The Heather-Moon
Anna Case was not a Scotswoman, but the name of MacDonald was respected
within these gates, no matter who bore it, and this dark man, with the
blue eyes that went through you like bright steel blades, didn't look
like one who would claim what he had no right to claim. She bade him
follow her into the house, which he did; into the hall; and so to a
drearier drawing-room than he had ever entered. There had perhaps been
some as gray and grim on his island of Dhrum; but in those days he had
known nothing of drawing-rooms.
This was not even early Victorian. It was mid-Victorian, and rubbing and
brushing had given the ugly furniture no time to mellow. He sat down on
a horsehair-covered sofa which had two worked worsted cushions, each
stiffly upright in its corner. One represented a dog's head, the other a
bunch of white and yellow flowers with a cold background of steel beads.
On the walls hung a few steel engravings; a meeting of Covenanters;
portraits of unco' guid worthies with sidewhiskers or beards; and some
tortured stags pursued or caught by hounds.
"Terrible!" he groaned in spirit. "Who'd suppose that such things
existed nowadays?"
He might appropriately have made much the same criticism of the old
woman who at that instant opened the door and came in, sturdily, in
spite of her limp and the stout stick grasped in a knuckly hand. But as
their eyes met--hers like thick glass panes behind which a burning fire
could be dimly seen--something in her grim spirit spoke to something as
grim and uncompromising far down his nature. To his own surprise he felt
awaking in himself a queer impulse of sympathy for the redoubtable
Grandma. Perhaps, reluctantly, she felt the same for him. But she looked
him in the face, keenly and unblinkingly. "Well, sir," she said, in a
deep voice almost like a man's, and amazingly young and vital, "well,
sir, I do not recognize you, though you have gained entrance to my house
by claiming the name of MacDonald."
"That is true," replied Ian, who had risen at her coming. "It's the
first time I've claimed the name for many years, though it is mine and
was my father's before me."
"Who was your father?" the old woman catechized him. "What kin to
Duncan, my dead husband's half-brother?"
"No kin except by clan ties. You wouldn't have heard of us. My father
was a crofter. His name was David."
"I well remember that man," said Mrs. MacDonald, "and his wife too when
I lived with my husband on the island in my youth. Let me see--Mary her
name was. They were God-fearing folk, and didn't wear any such grand
clothes as you do, not even for their Sunday best."
"I paint people's portraits, you see, and have to live in cities,"
explained Ian calmly, though he had grown lazy as he grew rich and had
not painted. "My clothes suit my trade and way of life better than my
father's would, I think; though, as for my brains, my father's hat would
have been too big for them."
"I dare say you are right about the brains. You are that youth who went
off to America under the name of Somerled," Mrs. MacDonald severely
remarked. "I have read of you in the newspapers; but I never approved of
you, sir. It's not man's work, to my mind, smearing canvas with paint,
and encouraging silly women to be vain of their faces."
"My portraits aren't considered to have that effect," returned Somerled;
"rather the contrary, in some cases. And I'm sorry you don't approve of
me, because that makes a bad opening for what I've come to say. However,
it can't be helped. I know Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald slightly; met her
in America----"
"If you think an acquaintance with that woman will recommend you to me,
sir, you are mightily mistaken," was the answer he got.
"I mention it to make you understand why, when I met her daughter last
night, I felt it my duty to do what I could, being of the same name and
not quite a stranger to the family."
"Oh, you felt it your duty! Then you're the person mentioned in a letter
I received from a certain Mrs. West, according to herself a writer of
books. I do not read her sort of books, and never heard of her. 'Motor
novels' indeed! What worse than nonsense! Little enough sense fools must
have to buy them! If you have come from this Mrs. West, you can tell her
from me, as she has made her bed she may lie in it. She has not taken
under her roof my granddaughter, but the daughter of Mrs. Ballantree
MacDonald, the play actress. I did my best for the girl, striving to
bring her up to be a good and modest woman, despite the bad blood of the
mother who broke my son's heart and killed him, who did what she could,
and has been doing what she could in the years since, to disgrace our
house. I might have known I should strive in vain, and I did know at
heart. Vanity and extravagance and fondness of pleasure were Barbara
Ballantree's undoing. I preserved her daughter from those dangers, and
gave her a religious education. Levity was sternly rebuked in her. She
had no young acquaintances to teach her foolishness, or tell her of her
mother's sin. She was allowed no money to fritter away on vanities, no
silly novels to read, such as those your friends write, no frivolous
pursuits which could distract her mind from duty--yet she is her mother
over again, and, like her mother, runs away from my house by stealth, in
the dead of night."
"It wasn't ten o'clock when I met her in the railway station," Somerled
defended the absent. "She was then not very stealthily seeking a train
for London, where she expected to find her mother. Mrs. West has written
you, I know, and told you everything that happened. For my part, I've
called to speak of a plan I have in mind for your granddaughter. The
telegram you sent Mrs. West seemed----"
"The telegram I sent Mrs. West? I've sent no telegram to her nor any
one. I don't send telegrams."
