Part 14

Aunt Elsie thought she deserved some praise, and Diana allowed she had been too clever for words.

“But think of the cost,” said Aunt Elsie, aching for sympathy.

Diana affected surprise. Did Aunt Elsie mean that she minded what Uncle Marcus thought of her? “It wasn’t as if you wanted to marry him, darling?” she said, seeking to comfort her.

Marry him? Elsie was horrified at the mere thought; but argued that, although you might not want to marry a man, you might not necessarily want to appear an idiot in his eyes. Further, she vowed Diana must have marrying on the brain to have thought of such a thing; and Diana said, What if she had? Whereupon Elsie understood everything in a flash, as it were (so she said). Diana, steadying her, begged her not to understand too much—it was so dangerous—so bewildering—and so overwhelming—it should come gradually, not like an avalanche.

“But you must tell me, darling; think what I have done for you,” pleaded Aunt Elsie. She deserved some reward.

There was nothing to tell. Diana said she had muddled it all. Then there had been something! It could be put right—there was no muddle so bad that an aunt couldn’t straighten it out! All eagerness was Elsie.

“Isn’t there?” asked Diana. “Uncles and aunts are wonderful people.” And she would say nothing more.

“It was rather brilliant on my part, though, wasn’t it?” asked Aunt Elsie, still longing for praise—if she had seemed foolish she would at least have been foolish in a good cause.

“Don’t forget the dogs!” said Diana.

XX

_It’s a wide gulf that the arms of a child cannot bridge._

Marcus refused to wait even for the joy of wresting Shan’t from her aunt. He was furious. Miss Carston had deliberately made a fool of him; in doing it she had made a fool of herself, too, but that did not make it any the better. With herself she might do what she liked; but she had no right to treat him as she had done. He had come inspired with the best motives; had been thinking of nothing but the happiness of Diana. To secure that he had been willing to forget everything that had passed between himself and the aunt.

That there was something she had promised Diana not to tell him was quite evident, but she might have adopted some other means of keeping her promise. Was it likely he would have wished to hear anything Diana did not wish to tell him?

That was a question an injured man might ask himself without guessing the right answer.

He had said he would wait in London for Shan’t—he could not disappoint the child, and her Nannie had promised to deliver her up the next day with sufficient overalls, jerseys, shoes, and socks, etc., for a fortnight.

“You can manage the journey, sir?” Nannie had asked, doubting, and Mr. Maitland had said a housemaid was returning to Scotland with him who would look after her.

So Shan’t went to Scotland, and about what happened on the journey Uncle Marcus forever held his speech, but he was a wreck when he got to Glenbossie, and was thankful to hand her over to a housemaid who could manage her. The travelling one had signally failed. “She didn’t understand me a bit,” said Shan’t; “she simply couldn’t keep me in order, could she?”—this triumphantly to Uncle Marcus. “She could not,” he agreed; whereupon she informed him that it was no use just telling her not to do things. “You must be firm,” she explained.

“I see,” said Uncle Marcus.

Shan’t must have written a letter full of boastful arrogance to Dick, because she got one from him, by what she called “returnal post,” and in it he said: “I don’t suppose your place is like this—it’s simply toppin’. Mr. Taboret got forty brace of grouse to his own gun the other day, and not content with that effort he went out when it was yet light and got three salmon! I saw him do the mighty deed—then in the evening he danced—he wears a kilt—does Uncle Marcus? This house is about as big as the Albert Hall in London, I should think, from what I can remember of it. They got four hundred brace of grouse the other day—I sat in a butt, with a Duke, I think he was, but he wasn’t at all a bad sort of chap; he wore a kilt too and his beard was red”: in answer to which Shan’t wrote a pithy post-card: “we shoot dere hear,” which brought forth a stinging reply: “I have shot two roe _deer_—not _dere_; you spelt it wrong—write it out four hundred times—it’s not supposed to be good form to shoot roe deer with a shot-gun; does Uncle Marcus?”

“Do you?” asked Shan’t anxiously of her uncle, her sporting world trembling in the balance.

“No.”

Shan’t wrote, “He says he doesunt”—and there the correspondence ended.

