A Daughter of Fife by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (best novel books to read .TXT) 📕

was not about business. It was about you."

"Me!"

"My dear Mary, for what I am going to say, I beg your pardon in advance, for I feel keenly the position in which I must appear before you. You know that the welfare of Drumloch has been my father's object by day, and his dream by night. He cannot bear to think of a stranger or a strange name in its old rooms. Long ago, when we were little children, our marriage was planned, and when the place was clear, and you had grown to a beautiful womanhood, and I had completed my education, father longed to see us in Drumloch. There were points we could not agree upon. He was angry, I was obstinate--Mary, I know not how to tell you; how to ask you--"

"Allan, my dear brother Allan, spare yourself and me any more words." She looked up with clear, candid eyes, and laid her hand upon his. "Uncle is not unjust in his expectations. His outlay, his cares, his labor, have saved Drumloch to the family. It is as much his purchase as if he had bought every acre at public roup. And he has been a second father to me; kind, generous, thoughtful. It is hard enough for him that his plans must fail; it would be cruel indeed if he were parted from a son he loves so tenderly as he loves you, Allan. Let me bear the blame. Let it be my fault his hopes cannot be realized."

"Can they not be realized, Mary?"

"Do you mean by that question to offer me your hand, Allan? At any rate I will consider it a fulfillment of your father's desire. No, they cannot be realized. You are to me as a brother. I distinctly refuse to accept you as a husband. Uncle John is a gentleman; he will consider my 'no' as final; and he is too just to blame you, because I decline to be your wife. Nor shall we be any worse friends, Allan, for this honest talk, I am sure of that." She smiled bravely in his face, and he did not suspect how deeply both her affections and her pride had been wounded.

"Let us go back to the house; the air is heavy and hot, we may have a storm."

Allan was thoroughly miserable and unsettled. As soon as Mary had so positively refused him, he began to have doubts and longings. "Drumloch was a fine estate--the name was old and honorable, and in a fair way for greater honors--Mary was sweet and sensible, and a woman to be desired above all other women--except Maggie. Yet, after all, was he not paying a great price for his pearl?" Mary and Maggie were both difficult to resign. He began to grumble at events and to blame every one but himself. "If his father had not been so unreasonable, he never would have gone to Edinburgh at the time he did--never would have gone to Pittenloch--never would have met Maggie Promoter."

John Campbell came home in unusually high spirits. He had made a profitable contract, and he had done a kindness to an old friend. Both circumstances had been mental tonics to him. He felt himself a happy man. The atmosphere of the dinner table chilled him a little, but for once the subject on which he was always hoping and fearing did not enter his mind. When Mary left the room, he said cheerfully, "We will be with you anon, dearie, and then you shall sing for us, '_The Lass O' Gowrie_,'" and he began to hum the pretty melody as he poured out for himself another glass of port. "Help yourself, Allan. You do not seem very bright to-night."

"I do not feel very bright. Mary told me positively this morning that she would not marry me."

"What! Not marry you? Did you ask her?"

"She said 'no'."

"Oh, but she be to marry you! Your father would not have taken 'no', sir."

"A man cannot force a rich girl to be his wife. If you will speak to Mary, you will understand how useless any further hope is."

"I will speak to her. I can hardly believe this sorrow has really come to me."

He rose and went to his niece. "Come here, Mary, and sit down beside me. Allan tells me you will not have him for your husband. Your decision is a sore trouble to me; almost the worst trouble that could come to me. Oh, Mary, what is the matter? Is not Allan handsome, and kind, and good, and rich enough to mate you? And he loves you, too; I am sure he loves you; he could not help it."

"But, uncle, what if he loves some other girl better than me?"

"That isn't possible. Did he tell you such a thing as that?"

"No; but I am sure it is so. However, Allan is the second thought, uncle; Drumloch is the first. We must save Drumloch for the Campbells, uncle."

"You dear lassie! But how can that be done if Allan is not in the same mind?"

"Three things may happen, uncle. I may remain unmarried, I may marry, I may die. If I remain unmarried, I am only the steward of Drumloch; I shall save it for Allan or Allan's children. If I die, its disposition will be the same. If I marry into a strange name or family, I will sell Drumloch to you before I change my name."

"You are a wise, kindly little woman; and you have found a drop of comfort for me. I will buy Drumloch any day you wish to sell it. May be then I'll be Campbell of Drumloch myself."

