A Princess of Thule

“Now, tell me, Sheila,” he said, “were you really vexed with me when you went up stairs and locked yourself in your room? Did you think I meant to displease you or say anything harsh to you?”

“No, not any of those things,” she said calmly; “I wished to be alone – to think over what had happened. And I was grieved by what you said, for I think you cannot help looking at many things not as I will look at them. That is all. It is my bringing up in the Highlands, perhaps.”

“Do you know, Sheila, it sometimes occurs to me that you are not quite comfortable here? And I can’t make out what is the matter. I think you have a perverse fancy that you are different from the people you meet, and that you cannot be like them, and all that sort of thing. Now, dear, that is only a fancy. There need be no difference if you only will take a little trouble.”

“Oh, Frank!” she said, going over and putting her hand on his shoulder, “I cannot take that trouble. I cannot try to be like those people. And I see a great difference in you since you have come back to London, and you are getting to be like them and say the things they say. If I could only see you, my own darling, up in the Lewis again, with rough clothes on and a gun in your hand, I should be happy. You were yourself up there, when you were helping us in the boat, or when you were bringing home the salmon, or when we were all together at night in the little parlor, you know – ”

“My dear, don’t get excited. Now sit down and I will tell you all about it. You seem to have the notion that people lose all their finer sentiments simply because they don’t, in society, burst into raptures over them. You mustn’t imagine all those people are selfish and callous merely because they preserve a decent reticence. To tell you the truth, that constant profession of noble feelings you would like to see would have something of ostentation about it.”

Sheila only sighed. “I do not wish them to be altered,” she said by and by, with her eyes growing pensive; “all I know is, that I could not live the same life. And you – you seemed to be happier up in the Highlands than you have ever been since.”

“Well, you see, a man ought to be happy when he is enjoying a holiday in the country along with the girl he is engaged to. But if I had lived all my life killing salmon and shooting wild duck, I should have grown up an ignorant boor, with no more sense of – ”

He stopped for he saw that the girl was thinking of her father.

“Well, look here, Sheila. You see how you are placed – how we are placed, rather. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to get to understand those people you look askance at, and establish better relations with them, since you have got to live among them? I can’t help thinking you are too much alone, and you can’t expect me to stay in the house always with you. A husband and wife cannot be continually in each other’s company, unless they want to grow heartily tired of each other. Now, if you would only lay aside those suspicions of yours, you would find the people just as honest and generous and friendly as any other sort of people you ever met, although they don’t happen to be fond of expressing their goodness in their talk.”

“I have tried, dear – I will try again,” said Sheila.

She resolved that she would go down and visit Mrs. Lavender next day, and try to be interested in the talk of such people as might be there. She would bring away some story about this or the other fashionable woman or noble lord, just to show her husband that she was doing her best to learn. She would drive patiently around the Park in that close little brougham, and listen attentively to the moralities of Marcus Aurelius. She would make an appointment to go with Mrs. Lavender to a morning concert: and she would endeavor to muster up courage to ask any ladies who might be there to lunch with her on that day, and go afterward to this same entertainment. All these things, and many more, Sheila silently vowed to herself she would do, while her husband sat and expounded to her his theories of the obligations which society demanded of its members.

But her plans were suddenly broken asunder.

“I met Mrs. Lorraine accidentally to-day,” he said.

It was his first mention of the young American lady. Sheila sat in mute expectation.

“She always asks very kindly after you.”

“She is very kind.”

He did not say, however, that Mrs. Lorraine had more than once made distinct propositions, when in his company, that they should call in for Sheila, and take her out for a drive or to a flower show, or some such place, while Lavender had always some excuse ready.

“She is going to Brighton to-morrow, and she was wondering whether you would care to run down for a day or two.”

“With her?” said Sheila, recoiling from such a proposal, instinctively.

“Of course not. I should go. And then, at last, you know, you would see the sea, about which you have been dreaming for ever so long.”

