Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated), page 74
“Suppose a man goes travelling,” said Lewis with abstracted eyes, “and has a lot of native servants. They mutiny, and he shoots down one or two. He saves his life, he serves, probably, the ends of civilization. Do you call that murder?”
“Assuredly. Better, far better that he should perish in the wilderness than that he should take the law into his own hands and kill one of God’s creatures.”
“But law, you know, is not an absolute word.”
Mr. Wishart scented danger. “I can’t argue against your subtleties, but my mind is clear; and I can respect no man who could think otherwise.”
Lewis reddened and looked appealingly at Alice. She, too, was uncomfortable. Her opinions sounded less convincing when stated dogmatically by her father.
Mr. Stocks saw his chance and took it.
“Did you ever happen to be in such a crisis as you speak of, Mr. Haystoun? You have travelled a great deal.”
“I have never had occasion to put a man to death,” said Lewis, seeing the snare and scorning to avoid it.
“But you have had difficulties?”
“Once I had to flog a couple of men. It was not pleasant, and worst of all it did no good.”
“Irrational violence seldom does,” grunted Mr. Wishart.
“No, for, as I was going to say, it was a clear case where the men should have been put to death. They had deserved it, for they had disobeyed me, and by their disobedience caused the death of several innocent people. They decamped shortly afterwards, and all but managed to block our path. I blame myself still for not hanging them.”
A deep silence hung over the table. Mr. Wishart and the Andrews stared with uncomprehending faces. Mr. Stocks studied his plate, and Alice looked on the speaker with eyes in which unwilling respect strove with consternation.
Only the culprit was at his ease. The discomfort of these good people for a moment amused him. Then the sight of Alice’s face, which he wholly misread, brought him back to decent manners.
“I am afraid I have shocked you,” he said simply. “If one knocks about the world one gets a different point of view.”
Mr. Wishart restrained a flood of indignation with an effort. “We won’t speak on the subject,” he said. “I confess I have my prejudices.”
Mr. Stocks assented with a smile and a sigh. In the drawing-room afterwards Lewis was presented with the olive-branch of peace. He had to attend Mrs. Andrews to the piano and listen to her singing of a sentimental ballad with the face of a man in the process of enjoyment. Soon he pleaded the four miles of distance and the dark night, and took his leave. His spirits had in a measure returned. Alice had not been gracious, but she had shown no scorn. And her spell at the first sight of her was woven a thousand-fold over his heart.
He found her alone for one moment in the hall.
“Alice — Miss Wishart, may I come and see you? It is a pity such near neighbours should see so little of each other.”
His hesitation made him cloak a despairing request in the garb of a conventional farewell.
The girl had the sense to pierce the disguise. “You may come and see us, if you like, Mr. Haystoun. We shall be at home all next week.”
“I shall come very soon,” he cried, and he was whirled away from the light; with the girl’s face framed in the arch of the doorway making a picture for his memory.
When the others had gone to bed, Stocks and Mr. Wishart sat up over a last pipe by the smoking-room fire.
The younger man moved uneasily in his chair. He had something to say which had long lain on his mind, and he was uncertain of its reception.
“You have been for a long time my friend, Mr. Wishart,” he began. “You have done me a thousand kindnesses, and I only hope I have not proved myself unworthy of them.”
Mr. Wishart raised his eyebrows at the peculiar words. “Certainly you have not,” he said. “I regard you as the most promising by far of the younger men of my acquaintance, and any little services I may have rendered have been amply repaid me.”
The younger man bowed and looked into the fire.
“It is very kind of you to speak so,” he said. “I have been wondering whether I might not ask for a further kindness, the greatest favour which you could confer upon me. Have you made any plans for your daughter’s future?”
Mr. Wishart sat up stiffly on the instant. “You mean?” he said.
“I mean that I love Alice... your daughter... and I wish to make her my wife. If you will give me your consent, I will ask her.”
“But — but,” said the old man, stammering. “Does the girl know anything of this?”
“She knows that I love her, and I think she will not be unkind.”
