The Heather-Moon
"Certainly; with pleasure," and there was nothing in his voice to
contradict the courtesy of his words.
Thus, with surprising ease, I robbed him of the five minutes alone with
Barrie which he had planned. And though she sat in front with him--as
she had come, perhaps--and I was alone in my glory behind, they could
have no private conversation.
When I went up to bid Aline good-bye (we were starting soon for
Linlithgow and Stirling), I told her of my small triumph; but it gave
her no great pleasure.
"How do we know what he said to the girl going to the train?" she asked
suspiciously. "If there's anything up, it's certain that James woman is
in it. I'm sure she's warned Ian against you and me as well as Mrs. Bal.
She's as shrewd as a gimlet in her own funny way. You've remarked that
yourself. And she worships Ian, and thinks Barrie a little angel
abandoned in a wicked world. So if Ian wanted to talk, he wouldn't mind
Mrs. James. You'd better keep your eyes open this week, and notice
whether the girl seems dreamy and absent-minded, as if she expected
something to happen--something they may have arranged between them this
morning."
I assured Aline that I needed no urging to keep my eyes on Barrie. She
then told me for the second time that she intended joining our party as
soon as Somerled left Edinburgh to follow us, as--she thought--he surely
would. "He wouldn't have gone a step while that girl was here with Mrs.
Bal," she exclaimed, almost fiercely, "but in spite of all he's said
about seeing old landmarks and looking up old friends, he'll be off
after you when you've taken Barrie away. Anyhow, I'm going to see
something of him while he's here if I can, for we are friends! He's
supposed to have forgiven me, and he can't refuse to come and cheer up
the invalid. I shall do the very best I can for myself--and when I find
he means to be off I shall mention casually, as a kind of coincidence,
that I'm going too, the same day, to join you; that you've wired or
something, and that Maud Vanneck and her husband have accepted an
invitation from Morgan Bennett to visit his sister, at that Round House
Mrs. Bal talked of. Perhaps Ian will offer to take me with him. I do
hope so. But I can't ask."
As a matter of fact, poor Aline had racked her brains how to dispose of
the married Vannecks when she should be ready to take her place in
Blunderbore. As for George, she wished to keep and play with him, of
course, partly for her own amusement, partly for the moral effect upon
Somerled; but she didn't want to offend his brother and sister-in-law.
Still, they had to be got rid of eventually, as Blunderbore, with all
the faults of Noah's ark, has not the ark's accommodation for man and
beast. It was a happy thought to angle for an invitation, through Mrs.
Bal, for a few days at the Round House, as Maud Vanneck particularly
desired to see "Scottish life in a private family"; and it didn't occur
to her that a shooting-lodge hired by an American millionaire would not
be the ideal way of accomplishing her object.
Mrs. Bal was not out of her room when we were ready to start, at eleven,
so I did not see her again; but the plainest, oldest, and carrotiest of
the three red-headed maids primly accompanied Barrie to the hotel door
with hand-luggage. By this time Blunderbore was puffing heavily in
feigned eagerness to be off, and Salomon, its owner and chauffeur,
shabby and sulky as usual, was giving the car a few last oily caresses
which should have been bestowed long ago in the privacy of the garage.
Have I forgotten to mention in these rambling notes that Somerled's
Vedder regards our Salomon with a silent yet plainly visible contempt,
akin to nausea? Whenever they happen to be thrown together for a few
minutes I see the smart-liveried Vedder criticizing with his mysterious
eyes the mean features of the weedy Salomon; his weak face with the
curious, splay mouth that falls far apart in speaking, almost as if the
jaw were broken; his old cloth cap, and his thin, short figure loosely
wrapped in a long, linen dust coat. Neither Aline nor I have had the
courage to remonstrate with Salomon on his get up, but when Vedder
regards him I burn with the desire to discharge the creature and his
car, despite our contract for a month.
Barrie and I being on the spot, we could have got off, if the
Vannecks--invariably late--had not been missing. In desperation I dashed
into the hotel to look for them, and returned to find Somerled deep in
conversation with Barrie, who was in the car. I had left her standing in
the hotel doorway, with Mrs. Bal's maid: so Somerled in some way must
have caused that maid to disappear, and had then forestalled me by
helping Barrie into my car, tucking her comfortably in with the prettier
of my two rugs.
I was just in time to hear him say "we shall meet"--but where and when
the meeting was to be, I did not know. That was the last of him for the
moment, however, as I had secured the two Vannecks, and we lumbered off
along the good, clear road to Linlithgow. Now it was "up to me" to make
my running with Barrie.
I like driving, though in traffic I am secretly nervous; but as
Blunderbore provides no convenient perch for the chauffeur, and as
Salomon trusts no man except himself, he took the wheel, and I was free
to sit behind with my three guests.
I'd been wondering what Barrie's mood would be, for I felt in my bones
that she was coming with us much against her will. She had not wanted to
leave Edinburgh, and I was sure that she could only have resigned
herself to doing so with Somerled and his Gray Dragon. I asked myself
whether she guessed, or whether Mrs. James had put it into her head,
that Aline and I had combined against what the girl no doubt believed to
be her "interests." I thought it not improbable that she would openly
show her distaste for the trip. As we went on, however, I began to
realize that Barrie had changed subtly in the days since meeting her
mother. She seemed suddenly to have grown up, to have become a woman.
