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

you can go to Drumloch in the spring."

The proposal pleased Mary. She wanted to get away from Meriton. She did not like being in the same house with those numerous similitudes of the Fife girl. The garden in which Allan had made her that pretence of an offer, the parlor in which she had given way to such a petulant, disagreeable temper, were full of mortifying remembrances. She wanted to turn over a new leaf of life, to cross the past one, and to cancel forever the hopes there credited.


CHAPTER IX.


SEVERED SELVES AND SHADOWS.

"Now I would speak the last Farewell, but cannot;
It would be still Farewell a thousand times;
So let us part in the dumb pomp of grief."

* * * * *

"Rumor is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And if so easy and so plain a stop
The still discordant, wavering multitude
Can play upon't."

At that time, Mary saw no more of her Cousin Allan. He had gone when she rose next morning, gone away in a slow, even downpour of rain, that was devoid of every hope of blue sky or sunshine. On the river they were in a cloud of fog impenetrable to sight, and inexpressibly dreary. Everything also in the little boat was clammy and uncomfortable. There was a long day before Allan; for his business scarcely occupied him an hour, and then he went out into the black, chill street, and felt thoroughly miserable. His father's face had been so white, his hands had trembled so, he had made such a brave effort to say a cheerful 'good-by.' Allan's conscience troubled him; he felt supremely selfish, he could not satisfy himself that he had any right to put so good a parent to so much sorrow.

If he could have written to Maggie, it would have been some consolation. But he had not been able to make any arrangements for that solace. A post office did not exist in Pittenloch; if a letter were addressed there, it lay in Dysart until the Dysart postmistress happened to see some one from Pittenloch. Under such circumstances, there was no telling into whose hands his letters might fall. And a letter to Maggie Promoter from strange parts, would be a circumstance to rouse unbounded curiosity. Either curiosity would be illegitimately satisfied, or Maggie would be the object of endless suspicions.

He thought of David, but there would be little comfort in seeing David, for he could not talk to him of Maggie. Allan would have liked well to confide in David, and explain, as he thought he ought to, his honorable intentions toward his sister; but Maggie had earnestly entreated that nothing should be said to her brother. "He'll be aye questioning me. He'll be aye watching me. He'll maybe tell folks, and I'll feel everybody's eye is on me. Forbye, he willna be as happy in what you hae done for him. He thinks now, it was just for your admiration o' his abilities, and your liking for his sel', that you sent him to Glasga' College. If he kent you thocht o' me, he wad be sure it was for my sake, and that wad jist tak' the good out o' everything for Davie." Thus, Maggie had reasoned, and Allan thought her reasoning both generous and prudent.

So there would be little comfort in threading the dirty ways of Argyle Street to the Candleriggs; and he went to his hotel and ordered dinner, then back to his father, and begged him to come and spend the last hours of his delay with him. And John Campbell was delighted. "Things will go tapsalteerie, Allan, but let them; we will have a bite and a cup of kindness together." It was a very pleasant bite and cup, seasoned with much love, and many cheerful confidences; and when Allan, at length, left the dreary precincts of the old Caledonian Station, the last thing he saw was his father's bare, white head, and that courtly upward movement of the right hand which was his usual greeting or adieu; a movement which is as much the natural salutation of a gentleman, as a nod is the natural one of a vulgar mind.

John Campbell remained in Glasgow for the next three days, and Mary was lonely enough at Meriton. It was a little earlier than they usually removed to their city home, but she began to make preparations for that event. In the course of these preparations, it was necessary to inspect the condition of Allan's apartments. How desolate and forsaken they looked! No other rooms in the house had the same sense of loss, even though they had been in the same measure dismantled. The empty polished grates, the covered furniture, the closed blinds, the absence of all the little attributes of masculine life--pipes, slippers, newspapers, etc.-- were painfully apparent.