“I don’t know that I object,” said Mr. Wishart after a long pause. “In fact I am very willing, and I am very glad that you had the good manners to speak to me first. Yes, upon my word, sir, I am pleased. You have had a creditable career, and your future promises well. My girl will help you, for though I say it, she will not be ill-provided for. I respect your character and I admire your principles, and I give you my heartiest good wishes.”
Mr. Stocks rose and held out his hand. He felt that the interview could not be prolonged in the present fervour of gratitude.
“Had it been that young Haystoun now,” said Mr. Wishart, “I should never have given my consent. I resolved long ago that my daughter should never marry an idle man. I am a plain man, and I care nothing for social distinctions.”
But as Mr. Stocks left the room the plain man glanced after him, and sitting back suffered a moment’s reflection. The form of this worker contrasted in his mind with the figure of the idler who had that evening graced his table. A fool, doubtless, but a fool with an air and a manner! And for one second he allowed himself to regret that he was to acquire so unromantic a son-in-law.
CHAPTER 15
THE NEMESIS OF A COWARD
Two days later the Andrews drove up the glen to Etterick, taking with them the unwilling Mr. Wishart. Alice had escaped the ordeal with some feigned excuse, and the unfortunate Mr. Thompson, deeply grieving, had been summoned by telegram from cricket to law. The lady had chattered all the way up the winding moorland road, crying out banalities about the pretty landscape, or questioning her very ignorant companions about the dwellers in Etterick. She was full of praises for the house when it came in view; it was “quaint,” it was “charming,” it was everything inappropriate. But the amiable woman’s prattle deserted her when she found herself in the cold stone hall with the great portraits and the lack of all modern frippery. It was so plainly a man’s house, so clearly a place of tradition, that her pert modern speech seemed for one moment a fatuity.
It was an off-day for the shooters, and so for a miracle there were men in the drawing-room at tea-time. The hostess for the time was an aunt of Lewis’s, a certain Mrs. Alderson, whose husband (the famous big-game hunter) had but recently returned from the jaws of a Zambesi lion. George’s sister, Lady Clanroyden, a tall, handsome girl in a white frock, was arranging flowers in a bowl, and on the sill of the open window two men were basking in the sun. From the inner drawing-room there came an echo of voices and laughter. The whole scene was sunny and cheerful, youth and age, gay frocks and pleasant faces amid the old tapestry and mahogany of a moorland house.
Mr. Andrews sat down solemnly to talk of the weather with the two men, who found him a little dismal. One — he of the Zambesi lion episode — was grizzled, phlegmatic, and patient, and in no way critical of his company. So soon he was embarked on extracts from his own experience to which Mr. Andrews, who had shares in some company in the neighbourhood, listened with flattering attention. Mrs. Alderson set herself to entertain Mr. Wishart, and being a kindly, simple person, found the task easy. They were soon engaged in an earnest discussion of unsectarian charities.
Lady Clanroyden, with an unwilling sense of duty, devoted herself to Mrs. Andrews. That simpering matron fell into a vein of confidences and in five brief minutes had laid bare her heart. Then came the narrative of her recent visit to the Marshams, and the inevitable mention of the Hestons.
“Oh, you know the Hestons?” said Lady Clanroyden, brightening.
“Very well indeed.” The lady smiled, looking round to make sure that Lewis was not in the room.
“Julia is here, you know. Julia, come and speak to your friends.”
A dark girl in mourning came forward to meet the expansive smile of Mrs. Andrews. Earnestly the lady hoped that she remembered the single brief meeting on which she had built a fictitious acquaintance, and was reassured when the newcomer shook hands with her pleasantly. Truth to tell, Lady Julia had no remembrance of her face, but was too good-natured to be honest.
“And how is your dear mother? I was so sorry to hear from a mutual friend that she had been unwell.” How thankful she was that she read each week various papers which reported people’s doings!
A sense of bewilderment lurked in her heart. Who was this Lewis Haystoun who owned such a house and such a kindred? The hypothesis of money made in coal seemed insufficient, and with much curiosity she set herself to solve the problem.
