a great shock, not so much on account of the blow it +dealt at an old idol still conventionally enthroned in my memory as +the last love of my life, as because I knew how much distress such a +report must cause to poor old Edgar. + +I was quite relieved, on entering the drive, to meet my stalwart +friend and his faithful companion, both very merry over some joke +which had already made Mr. Fussell purple in the face. On seeing us +they burst out laughing afresh. I guessed what the joke was. + +'Deuced lonely up here, isn't it?' said Mr. Fussell to me. 'No +society, nothing but books, books,--except for one short fortnight in +the year. Eh, Maude?' + +'Eh? eh? what's this?' said Fabian. + +'His only books are woman's looks, and I wonder they didn't teach him +the folly of bringing a band of gay and dashing cavaliers to read them +too,' said Edgar. + +Fabian turned slowly round to me, with a look of extreme pain, and +shook his head mournfully. + +'Oh, what a tangled web we weave,' he murmured sorrowfully, and then +began to dance the Highland fling, with his rug tartanwise over his +shoulder. + +Maurice Browne gravely cocked his hat, pulled down his cuffs, buttoned +up his coat, and requesting Edgar to carry his bag, proceeded up the +drive with his hands in his pockets, whistling. + +In fact the whole quartett had given themselves up to ribald gaiety at +my expense, and my explanation that I had merely given a poor lady and +her daughter shelter for the winter in an unused cottage only provoked +another explosion. It was understood that at these bachelor meetings +all rules of social decorum should be scrupulously violated, so there +was nothing for it but to join in the mirth with the best grace I +could. + +'You know who it is,' I said, half aside, to Fabian, hoping to turn +him at least into an ally. 'It's poor little Mrs. Ellmer, the wife of +that drunken painter.' + +But Fabian was flinty. Turning towards the rest, with his expiring +Romeo expression, he wailed: 'Oh, gentlemen, he is adding insult to +injury; he is loading with abuse the bereaved husband of this lady to +whom he has given shelter for the winter!' + +'Which winter? How much winter?' asked the others. + +The more they saw that I was getting really pained by their chaff the +worse it became, until Fabian, stalking gravely up to Ferguson, who +stood on the doorstep, pointed tragically in the direction of nowhere +in particular, and said, in a sepulchral voice-- + +'You are a Scotchman, so am I. I have been pained by stories of +orgies, debaucheries, and general goings on in this neighbourhood. +Tell me, on your word as a fellow-countryman, can these gentlemen and +myself, as churchwardens and Sunday-school teachers, enter this house +without loss of self-respect?' + +'I dinna ken aboot self-respect, gentlemen; but if you don't come in, +ye'll stand the loss of a varra good dinner,' answered Ferguson, with +a welcoming twinkle in his eyes. + +'I am satisfied,' said Fabian, entering precipitately. + +And the rest followed without scruple. + +At dinner, to my relief, they found other subjects for their tongues +to wag upon; for Maurice Browne, never being satisfied long with any +topic but literary 'shop,' brought realism up again, and there ensued +a triangular battle. For Edgar, who, now that he had passed the age +and weight for cricket, had grown distressingly intellectual, was an +ardent admirer of the modern American school of fiction in which +nothing ever happens, and in which nobody is anything in particular +for long at a time. He hungrily devoured all the works of that +desperately clever gentleman who maintains that 'a woman standing by a +table is an incident,' and looked down from an eminence of six feet +two of unqualified disdain on the 'battle, murder, and sudden death' +school on the one hand, and on the 'all uncleanness' school on the +other. Not at all crushed by his scorn, Fabian retorted by calling the +American school the 'School of Foolish Talking,' and the battle raged +till long past sundown, Mr. Fussell and I watching the case on behalf +of the general reader, and passing the decanters till the various +schools all became 'mixed schools.' + +At this point a diversion was created by a fleeting view caught +through the door by Fabian, of Janet carrying dishes away to the +kitchen. He heaved a sigh of relief, and, with upturned eyes, breathed +gently, 'I would trust him another winter!' + +I had bought a piano at Aberdeen, as Fabian had spread a report that +he could play, while all my guests nursed themselves in the belief +that they could sing. The instrument had been placed in a corner of my +study against the wall. But the Philistinism of this so shocked Fabian +that he instantly directed its removal into the middle of the room. +This necessitated a re-disposal of most of the furniture. The centre +table was piled high with my private papers. Fabian looked hastily +through these, and, observing, 'I don't see anything here we need +keep,' tumbled them all into the grate where the fire, indispensable +as evening draws on in the Highlands, was burning. Mechanically, I +saved what I could, while Fabian's subversive orders were being +carried out round me. After a few minutes' hard work, all my favourite +objects were out of sight. Maurice Browne was reclining comfortably in +my own particular chair, and most of the rest of the seats having +been turned out into the hall as taking up too much room, I had to sit +upon To-to's kennel. The curtains were also pulled down in deference +to a suggestion of Browne's that they interfered with the full sound +of the voice, but I wished they had been left up when the caterwauling +began. + +Mr. Fussell led off with 'The Stirrup Cup,' in deference to his being +the eldest of the party, and also to purchase his non-intervention +when the other performers should begin. It was some time before he got +a fair start, being afflicted with hoarseness, which he attributed to +the Highland air, and the rest unanimously to the Highland whiskey. +When at last he warmed to his work, however, and said complacently +that he was 'all right' now, they must have heard him at Aberdeen. He +had a good baritone voice, the value of which was discounted by his +total ignorance of the art of singing, his imperfect acquaintance with +both the time and the words of his songs, and his belief that the +louder one shouted the better one sang. When at last, crimson and +panting, but proud of himself, he sat down amid the astonished +comments of the company on the strength of the roof, Maurice Browne +wailed forth in a cracked voice a rollicking Irish song to the +accompaniment of 'Auld Robin Gray'; Fabian followed with no voice at +all, but no end of expression, in a pathetic lovesong of his own +composition, during which everybody went to look for some cigars he +had in his overcoat pocket. I refused altogether to perform, and +nobody pressed me; but I had my revenge. When Edgar, strung up to do +or die, asked Fabian to accompany him with 'The Death of Nelson,' and +rose with the modest belief that he should astonish them with a very +fine bass, the first note was a deep-mouthed roar that broke down the +last twig of our forbearance, and we all rose as one man and declared +that we had had music enough. Poor Ta-ta, who had been turned out of +the room at the beginning of the concert for emulating the first +singer by a prolonged howl, was let in again, and relief having been +given to everybody's artistic yearnings, we ended the evening with +smoke and peace. + +Next morning we were all early on the moors, where we distinguished +ourselves in various ways. Fabian, who worked himself into a fearful +state of excitement over the sport, shot much and often, but brought +home nothing at all, and thanked Heaven, when calmness returned with +the evening hours, for keeping his fellow-creatures out of the range +of his wild gun. Maurice Browne made a good mixed bag of a hedgehog, a +pee-wit, and a keeper's leg, and then complained that shooting was +monotonous work. Edgar worked hard and gravely, but was so slow that +for the most part the grouse were out of sight before he fired. Mr. +Fussell did better, and attributed every failure to bring down his +bird to his 'd----d glasses,' upon which Fabian hastened to ask him if +he meant the glasses of the night before. + +However, everybody but the keeper who was shot, declared himself +delighted with the day's sport; but on the following morning Fabian +and Maurice Browne seceded from the party and amused themselves, the +former by sketching, the latter by learning by heart, by means of +chats with ostlers and shopkeepers, the _chronique scandaleuse_ of the +neighbourhood; in the evening he triumphantly informed me that the +morals of the lowest haunts in Paris were immaculate, compared to +those of my simple Highland village. I am afraid this startling +revelation had less effect upon me than a little incident which I +witnessed next day. + +I had been congratulating myself upon the fact that, though all my +visitors vied with each other in attentions to Mrs. Ellmer, who had +become, under the influence of this sudden rush of admirers, gayer and +giddier than ever, they looked upon Babiole, as her mother had +prophesied, merely as a little girl and of no account. But on the +morning referred to, I came upon Fabian and the child together in my +garden at the foot of the hill. He was fastening some roses in the +front of her blue cotton frock, and when he had done so, and stepped +back a few paces to admire the effect, he claimed a kiss as a reward +for his trouble. She gave it him shyly but simply. She was only a +child, of course, and his little sweetheart of six years ago; and the +blush that rose in her cheeks when she caught sight of me was no sign +of self-consciousness, for her colour came and went at the faintest +emotion of surprise or pleasure. As for Fabian, he drew her hand +through his arm, and came skipping towards me like a stage peasant. + +'We're going to be married, Babiole and I, as soon as we've saved up +money enough,' said he. + +And the child laughed, delighted with this extravagant pleasantry. + +But, though I laughed too, I didn't see any fun in it at all; for the +remembrance that the time would come when this little blossom of youth +and happiness and all things fresh and sweet would be plucked from the +hillside, was not in the least amusing to me. And when this young +artist proceeded to devote his mornings to long rambles with 'the +child,' and his afternoons to making sketches of 'the child,' I +thought his attentions would be much better bestowed on a grown-up +person. But as Mrs. Ellmer saw nothing to censure in all this I could +not interfere. It spoilt my yearly holiday for me, though, in an +unaccountable fashion; and when at the end of a fortnight my guests +went away, no regrets that I felt at their departure were so keen as +my ridiculous annoyance on seeing that Fabian's farewell kiss to his +little sweetheart left the child in tears. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +With the departure of my summer visitors, a gloom fell upon us all at +Larkhall. Mrs. Ellmer missed her admirers and grew petulant; Babiole +had discovered some new haunt and was never to be found; while I felt +the wanderer's fever growing strong upon me again. Fabian Scott had +cleared up the little mystery concerning the husband and father of my +tenants. It appeared that Mr. Ellmer, while neglecting and ill-using +his wife without scruple when she was under the same roof with him, +was subject to strong fits of conjugal devotion when two or three +months of hard work, away from him, gave him reason to think that she +would be in possession of a few pounds of carefully-gleaned savings, +while he, her lawful and once adored husband, did not know where to +turn for a glass of beer. During the winter before I found them in +Aberdeen some friends with whom both mother and child had taken refuge +from his drunken fury had had to pay him a heavy ransom for their +kindness, besides exposing themselves to the inconvenience of having +their house mobbed and their windows broken whenever the tender +husband and father, having exhausted the tribute paid to keep him in +the public-house, bethought himself of this new way of calling +attention to his wrongs. + +Fabian told me that a few weeks back he had been accosted in the +Strand by Mr. Ellmer, who was looking more tattered and dissipated +than ever. This gentleman had experienced great concern at the total +disappearance of his wife, had asked Fabian's advice as to the best +means of finding her, and had finally let out his conviction that she +was 'doing well for herself,' in a tone of bitter indignation. Fabian +had said nothing of this meeting to Mrs. Ellmer, being, both for her +sake and for mine, anxious not to touch those strings of sentiment +which, in the better kind of women, sound so readily for the most +good-for-nothing of husbands. + +Already Mrs. Ellmer had begun to allude with irritating frequency to +the talents and noble qualities of her 'poor husband,' whom it was the +fashion among us all to consider as the 'victim of art,' as if art had +been a chronic disease. This fiction had gone on expanding and +developing until the illustrious artist, to whom absence was so +becoming, had eclipsed the entire Royal Academy, and had become to his +wife a source of legitimate pride which, if touching by its naivete, +was also wearisome by its excess. + +Between proud reminiscences of her husband and happy memories of her +late flirtations with Mr. Fussell and Mr. Browne, Mrs. Ellmer was +rather disposed to treat me and my modest friendship as of small +account. So the worm turned at last, by which I mean that I spent my +days deer-stalking, grouse-shooting, and salmon-fishing, and my +evenings with To-to, Ta-ta, and my books. This estrangement helped me +to make up my mind to leave Larkhall for Italy before the winter came +on, and a sharp frost in the last days of October sent me off to +Aberdeen to make inquiries about my proposed journey. I would install +Mrs. Ellmer and her daughter at the Hall, if they cared to remain, so +that, at any rate, they would be housed out of harm's--that is, Mr. +Ellmer's--way for the winter. + +Janet had particularly entreated me to be back early, as there had +been ghostly noises of late in the region of the drawing-room; and +though her braw laddie, John, was ample protection against bodily +intruders, yet, in the case of wraiths, though I only rented the +place, and therefore could have no family influence with the spirits +of departed owners, I was likely, through my superior social standing, +to get a better hearing from the phantoms of gentlefolk than the +staunchest man-servant could hope to do. + +It was past six, and already dark, when I came back and went into the +study, attracted by sounds of a very elementary performance on the +piano. But there was perfect silence as I entered, and no human +creature to be seen. Ta-ta, however, was hovering about near the +piano, now replaced in its original position in a corner against the +wall. I suspected the identity of the musical ghost, and quietly +seated myself by the fireplace to see what would happen. First, Ta-ta +ran excitedly backwards and forwards between me and the other side of +the table; then slight sounds as of stealthy creeping feet and hands +were followed by a fleeting apparition of a female figure on all fours +between the table and the screen. + +'What are you running away for?' I asked, very gently. + +Babiole was so much startled by the voice that she reappeared +involuntarily, on her feet this time, from behind the screen. + +'I beg your pardon, Mr. Maude, indeed I'm very sorry,' she began, 'I +didn't think you would be in so soon.' + +'And what have I done that you should be so sorry to see me?' + +'Oh no, I didn't mean that. I'm not sorry to see you, I'm always glad +to, only we never do now, you know, and I thought perhaps you would +be angry at my coming into your study,' said she, recovering +confidence, as she saw that I was not displeased. + +'Oh, so you took advantage of my being away to do what you thought I +should not like?' + +I spoke playfully, but Babiole hung her head. + +'Well, what have you got to say for yourself?' + +After a few moments' silence she raised her head, staring before her +with the fixed and desperate earnestness of a sensitive young creature +who thinks the slightest blame a terrible thing to bear. + +'I don't believe it was so very wrong,' she said at last. 'I was so +very careful; I took off my boots that I had been out on the hills in, +and put on clean shoes, not to hurt the carpet; and I just put down +the notes so lightly I could not have hurt the piano, and I washed my +hands before touching the books.' + +'The books! What books have you been touching?' + +'Oh, I took down several; but I couldn't read all, because they were +not English.' + +This was satisfactory as far as it went; but then the best English +authors are considered scarcely more suitable reading for 'the young +person' than the worst French ones. + +'And which do you like best of the English ones?' + +'I like one I found yesterday, all letters from different people, with +the s's like f's.' + +I poked the fire into a blaze, and led the girl back to the +book-shelves. + +'Now, show me which one you mean.' + +She hesitated, and looked at me, at first suspecting some trap. As I +waited quietly, she at last timidly touched a volume of _The Tattler_. +I pointed to a modern 'popular novel,' with a picture-cover and +popular title, which was among the lumber of the shelves. + +'Have you read that?' + +'Yes,' indifferently. + +'Didn't you like that better than _The Tattler_?' + +'Oh no!' indignantly. + +'Why not? It is all about an actress.' + +'An actress!' contemptuously. 'It isn't like any of the actresses I've +ever met. It's a silly book.' + +'Is there any other book you like?' + +'Oh yes. I like these.' She passed her hand lovingly over a row--not +an unbroken row, of course--of solid-looking calf-bound volumes, full +of old-fashioned line engravings of British scenery, the text +containing a discursive account of the places illustrated, enlivened +by much historical information, apocryphal anecdote, and old-world +scandal. 'And _Jane Eyre_, and this.' 'This' was an illustrated +translation of _Don Quixote_. 'Oh, and I like _Clarissa Harlowe_ and +that book with the red cover.' + +'_Ivanhoe?_' + +'Oh yes, _Ivanhoe_,' she repeated carefully after me. Evidently, as in +the case of _Don Quixote_, she had been uncertain how to pronounce the +title. + +'And these?' I pointed, one by one, to some modern novels. 'Don't you +like any of these?' Already I began to be alarmed at the extent of her +reading. + +'Yes, I like some of them--pretty well.' + +'Why do you like _Don Quixote_ and _Ivanhoe_ better?' + +She considered for a long time, her blue eyes fixed thoughtfully on +the shelves. + +'I think I feel more as if they'd really happened.' + +'But when you were reading _Armadale_, didn't you feel as if that had +happened?' + +'Oh yes,' with a flash of excitement. 'One night I couldn't sleep, +because I thought of it so much.' + +'Then you thought as much about it as about _Ivanhoe_?' + +'Ye-es, but----' A pause. 'I thought about _Ivanhoe_ because I wanted +to, and I thought about _Armadale_ because I couldn't help it.' + +I went on asking her what she had read, and I own that I dare not give +the list. But her frank young mind had absorbed no evil, and when I +asked her how she liked one famous peccant hero, she answered quite +simply-- + +'I liked him very much--part of the book. And when he did wrong +things, I was always wanting to go to him, and tell him not to be so +wicked and silly; and then, oh! I was so glad when he reformed and +married Sophia.' + +'But he wasn't good enough for her.' + +'Ah, but then he was a man!' Her tone implied '_only_ a man.' + +'Then you think women are better than men?' + +'I think they ought to be.' + +'Why?' + +'Well, men have to work, and women have only to be good.' + +I was surprised at this answer. + +'That is not true always. Your mother is a very good woman, and has +had to work very hard indeed.' + +'But mamma's an exception; she says so. And she says it's very hard to +work as she does, and be good too.' + +I could scarcely help laughing, though it was pretty to see how +innocently the young girl had taken the querulous speech. + +'Well, and then I'm a man, and I don't have to work.' + +'Perhaps that's why you're so good.' + +I was so utterly astonished at this naive speech that I had nothing to +say. The blood rushed to the girl's face; she was afraid she had been +rude. + +'How do you know that I am good, Babiole?' I asked gently. + +But this was taxing her penetration too much. + +'I don't know,' she answered shyly. + +'Why do you think people are better when they don't work?' + +She looked at me, and was reassured that I was not offended. + +'Well, sometimes when mamma has been working very hard--not now, you +know; but it used to be like that--she used to say things that hurt +me, and made me want to cry. And then I used to look at her poor tired +face and say to myself, "It's the hard work and not mamma that says +those things;" and then, of course, I did not mind. And when you have +once had to work too hard, you never get over it as you do over other +things.' + +'What other things?' + +'Oh--fancies and--and things like that.' + +'Love troubles?' + +She looked up at me with a shy, sideways glance that was full of the +most perfectly unconscious witchery. + +'Yes, mamma says they're nonsense.' + +'She liked nonsense, too, once.' + +Babiole looked up at me with the delight of a common perception. + +'Yes, I've often thought that. And then all men are not like----' + +She stopped short. + +'Papa?' + +She shook her head. 