The Heather-Moon
girl enough like her to be a sister. But to us who did know the
story--and something of Mrs. Bal--the pause was like the pause in court
while the jury is absent.
Mrs. Bal was thinking, observing, making up her mind. Suddenly she broke
out laughing--a nervous, yet impish laugh, and seized the girl by both
hands. At the same time she bent forward--not down, for Barrie is as
tall as she--kissed the girl on both cheeks, and whispered something.
It was a brief whisper. She could have said no more than half a dozen
words, but they stupefied Barrie. She threw back her head, almost as if
to avoid a blow. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she pressed her lips
together in a spasmodic effort at self-control. The bright rose-red of
excitement was drained from her face; but she did not draw away from her
mother, who still held the girl's hands. All she did was to turn her
head with a bird-like quickness and fling one glance at Somerled.
I don't know whether or not she meant it as a call. Probably she didn't
herself know what she meant. Only, she was in need of help, of comfort,
and involuntarily turned to the strongest, most dependable personality
in her small world. I would have given all my faculty as a writer--my
dearest possession--to have been in Somerled's place--to have had her
appealing to me while her air-castle crumbled.
He went to her at once, and spoke to Mrs. Bal, who had not seen him till
that instant. She blushed slightly at sight of him, I noticed; and I
wondered whether she had flirted, or tried to flirt, in the past with
the artist-millionaire. It was impossible to guess whether she were
pleased or displeased, but evidently his appearance on the scene was
ruffling in one way or another to the lady's emotions. "This is a
surprise!" I heard her say, in a softer, fuller tone than she had had
time to put into her first sharp exclamation at sight of Barrie.
Then both voices dropped. The two talked together while the girl stood
by in silence, pale and expectant, depending on Somerled. Mrs. Bal said
something which made Somerled laugh--one of his cynical laughs, such as
I hadn't heard from him lately. Not once had he looked at Barrie. All
his attention was for the mother. She asked a question. Answering it, he
indicated Mrs. James and me.
"Oh, please introduce them!" Mrs. Bal commanded pleasantly.
This was a signal for us to approach.
"Mr. Basil Norman," she said. "You are the author, of course. How nice
to meet you! Of course I read your books. And your sister who
collaborates--where is she?"
"I don't know yet whether she's arrived or not," I explained. "I meant
to ask at the desk----"
"I want to know her. Please tell her so. And this is Mrs. James. Why,
yes, of course! I remember you--in the days of my captivity." She
laughed a childlike, impish laugh. (Barrie has one rather like it, but
more spontaneous, less effective.) "You haven't changed."
"Oh, thank you, dear Mrs. MacDonald," exclaimed the little woman,
radiant with pleasure--for I've found out that her two great desires are
to keep her youthful looks, and to be intellectually worthy of the
vanished doctor. "I'm sure _you_ are not in the _least_ altered, though
it must be seventeen years----"
"Oh, my dear Mrs. James, don't--_please_ don't!" cried Mrs. Bal,
laughing and dimpling, and holding up both gloved hands in mock prayer.
"Don't mention the number of years. This is getting to be simply awful.
Shock after shock!" She laughed again, glancing roguishly at Barrie. "I
want you all to come to my sitting-room--this very minute--to hold a
council of war. It's most necessary. You dear, pretty child"--this
adorably to her daughter--"how much more mischief have you done already?
How many people have you let into the ghastly secret?"
Barrie hung her head, and looked down. She must have known that
sympathetic eyes were on her, and have wished to avoid them. "There's
only Mrs. West and--and--I suppose her friends the Vannecks--and Mr.
Douglas--a Lieutenant Douglas----"
"Horror! Their name is legion. What a scrape. Well, I must appeal to
their mercy. Please come up with me, everybody, and we'll talk it over
and see what's to be done. There isn't a moment to lose."
By this time I began to guess what she was driving at, though the dazed
expression of Mrs. James told me that she was still in the dark.
We got into the lift and were shot up to the next floor, nothing being
said on the way except a conventional word or two about the motoring
weather. "I came in a friend's car--I'll tell you all about it," Mrs.
Bal added as she led the way to her rooms.
The two maids had arrived on the scene already. Doors were open; luggage
was being taken in under the direction of the red-haired ones; but in
the large sitting-room there was no sign of confusion. Quantities of
flowers adorned it, in tall glass vases and gilded baskets tied with
ribbons. Signed photographs of royalties and generals and judges, the
latest aviators and successful explorers, all in monogrammed silver
frames, were scattered on mantel and tables and piano-top. There were
plump cushions of old brocade on the several sofas and lounges. The
largest table had a strip of rare Persian embroidery laid across it, and
was graced rather than laden with novels, boxes of sweets, and silver
bonbonnieres. Evidently the maid who had come in advance had had her
hands full!
"I must have pretty things to give me a home feeling. Touring would be
too horrid without that," she laughed. (Mrs. Bal laughs often in private
life; what clever woman with dimples does not?) "Now, sit down, and let
us discuss this desperate situation. But first--come here, Barribel. I
want to look at you."
Barrie came. Mrs. Bal caught the girl's hands, and held her out at arm's
length.
"You pretty creature!" she exclaimed. "Oh!" and she threw an appeal to
us. "To think I should be the mother of THAT! Isn't it simply appalling?
