White Heather: A Novel (Volume 3 of 3)

She took her by the shoulders and wheeled her to the light. But, of course, the girl was flushed with the excitement of her arrival, and pleased with the attentions of the little people, so that for the moment the expression of her face was bright enough.

'There's not much wrong,' said the sister, 'but I don't wonder at your being dull in yon dreadful hole. And I suppose there's no chance of moving now. If my father had only kept to Edinburgh or Glasgow, and got on like anybody else, we might all have been together, and among friends and acquaintances; but it was aye the same – give him the chance of a place where there was a gun or a fishing-rod handy, and that was enough. Well, well, Meenie, we must wake ye up a bit if you've been feeling dull; and Walter – he's as proud as a peacock that you're come; I declare it's enough to make any other woman than myself jealous, the way he shows your portrait to anybody and everybody that comes to the house; and I had a hint from him this morning that any bit things ye might need – mother's letter only came on Saturday – that they were to be a present from him, and there's nothing stingy about Wat, though I say it who shouldn't. And you'll have to share Aggie's bed for a night or two until we have a room got ready for you.'

'If I had only known that I was going to put you about, Agatha – '

'Put us about, you daft lassie!' the elder sister exclaimed. 'Come away, and I'll show you where your things will have to be stored for the present. And my father says there are to be no finishing lessons, or anything of that kind, for a while yet; you're to walk about and amuse yourself; and we've a family-ticket for the Botanic Gardens – you can take a book there or some knitting; and then you'll have to help me in the house, for Walter will be for showing you off as his Highland sister-in-law, and we'll have plenty of company.'

And so the good woman rattled on; and how abundantly and secretly glad was Meenie that not a word was said of Ronald Strang! She had felt guilty enough when she entered the house; she had come on a secret errand that she dared not disclose; and one or two things in her sister's letters had convinced her that there were not likely to be very friendly feelings towards Ronald in this little domestic circle. But when they had gone over almost every conceivable topic, and not a single question had been asked about Ronald, nor any reference even made to him, she felt immensely relieved. To them, then, he was clearly of no importance. Probably they had forgotten that she had once or twice asked if he had called on them. Or perhaps her sister had taken it for granted that the piece of news she had sent concerning him would effectually and for ever crush any interest in him that Meenie may have felt. Anyhow, his name was not even mentioned; and that was so far well.

But what a strange sensation was this – when in the afternoon she went out for a stroll with the smaller Agatha – to feel that at any moment, at the turning of any corner, she might suddenly encounter Ronald. That ever-moving crowd had the profoundest interest for her; these rather grimy streets a continuous and mysterious fascination. Of course the little Agatha, when they went forth from the house, was for going up to the West End Park or out by Billhead to the Botanic Gardens, so that the pretty young aunt should have a view of the beauties of Glasgow. But Meenie had no difficulty in explaining that green slopes and trees and things of that kind had no novelty for her, whereas crowded streets and shops and the roar of cabs and carriages had; and so they turned city-wards when they left the house, and went away in by Cambridge Street and Sauchiehall Street to Buchanan Street. And was this the way, then, she asked herself (and she was rather an absent companion for her little niece), that Ronald would take on leaving his lodgings to get over to the south side of the city, where, as she understood from his sister's letters, lived the old forester who was superintending his studies? But there were so many people here! – and all seemingly strangers to each other; scarcely any two or three of them stopping to have a chat together; and all of them apparently in such a hurry. Argyll Street was even worse; indeed, she recoiled from that tumultuous thoroughfare; and the two of them turned north again. The lamplighter was beginning his rounds; here and there an orange star gleamed in the pallid atmosphere; here and there a shop window glowed yellow. When they got back to Queen's Crescent they found that Mr. Gemmill had returned; it was his tea-time; and there was a talk of the theatre for the older folk.

