CHAPTER XVI
DREAMS AND VISIONS
Miss Hodson was in no kind of anxiety or embarrassment about this visit; she had quite sufficient reliance on her own tact; and when, going along to the Doctor's cottage, she found Meenie alone in that little room of hers, she explained the whole situation very prettily and simply and naturally. Two girls thrown together in this remote and solitary place, with scarcely any one else to talk with; why should they not know each other? That was the sum and substance of her appeal; with a little touch here and there about her being a stranger, and not sure of the ways and customs of this country that she found herself in. And then Meenie, who was perhaps a trifle overawed at first by this resplendent visitor, was almost inclined to smile at the notion that any apology was necessary, and said in her gentle and quiet way —
'Oh, but it is very kind of you. And if you had lived in one or two Scotch parishes, you would know that the minister's family and the doctor's family are supposed to know every one.'
She did not add 'and be at every one's disposal' – for that might have seemed a little rude. However, the introduction was over and done with; and Miss Carry set herself to work to make herself agreeable – which she could do very easily when she liked. As yet she kept the invitation to dinner in the background; talked of all kinds of things – the salmon-fishing, the children's soirée she had heard of; Ronald; Ronald's brother the minister; and her wonder that Ronald should be content with his present position; and always those bright dark eyes seemed to be scanning everything in the room with a pleased curiosity, and then again and again returning to Meenie's face, and her dress, and her way of wearing her hair, with a frank scrutiny which made the country mouse not a little shy in the presence of this ornate town mouse. For Miss Carry, with her upper wrappings discarded, was not only very prettily attired, but also she had about her all kinds of nick-nacks and bits of finery that seemed to have come from many lands, and to add to her foreign look. Of course, a woman's glance – even the glance of a shy Highland girl – takes note of these things; and they seemed but part of the unusual character and appearance of this stranger, who seemed so delicate and fragile, and yet was full of an eager vivacity and talkativeness, and whose soft, large, black eyes, if they seemed to wander quickly and restlessly from one object to another, were clearly so full of kindness and a wish to make friends. And very friendly indeed she was; and she had nothing but praise for the Highlands, and Highland scenery, and Highland manners, and even the Highland accent.
'I suppose I have an accent myself; but of course I don't know it,' she rattled on. 'Even at home they say our western accent is pretty bad. Well, I suppose I have got it; but anyway I am not ashamed of it, and I am not in a hurry to change it. I have heard of American girls in Europe who were most afraid to speak lest they should be found out – found out! Why, I don't see that English girls try to hide their accent, or want to copy any one else; and I don't see why American girls should be ashamed of having an American accent. Your accent, now; I have been trying to make out what it is, but I can't. It is very pretty; and not the least like the English way of talking; but I can't just make out where the difference is.'
For this young lady had a desperately direct way of addressing any one. She seemed to perceive no atmosphere of conventionality between person and person; it was brain to brain, direct; and no pausing to judge of the effect of sentences.
'I know my mother says that I speak in the Highland way,' Meenie said, with a smile.
'There now, I declare,' said Miss Hodson, 'that did not sound like an English person speaking, and yet I could not tell you where the difference was. I really think it is more manner than accent. The boatmen and the girls at the inn – they all speak as if they were anxious to please you.'
'Then it cannot be a very disagreeable accent,' said Meenie, laughing in her quiet way.
'No, no; I like it. I like it very much. Ronald now, has nothing of that; he is positive and dogmatic – I would say gruff in his way of talking, if he was not so obliging. But he is very obliging and good-natured; there is just nothing he won't do for us – and we are perfect strangers to him.'
And so she prattled on, apparently quite satisfied that now they were good friends; while Meenie had almost forgotten her shyness in the interest with which she listened to this remarkable young lady who had been all over the world and yet took her travelling so much as a matter of course. Then Miss Hodson said —
'You know my father and I soon exhaust our remarks on the events of the day when we sit down to dinner; and we were wondering whether you would take pity on our solitude and come along and dine with us this evening. Will you? I wish you would – it would be just too kind of you.'
Meenie hesitated.
'I would like very well,' said she, 'but – but my mother and the lad have driven away to Tongue to fetch my father home – and it may be late before they are back – '
'The greater reason why you should come – why, to think of your sitting here alone! I will come along for you myself. And if you are afraid of having too much of the star-spangled banner, we'll get somebody else in who is not an American; I mean to ask Ronald if he will come in and spend the evening with us – or come in to dinner as well, if he has time – '
Now the moment she uttered these words she perceived the mistake she had made. Meenie all at once looked troubled, conscious, apprehensive – there was a touch of extra colour in her face: perhaps she was annoyed that she was betraying this embarrassment.
