by Guy McCrone
Even Phœbe was forced to respond. Grace remembered the Highland woman and her children in the coach-house. The man, Phœbe told her, had left hospital and was with them now. Grace asked to be taken to see them. She stayed with them talking for some time. Phœbe could see that she was used to such people, hurting none of their quick pride with a sympathy that was blunt or heavy-handed. Grace Dermott was not, after all, perhaps, the sweet-faced nonentity Phœbe had taken her to be.
Returned from the coach-house, Grace gave Bel her hand and said she must be gone, as she wanted to look in on Sophia. Bel said goodbye with apprehension, wondering what kind of confusion she would find at Rosebery Terrace. If she had known, her apprehension would have been greater. The entire Butter family were at home. Wil and Margy had been given a skating holiday from school, and were clamouring noisily for an early meal, as they wanted to go off to skate.
Sophia was fussing round in the steam of cooking, wearing one of her little maid’s aprons. “Be quiet, children! I am being as quick as ever I can. Margy, go and lay the table. Katie, did you forget we needed salt? It’s too silly having no salt in the house. Wait. Here’s some salt spilt on a dresser shelf. I’ll scrape it together and use that. Wil, there’s the bell, dear. Go and answer it. Katie’s busy.”
The door was opened to Grace by a lanky boy of fifteen with some of the Moorhouse good looks. He looked at the smart young lady in the fur jacket, then at the carriage behind her, and waited, saying nothing.
Grace smiled. “Are you Wil Butter? I’m your new Aunt Grace. Can I come in?”
A sheepish grin spread on Wil’s face. He opened the door wider, and Grace followed him. “I’ll get Mother,” was all he said, leaving her standing in the hall. A moment later she heard voices, presumably in the kitchen.
“Mother, that’s Aunt Grace.”
“Aunt who?”
“Grace. Uncle David’s young lady.”
“Dear me! Run and tell her I’m coming. Where have you put her?”
“Nowhere.”
“Silly boy. Why didn’t you show her in beside Father? I must come at once.” Sophia came into view undoing the apron. “Grace dear, I’m delighted to see you! I’m hurrying up dinner because the children want to skate. They’re so impatient. It’s awful! Do come in where it’s warm. William, this is Grace. This is my husband.”
A black, hairy man was sitting in the stuffy little parlour in an embroidered smoking-cap and slippers, reading the newspapers. He got up ponderously and gave Grace his hand.
As he did not offer a remark, Grace said it was very cold. Sophia said it was indeed cold, and please to sit down and warm herself.
“I only looked in to leave a brace of pheasants. Mother said she thought you might like them.”
Nothing pleased Sophia better than to receive something for nothing. “Oh, how kind of you, dear! What a nice present!”
The dinner-bell clanged harshly. “Oh, there’s the bell. Grace, stay and have something. We all want to see you.” The words were out of Sophia’s mouth before she could take them back.
So Grace sent the carriage away, and stayed to eat shepherd’s pie and mashed turnips from cracked dishes laid on a stained table-cloth. Her hirsute host was expressionless and speechless, but, Grace decided, not antagonistic. With Sophia and her constant talk, flowing rather from the lack of ideas than from the possession of them, Grace was already familiar. But she was interested in the two untidy, handsome children. Like herself, they were direct and friendly, and prepared to make her one of themselves. And so, this most unlikely of luncheon-parties was a success. Grace said goodbye to William and Sophia in a cloud of goodwill. The pheasants, still lying in the hall, had been duly admired, and Grace drove off towards the fog-threatened city accompanied by Wil and Margy muffled up and carrying their skates. She had undertaken to drop them at St. Vincent Pond, which was, like so many other ponds in and about the city, being advertised as having its ice in prime condition.
In the carriage she extracted a promise from them to come down to spend the day at Aucheneame on Saturday. Their Uncle David would be there, and, if it was still freezing, they would all go skating on one of the lochs in the Kilpatrick Hills. By that time the ice would be safe even on deep water.