Well, she did not despair yet. For one thing, she had not been anxious to meet Ronald during that first plunge into the great city, for Agatha was with her. But that was merely because the little girl had obtained a holiday in honour of her aunt's coming; thereafter she went to school every morning; moreover, the household happened to be a maidservant short, and Mrs. Gemmill was busy, so that Meenie was left to do pretty much as she liked, and to go about alone. And her walks did not take her much to the Botanic Gardens, nor yet to the West End Park and Kelvin Grove; far rather she preferred to go errands for her sister, and often these would take her in by Sauchiehall Street and the top of Buchanan Street; and always her eyes were anxious and yet timorous, seeking and yet half-fearing to find. But where was Ronald? She tried different hours. She grew to know every possible approach to that lodging in the Port Dundas Road. And she had schooled herself now so that she could search long thoroughfares with a glance that was apparently careless enough; and she had so often pictured to herself their meeting, that she knew she would not exhibit too great a surprise nor make too open a confession of her joy.

And at last her patient waiting was rewarded. It was in Renfield Street that she suddenly caught sight of him – a long way off he was, but coming towards her, and all unconscious of her being there. For a moment her schooling of herself gave way somewhat; for her heart was beating so wildly as almost to choke her; and she went on with her eyes fixed on the ground, wondering what she should say, wondering if he would find her face grown paler than it used to be, wondering what he would think of her having sent him the bit of white heather. And then she forced herself to raise her eyes; and it was at the very same instant that he caught sight of her – though he was yet some distance off – and for the briefest moment she saw his strange and startled look. But what was this? Perhaps he fancied she had not seen him; perhaps he had reasons for not wishing to be seen; at all events, after that one swift recognition of her, he had suddenly slunk away – down some lane or other – and when she went forward, in rather a blind and bewildered fashion, behold! there was no Ronald there at all. She looked around – with a heart as if turned to stone – but there was no trace of him. And then she went on, rather proudly – or perhaps, rather, trying to feel proud and hurt; but there was a gathering mist coming into her eyes; and she scarcely knew – nor cared – whither she was walking.

CHAPTER IV

A BOLDER STEP

As for him, he slunk aside hurriedly and all abashed and dismayed. He did not pause until he was safe away from any pursuit; and there was a lowering expression on his face, and his hand shook a little. He could only hope that she had not seen him. Instantly he had seen her, he knew that he dared not meet the beautiful clear eyes, that would regard him, and perhaps mutely ask questions of him, even if there was no indignant reproach in them. For during these past few days he had gradually been becoming conscious of the squalor and degradation into which he had sunk; and sometimes he would strive to raise himself out of that; and sometimes he would sink back despairing, careless of what might become of him or his poor affairs. But always there was there in his room that mystic white token that Meenie had sent him; and at least it kept him thinking – his conscience was not allowed to slumber; and sometimes it became so strong an appeal to him – that is to say, he read into the message such wild and daring and fantastic possibilities – that he would once more resume that terrible struggle with the iron bands of habit that bound him.

'What is the matter wi' Ronald?' Kate Menzies asked of her cronies. 'He hasna been near the house these three or four days.'

'I'm thinking he's trying to earn the Blue Ribbon,' said old Mr. Jaap.

'And no thriving weel on't, poor lad,' said Jimmy Laidlaw. 'Down in the mouth's no the word. He's just like the ghost o' himsel'.'

'I tell ye what, Mistress,' said the big skipper, who was contemplating with much satisfaction a large beaker of hot rum and water, 'the best thing you could do would be just to take the lad in hand, and marry him right off. He would have somebody to look after him, and so would you; as handsome a couple as ever stepped along Jamaica Street, I'll take my oath.'

The buxom widow laughed and blushed; but she was bound to protest.

'Na, na, Captain, I ken better than that. I'm no going to throw away a business like this on any man. I'll bide my ain mistress for a while longer, if ye please.'

And then mother Paterson – who had a handy gift of facile acquiescence – struck in —

'That's right, Katie dear! Ye're sich a wise woman. To think ye'd throw away a splendid place like this, and a splendid business, on any man, and make him maister! And how long would it be before he ate and drank ye out o' house and ha'? – set him up with a handsome wife and a splendid business thrown at his heed, and scarcely for the asking! Na, na, Katie, woman, ye ken your own affairs better than that; ye're no for any one to come in and be maister here.'

