The Heather-Moon
stations and drawing rooms and in all sorts of other places, that it
took a great deal to make him feel surprise, and still more to make him
show it.
He was roused to alertness, however, when he saw what manner of girl
invited him to "wait a minute." He had never seen one like her before.
And yet, of whose face did hers piquantly remind him? He had a dim
impression that it was quite a celebrated face, and no wonder, if it
were like this one. The only odd thing was that he could not remember
whose the first face had been, for such features could never let
themselves be wiped off memory's slate.
The girl was almost a child, apparently, for her hair hung in two long
bright red braids over her extraordinary cloak; and her big eyes were
child's eyes. What her figure was like, except that she was a tall,
long-legged, upstanding young creature, no one could judge, not even an
anatomist, because of that weird wrap. As a cloak it was a shocking
production--a hideous, unbelievable contribution to cloakhood from the
hands of a mantle-making vandal--but it caught the man's interest,
because before his eyes danced the hunting tartan of the MacDonalds of
Dhrum. Once that particular combination of green, blue, red, brown,
purple, and white had flashed to his heart a signal of warm human love,
daring and high romance; but he believed that long ago his heart had
shut against such deceiving signals. Across the way in, he had printed
in big letters "NO THOROUGHFARE," and was unconsciously well pleased
with himself because he had done this, thinking it a proof of mature
wisdom, keen insight into his brother man--especially perhaps his sister
woman--and a general tendency toward scientific, bomb-proof modernity,
the triumph of intellect over emotion. And in truth his experiences had
been of a kind to change the enthusiastic boy he once had been into the
cynical, hard-headed man he was now. Nevertheless, as he looked at the
girl in the tartan cloak, he heard within himself the war-cry of the
clan MacDonald, "Fraoch Eilean!" and he smelt the heather of the purple
isle of Dhrum.
It was many years since he had seen that strangely formed island-shape
cut in amethyst against the gold of sunset sky and sea; but the purple
and the gold were unforgettable, even for one who thought he had
forgotten and lost the magic long ago.
She was a beautiful girl in spite of the ugly tam and the bag of a
cloak. Her eyes had the deep light of clear streams that have never
reflected other things than trees, shadowing banks of wild flowers, and
skies arching above. There was something quaintly arresting about her,
apart from the odd clothes.
The man stopped. His porter lumbered on sturdily; but that was just as
well. The girl had asked him to wait: so he waited in silence to hear
what she would say.
"Will you please look at a thing I want very much to sell?" she began.
"Perhaps you'll like to buy it. Nobody else will--but," she added
hastily, "I think you'll admire it."
He looked her steadily in the eyes for a few seconds, and she returned
the look, in spite of herself rather than because she was determined to
give him gaze for gaze.
"Why do you ask me to buy what you have to sell?" he answered by a
question. "Is it for charity or the cause of the Suffragettes?"
"Oh, no, it's not for charity!" the girl exclaimed. "And I don't know
what you mean by Suffragettes."
The man laughed. "Where have you lived?" he questioned her.
She blushed for an ignorance which evidently struck strangers as
fantastic. "Near Carlisle with my grandmother," she explained; "but
she's never let me have friends, or make visits, or read the papers.
I've just left her house now, and I want to go to London. I _must_ go to
London, but I haven't any money, and they won't trust me to pay them for
my ticket when I get some. So I tried to sell a piece of jewellery I
have, and nobody would buy it. I thought when I saw you come out of the
train that maybe _you_ would. I don't know why--but you're different.
You look as if you'd know all about valuable things--and whether they're
real; and as if you'd be--not stupid, or like these other people."
"Thank you," he returned, and smiled his pleasant smile. If another man
had described such a meeting with a pretty and apparently ingenuous girl
in a railway station at ten o'clock at night, he would still have
smiled, but not the same smile. He would have been sure that the girl
was a minx, and the man a fool. He recognized this unreasonableness in
himself; nevertheless, he had no doubt that his own instinct about the
girl was right. She was genuine of her sort, whatever her strange sort
might be; and though he laughed at himself for the impulse, he could not
help wanting to do something for her, in an elder-brother way. For an
instant his thoughts went to the woman who was waiting for and expecting
him, the train being late. But quickly the curtain was drawn before her
portrait in his mind.
"You say your grandmother never let you make friends," he said, "yet you
seem to believe in your own knowledge of human nature."
"Because, what you aren't allowed to see or do, you think of a great
deal more. Knowledge _jumps_ into your head in such an interesting way,"
the girl answered, with an apologetic air, as a witness might if wishing
to conciliate a cross-questioning counsel. "Here's the jewellery I want
to sell. It was my father's, and belonged to his father and
grandfather."
She opened her ungloved right hand to reveal a bonnet brooch of
beautiful and very ancient workmanship showing the crest of the
MacDonalds of Dhrum set with a fine cairngorm and some exquisite old
paste. It must have come down through many fathers to many sons, for it
was at least two hundred years old.
"You would sell this?" the man exclaimed.