The sea! There was a magic in the very word that could, almost at any moment, summon tears to her eyes. Of course she accepted right gladly. If her husband’s duties were so pressing that the long-talked-of journey to Lewis and Borva had to be repeatedly and indefinitely postponed, here at least would be a chance of looking again at the sea – of drinking in the freshness and light and color of it – of renewing her old and intimate friendship with it that had been broken off for so long by her stay in this city of perpetual houses and still sunshine.

“You can tell her you will go when you see her to-night at Lady Mary’s. By the way, isn’t it time for you to begin to dress?”

“Oh, Lady Mary’s!” repeated Sheila mechanically, who had quite forgotten about her engagement for that evening.

“Perhaps you are too tired to go,” said her husband.

She was a little tired, in truth. But surely, just after her promises, spoken and unspoken, some little effort was demanded of her; so she bravely went to dress, and in about three-quarters of an hour was ready to drive down to Curzon Street. Her husband had never seen her look so pleased before in going out to any party. He flattered himself that his lecture had done her some good. There was fair common sense in what he had said, and although, doubtless, a girl’s romanticism was a pretty thing, it would have to yield to the actual requirements of society. In time he should educate Sheila.

But he did not know what brightened the girl’s face all that night, and put a new life into the beautiful eyes, so that even those who knew her best were struck by her singular beauty. It was the sea that was coloring Sheila’s eyes. The people around her, the glare of the candles, the hum of talking and the motion of certain groups dancing over there in the middle of the throng – all were faint and visionary, for she was busily wondering what the sea would be like the next morning, and what strange fancies would strike her when once more she walked on sand and heard the roar of waves. That, indeed, was the sound that was present in her ears while the music played and the people murmured around her. Mrs. Lorraine talked to her, and was surprised and amused to notice the eager fashion in which the girl spoke of their journey of the next day. The gentleman who took her in to supper found himself catechised about Brighton in a manner which afforded him more occupation than enjoyment. And when Sheila drove away from the house at two in the morning she declared to her husband that she had enjoyed herself extremely, and he was glad to hear it; and she was particularly kind to himself in getting him his slippers, and fetching him that final cigarette which he always had on reaching home; and then she went off to bed to dream of ships and flying clouds and cold winds, and a great and beautiful blue plain of waves.

PART VII

CHAPTER XIV.

DEEPER AND DEEPER

NEXT morning Sheila was busy with her preparations for departure, when she heard a hansom drive up. She looked out and saw Mr. Ingram step out; and before he had time to cross the pavement she had run around and opened the door, and stood at the top of the steps to receive him. How often had her husband cautioned her not to forget herself in this monstrous fashion!

“Do you think I had run away? Have you come to see me?” she said, with a bright, roseate gladness on her face, which reminded him of many a pleasant morning in Borva.

“I did not think you had run away, for, you see, I have brought you some flowers;” but there was a sort of blush in the sallow face, and perhaps the girl had some quick fancy or suspicion that he had brought this bouquet to prove that he knew everything was right, and that he expected to see her. It was only a part of his universal kindness and thoughtfulness, she considered.

“Frank is up stairs,” she said, “getting ready some things to go to Brighton. Will you come into the breakfast-room? Have you had breakfast?”

“Oh, you were going to Brighton?”

“Yes,” she said, and somehow something moved her to add quickly, “but not for long, you know. Only a few days. It is many a time you will have told me of Brighton long ago in the Lewis, but I cannot understand a large town being beside the sea, and it will be a great surprise to me, I am sure of that.”

“Ay, Sheila,” he said, falling into the old habit quite naturally, “you will find it different from Borvapost. You will have no scampering about the rock, with your head bare and your hair flying about. You will have to dress more correctly there than here even; and, by the way, you must be busy getting ready; so I will go.”

“Oh, no,” she said, with a quick look of disappointment, “you will not go yet. If I had known you were coming – but it was very late when we got home this morning: two o’clock it was.”

“Another ball?”

“Yes,” said the girl, but not very joyfully.