To any reference on the part of Shan’t to her darlin’ Aunt Elsie, Marcus turned a deaf ear, and to Shan’t a stony countenance, and Shan’t learnt very quickly not to talk about her darlin’ aunt, but, child though she was, she felt there was disloyalty in that, so she thought about her a great deal—and when Uncle Marcus said: “What are you thinking about, Shan’t?” she would piously answer: “You wouldn’t like if I said!”

She lo-oved Scotland. She bathed and she paddled and she went out in a boat with John and she f-ished! And John spoilt her, as only a man knows how to spoil.

She quickly learnt at which farm—and it was at every farm—she could get oat cakes and milk at any time of the day, and she was convinced it was French the Scotch spoke, and when they called her wee, she said. “Mais non!”

She sat with joy under the Minister. The service was never too long, because at the end of it came a money-box on the end of a pole, which was poked into the face of every member of the congregation, and finally made its way upstairs and round the galleries, which perambulations she loved. She rode a cream-coloured pony, with a black stripe down his back, on the hill, and a fine swagger was hers as she rode up the steep, narrow tracks with Sandy and John walking one on either side of her, through the heather: she discoursing all the while on the differences between a church and a kirk—which were mainly, it seemed, the differences between dull bags or plates and a box on the end of a stick; serious differences, these. “There’s an a’ful difference between them whatever,” agreed John, but then he agreed to everything she said.

She was frightfully spoilt and Marcus was not behind the others in doing his share of the spoiling. So when she was thrown from the pony and lay in her bed unconscious, a black cloud hung over the Lodge of Glenbossie, and Marcus, in the depths of despair, wandered here and there unable to do anything because he had done everything that could be done and it had not availed. Sandy and John just stood around, to be there if anything should happen—and nothing happened, that was the worst of it. Anything—excepting, of course, one thing—would be better than this lying still—conscious of nothing. Mrs. Oven was so cross no one could go near her. It was the way sorrow took her, she told Pillar, who had dared to demand an explanation.

The household refused to be comforted, and when the Minister came to pray for the “wee lassie,” Uncle Marcus turned upon him furiously, saying, “It’s not come to that yet,” which was an old story, but it showed how true that old story was to human nature: and the Minister, no doubt, went on praying: being too devout a man to be deterred, and knowing probably that Mr. Maitland, like many another good man, had not yet met God face to face.

Then Aunt Elsie arrived wearing what Diana would have called a hat without a kick left in it, of which hat Marcus approved. It seemed impossible now to associate her with absurd behaviour. Here was no woman playing ridiculous jokes, with little fun in them, but a woman calm, composed, and most unhappy.

Marcus was glad she wouldn’t have anything to eat until she had seen Shan’t, and seen for herself how ill she was. Elsie thought it was impossible she could be so ill as Mr. Maitland had led her to expect; she was certain he exaggerated as all men did. The very fact of their strength made them overestimate the weakness of others. She followed him upstairs, and as he stopped at a door he put a finger to his lips. At any other time she might have resented this and might have said, Was it likely she would go into a sick-room talking and laughing? But now she nodded her head. She was an aunt subdued. She followed him into a darkened room: and a nurse rose from the bedside. She did not put her finger to her lips because she knew how unlikely it was that Shan’t could be disturbed by anything.

“There’s no change,” she said.

“Go and rest,” said Marcus, and she went; perhaps the calm grey eyes of Elsie gave her a sense of security. At all events, she did not question the right of the new-comer to wait and watch. Marcus sat down at one side of the bed, Elsie at the other. They seemed so near to one another, divided only by the ridge of bedclothes so slightly raised.

“Concussion,” he whispered.

Elsie nodded; she never spoke. He wished she would say something, possibly: How terrible it must have been for him! Then he might have said: What a journey it must have been for her! But she said nothing. Her eyes never left Shan’t’s face. Sometimes Marcus looked from Shan’t to Elsie. In the daylight darkness—the blinds were drawn—he could see, he thought, why it was the children were so fond of her, and why, if her brother in any way resembled her, Sibyl was so devoted to him. He liked her quietness—although she might, perhaps, have said a few words: but that was a thing no woman could do. If she had spoken at all she must have spoken too much.