As they sat fitting on their skates, the Butter children agreed with each other that their new aunt was a bit fussy, perhaps, but not too bad. And that they had expected their la-di-da Uncle David would want to marry more of a fool.
II
Since her first visit to Bel, two days before, Grace had not seen David. But this morning she had received a letter from him telling her that he had consulted Arthur about quitting the family business in the Candleriggs, and that all was well. She had replied by electric telegram bidding David come down to Aucheneame for the night, if possible, in order to talk things over. He would find Grace at his sister Mary’s house at Albany Place where she had been invited to take tea. They could drive back together.
Having left the two Butter children at St. Vincent Pond, Grace spent the intervening time shopping. In spite of the cold and the threat of fog, she went about the town with a light heart. The shops were warm, and gay with Christmas tinsel, and Miss Dermott of Aucheneame was a welcome customer. Several times Grace found herself humming little snatches from sheer pleasure, as she trod the wintry pavements, stopping every now and then to examine the contents of a window. In the light of her own happiness, the Moorhouse family seemed a grand lot. The Grosvenor Terrace household. Sophia’s family. She was glad that half-grown boy and girl, who had driven part of the way into town with her, were to be her nephew and niece. Their gawky eagerness warmed her. She wondered how they were getting on with their skating, and found herself wishing she were with them. But there was this visit to be paid to Mary, where she was to see the McNairn nephews and nieces. Yes; she liked the Moorhouses.
And at the centre of them all was David.
And now presently it was time to meet the carriage and make her way west once more. This time in the direction of Charing Cross and Crescents.
III
Baillie George McNairn had pompously announced this morning at breakfast that he was coming home specially to do the honours at tea. The occasion, he said, demanded it. His new sister-in-law must be received with all respect. If Grace had not been the daughter of one of Glasgow’s shipping princes, if she had been the mere daughter of an empty purse, the baillie might not have felt so strongly the compulsions of politeness. But at all events, there he was with his wife, ready to receive the child of Robert Dermott with every manifestation of decorous approval.
As Grace appeared in the doorway of the snug, over-furnished drawing-room in Albany Place, it was George, plump and imposing, who advanced heavily to meet her. “Come away, my dear, come away. Very pleased indeed.”
George did not make the reasons for his pleasure more precise, but it was nice for Grace to know the mood of her host and hostess. She advanced to Mary, and was received with calm affection, remarked how foggy it was becoming, and was bidden to sit close to the fire.
For once, Grace found herself doing most of the talking. Didn’t they think it unusually cold for early winter? Did they think the fog would really settle down? Wouldn’t it really be a pity if it were a cold winter, when there was so much distress about? It was hard going. She was almost grateful to George when, cutting in upon her own somewhat forced efforts, he began a long panegyric on the merits of her own father, on his great brilliance as a man of business and as a leader of men. It was embarrassing to listen to, perhaps. Especially as George had so many of his facts wrong. But at least it was less of an effort than having to pump out conversation on her own account.
“And to think that he rose from nothing—nothing at all!” George was winding up his discourse on a note that a quicker, less well-disposed daughter might have found necessary for her father’s sake, to qualify, when two very fat little girls of four or thereby, in much-starched white dresses, large red sashes and re
d buttoned boots, were pushed into the room by a hand that did not belong to any discernible body.
“Come along and see your Aunt Grace,” Mary said placidly, without getting up to bring them.
“What little darlings!” Grace exclaimed.
The darlings were very slow in coming to be presented. The tea-table, groaning with every kind of cake, rich and ornamental, lay across their path, and drew their interest much more surely than any aunt, however agreeable, that they were ever likely to acquire.
Grace went to them and knelt down before them. “What are your names?” she asked.
“Anne,” said one. “Polly,” said the other. They both then turned away and went on examining the tea-table. They were both exactly alike, fat and round-faced, with hair cut close, like little boys. Both were so intent upon the glories to come, that Grace burst out laughing.
