"Indeed you have, sir!" said the other warmly.
" – and I have asked nothing from ye in return. I would ask nothing now, if I was your age. If I was twenty years younger, I would not have telegraphed for ye – indeed no, I would have taken the matter into my own hands – "
Here the Laird paused for a second or so to regain that coldness of demeanour with which he had started.
"Ay, just so. Well, ye were talking about the man Smethurst as we were coming along. His niece, as ye may be aware, is in this house – a better lass was never seen within any house."
The Laird hesitated more and more as he came to the climax of his discourse: it was obviously difficult for him to put this restraint on himself.
"Yes," said he, speaking a little more hurriedly, "and that scoondrel – that scoondrel – has made off with every penny that the poor lass had – every penny of it – and she is left an orphan – without a farthing to maintain herself wi' – and that infernal scoondrel – "
The Laird jumped from his seat; his anger was too much for him.
"I mean to stand by her," said he, pacing up and down the room, and speaking in short ejaculations. "She will not be left without a farthing. I will reach him too, if I can. Ay, ay, if I was but twenty years younger, and had that man before me!"
He stopped short opposite his nephew, and controlled himself so as to speak quite calmly.
"I would like to see ye settled at Denny-mains, Howard," said he. "And ye would want a wife. Now if ye were to marry this young leddy, it would be the delight of my old age to see ye both comfortable and well provided for. And a better wife ye would not get within this country. Not a better!"
Howard Smith stared.
"Why, uncle!" said he, as if he thought some joke was going forward. We, who had been aware of certain profound plans on the part of Denny-mains, were less startled by this abrupt disclosure of them.
"That is one of two things," said the Laird, with forced composure, "that I wished to put before ye. If it is impossible, I am sorely vexed. But there is another; and one or the other, as I have been thinking, I am fairly entitled to ask of ye. So far I have not thought of any return for what I have done; it has been a pleasure to me to look after your up-bringing."
"Well, uncle," said the young man, beginning to look a little less frightened. "I would rather hear of the other thing. You know – eh – that is – a girl does not take anybody who is flung at her, as it were – it would be an insult – and – and people's inclinations and affections – "
"I know – I know – I know," said the Laird, impatiently. "I have gone over all that. Do ye think I am a fool? If the lass will not have ye, there is an end to it: do your best to get her, and that is enough for me."
"There was another thing – " the young man suggested timidly.
"Yes, there is," said the Laird, with a sudden change in his manner. "It is a duty, sir, ye owe not to me, but to humanity. Ye are young, strong, have plenty of time, and I will give ye the money. Find out that man Smethurst; get him face to face; and fell him! Fell him!" – the Laird brought his fist down on the table with a bang that made everything jump, and his eyes were like coals of fire. "None o' your pistols or rapiers or trash like that! – no, no! – a mark on his face for the rest of his life – the brand of a scoondrel between his eyes – there! will ye do that for me?"
"But, uncle," cried the young man, finding this alternative about as startling as the other, "how on earth can I find him? He is off to Brazil, or Mexico, or California, long ere now, you may depend on it."
The Laird had pulled himself together again.
"I have put two things before ye," said he, calmly. "It is the first time I have asked ye for a service, after having brought ye up as few lads have been brought up. If you think it is unfair of me to make a bargain about such things, I will tell ye frankly that I have more concern in that young thing left to herself than in any creature now living on earth; and I will be a friend to her as well as an old man can. I have asked our friends here to listen to what I had to say; they will tell ye whether I am unreasonable. I will leave ye to talk it over."
He went to the door. Then he turned for a moment to his hostess.
"I am going to see, ma'am, if Mary will go for a bit walk wi' me – down to the shore, or the like; but we will be back before the hour for denner."
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW SUITOR
It is only those who have lived with her for a number of years who can tell when a certain person becomes possessed with the demon of mischief, and allows sarcasm and malignant laughter and other unholy delights to run riot in her brain. The chief symptom is the assumption of an abnormal gravity, and a look of simple and confiding innocence that appears in the eyes. The eyes tell most of all. The dark pupils seem even clearer than is their wont, as if they would let you read them through and through; and there is a sympathetic appeal in them; the woman seems so anxious to be kind, and friendly, and considerate. And all the time – especially if it be a man who is hopelessly dumfoundered – she is revenging the many wrongs of her sex by covertly laughing at him and enjoying his discomfiture.
