William Black - Stand Fast, Craig-Royston! (Volume II)

"I wonder what those who have gone to church will say when they discover that we have spent all the morning here?"

"They may say what they like," he made answer, promptly. "There are things one cannot speak about in drawing-rooms, among a crowd. And how could I ever have imagined that you, with your high spirits and merry temperament, and perpetual good-humour, had come through such trials? I wonder that people never think of the mischief that is done by intermeddling – "

"Intermeddling?" said she proudly. "It wasn't of intermeddling I had to complain: it was a downright conspiracy – it was false stories – I was deceived by those who professed to be my best friends. There is intermeddling and intermeddling. You might say I was intermeddling in the case of my nephew. But what harm can come of that? It is not lies, it is the truth, I want to have told him. And even if it causes him some pain, it will be for his good. Don't you think I am right?"

He hesitated.

"I hope so," he said. "But you know things wear such a different complexion according to the way you look at them – "

"But facts, Lord Musselburgh, facts," she persisted. "Do you think a man like George Morris would be affected by any sentimental considerations one way or the other? Won't he find out just the truth? And that is all I honestly want Vin to know – the actual truth: then let him go on with his eyes open if he chooses. Facts, Lord Musselburgh: who can object to facts?" Then she said – as she gave him her hand that he might assist her to rise —

"We must be thinking of getting back home now, for if we are late for lunch, those Drexel girls will be grinning at each other like a couple of fiends."

Rather reluctantly he rose also, and accompanied her. They made their way across a series of rough, bracken-covered knolls projecting into the sea until they reached the little bay that is known as Port Bân; and here, either the beauty and solitude of the place tempted them, or they were determined to defy sarcasm, for instead of hastening home, they quietly strolled up and down the smooth cream-white beach, now and again picking up a piece of rose-red seaweed, or turning over a limpet-shell, or watching a sandpiper making his quick little runs alongside the clear, crisp-curling ripples. They did not speak; they were as silent as the transparent blue shadows that their figures cast on the soft-yielding surface on which they walked. And sometimes Lord Musselburgh seemed inclined to write something, with the point of his stick, on that flawless sand; and then again he desisted; and still they continued silent.

She took up a piece of pink seaweed, and began pulling it to shreds. He was standing by, looking on.

"Don't you think," said he at last, "that there should be a good deal of sympathy – a very unusual sympathy – between two people who have come through the same suffering?"

"Oh, I suppose so," she said, with affected carelessness – her eyes still bent on the seaweed.

"Do you know," said he, again, "that I haven't the least idea what your name is!"

"My name? Oh, my name is Madge," she answered.

"Madge?" said he. "I wonder if you make the capital M this way?" and therewith he traced on the sand an ornamental M in the manner of the last century.

"No, I don't," she said, "but it is very pretty. How do you write the rest?"

Thus encouraged, he made bold to add the remaining letters, and seemed rather to admire his handiwork when it was done.

"By the way," she said, "I don't know your Christian name either!"

"Hubert."

"Can you write that in the same fashion?" she suggested, with a simple ingenuousness.

So, grown still bolder, he laboriously inscribed his name immediately underneath her own. But that was not all. When he had ended he drew a circle right round both names.

"That is a ring to enclose them," said he: and he turned from the scored names to regard her downcast face. "But – but I know a much smaller ring that could bring them still closer together. Will you let me try – Madge?"

He took her hand.

"Yes," she said, in a low voice.

And then – Oh, very well, then: then – but after a reasonable delay – then they left those creamy sands, and went up by the edge of the blue-green turnip-field to the pathway, and so to the iron gate; and as he opened the gate for her, she said —

"Oh, I don't know what happened down there, and what I've pledged myself to; but at all events there will now be one more on my side, to help me about Vin, and get him out of all this sad trouble. You will help me, won't you – Hubert?"

Of course he was eager to promise anything.

"And you say he is sure to get in for Mendover? Why, just think of him now, with everything before him; and how nice it would be for all of us if he had a smart and clever wife, who would hold her own in society, and do him justice, and make us all as proud and fond of her as we are of him. And just fancy the four of us setting out on a winter-trip to Cairo or Jerusalem: wouldn't it be simply too delicious? The four of us – only the four of us – all by ourselves. Louie Drexel is rather young, to be sure; yet she knows her way about; she's sharp; she's clever; she will have some money; and she has cheek enough for anything. And by the way – Hubert – " said she (and always with a pretty little hesitation when she came to his Christian name) "I must really ask you – with regard to Louie Drexel – well – you know – you have been – just a little – "

He murmured something about the devotion of a lifetime – the devotion which he had just promised to her – being a very different thing from trivial drawing-room dallyings; whereupon she observed —

"Oh, yes, men say so by way of excuse – "

"How many men have said so to you?" he demanded, flaring up.

"I did not say they had said so to me," she answered sweetly. "Don't go and be absurdly jealous without any cause whatever. If any one has a right to be jealous, it is I, considering the way you have been going on with Louie Drexel. But of course if there's nothing in it, that's all well and done with; and I am of a forgiving disposition, when I'm taken the right way. Now about Vin: can you see anybody who would do better for him than Louie Drexel?"

Be sure it was not of Vin Harris, much as he was interested in him, that Lord Musselburgh wished to talk at this moment; but, on the other hand, in the first flush of his pride and gratitude, any whim of hers was law to him; and perhaps it was a sufficient and novel gratification to be able to call her Madge.

"I'm afraid," said he, "that Vin is not the kind of person to have his life arranged for him by other people. And besides you must remember, Madge, dear, that you are assuming a great deal. You are assuming that you can show Vin that this old man is an impostor – "

"Oh, can there be any doubt of it!" she exclaimed. "Isn't the story you have told me yourself enough?"

Lord Musselburgh looked rather uncomfortable; he was a good-natured kind of person, and liked to think the best of everybody.

"I had no right to tell you that story," said he.

"But now I have the right to know about that and everything else, haven't I – Hubert?" said she, with a pretty coyness.

"And besides," he continued, "Vin has a perfect explanation of the whole affair. There is no doubt the old man was just full of this subject, and believed he could write about it better than anyone else, even supposing the idea had occurred to some other person; he was anxious above all things that his poetical countrymen over there in the States and Canada should be done justice to; and when he heard that the volume was actually published he immediately declared that he would do everything in his power to help it – "