"Drumloch will be well off with such a laird. I would not fret yourself one moment, uncle. There is more good in a disappointment than can be seen."

"God bless you, my dearie! Allan is blind, and deaf, and foolish, or he would never have taken 'no' from you."

"He is in love, uncle. That accounts for everything. Do you know where he was during his last absence?"

"On the east coast, making pictures. The two he gave me are wonderful. He has genius certainly; the Campbells mostly have genius. I had siller to make, or I could have painted pictures myself. I have a remarkable perception anent color."

"He was in the Fife fishing villages."

"And a very good place for subjects. The Fife fishers are a fine race --faithful, religious, handsome."

"Very handsome, I should think. Did you notice the woman in the pictures Allan gave you?"

"Yes, I did; a splendid study in both cases."

"Have you been in Allan's room lately?"

"Not since he returned home."

"Go to it to-night. You will find the walls covered with studies from Fife. In nearly every study the same figure reappears. That is the woman Allan loves. I am right, uncle; I feel I am."

"A fisher-girl!"

"Perhaps; but what a fisher-girl! The mother of men must have been like her. There is one picture in which she leans against a jagged mass of rocks, gazing over the sea. The face is so splendid, the figure so fine, the sense of life so ample, that it haunts you. And every likeness of her has just that tinge of melancholy which lies at the bottom of all things that are truly happy, or truly beautiful. How could Allan care for any other woman, having seen her?"

"You are a quick observer, Mary."

"The heart has its oracles as well as the head, uncle."

She spoke sadly, and John Campbell looked with a kindly curiosity at her. He felt almost certain that she had suffered a keen disappointment, as well as himself. "But she would die before she would make a complaint," he thought, "and I may learn a lesson from her. It is a weak soul that is not capable of its own consolation. She has evidently determined to make the best of things beyond her sorting."

After a short silence, Mary slipped quietly from the room. John Campbell scarcely noticed her departure. He had the heartache, and men of sixty have it far worse than men of twenty. When their hopes fail, they have no time left, often no ability left to renew them. To make the best of things was all that now remained; and he was the more able to do this because of Mary's promise to him. But it is always hard to feel in the evening that our day's work has been unsuccessful, and that resignation, and not success, must make the best of the hours remaining.

As he mused the storm, which had threatened all the afternoon, broke. The swash and patter of the rain against the windows, and the moaning of the trees on the lawn, made a dreary accompaniment to his melancholy musings. It grew chill, and a footman entered, put a match to the laid fuel, and lighted the gas. Then John Campbell made an effort to shake off the influence which oppressed him. He laid down the ivory paper knife, which he had been turning mechanically in his fingers, rose, and went to the window. How dark it was! The dripping outlook made him shiver, and he turned back to the slowly burning fire. But solitude and inaction became unbearable. "Regretting never mended wrong; if I cannot get the best, I can try for the second best. And perhaps the lad is not beyond reasoning with." Then he rose, and with a decided air and step went straight to Allan's room.


CHAPTER VII


MAGGIE.

"O, Love! let this my lady's picture glow
Under my hand to praise her name, and show
Even of her inner self a perfect whole
That he who seeks her beauty's furthest goal,
Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw
And refluent wave of the sweet smile, may know
The very sky and sea-line of her soul"

The suite of rooms which belonged especially to the heir of Meriton were very handsome ones, and their long, lofty parlor was full of art treasures gathered from the various cities which Allan had visited. The fire in this room had been lighted for some time and was burning cheerily, and the young man sat in its ruddy glow when his father entered.

"I was lonely to-night, Allan, so I have come to make you a visit."

"You do me a great honor, sir, and are most welcome." And he went to meet him gladly. But as Blair, his valet, was softly moving about in an inner room, conversation was confined to conventional grooves until the servant with a low "good night, sir," glided away. As soon as they were alone the effort to conceal emotion was mutually abandoned. John Campbell sat on one side of the hearth, with his head dropped toward his folded hands. Allan kept his eyes fixed upon the glowing coals; but he was painfully aware of his father's unhappy presence, and waiting for him to open the conversation which he saw was inevitable.

"I have had a knock-me-down blow to-night, son Allan."

"And I am much to blame for it; that is what grieves me, father."

"You are altogether to blame for it, Allan. I thought Mary loved you when you came home this summer; to-night I am sure she loves you. You must have made some great blunder or she would have married you."

"There was a great