But no one had touched any of the numerous pictures of Maggie. They were on the wall, the mantel, the table, the easel. She glanced at them, and left the room; but after a moment's hesitation, she returned, drew up the blinds, and stood resolutely before the large one upon the easel. "What is there in her face that is so charmful?" she asked. "Why did it draw me back here? Does my sense of justice forbid me to dislike without a reason, and am I looking for one?" She went from picture to picture. She stood long before some, she took one or two in her hand. She did not like the girl, but she would not be unfair in her criticisms. "Whatever she is doing, she is like a poem. I could not bake oat cakes, and look as if I had stepped out of Gessner's Idyls. But she does. What limpid eyes! And yet they have a look of sorrow in them--as if they had been washed clear in tears--she is not laughing anywhere. I like that! If she were gay and jocund in that picture how vulgar it would be.--If her splendid hair were unbound, and her fine throat and neck without kerchief, and if she were simpering with a finger on a dimple in her cheek, I know that I should detest her. It is her serenity, her air of seriousness, which is so enthralling--I wonder what her name is--it should be something grand, and sweet, and solemn--I should think Theodora would suit her--What nonsense! In a Fife fishing village every girl is either Jennie or Maggie or Christie." So she mused, going from picture to picture, until they acquired a kind of personality in her mind.

Her uncle came home a little sad. "Allan has gone again," he said. "I seem to have seen very little of the lad. He is such a fine lad, too. We had a few happy hours together at the last. I am very glad of that! When he comes home next time, he will settle, and never leave me again. I shall be a happy man when that day gets around, Mary."

"He will settle, that is, he will marry that fisher-girl! He has told you all about her, he says?"

"He was very honest and candid with me, very."

"What is her name, uncle?"

"I do not know. He did not tell me, and I never thought of asking."

"Where does she live?"

"Really, Mary, I never asked that either. I don't think it makes the least difference."

"Oh, but it does. I am very much disappointed. I was thinking we could take a trip to the village, and see the girl ourselves. Would not that be a good thing?"

"It would be a very bad thing, a very dishonorable thing. If I thought it necessary to play the spy on my son Allan, I should prefer to know he was dead. The girl may become my daughter. I should be ashamed to meet her, if I had gone to peep at her behind her back. She would not despise me more than I should despise myself."

"I do not look at it in that light, uncle. There might be several good reasons."

"We won't discuss them, Mary. Let us talk of Drumloch. Wilkie is drawing the plan of the new wing. When will you go back to Glasgow? I was at Blytheswood Square to-day; the house is in beautiful order."

"I will go back to-morrow. I am weary of Meriton this year. I have found myself everywhere at a discount. Allan refuses my estate and myself. The minister and the kirk refuse my services as organist. And when I had a very kind idea in my head about Theodora, you make me feel as if I had been plotting treason against her, and against honor and everything else of good report. Let me hide my head in the smoke of Glasgow to-morrow."

"Theodora! Is that the girl's name?"

"That is the fisher-girl's name, the one I have given her. I suppose she will have to descend to Jennie or Christie."

"Are you not a little ill-tempered, Mary?"

"I am shamefully ill-tempered, uncle. I am afraid I am growing bad, and I cannot make up my mind to get any more good from Dr. MacDonald. When ministers want to snub women, they always quote St. Paul. Now, I do not believe any wrong of St. Paul. I have an idea that he was a perfect gentleman, and rather polite to our sex."

"They quote his own words, my dear."

"They quote, as they have transposed and transformed them. I think if a woman had translated that particular passage, it might have been less pleasant for Dr. MacDonald to quote."

"Nevermind Dr. MacDonald to-night, dearie. Sing us a few words of Robert Burns. It would be an ill heart that could not get cheery in his company. I bought the bonniest likeness of him yesterday. What a handsome lad he was!"

"I always fancy he must have looked like Joseph. The Talmud says all the women in Egypt loved Joseph. I am sure everybody, young and old, make their hearts over to Robert Burns.

There was a lad was born in Kyle,
But whatnaday, o' whatna style,
I doubt its hardly worth our while
To be sae nice wi' Robin.

For Robin was a
rovin boy, A rantin', rovin', rantin', rovin',
Robin was a rovin' boy, O ran-tin', rov-in', Robin!

Our monarch's hindmost year but ane
Was five and twenty days began;
'Twas then a blast o' Januar' win'
Blew hansel in on Robin.
For Robin was, etc.

The gossip keekit in his loof,
Quo' she, wha lives will see the proof,
This waly boy will be nae coof;
I think we'll ca' him Robin.
For Robin was, etc.

He'll hae misfortunes