Their parents smiled benignly. If Grace had not been a daughter of the exalted, they might have wondered what she was laughing at.
Presently tea arrived, and with it the two elder children of the family. Georgie McNairn was fourteen, and, in so far as a beardless boy can look like a fat, middle-aged man of forty-three, George’s rather heavy, undistinguished features resembled his father’s. Jackie, a boy of eleven, was, on the other hand, a thin distinguished child whose features seemed entirely Moorhouse. Like their Butter cousins, they had been skating. It did not take Grace very long to guess that they had been commanded by their father to come home in time to meet her, and that this had not pleased them very much. To put herself into their good graces, she invited them to come on Saturday with the Butters to Aucheneame.
Their parents were pleased about this, and accepted for them willingly. As George said to Mary after Grace was gone, you never knew what visits to places like Aucheneame might lead to. Mary was too lazy to bother thinking out what her husband meant. But, somehow, it would have pleased her better if her own children had been invited by themselves, and not together with Sophia’s quicker-witted son and daughter.
But Grace’s visit was a great success. During tea, the baillie’s tongue was loosened enough to tell her at length about a long and intricate misunderstanding he had had with another member of the Town Council. His narrative was, perhaps, difficult to follow, interrupted as it was by the clatter of tea-things, the constant cross-talk of the children, the continual necessity of passing cakes to them, and of refusing cake herself. But from it all Grace understood enough to grasp that George’s sound common sense had triumphed; that if it had not been for Baillie McNairn, the entire civic policy of the City of Glasgow would have taken the wrong turning. She therefore did her best to show approval at the right moments, and, when he had finished, to tell him how fortunate it was that he had been there to arrange everything so wisely.
The cup of even George’s vanity was full. David, when he arrived, was surprised at the amount of joviality that his stiff and humourless brother-in-law was displaying. He was even more surprised when, as Grace and he rose to say goodbye, George slapped him on the back, and told him that there wasn’t another girl in the West of Scotland that he would prefer as a sister-in-law.
IV
“Well, David, are you pleased to see me?” Grace and David, buried in rugs, were settling themselves for the long, cold drive to Aucheneame.
For reply, David turned to Grace and kissed her. She had looked forward to having him in the carriage all to herself. She took one of his hands and drew it inside her muff.
At the McNairns’, David had seemed unusually solemn. It was a mood she did not yet know. “Are you all right, David?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Oh, nothing.” She must not be a fussy wife. Men, she had read somewhere, detested that above all things. Yet she imagined he had looked preoccupied, and even a little strained, as he had come into Mary’s drawing-room. But David was so much in her thoughts, that she was over-quick to imagine things about him.
“Tell me about Arthur, David,” she said.
“Oh, Arthur was very good.” He told her about his interview with his brother. How Arthur had expressed his pleasure that David should have such good fortune. He had made no difficulty whatever about David’s going. Trade was bad, and the slackness of the times made it easier. David had promised to remain until the end of the year, when he would be ready to come into Dermott Ships.
There was animated talk about all this. Grace was pleased to see that, as David sat talking to her, the sense of strain seemed to go from him. Her presence seemed to soothe him. The shadow of the cloud that had crossed her happiness passed over and was gone. David was himself again. And more affectionate than ever he had been. With the affection, somehow, of a child. This again was a new mood, but not one to trouble her.
She told him of her visits to the family. How she had seen Phœbe’s Highlanders. Her unexpected lunch with Sophia. How she had invited the children to skate at the weekend. They laughed together over this and that. The impatience of the Butter children. The comic appearance of Mary’s little twin girls.
Presently, after a pause in their talk, he turned to look at her. “Grace,” he asked, “when are we to be married?”
She felt the colour rising in her cheeks. It was the first time he had asked this of her.
“Do you want to be married soon, David?”
“Yes. As soon as ever we can.”
