The Heather-Moon
and that after all you think it best to send her there at once. You
_could_ find out easily, you know! And I'd take the child myself if you
liked. I'd do that for you, if you'd do what I ask for me."
"You're only trying me, Mrs. West," said Somerled. "You don't really
wish me to fail the girl."
"Fail her! What an exaggeration. She _wants_ to go to her mother."
"At present she wants to go to her mother by motor-car."
Anger at his obstinacy and her own failure lost Aline her self-control.
"You mean you want the girl in your motor-car!" Her manner made the
words an accusation. But he took the challenge in silence, walking at
her side, his head slightly bent, his hands in his pockets. Aline darted
a glance at his profile. His jaw looked set, and he had the expression
of a man who would give anything to be smoking a cigarette.
It was too late to grope her way back to the path of tactfulness, and
the hot blood in her temples made her indifferent to his opinion, to the
future, to everything except her own anger and the need to vent it.
"Silence gives consent," she said bitterly, seeing her hopes lie broken
at her feet, but not caring much yet. Only, she knew dully that she
would care by and by, care to the sharpest point of agony. "Well, so
much for our friendship! I'm sorry. I would have done a good deal for my
part of it, but there's a limit, isn't there? And friendship can't be
all on one side. I'm afraid, if you want Miss MacDonald in your car,
you'll have to get her another chaperon. I don't engage in that
capacity."
Now there was just one last loophole open for Somerled. He could protest
that Aline had misunderstood him; that he cared not a hang or anything
of that kind whether Miss Barrie MacDonald went to Edinburgh or Jericho;
that the only thing which mattered was Mrs. West's friendship. If he
said this quickly, she would hold out both hands to him and cry a
little, and beg his pardon for being cross. Then they would forgive each
other and everything would be as before, or better. But Aline waited
breathlessly for an instant, and several more instants: and Somerled
said nothing at all. He would have continued to walk slowly on if she
had not stopped suddenly in the middle of the path, and brought him up
short. Already she was beginning to feel the pain of loss and the
weighty irrevocability of everything. "What are we going to do?" she
panted, her breast rising and falling alluringly. Her cheeks were bright
pink, and her eyes brilliant. Never had she been so near to beauty; but
Somerled faced her with a calm very like sullenness.
"What are _you_ going to do?" he answered her with a question.
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you and Norman to go motoring with me through Scotland, of
course."
"Thank you. But I've made my point, and I must stick to it. Basil and I
won't go with you if this girl goes."
"We've quarrelled, then, have we?" he asked. His eyes were blue as the
ice of glaciers in his brown face. His mouth and chin looked hard as
iron; and never had Aline liked him half as well.
"Yes, we've quarrelled--if you insist," she said.
"Then I must no longer intrude on you as your guest."
"You'll go----"
"Naturally I'll go. I can't stay in your house--it's the same as your
house--when you think I no longer deserve your friendship. On my side, I
think you're unreasonable; but I may be wrong. Perhaps it's I who am
unreasonable, and can't see it. Anyhow, I shall have to go."
"I won't have Miss MacDonald in the house a minute after you leave,"
Aline said, almost threateningly.
"Why should you? Her packing won't take long, poor child."
"You'll have to send her back to her grandmother now," Aline warned him,
in a brief flame of defiance.
"That's impossible. I wouldn't break my promise, even if Mrs. MacDonald
didn't forbid her the house."
"She can't very well go alone with you to Edinburgh in your car, I
suppose?"
"She is going to Edinburgh in my car, but not alone with me. Won't you
go too, Mrs. West, and let us forget all this nonsense?"
"You call it nonsense? That shows how little you understand me, how
willing you are to spoil everything for the sake of this wretched girl!
Basil and I will simply go back to our original plan, and travel through
Scotland together in a hired car."
"Luncheon is served, madam," Moore announced, at the turn of the path.
Luncheon--and the world in ruin!
"Mr. Somerled and Miss MacDonald will not be lunching," said Aline
icily.
Moore hid surprise by retiring in decorous haste.
"Good-bye, Mrs. West," said Somerled.
He held out his hand, looking at her steadily, but she turned and rushed
away from him, crying.
BOOK II
ACCORDING TO BARRIE
I
When the Great Surprise happened, Mr. Norman and I had just been having
a very nice talk. I'd never expected to know a real author, and of
course I wanted to talk about him, but he would talk about me instead.
He asked me questions in quite a different way from his sister's, though
I can't put the difference into words. I can only feel it. I know his
way made me want to answer him, and hers made me want to slap her. That
is queer, because she was not rude, but soft and gentle.
Among other things that Mr. Norman teased me to tell, was about the
silly stories which I've always been scribbling secretly ever since the
time when I had to print because I hadn't learned to write. He said that
he would like to see them, but I told him they were torn up, even the
last one, which I stuffed into the chimney in my room before I ran away
from Grandma's. Then he said I must write another, and he would help me.
