The Heather-Moon
change, because I fancy that he would endure torture rather than be
thought sentimental. He describes a place or a thing or a person
glowingly, then hurries to cap his description with a few joking or even
ironical words, lest he should be suspected of romance or enthusiasm.
The village is called New Abbey too, so it is safe to mention that to
the driest person. It was just beginning to be evening, an evening
softly gray as doves' wings folding down, when our Dragon sidled toward
an inn it saw, quite a nice little inn, where Sir S. announced that we
would stop the night. Before going in, however, he took us to look at a
queer bas-relief built into the wall of a whitewashed cottage on the
left side of the road. It showed three ladies industriously rowing a
boat across the ferry--pious dames who brought all the stones from
Caerlaverock, on the other side of the Solway, to build the Abbey.
"Rock of the Lark" is a delightful name, but Sweetheart Abbey is
prettier, and the reason of the name is the prettiest part. Only I wish
that the devoted Devorgilla who built the Abbey of Dolce Cor to be a big
sacred box for the heart of her husband had had a worthier object of
worship than the king, John Balliol. All the history I have ever read
makes him out to be a weak and cowardly and rather treacherous person;
but, as Sir S. said, "Mirabeau judged by the people and Mirabeau judged
by his friends were two men"; and I suppose John must have put himself
out to be charming to Devorgilla, or she wouldn't have wandered about
with his heart in an ebony box inlaid with silver, and insisted on
having it on the table in front of her when she ate her dinner. That was
one way of keeping her husband's heart during her whole lifetime--and
even after death, for of course she had it buried with her. It must have
been glad of a little rest by that time, the poor heart, for it had so
much travelling to do. I suppose it even went as far as Oxford when
Devorgilla founded Balliol College.
The last shaft of the sun was turned off the rose-coloured ruin and the
secluded valley where the cross-shaped Abbey hides from the world; and
the moon was gone, too, swept away like a tiny boat on a wave of sunset.
Still, it was full daylight, and Sir S. announced that he had a plan.
This plan was for us to go (as soon as we'd seen our rooms, which he had
engaged by telegram) and get permission to enter the Abbey by twilight,
when no one else was there.
The little gray inn of the town looked no bigger than a good-sized
private house, but it was the very first hotel of my life, and I
regarded it as an Epoch, with a capital E. That point of view was upheld
later by the heavenly scones and honey they gave us--heather honey, gold
as the heather moon. And we had cool, clean rooms, suitable for the
dreaming of sweet dreams. _My_ dreams there seemed very important.
The great Somerled can of course get anything he wants to ask for if he
chooses to reveal himself--anyhow, in Scotland; because already I am
beginning to learn that even the smallest or humblest Scottish peasant
knows all that's worth knowing, not only of the past but of the present,
and has heard of all the celebrities. Maybe there might be miniature
places in England, America, Germany, or France where the poor and
uneducated would know nothing of Somerled the painter and millionaire.
But in Scotland, apparently, though there are many poor, there are no
uneducated persons. Those to whom his being a painter would mean nothing
would be interested in his money. Those who didn't care for his millions
of dollars would have read about his painting: and all would value him
because he belongs to Scotland.
As soon as our luggage was in our rooms and dinner ordered, Sir Somerled
inquired if we were ready for the Abbey; but Mrs. James mildly asked if
we would mind going without her. She had begun to realize that she was
tired, and would like to rest. She could go by herself to the Abbey
early in the morning before starting time. I felt that I ought to mind
more than I did, but I couldn't help liking to be with Sir S. alone. It
seemed like the night of our first meeting; for some one had always been
with us, more or less, ever since. It was only a short stroll through
the village, not enough to call a walk. A dear little lady who lives in
a nice cottage close to the ruin opened the iron gate, but she did not
go in with us, because it was time for her supper. She had a photograph
done from one of the great Somerled's most famous pictures, and if he
had been a long she could not have been more polite.
At first, the inside of the shell-like Abbey with the beautiful name was
a disappointment. The green grass was encumbered with tasteless graves
and flat modern stones which looked as if they had lain down there
without permission.
We wandered about rather forlornly for a while, until we found
Devorgilla's thirteenth-century tomb. Sir S. told me her history, and
waked the sad old place to living interest. I seemed to see the
ever-loving lady, followed by her chosen maidens carrying the heart in
its ebony and silver box. And together we made up a theory, that of
every event _something_ reminiscent lingers on the spot where it
happened. If only our eyes were different, we should be able, wherever
we went, to see filmy, mysterious pictures painted on air--fadeless,
moving photographs of all the people and all the deeds which have made
up the world's history.
This set us talking of our own pictures, which we are leaving behind us
as we go through life; and I couldn't help thinking how he and I, in
accordance with this idea, will for ever and ever go on being "married"
at Gretna Green. I laughed at the thought, and he asked me why, so I
told him.
"When you're marrying your real wife, years from now maybe, and have
forgotten my existence, that scene will still be enacting itself," I
said, "not only on the films the photograph men took, but on air films.
Doesn't it frighten you?" I asked.
"Doesn't it frighten you?" he echoed. "Because you will marry. I never
shall."