'I think some other night, if you please,' the girl said, in a low voice, and with her eyes cast down, 'some other night, when mamma is at home – I would like to ask her first.'
'Class distinctions,' said Miss Carry to herself, as she regarded this embarrassment with her observant eyes. 'Fancy class distinctions in a little community like this – in mid-winter too! Of course the Doctor's daughter must not sit down to dinner with Lord Ailine's head keeper.'
But she could not offer to leave Ronald out – that would but have added to the girl's confusion, whatever was the cause of it. She merely said lightly —
'Very well, then, some other evening you will take pity on us – and I hope before I go to Paris. And then I want you to let me come in now and again and have a cup of tea with you; and I get all the illustrated periodicals sent me from home – with the fashion-plates, you know.'
She rose.
'What a nice room – it is all your own, I suppose?'
'Oh yes; that is why it is so untidy.'
'But I like to see a room look as if it was being used. Well, now, what are these?' she said, going to the mantel-shelf, where a row of bottles stood.
'These are medicines.'
'Why, you don't look sick,' the other said, turning suddenly.
'Oh no. These are a few simple things that my father leaves with me when he goes from home – they are for children mostly – and the people have as much faith in me as in anybody,' Meenie said, with a shy laugh. 'Papa says I can't do any harm with them, in any case; and the people are pleased.'
'Hush, hush, dear, you must not tell me any secrets of that kind,' said Miss Carry gravely; and then she proceeded to get on her winter wraps.
Meenie went downstairs with her, and at the door would see that she was all properly protected and buttoned up about the throat.
'For it is very brave of you to come into Sutherlandshire in the winter,' said she; 'we hardly expect to see any one until the summer is near at hand.'
'Then you will let me come and have some tea with you at times, will you not?'
'Oh yes – if you will be so kind.'
They said good-bye and shook hands; and then Miss Carry thought that Meenie looked so pretty and so shy, and had so much appealing gentleness and friendliness in the clear, transparent, timid blue-gray eyes, that she kissed her, and said 'Good-bye, dear,' again, and went out into the dusk and driving wind of the afternoon, entirely well pleased with her visit.
But it seemed as though she were about to be disappointed in both directions; for when she called in at Ronald's cottage he was not there; and when she returned to the inn, he was not to be found, nor could any one say whither he had gone. She and her father dined by themselves. She did not say why Meenie had declined to come along and join them; but she had formed her own opinion on that point; and the more she thought of it, the more absurd it seemed to her that this small handful of people living all by themselves in the solitude of the mountains should think it necessary to observe social distinctions. Was not Ronald, she asked herself, fit to associate with any one? But then she remembered that the Highlanders were said to be very proud of their descent; and she had heard something about Glengask and Orosay; and she resolved that in the future she would be more circumspect in the matter of invitations.
About half-past eight or so the pretty Nelly appeared with the message that Ronald was in the inn, and had heard that he was being asked for.
'What will I tell him ye want, sir?' she said, naturally assuming that Ronald was to be ordered to do something.
'Give him my compliments,' said Mr. Hodson, 'and say we should be obliged if he would come in and smoke a pipe and have a chat with us, if he has nothing better to do.'
But Nelly either thought this was too much politeness to be thrown away on the handsome keeper, or else she had some small private quarrel with him; for all she said to him, and that brusquely, was —
'Ronald, you're wanted in the parlour.'
Accordingly, when he came along the passage, and tapped at the door and opened it, he stood there uncertain, cap in hand. And Mr. Hodson had to repeat the invitation – explaining that they had wanted him to have some dinner with them, but that he could not be found; and then Ronald, with less of embarrassment than might have been expected – for he knew these two people better now – shut the door, and laid down his cap, and modestly advanced to the chair that Mr. Hodson had drawn in towards one side of the big fireplace. Miss Carry was seated apart on a sofa, apparently engaged in some sort of knitting work; but her big black eyes could easily be raised when there was need, and she could join in the conversation when she chose.
