I have been very busy since you sailed. My job has been growing quite interesting. I have just returned from Chicago and points west. I have also found out that I am in training for the possibility of going back to Shandon vicinity sometime to have charge of a branch. While I like New York, Shandon is home, and it will be good to get back.
Of course I have a few friends in New York, but most of them are away on vacation just now, and I don’t find many congenial ones to talk with, so I am rather shut up to reading, though of course I never get tired of that.
I am sending you the book about which we talked on shipboard. I have just been reading it over again with you in mind and I think you will like it. Don’t forget to write me your impressions as soon as you have finished it.
Please tell me as soon as you know just when you are leaving Edinburgh. I want to keep in touch with you if you don’t mind, because you know we are real friends now.
Hoping you will have a very happy summer,
Sincerely,
Gordon McCarroll
Fortunately, Gordon did not mail that letter that night. The next morning there came the letter from Rose intimating that she might not stay long at the castle, so he decided to send his mail to Kilcreggan.
“Kilcreggan!” he said, with a pleased look in his eyes. “That sounds charming. I’d like to go there someday!” And that morning on his way to the office he stopped and got a good clear map of Scotland and looked it up.
“The Trossachs!” he said wistfully. “Well, sometime perhaps. If I could just get that chance that Haskell has this year, of being sent over to England, I sure would run up there and see things. I’d take a day off and do it. But of course there’s no chance for that this year.”
Then as he studied the map, his eyes got dreamy and he gazed off into the shadows of the room.
“Well, maybe!” he promised softly. “We’ll see!”
Chapter 12
Lord and Lady Warloch reached home toward evening, just as the soft shadows of dusk were dropping down on the valley and creeping up the winding drive. There above them towered the castle, sharp and dark against the sky, with the sunset pointing each pinnacle and tower and turning into molten fire the windows that looked westward.
They had had a long day and were tired. They rode silently side by side.
The funeral had been long and notable. Many acquaintances had come from a distance, and ministers that had much to say of the virtues of the dead. It had been enough to make one think of one’s own possible end that might not be far away. Enough to start one planning to get a little richer before the call should come to leave it all.
Not much was said about the hereafter, except by one unconventional old elder, who, because of relationship and a flair he had for saying the wrong thing before the right people, had claimed a portion of the program. He brought dismal thoughts of possible judgments and a needed preparation for a thing that didn’t seem at all real to them. Lady Warloch knew in her heart that she was not ready for any such time, if there was really to be one, and she was cross and shaken.
Then, too, they had stopped at the country place of an old cousin and his wife who hadn’t been very prosperous. They had owed these people money for a number of years and hadn’t paid it because it cost so much to live in the castle. There had been pieces of jewelry belonging to her mother that Lady Warloch had been told to give to this cousin, but she had never given them. She consoled herself by reiterating often to her own thoughts that Cousin Mary Howe would have no use whatever for that jewelry, because she never went to any affair where it would be suitable to wear it. But she made up for this lack in herself by paying a good long call every time she went by their humble home, and partaking of their best in the way of refreshment, though she well knew they could ill afford to serve it. So they had lingered and enjoyed a pleasant repast, and now as they drove toward their high castle, the vision of the humble thatched cottage with its ill-cared-for outlying borders and desolate empty fields stood out in contrast with their own apparent prosperity.
It was not unnatural that my lady should go on to think of others whom by rights she might have benefited, if she had not to take such good care of herself. And then there was that enmity toward her dead sister that she had harbored in her heart all these years. Somehow, sometime, she would have to make up for that. And the time had come now in the person of her sister’s child who, after all that had been said about resembling an unknown aunt, did look like her mother.
“I think,” said she, out of the silence that had enveloped them ever since they had left the cousin’s place, “that I shall leave my sister’s picture in my will to Margaret, and I feel that she should have her mother’s piano!”
The stiff gray lips of Lord Warloch opened sharply.
“Don’t think of it!” he said. “That picture was painted by a noted artist. It should sell for a good price! I have several times wondered if we should not send for some collector and have it appraised.” “It belongs to the family,” said Lady Warloch. “It was my own sister’s portrait. It is not decent to let it go out of the family!”
“Nonsense!” said my lord. “Nobody will know whose picture it is if you don’t tell them. Besides, we might be able to sell it to some great collection where it would be on exhibition, and that would be to our credit, you know.”
“It is mine!” said Lady Warloch coldly.
“Yes, but I am your husband,” said my lord sternly, “and I say it should be sold. And as for the piano, if that baggage of a niece of yours wants her mother’s piano, she can pay for it. Since she says her father left her money, there is no reason why we should give her anything valuable. That too might bring in a fair price. I will make inquiry about it.”
“I will think it over,” said my lady, still coldly. And then they drew up in front of the castle and got out.