“Is Mr. Haystoun coming back to tea?” she asked by way of a preface.
“No, he has had to go to Gledsmuir. We are all idle this afternoon, but he has a landowner’s responsibilities.”
“Have his family been here long? I seem never to have heard the name.”
Lady Clanroyden looked a little surprised. “Yes, they have been rather a while. I forget how many centuries, but a good many. It was about this place, you know, that the old ballad of ‘The Riding of Etterick’ was made, and a Haystoun was the hero.”
Mrs. Andrews knew nothing about old ballads, but she feigned a happy reminiscence.
“It is so sad his being beaten by Mr. Stocks,” she declared. “Of course an old county family should provide the members for a district. They have the hearts of the people with them.”
“Then the hearts of the people have a funny way of revealing themselves,” Lady Clanroyden laughed. “I’m not at all sorry that Lewie was beaten. He is the best man in the world, but one wants to shake him up. His motto is ‘Thole,’ and he gets too few opportunities of ‘tholing.’”
“You all call him ‘Lewie,’” commented the lady. “How popular he must be!”
Mabel Clanroyden laughed. “I have known him ever since I was a small girl in a short frock and straight-brushed hair. He was never anything else than Lewie to his friends. Oh, here is my wandering brother and my only son returned,” and she rose to catch up a small, self-possessed boy of some six years, who led the flushed and reluctant George in tow.
The small boy was very dirty, ruddy and cheerful. He had torn his blouse, and scratched his brow, and the crown of his straw hat had parted company with the brim.
“George,” said his sister severely, “have you been corrupting the manners of my son? Where have you been?”
The boy — he rejoiced in the sounding name of Archibald — slapped a small leg with a miniature whip, and counterfeited with great skill the pose of the stable-yard. He slowly unclenched a smutty fist and revealed three separate shillings.
“I won um myself,” he explained.
“Is it highway robbery?” asked his mother with horrified eyes. “Archibald, have you stopped a coach, or held up a bus or anything of the kind?”
The child unclenched his hand again, beamed on his prize, smiled knowingly at the world, and shut it.
“What has the dreadful boy been after? Oh, tell me, George, please. I will try to bear it.”
“We fell in with a Sunday-school picnic along in the glen, and Archie made me take him there. And he had tea — I hope the little chap won’t be ill, by the by. And he made a speech or a recitation or something of the sort. Nobody understood it, but it went down like anything.”
“And do you mean to say that the people gave him money, and you allowed him to take it?” asked an outraged mother.
“He won it,” said George. “Won it in fair fight. He was second in the race under twelve, and first in the race under ten. They gave him a decent handicap, and he simply romped home. That chap can run, Mabel. He tried the sack race, too, but the first time he slipped altogether inside the thing and had to be taken out, yelling. But he stuck to it like a Trojan, and at the second shot he got started all right, and would have won it if he hadn’t lost his head and rolled down a bank. He isn’t scratched much, considering he fell among whins. That also explains the state of his hat.”
“George, you shall never, never, as long as I live, take my son out with you again. It is a wonder the poor child escaped with his life. You have not a scrap of feeling. I must take the boy away or he will shame me before everybody. Come and talk to Mrs. Andrews, George. May I introduce my brother, Mr. Winterham?”
George, who wanted to smoke, sat down unwillingly in the chair which his sister had left. The lady, whose airs and graces were all for men, put on her most bewitching manner.
“Your sister and I have just been talking about this exquisite place, Mr. Winterham. It must be delightful to live in such a centre of old romance. That lovely ‘Riding of Etterick’ has been running in my head all the way up.”
George privately wondered at the confession. The peculiarly tragic and ghastly fragments which made up “The Riding of Etterick,” seemed scarcely suited to haunt a lady’s memory.
“Had you a long drive?” he asked in despair for a topic.
“Only from Glenavelin.”
He awoke to interest. “Are you staying at Glenavelin just now? The Wisharts are in it, are they not? We were a great deal about the place when the Manorwaters were there.”
