The Heather-Moon
with him in his car; and when he promised to spend a few days with us
here, after he'd got through his business in London," Aline went on, "it
was like _honey_ to hear him say that he didn't want to come if any one
else was to be here. He'd enjoy it only with you and me alone. But ever
since I saw him I've been worrying until I'm quite wretched."
"Worrying about what?"
"Whether he _suspects_ anything."
"Why, what is there to suspect?"
"Then _you_ don't? I'm glad, for you're both men. If you don't suspect,
why should he?"
"You'll have to tell me what you're driving at. I shan't have an easy
minute till you do--and that means I can't write. You know I won't give
you away."
"A woman wouldn't need telling. That's why I like men! You never
guessed, then, that I've been doing it all? I was the power behind the
throne. I made him invite us, and----"
"The deuce you did! Why, I heard him ask you. It was on board ship,
and----"
"And before he asked, unless you were deaf, you heard me say I couldn't
work up any enthusiasm about the next book we'd promised our publisher
to write because we'd sold our last car and hadn't time to make up our
minds about a new one, and we had no friends to give us good 'tips'
about the country. It was then he asked me what country we wanted to
write about, and I said Scotland."
"Well, yes, I suppose I heard you say all that, now you remind me of it.
But it wasn't hinting, because you didn't know he was going to Scotland
for his rest cure."
"Oh, yes, I did. I read it in the New York _Sun_ before we sailed. And
when I said we'd accept his invitation if he'd accept ours, Mrs. Keeling
hadn't offered me this house."
"You said she had."
"I was sure she would, because she told me I had only to ask. She was
dying to lend it. She wanted to be able to tell everybody that Aline
West and Basil Norman lived in her house for a fortnight in August. It's
a great feather in her cap; and Ian Somerled coming to visit us here is
something she'll _never_ get over as long as she lives. I marconied her
an hour after he'd said that he would come to us after London, and we'd
begin our motor tour from Carlisle. 'Twas only taking Time by the
forelock to tell him we _had_ been invited. It _was_ bad luck poor Mrs.
Keeling being ill when she got my wire, and she really was a trump to
turn out and go to a nursing home."
"Good heavens, is that what she did? I didn't know----"
"Of course not. But you needn't mind so dreadfully. She's _much_ more
comfortable in the nursing home with the best attention than in her own.
And, as a reward, we'll dedicate the book to her."
Aline said this as a queen might have suggested lending her crown to a
loyal servitor. Basil laughed, rather uncomfortably, and his sister
looked up hastily into his face, to see if he were making fun of her.
Just then they were drawing near the open windows of the drawing-room,
and the lamplight shone out so brightly through the old-fashioned
embroidered lace curtains that she could see his profile. Hers too was
clearly outlined as she lifted her chin anxiously.
The brother and sister were both good to look at, in ways so different
that the two made a striking contrast. Aline knew that in appearance
they were a romantic pair of travelling companions. Every one stared at
them when they were together, for he was very tall and dark, more like
an Italian or a Spaniard than an Englishman, and she was gracefully
slender and fair, dressing with a subtle appreciation of herself and all
her points. Aline West's and Basil Norman's photographs, taken together
or apart, for newspapers and magazines, were extremely effective, and
were considered by publishers to help the sale of their books. Norman
might have sat for Titian's Portrait of a Gentleman: and there were
those who thought Mrs. West not unlike Lady Hamilton. Since the first
expression of this opinion in print, she had changed the fashion of her
hair, and at fancy-dress balls, of which she was fond, she generally
appeared as the beautiful Emma. Certainly the cast of her features and
the cutting of her lips faintly recalled those of Romney's ideal; but
Mrs. West's pretty pale face had only two expressions: the one when she
smiled--always the same delicate curving of the lips which lit no beam
in the deep-set forget-me-not eyes; the one when she was grave and
wistfully intellectual. She had a beautiful round white throat which she
never hid with a high collar. Her hair was of that sun-in-a-mist gold
that eventually fades almost imperceptibly into gray--if left to itself.
But in Aline's case it was improbable that it would be left to itself.
Every morning when dressing she examined it anxiously, even fearfully,
to see whether it was becoming thinner or losing its misty glints of
gold. Yet she knew that her fears were likely to advance the day she
dreaded, and tried to shut them out of her mind.
"Why do you laugh?" she inquired almost irritably, for she was secretly
afraid always of missing something that was seen by others to be
amusing. She talked constantly of a sense of humour, pitying those not
blessed with it, but there were moments when she wondered bleakly if she
had it herself. "Have I said anything funny?"
"Only you seem so sure that the dedication will be a panacea for every
wound."
"So it will be for Mrs. Keeling."
"I thought you had the idea of dedicating it to Somerled, as he'll be
taking us through Scotland in his car."
"I had. But I feel now it would be a mistake. He couldn't refuse, and
one wouldn't be sure he was pleased. He's so horribly important, you
know. I don't mean in his own eyes, but in the eyes of the world; so
nothing we could do for him would really confer an honour. And the
reason he's cynical and bored is because people have fussed over him so
sickeningly, more and more every year, since he began to rise to what he
is."
