The Heather-Moon
August she's more likely to be in Scotland than in London."
"Oh, is she?" Barrie's face told all her doubt and disappointment. "But
I can't wait. I must go somewhere. If I don't take a train, Mrs. Muir
our housekeeper and perhaps Miss Hepburn may come here looking for me
from Hillard House. I'm afraid they found out at prayer-time that I'd
gone, and when they've searched all over the house and garden, they----"
"So you make no bones about running away from home, Miss MacDonald?"
"Neither would you in my place if you and your mother were insulted."
"Perhaps not," the man admitted. "I did something more or less of the
sort when I was a year or two older than you--about seventeen----"
"But I'm over seventeen already," Barrie hastened to boast. "I'm
eighteen."
The man smiled at her, his nicest smile. "Eighteen! That's very old, and
it's only living the retired life you have that's kept you young. Still,
there it is! You _have_ lived a retired life, and it's--er--it's left
its mark on you. It will take at least some months to efface it, even
under your mother's wing. That means you're a bit handicapped among a
lot of people who haven't lived retired lives. I don't advise you to go
back to your grandmother's house, because you wouldn't anyhow--and
besides, you know your own business better than I do; only, of course,
you'll have to write to her. As an acquaintance of your mother's, I'd
like to put you with some kind people for to-night until we can find out
for you just where Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald is. Don't you see that this
would be a sensible arrangement, if the people were all right, instead
of starting off on a wild-goose chase?"
"Ye-es, perhaps. And it's very kind of you to take an interest for my
mother's sake," said Barrie, trying not to show her disappointment
ungraciously.
"Of course, for your mother's sake," he repeated, with an expressionless
expression. "I call myself Somerled," he added, watching her face as he
made his announcement.
She caught him up quickly. "Why, that was the name of the great leader
from the North who founded the Clan MacDonald!"
"You know about him, do you--in spite of the retired life?"
"Not to know would disgrace a MacDonald. And just because I _have_ led a
retired life I've had more time to learn than girls in the world. I know
a good deal--really I do. I've read--heaps of things, behind Grandma's
back. Somerled of the Isles is a hero of mine. I didn't know any one had
a right to his name nowadays."
"I dare to bear it, like a Standard, with or without right, though
unworthily. Somerled of the Isles was my hero too."
"Then you're Scottish, like me," said Barrie. "I don't feel related to
Grandma's people, and I don't know anything about mother's. But if
you're going to be my friend for her sake, I'm glad your name is
Somerled. It's splendid!"
"Yes, it's splendid to be called Somerled," the man agreed, faintly
emphasizing the substituted word. "And I'm proud to be a Scot, though
I've lived half my life in America, and they think of me there as an
American. I've been thinking of myself that way too for seventeen years.
But blood's a good deal thicker than water, and I was born on the island
of Dhrum."
"Our island!" exclaimed Barrie. "That makes it seem as if we were
related."
"I hoped it would, because a Somerled has a right to the trust of a
MacDonald. Will you trust me to motor you to my friend Mrs. West, who's
stopping just now with her brother in a nice little house just outside
Carlisle? It's named Moorhill Farm, and belongs to a Mrs. Keeling, who
has lent it to Mrs. West. I'm going there, and they'll be glad to keep
you until we can learn where you ought to meet your mother. Perhaps you
know of Mrs. Keeling and her house?"
Barrie glanced at him half longingly, half doubtfully. She had been
looking forward to the adventure of travelling to London; but if there
were less chance of her mother being there than elsewhere, London was
wiped off the map. Still Barrie was loth to abandon her plan. To do so
was like admitting failure--in spite of the motor, which she would love
to try. She had never been within two yards of a motor-car.
"I've seen Mrs. Keeling in church," she said. "She has stick-out teeth.
Grandma bows to her. But how can you tell that Mrs. West will be glad to
have me?"
"I'll answer for her hospitality," came Somerled's assurance. "You'll
like Mrs. West. She's a widow, and a sweet woman. Her brother's as nice
as she is--Basil Norman. Perhaps you've heard of them? They write books
together--stories about travel and love and motor-cars."
"No," Barrie confessed. "I don't know any authors later than Dickens,
unless I see their names in book-sellers' windows, when I come into town
with Heppie--Miss Hepburn. If you don't mind, I think I'd rather not go
to Mrs. West's. I'm afraid of strangers."
"Are you afraid of me, then?"
"No-o. But you're a man. I'm afraid of women. They stare at your
clothes, and I know mine are horrid."
"Mrs. West won't stare. She'll help you buy pretty things to wear when
you go to your mother."
"Will she? But how shall I buy them? I haven't any money."
"You'll have money from your father's brooch. Now--will you trust me and
come to Mrs. Keeling's house, as your grandmother bows to her?"
"I'd rather go to a hotel, thank you."
"Nonsense. You can't go alone to a hotel."
"Why?"
"It wouldn't be proper for Miss MacDonald of Dhrum."
"Now you talk like Grandma!"
"I talk common sense. I'll lend you no money to spend in a hotel."
"Then take me to Mrs. West," the girl said, as she might have said,
"Take me to the scaffold."