'But I'm concerned about the lad,' said Kate Menzies, a little absently. 'He met wi' none but friends here. He might fa' into worse hands.'

'Gang up yersel', Mistress, and hae a talk wi' him,' said the skipper boldly.

Kate Menzies did not do that; but the same evening she wrote Ronald a brief note. And very well she could write too – in a dashing, free handwriting; and gilt-edged was the paper, and rose-pink was the envelope.

'DEAR RONALD – Surely there is no quarrel between us. If I have offended you, come and tell me; don't go away and sulk. If I have done or said anything to offend you, I will ask your pardon. Can I do anything more than that? Your cousin and friend,

'KATE MENZIES.'

Of course he had to answer such an appeal in person: he went down the next morning.

'Quarrel, woman? What put that into your head? If there had been anything of that kind, I would have told you fast enough; I'm not one of the sulking kind.'

'Well, I'm very glad to ken we're just as good friends as before,' said Kate, regarding him, 'but I'm not glad to see the way ye're looking, Ronald, my lad. Ye're not yourself at all, my man – what's got ye whitey-faced, limp, shaky-looking like that? See here.'

She went to the sideboard, and the next instant there was on the table a bottle of champagne, with a couple of glasses, and a flask of angostura bitters.

'No, no, Katie, lass, I will not touch a drop,' said he: and he rose and took his cap in his hand.

'You will not?' she said. 'You will not? Why, man, you're ill – you're ill, I tell ye. It's medicine!'

He gripped her by the hand, and took the bottle from her, and put it down on the table.

'If I'm ill, I deserve to be, and that's the fact, lass. Let be – let be, woman; I'm obliged to ye – some other time – some other time.'

'Then if you winna, I will,' she said, and she got hold of the bottle and opened it and poured out a glass of the foaming fluid.

'And dinna I ken better what's good for ye than ye do yersel'?' said she boldly. 'Ay, if ye were ruled by me, and drank nothing but what ye get in this house, there would be little need for ye to be frightened at what a wean might drink. Ye dinna ken your best friends, my lad.'

'I know you wish me weel, Katie, lass,' said he, for he did not wish to appear ungrateful, 'but I'm better without it.'

'Yes,' said she tauntingly. 'Ye're better without sitting up a' night wi' a lot o' roystering fellows, smoking bad tobacco and drinking bad whisky. What mak's your face sae white? It's fusel-oil, if ye maun ken. Here, Ronald, what canna hurt a woman canna hurt a man o' your build – try it, and see if ye dinna feel better.'

She put a good dash of bitters into the glass, and poured out the champagne, and offered it to him. He did not wish to offend her; and he himself did not believe the thing could hurt him; he took the glass and sipped about a teaspoonful, and then set it down.

Kate Menzies looked at him, and laughed aloud, and took him by the shoulders and pushed him back into his chair.

'There's a man for ye! Whatna young ladies' seminary have ye been brought up at?'

'I'll tell ye, lass,' he retorted. 'It was one where they taught folk no to force other folk to drink against their will.'

'Then it was different frae the one where I was brought up, for there, when the doctor ordered anybody to take medicine, they were made to take it. And here's yours,' she said; and she stood before him with the glass in her hand. She was good-natured; it would have been ungracious to refuse; he took the glass from her and drank off the contents.

Now a glass of champagne, even with the addition of a little angostura bitters, cannot be called a very powerful potion to those accustomed to such things; but the fact was that he had not touched a drop of any alcoholic fluid for two days; and this seemed to go straight to the brain. It produced a slight, rather agreeable giddiness; a sense of comfort was diffused throughout the system; he was not so anxious to get away. And Kate began talking – upbraiding him for thinking that she wanted to see him otherwise than well and in his usual health, and declaring that if he were guided by her, there would be no need for him to torture himself with total abstinence, and to reduce himself to this abject state. The counsel (which was meant in all honesty) fell on yielding ears; Kate brought some biscuits, and filled herself out another glass.

'That's what it is,' she said boldly, 'if you would be ruled by my advice there would be no shaking hands and white cheeks for ye. Feeling better, are ye? – ay, I warrant ye! Here, man, try this.'