And no doubt the expression on Howard Smith's face, as he sat there in a bewildered silence, was ludicrous enough. He was inclined to laugh the thing away as a joke, but he knew that the Laird was not given to practical jokes. And yet – and yet —
"Do you really think he is serious?" he blurted out at length, and he spoke to this lady with the gentle innocent eyes.
"Oh, undoubtedly," she answered, with perfect gravity.
"Oh, no; it is impossible!" he said, as if arguing with himself. "Why, my uncle, of all men in the world, – and pretending it was serious – of course people often do wish their sons or daughters to marry a particular person – for a sensible reason, to keep estates together, or to join the fortunes of a family – but this – no, no; this is a joke, or else he wants to drive me into giving that fellow a licking. And that, you know, is quite absurd; you might as well drag the Atlantic for a penknife."
"I am afraid your uncle is quite serious," said she, demurely.
"But it was to be left to you," he answered quickly. "You were to say whether it was unreasonable. Surely you must see it is not reasonable. Neither the one thing nor the other is possible – "
Here the young man paused for a moment.
"Surely," he said, "my uncle can't mean, by putting these impossible things before me, to justify his leaving his property to somebody else? There was no need for any such excuse; I have no claim on him; he has a right to do what he pleases."
"That has nothing to do with it," said Queen T. promptly. "Your uncle is quite resolved, I know, that you should have Denny-mains."
"Yes – and a wife," responded the young man, with a somewhat wry smile. "Oh, but you know, it is quite absurd; you will reason him out of it, won't you? He has such a high opinion of your judgment, I know."
The ingenious youth!
"Besides," said he warmly, "do you think it very complimentary to your friend Miss Avon that any one should be asked to come and marry her?"
This was better; it was an artful thrust. But the bland sympathetic eyes only paid him a respectful attention.
"I know my uncle is pretty firm when he has got a notion into his head," said he, "and – and – no doubt he is quite right in thinking that the young lady has been badly treated, and that somebody should give the absconder a thrashing. All that is quite right; but why should I be made responsible for it? I can't do impossible things."
"Well, you see," said his sage adviser, with a highly matter-of-fact air, "your uncle may not regard either the one thing or the other as impossible."
"But they are impossible," said he.
"Then I am very sorry," said she, with great sweetness. "Because Denny-mains is really a beautiful place. And the house would lend itself splendidly to a thorough scheme of redecoration; the hall could be made perfectly lovely. I would have the wooden dado painted a dark bottle-green, and the wall over it a rich Pompeian red – I don't believe the colours of a hall can be too bold if the tones are good in themselves. Pompeian red is a capital background for pictures, too; and I like to see pictures in the hall; the gentlemen can look at them while they are waiting for their wives. Don't you think Indian matting makes a very nice, serviceable, sober-coloured dado for a dining-room – so long as it does not drive your pictures too high on the wall?"
The fiendishness of this woman! Denny-mains was being withdrawn from him at this very moment; and she was bothering him with questions about its decoration. What did he think of Indian matting?
"Well," said he, "if I am to lose my chance of Denny-mains through this piece of absurdity, I can't help it."
"I beg your pardon," said she most amiably; "but I don't think your uncle's proposal so very absurd. It is the commonest thing in the world for people to wish persons in whom they are interested to marry each other; and very often they succeed by merely getting the young people to meet, and so forth. You say yourself that it is reasonable in certain cases. Well, in this case, you probably don't know how great an interest your uncle takes in Miss Avon, and the affection that he has for her. It is quite remarkable. And he has been dwelling on this possibility of a match between you – of seeing you both settled at Denny-mains – until he almost regards it as already arranged. 'Put yourself in his place,' as Mr. Reade says. It seems to him the most natural thing in the world, and I am afraid he will consider you very ungrateful if you don't fall in with his plan."
Deeper and deeper grew the shadow of perplexity on the young man's brow. At first he had seemed inclined to laugh the whole matter aside, but the gentle reasoning of this small person had a ghastly aspect of seriousness about it.
"Then his notion of my seeking out the man Smethurst and giving him a thrashing: you would justify that, too?" he cried.
"No, not quite," she answered, with a bit of a smile. "That is a little absurd, I admit – it is merely an ebullition of anger. He won't think any more of that in a day or two I am certain. But the other – the other, I fear, is a fixed idea."