'One mustn't say that. One must make allowances +for clever people, mamma says.' + +'You will be clever, too, some day, if you go on reading and thinking +about what you read.' + +'No, I don't want to be clever; it makes people so selfish. But,' with +a sigh, 'I wish I knew something, and could play and sing and read all +those books that are not English.' + +'Shall I teach you French?' + +'Will you? Oh, Mr. Maude!' + +I think she was going to clap her hands with delight, but remembered +in time the impropriety of such a proceeding. Four o'clock next day +was fixed as the hour for the first lesson, and in the meantime I made +another journey to Aberdeen to provide myself with a whole library of +French grammars and other elementary works. + +At four o'clock Babiole made her appearance, very scrupulously combed +and washed, and wearing the air of intense seriousness befitting such +a matter as the beginning of one's education. This almost broke down, +however, under the glowing excitement of taking a phrase-book into +one's hand, and repeating after me, 'Good-day, _bon-jour_; How do you +do? _Comment vous portezvous?_' and a couple of pages of the same +kind. Then she wrote out the verb 'To have' in French and English; and +her appetite for knowledge not being yet quenched, she then learnt and +wrote down the names of different objects round us, some of which, I +regret to say, her master had to find out in the dictionary, not being +prepared to give off-hand the French for 'hearthrug,' letter-weight,' +and 'wainscoting.' We then went through the names of the months and +the seasons of the year, after which, surfeited with information, she +gave a little sigh of completed bliss, and, looking up at me, said +simply that she thought that was as much as she could learn perfectly +by to-morrow. I thought it was a great deal more, but did not like to +discourage her by saying so. I had much doubt about my teaching, +having been plunged into it suddenly without having had time to +formulate a method; but then I was convinced that by the time I felt +more sure of my powers my pupil's zeal would have melted away, and I +should have no one to experimentalise upon. As soon as I had assured +her that she had done quite enough for the first lesson, Babiole rose, +collected the formidable pile of books, her exercise-book, and the pen +I had consecrated to her use, and asked me where she should keep them. +We decided upon a corner of the piano as being a place where they +would not be in my way, Babiole having a charmingly feminine reverence +for the importance of even the most frivolous occupations of the +stronger sex. After this she thanked me very gravely and prettily for +my kindness in teaching her, and hastened away, evidently in the +innocent belief that I must be anxious to be alone. + +What a light the bright child seemed to have left in the musty room! I +began to smile to myself at the remembrance of her preternatural +gravity, and Ta-ta put her forepaws on my knees and wagged her tail +for sympathy. I thought it very probable that Mrs. Ellmer would +interfere to prevent the girl's coming again, or that Babiole's +enthusiasm for learning would die out in a day or two, and I should be +left waiting for my pupil with my grammars and dictionaries on my +hands. + +However, she reappeared next day, absolutely perfect in the verb +_avoir_, the months, the seasons, and the pages out of the +phrase-book. When I praised her she said, with much warmth-- + +'I could have learnt twice as many phrases if I'd known how to +pronounce them!' + +In fact, beginning to learn at an age when she was able to understand, +and impelled by a strong sense of her own deficiencies, she learnt so +fast and so well that her education soon became the strongest interest +of my life, and when my fear that she would tire had worn away, I gave +whole hours to considering what I should teach her, and to preparing +myself for her lessons. As winter drew on, the darkening days gave us +both the excuse we wanted for longer working hours. From three to +half-past six we now sat together in the study, reading, writing, +translating. When I found her willing I had added Latin to her +studies, and we diligently plodded through a course of reading +arbitrarily marked out by me, and followed by my pupil with +enthusiastic docility. + +All thoughts of leaving Ballater for the winter had now disappeared +from my mind. I was happier in my new occupation than I remembered to +have been before, and as I saw spring approaching, I regretted the +short days, which had been brighter to me than midsummer. + +'I mustn't keep you indoors so long now, Babiole,' I said to her one +afternoon in the first days of April. 'I have been making you work too +hard lately, and you must go and get back your roses on the hills.' + +I saw the light come over the girl's face as she looked out of the +window, and, with a pang of self-reproach, I felt that, in spite of +herself, the earnest little student had been waiting eagerly for some +such words as these. + +'O--h--h,' she whispered, in a long-drawn breath of pleasure, 'it must +be lovely up among the pine-woods now!' + +I said nothing, and she turned round to me with a mistrustful +inquiring face. I went on looking over an exercise she had written, as +if absorbed in that occupation. But the little one's perceptions were +too keen for me. She was down on her knees on the floor beside my +chair in a moment, with a most downcast face, her eyes full of tears. + +'Oh, Mr. Maude, what an ungrateful little wretch you must think me!' + +I was so much moved that I could not take her pretty apology quietly. +I burst out into a shout of laughter. + +'Why, Babiole, you must think me an ogre! You don't really imagine I +wanted to keep you chained to the desk all the summer!' + +She took my hand in both of hers and stroked it gently. + +'I would rather never go on the hills again than seem ungrateful to +you, Mr. Maude.' + +'Ungrateful, child! You don't know how your little sunbeam face has +brightened this old room.' + +'Has it, really?' She seemed pleased, but rather puzzled. 'Well, I'm +very glad, but that doesn't make it any the less kind of you to teach +me.' + +'There has been no kindness at all on my side, I assure you.' + +She shook her head, and her curly hair touched my shoulder. + +'Yes, there has, and I like to think that there has. Nobody knows how +good you are but Ta-ta and me; we often talk about you when we're out +together, don't we, Ta-ta?' + +The collie wagged her tail violently, taking this little bit of +affectionate conversation as a welcome relief to the monotony of our +studies. + +'Well, I shall leave Ta-ta with you, then, to keep my memory green +while I'm away.' + +'Away! Are you going away?' + +'Yes. I am going to Norway for the summer.' + +I could not tell exactly when I made up my mind to this, but I know +that I had had no intention of the kind when Babiole came into my +study that afternoon. She remained quite silent for a few minutes. +Then she asked softly-- + +'When will you come back, Mr. Maude?' + +'Oh, about--September, I think.' + +'The place won't seem the same without you.' + +'Why, child, when you are about on the hills I never see you.' + +'No, but--but I always have a feeling that the good genius is about, +and--do you know, I think I shall be afraid to take such long walks +alone with Ta-ta when you're not here!' + +My heart went out to the child. With a passionate joy in the innocent +trust one little human creature felt towards me, the outcast, I was on +the point of telling her, as carelessly as I could, that I had not +quite made up my mind yet, when she broke the spell as unwittingly as +she had woven it. + +'Oh, Mr. Maude,' she cried, with fervent disappointment; 'then your +friends--Mr. Scott--and the rest--they won't come here this year?' + +'No,' said I coolly, but with no sign of the sudden chill her words +had given me, 'I shall invite them to Norway this year.' + +Before April was over I had installed Mrs. Ellmer as caretaker at +Larkhall, and, with Ferguson at my heels, had set out on my wanderings +again. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +If I went away to appease the restlessness which had attacked me so +suddenly, to persuade myself that the secret of happiness for me lay +in never remaining long in the same place, I succeeded badly. + +It was not until I was three hundred miles away from them that I began +fully to appreciate the joys of domestic life with To-to and Ta-ta, +the comfort of being able to keep my books together, the supreme +blessing of sitting every evening in the same arm-chair. I was +surprised by this at first, till I reflected that the very loneliness +of my life was bound to bring middle age upon me early. There was a +period of each day which I found it very hard to get through; whether +in Paris, enjoying coffee and cigarette at a cafe on the boulevards, +or in Norway, watching the sunset on some picturesque fiord, when the +day began to wane I grew restless, and, referring aimlessly to my +watch again and again, could settle down to nothing till the last rays +of daylight had faded away. + +My four friends, when they joined me for our yearly holiday, all +decided that something was wrong, but that was as far as they could +agree. For while both Fabian and Edgar said that it was 'liver,' the +former recommended camel-exercise in the Soudan, the latter would hear +of nothing but porridge and Strathpeffer. And though both the fat Mr. +Fussell and the lean Mr. Browne leaned to the sentimental view that +love and Mrs. Ellmer were at the root of my malady, the latter +suggested that to shut Mr. Ellmer up with a hogshead of new whisky and +then to marry his widow would quench my passion effectually, while Mr. +Fussell, with an indescribable smile, told me to go back to Paris and +'enjoy myself'; and, if I didn't know how, I was to take him. + +I did none of these things, however, but after my friends had returned +to England, I wandered about until late October. But when the days +grew short again, the home-hunger grew irresistibly strong, and I went +back to the Highlands, as a gambler goes back to the cards. Of course +I knew what took me there, just when the hills were growing bleak, and +the deer had gone to their winter retreat in the forests. I wanted to +see that girl's face in my study again, to hear the young voice that +rang with youth and happiness and every quality that makes womanhood +sweet and loveworthy in a man's mind. She might conjugate Latin verbs +or tell me her young girl love affairs, as she had done sometimes with +ringing laughter, but I must hear her voice again. + +So I arrived at Ballater without warning, and leaving Ferguson at the +station to order a fly and come on with my luggage, I walked to +Larkhall in the dusk. There was a lamp in the study; I could see it +plainly enough, for the blind was not drawn down. I saw a figure pass +between the window and the light; in another minute the front door +opened, and Ta-ta rushed at me, leaping on to my shoulders, and +barking joyously; while Babiole herself, scarcely less fleet of