The Heather-Moon
years. But he'd hardly believe me so old. And what _should_ I do--I ask
you all--if a grown-up--oh, but an extremely grown-up--daughter suddenly
loomed over my horizon? Even if I put back her clock to fifteen instead
of--never mind!--I couldn't manage to be less than thirty-one, and that
with the greatest difficulty. Now you see how I am placed."
"Shall I go away and--and save you all the bother?" asked Barrie, in a
very small voice.
"Oh, no, no, dear child; nothing of the sort, of course," protested Mrs.
Bal, patting the hands which Barrie held tightly clasped together in her
lap. "You mustn't be naughty and misunderstand. I don't want to lose you
like that, now you've taken all the trouble to find me--with the help of
our good Somerled. But--will you be a sister to me?--as popular men have
to say in Leap Year."
"I'll do whatever you want me to do," Barrie answered in the same little
voice, like that of a chidden child. "Am I--would you like me to stay
with you here, or----"
"Why, I suppose"--Mrs. Bal showed that she was startled--"I suppose we
must fix up a place for you--for a few days. But I don't see how you can
go with me on tour. It wouldn't be good for you at all. The best way is
for us to have a nice little visit together, and get acquainted with
each other, and then perhaps I'd better send you to--er--to my flat in
London, or--to boarding-school, or somewhere. I _quite_ understand you
wouldn't go back to your grandmother at any price, would you?"
"I'd rather do that than be a trouble to you," said Barrie. "Only, I
don't think she'd take me back. But I could try----"
"Certainly Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald won't hear of your going back to
live in Carlisle, I'm sure," said Somerled, looking somehow formidable
to reckon with as his eyes met Mrs. Bal's. Then, to the girl's mother:
"I am connected with her father's family in a way, you know, and I took
advantage of the connection to make Mrs. MacDonald's acquaintance at
Hillard House, after I'd met--her granddaughter. The arrangement between
us was that I should play guardian _pro tem_. So if you want any advice
about--Miss MacDonald's future, perhaps you'll be good enough to let me
help you."
"Thanks, oh, thanks! I accept gratefully," replied Mrs. Bal, who had no
doubt already heard downstairs some few words explaining Barrie's
presence with our party in Scotland. "And you'll tell everybody she's my
sister, won't you?"
"I'll not say anything to the contrary," he promised grimly.
"And you, Mr. Norman? You, dear Mrs. James?"
"I'll protect the secret with my life," said I, laughing. If I were a
woman, I should have been hysterical by this time.
"I'll keep my mouth shut," replied Mrs. James, with pitying eyes that
said to the girl, "If _I_ were your mother, dear child, young as I like
to look, I'd be _proud_ to own you!"
"What about your American victims?" I inquired of Barrie.
Mrs. Bal pricked up her ears. "What victims?" she asked before her
daughter had time to speak.
"Four young men who have prostrated themselves under Miss MacDonald's
chariot," I explained. "All who see her do this." In adding the little
tribute I meant well; but I saw in an instant that I'd been tactless.
Mrs. Bal regarded the girl reflectively; and that uncomfortable faculty
I have for reading people's thoughts told me she was repeating to
herself, "Ah, so all the men who see this child fall in love with her,
do they? H'm!"
"They--I never talked to them about--about having a--mother," Barrie
stammered.
"And this Mr. Douglas?" Mrs. Bal asked. "Is he too a 'victim?'"
"He appears to be something of the sort," I was obliged to answer, as
she appealed to me. "The Douglas Heart, you know! And he has a cousin
with whom he's staying----"
"Oh, do, dear Mr. Norman, like an angel of mercy 'square' them for me,
will you, and all the others who know?" Mrs. Bal implored,
ostentatiously ignoring Somerled, who had too evidently gone over to the
younger generation. "Your sister, too--and her friends? Will you go and
see if they have come, and if they have, bring them here--or plead my
cause eloquently, or something?"
"I'll go at once," I agreed, rising. On principle, I disliked and
despised the gorgeous, selfish creature; but there was that in me which
longed to please her, and delighted in being chosen as her defender,
over the head of Somerled, so to speak. I was not sorry to escape from
the scene which Barrie's pale face and o'er-bright eyes made very
trying; also I was really anxious to find out if Aline had come. If she
had not, I should begin to worry about her and the poor old car--to say
nothing of the tribe of Vanneck.
As I went out, I heard Mrs. Bal exclaim, "Oh, by the way, if she's to be
my sister, she can't be a MacDonald, She'll have to take the name of
Ballantree. It was my maiden name, you know."
A disagreeable surprise awaited me outside. I learned that, while we'd
been out after luncheon, my sister and the Vannecks had come, but that
Aline had had a mishap. She'd been wearing a motor-mask veil, according
to her custom, in order to protect her complexion. The talc front over
her face had been damaged in the morning's storm, and somehow her eyes
were injured. I should have received the news sooner had I gone to the
desk instead of following Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald upstairs.
Off I hurried to Aline's room, where I found Mrs. Vanneck with my
sister, and an oculist whom George had hurried out to fetch. The poor
girl was suffering, and a good deal frightened, though we tried to
console her. As she went to the window to be examined by the specialist,
I could see that her face and hair and lilac silk blouse were covered
with a powder of talc, which sparkled like diamond dust. Her eyes and
lids were full of the stuff, it proved, and she cried with nervousness
and pain as the oculist proceeded to get it all out.