“Why, Sheila,” he said, with a grave smile on his face, “you are becoming quite a woman of fashion now. And you know I can’t keep up an acquaintance with a fine lady, who goes to all these grand places, and knows all sorts of swell people; so you’ll have to cut me, Sheila.”

“I hope I shall be dead before that time ever comes,” said the girl, with a sudden flash of indignation in her eyes. Then she softened: “But it is not kind for you to laugh at me.”

“Of course I did not laugh at you,” he said, taking both her hands in his, “although I used to sometimes when you were a little girl and talked very wild English. Don’t you remember how vexed you used to be, and how pleased you were when your papa turned the laugh against me by getting me to say that awful Gaelic sentence about ‘A young calf ate a raw egg!’ ”

“Can you say it now?” said Sheila, with her face getting bright and pleased again. “Try it after me. Now listen.”

She uttered some half dozen of the most extraordinary sounds that any language ever contained, but Ingram would not attempt to follow her. She reproached him with having forgotten all that he had learnt in Lewis, and said she should no longer look on him as a possible Highlander.

“But what are you now?” he asked. “You are no longer that wild girl who used to run out to sea in the Maighdean-mhara whenever there was the excitement of a storm coming on.”

“Many times,” she said, slowly and wistfully, “I will wish that I could be that again for a little while.”

“Don’t you enjoy, then, all those fine gatherings you go to?”

“I try to like them.”

“And you don’t succeed?”

He was looking at her gravely and earnestly, and she turned away her head and did not answer. At this moment Lavender came down stairs and entered the room.

“Halloo, Ingram, my boy! glad to see you! What pretty flowers! It’s a pity we can’t take them to Brighton with us.”

“But I intend to take them,” said Sheila, firmly.

“Oh, very well, if you don’t mind the bother,” said her husband. “I should have thought your hands would have been full; you know you’ll have to take everything with you you would want in London. You will find that Brighton isn’t a dirty little fishing-village in which you’ve only to tuck up your dress and run about anyhow.”

“I never saw a dirty little fishing-village,” said Sheila, quietly.

Her husband laughed: “I meant no offense. I was not thinking of Borvapost at all. Well, Ingram, can’t you run down and see us while we are at Brighton?”

“Oh, do, Mr. Ingram?” said Sheila, with quite a new interest in her face; and she came forward as though she would have gone down on her knees and begged this great favor of him. “Do Mr. Ingram! We should try to amuse you some way, and the weather is sure to be fine. Shall we keep a room for you? Can you come on Friday and stay till Monday? It is a great difference there will be in the place if you come down.”

Ingram looked at Sheila, and was on the point of promising, when Lavender added: “And we shall introduce you to that young American lady whom you are so anxious to meet.”

“Oh, is she to be there?” he said, looking rather curiously at Lavender.

“Yes, and her mother. We are going down together.”

“Then I’ll see whether I can in a day or two,” he said, but in a tone which pretty nearly convinced Sheila that she should not have her stay at Brighton made pleasant by the company of her old friend and associate.

However, the mere anticipation of seeing the sea was much; and when they had got into a cab and were going down to Victoria Station, Sheila’s eyes were filled with a joyful anticipation. She had discarded altogether the descriptions of Brighton that had been given her. It is one thing to receive information, and another to reproduce it in an imaginative picture; and in fact her imagination was busy with its own work while she sat and listened to this person or the other speaking of the seaside town she was going to. When they spoke of promenades and drives and miles of hotels and lodging houses, she was thinking of the sea-beach and of the boats and of the sky-line with its distant ships. When they told her of private theatricals and concerts and fancy-dress balls, she was thinking of being out on the open sea, with a light breeze filling the sails, and a curl of white foam rising at the bow and sweeping and hissing down the sides of the boat. She would go down among the fishermen when her husband and his friends were not by, and talk to them, and get to know what they sold their fish for down here in the South. She would find out what their nets cost, and if there was anybody in authority to whom they could apply for an advance of a few pounds in case of hard times. Had they their cuttings of peat free from the nearest mossland? and did they dress their fields with the thatch that had got saturated with the smoke? Perhaps some of them could tell her where the crews hailed from that had repeatedly shot the sheep of the Flannen Isles. All these and a hundred other things she would get to know; and she might procure and send to her father some rare bird or curiosity of the sea, that might be added to the little museum in which she used to sing in days gone by, when he was busy with his pipe and his whisky.