At this point we heard some one calling outside:
"Miss Mary! I have been searching for ye everywhere; are ye coming for a walk down to the shore?"
Then a voice, apparently overhead at an open window —
"All right, sir; I will be down in a moment."
Another second or two, and we hear some one singing on the stair, with a fine air of bravado —
A strong sou-wester's blowing, Billy; can't you hear it roar, now?
– the gay voice passes through the hall —
Lord help 'em, how I pities all un —
– then the last phrase is heard outside —
– folks on shore now —
Queen Titania darts to the open window of the dining-room.
"Mary! Mary!" she calls. "Come here."
The next instant a pretty enough picture is framed by the lower half of the window, which is open. The background is a blaze of scarlet and yellow and green – a mixture of sunlight and red poppies and nasturtiums and glancing fuchsia leaves. Then this slight figure that has appeared is dark in shadow; but there is a soft reflected light from the front of the house, and that just shows you the smile on Mary Avon's face and the friendliness of her dark soft eyes.
"Oh, how do you do?" she says, reaching in her hand and shaking hands with him. There is not any timidity in her manner. No one has been whispering to her of the dark plots surrounding her.
Nor was Mr. Smith much embarrassed, though he did not show himself as grateful as a young man might have done for so frank and friendly a welcome.
"I scarcely thought you would have remembered me," said he modestly. But at this moment Denny-mains interfered, and took the young lady by the arm, and dragged her away. We heard their retreating footsteps on the gravel walk.
"So you remember her?" says our hostess, to break the awkward silence.
"Oh, yes, well enough," said he; and then he goes on to say stammeringly – "Of course, I – I have nothing to say against her – "
"If you have," it is here interposed, as a wholesome warning, "you had better not mention it here. Ten thousand hornets' nests would be a fool compared to this house if you said anything in it against Mary Avon."
"On the contrary," says he, "I suppose she is a very nice girl indeed – very – I suppose there's no doubt of it. And if she has been robbed like that, I am very sorry for her; and I don't wonder my uncle should be interested in her, and concerned about her, and – and all that's quite right. But it is too bad – it is too bad – that one should be expected to – to ask her to be one's wife, and a sort of penalty hanging over one's head, too. Why, it is enough to set anybody against the whole thing; I thought everybody knew that you can't get people to marry if you drive them to it – except in France, I suppose, where the whole business is arranged for you by your relatives. This isn't France; and I am quite sure Miss Avon would consider herself very unfairly treated if she thought she was being made part and parcel of any such arrangement. As for me – well, I am very grateful to my uncle for his long kindness to me; he has been kindness itself to me; and it is quite true, as he says, that he has asked for nothing in return. Well, what he asks now is just a trifle too much. I won't sell myself for any property. If he is really serious – if it is to be a compulsory marriage like that – Denny-mains can go. I shall be able to earn my own living somehow."
There was a chord struck in this brief, hesitating, but emphatic speech that went straight to his torturer's heart. A look of liking and approval sprang to her eyes. She would no longer worry him.
"Don't you think," said she gently, "that you are taking the matter too seriously? Your uncle does not wish to force you into a marriage against your will; he knows nothing about Adelphi melodramas. What he asks is simple and natural enough. He is, as you see, very fond of Mary Avon; he would like to see her well provided for; he would like to see you settled and established at Denny-mains. But he does not ask the impossible. If she does not agree, neither he nor you can help it. Don't you think it would be a very simple matter for you to remain with us for a time, pay her some ordinary friendly attention, and then show your uncle that the arrangement he would like does not recommend itself to either you or her? He asks no more than that; it is not much of a sacrifice."
There was no stammering about this lady's exposition of the case. Her head is not very big, but its perceptive powers are remarkable.
Then the young man's face brightened considerably.
"Well," said he, "that would be more sensible, surely. If you take away the threat, and the compulsion, and all that, there can be no harm in my being civil to a girl, especially when she is, I am sure, just the sort of girl one ought to be civil to. I am sure she has plenty of common sense – "
It is here suggested once more that, in this house, negative praise of Mary Avon is likely to awake slumbering lions.