foot, +seized both my hands, crying in joyous welcome-- + +'Mr. Maude! Mr. Maude! Mr. Maude!' + +I said, 'How are you? I hope you are quite well. Isn't it cold?' But, +indeed, no furnace-fire could have sent such a glow through my veins +as the warm-hearted pressure of the girl's hands. + +'Do you know, I have a sort of feeling that I _knew_ you were coming +to-day? The Scotch believe in second sight; perhaps it's a gift of the +country. I've had all day a presentiment that something was going to +happen--something _nice_, you know; and just now, before you were near +enough for me to hear your step, some impulse made me get up and look +out of the window. And, Mr. Maude, don't you believe mamma if she says +Ta-ta moved first, because she didn't; it was I. There's always +something in the air before the good genius appears, you know.' + +And she laughed very happily as she led me in and gravely introduced +me to her mother. Both had been knitting stockings for me, and I +thought the study had never looked so warm or so home-like as it did +with their work-baskets and wools about, and with these two good +little women making kindly welcoming uproar around me. To-to broke his +chain, and climbed up on my shoulder, snarling and showing his teeth +jealously at Babiole. The delighted clamour soothed my ears as no +prima donna's singing had ever done. That evening I could have +embraced Mrs. Ellmer with tenderness. + +Next day I was alone in the drawing-room, the ladies having given up +possession of the Hall and returned to the cottage, when I heard +footsteps at the open door and a voice-- + +'May I come in, Mr. Maude?' + +'Certainly.' + +I was busy putting up two paintings of Norwegian scenery in place of +the portraits of Lady Helen, which were on the ground against the +wall. On seeing my occupation, Babiole uttered a short cry of surprise +and dismay. I said nothing, but put my head on one side to see if one +of my new pictures was hung straight. At last she spoke-- + +'Oh, Mr. Maude!' was all she said, in a tone of timid reproach. + +'Well.' + +'You're not going to take her down after all this time?' + +'You see I have taken her down.' + +'Oh, why?' It was not curiosity; it was entreaty. + +'Don't you think she's been up there long enough?' + +'If you were the woman and she were the man you wouldn't say that.' + +'What should I say?' + +'You would say, "He's been up there so long that, whatever he's done, +he may as well stay there now."' + +'That would be rather contemptuous tolerance, wouldn't it?' + +'But the picture wouldn't know that; and if the original should ever +grow sorry for all the harm she--he had done, it would be something to +know that the picture still hung there just the same.' + +The story must have leaked out, then--the first part through Fabian, +probably, and the rest through the divorce court columns of the daily +papers. I said nothing in answer to the girl's pleadings, but I +restored the portraits to their old places with the excuse that the +landscapes would look better in the dining-room. + +Our studies began again that very afternoon. Babiole had forgotten +nothing, though work had, of course, grown slack during the hot days +of the summer. She had had another and rather absorbing love affair, +too, the details of which I extracted with the accompaniment of more +blushes than in the old days. + +'We shall have you getting married and flying away from us altogether, +I suppose, now, before we know where we are.' + +'No,' she protested stoutly, 'I'm not going to marry; I am going to +devote myself to art.' + +Upon this I made her fetch her sketch-book, after promising 'not to +tell mamma,' who might well be forgiven for a prejudice against any +more members of her family sacrificing themselves to this Juggernaut. +The sketches were all of fir and larch-tree, hillside and rippling +stony Dee; some were in pencil, some in water-colour; there was love +in every line of each of the little pictures, and there was something +more. + +'Why, Babiole, you're going to be a great artist, I believe,' I cried, +as I noticed the vigour of the outlines, the imaginative charm of the +treatment of her favourite corners of rock and forest. + +'Oh no, not that,' she said deprecatingly. 'If I can be only a little +one I shall be satisfied. I should never dare to draw the big hills. +When I get on those hills along the Gairn and see the peaks rising the +one behind the other all round me, I feel almost as if I ought to fall +on my knees only to look at them; it is only when we have crept down +into some cleft full of trees, where I can peep at them from round a +corner, that I feel I can take out my paper and my paint-box without +disrespect.' + +'But you can be a great artist without painting great things. You may +paint Snowdon so that it is nothing better than a drawing-master's +copy, and you may paint a handful of wild flowers so that it may shame +acres of classical pot-boilers hung on the line at the Royal Academy.' + +Babiole was thoughtfully silent for some minutes after this, while I +turned over the rest of her drawings. + +'Drawing-master's copy!' she repeated slowly at last. 'Then a +drawing-master is a man who doesn't draw very well, or who isn't very +particular how he teaches what he knows?' + +'Yes, without being very severe I think we may say that.' + +'That is not like your teaching, Mr. Maude.' + +'What do you mean?' + +'Why, all these months that you've been away I've had a lot of time to +think, and I see what a different thing you have made of life to me by +teaching me to understand things. Last year I thought of nothing when +I was out on the hills with Ta-ta but childish things--stories and +things like that. And now all the while I think of the things that are +going on in the great world, the pictures that are being painted, the +books that are being written.' + +'And the dresses that are being worn?' I suggested playfully, not at +all sure that the change she was so proud of was entirely for the +better. + +'Well, yes, I think I should like to know that too,' she admitted, +with a blush. + +'And you want to attribute all that to my teaching?' + +'Yes, Mr. Maude,' she answered, laughing; 'you must bear the blame of +it all.' + +'Well, look here; I've re-visited the world since you have, and, +believe me, you are much better outside. It's a horrid, over-crowded, +noisy place, and, as for the artists in whom you are so much +interested, you must worship them from afar if you want to worship +them at all. Painters, actors, writers, and the rest--the successful +ones are snobs, the unsuccessful--sponges. And as for the dresses, my +child, there was never a frock sent out of Bond Street so pretty, so +tasteful, or so becoming as the one you have on.' + +But Babiole glanced down at her blue serge gown rather disdainfully, +and there shone in her eyes, as brightly as ever, that vague hunger of +a woman's first youth for emotions and pleasures, which every +morning's sunshine seemed to promise her, and whose names she did not +know. + +'Ah,' she said gaily, 'but everybody doesn't speak like that. I shall +wait until your friends come in the summer, and see what they tell me +about it.' + +My face clouded, and, with the pretty affectionateness with which she +now always treated me, she assured me that she did not really want any +advice but mine, and that, as long as I was good enough to teach her, +she was content to read the lessons of the busy world through my eyes. + +Meanwhile, however, I was myself, through those same eyes of mine, +learning a far more dangerous lesson, and one, unluckily, which I +could never hope to impart to any woman. I had no one but myself to +thank for my folly, into which I had coolly walked with my eyes open. +But the temptation to direct that fair young mind had been too strong +for me, and, having once indulged in the pleasure, the few months away +had but increased my craving to taste it again. This second winter we +worked even harder than the first. Babiole, with her expanding mind, +and the passionate excitement she began to throw into every pursuit, +became daily a more fascinating pupil. She would slide down from her +chair on to a footstool at my side when discussion grew warm between +us concerning an interesting chapter we had been reading. She would +put her hand on my shoulder with affectionate persuasion if I +disagreed with her, or tap my fingers impatiently to hurry my +expression of opinion. How could she know that the ugly grave man, +with furrows in his scarred face, and already whitening hair, was +young and hot-blooded too, with passions far stronger than hers, and +all the stronger from being iron-bound? + +Sometimes I felt tempted to let her know that I was twenty years +younger than she, growing up in the belief of her childhood on that +matter, innocently thought. But it could make no difference, in the +only way in which I cared for it to make a difference, and it might +render her constrained with me. After all, it was my comparative youth +which enabled me to enter into her feelings, as no dry-as-dust +professor of fifty could have done, and it was upon that sympathy that +the bond between us was founded. In the happiness this companionship +brought to me, I thought I had lulled keener feelings to sleep, when, +as spring came back, and I was beginning again to dread the return of +the long days, an event happened which made havoc of the most +cherished sentiments of all three of us. + +The first intimation of this revolution was given by Ferguson, who +informed me at luncheon, with a solemnly indignant face, that a 'varra +disreputable-looking person' had been pestering him with inquiries for +Mr. Maude, and, after having the door shut in his face had taken +himself off, so Ferguson feared, in the direction of the cottage, to +bother the ladies. My butler's dislike of Mrs. Ellmer had broken down +under her constant assistance to Janet. + +'I saw that Jim was aboot the stable, sir, so I have nae doot he +helped the gentleman awa' safe eno',' added Ferguson grimly. + +I thought no more of the incident, which the butler had reported +simply because up among the hills the sight of an unknown face is an +event. + +But at four o'clock Babiole did not appear; I sat waiting, looking +through the pages of Green's _Short History of the English People_, on +which we were then engaged, for twenty minutes; and then, almost +alarmed at such an unusual occurrence, I was getting up to go and make +inquiries at the cottage when I heard her well-known footstep through +the open hall-door. Even before she came in I knew that something had +happened, for instead of running in all eager, laughing apology, as +was her way on the rare occasions when she was a few minutes late, I +heard her cross the hall very slowly and hesitate at the door. + +'Come in, come in, Babiole; what's the matter?' I cried out +impatiently. + +She came in then quickly, and held out her hand to me as she wished me +good-afternoon. But there was no smile on her face, and the light +seemed to have gone out of her eyes. + +'What is it, child? Something has happened,' said I, as I drew her +down into her usual chair. + +She shook her head, and tried to laugh, but suddenly broke down, and, +bursting into tears, leaned her face against her hands and sobbed +bitterly. + +I was horribly distressed. I tried some vague words of consolation for +the unknown evil, and laid my hand lightly on one heaving shoulder, +only to withdraw it as if seared by the touch. Then I sat down quietly +and waited, while Ta-ta, more daring, set up a kindly howl of +sympathetic lamentation, which happily caused a diversion. + +'I ought to be ashamed of myself,' she said, sitting upright, and +drying her eyes. 