Was it the heart-breaking disappointment Mrs. Bal's reception had given
her? Or was it the five proposals of marriage flung at her head by those
mad young men who were now--thank goodness!--being left behind us, to
"dree their own wierds?" Or was it something quite different--something
which she and the heather moon alone knew?
In any case, she was quiet, even dignified in her youthful way, very
polite and agreeable to the Vannecks and to me. I might have flattered
myself that she was happy enough, and glad of my society, if I hadn't
reflected that to sulk visibly would have been to blame Mrs. Bal.
Already I knew that loyalty was one of Barrie's everyday virtues.
Barbara could do no wrong!
While the road (though good, and historic every step of the way)
remained unalluring to the eye, we chatted about Edinburgh, Barrie
rejoicing in having seen as much as she had before leaving the town. She
had browsed a little among the thrilling shops of Princes Street. With
one eye, so to speak, cocked up at the towering Castle Rock, with the
other she had scanned the gardens, Scott's monument, and everything else
worth seeing; then, with a sudden pounce, she had concentrated her gaze
on immense plate glass windows displaying Scottish jewellery, Scottish
books, Scottish cakes, and (to her) irrelevant Scottish tartans. Even
without need of them, their witching attraction had hypnotized her to
buy many of these things.
"I don't know exactly what I shall do with them," she said; "but I'm
glad I've got them all, and I wish I had more!"
It was Mrs. James who had been with her in her triumphal progress
through Princes Street; but it was I who had escorted her the whole
wonderful, sordid, glorious, pitiful length of the old High Street, the
Royal Mile of gorgeous ghosts. I had been there to see her face as she
caught glimpses of dark wynds where long ago men had fought to the death
and helped make history, where now colourful yet faded rags hang like
ancient banners, from iron frames, giving a fantastic likeness to side
streets of Naples: I had pointed out to her the stones which marked the
place where famous ones had murdered or been murdered, or had sought
sanctuary from murder. I had taken her all over the house of John Knox.
Together we had admired the oak carving in the room where he ate his
simple meals; and together we looked from the little window whence he
had poured his burning floods of eloquence upon the heads of the crowd
below. In the curiosity shop downstairs I had bought her a silver Heart
of Midlothian. She had stared into the rich dark shadows whence start
out, spirit-like, faces of old oil pictures, faces of old clocks, faces
of old marble busts; and she had been so charmed by the soft voice of
the young saleswoman, whose flute-like tones would lure gold from a
miser's pocket, that she would have collected half the things in the
shop if she had had the money. I wanted to give her bits of old
jewellery and miniatures of Queen Mary and Prince Charlie which she
fancied, but she would accept only the silver Heart of Midlothian, which
cost no more than a few shillings; and to-day, as I took her away from
Edinburgh, she was not wearing the little ornament, as I had hoped she
might.
As the road grew prettier, we tore our thoughts away from Edinburgh, and
gave them to the highway illumined by history. At least, Barrie gave
hers, while I lent as many of mine as I could spare from her. And I had
to keep my wits about me, if I were to live up to the regulation of
Know-All I'd evidently attained in her eyes.
In Linlithgow we expected to see at once the famous palace where Queen
Mary was born, but nothing was visible in what the French would call the
_place_, except the Town House, a new statue, and a graceful copy of an
old fountain. We had to turn up an unpromising side street to find at
last a beautiful little gateway between dumpy octagonal towers, such as
the old masters loved to put in the background of their pictures.
Passing through was like walking into one of those pictures, getting
round the hidden corner as one always longs to do on canvas. Before our
eyes rose majestically the colossal shell of a palace, with carved
golden walls, a vast courtyard, cyclopean round towers, and wonderful
windows full of sky and dreams. Close by was the noble church where
James IV had his vision warning him not to go to war with England.
Somerled had talked to Barrie about Linlithgow, doubtless in the hope of
making her think of him when there. He had called it the "finest
domestic architectural ruin in all Scotland," and told her of Lord
Rosebery's suggestion to restore and make of it a great national museum.
I was glad for every reason that Somerled wasn't with us, and, for one,
because he would have overshadowed me entirely with his knowledge of
architecture, which he contrives to use picturesquely, not ponderously.
All I could do was to rhapsodize in a way Barrie likes well enough when
she can get nothing better, painting for her a rough word-picture of the
palace in days when rich gilding still glittered on the quaint wall
statues, when crystal jets spouted from the lovely fountain, green with
moss now as with thick verdigris--when knights in armour rode into the
quadrangle to be welcomed by fair ladies, while varlets led tired horses
to distant stables. Those were the days when the Livingstons were
keepers of the palace for the King, long before they lost their lands
and titles for love of Prince Charlie; days when the memory of Will
Binnock was honoured still, that "stout earle" who helped wrest
Linlithgow from English Edward's men by smuggling soldiers into the
palace precincts, concealed in a load of hay.