“Oh yes. I have heard about Lady Manorwater from Alice Wishart. She must be a charming woman; Alice cannot speak enough about her.”
George’s face brightened. “Miss Wishart is a great friend of mine, and a most awfully good sort.”
“And as you are a great friend of hers I think I may tell you a great secret,” and the lady patted him playfully. “Our pretty Alice is going to be married.”
George was thoroughly roused to attention. “Who is the man?” he asked sharply.
“I think I may tell you,” said Mrs. Andrews, enjoying her sense of importance. “It is Mr. Stocks, the new member.”
George restrained with difficulty a very natural oath. Then he looked at his informant and saw in her face only silliness and truth. For the good woman had indeed persuaded herself of the verity of her fancy. Mr. Stocks had told her that he had her father’s consent and good wishes, and misinterpreting the girl’s manner she had considered the affair settled.
It was unfortunate that Mr. Wishart at this moment showed such obvious signs of restlessness that the lady rose to take her leave, otherwise George might have learned the truth. After the Glenavelin party had gone he wandered out to the lawn, pulling his moustache in vast perplexity and cursing the twisted world. He had no guess at Lewis’s manner of wooing; to him it had seemed the simple, straightforward love which he thought beyond resistance. And now, when he learned of this melancholy issue, he was sore at heart for his friend.
He was awakened from his reverie by Lewis himself, who, having ridden straight to the stables, was now sauntering towards the house. A trim man looks at his best in riding clothes, and Lewis was no exception. He was flushed with sun and motion, his spirits were high, for all the journey he had been dreaming of a coming meeting with Alice, and the hope which had suddenly increased a thousand-fold. George marked his mood, and with a regret at his new role caught him by the arm and checked him.
“I say, old man, don’t go in just yet. I want to tell you something, and I think you had better hear it now.”
Lewis turned obediently, amazed by the gravity of his friend’s face.
“Some people came up from Glenavelin this afternoon and among them a Mrs. Andrews, whom I had a talk to. She told me that Al — Miss Wishart is engaged to that fellow Stocks.”
Lewis’s face whitened and he turned away his eyes. He could not credit it. Two days ago she had been free; he could swear it; he remembered her eyes at parting. Then came the thought of his blindness, and in a great horror of self-mistrust he seemed to see throughout it all his criminal folly. He, poor fool, had been pleasing himself with dreams of a meeting, when all the while the other man had been the real lover. She had despised him, spared not a thought for him save as a pleasing idler; and he — that he should ever have ventured for one second to hope! Curiously enough, for the first time he thought of Stocks with respect; to have won the girl seemed in itself the proof of dignity and worth.
“Thanks very much for telling me. I am glad I know. No, I don’t think I’ll go into the house yet.”
* * * * *
The days passed and Alice waited with anxious heart for the coming of the very laggard Lewis. To-day he will come, she said each morning; and evening found her — poor heart! — still expectant. She told herself a thousand times that it was sheer folly. He meant nothing, it was a mere fashion of speech; and then her heart would revolt and bid common sense be silent. He came indeed with some of the Etterick party on a formal call, but this was clearly not the fulfilment of his promise. So the girl waited and despaired, while the truant at Etterick was breaking his heart for the unattainable.
Mr. Stocks, having won the official consent, conducted his suit with commendable discretion. Suit is the word for the performance, so full was it of elaborate punctilios. He never intruded upon her unhappiness. A studied courtesy, a distant thoughtfulness were his only compliments. But when he found her gayer, then would he strive with subtle delicacies of manner to make clear the part he desired to play.
The girl saw his kindness and was grateful. In the revulsion against the Andrews he seemed a link with the more pleasant sides of life, and soon in her despair and anger his modest merits took heroic proportions in her eyes. She forgot her past dislike; she thought only of this, the simple good man, contrasted with the showy and fickle-hearted — true metal against glittering tinsel. His very weaknesses seemed homely and venial. He was of her own world, akin to the things which deep down in her soul she knew she must love to the last. It is to the credit of the man’s insight that he saw the mood and took pains to foster it.