But I can't be, you know. I can't be her _mother_. Now _can_ I? I've
told her already--I had to decide in a flash. I admire her immensely,
and we're going to be fond of each other and the greatest chums. But we
must be _sisters_."
Then I knew what she had whispered to make Barrie start and blanch. She
had said, "I won't be your mother." And Barrie had turned involuntarily
to Somerled because she had felt herself unwanted and her heart was
breaking.
All this was preparing me for a career of villainy, though I must say in
self-defence that it was Aline who lit the match. "The woman tempted me,
and I did eat!"
"Come and sit by me, lovely doll," said Mrs. Bal, pulling the girl down
beside her on the most cushiony and comfortable sofa. "So you are the
baby! I haven't forgotten you. I've thought of you a _lot_--really a
lot. But you never seemed _mine_, you know. _They_ wouldn't let me feel
you belonged to me. They were so good! Of course I had to leave you
for--for them to take care of. They thought they knew everything about
babies. I dare say they were right. I _had_ to escape. I couldn't have
lived with them another day, in that awful house. But I've been oh, _so_
proper, and good, really. Even they could have hardly been shocked. And
I've hired three red-haired watch-dogs. But it isn't only myself I want
to talk about--it's you. I do think you're the prettiest thing I ever
saw--though I oughtn't to say so, perhaps, because I believe we're
alike. Aren't we, Somerled?"
"In some ways, not in others," dryly returned the gentleman addressed.
"Oh, I know the differences are in her favour--Diogenes! All the more
reason why I can't possibly own her for a daughter. My yearly profits
would go down a hundred per cent. And although she's perfectly
_darling_, and I'm going to love her--as a sister--she couldn't have
come to me at a worse moment."
"Oh--why?" pleaded Barrie, speaking for the first time.
"Because--you may as well hear this, all of you, since I've called you
to a council of war. I want you to realize"--and she gave each of us a
look in turn: a lovely, characteristic "Mrs. Bal" look--"that I'm on my
knees to you. I've thrown myself on your mercy. You've got to help me
out. The truth is"--she began taking off her gloves and looking down at
her own hands, her rings sparkling as the pink and white fingers were
bared--"the truth is, I'm a little--a tiny little bit--tired of acting.
I'd like to leave the stage in a blaze of glory while everybody wants me
and there's no one to take my place. There's only one trouble--I'm so
horribly extravagant. I always have been. I'm afraid I always shall be.
I make heaps of money, but I can't save. If I say good-bye to the
theatre, I shall want millions. I don't feel I can rub along on less. So
that means--I shall have to marry somebody else's millions, for I
haven't got the ghost of one of my own."
As she explained her position she looked deliberately past Somerled and
out at the window. This made me sure that a vague suspicion of mine was
founded on fact. Mrs. Bal had angled for Somerled, and he had been one
of her few failures. She couldn't be pleased at encountering him again
as her daughter's self-appointed guardian and champion. It seemed to me
that the situation complicated itself, to Somerled's disadvantage;
therefore--it might be--to the advantage of the next nearest man,
myself.
"There is some one," Mrs. Bal went on, with a slight but lessening
constraint, "who--rather likes me, and I rather like him--better than I
can remember liking anybody. He's got lots of money. His name is Morgan
Bennett. Somerled--you know him."
"Yes," said Somerled. "I thought his back looked familiar."
So the big fellow who helped Mrs. Bal out of the blue car (also big, in
proportion to the size of the owner and his fortune) was Morgan P.
Bennett of New York, the Tin Trust millionaire. Somerled's puny horde of
millions dwindle into humble insignificance beside Morgan Bennett's
pile. If Somerled has made two millions out of his mines and successful
speculations, and a few extra thousands out of his pictures, M. P.
Bennett has made twenty millions out of tin--and unlimited cheek. He is
so big that his pet name in Wall Street used to be "The Little Tin
Soldier."
"He has been--dangling lately," Mrs. Bal went on. "Oh, nothing settled!
I confess I wish it were. I mean to take him if he asks me, and I think
he will. You wouldn't believe it, but he's a shy man with women. I do
believe he's frightened to propose. He's bought a house in London, in my
favourite square. And now he's taken a shooting-lodge in
Forfarshire--such an amusing place: a huge round house with as many eyes
as in a peacock's tail, all staring cheerfully, and high chimneys
grouped together like bundles of asparagus. I've just been staying there
with his sister, Mrs. Payne, whom I believe he imported from America on
purpose to play gooseberry. You know--or perhaps you don't--I tried my
new play for the first time in Dundee, just one night, and it went
gorgeously. This house of his isn't far off, and I was motored back and
forth for rehearsals and so on, while the company stayed in town. I
simply fell in love with the place; and he's trying to buy it--to please
me, I _hope_. There's a round porter's lodge and a round garage: and the
round house stands on a round lawn with a round road running round it
like a belt, so that it all seems the centre of a round world with the
sun moving round it. He brought me from there to Edinburgh to-day, and
two of my maids in another car. He won't stop here in the same hotel
with me, of course, but he'll drop in now and then--naturally--and he's
taken his box at the theatre for the whole week. We must arrange this
sister business before he calls. I've confessed to him that I'm
twenty-nine, and it's perfectly true. I've been twenty-nine for several