“It won’t be long, my darling.” She had dropped her voice to a whisper. She wished that she were clever, that she could read the mind of this man who was all the world to her. Something told her it had not been a conventional lover’s question. There were unmistakable overtones of appeal in his voice, overtones that baffled her. She wished she knew what he meant. She wanted to talk about it. To ask him why. But what could a brotherless, cloistered young woman know about the make-up of men?
He was sitting now, looking before him in the dusk of the carriage. Grace could not see his face distinctly enough to tell if the look of strain had come back. But something told her it was there. Instinct prompted her next words.
“We would be happy and safe if we were married, wouldn’t we, David?
“Yes, Grace. We would be safe.”
The hand she had drawn inside her muff grasped her own hand tightly. It was time for them to get down before its grip was relaxed.
Chapter Thirteen
IT was in the morning of the last day of the year, a Tuesday. Margaret Ruanthorpe-Moorhouse had written to Grace Dermott inviting her to spend New Year with them, along with David. It was disgraceful, her letter had said, that all the rest of the family should be getting to know her so well, while she and Mungo, marooned as they were in Ayrshire, had not yet met her. Could they come on the Saturday before New Year and spend a week, or the better part of it? Phœbe, who was a favourite with her mother, Lady Ruanthorpe, was coming to Duntrafford House, with Henry Hayburn. Together, they would all make a pleasant New Year party.
Grace showed herself loath to leave her own parents at this time. It would, she protested, be her last unmarried New Year with them. On being scolded by Mrs. Dermott, however, for working up a deal of sentimentality about nothing, and reminded that her first duty was to her man, Grace gave way at once. It would give her great pleasure, she wrote, to come to the Duntrafford Dower House to get to know everybody and to see David’s calf country.
But David and Grace were prevented from going down into Ayrshire on the day arranged. To add to the poverty and the evil times, the year 1878 closed with a bitter frost lasting four weeks, the longest period the West of Scotland—a region of wet, south-west winds—had known for twenty years. In the poorest quarters of the city the suffering was intense. But those who were young and had some money spent all their leisure perfecting their skating. Local trains were filled with cheerful young people making their way to nearby lochs and ponds. Such places, lighted late into the night, and provided with coffee-stalls, were being advertised among the places of entertainment in the daily papers together wi
th the pantomimes, Hengler’s Circus, the music-halls and the demonstrations of Pepper’s Ghost at the Coal Exchange.
On the Friday after Christmas, however, there were heavy snowfalls up and down the country. To begin with, long-distance trains could not come through. Then even local traffic came to a standstill. On Saturday night the west wind brought the rain in torrents. Sunday was a day of flooding and confusion. By Monday communications were beginning to reopen. The snow was being washed away. On Monday evening David and Grace, accompanied by Phœbe and Henry, reached Duntrafford.
Now this following morning Grace was standing with Margaret, waving to David as he drove off with Mungo in the pony-trap. Mungo had his usual business at the Laigh Farm, and Margaret had instructed him, when that was finished, to drive across to Greenhead to find out if Miss Rennie were there. She had not forgotten Lucy Rennie’s kindness to her in the train. Remembering that she would be at Greenhead over New Year, she was sending a note asking Miss Rennie to come to see her.
“Have you met this Rennie girl?” Margaret asked Grace as they set off on foot to Duntrafford House, where Grace was to be presented to Sir Charles and Lady Ruanthorpe.
Grace had not yet met Miss Rennie.
“You would be surprised if you knew her people. Very ordinary farm folks. Not that there is anything extraordinary about that,” Margaret hastened to say, remembering, perhaps, her own husband. “But Lucy Rennie herself has turned into something so very different. She might be an Englishwoman. You would never guess she was an Ayrshire farmer’s daughter.”
Grace expressed her interest in Miss Rennie. She had, Grace understood, spent a long time in London, and no doubt that accounted for the change which had taken place.
Margaret said, “No doubt.” And they walked on in the direction of the Big House in silence.