"Indeed?" stammered Somerled, taken aback. "I understood--Mrs. West
believed the telegram to be from you----"
"Nothing of the kind. She couldn't have believed it," Mrs. MacDonald
shut him up mercilessly. "She must have been 'romancing,' as I suppose
she would call it. I should call it lying."
Remembering Aline's words, Somerled also was frankly inclined to call it
lying--on the part of the young woman or the old. He would gladly have
blamed the elder, but reason rebelled. Whatever Mrs. MacDonald's faults
might be, she did not seem to be one who would deliberately tell a lie.
"But why should Mrs. West?" Somerled asked himself, calling up the
pretty smile, the soft blue eyes of his friend. He had been inclined to
believe her true. He had liked her very much, more than he liked most
women, and had wondered if he might not learn to like her still better
in time. The women he saw oftenest were mostly nervous, exacting,
self-centred creatures, craving constant flattery. Aline was none of
these things. She had many charms, and he had seen few defects; but a
motive for falseness in the matter of the telegram would suggest itself
to his intelligence. He tried to shut the door in its insinuating,
conceited grin.
"There must be a mistake--somewhere," he mumbled.
"Not here, anyhow," retorted the old lady.
"After all, it's apart from the question in hand. But perhaps my plans
for your granddaughter don't interest you?"
"Not particularly. Still, you may as well tell them. I see you want to."
"And I see"--Somerled squandered a smile, but only because it came
spontaneously--"I see that you want to hear them, because," he dared to
go on with a flash of his keen eyes into hers, "you _do_ care what
becomes of Miss MacDonald. If you had not got Mrs. West's letter, you
would have had no sleep last night. As it is, knowing your granddaughter
has fallen into safe hands, you can comfortably disclaim anxiety."
"You seem to fancy yourself a mind-reader, my good sir," returned Mrs.
MacDonald at her haughtiest, or what Barrie would have called her
"snortiest." "Think what you like. It is nothing to me, and thinking
costs naught. As for the hands she has fallen into, what do I know of
them? They may be black with sin for all I can tell. No doubt Barbara
Ballantree's daughter would be just as ready to accept help from such
hands."
"As a painter, I try to keep mine clean," said Somerled. "I tell you
that in earnest, not in joke, because for the present I've constituted
myself your granddaughter's guardian. My plan is to take her in my
motor-car to Edinburgh, where I shall deliver her safely to Mrs.
Bal--Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald. In the car will be Mrs. West and her
brother, Basil Norman. Have you anything to say against the plan? If you
have, kindly speak now."
"If I did speak, would it prevent your doing what you've made up your
mind to do?"
"Perhaps not, unless your reasons appealed to my judgment," Somerled
admitted.
"You're no prevaricator, anyhow."
"I don't come of prevaricating stock."
"You don't, if you're David MacDonald's son. He was a humble,
God-respecting man. But you have no humble air. You hold your crest
high."
Somerled was minded to be impudent and say that in that case he must get
his hair cut; but he refrained. "The atmosphere of this house does not
conduce to humility, madam," he answered instead--and always as they
talked the two looked one another straight and full in the face.
"H'm!" the old woman grunted. Yet there was something vaguely resembling
a twinkle in the glass-gray eyes, a gleam which Barrie and few others
now living had ever seen; for not more than one or two of her
fellow-beings had ever had the slightest idea how to manage Mrs.
MacDonald, _nee_ Ann (scorning an "e") Hillard.
"Go on your motor trip, then, so far as I care," said she, a permission
which from her was well-nigh a blessing. "It will probably end in a
smash-up before Edinburgh."
"I think not," said Somerled. "I drive myself, and I know how to drive
rather well."
"I was not referring to physical results."
"So I presumed. Nor was I," he retorted.
If she found the reply enigmatical she did not say so.
They had not sat down during the conversation. Now, Somerled took a step
toward the door. "I'm obliged to you for receiving me, madam," he said
as a prelude to departure.
"I received you on the strength of your name," she reminded him.
"Which I don't intend to disgrace in your eyes."
"Why in my eyes? They will not long be looking your way."
"I think they will, as long as I'm in charge of your granddaughter.
That's what I mean."
"I do not thank you for the assurance. Except that when she's twenty-one
I shall make over certain money of my son's to her, I have washed my
hands of the girl."
"I haven't. That's not the kind of washing to make them clean."
"You reproach me, sir!" She glared at him.
"Not at all, madam. Even if I would venture, there's no need, for I
think your bark is worse than your bite."
Again she almost twinkled at the wretch's daring. There was excitement
in it, which she had not experienced since early married days. Then she
had had to do with another MacDonald, and even a Hillard could without
disgrace afford to be mastered by a MacDonald of Dhrum.
"When I've put your granddaughter into more suitable guardianship than
mine," Somerled went on quickly, "I'll write and tell you."
"Suitable guardianship! It will be some time before I get that letter."
"I thank you for the compliment."
"It was not one."
"You're not to blame if I choose to take it as such."
"I am not to blame in any way in this matter."
"There I'm no judge. It's my own actions I must look after." And again
he smiled.
"I advise you to be careful, sir, between Barbara Ballantree and
Barribel MacDonald. I wish you joy of them both."
"And what of Aline West?" The question whispered itself in Somerled's
ears.