At first that was mostly about the adjacent shooting, which Mr. Hodson thought of taking for a season merely by way of experiment; and the question was how long he would in that case have to be away from his native country. This naturally took them to America, and eventually and alas! to politics – which to Miss Carry was but as the eating of chopped straw. However, Mr. Hodson (if you could keep the existence of lords out of his reach) was no very violent polemic; and moreover, whenever the Bird of Freedom began to clap its wings too loudly, was there not on the sofa there a not inattentive young lady to interfere with a little gentle sarcasm? Sometimes, indeed, her interpositions were both uncalled for and unfair; and sometimes they were not quite clearly intelligible. When, for example, they were talking of the colossal statue of Liberty enlightening the World which the French Republic proposed to present to the American Republic to be set up in New York Bay, she pretended not to know in which direction – east or west – the giant figure was to extend her light and liberty-giving arm; and her objection to her father's definition of the caucus system as a despotism tempered by bolting, was a still darker saying of which Ronald could make nothing whatever. But what of that? Whatever else was veiled to him, this was clear – that her interference was on his behalf, so that he should not be overpressed in argument or handicapped for lack of information; and he was very grateful to her, naturally; and far from anxious to say anything against a country that had sent him so fair and so generous an ally.
But, after all, was not this laudation of the institutions of the United States meant only as a kindness – as an inducement to him to go thither, and better his position? There was the field where the race was to the swiftest, where the best man got to the front, and took the prize which he had fairly won. There no accident of birth, no traditional usage, was a hindrance. The very largeness of the area gave to the individual largeness of view.
'Yes,' said Miss Carry (but they took no heed of her impertinence) 'in our country a bar-tender mixes drinks with his mind fixed on Niagara.'
Nay, the very effort to arouse dissatisfaction in the bosom of this man who seemed all too well contented with his circumstances was in itself meant as a kindness. Why should he be content? Why should he not get on? It was all very well to have health and strength and high spirits, and to sing tenor songs, and be a favourite with the farm-lasses; but that could not last for ever. He was throwing away his life. His chances were going by him. Why, at his age, what had so-and-so done, and what had so-and-so not done? And how had they started? What did they owe to fortune – what, rather, to their own resolution and brain?
'Ronald, my good fellow,' said his Mentor, in the most kindly way, 'if I could only get you to breathe the atmosphere of Chicago for a fortnight, I am pretty sure you wouldn't come back to stalk deer and train dogs for Lord Ailine or any other lordship.'
Miss Carry said nothing; but she pictured to herself Ronald passing down Madison Street – no longer, of course, in his weather-tanned stalking costume, but attired as the other young gentlemen to be found there; and going into Burke's Hotel for an oyster luncheon; and coming out again chewing a toothpick; and strolling on to the Grand Pacific to look at the latest telegrams. And she smiled (though, indeed, she herself had not been behindhand in urging him to get out of his present estate and better his fortunes), for there was something curiously incongruous in that picture; and she was quite convinced that in Wabash Avenue he would not look nearly as handsome nor so much at his ease as now he did.
'I am afraid,' said he, with a laugh, 'if ye put me down in a place like that, I should be sorely at a loss to tell what to turn my hand to. It's rather late in the day for me to begin and learn a new trade.'
'Nonsense, man,' the other said. 'You have the knowledge already, if you only knew how to apply it.'
'The knowledge?' Ronald repeated, with some surprise. Most of his book-reading had been in the field of English poetry; and he did not see how he could carry that to market.
Mr. Hodson took out his note-book; and began to look over the leaves.
'And you don't need to go as far as Chicago, if you would rather not,' said he.
'If you do,' said Miss Carry flippantly, 'mind you don't eat any of our pork. Pappa dear, do you know why a wise man doesn't eat pork in Illinois? Don't you know? It is because there is a trichinosis worth two of that.'
Ronald laughed; but her father was too busy to attend to such idiotcy.
'Even if you would rather remain in the old country,' he continued, 'and enjoy an out-of-door life, why should you not make use of what you already know? I have heard you talk about the draining of soil, and planting of trees, and so on: well, look here now. I have been inquiring into that matter; and I find that the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland grants certificates for proficiency in the theory and practice of forestry. Why shouldn't you try to gain one of those certificates; and then apply for the post of land-steward? I'll bet you could manage an estate as well as most of them who are at it – especially one of those Highland sporting estates. And then you would become a person of importance; and not be at any lordship's beck and call; you would have an opportunity of beginning to make a fortune, if not of making one at once; and if you wanted to marry, there would be a substantial future for you to look to.'
'And then you would come over and see us at Chicago,' said Miss Carry. 'We live on North Park Avenue; and you would not feel lonely for want of a lake to look at – we've a pretty big one there.'
'But the first step – about the certificate?' said Ronald doubtfully – though, indeed, the interest that these two kindly people showed in him was very delightful, and he was abundantly grateful, and perhaps also a trifle bewildered by these ambitious and seductive dreams.
'Well, I should judge that would be easy enough,' continued Mr. Hodson, again referring to his note-book in that methodical, slow-mannered way of his. 'You would have to go to Edinburgh or Glasgow, and attend some classes, I should imagine, for they want you to know something of surveying and geology and chemistry and botany. Some of these you could read up here – for you have plenty of leisure, and the subjects are just at your hand. I don't see any difficulty about that. I suppose you have saved something now, that you could maintain yourself when you were at the classes?'