Somerled laughed with amusement and triumph. He was astonishingly
interested in his adventure, astonishingly pleased at the prospect of
continuing it. Surely this girl was unique! He believed in comparatively
few things, but he believed in her: for not to do so would have been
indeed ungrateful, as she was ready to prove her implicit belief in him.
"A daughter of Mrs. Bal!" he said to himself as he led Mrs. Bal's
daughter to his motor-car.
Poor Barrie would have believed in almost any man who owned a motor.
IV
Aline West and her brother, Basil Norman, were walking slowly up and
down the garden path in front of the old-fashioned manor farmhouse lent
to them for ten days by an admiring friend. They were waiting for
Somerled, who had expressed a desire not to be met at the station; and
listening for the teuf-teuf of motors along the distant road prevented
Mrs. West from attending to her brother's suggestions. He had had an
inspiration for the new novel they were planning together, and was
explaining it eagerly, for Basil was a born story-teller. Only, he had
never found time for story-telling until lately. He was tremendously
happy in his new way of life, although only a terrible illness which had
closed others paths of success had opened this door for him. It did not
matter in the least that Aline got the credit. Not only was he glad that
she should have praise, but he was convinced that it ought to be hers.
If she had not thought of asking him to try his hand at helping her four
years ago, when the incentive to live seemed gone, he might have been
driven to put himself out of the way. It was to her, therefore, that he
owed everything; and though success as an author had never come to Aline
until after the first book they wrote together, that, to Basil Norman's
mind, was no more than a coincidence, and he had never ceased to feel
that she was generous in letting his name appear with hers on their
title pages.
"I wonder if anything can have happened to him!" Aline murmured.
"Which, Dick or Claud?" her brother asked, puzzled. Dick was to be their
hero, Claud the villain. Basil had been engaged in outlining the two
characters for his sister's approval.
"No. Ian Somerled," she explained almost crossly, though her voice was
sweet, because it was never otherwise than sweet. "Either the train's
late or----"
"I'd have met him with pleasure," Basil reminded her.
"It would be _fatal_ to do anything he didn't wish," she answered. "He's
a man who knows exactly what he wants, and hates to have people go
against his directions in the smallest things."
Norman looked at her rather anxiously through the soft summer darkness
that was hardly darkness. She was walking beside him with her hands
clasped behind her back and her head bent. He thought her extremely
pretty, and wondered if Somerled thought so too. But he wished that she
did not care quite so much what Somerled thought. And he was not sure
whether she were right about what Somerled liked.
"I wonder if we understand Somerled?" he asked, as if he were
questioning himself aloud. "After all, we don't know him very well."
"I do," Aline said. "I know him like a book. He's bored to death with
everything nearly. Only I--we--haven't bored him yet. And we must take
care not to."
"You could never bore anybody," Basil assured her loyally. "But--I wish
you'd tell me something honestly, old girl."
"Not if you call me that!" She laughed a little. "It wouldn't matter if
I were twenty-five instead of--never mind! I don't want people to think,
when they hear you, 'Many a true word spoken in jest.'"
"Somerled's older than you are, anyhow," Basil consoled her.
"I should think so--ages! Don't forget, dear, I'm only just thirty. I
don't look more, do I--truly?"
"Not a day over twenty-eight."
She was disappointed that he did not say less. She had been twenty-nine
for years, and had just begun, for a change, to state frankly that she
was thirty. She had never been able to forgive Basil for being younger
than she, but she could trust him not to advertise his advantage. He
really was a dear! She hated herself for being jealous of him sometimes.
There were things he could do, there were thoughts that came to him as
easily as homing birds, which were with her only a pretence: but she
pretended eagerly, sincerely, even with prayer. She really yearned to be
at heart all that she tried to make Somerled and other people believe
her to be. And if she tried hard to be genuine all through, surely in
time----
"What I want you to tell me is," Basil was going on, "are you in l--how
much do you really care about this man?"
"'This man?'" she repeated. "How serious that sounds; like 'Do you take
this man for better, for worse?' Well, I confess that I _should_, if he
asked me."
"Then you must be in love," her brother concluded. "Because you don't
need his money. We make as many thousands as we used to make hundreds;
and it's all yours, really, or ought to be."
She was ashamed of not contradicting him, yet she did not contradict.
She could not bear to put in words what in her heart she knew to be the
truth: that their success was due to Basil, the dreamer of dreams; that
her little smartnesses and pretty trivialities could never have carried
them to the place where they now stood together. The worst part of her
wanted Basil to think, wanted every one to think, that she was the
important partner, that she was actually _all_ in the partnership. And
it was too miserably easy to produce this impression. Basil was so
unassuming, thought so poorly of himself, realized so little how she
leaned upon him in their work, admired her so loyally!
"Ian Somerled is more of a man than any other man I ever met," she said.
"I like him for his strength and for his indifference. Everything about
him appeals to me--even his money; for making it in the way he did was
one expression of his power. Just because they say he'll never marry, I
want----"
"I can understand how a woman may feel about him," Basil said gently,
when she suddenly broke off.
"I thought I was perfectly happy the day he asked us to tour Scotland