She filled his glass again, adding a good dose of bitters.

'This one I will, but not a drop more,' said he. 'Ye're a desperate creature, lass, for making folk comfortable.'

'I ken what's the matter wi' you better than ye ken yoursel', Ronald,' said she, looking at him shrewdly. 'You're disappointed – you're out o' heart – because thae fine American friends o' yours hae forgotten you; and you've got sick o' this new work o' yours; and you've got among a lot o' wild fellows that are leading ye to the devil. Mark my words. Americans! Better let a man trust to his ain kith and kin.'

'Well, Katie, lass, I maun say this, that ye've just been ower kind to me since ever I came to Glasgow.'

'Another glass, Ronald – '

'Not one drop – thank ye' – and this time he rose with the definite resolve to get away, for even these two glasses had caused a swimming in his head, and he knew not how much more he might drink if he stayed.

'Better go for a long walk, then,' said Kate, 'and come back at three and have dinner with us. I'll soon put ye on your legs again – trust to me.'

But when he went out into the open air, he found himself so giddy and half-dazed and bewildered that, instead of going away for any long walk, he thought he would go back home and lie down. He felt less happy now. Why had he taken this accursed thing after all his resolves?

And then it was – as he went up Renfield Street – that he caught his first glimpse of Meenie. No wonder he turned and slunk rapidly away – anxious to hide anywhere – hoping that Meenie had not seen him. And what a strange thing was this – Meenie in Glasgow town! Oh, if he could only be for a single day as once he had been – as she had known him in the happy times when life went by like a laugh and a song – how wonderful it would be to go along these thoroughfares hoping every moment to catch sight of her face! A dull town? – no, a radiant town, with music in the air, and joy and hope shining down from the skies! But now – he was a cowering fugitive – sick in body and sick in mind – trembling with the excitement of this sudden meeting – and anxious above all other things that he should get back to the seclusion of his lodging unseen.

Well, he managed that, at all events; and there he sate down, wondering over this thing that had just happened. Meenie in Glasgow town! – and why? And why had she sent him the white heather? Nay, he could not doubt but that she had heard; and that this was at once a message of reproach and an appeal; and what answer had he to give supposing that some day or other he should meet her face to face? How could he win back to his former state, so that he should not be ashamed to meet those clear, kind eyes? If there were but some penance now – no matter what suffering it entailed – that would obliterate these last months and restore him to himself, how gladly would he welcome that! But it was not only the bodily sickness – he believed he could mend that; he had still a fine physique; and surely absolute abstention from stimulants, no matter with what accompanying depression, would in time give him back his health – it was mental sickness and hopelessness and remorse that had to be cured; and how was that to be attempted? Or why should he attempt it? What care had he for the future? To be sure, he would stop drinking, definitely; and he would withdraw himself from those wild companions; and he would have a greater regard for his appearance; so that, if he should by chance meet Meenie face to face, he would not have to be altogether so ashamed. But after? When she had gone away again? For of course he assumed that she was merely here on a visit.

And all this time he was becoming more and more conscious of how far he had fallen – of the change that had come over himself and his circumstances in these few months; and a curious fancy got into his head that he would like to try to realise what he had been like in those former days. He got out his blotting-pad of fragments – not those dedicated to Meenie, that had been carefully put aside – and about the very first of them that he chanced to light upon, when he looked down the rough lines, made him exclaim —

'God bless me, was I like that– and no longer ago than last January?'

The piece was called 'A Winter Song'; and surely the man who could write in this gay fashion had an abundant life and joy and hope in his veins, and courage to face the worst bleakness of the winter, and a glad looking-forward to the coming of the spring?

Keen blows the wind upon Clebrig's side,And the snow lies thick on the heather;And the shivering hinds are glad to hideAway from the winter weather.Chorus: But soon the birds will begin to sing,And we will sing too, my dear,To give good welcoming to the springIn the primrose time o' the year!Hark how the black lake, torn and tost,Thunders along its shores;And the burn is hard in the grip of the frost,And white, snow-white are the moors.Chorus: But soon the birds will begin to sing, etc.O then the warm west winds will blow,And all in the sunny weather,It's over the moorlands we will go,You and I, my love, together.Chorus: And then the birds will begin to sing,And we will sing too, my dear,To give good welcoming to the spring,In the primrose-time o' the year!