'I could manage for a while,' was the modest answer.
'I have myself several times thought of buying an estate in the Highlands,' Mr. Hodson continued, 'if I found that I have not forgotten altogether how to handle a gun; and if I did so, I would give you the management right off. But it would not do for you to risk such a chance; what you want is to qualify yourself, so that you can take your stand on your own capacity, and demand the market value for it.'
Well, it was a flattering proposal; and this calm, shrewd-headed man seemed to consider it easily practicable – and as the kind of thing that a young man in his country would naturally make for and achieve; while the young lady on the sofa had now thrown aside the pretence of knitting, and was regarding him with eloquent eyes, and talking as if it were all settled and attained, and Ronald already become an enterprising and prosperous manager, whom they should come to see when they visited Scotland, and who was certainly to be their guest when he crossed the Atlantic. No wonder his head was turned. Everything seemed so easy – why, both she and her father appeared to be surrounded, when at home, with men who had begun with nothing and made fortunes. And then he would not be torn away altogether from the hills. He might still have a glimpse of the dun deer from time to time; there would still be the dewy mornings by lake and strath and mountain-tarn, with the stumbling on a bit of white heather, and the picking it and wearing it for luck. And if he had to bid farewell to Clebrig and Ben Loyal and Ben Hope and Bonnie Strath-Naver – well, there were other districts far more beautiful than that, as well he knew, where he would still hear the curlew whistle, and the grouse-cock crow in the evening, and the great stags bellow their challenge through the mists of the dawn. And as for a visit to Chicago? – and a view of great cities, and harbours, and the wide activities of the world? – surely all that was a wonderful dream, if only it might come true!
'I'm sure I beg your pardon,' said he, rising, 'for letting ye talk all this time about my small affairs. I think you'll have a quieter day to-morrow; the wind has backed to the east; and that is a very good wind for this loch. And I've brought the minnows that I took to mend; the kelts are awful beasts for destroying the minnows.'
He put the metal box on the mantelpiece. They would have had him stay longer – and Miss Carry, indeed, called reproaches down on her head that she had not asked him to smoke nor offered him any kind of hospitality – but he begged to be excused. And so he went out and got home through the cold dark night – to his snug little room and the peat-fire, and his pipe and papers and meditations.
A wonderful dream, truly – and all to be achieved by the reading up of a few subjects of some of which he already knew more than a smattering. And why should he not try? It seemed the way of the world – at least, of the world of which he had been learning so much from these strangers – to strive and push forward and secure, if possible, means and independence. Why should he remain at Inver-Mudal? The old careless happiness had fled from it. Meenie had passed him twice now – each time merely giving him a formal greeting, and yet, somehow, as he imagined, with a timid trouble in her eyes, as if she was sorry to do that. Her superintendence of Maggie's lessons was more restricted now; and never by any chance did she come near the cottage when he was within or about. The old friendliness was gone; the old happy companionship – however restricted and respectful on his side; the old, frank appeal for his aid and counsel when any of her own small schemes had to be undertaken. And was she in trouble on his account? – and had the majesty of Glengask and Orosay been invoked? Well, that possibility need harrow no human soul. If his acquaintanceship – or companionship, in a measure – with Meenie was considered undesirable, there was an easy way out of the difficulty. Acquaintanceship or companionship, whichever it might be, it would end – it had ended.
And then again, he said to himself, as he sate at the little table and turned over those leaves that contained many a gay morning song and many a midnight musing – but all about Meenie, and the birds and flowers and hills and streams that knew her – soon she would be away from Inver-Mudal, and what would the place be like then? Perhaps when the young corn was springing she would take her departure; and what would the world be like when she had left? He could see her seated in the little carriage; her face not quite so bright and cheerful as usually it was; her eyes – that were sometimes as blue as a speedwell in June, and sometimes gray like the luminous clear gray of the morning sky – perhaps clouded a little; and the sensitive lips trembling? The children would be there, to bid her good-bye. And then away through the lonely glens she would go, by hill and river and wood, till they came in sight of the western ocean, and Loch Inver, and the great steamer to carry her to the south. Meenie would be away – and Inver-Mudal, then?
Small birds in the corn
Are cowering and quailing:
O my lost love,
Whence are you sailing?
Fierce the gale blows
Adown the bleak river;
The valley is empty
For ever and ever.
Out on the seas,
The night-winds are wailing:
O my lost love,
Whence are you sailing?