The Heather-Moon
obstacle to the lightning flash between their spirits.
Not a word said one of us as the goodly company of soldiers swept by in
a rich-coloured cloud of their own music. But when all had disappeared
into the church, Somerled and Barrie looked at each other. His eyes
praised her for a braw and bonnie lassie who had responded in fine style
to her first-heard pipes, her first-seen kilt; yet his lips had nothing
to say but, "Well, what do you think of them?"
"Think?" echoed Barrie. "I think it's perfectly unbelievable how any
girl can ever marry a man who isn't a Highlander and has no right to the
kilt!"
There was one for Somerled and one against me; but it only got my blood
up. Many a girl says a certain thing, and does another when her time
comes.
"If I were rich," she went on, "I'd live in a castle in the Highlands,
and I'd have it _full_, simply _swarming_, with pipers, playing me awake
in the morning and to sleep at night."
"I should like you to see your own castle of Dunelin at Dhrum. There are
plenty of pipers there. I've kept them all on, meaning them to play for
me some day," said Somerled, who had just then forgotten, I think, the
existence of myself and Mrs. James, and failed to observe that in the
distance all Miss Barribel MacDonald's missing young men were
assembling, as if to the call of the blood--the soldier from Carlisle,
who had collected a friend, and the American contingent of four.
"My own castle?" Barrie repeated.
"You know what I mean. It would be yours if you'd been a boy. As you
aren't----"
"It's yours!" laughed she.
"Not by right of blood. Only by right of money."
"Well, that's the sovereign right," she insisted, pleased with her own
pun.
Then the victims of our miniature Circe arrived in the foreground, shook
hands, bandied jokes, and became the most prominent figures in the
picture. For the first time I was glad to see them, nor did I bear the
youths ill-will for separating me from our beneficent enchantress in the
stately church with historic banners. They had separated her from
Somerled as well.
After service was over, we stopped only for a look at the stones which
mark in the pavement the old Heart of Midlothian, and then hurried back
to the hotel, escaping the Americans, but clung to by Douglas and his
cousin, another Douglas, who hospitably bade us all to visit him at all
his houses. He mentioned several, dotted about in various parts of the
country; but when he heard that Miss MacDonald was retiring from the
party in a day or two, he ceased to press the general invitation.
There was news of Mrs. Bal at the Caledonian. A maid had arrived who
thought that her mistress would not follow until the evening: Somerled
asked Barrie, therefore--rather wistfully, I thought--if she would care
to go out again in the afternoon. "It will make the time pass for you,"
he added. I sympathized with him against my will. It was to be his last
day of "guardianship," yet he was generous enough to invite me; and not
only that, but to let me sit in the car with Barrie and Mrs. James, on
the way to Arthur's Seat. After this effort, however, human nature had
its way, and he kept her to himself for the rest of the afternoon. It
was the first time he had done this since I fastened myself upon the
party. To-day, it was evidently by deliberate intention, not accident.
It was as if he said to himself, "These last hours shall be mine." And I
wondered if indeed he actually meant them to be last hours. For my part,
I certainly meant nothing of the sort. Mrs. Bal, or no Mrs. Bal, Aline
or no Aline, Book or no Book, I didn't intend to walk out of Barrie's
life without trying to win a foothold in it for the future.
If I had an opinion on such matters, I should have said, up to a week
ago, that I didn't approve of marriage for a girl under twenty, as she
couldn't possibly know her own mind; but Barrie is the kind of exception
to prove any rule. She ought to have a man to take care of her.
Before five we started back, for Mrs. James thought Barrie needed a nap.
It appeared that she hadn't slept the night before, owing to the
excitement of suspense; and now "her eyes must be bright for their first
look at her mother."
Drawn up at the pavement in front of the hotel as we slowed down was a
big blue car, and another smaller one close behind, both of the same
make, and evidently belonging to the same people. We had to choose
between waiting for them to disgorge passengers and unload luggage, or
get out at a distance from the entrance. We took the latter course, but
at the hotel door Barrie stopped us. She wore no veil; and though it was
to Somerled, not me, she spoke, I could see that her face was pale, her
eyes dilated.
"Do you think that can be my mother arriving?" she asked in a low voice.
He looked back at the lady who, at this instant, was springing from the
blue car to the pavement, her hand in that of a man who offered
unnecessary help. It was a tall figure in a long cloak the colour of a
duck's egg, and it gave the effect of willowy slimness despite the
disguising mantle. A close-fitting toque of greenish grayish blue
covered the small head, and the face was practically invisible behind a
thick veil of the same mystic colour; but as the lady turned her long
throat for a look at the other car, there was a glimpse of banded red
hair under the toque, and a curl or two at the nape of the neck.
The two women in the smaller car also had red hair. They were not
veiled, and their neat black hats and jackets somehow advertised them
unmistakably as ladies' maids. Neither was pretty, in spite of her
flaming crown of glory; and neither was young.