And so Marcus and Elsie, when they were not eating or sleeping, and they ate very little and slept hardly at all, sat and watched. And while they watched, Elsie had time to discover that Marcus had nice hands and he to find that he rather liked the way her hair grew; and that was all. He was the uncle on the one side—she the aunt on the other—of Shan’t’s bed—so small a thing dividing them.

XXI

_To the young woman God gives rich gifts: from the middle-aged woman He asks them back: to the old woman He gives them all again—for good._

Mrs. Sloane was distressed about Diana, and her old eyes were quick to see a change in the girl whose reticence about her visit to Scotland was unusual in one who was accustomed to confide.

When the news of Shan’t’s accident came her grief was unnatural in its overwhelming force. Diana looked reluctantly upon the black side of things: and was always eager to believe that things must come right. A happy Diana would have refused to believe that anything could happen to Shan’t for the very good reason that she loved her. Here, then, thought Mrs. Sloane, was an accumulation of sorrow, sorrow, that had been held back by force, let go. The telegram had said nothing of danger, so Mrs. Sloane knew Diana was glad of the excuse to cry, and she, of course, was right, as understanding old women usually are.

So she set about to stem the tide of Diana’s grief.

She wrote to Mrs. Hastings and begged the loan of her son for a few days, because of those other days of long ago. She wanted to see what (she meant who) he was like: and, of course, Miles’s mother was only too delighted any one should see what her son was like, so he was despatched to London—against his will—to see Mrs. Sloane: not to Bestways; that would have been too clumsy a move on the part of the old lady, and too obvious. She had yet to make a complete plan: London, at present, was as far as she had got in her manœuvres.

Just before she started Diana flew in—it was the word Mrs. Sloane invariably used to describe Diana’s movements: she had a telegram in her hand which she gave in silence to Mrs. Sloane to read. And in silence Mrs. Sloane read it. Shan’t was not so well.

“I must go to-night,” said Diana.

“You must go, of course,” said Mrs. Sloane, adding that she would have waited and gone with her, so far as London: but she had an engagement for luncheon.

So Mrs. Sloane went to London alone and drove straight to that hotel at which she knew a young man would like best to lunch: although she had a very shrewd suspicion that she was about to rob a young man of his rightful appetite. When she arrived at the hotel she went into one of the rooms where she was most certain of seclusion, and sat down in one of the windows to wait. Personally she would have preferred one of the quieter, older-fashioned hotels: but this was a concession on her part to fashion and to youth.

She had only to wait a few minutes when into the room came a young man, and at the sight of him her heart stirred, for reasons of its own, not unknown to her. A vast area of rose-coloured carpet, a vista of mirrors, and rows of pillars generally have a dwarfing effect, but Miles Hastings looked very big and absurdly like his grandfather. Her heart was beating normally again as she rose to meet the young man, and going up to him she slipped her hand within his arm and gave it a little squeeze of affection. “How kind of you to come!”

He smiled, wondering what this dear old lady wanted.

“Let me look at you,” she said. “You have grown!”

He said it was perhaps a long time since she had seen him.

“You were a baby in arms when I last saw you.”

Miles Hastings laughed, and turned to look again at this old friend of his mother—and perhaps, he thought, of his father—and saw that her cheeks were flushed—most delicately flushed—and her eyes were bright with excitement. He wondered why? There was nothing very exciting about him, he feared.

Mrs. Sloane gently directed him towards the sofa in the window.

“Now let me look at you properly,” she said, putting up her glasses.

“Deal with me mercifully,” he pleaded.

“I see no reason to do that,” she answered.

“It’s awfully good of you,” he murmured.

“I am going to be much gooder than that—as Shan’t says.”

“Shan’t?”

“Yes, Shan’t; do you know her?”

“No.” He did not know her, but he was beginning to understand the flush on the cheeks of the old lady and the light in her kind old eyes.

“That’s a pity, as Shan’t herself would say; but now to business. I want you to do something for me. I knew your grandfather; if that is not reason enough you must do it for me because I am old—and a woman, and because I want you to do it.”