It was impossible to speak to her of Barrie and Mrs. Ballantree
MacDonald, but I told Maud Vanneck, who, though mildly horrified,
promised for herself and her brothers that the secret should not be
revealed.
When I returned to Mrs. Bal's sitting-room, I found Somerled and Mrs.
James gone. Barrie was alone with her newly found--sister, and a more
forlorn little figure than our young goddess it would be hard to
imagine. Andromeda chained to her rock could not have looked more
dismally deserted by her friends. A room had been taken for her, and she
was now transformed into Miss Barribel Ballantree. "What a good thing I
wouldn't let her be called Barbara after me," said Mrs. Bal. "We should
have had to change her whole name, and that would have been _really_
awkward!"
I should have retired at once, when my errand was done, but Mrs. Bal
would not let me go. I think, for one thing, she wasn't at ease with
Barrie alone; and for another, she wanted to see if I too were a victim
of this young person who might perhaps turn out a formidable rival as
well as an inconvenient daughter. Barrie evidently wished me to stay;
and I made no effort to conceal my real feeling for the girl from either
of them. I thought that now was the time to let myself go. Barrie was
inwardly yearning for comfort and love, and I opened the door of my
heart for her to see that it and all within were hers. I was on the
spot, and Somerled wasn't; so I hoped that Barrie might be thankful even
for her "brother of the pen." Mrs. Bal's bright, observant eyes saw and
understood.
Presently she announced that she was rather tired, and would lie down,
as there would be rehearsing to-morrow in the theatre; and though she'd
opened in Dundee, she would be almost as nervous in Edinburgh as on a
first night. Her maid was rung for. The eldest and reddest one came.
Barrie and I went out together, I longing for a few words in the
corridor, or at least a friendly pressure of the hand. But I saw that
she was in no condition to be spoken to. The reaction was coming on, and
I let her go at once. She almost ran down the passage to a room not far
away, and slammed the door.
* * * * *
Neither Mrs. Bal nor Barrie appeared again that evening. Presumably they
had dinner together in Mrs. Bal's quarters; and the heather moon shone
as through a glass darkly for the rest of us. Aline was ordered to keep
her room for the next few days, which settled our plans--or hers, at all
events. And we were a party of men dining that night, the two Vannecks
and Somerled and I, for Mrs. James "had a headache," and Maud kept Aline
company.
The great Somerled was reflective if not morose. I wondered what his
schemes were concerning Barrie, for I imagined uneasily that he was
working with some idea; and if I didn't mean to sit still and let him
cage the dove while it fluttered homeless and forlorn, I must come out
of my corner into the open to fight for it.
After dinner Aline sent for me, and her message included Somerled, if he
could "spare her a few minutes." He could and did with a good grace. We
went together to the small sitting-room, which looked dull compared with
Mrs. Bal's decorated background, though George Vanneck and I had done
our best, on an Edinburgh Sunday, in the way of roses. Somerled had
forgotten to incarnate his sympathy in flower form, and I read remorse
in his eyes as they fell upon Aline, piteous and prostrate.
Electric light was not permitted, and the room was lit only by a few
green-shaded candles which made the invalid ethereally pale. She
reclined on a sofa and wore her best tea-gown, or whatever women call
those loose classic-looking robes nowadays. It was white, and becoming.
She had built up a wall of cushions, against which she leaned, and her
hair was done in two long plaits under a fetching lace cap which gave
her a Marie Antoinette effect. This hair-arrangement interested me
scientifically, because when I breakfast with Aline in our private
sitting-room at a hotel, she often has her hair hanging down, and it has
never looked so long nor so thick as it did on this occasion. She must
have had some clever way of plumping it out. Her eyes being tender and
inflamed had temporarily lost their beauty, so she had tied over them a
folded lace handkerchief or small scarf.
"You look like a model for a classic figure of Justice," said
Somerled--"all but your smart Paris cap."
"Why, was Justice blind? I thought that was Love," said Maud Vanneck,
gayly airing her ignorance. I couldn't help thinking--nor could
Somerled, I'm sure--that Aline looked more like Love-in-a-mist than
stern Justice; but I feared that he had definitely ceased to regard her
from the love point of view, if ever he'd inclined to it.
Aline, who had heard nothing yet about Mrs. Bal, was anxious for the
story. I saw that Somerled desired me to speak, but I threw the
responsibility on him. I wanted to know how he would tell the story; but
I might have guessed that he would be as laconic, as non-committal as
possible, and that, much as he might yearn to do so, he would not
criticise Barrie's mother.
"I think she admired her daughter," he said quietly, "but being what she
is, and looking no more than twenty-five, what can one expect? Of course
the sister fraud will be found out sooner or later; but the important
thing in Mrs. Bal's mind seems to be that it shall be later."
"Is it right for us to help her deceive poor Mr. Bennett?" asked Maud
Vanneck, who is a person of earnest convictions.
I chuckled at hearing the big chap called "poor," perhaps for the first
time in his life; and even Somerled smiled.
"None of us are pledging ourselves to lie for the lady," said he. "We
simply hold our tongues. If Bennett asks Mrs. Bal to be his wife, he's
not the sharp man of affairs he's supposed to be if he expects to find