Maggie was watching from a narrow window, dreading what was to come when my lord and my lady found out what had happened in their absence. Would they be relieved, or would they be very angry? Maggie had no precedent by which to judge, and she stood there quaking in her worn old shoes, trying to study their faces and see if they were in a pleasant mood or otherwise. But they were wearing their after-funeral faces, and it was impossible to tell. So Maggie turned reluctantly from her post of observation and hurried about the dinner. They would likely be wanting it at once.
So she did not go to Lady Warloch to tell the news. Instead she saw to it that the dinner was a good one and was on the table promptly at the usual hour and the summons given in good order.
It was not until Lord and Lady Warloch came downstairs and took their places behind their chairs and looked about them for Rose to appear, that they missed her.
“Did you call Miss Margaret?” asked Lord Warloch of Thomas as he entered from the butler’s pantry.
Thomas gave a frightened glance behind him at Maggie, who was following with a carving knife that belonged with the first course.
“She’s gane, my lord,” gasped Thomas out of a very firm determination not to seem flustered.
“Gone?” echoed the master of the house. “Where has she gone, Thomas?”
“Why, sir, she’s gane tae her gran’mither’s. There come a loetter for her this morn aboot an oor aifter ye left, sayin’ her gran’mither was took worse an’ was aboot tae dee, an’ askin’ wud she come queek!”
“And you let her go, like that!” exclaimed Lady Warloch in horror. “You let her go all alone? Where is Maggie? Oh, Maggie! Why did you let Miss Margaret go off that way? You should have kept her until we returned. It was not respectable for one of our family to go traveling off alone. A young girl? What will people think of us? And how did she go? Surely you didn’t let her walk! Thomas, how did she get away?”
“There wes nae haudin’ her, my lady! She wud awa’! She said she maun see her granny afore she deed, and sae the baker’s lad was passin’ an’ I speared him tae take her. She set aff quite comfortable, my lady!”
/> “The baker’s boy!”
Lord and Lady Warloch looked at each other aghast, as if all their respectability of all the years that were past was shattered by this act of these feckless servants.
“But I don’t understand it!” said my lady. “You certainly knew that was not the thing to do. Surely both of you knew that we would want her kept here until we arrived, and then we would have decided what was the best thing for her to do.”
“My lady,” said Thomas with Scotch dignity which he assumed on occasions of great stress, “ye said naethin’ at a’ aboot lookin’ aifter the young lady. She seemed tae hev her mind med oop, an’ ther was nae disputin’ her. She said she maun gang, an’ gang she wud. There wes nae haudin’ her!”
“Yes,” sighed Lady Warloch, “she’s her mother over again, I suppose.”
“Yes,” echoed Lord Warloch, “I told you how it would be when you wanted her to come. I told you it would be the old story of her mother over again if she came. And now you see! We just get nothing for our trouble.”
“Trouble?” said Lady Warloch irately. “What trouble have you had, I should like to know?”
“We’ve got trouble now, haven’t we? With the MacCallummores’ dinner and all this affair with the young lord pretty well fixed up, then she runs away. That’s just what her mother did, isn’t it? And now we’ll have to traipse all over the country to hunt her, I suppose. Probably take all day tomorrow, and I had a man coming to see me.”
Lady Warloch flashed a look at Thomas, whose curiosity was fairly popping out of his eyes. A glimmer of Maggie’s eye glued to a crack showed through the pantry door that wasn’t shut tight, and Lady Warloch withered her husband with a glance.
“I think we will discuss that later, Robert!” she said with finality.
Lord Warloch cast an eye at Thomas as if he had no right to be there and closed his lips in a hard thin line, and the meal proceeded silently thereafter.
But Lady Warloch was not done with the subject. As soon as the meal was over she summoned Maggie to an interview.
Maggie came in fear and trembling, but she bore Rose’s note, which in her first flurry of their arrival she had forgotten.
“My lady, the young lady left this letter for ye,” she said shakily. The servants had briefly and breathlessly discussed the situation in the kitchen, and the chauffeur had contributed some bits of conversation he had been able to overhear on the journey. Maggie was inclined to hold up her head a little over her rebuke. After all, she knew the family history, and she knew the high handed way they had carried on when this girl’s mother went away to marry the man of her choice. Her sympathies were with the Galbraith side, though she never had seen any of them but this sweet child whom they called Margaret, after her mother. Rose Margaret, she had gathered was the name, with much indignation and resentment over the Rose part.
So Maggie handed over the letter.
“Oh! She left a letter, did she?” said Lady Warloch. “Well, you should have given me that at once when I returned.”
“Well, a’ was that flustered wi’ yir sharp words that I completely forgot it.”
“That’s enough,” said Lady Warloch. “You may go. I’ll call you later when I have read the letter.”
So Maggie scuttled away, sniffing with relief. She could dimly remember the faces there had been when Lady Warloch’s sister had departed. She herself had been a young girl at this time, just a scullery maid in the kitchen, but she had greatly admired the young lady and rejoiced in her courage to run away with the man of her choice.
Lord Warloch came in just as his wife finished reading the letter. He glanced at it with a frown, and silently she handed it over to him.