'I don't know what you must think of me, Mr. Maude.' + +'I don't think anything of you,' I said at random, being far too much +distressed by her unhappiness to think of any words more appropriate. +'Now, tell me, what is the matter?' + +I was in no hurry for the answer, for I had already a very strong +presentiment what it would be. + +'Papa has found us out; he's at the cottage now.' + +But he was even nearer, as a heavy tread on the stone steps outside +the front door at this moment told us. Babiole jumped up, with her +cheeks on fire and her lips parted, rather as if prepared for the +onslaught of a mad bull. + +'H'm, h'm, no one about! And no knocker!' we heard a thick voice say +imperiously, as my town-bred visitor stumped about the steps. + +'Look here, Babiole; I think you'd better go, dear. Run through the +back door, and comfort mamma.' + +There was no use disguising the fact that our visitor's arrival was a +common calamity. She made one step away, but then turned back, clasped +my right hand tightly, and whispered-- + +'Remember, you don't see him at his best. He's a very, very clever +man, indeed--at home.' + +Then she ran lightly away, without looking at me again, +half-conscious, I am afraid, poor child, that her apology was but a +lame one. I rose, and went to the hall to invite my visitor in. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Mr. Ellmer's appearance had not improved with the lapse of years. He +was dressed in the same brown overcoat that he had worn when I made +his acquaintance seven years ago. It had been new then, it was very +old, worn, and greasy now; still, I think it must have been in the +habit of lying by for long periods, out of its owner's reach, or it +could scarcely have held together so well. Mr. Ellmer wore a +round-topped felt hat, a size too large for him, with a very wide and +rather curly brim, from under which his long fair hair, which had the +appearance of being kept in order by the occasional application of +pomatum rather than by the constant use of the comb, fell down over a +paper collar in careless profusion. The same change for the worse was +apparent in the man himself. His face was more bloated, his look more +shifting, the whole man was more sodden and more swaggering than he +had been seven years ago. If it had not been for the two poor little +women so unluckily bound to him, I would not have tolerated such a +repulsive creature even on my doorstep; but for the sake of making +such terms with him as would rid us all of his obnoxious presence, I +held out my hand, which he, after a moment's hesitation, took and +dropped out of his fat flabby palm, with a look of horror at my +scarred face. + +'Will you come in?' said I, leading the way into the study, which +he examined on entering with undisguised and contemptuous +disappointment. + +'Have you come far to-day, Mr. Ellmer?' I asked, handing him a chair, +which I inwardly resolved for the future to dispense with, having +sentimental feelings about the furniture of my favourite room. + +'Yes, well I may say I have. All the way from Aberdeen. And it's a +good pull up here from the station to a gentleman who's not used to +much walking exercise.' + +He spoke in a low thick voice, very difficult to hear and understand, +his eyes wandering furtively from one object to another all the time. + +'Did you have much difficulty in finding the place?' + +'Oh yes. She had taken care to hide herself well.' And his face slowly +contracted with a lowering and brutal expression. 'She thought I +shouldn't find them up here. But I swore I would, and when I swear a +thing it's as good as done.' + +'I hope you found your wife and daughter looking well.' + +'Oh, _they_'re well enough, of course; trust them to get fat and +flourishing, while their husband and father may be starving!' + +Now this was laughable; for whatever defects Mr. Ellmer's appearance +might have, the leanness of starvation was not one of them. + +'They were by no means fat and flourishing when I first met them, I +assure you,' I said gravely. + +The brute turned his eyes on me with slow and sullen ferocity. + +'That was not my fault, sir,' he whispered with affected humility, +being evidently far too stupid to know how his looks belied his words. +'They had been away from me for some time; my wife left me because I +was unable to support her in luxury, the depression in art being very +great at this moment, sir. She took my child away from me to teach +her to hate her own father, and to bring her up in her own extravagant +notions.' + +'She has cured herself of those now,' I said; 'she lives on the barest +sum necessary to keep two people alive. It is, unfortunately, all I +can spare her for her kindness in taking care of my cottage.' + +This was true. I had often regretted that the poor lady's inflexible +independence had made her refuse to accept more than enough for her +and her daughter, with the strictest economy, to live upon. Now, I +rejoiced to think that she had absolutely no savings to be sucked down +into the greedy maw of the creature before me. My words were evidently +the echo to some statement that had been already made to him. +Naturally, he believed neither his wife nor me. + +'It's an astonishing thing, then, that a woman should leave her +husband just to come and live like an old alms-house woman in a +tumble-down cottage fifty miles farther than nowhere!' + +I said nothing; indeed, I could not share his astonishment. + +He went on with rising bluster, and louder, huskier voice. + +'And look here, if I hadn't heard this great talk of your being such a +gentleman, I don't know whether I shouldn't feel it my duty to call +you to account.' + +I rose to my feet, unable to sit still, but at once sat down again, +afraid lest I might not be able to resist the advantage a standing +position afforded for taking him by the collar and removing him to the +flower-beds outside. + +'You are at liberty to satisfy your marital anxiety by making any +inquiries you please,' said I, and looked at the door. + +'Don't be affronted, it was only chaff,' said he. 'I know it's my +daughter you're after. I saw her sneak out of here just as I came in +by the back-way, as if ashamed to look her father in the face.' + +'You d----d scoundrel! Get up and get out of the house,' I hissed out +in a flash of uncontrollable rage. + +He got up, and even made one slow step towards the door; but he did +not go out, nor did he seem afraid of me. He turned deliberately when +he was close to the screen, and began to swing his walking-stick in +the old way I remembered, regardless of the consequences in a room +crowded with furniture and ornaments. Then he looked into his hat, and +passed his hand thoughtfully round the lining. I was still at a white +heat of indignation, but to lay violent hands on this stodgy and +unresisting person would have been like football without the fun. + +'Look here,' he said, when we had stood in this unsatisfactory manner +for some moments. His eyes were fixed upon his hat, round which his +podgy hand still wandered. 'You're not taking me the right way. You +don't like me, I can see. Well, one gentleman isn't bound to fly into +the arms of another gentleman first go-off. Not at all; I don't expect +it. I may like you, and I may not like you; but I don't fly at your +throat and call you bad names by way of introducing myself, even +though I do find my wife and daughter hiding away under the shadow of +your wing, as it were, from their own husband and father.' + +Here he looked up at me sideways with a slow nod, to emphasise the +little lesson in good breeding which his example afforded. + +Perceiving some show of reason in his words, and some touch of more +genuine feeling in his manner, I said, 'Well!' and leaned against the +chimney-piece. With this encouragement he stepped back to the +hearthrug again, and while To-to half-strangled himself in futile +attempts to get at his trousers, he addressed to me the following +discourse, with the forefinger of his right hand upraised, and the +dusty point of his cane planted deeply in a satin cushion which +Babiole had embroidered for my favourite chair. + +'Look here,' he said, and for once his dull round eyes met mine with +the straightforwardness of an honest conviction. 'Full-grown women are +the devil. Either they're good or they're bad. If they're bad--well, +we need say no more about them; if they're good, why--the less said +about their goodness the better. But a young girl, before she's learnt +a woman's tricks--and especially if she's your own flesh and +blood--why that's different! And my little girl, for all she shows +none too much affection for her father (but that's her mother's +doing), she's a little picture, and I'm proud of her. And if any +infernal cad of a d----d gentleman was to be up to any nonsense with +her, and so much as to put his--hand on her pretty little head--look +here, Mr. What-d'ye-call-'em, I'd make a d----d pulp of him!' + +And Mr. Ellmer gripped my coat with a fierceness and looked into my +face with a resolution which, in spite of the coarseness which had +disfigured his speech, warmed my heart towards him. For, instead of +the contemptible sodden cur of a few minutes ago, it was a +man,--degraded by his course of life, but still a man, with a spark of +the right fire in his heart,--who stood blinking steadily at me with a +persistency which demanded an answer. + +I freed my coat from his grasp, but without any show of annoyance, and +answered him simply at once. + +'You won't have to make pulp of anybody while your daughter lives at +Ballater, Mr. Ellmer. I have watched her grow from a child into--into +what she is now, something--to us who love her--between a fairy and an +angel; and no father could take deeper interest in his own child than +I do in her.' + +'Deeper interest,' repeated Mr. Ellmer dubiously; 'No; I daresay not. +But, excuse me, Mr.--Mr.