“I will do anything you ask me to do—because you are you.”

Mrs. Sloane smiled: she was beginning to envy Diana.

“Some one I am very fond of is going to Scotland to-night—she is unhappy and she is anxious. I cannot bear to think of her to-morrow morning.”

“I guess—” he began.

Mrs. Sloane laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“—struggling for a breakfast-basket—there’s no time at which you so much want a man, don’t you agree?—even if you have a maid?”

Miles was ready to agree to anything.

“I have two conditions to make—one is that you do not see her, or speak to her to-night, and the other is that you leave her to-morrow morning, when you have seen her into the train which will take her to her destination—you agree?”

Miles agreed; adding, “I am wondering if you are an angel in disguise.”

“In disguise? Is that quite kind?”

“Forgive me—when the gate of Heaven opens suddenly the light is blinding. You are a dear!” And he looked at her in a way that opened up a whole world of romance. If he should look at Diana to-morrow even as he had looked at an old woman to-day, Diana would possibly make a poor breakfast in the morning, but would be very happy some day.

At luncheon Mrs. Sloane and Miles were the object of a certain amount of speculation, and a greater amount of interest. By most people they were voted grandmother and grandson—by others mother and son. Two people gave it up. One of them was a big young man with a shock of fair hair, and the other was the girl with him, who knew Mrs. Sloane had no son.

“Speak to her,” said Mr. Flueyn.

Rose was shy. If the pillars and mirrors had not dwarfed Miles, they frightened her. She was as appalled by their magnificence as she was by that of her new hat. Her marriage had been so hastily arranged that only that morning had she had time to send Mr. Maitland his bit of wedding cake, and she had altogether forgotten Mrs. Sloane’s.

“You look so pretty, darling,” urged her husband, “she won’t mind about the cake.”

And Rose, taking courage, walked across to the table where Mrs. Sloane and Miles Hastings sat. With a pang she realized the extreme order of this young man’s hair: then with a rush of loyalty she asked Mrs. Sloane if she might introduce her husband.

“My dear child, do, I shall be so glad to meet him.”

And Rose motioned him to come, and across the room he came, like a breeze ruffling the surface of a loch. Mrs. Sloane felt braced at his approach, and, though suffering acutely under the force of his handshake, smiled bravely. To his question, What did she think of the wife? she answered that she thought her radiantly pretty. To the question, What did she think of the hat? she less truthfully vowed it charming. To his account of how and why the marriage had been hastened on, she lent an interested attention, and when he and Rose had been made thoroughly happy by her charming appreciation of everything, and the promise of a present to come, they left: Rose returning to say hurriedly that she was so sorry she had forgotten the cake. It was coming! She hoped Mrs. Sloane had not thought her rude. “I only sent Mr. Maitland’s to-day. I hope he won’t think me rude not having sent it at once. He of all people in the world—I should never forget.”

Mrs. Sloane was quite sure Mr. Maitland would not think her rude. Then she turned to Miles, wondering what he would say. She knew exactly what Marcus would have said—about the hat.

“Happy young things,” said Miles, despatching them from his mind with a smile. Then he leant forward, as though some thought had suddenly struck him. “About those conditions you have exacted,” he said; “supposing certain contingencies should arise, must I—am I in honour bound—to leave this—person of whom you are very fond when I have seen her into the train that takes her on—you know _where_?”

“That was one of my conditions! You accepted it!”

“Yes, and I mean to abide by it—but supposing—I only say supposing—it is more than I can bear; the separation, I mean; may I at the last moment jump into the guard’s van, if I don’t let her know I’m on the train? It’s only a remote possibility, but I might feel unable to abide by your condition.”

“You promised to—”

“And I mean to—but if I give my word of honour I can’t break it—therefore, I only want your permission to do this in circumstances over which I might possibly have no control: if, let us say, she should look so beautiful that I lost my head—if by chance, let us say, she should smile at me—you know how she does smile—I suppose you do—! Well, may I use my own judgment? It only means that I shall be in the same train. I won’t speak to her or let her see me?”

