"It"s because of the terribly clever people we are glad to go away."
He waxed so eloquent in his admiration of the womanly woman (who seemed by implication to have steered clear of Mrs. McTaggart"s pitfalls), that Jean asked with dancing eyes--
"Are you consoling me for not being clever?"
"Are you sure you aren"t?"
"Oh, dear, yes. No possible shadow of doubt about it."
"Then," he laughed, "I"m coming to Inverness-shire! I"ll even go so far as to call on the McTaggarts if you"ll undertake that she won"t instruct me about foreign lands."
"No such irrelevance! She"d tell you about London. She was here for six whole months. And she got something out of it I don"t believe even you have. A Certificate of Merit."
"No. London certainly never gave me one."
"You see! Mrs. McTaggart lived the life of the Metropolis with such success that she pa.s.sed an examination before she left. The subject was: "Incidents in the Life of Abraham." It says so on the certificate. She has it framed and hung in the parlour."
He smiled. "I admit few can point to such fruits of Metropolitan Ausbildung. But I think I shall prefer the burnside--or even the bog."
"No; the moors. They"re best of all." She sat looking straight before her, with her heart"s deep well overflowing at her eyes. As if she felt vaguely that some sober reason must be found for seeing those same moors in this glorified light all of a sudden, she went on, "I"ll show you a special place where white heather grows, and the rabbits tumble about as tame as kittens. It"s miles away from the sea, but the gulls come sunning themselves and walking about like pigeons. I used to hide up there when I was little and naughty. n.o.body ever found the place out except an old gaberlunzie, and I gave him tuppence not to tell."
"Yes, show me that place." His face was wonderfully attractive so!
"And we"ll take The Earthly--William Morris--along, won"t we?"
"I thought you"d given up reading poetry."
"Yes--to myself. I used to think I knew about poetry, yes, better than anybody but the poets. There are people as arrogant as that."
"Why, it"s worse than Mrs. McTaggart!"
The girl was grave, even tremulous. "But, no! I never had a notion of what poetry really was till down at Ulland you took my book away from me, and read aloud----"
Mr. Freddy let himself and Lord Borrodaile in at the front door so closely on the heels of Mrs. Freddy that the servant who had closed the door behind her had not yet vanished into the lower regions. At a word from that functionary, Mr. Freddy left his brother depositing hat and stick with the usual deliberation, and himself ran upstairs two steps at a time. He caught up with his wife just outside the drawing-room door, as she paused to take off her veil in front of that mirror which Mrs.
Freddy said should be placed between the front door and the drawing-room in every house in the land for the rea.s.surance of the timid feminine creature. She was known to add privately that it was not ignored by men--and that those who came often, contracted a habit of hurrying upstairs close at the servant"s heels, in order to have two seconds to spare for furtive consultation, while he went on to open the drawing-room door. She had observed this pantomime more than once, leaning over the banisters, herself on the way downstairs.
"They tell me Stonor"s been here half an hour," said Mr. Freddy, breathlessly. "You"re dreadfully late!"
"No, darling----"
He held out his watch to confound her. "You tell me you aren"t late?"
"Sh--no. I do so sympathize with a girl who has no mother," with which enigmatic rejoinder she pushed open the door, and went briskly through the double drawing-room to where Mr. Geoffrey Stonor and Jean Dunbarton were sitting by a window that overlooked the square.
Stonor waved away Mrs. Freddy"s shower of excuses, saying--
"You"ve come just in time to save us from falling out. I"ve been telling Miss Dunbarton that in another age she would have been a sort of Dinah Morris, or more likely another St. Ursula with a train of seven thousand virgins."
"And all because I"ve told him about my Girls" Club! and----"
"Yes," he said, ""and"----" He turned away and shook hands with his two kinsmen. He sat talking to them with his back to the girl.
It was a study in those delicate weights and measures that go to estimating the least tangible things in personality, to note how his action seemed not only to dim her vividness but actually to efface the girl. In the first moments she herself accepted it at that. Her looks said: He is not aware of me any more--ergo, I don"t exist.
During the slight distraction incident to the bringing in of tea, and Mr. Freddy"s pushing up some of the big chairs, Mr. Stonor had a moment"s remembrance of her. He spoke of his Scottish plans and fell to considering dates. Then all of a sudden she saw that again and yet more woundingly his attention had wandered. The moment came while Lord Borrodaile was busy Russianizing a cup of tea, and Mr. Freddy, balancing himself on very wide-apart legs in front of his wife"s tea-table, had interrogated her--
"What do you think, shall I ring and say we aren"t at home?"
"Perhaps it would be----" Mrs. Freddy"s eye flying back from Stonor caught her brother-in-law"s. "Freddy"--she arrested her husband as he was making for the bell--"say, "except to Miss Levering.""
"All right. Except to Miss Levering." And it was at that point that Jean saw she wasn"t being listened to.
Even Mrs. Freddy, looking up, was conscious of something in Stonor"s face that made her say--
"Old Sir Hervey"s youngest daughter. You knew _him_, I suppose, even if you haven"t met her. Jean, you aren"t giving Mr. Stonor anything to eat."
"No, no, thanks. I don"t know why I took this." He set down his tea-cup.
"I never have tea."
"You"re like everybody else," said the girl, in a half-petulant aside.
"Does n.o.body have tea?"
She lowered her voice while the others discussed who had already been sent away, and who might still be expected to invade.
"n.o.body remembers anybody else when that Miss Levering of theirs is to the fore. You began to say when--to talk about Scotland."
He had taken out his watch. "I was wondering if the children were down yet. Shall we go and see?"
Jean jumped up with alacrity.
"Sh!" Mrs. Freddy held up a finger and silenced her little circle. "They must have thought I was ringing for toast--somebody"s being let in!"
"Let"s hope it"s Miss Levering," said Mr. Freddy.
"I must see those young barbarians of yours before I go," said Stonor, rising with decision.
The sound of voices on the stair was quite distinct now. By the time the servant had opened the door and announced: "Mrs. Heriot, Miss Heriot, Captain Beeching," Mr. Freddy, the usually gracious host, was leading the way through the back drawing-room, unblushingly abetting Mr.
Stonor"s escape under the very eyes of persons who would have gone miles on the chance of meeting him.
Small wonder that Jean was consoled for knowing herself too shy to follow, if she remembered that he had actually asked her to do so! She showed no surprise at the tacit a.s.sumption on the part of his relations that Geoffrey Stonor could never be expected to sit there as common mortals might, making himself more or less agreeable to whoever might chance to drop in. Unless they were "very special" of course he couldn"t be expected to put up with them.
But what on earth was happening! No wonder Mrs. Freddy looked aghast.
For Mrs. Heriot had had the temerity to execute a short cut and waylay the escaping lion. "Oh, how do you do?"--she thrust out a hand. And he went out as if she had been thin air! It was the kind of insolence that used to be more common, because safer, than it is likely to be in future--a form of condoned brutality that used to inspire more awe than disgust. People were guilty even of a slavish admiration of those who had the nerve to administer this wholly disproportionate reproof to the merely maladroit. It could be done only by one whom all the world had conspired to befog and befool about his importance in the scheme of things.
Small wonder the girl, too, was bewildered. For no one seemed to dream of resenting what had occurred. The lesson conveyed appeared to be that the proper att.i.tude to certain of your fellow-creatures was very much the traditional one towards royalty. You were not to speak unless you were spoken to. And yet this man who with impunity snubbed persons of consideration, was the same one who was coming to call on Sally McTaggart--he was going to walk the bridle-path along the burnside to the white heather haven.