----' + +'Maude.' + +'Yes, Mr. Maude, no offence to you, but you're a man yourself, you +know.' + +After the contumely with which he had treated me, the admission seemed +quite a compliment. I made no attempt to deny it, and this reticence +emboldened him. + +'Now, why don't you marry her yourself?' + +To have the wish which has been secretly gnawing at the foundations of +your heart suddenly brought face to face with you is a startling and +confounding experience. I think no convicted ruffian can ever have +looked more guiltily ashamed of himself than I, as I felt the hot +blood mount to my head, and my brain swim with the first full +consciousness of a futile passion. Of course, the man before me put +the worst construction upon my evident confusion; he repeated in a +louder and more blustering tone-- + +'Why don't you marry her?' + +'In the first place,' said I quietly, 'she is scarcely more than a +child, Mr. Ellmer.' + +'That's not much of a fault, for she won't improve as she loses it. +Besides, you needn't marry her at once.' + +'In the second place, I am quite sure she wouldn't have me.' + +'Why not? She seems to like you.' + +'She does like me, as a beautiful girl may like a grandfather, +battered and scarred in war, or a homeless cur which she has picked +up and which has grown attached to her. To be frank with you, Mr. +Ellmer, nothing but my ugly face prevents me from becoming a suitor +for your daughter; but that obstacle is one which, without any undue +self-depreciation, I know to be one which makes happy marriage +impossible for me.' + +'I don't know,' said Mr. Ellmer, in a tone of generous encouragement; +'good looks don't always carry it off with the women. Look at my wife, +now: well, to be sure, she was proud enough of getting me; but, do you +think the feeling lasted? No, I might have been a one-eyed hunchback, +sir, before we'd been man and wife three months! There's no knowing +what those creatures will like, let alone the fact that they never +like the same thing more than a week together--barring a miracle.' + +And Mr. Ellmer looked at me, with his head a little on one side, as +if expecting that the narration of his experience would conclusively +affect my views on matrimony. As I said nothing, however, being, +indeed, too much involved in a whirlpool of doubts and longings and +miserable certainties to have any neatly-turned phrases ready with +which to carry on the conversation, he presently cleared his throat +and went on again. + +'You see,' he said, with an odd assumption of paternal dignity, which +covered some genuine feeling as well as some genuine humbug, 'it isn't +often that I can spare the time to take a journey as long as this. +Therefore, when I do, I like to see something for my trouble. Well, +and what I mean to see this time is one of two things: either I leave +with the knowledge that my daughter is engaged to be married to an +honourable gentleman who is able to support her, and willing to be +good to her, or I leave with my daughter herself, and I put her in +the way of earning her own living on the stage, which is a more +honourable position than playing lodgekeeper to any gentleman in the +land.' + +'And you would take her mother with her, of course?' I said, as easily +as I could, with a sudden gloomy misgiving that Babiole, happy as she +was among the hills, would snatch at the chance of rushing into the +conflicts of the busier life in which she took such an ominous +interest. + +'Oh, she can do as she likes,' answered Mr. Ellmer with a sudden +return, at mention of his wife, to sullen and brutal ferocity of look +and tone. + +I was horrorstruck at the possibility of my little fairy choosing to +leave the shelter of the hillside under the protection of this man, +whose caprice of paternal pride and affection might, I thought, at any +moment of drunken irritation or disappointment, change to the selfish +cruelty with which he had treated his hard-working wife. + +'Will you give me till to-morrow morning to think about it, and to +speak to Babiole, Mr. Ellmer?' I asked, after a few moments' rapid +thought. 'In the meantime we will do our best to make you comfortable, +either here or at the cottage. Of course, I cannot prevent your saying +what you please to your daughter, but I hope you will, in fairness to +me, let me plead my own cause unbiassed by one word from you. The +subject is one I know she has never dreamed of, and it will surprise +and may even startle her very much. So that I may ask so much of you, +and beg you to rely on my discretion.' + +Mr. Ellmer seemed pleased with the success of his diplomacy, and he +offered me a fat, pink, lazy hand to shake. + +'Say no more, sir; between gentlemen that is quite sufficient. And I +should like to add, sir, that if everything should turn out as we both +desire, you need have no fear of being put upon by your wife's +relations, whatever Babiole's mother may say. The votaries of Art, +sir, are used to poverty, and need not blush for it. But I should be +glad to think that my devotion to it had brought only its dignity, and +not its penalties, upon my daughter.' + +I shook his hand heartily, almost feeling, for the moment, so deep was +his own conviction, that this greasy person with the paper +collar--whose language and sentiments, like an untuned musical +instrument, could rise and fall to such unexpected heights and +depths--was really treating me with a generous condescension for which +I ought to be grateful. + +I accompanied him to the door, and watched his ponderous figure making +its way to the cottage, near the entrance of which I saw his wife +waiting for him; then I whistled to Ta-ta, who had followed the +stranger for a few steps in order to get a better view of his retreat, +and, taking my hat, went down the drive for a walk. It was past five, +and the April sun was shining out a fair good-night to the hills after +a day of rain; faint tufts of pale green were showing on the dark +foliage of the larch-trees, and the daisies in the soft grass were +beginning to take heart at the death of winter. One could think better +in the fresh spring-scented air than between walls of solemn books. As +for that, though, my plan of action was already decided on, and +contemplation of it, even under the inspiration of the perfume of the +firs, and the babble of the water over the stones of the Dee, resulted +in no improvement on my first idea. This was no less than to make a +formal proposal to Babiole, which she must accept on the clear +understanding that it was to form no tie upon her, but which would +satisfy her father and allow her to remain still in the safe shelter +of this nook among the hills. The girl was only fifteen, much too +young for any serious love-ventures of her own, so that I argued that +my engagement to her would be merely a most loyal guardianship which +would reach its natural end when the handsome young prince should +break his way through the enchanted forest and wake her up with the +traditional kiss. Hope for myself, I can assuredly say, I had very +little; and, if this modesty seems excessive in a man in the very +prime of life, who, moreover, had already some sort of assured place +in the esteem of the girl he loved, I can only say that there was a +balance against me in the books of the sex which I was paying off to +this one member of it, and, therefore, in proportion as I had felt +myself to be too good for the rest of those I had met, so I felt that +Babiole Ellmer was too good for me. The matter was arranged in my own +mind with very little trouble, and I was eager to unfold it to her. I +had half expected to find her in the road through the fir-forest, +knowing that after the day's rain the little maid must be thirsting +for a long draught of the fresh sweet air--but no; I passed through it +and out into the open country, over the stone bridge of Muick, skirted +the Dee and crossed it again by Ballater Bridge into the village, +without a glimpse of her. + +The sun was getting low behind the hills when I reached the western +foot of Craigendarroch, and, without a pause, began to climb between +the glistening branches of the budding oak-trees up to the top. I had +no distinct purpose in coming so far, and the faint bark of my own +dog, which reached my ears as I was ascending the bare and rocky +space which separates the oak-grown lower slope from the fir-crowned +summit of the hill, caused me to stop suddenly in surprise and +excitement so sharp and so sudden that all the blood in my body seemed +to rush to my head, and my heart to continue its action by unwonted, +tumultuous leaps. + +I pulled myself together, not without some consternation at the +phenomenon. + +'I came up the hill too fast,' I said to myself, and crept up the +slabs of rock that now formed a wet and slippery footway among the +firs, with a sensation of horror at the thought of Babiole's trusting +her little feet on such a treacherous path. + +At the top, a little way beyond the cairn, I came upon her suddenly. +She was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, looking out to the +western hills, across the slopes of which were lying dense, cloud-like +mists, white against the blackness of the darkening hillsides. The +last red rays of the sinking sun threw upon her face a weird unnatural +glow, and caused her moist eyes to glisten like strange gems in the +sun-lit marble of her still features. The wild sweet sadness of her +expression, like that of a gentle animal who has been stricken, and +does not know why, brought a lump into my throat, and caused me to +halt at some distance from her with a feeling of shy respect. + +Ta-ta, who sat by her side, with a sensitively-dilating nose on the +young girl's knee, saw me at once, but merely wagged her tail as an +apologetic intimation that I must excuse her from attendance on me, as +she had weightier business on hand than mere idle frisking about my +heels. + +But the movement in her companion attracted Babiole's attention; she +turned her head, saw me, and started up. + +The spell was broken; she was in a moment the sweet smiling Babiole +of every day. But I could not so soon get over the shock of the first +sight of her face: I had seemed to read vague prophecies in the wide +sad eyes. I smiled and held out my hand, but I left it to her to open +the conversation. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +'It's very nice up here, isn't it, Mr. Maude?' Babiole said, after a +few seconds' search for an opening remark. + +'But it's much too late for you to be out here by yourself.' + +'Yes. I had forgotten it was so late,' she said humbly, with a +sensitive blush at my mild reproof. 