“You are not much tired, then, by your dissipation of last night?” said Mrs. Kavanagh to her at the station, as the slender, fair-haired, grave lady looked admiringly at the girl’s fresh color and bright gray-blue eyes. “It makes one envy you to see you looking so strong and in such good spirits.”

“How happy you must be always!” said Mrs. Lorraine; and the younger lady had the same sweet, low and kindly voice as her mother.

“I am very well, thank you,” said Sheila, blushing somewhat, and not lifting her eyes, while Lavender was impatient that she had not answered with a laugh and some light retort, such as would have occurred to almost any woman in the circumstances.

On the journey down, Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine, seated opposite each other in two corner seats, kept up a continual cross-fire of small pleasantries, in which the young American lady had distinctly the best of it, chiefly by reason of her perfect manner. The keenest thing she said was said with a look of great innocence and candor in the large gray eyes; and then directly afterward she would say something very nice and pleasant in precisely the same voice, as if she could not understand that there was any effort on the part of either to assume an advantage. The mother sometimes turned and listened to this aimless talk with an amused gravity, as of a cat watching the gambols of a kitten, but generally she devoted herself to Sheila, who sat opposite her. She did not talk much, and Sheila was glad of that, but the girl felt that she was being observed with some little curiosity. She wished that Mrs. Kavanagh would turn those observant gray eyes of hers away in some other direction. Now and again Sheila would point out what she considered strange or striking in the country outside, and for a moment the elderly lady would look out. But directly afterward the gray eyes would come back to Sheila, and the girl knew they were upon her.

At last she so persistently stared out of the window that she fell to dreaming, and all the trees and the meadows and the farm-houses and the distant heights and hollows went past her as though they were in a sort of mist, while she replied to Mrs. Kavanagh’s chance remarks in a mechanical fashion, and could only hear as a monotonous murmur the talk of the two people at the other side of the carriage. How much of the journey did she remember? She was greatly struck by the amount of open land in the neighborhood of London – the commons between Wandsworth and Streatham, and so forth – and she was pleased with the appearance of the country about Red Hill. For the rest, a succession of fair green pictures passed by her, all bathed in a calm, half-misty Summer sunlight; then they pierced the chalk-hills (which Sheila, at first sight, fancied were of granite) and rumbled through the tunnels. Finally, with just a glimpse of a great mass of gray houses filling a vast hollow and stretching up the bare green downs beyond, they found themselves in Brighton.

“Well, Sheila, what do you think of the place?” her husband said to her with a laugh as they were driving down the Queen’s road.

She did not answer.

“It is not like Borvapost, is it?”

She was too bewildered to speak. She could only look about her with a vague wonder and disappointment. But surely this great city was not the place they had come to live in? Would it not disappear somehow, and they would get away to the sea and the rocks and the boats?

They passed into the upper part of West Street, and here was another thoroughfare, down to which Sheila glanced with no great interest. But the next moment there was a quick catching of her breath, which almost resembled a sob, and a strange glad light sprang into her eyes. Here, at last, was the sea! Away beyond the narrow thoroughfare she could catch a glimpse of a great green plain – yellow-green it was in the sunlight – that the wind was whitening here and there with tumbling waves. She had not noticed that there was any wind in-land – there everything seemed asleep – but here there was a fresh breeze from the South, and the sea had been rough the day before, and now it was of this strange olive color, streaked with the white curls of foam that shone in the sunlight. Was there not a cold scent of sea-weed, too, blown up this narrow passage between the houses?