"Yet I don't think he's conceited."
"Not in the ordinary way. But he can't help knowing that he's some one
in particular. He began to like us because we didn't fuss over him, or
seem to go out of our way to please him. That's where I've been clever;
for oh, Basil, I'd do anything short of disfiguring myself to win him."
"My poor girl!" Norman exclaimed.
She caught him up hastily. "Why do you call me 'poor?' Do you think I
shan't succeed? Do you think he'll never care?"
"You're a far better judge than I am," her brother answered evasively.
"Women feel such things. We----"
"You feel things, too. You know you do, Basil."
"In an abstract way--not when they're just in front of my eyes."
"He has told me a lot about himself, anyhow." Aline took up a new line
of argument, out of her own thoughts. "That's a good sign. He is so
reserved with almost everybody--and he was even with me till our last
evening on shipboard. I was telling him about Jim dying in India and
leaving me alone there, almost a girl; and how there was no money; and
how I took up writing and made a success. Then from that we drifted into
talk about success in general; and he told me his whole story--much more
than I'd ever heard from gossip, and a good deal of it quite different.
I took it as the greatest compliment that he should open his heart to
me--and a splendid sign."
"Yes, I suppose it was both," Norman agreed; and Aline had retired too
far within the rose-bower of happy memories to catch a suggestion of
doubt in his voice.
"I read once in a newspaper that he'd been a bootblack in Glasgow before
he emigrated," Mrs. West said, as they turned away from the house again
in their walk, and set their faces toward the distant gate. "It wasn't
true. His father was a crofter on a little island somewhere near Skye. I
think it's called Dhrum. I never heard of it before; and he had to
excuse my ignorance, because I'm Canadian! It seems that a branch of the
MacDonald family own the whole place and are great people there--lords
of the isle. His name was MacDonald too, though his family were only
peasants--clan connections, or whatever they call that sort of thing. I
don't understand a bit, and I didn't like asking him to explain. It was
too delicate a subject, though he appeared to be rather proud of his
origin. Scotch peasants are apparently quite different from other
peasants. You'll have to study up the differences and make lots of notes
for the book. I'm no good at anything with dialect, or character sort of
parts. You wouldn't think now, though, that Ian Somerled had ever been a
peasant would you? He talked a lot about his father and
mother--evidently he adored them. He said they'd be miracles anywhere
out of Scotland, but there were many like them there. According to him
there was nothing they hadn't read or couldn't quote by the yard, from
Burns and Scott back to Shakespeare. That was the way he was brought up,
and instead of wanting him to go on crofting like themselves, they were
enchanted because he drew pictures on their unpainted doors and their
whitewashed walls. They saved all their pennies to have him educated as
an artist, and encouraged him--quite different from peasant parents in
books. One day the 'meenister' called, and saw the boy's pictures. He
thought them something out of the ordinary--pictures of castles and
cathedrals they were, with people going in and coming out, and portraits
of friends, and historical characters. After that he took a great
interest in Ian, and taught him Latin and the few other things his
wonderful parents didn't happen to know. When Ian was about thirteen or
fourteen, the 'meenister' tried to get help for the little MacDonald
from the great MacDonald, a disagreeable, cranky old man with one
daughter. They thought they owned the whole world instead of one tiny
island, and the man wouldn't do anything for the child. He simply poured
contempt on 'clan ties.'"
"That doesn't sound like the great folk of Scotland," said Basil, who
for weeks had been reading little else but Scottish history, Scottish
fiction, and Scottish poetry, in order to get himself in the right frame
of mind for writing "the book." "I haven't come across a single instance
of their being purse-proud or snobbish."
"These weren't purse-proud, because their purses had nothing in them to
be proud of," Aline explained. "Their branch of the MacDonalds had lost
its money and its love of Scotland. Old Duncan MacDonald was the uncle
of the last lord of Dhrum, who had to go away from his island for good
and let his castle to 'aliens'--English people. When the nephew died
later, Duncan inherited, but never lived at Dhrum. He only came there
once in a while to visit the tenants who'd hired the castle from him, if
they happened to be people he knew, and would 'do' him well. He and his
daughter were mostly in London, where they had a flat, and prided
themselves on knowing no Gaelic. They took pains to show that they
considered the crofter's son a common brat, and resented the
meenister's' expecting them to do anything for his future, just because
his name happened to be MacDonald, and he lived in a hut on a remote
point of their island. Ian didn't lose courage, though; and soon after
the great snub he contrived to work his way somehow to Edinburgh. He
wouldn't take the money his father and mother had saved up for him,
because they were old and had been ill, and needed it themselves. But he
did all kinds of queer jobs, and at last walked into the studio of a
celebrated artist, saying he wanted to pay for some lessons. At first
the man only laughed, but when he saw Ian's drawings, he was interested
at once. He gave him lessons for nothing, and boasted of his protege to
other artists. It seems that a talent for both portraiture and
architecture is very rare. When Ian was sixteen he won a big prize for