The remembrance of an "interview" with Mrs. Bal which I had read in some
paper flashed back to my mind. She had told the reporter that "only
red-haired servants could understand the moods of a red-haired
mistress," and that, after disastrous experiences with "dull creatures
who had no temperament themselves, and couldn't live with any one who
had," she decided to engage only red-haired maids.
Perhaps Somerled knew of this idiosyncrasy, or else he recognized the
tall form in spite of its wrappings, for he said, "Yes, I think very
likely it is your mother, Barrie. But we can't be sure; and in any case
I strongly advise you not to try and speak to her here in the street."
"Oh, I won't till she gets her veil off," said Barrie breathlessly, "but
I must wait and see her come into the hall. I----"
Somerled gently but firmly drew the girl into the hotel. Mrs. James and
I followed. Evidently Somerled wanted to persuade Barrie that it would
be better to keep out of the lady's way as she entered, and meet later,
if indeed this were Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald; but the girl seemed
hardly to hear his murmured arguments. She did yield far enough to let
him lead her a little aside, but she took up her stand again where she
could see the blue figure enter. She did not speak, or insist upon her
own way, yet I think it would have been impossible to move her without
using brute force. Somerled realized that nothing was to be done with
the child for the moment, and accordingly did nothing, except to stand
beside her. Mrs. James and I took our places mechanically on the girl's
other side, though no word passed between us.
Never had I seen Barrie so beautiful. Though a brilliant colour burned
on her cheeks, she looked curiously spiritual. Her lovely body seemed a
crystal lamp through which shone the light of an eager soul.
A minute of this silent suspense, and the lady in the blue-gray cloak
came in, followed by the two red-haired maids carrying such valued
possessions as no hotel porter must be allowed to touch: little
handbags, gold monogrammed; a long coat of blue Russian fox;
silk-covered air cushions, and delicately bound books. Behind came
employes of the hotel, bearing rugs and other luggage; but the big man
who had helped the lady from the car did not appear. We had seen his
back only, yet the impression lingered in my mind that he was no
servant, but a gentleman, a personage of worldly as well as physical
magnitude.
The lady went toward the desk, then paused, and with an imperious and
impatient little gesture directed one of her maids to untie her thick
blue veil. The knot was loosened with a skilful touch, and the face of
Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald was revealed. For a moment or two we saw it
only in profile, as she talked with the people at the desk, and bade the
elder of her two women write in the visitors' book. Then, as she turned
away to go to the lift, we were favoured with the full blaze of her
celebrated beauty.
It is three years since I saw her last, in America, but she has not
changed, unless to look younger. She might not be a day over
twenty-five, and her figure is as slender, as spirited, and as graceful
as a girl's. She advanced more or less in our direction, though without
seeing us, and her walk was peculiarly attractive--slightly
self-conscious and suggestive of the actress, perhaps, but light as a
smoke wreath. If she makes up off the stage, she is so skilful that she
beats Nature at Nature's own game. Her complexion, with the gray-blue
veil flowing in folds on either side her face, looked pearly, and the
rippling lines of her red hair glittered like new copper. It was
impossible she should not know that every one in the big hall was gazing
at her; but such was her self-control, gained in long experience as a
beauty and popular favourite, that she seemed not to see any one. Hers
was not a morose remoteness, however. That might have offended admirers
and kept money out of the theatre. It was the radiant unawareness of a
passing sunbeam.
A few more seconds and this charming figure, framed in floating clouds
of chiffon, would have reached the door of the lift, to be wafted out of
sight like a pantomime fairy. But Barrie could no longer be held within
bounds, for the great moment of her life had come. She darted away from
us, her figure as tall, more youthful, more willowy, and more charming
than the other, though singularly like in movement and in outline. The
resemblance between the beautiful woman and the beautiful girl produced
the effect of contrast, and ruthlessly dug a chasm of years between
them. Suddenly, as they stood face to face, Mrs. Bal--who had been young
as morning--reached the rich maturity of summer noon.
The thing Somerled would have prevented had happened; but the reins were
out of his hands, and it would do more harm than good to snatch at them.
None of us moved, but we were nearer than any one else to the mother and
daughter, near enough to hear every word they said to each other.
"Oh, mother, it's I--your daughter Barrie, come to find you," the girl
faltered. "You know--Barribel. You named me. I've run away from
Grandma----"
"My goodness--_gracious_!" gasped Mrs. Bal, her brown eyes immense. In
her groping bewilderment, her blank amaze, she looked younger again, her
rather full face very round, almost childish, her dimples deepening in
the peachy flush of her cheeks. She stared at Barrie as if the girl were
a doll come alive--an extremely complicated, elaborate, embarrassing
doll, copied from herself and let loose upon the world. And Barrie did
not take her eyes from the beautiful, surprised face for an instant. In
her wistful suspense she scarcely breathed. "Oh, do love me--do be glad
to see me!" her soul implored through its wide-open windows.
The silence, falling after Mrs. Bal's astonished gasp, lasted but an
instant, though it seemed long to us who waited. To others at a
distance, others who knew nothing of the story, whose sight and hearing
were not morbidly sharpened, the little scene probably meant no more
than a surprise meeting between the well-known actress and a very pretty