'Poor mamma wanted to be quiet, +and told me to go out; so I came here.' + +She was winding about her the thick plaid she always carried when the +weather was cold; and this, when adjusted Highland fashion across the +shoulder, made her, in conjunction with the knitted Tam-o'-Shanter +cap she wore, a most picturesque and appropriate figure among the dead +heather and the fir-trees. + +'You look like Helen M'Gregor,' said I, smiling. + +She smiled back brightly, but shook her head. + +'I haven't courage enough for myself, much less enough to inspire +anybody else with,' she said rather sadly. + +'Courage is a thing you can't measure until you have to use it. What +makes you think you have none, Babiole? I feel sure you have a great +deal.' + +She began to laugh, in the shyest, sweetest, prettiest way; and, +putting her hand on the stout stick I carried, she twisted it round +and round in the earth, and looked up in my face affectionately. + +'Yes, yes, I know. That is the way you always teach me. You told me I +was intelligent and industrious, until I began to be both; and I +daresay, if you were to tell me long enough,--in your own kind way, +helping me on by your own strong wish,--that I was brave, why I should +become so. But I'm not now.' + +'Tell me how you know that.' + +'Well, to-day I only heard of something that--that would be very hard +to bear, and I broke down altogether.' + +'What was it?' + +No answer. + +'Was it something your father said?' + +She looked up with a flash of inquiry in her eyes. + +'Was it something about your going away from here?' + +She answered by a look only; a look that was timid, mournful, +affectionate, and that had yet another element; for behind all this +tenderness and softness, there danced the restless yearning of an +eager young spirit. + +'Well, and haven't I heard certain people talking about the +interesting things that go on in the world, and hinting that Ballater +was a slow and tiresome old place, where nothing ever happened worth +mentioning?' + +She blushed and hung her head a moment, and then began her defence in +a very meek voice. + +'I don't think I've really ever spoken so ungratefully as that about +dear old Ballater. It's quite true that I should like to see a little +more of the big world outside some day, but I think I could be content +to hear what you care to tell me about it for a year or two longer +first. The fact is, Mr. Maude,' she went on, looking up at me with an +altogether irresistible smile of affection and sympathy, 'I could make +up my mind to leave the hills, but I can't make up my mind to leave +you.' + +What an opening! I began to shiver and quake and to give signs of such +unmistakable nervousness that Babiole evidently thought I was going to +be taken with a fit of some sort. She looked helplessly around, and I +gave a laugh like a schoolboy who comes too early to his first ball. + +'I'm not ill, Babiole; I have something to say to you.' + +Upon this she became nearly as much disturbed as I, and the colour +left her sensitive face, as she sat mutely down on the tree-trunk +again to hear me. + +'I--don't want you to--go away--either--Babiole,' I jerked out slowly +and unsteadily. 'You are very young, and I think you can afford to +wait before seeing the world,--if you are not tired of this place and +the people in it. Everybody here likes you, I may say, loves you; and, +at any rate, if the life is not very exciting, it has no great cares. +But your father, who does not know us so well as you do, is reluctant +to leave you here without some sort of--of formal guarantee for your +safety.' Babiole looked up at me from time to time in bewildered +expectancy of something new and awful. + +'Safety!' she echoed in an amazed whisper. + +'Yes. Girls, when they grow to your age, must have a--a responsible +guardian, you know. How old are you?' + +'I shall be sixteen in July.' + +'Well, you see, in a few years you will be old enough to be married, +and your father is naturally anxious to see you well provided for: +established, you know, settled--in fact, married.' + +Babiole was growing calmer. On reflection, of course there was nothing +so alarming in the mention of a woman's natural end as to justify the +horror which one is accustomed to consider maidenly; but I was +surprised at the time to find that she listened to me so quietly. I +thought it would have helped me more if she had shied at the subject, +so to speak; some little show of emotion of one kind or another would +have spurred me on to make a better business of the whole thing than I +was doing. Her eyes, instead of being raised from time to time +inquiringly to mine, were now fixed on the last faint glow of sunlight +behind the hills; but she said nothing, and I had to go on. + +'He is so bent upon it, in fact, that he says that, young as you are, +he will only let you remain here longer on one condition.' + +She looked up quickly, with a change of expression which I took for +that of vague apprehension. + +'What condition?' + +'You must be engaged--affianced--to some one he approves of before he +leaves you.' + +Babiole began to laugh. 'But papa must know that that is ridiculous. I +am not a princess, to make so much fuss about. Besides, I am old +enough, mamma says, to stay with her if I like.' + +'We can't complain of your father for thinking so much of you. And +there is a very simple way of satisfying him, if you really do care to +stay any longer at the old cottage. Remember, your father could easily +persuade your mother to go away with him if he were bent on having +you; and then the old life for her would begin again.' + +The girl rose to her feet in great excitement. + +'What is the simple way?' + +'You can become engaged to me.' + +I had not prepared her in the least, after all. She did not start or +speak, but I could see by her face that she was utterly surprised. I +was afraid of a hasty refusal, and now screwed up to the pitch of +daring, I hurried on without further hesitation. + +'You know, Babiole, I am not asking you to marry me now, or at any +future time. That must be for a handsomer, more dashing fellow than I. +But I want you to understand that I am your guardian up to the time +when the dashing young fellow turns up; and till then we will be just +as we have always been. You understand, child, that there is to be no +binding tie on you at all, nothing new except the understanding that I +am answerable to your father for your safety and happiness. Now, are +you willing to have me?' + +I tried to put the question as a joke, but I was much moved. + +She put her hand into mine without at first answering, but her eyes +were full of tears before I had ended. + +'I will do whatever you wish, now and always, Mr. Maude,' she said so +sweetly, so softly, that at once I began to realise the peril to +myself of what I had done, as a great yearning seized me to draw the +little creature into my arms, and tell her what a poor chance it was +that she would ever find among the fair-featured sons of men a slave +so docile as I would be for just the right to cherish her. + +I wish I had, now. + +Then, however, I only said, 'That's right,' in a strangled voice; and +we began to go down the hill together. But I discovered that this +explanation, which was to have been so small and simple a thing, had +already changed in some degree the character of our intercourse. +Babiole gave me her hand to help her down, as freely and simply as she +had often done before; but it seemed to me now that it was the hand of +a fair young woman, instead of the hand of a child. It was some change +in the girl herself, and not in me, I felt sure, for I had been fully +conscious of my own love and my own longings ever since, on my return +from Norway, I had found her still with the sweet flower-face, but +with the form and shy proud manner of a budding woman. I considered +this phenomenon as we crossed the wild bare slope beneath the +fir-trees, and as we found our way through the growing darkness of the +oak branches, with the silver water shining before us in the distance, +and the mist gathering about us as we went down. There was no touch of +coquetry about her manner whereby I could take courage, but a very +pretty gravity which seemed to denote that even such a poor thing as a +temporary and make-believe engagement to marry demanded that one +should put away childish things and talk about the affairs of the +nation. + +We both enjoyed that walk back to Larkhall very much; she, because of +the delicious new sense of importance which our secret understanding +gave her; I, because there was now a link, however frail, between us, +and because I was already deep enough in the mire to feel that there +was but a maimed poor creature in my place when she was out of my +sight. It was dark when we got into the drive, and Mr. and Mrs. Ellmer +were both about, peering into bushes, and calling their daughter in a +futile way, rather to fill up the time when their _tete-a-tete_ +palled, than because they really expected to find her under a +rhododendron or a laurel. + +'I told you she was all right,' said the lady sharply, as we came up. + +'Aha! Where have you been?' asked her husband with ponderous roguery. + +'On Craigendarroch, papa,' answered Babiole simply, letting her arm +remain in mine, this being the straightforward way I had chosen of +making known the result of our meeting. + +Mrs. Ellmer was eager to break up the party, and insisted that +Babiole's boots must be wet, and that she ought to come and change +them. But the artist had something to say first. + +'She won't catch cold. She's been too well employed, haven't you, +Bab?' he asked, seizing her by the arm, with a laugh that set her +blushing. + +I hastened to put a stop to this inquisition. + +'She will tell you all about it presently. I think she had better go +with her mother now, while I speak to you, Mr. Ellmer.' + +He let her go, being in high good humour, consequent upon the +discovery and appropriation of some whisky in his wife's cupboard. I +told him that his daughter had consented to become engaged to me, and +assured him that I would do my best to make her happy. He grew a +little maudlin over the hardship of parting with an only daughter, +which, though rather far-fetched, was to be expected; but he was +genuinely glad that she was well provided for, and took care to point +out to me with some shrewdness that his pride in his daughter was +perfectly disinterested, as he had been so long a waif and stray upon +the world that the world was considered by his relations as bound to +support him, even if he had not been, as he was, too proud to accept +from any man more than a mount when he was footsore, or a drink when +he was thirsty. + +I began to feel quite sorry for the poor beggar, and the feeling was +increased later, in spite of his causing me to pass a most +uncomfortable evening. They all came in to see me after dinner. Mr. +Ellmer watched Babiole about with great pride, tried her voice at the +piano, on which he performed with some taste, and declared that it was +good enough for grand opera. On the other hand he missed no +opportunity of snubbing his wife with ferocity, begged her not to +skip, and advised her to leave her juvenile ways to her daughter. Poor +Babiole spent the evening in torture. At each word of extravagant +praise to herself she blushed uncomfortably; at every unkind speech to +her mother the tears came to her eyes. In the climax of her misery I +bore a most unwilling share. + +I was bidding them all good-night on the doorstep, and was shaking +hands with Babiole, when Mr. Ellmer, who had several times during the +evening disconcerted us both by tactless reference to the supposed +excited state of our feelings, said jocularly, that that was