"Well, I _must_ get to London," she excused herself, "and it's the only
thing I have worth selling. I _knew_ you'd see it was good. The others
would hardly look at it, except one quite horrid man who squeezed my
hand when I was showing him the brooch, and that made me behave so
rudely to him he went away at once."
"Was your father a MacDonald of Dhrum?" asked the man who had not
squeezed her hand, and exhibited no wish to do so, though his eyes never
left her face.
"Yes. Why, do you know our tartan and crest?"
"I--thought I recognized them." For an instant he was tempted to add an
item of information concerning himself, but he beat down the impulse.
"If you want money, you can raise something on this without selling it,"
he went on. "It would be a pity to part with an heirloom."
"I didn't know I could do that," said the girl. "Of course it would be
better. I'm going to London to find somebody--my mother," she continued,
in a different tone. "When I get to her, she'll give me money, of
course, and I can pay you back, if you'll lend me enough now to buy my
ticket--and perhaps a little, a very little, more, because I mayn't find
her at once. I may have to go on somewhere else after London, though I
hope not. _Will_ you lend me some money and keep the brooch till I pay?"
"I might be prepared to do that," said the man slowly. "But you surely
don't mean to start off for London alone, in the night."
"Why not?" she argued. "There's no danger in railway trains, is there?
I've never been in one yet, but I've read lots about them in books, and
I think I shall love travelling."
"You've never been in a train!"
"No, because I was born at Grandma's house, and she never travels
anywhere, and I've always lived with her. If my father hadn't died, and
my mother hadn't--hadn't been obliged to go away when I was a baby,
probably I should have been just like other girls. But now I suppose I
must be very different, and seem stupid and queer. Every one stared as
if I were a wild animal when I was asking my way to the railway station.
But you will lend me the money, won't you, if you think the brooch is
worth it, because one of the porters told me there'd be a train for
London soon?"
"When people are making up their minds to lend money to strangers, they
always put a number of questions first," answered the man gravely, "so I
must ask you to excuse me if I catechize you a little before I engage
myself to do anything. Do you expect any one to meet you in London, Miss
MacDonald?"
"Dear me, no!" and she could not help laughing to hear herself called
"Miss MacDonald," a dignity never bestowed on her before. "I don't know
any one in London--unless my mother's there."
"Oh, indeed! But London's quite a big place, bigger a good deal than
Carlisle, you know, so you may have some difficulty in finding your
mother if you aren't sure of the address."
"She hasn't an address--I mean, I don't know it. But she's an actress on
the stage. I think she must be so beautiful and splendid that almost
every one will have heard of her, so all I will have to say is, 'Please
tell me whether Mrs. MacDonald the actress is in London?'"
"Not Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald!" This time he did look surprised.
"Ballantree was her name before she was married," the girl admitted.
"And her Christian name's Barbara. Do you know her?"
"I do, slightly," replied the man. "But I had no idea that she----" He
broke off abruptly, looking more closely than ever at the vivid face
under the knitted tam.
"I suppose, if you don't know her very well, she never spoke to you
about having a daughter?" Barrie asked.
"No, she never spoke of it. But look here, Miss MacDonald, as I happen
to be an acquaintance--I daren't call myself a friend--of your mother's,
you'd better let me advise you a little, without thinking that I'm
taking a liberty. From what you say, I have the idea that you've not had
time to write Mrs. Bal--I mean, Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald that you're
coming to pay her a visit."
"No, I only made up my mind to-day," said Barrie carefully. "Grandma and
she aren't good friends, so my mother and I--don't write to each other.
Grandma doesn't like the stage, and as you know mother, I don't mind
telling you she's been perfectly horrid--Grandma, I mean. She let me
believe that mother was dead--just because she's an actress, which I
think must be splendid. That's why I'm running away, and wild horses
couldn't drag me back."
"I see. Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald will be taken by surprise when you
turn up."
"Yes. It will be like things I've dreamed about and invented to make
into story-books--really interesting story-books such as Grandma
wouldn't let me read, for she approves only of Hannah More. Won't mother
be delighted?"
"Just at first her surprise may overcome her natural joy," said the man.
"And here is where my advice comes in. It's this: Let the news be broken
to your mother before you try to see her. That would be the wisest
thing. Besides, she mayn't be in London now--probably isn't. It's past
the season there; and Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald is one of those
beautiful and successful people, you know, who are generally found at
places in the most fashionable time of the year. If she's acting, it
will be easy to find out where she is from one of the stage papers. She
could be written to, and----"
"No, I _want_ to surprise her!" Barrie persisted. "I want first to see
her, for I know she must be a darling and perfectly lovely; and then I
want to say, 'Mother, here's your daughter Barribel, that you named
yourself, come to love you and live with you always.'"
"Er--yes. It sounds charming," replied the man, gazing at a large
advertisement of a new food with quite an odd look in his eyes. "If your
heart's set on that scene I've no right to try and dissuade you; but
anyhow, the thing to do is to find out where she is before you start,
for you might get to London only to have to turn round and come back. In