And now the carriage cut around the corner and whirled out into the glare of the Parade, and before her the great sea stretched out its leagues of tumbling and shining waves, and she heard the water roaring along the beach, and far away at the horizon she saw a phantom ship. She did not even look at the row of splendid hotels and houses, at the gayly-dressed folks on the pavement, at the brilliant flags that were flapping and fluttering on the New Pier and about the beach. It was the great world of shining water beyond that fascinated her, and awoke in her a strange yearning and longing, so that she did not know whether it was grief or joy that burned in her heart and blinded her eyes with tears. Mrs. Kavanagh took her arm as they were going up the steps of the hotel, and said in a friendly way, “I suppose you have some sad memories of the sea?”

“No,” said Sheila, bravely, “it is always pleasant to me to think of the sea; but it is a long time since – since – ”

“Sheila,” said her husband, abruptly, “do tell me if all your things are here;” and then the girl turned, calm and self-collected, to look after rugs and boxes.

When they were finally established in the hotel, Lavender went off to negotiate for the hire of a carriage for Mrs. Kavanagh during her stay, and Sheila was left with the two ladies. They had tea in their sitting-room, and they had it at one of the windows, so that they could look out on the stream of people and carriages now beginning to flow by in the clear yellow light of the afternoon. But neither the people nor the carriages had much interest for Sheila, who, indeed, sat for the most part silent, intently watching the various boats that were putting out or coming in, and busy with conjectures which she knew there was no use placing before her two companions.

“Brighton seems to surprise you very much,” said Mrs. Lorraine.

“Yes,” said Sheila, “I have been told all about it, but you will forget all that; and this is very different from the sea at home – at my home.”

“Your home is in London now,” said the elder lady, with a smile.

“Oh, no!” said Sheila, most anxiously and earnestly. “London, that is not our home at all. We live there for a time – that will be quite necessary – but we shall go back to the Lewis some day soon – not to stay altogether, but enough to make it as much our home as London.”

“How do you think Mr. Lavender will enjoy living in the Hebrides?” said Mrs. Lorraine, with a look of innocent and friendly inquiry in her eyes.

“It was many a time that he has said he never liked any place so much,” said Sheila with something of a blush; and then she added with growing courage, “for you must not think he is always like what he is here. Oh, no! When he is in the Highlands there is no day that is nearly long enough for what has to be done in it; and he is up very early, and away to the hills or the loch with a gun or a salmon-rod. He can catch the salmon very well – oh, very well for one that is not accustomed – and he will shoot as well as any one that is in the island, except my papa. It is a great deal to do there will be in the island, and plenty of amusement; and there is not much chance – not any whatever – of his being lonely or tired when we go to live in the Lewis.”

Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter were both amused and pleased by the earnest and rapid fashion in which Sheila talked. They had generally considered her to be a trifle shy and silent, not knowing how afraid she was of using wrong idioms or pronunciations; but here was one subject on which her heart was set, and she had no more thought as to whether she said like-a-ness or likeness, or whether she said gyarden or garden. Indeed, she forgot more than that. She was somewhat excited by the presence of the sea and the well-remembered sound of the waves; and she was pleased to talk about her life in the North, and about her husband’s stay there, and how they should pass the time when she returned to Borva. She neglected altogether Lavender’s instructions that she should not talk about fishing or cooking or farming to his friends. She incidentally revealed to Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter a great deal more about the household at Borva than he would have wished to be known. For how could they understand about his wife having her own cousin to serve at table? And what would they think of a young lady who was proud of making her father’s shirts? Whatever these two ladies may have thought, they were very obviously interested, and if they were amused, it was in a far from unfriendly fashion. Mrs. Lorraine professed herself quite charmed with Sheila’s descriptions of her island-life, and wished she could go up to Lewis to see all these strange things. But when she spoke of visiting the island when Sheila and her husband were staying there, Sheila was not nearly so ready to offer her a welcome as the daughter of a hospitable old Highland man ought to have been.

“And will you go out in a boat now?” said Sheila, looking down to the beach.

“In a boat! What sort of a boat?” said Mrs. Kavanagh.