Why, surely the blood must have been dancing in his brain when he wrote that and the days white and clear around him; and life merry and hopeful enough. And now? Well, it was no gladdening thing to think of: he listlessly put away the book.

And then he rose and went and got a pail of water and thrust his head into that – for he was glad to feel that this muzzy sensation was going; and thereafter he dried and brushed his hair with a little more care than usual; and put on a clean collar. Nay, he began to set the little room to rights – and his life in Highland lodges had taught him how to do that about as well as any woman could; and he tried to brighten the window panes a little, to make the place look more cheerful; and he arranged the things on the mantel-shelf in better order – with the bit of white heather in the middle. Then he came to his briar-root pipe; and paused. He took it up, hesitating.

'Yes, my friend, you must go too,' he said, with firm lips; and he deliberately broke it, and tossed the fragments into the grate.

And then he remembered that it was nearly three o'clock, and as he feared that Kate Menzies might send some one of her friends to fetch him, or even come for him herself, he put on his cap, and took a stick in his hand, and went out. In half an hour or so he had left the city behind him and was lost in that melancholy half-country that lies around it on the north; but he cared little now how the landscape looked; he was wondering what had brought Meenie to Glasgow town, and whether she had seen him, and what she had heard of him. And at Inver-Mudal too? Well, they might think the worst of him there if they chose. But had Meenie heard?

He scarcely knew how far he went; but in the dusk of the evening he was again approaching the city by the Great Western Road; and as he came nearer to the houses, he found that the lamps were lit, and the great town settling down into the gloom of the night. Now he feared no detection; and so it was that when he arrived at Melrose Street he paused there. Should he venture into Queen's Crescent? – it was but a stone's throw away. For he guessed that Meenie must be staying with her sister; and he knew the address that she had given him, though he had never called; nay, he had had the curiosity, once or twice in passing, to glance at the house; and easily enough he could now make it out if he chose. He hesitated for a second or two; then he stealthily made his way along the little thoroughfare; and entered the crescent – but keeping to the opposite side from Mrs. Gemmill's dwelling – and there quietly walked up and down. He could see the windows well enough; they were all of them lit; and the house seemed warm and comfortable; Meenie would be at home there, and among friends, and her bright laugh would be heard from room to room. Perhaps they had company too – since all the windows were ablaze; rich folk, no doubt, for the Gemmills were themselves well-to-do people; and Meenie would be made much of by these strangers, and they would come round her, and the beautiful Highland eyes would be turned towards them, and they would hear her speak in her quiet, gentle, quaint way. Nor was there any trace of envy or jealousy in this man's composition – outcast as he now deemed himself. Jealousy of Meenie? – why, he wished the bountiful heavens to pour their choicest blessings upon her, and the winds to be for ever soft around her, and all sweet and gracious things to await her throughout her girlhood and her womanhood and her old age. No; it did not trouble him that these rich folk were fortunate enough to be with her, to listen to her, to look at the clear, frank eyes; it might have troubled him had he thought that they might not fully understand the generous rose-sweetness of her nature, nor fully appreciate her straightforward, unconscious simplicity, nor be sufficiently kind to her. And it was scarcely necessary to consider that; of course they all of them would be kind to her, for how could they help it?

But his guess that they might be entertaining friends was wrong. By and by a cab drove up; in a few minutes the door was opened; he ventured to draw a little nearer; and then he saw three figures – one of them almost assuredly Meenie – come out and enter the vehicle. They drove off; no doubt they were going to some concert or theatre, he thought; and he was glad that Meenie was being amused and entertained so; and was among friends. And as for himself? —

'Well,' he was inwardly saying, as he resumed his walk homeward, 'the dreams that look so fine when one is up among the hills are knocked on the head sure enough when one comes to a town. I'll have no more to do with these books; nor with the widow Menzies and her friends either. To-morrow morning I'm off to the recruiting-sergeant – that's the best thing for me now.'