I _was_ excited when he went on to say that people who took to writing
like ducks to water when they were almost babies, without any one
advising them, generally had real talent. This made me wild to begin
writing again at once, and I envied him because he and Mrs. West had
planned out a story all about their motor trip in Scotland. I thought it
would be the greatest fun to write of things that were actually
happening; but he explained that he wasn't going to bring in the real
people or what they did or said, only the scenery and perhaps a few of
the adventures, glorified a little. I told him that I should enjoy even
more writing things exactly as they were in life; then he argued that if
one did it in that way it wouldn't be a story, but a kind of diary.
Perhaps this _is_ a kind of diary, but I feel as if I must write it,
especially as, because of what happened while we were talking, Mr.
Norman's story can't be written after all. At least it can't be written
about this trip and this beautiful car.
That prim maid Moore, who looks as if she'd had a rush of teeth to the
head, minced to the door of the summer-house where we were sitting, and
called us to luncheon. Of course that interrupted our conversation, but
Mr. Norman said it must be "continued in our next," like a serial story
and we'd make the most of our time between Carlisle and Edinburgh.
"You'll let me help you all I can, won't you, Miss MacDonald?" he asked.
I said "Yes," and thanked him; and then he exclaimed, "Let's shake hands
on the compact."
I didn't know precisely what a compact was, but I shook hands, because
most things which begin with "com" are pleasant. Just as we were giving
the last shake, Mr. Somerled appeared, and I felt myself getting red,
because his eyes looked so blue and fierce, as if he were vexed about
something.
"We're striking a bargain," Mr. Norman explained. "Miss MacDonald has
promised to let me help her up the ladder of fame as an author. How many
days are you going to give us together in your motor-car?"
"My dear chap, I'm sorry to tell you that Mrs. West and I have just had
a row," said Mr. Somerled, "and she's backed out of the trip."
I've always laughed when I've heard or read the expression, "his face
fell"; but faces do fall. Mr. Norman's chin seemed suddenly to grow
inches longer. "Backed out of the trip!" he echoed, as if he couldn't
believe his ears.
"Yes. I asked her to reconsider, but made a mess of it. I fear there's
no hope that she'll change her mind. She says you and she will take your
trip alone."
I quite wished that he'd invite Mr. Norman to break off from his sister,
but he didn't. Perhaps that would not have been etiquette. I don't know
anything about such things. The etiquette book Heppie lent me to read
once was too uninteresting, worse than Hannah More.
Mr. Norman's face went on falling. His sister would not have been
complimented if she had seen it.
"In fact," Mr. Somerled added, "I'm afraid this is good-bye. Mrs. West
doesn't expect"--he stopped and laughed a little--"doesn't expect Miss
MacDonald and me to stay to luncheon."
I see now that it was horrid of me, but I clapped my hands, and cried
out, "How thrilling!" Mr. Norman turned red. I hope he didn't think I
was ungrateful. It wasn't that at all which made me clap my hands. It
was being coupled with Mr. Somerled in the row, and wondering what was
going to become of us both.
"It's like Adam and Eve being turned out of Paradise, by the Angel with
the Flaming Sword," I said, to make things better; and perhaps it did,
for they both laughed this time, but it was very queer laughter. If
Heppie had heard _me_ laugh like that, she would have accused me of
hysterics. But it was good for Mr. Norman, and stopped his face from
falling. He stammered regrets and apologies and suggestions, and Mr.
Somerled seemed upset, too, though not excited, like Mr. Norman and me.
He went into the house to collect our belongings, and I _was_ thankful
not to meet Mrs. West. She kept out of our way, but one of the servants
helped Mr. Somerled, who has no man to look after him, and another, not
that horrid Moore, offered to help me, but I said, "No, thank you." I
knew she would make fun of my bundle to the others afterward. All the
maids have stick-out teeth in this house, as if they'd been engaged on
purpose, and somehow it makes them seem formidable, like having ogresses
to do your packing.
Fancy Mr. Somerled, in the midst of his worry, remembering that I might
want to give money to Mrs. West's servants! He doesn't seem the sort of
man who would think of little things like that, but I begin to see
already that it isn't easy to guess what he is like really, unless he
chooses to let one do so. As we were on the way to the house, he said to
me in a low tone, "Here's an installment of what I owe you for your
brooch," and quickly he slipped a lot of gold and silver into my hand,
making my fingers shut round the coins.
"But you haven't got the brooch yet," I whispered back.
"I'll trust you," he said, in an absent-minded way, as already his
thoughts had rushed off to something else. And no wonder!
I gave a ten-shilling piece to the maid, with a grand air which must
have impressed her, because she treated me almost respectfully after
that, and secretly smuggled down my ugly bundle to the front gate,
where, in a few minutes more, Mr. Somerled's big car came to fetch us
away. Some one must have been sent to fetch it, and there were a few
crumbs on the chauffeur's coat, which made me fancy he'd been called
away in the midst of his luncheon, poor man. He must have been
surprised, but he had that ineffable marble-statue look which I've
noticed on the faces of grand coachmen driving high-nosed old ladies in
glittering carriages through the streets of Carlisle. Heppie says that
the true test of a well-trained servant is to show no emotion in any
circumstances whatever; so I suppose this big chauffeur, whose name is
Vedder, must be very well trained indeed. He is a strange looking man,
but very smart, and, being a Cockney, carefully puts all his "h's" in