"How do you know?" I catechized him.
"If I can't have the wife I want, I'll have none."
"Perhaps you can have the one you want if you ask her nicely."
"I don't intend to ask. I'm not the right one for her."
"You might let her decide that!" I nobly said, for Mrs. West may be the
woman. "I do hope, if men ever love me, they'll tell me so."
"No fear! They will." He laughed more loudly than I have heard him
laugh.
"But the right one mayn't, if he thinks as you do."
"He won't. He'll be thinking only of himself. But look here, my girl, be
sure you _do_ take the right one when you marry; for if in my opinion
you're likely to make a big mistake when the time comes, I may be
tempted to put a spoke in the fellow's wheel."
"Please do!" I laughed.
"You think I'm joking," he said, watching me in a way he has, between
narrowed lids, his eyes almost black in the twilight. "And so I am to a
certain extent. Yet I might forbid the banns, perhaps--if I chose."
"But how?"
"Haven't you any idea?"
"Not half a one."
"Then I won't tell. It would only worry you--for nothing. Marry in
peace, when your Prince comes, and I'll send you my blessing--from far
away."
"I don't like to think of your being far away," I said. "Let's not talk
of it. For you are my only friend--except Mrs. James. And you're so
different."
"I thank Heaven!" he said. "And I thank her for wanting a rest. Good as
she is, three would be a crowd in Sweetheart Abbey."
Speaking of her made me think of the time. We had promised Mrs. James to
go back in half an hour for dinner! Already more than half an hour had
slipped away as we made our air-film photographs to haunt Sweetheart
Abbey with all its other ghosts.
The twilight was changing to a light more mysterious, and as we looked
at each other through the opal haze I felt strangely that we were
changing too. It was as if our realities were less real than the shadow
pictures which were to live on here together forever--as if our bodies,
which would go away and separate, to live different lives far away from
one another, would not be _us_ any more.
I could not have imagined so wonderful a light as that which illuminated
the great rose-window and filled the vast broken shell of the Abbey. It
was as if the day had been poured out of a cup, and night was being
slowly poured in--the dove-gray night of dreams. It was pale, yet not
bright like the light of dawn. It was more like a light glimmering over
a sheet of water, a light made of the water itself. Almost I expected to
see the Heart rise up in the ebony and silver box, and the box opening.
"You look like a young seeress," my Knight said. "What is it that you
see with your great eyes gazing through the dusk?"
"I see--a heart," I answered. "I think I see a heart."
"That is very intelligent of you," he said, in a changed tone. "Come,
child, it's time I took you home."
"Is there the ghost of a heart floating here?" I asked, wishing to
linger. But he took my hand and drew me toward the gate.
"To me," he said dryly, "it appears to be a real heart--almost too real
for comfort."
We walked back to the inn, and he was uninterestingly commonplace all
the way. He talked about dinner, and buying petrol for the car, and told
me dull facts about tiresome things called carburettors. It would have
been a horrid anticlimax, spoiling all the romance of Sweetheart Abbey,
if he had not changed later on. But he did change. There was a little
piano in the sitting-room they gave us, and Mrs. James began drumming
out a few Scotch airs, warbling the words in a high, thin voice rather
like that of an intelligent insect. There was one tune I knew, and I
couldn't resist joining in. At the end Sir S. applauded.
"What a pity her grandmamma wouldn't let her take lessons, as I once
ventured to suggest!" said Mrs. James. "She has a true ear, and a sweet
voice wonderfully like her mother's, which I quite well remember. But
Mrs. MacDonald had the idea that music lessons would lead to vanity.
Don't you think, sir" (she often slips in a respectful "sir"), "that her
voice would repay instruction?"
"I do," pronounced the great Somerled.
"I'm sure _you_ sing," went on Mrs. James. "I flatter myself I can
always tell by people's faces."
"Like Barrie, I never had lessons," he said. "But I suppose we
Highlanders are born with music in our blood."
"Then you do sing?" she persisted.
"Only to please myself. Not that it does!"
"Will you sing to please us?"
"It wouldn't please you."
"Barrie, _you_ ask."
"The Princess commands!" I said, not expecting him to humour my
impudence, but he did, by going at once to the piano. It had lisped and
stammered awkwardly for Mrs. James, but it obeyed him as if the keys
were mesmerized. He played a prelude, and then sang "Annie Laurie," in a
soft, mellow voice, so low that people outside the room could hardly
have heard. It seemed as if there must really be an "Annie Laurie" in
his life. Surely a man could not sing like that, and look like that in
singing, unless he called up the face of some woman he loved. I wondered
if he thought of Mrs. West, who is so very pretty, and rather like the
description of "Annie Laurie." His eyes looked far away as he sang,
through the wall--oh, yes, I'm sure they could see through the wall at
that moment--perhaps as far as "Maxwellton Braes"; perhaps still
farther, searching for Mrs. West wherever she might be.
I don't know how it would make one feel if such a man with such a voice
looked into one's eyes and sang a song of love. I'm afraid it might make
one rather foolish. But it was only at the wall that Sir S. stared until
he began a very different song--the lament of a Highlander who would