not the +way sweethearts parted when he was young. Ready to satisfy him, but +afraid to offend or frighten Babiole, I laughed awkwardly and +hesitated, while the young girl blushed and tried, for the first time, +to withdraw her hand from mine. + +'Don't be affected, Bab,' said her father roughly. + +I would have let her go, but at the sharp words she shivered, and put +up her face with a sob of sensitive terror to mine. I stooped and +kissed her, and if she shrank from the touch of my trembling lips, or +the contact of my hideous face with her fair cheek, at least she felt +none of the burning bitterness which seemed to turn my very heart to +gall, and the caress of my hungry lips into a sting. For the +remembrance of the last fair girl I had kissed, of the languid +indifference which had left her cold to my devotion, rushed into my +brain and gave added venom to this second and more severe misfortune. +She drew away from me with a new timidity, and ran down the steps +after her mother, while Mr. Ellmer smoked a last cigar with me in the +garden, and called upon me to condole with him, which, in the +disturbed state of thought and feeling I was in, I was ready enough +to do. For when he pitifully dilated on the life his acid-tempered +wife had led him, on the coldness with which she had always repelled +instead of encouraged him, on the martyr-like airs with which she had +received his every attempt to reform, I felt that I was ready to side +with the most worthless man living against the most worthy woman, and +listened sympathetically; and when he pointed to the dutifully subdued +fear which shone in his daughter's eyes, in answer to the gaze of his +own affection, I listened in silence to his cynical conclusion:-- + +'Women, they make you pay by the nose either way, sir. If they're not +honest, they take it out of your pocket; if they're honest, they take +it out of your heart. But rob you, one way or another, they all will +to the end.' + +And he went off to the cottage in a meek and maudlin manner, which +made his subsequent conduct a most bewildering surprise. For, on the +following morning, Mrs. Ellmer was not to be seen, and, on her next +appearance in public some evenings later, it was evident that her +husband had made a forcible appeal to her memory of old times by +giving her a black eye. In the meantime Babiole was wild, shy and +unapproachable by either her father or me. This state of affairs being +untenable, and his wife's very small provision of whisky exhausted, +Mr. Ellmer in the course of the afternoon took a dispirited farewell +of us, armed with a note to the stationmaster at Aberdeen, which I +explained would obtain him a free railway-pass to London. He thanked +me for my courtesy, but was by no means disarmed by it. In the midst +of a sentimental leave-taking, he suddenly flashed up into ferocity as +I reminded him that his wife and daughter were well and safe with +each other, which must be some comfort in the prolonged absence from +them which the claims of Art forced upon him. + +'Well and safe!' he repeated, his face resuming the brutal lowering +look which had, under the amenities of social intercourse, sunk into a +placid animal contentment. 'Yes, I should hope so. For I can tell you +it would be a bad time for those who had anything to do with it when +my little girl was anything else but well and safe.' + +The man was in earnest,--genuine brutal earnest. Without again +offering me his hand, and with merely a nod by way of last salutation, +he left me in the study, where we had been holding this last +interview, with impulsive abruptness. I sat down and looked at the +fire, glad the man was gone, and thinking no more of him, but of his +fair little daughter, and of the best means of effacing the +uncomfortable impression made by this violent and unwelcome irruption +into our old harmonious intercourse. + +I had been occupied thus about ten minutes, disturbed by no sound but +the dashing of the rain of a sharp April shower against the windows, +when the hall-door was pushed open again, and the hoarse gruff voice I +had hoped to hear no more broke upon my unwilling ears again. + +'Come, no nonsense, aren't you safe with your own father?' I heard Mr. +Ellmer say angrily, to the accompaniment of plaintive pleadings and +protests from Babiole, whom, the next moment, he dragged in before me. +He had not waited for her to put on a hat, but had thrown over her +head her mother's mackintosh, which he now pulled off, leaving her +pretty brown hair tumbling in disorder about her eyes. She was +pitifully shy and unhappy, poor child, and she shrank back with +crimson cheeks as her father drew her arm firmly through his, and +brought her close up to me as I stood, in great anger and +perturbation, on the hearthrug. + +'Mr. Maude,' he said, 'you will excuse a father's solicitude.' + +He had been making up that opening as he came along I felt sure, from +the pompous effect with which he produced it. He raised his hand as I +was bursting into an angry protest, and continued-- + +'You have obtained my daughter's consent and my consent to becoming +her affianced husband.' This, too, was a studied phrase, brought out +with pedantic decision. 'On that understanding I leave her and her +mother in this neighbourhood with confidence, and I call upon you to +swear----' + +But here Babiole broke away from him, and retreating quickly to the +other side of the table, out of reach of the rough paternal arm, she +cried out, with burning cheeks and flashing blue eyes-- + +'Papa, you are insulting Mr. Maude, and I can't listen. He has been +the best friend we ever had; nobody knows how good he is; and now for +you, who ought to thank him,--honour him for what he has been to +us,--to talk as if you mistrusted him, as if we mistrusted him,--Oh, +it is too horrible! I can't bear it! How can we stay here after this? +How, if we do stay here, can we look him in the face? He is the best +man in all the world, and the kindest, and the cleverest; and oh! you +might have trusted him, and not have brought this shame upon us!' + +And the poor child crouched down upon the nearest chair, and turned +away her head to hide her falling tears. + +Her father listened to this outburst with unmoved pompous stolidity; +but as she sank down, he looked from her to me with a proud and +satisfied glance, as much as to say, 'Do you observe my daughter's +exquisite sensibility? This is one of the results of a parent's +devotion to Art.' + +'Mr. Ellmer, let me walk down the drive with you,' said I hurriedly, +quite unmanned and nerveless at the sight of the girl's distress. +'Surely, we can arrange everything to your satisfaction by ourselves.' + +'There I differ from you,' said he, doggedly holding his ground, +determined to carry through to the end his own more dramatic plan of +settlement. 'I am a father, Mr. Maude, and a father's sense of his +duty to his child must be respected. I am not insensible that you have +so far shown yourself quite the gentleman.' + +Babiole, so to speak, curled up at this. + +'And therefore I have permitted this engagement. But I must have it +plain that I hold you responsible for my little girl's happiness, and +that if anything goes wrong with her, it is you--you, Mr. Maude--who +will have to answer for it to me!' + +He spoke with savage earnestness which impressed me, and struck terror +into his daughter, whom he kissed with genuinely passionate tenderness +on both cheeks. + +'Good-bye, Bab,' said he; 'be a good girl, and don't grow too like +your mother. Don't be too sweet to the man you fancy till he's your +husband, and you'll have more sweetness to spare for him then. Don't +believe your mother when she says your father's nothing but a +blackguard, for he'll do more for you at a pinch than any of your +beaux. Good-bye, child. God bless you!' + +She kissed him, trembling, with timid affection answering to his +tenderness-- + +'Good-bye, papa,' she said, and added in a whisper, 'Won't you some +day live with mamma and me again? We would try to make you happy, and +I am learning to understand all about Art.' + +'Ah, well, some day perhaps,' he said hastily, and disengaged himself +from her twining arms. + +I thought he was going out without any further greeting to me, but +close to the door he stopped, and giving me a stolid frown, jerked his +head slowly back in the direction of his daughter; then, with a +menacing nod to remind me of his warning, he left the room and the +house. A minute later I saw him blubbering,--there is no other word +for it,--like a great overgrown child as he went down the drive. + +I waited at the window on purpose to give Babiole time to recover +enough serenity to bridge over the awkwardness of the situation. The +startling necessity of the case restored her to full self-command much +sooner than I had expected. After a very few minutes, during which I +heard her sobs die away like a child's into silence, I ventured to +turn round, and found her with red swollen eyelids and a very sad +little face, but perfectly calm. She rose from her chair in quite a +dignified way, and said-- + +'We have kept you from your work, I am afraid, Mr. Maude,' with the +odd primness which I could remember as one of her earliest +characteristics. + +'Not at all. I--I was not busy,' I answered, with frozen stiffness. + +For the moment I dared not speak to her, except under this ridiculous +mask of frigidity; such a lot of indiscreet emotions were bubbling up +in me, ready to burst into rash speech at the first opening. She +seemed a little dismayed by my coldness, and hung her head in what I +knew to be shame at her father's clumsy show of mistrust. + +'Well, you shall have a little peace now at least,' she said, without +looking at me, as she crossed to the door. + +'And to-day's lessons?' I asked rather abruptly. + +'I think I will ask you to excuse me to-day,' she said in a trembling +voice. + +'Certainly,' said I, with an involuntary bow, which caused her to look +up and redden at this unusual ceremoniousness. + +The old footing was, for a time at least, completely destroyed. + +'Good-afternoon, Mr. Maude,' she said. + +'Good-afternoon,' I repeated. + +But, as she took another step and reached the screen, her shy glance +met mine; impulsively she stretched out her hand. I seized it, and for +one brief minute we looked straight into each other's eyes with the +frank confidence of our old friendship: the next, she had broken away, +and I was left alone with silent To-to and sympathetic Ta-ta. + + END OF VOL. I + + + _G. C. & Co._ + + _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Witch of the Hills, v. 1-2, by Florence Warden + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WITCH OF THE HILLS, V. 1-2 *** + +***** This file should be named 38291.txt or 38291.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/2/9/38291/ + +Produced by Matthew Wheaton, Beginners Projects, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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