"Oh, I have no doubt," says he readily, "that she is a very nice girl indeed. One would not have to pretend to be civil to some creature stuffed with affectation, or a ghoul. I don't object to this at all. If my uncle thinks it enough, very well. And I am quite sure that a girl you think so much of would have more self-respect than to expect anybody to go and make love to her in the country-bumpkin style."
Artful again; but it was a bad shot. There was just a little asperity in Madame's manner when she said —
"I beg you not to forget that Mary does not wish to be made love to by anybody. She is quite content as she is. Perhaps she has quite other views, which you would not regret, I am sure. But don't imagine that she is looking for a husband; or that a husband is necessary for her; or that she won't find friends to look after her. It is your interests we are considering, not hers."
Was the snubbing sufficient?
"Oh, of course, of course," said he, quite humbly. "But then, you know, I was only thinking that – that – if I am to go in and make believe about being civil to your young lady-friend, in order to please my uncle, too much should not be expected. It isn't a very nice thing – at least, for you it may be very nice – to look on at a comedy – "
"And is it so very hard to be civil to a girl?" says his monitress sharply. "Mary will not shock you with the surprise of her gratitude. She might have been married ere now if she had chosen."
"She – isn't – quite a school-girl, you know," he says timidly.
"I was not aware that men preferred to marry school-girls," says the other, with a gathering majesty of demeanour.
Here a humble witness of this interview has once more to interpose to save this daring young man from a thunderbolt. Will he not understand that the remotest and most round-about reflection on Mary Avon is in this house the unpardonable sin?
"Well," said he frankly, "it is exceedingly kind of you to show me how I am to get out of this troublesome affair; and I am afraid I must leave it to you to convince my uncle that I have done sufficient. And it is very kind of you to ask me to go yachting with you; I hope I shall not be in the way. And – and – there is no reason at all why Miss Avon and I should not become very good friends – in fact, I hope we shall become such good friends that my uncle will see we could not be anything else."
Could anything be fairer than this? His submission quite conquered his hostess. She said she would show him some of Mary Avon's sketches in oil, and led him away for that purpose. His warm admiration confirmed her good opinion of him; henceforth he had nothing to fear.
At dinner that evening he was at first a little shy; perhaps he had a suspicion that there were present one or two spectators of a certain comedy which he had to play all by himself. But, indeed, our eyes and ears were not for him alone. Miss Avon was delighting the Laird with stories of the suggestions she had got about her pictures from the people who had seen them – even from the people who had bought them – in London.
"And you know," said she quite frankly, "I must study popular taste as much as I fairly can now, for I have to live by it. If people will have sea-pieces spoiled by having figures put in, I must put in figures. By and by I may be in a position to do my own work in my own way."
The Laird glanced at his nephew: was it not for him to emancipate this great and original artist from the fear of critics, and dealers, and purchasers? There was no response.
"I mean to be in London soon myself," the Laird said abruptly; "ye must tell me where I can see some of your pictures."
"Oh, no," she said, laughing, "I shall not victimise my friends. I mean to prey on the public – if possible. It is Mr. White, in King Street, St. James's, however, who has taken most of my pictures hitherto; and so if you know of anybody who would like to acquire immortal works for a few guineas apiece, that is the address."
"I am going to London myself soon," said he, with a serious air, as if he had suddenly determined on buying the National Gallery.
Then Howard Smith, perceiving that no one was watching him, or expecting impossibilities of him, became quite cheerful and talkative; and told some excellent stories of his experiences at various shooting quarters the previous winter. Light-hearted, good-natured, fairly humorous, he talked very well indeed. We gathered that during the last months of the year the shooting of pheasants occupied a good deal more of his time and attention than the study of law. And how could one wonder that so pleasant-mannered a young man was a welcome guest at those various country-houses in the south?
But it appeared that, despite all this careless talk, he had been keeping an eye on Mary Avon during dinner. Walking down to the yacht afterwards – the blood-red not quite gone from the western skies, a cool wind coming up from the sea – he said casually to his uncle —
"Well, sir, whatever trouble that young lady may have gone through has not crushed her spirits yet. She is as merry as a lark."
"She has more than cheerfulness – she has courage," said the Laird, almost severely. "Oh, ay, plenty of courage. And I have no doubt she could fight the world for herself just as well as any man I know. But I mean to make it my business that she shall not have to fight the world for herself – not as long as there is a stick standing on Denny-mains!"