“Under very exceptional circumstances—and I leave it to your sense of honour not to make them exceptional—you may travel in the guard’s van—without letting her know you are there.” And Mrs. Sloane, looking at him, shook her head as old women will do in affectionate despair at those young people of whom they most particularly approve.

XXII

_The best man on the train may be the guard in the van—make friends with him._

It was not so easy for Miles to hide himself at Euston Station as Mrs. Sloane had seemed to imagine. He was one of those who show in a crowd, being bigger than most, and, according to his mother, handsomer. And he was a little reckless until he had seen the object of his search. Once he had seen Diana walk down the platform with her chin in the air, as was her habit, approved by her uncle, who thought she walked as a woman should walk, and as few did, he was more cautious, and dodged behind mountains of luggage, but never losing sight of the figure in blue tweed. She wore her hat well pulled down over her eyes, and he was glad. Once his he would want the whole world to see her, but till then he would have all men blind to her beauty. He bet himself five shillings she would buy “Blackwood” at the bookstall, and she bought it. Feeling himself the richer of five shillings—he held himself justified in giving it to the porter who was looking after her luggage: then he committed her to the care of the guard, and he asked nothing of the guard he was not ready to pay for. At the last moment he took possession of his sleeping-compartment within a few doors of Diana’s. Then he committed her into God’s safe keeping for the night—the guard on the train and God in Heaven; she must be safe. To the guard he had offered money—to God he offered the rest of his life if He would only give him Diana, to take care of—forever. Was it irreverent? Far from it, never in his life had he felt more humbly reverent.

Diana as she travelled thought how different it had been so short a time ago when she had travelled up with Uncle Marcus. Now there was nothing to look forward to and everything to dread. Shan’t might be dangerously ill! That she might not recover Diana would not have admitted even to herself. But there was the feeling underneath everything that life might not give her all she had asked of it. The thought was disquieting because she had asked of it only what she must have! Diana was young and she slept—although she had been certain she could not sleep—and she awoke in Scotland, and Scotland is Scotland and must not be denied. She demands, at least, that the traveller shall look out and wonder at her beauty. So Diana dressed and went out into the corridor and looked down into the glens, rushing past; on to the rowans, red with berries, and up to the torrents of water that streamed down the mountain-sides. Life, after all, could not cheat her. The morning sang aloud for very joy; not only the burns and the waterfalls, but everything sang.

Then she discovered she was hungry and she was certain she could never get a breakfast-basket. Arrived at the station, where these things are to be had, for those who have the forethought to order them, she looked out of the window, and the first thing she saw was Miles Hastings striding towards her—followed by a man carrying two breakfast-baskets.

“You!” she exclaimed. “How did you get here?”

“By train, just as you did,” he answered. “I knew your father wouldn’t like it if you didn’t have your breakfast properly. You see my duties don’t end when I land in England. Will you come to another carriage? It’s not very nice eating in a sleeping-berth, is it? Will you come? I have reserved a compartment. This most excellent man bears baps and bacon and eggs and marmalade and tea. Coming?”

Diana was already coming, curiosity, if nothing else, compelling her. How had he really come? She had little dreamed that all night he had been so close to her: that every time the train had stopped at a station he had mounted guard outside her door.

“Don’t talk until you have had breakfast,” he said; “then I want to talk to you very seriously—don’t look so adorable, because it upsets me. I never imagined any one could look so clean as you look after a journey.”

“And you have shaved, haven’t you?” she asked; and he laughed and said he wouldn’t be her father’s A.D.C. if he hadn’t. Then he assured her—“Shan’t is going to get quite well. I read up concussion, before I didn’t go to sleep last night. Don’t ask any questions! Never ask me to explain why I am here, because it cannot be explained except that there are more angels on this earth than even Heaven knows of. I always knew there was one—go on eating.”

Diana reminded him that angels did not eat, but in spite of that he begged her to have some more. She couldn’t eat two eggs? Had she ever tried? She couldn’t remember that she had. Not even after hunting? No? They were dull things to talk about, anyhow! Should he put the baskets under the seat? He put them under the seat.