He read it hurriedly and continued frowning.
“Where did you find this?” he asked sharply.
“Maggie brought it to me just now.”
“Why didn’t she produce it sooner? Seems to me we have very negligent servants. I think we have sufficient ground for taking something off their wages for this. Such gross neglect of duty, letting a guest go off that way with a baker’s boy! Now, where in the world has she gone? Do you know? Did she leave you an address? Do you know where those common people who are related to her live?”
“Why no,” said Lady Warloch. “I never asked her. But surely Thomas will know what train she took.”
Thomas and Maggie were summoned again, though they had scarcely tasted their own dinner as yet, and they were put through a questionnaire that seemed to them like an inquisition.
Yet when it was all over and the lord and lady had administered all the rebukes they could think of, they had gained little. The girl had taken a train for Glasgow, but that was all they could find out. Maggie was under the impression that Rose’s relatives lived in a suburb of Glasgow, but when the matter was sifted down, she wasn’t sure whether they were to meet the girl in Glasgow or at the suburban station. So they finally decided that they would have to wait about that matter until the next day, hoping that Rose would have the courtesy to write them. Meantime, of course, they could get in touch with the baker’s boy and see if he knew any more about where she was going.
“We must find her before Wednesday and compel her to return, at least until after that dinner. I am sure you ought to be able to make her understand how exceedingly rude she would be to run away from an invitation like that. She certainly can’t expect that we can do anything for her socially if she behaves in such an unseemly way!” said her uncle. “You wouldn’t understand, but it may make a great difference to us financially. It is necessary that you find out just how much money that child has, and we must get it into our control as soon as possible. She is too young to handle a fortune herself, and I’m surprised that your sister didn’t intimate in some of her letters that she would like me to take over the handling of the fortune her husband left to them!”
“Well,” said Lady Warloch, “you can’t tell what strange ideas American women have. I understand they are used to doing all sorts of things themselves in business. Besides, you have no assurance that there was any great fortune.”
“Yes,” said the uncle convincingly, “I feel sure there is. If there had not been, why would she be unwilling to tell me the amount?”
“Well, I know nothing whatever about her financial affairs,” said Lady Warloch coldly. “My sister never told me. Through all the years, she never told me anything about her husband’s people. She was very reticent. She felt she had a great grievance, and I think her husband was proud.”
“Proud! What did he have to be proud of? Had he a castle, or a royal name or fame? Of course, I’ve heard that there are people in America who have amassed great fortunes by chance out of oil, or coal, or even gold. It may have been something like that, you know. But she distinctly told me her father had left her money; when I asked her how much she answered very impertinently that she didn’t think her father would care to have her discuss it. So, you see. If she hadn’t a pretty large fortune, she wouldn’t have been taught to be so canny about it. And we must be very cautious or we shall lose all advantage. The first thing in the morning we must try to find that foolish girl. Grandmother or no grandmother, she must go to that dinner!”
“I don’t see how you’re going to find her until we know where she’s gone. For my part, I think it would be better to get in touch with Lord MacCallummore at once and tell him that she had word that her grandmother was dying, and she didn’t know any better than to go traipsing off alone, thought she had to dance attendance on her relatives just because they sent for her.”
“Well, that might not be a bad idea. We’ll see when the chauffeur gets back from town whether he has been able to locate the man who sold that ticket to her. And the baker’s boy, too. That’s important.”
But though they made cautious inquiry far and wide, they got no further information the next day.
And when the second night settled down, they were no nearer to a solution of the affair than when they first discovere
d Rose was gone.
Chapter 13
Rose going on her way was seeing the wonders of a new world. For a time indeed she was tormented lest she had left something undone or unsaid about her going away. Had she done this thing in a way that would have pleased her mother and father? But as the train went on by new ways across an enchanting country, she forgot her unpleasant experiences of Warloch castle and only the pleasant things came to the surface of her memory. The dear piano and her mother’s precious picture. The lovely old books in the bookcase in her room that she had so hoped to read sometime. Would she ever go back and read them? Some of their names she could remember, and she took out a pencil and paper and wrote them down lest they might slip from her memory. Perhaps someday she would be able to buy some of them.
Ah, there was one thing she would like to buy, and that was that dear piano. Her aunt did not play. It could not be so very dear to her. Would it offend them sometime if she suggested it? Of course, not now. She had no money, except the tiny fortune her father had left. Would her mother have thought it right to spend that for the piano, when she would not let her use it for the journey or for anything else she wanted to get?
Still, the piano would be a help to her. Her music was now her only fortune. She could earn her way so much better if she had a good piano. This was a very fine piano, even though it was so old, a great deal finer than she would need to have for just teaching little children.
Of course, if she were going to be a concert performer, it would be well worth her while to have a fine piano. But that being the case, would her poor precious little five hundred dollars be enough to purchase it? Certainly not if Uncle Robert, Lord Warloch, had the say of it. Aunt Janet might perhaps be a little more lenient.
Rose Galbraith Page 14