“Penelope, has it ever occurred to you that Elizabeth Ardmore is seriously interested in Mr. Macdonald?”
Salemina propounded this question to me with the same innocence that a babe would display in placing a lighted fuse beside a dynamite bomb.
Francesca naturally heard the remark,—although it was addressed to me,—pricked up her ears, and missed the tumbler by several feet.
It was a simple inquiry, but as I look back upon it from the safe ground of subsequent knowledge I perceive that it had a certain amount of influence upon Francesca’s history. The suggestion would have carried no weight with me for two reasons. In the first place, Salemina is far-sighted. If objects are located at some distance from her, she sees them clearly; but if they are under her very nose she overlooks them altogether, unless they are sufficiently fragrant or audible to address other senses. This physical peculiarity she carries over into her mental processes. Her impression of the Disruption movement, for example, would be lively and distinct, but her perception of a contemporary lover’s quarrel (particularly if it were fought at her own apron-strings) would be singularly vague. If she suggested, therefore, that Elizabeth Ardmore was interested in Mr. Beresford, who is the rightful captive of my bow and spear, I should be perfectly calm.
My second reason for comfortable indifference is that frequently in novels, and always in plays, the heroine is instigated to violent jealousy by insinuations of this sort, usually conveyed by the villain of the piece, male or female. I have seen this happen so often in the modern drama that it has long since ceased to be convincing; but though Francesca has witnessed scores of plays and read hundreds of novels, it did not apparently strike her as a theatrical or literary suggestion that Lady Ardmore’s daughter should be in love with Mr. Macdonald. The effect of the new point of view was most salutary, on the whole. She had come to think herself the only prominent figure in the Reverend Ronald’s landscape, and anything more impertinent than her tone with him (unless it is his with her) I certainly never heard. This criticism, however, relates only to their public performances, and I have long suspected that their private conversations are of a kindlier character. When it occurred to her that he might simply be sharpening his mental sword on her steel, but that his heart had at last wandered into a more genial climate than she had ever provided for it, she softened unconsciously; the Scotsman and the American receded into a truer perspective, and the man and the woman approached each other with dangerous nearness.
“What shall we do if Francesca and Mr. Macdonald really fall in love with each other?” asked Salemina, when Francesca had gone into the hall to try long drives. (There is a good deal of excitement in this, as Miss Grieve has to cross the passage on her way from the kitchen to the china-closet, and thus often serves as a reluctant ‘hazard’ or ‘bunker.’)
“Do you mean what should we have done?” I queried.
“Nonsense, don’t be captious! It can’t be too late yet. They have known each other only a little over two months; when would you have had me interfere, pray?”
“It depends upon what you expect to accomplish. If you wish to stop the marriage, interfere in a fortnight or so; if you wish to prevent an engagement, speak—well, say to-morrow; if, however, you didn’t wish them to fall in love with each other, you should have kept one of them away from Lady Baird’s dinner.”
“I could have waited a trifle longer than that,” argued Salemina, “for you remember how badly they got on at first.”
“I remember you thought so,” I responded dryly; “but I believe Mr. Macdonald has been interested in Francesca from the outset, partly because her beauty and vivacity attracted him, partly because he could keep her in order only by putting his whole mind upon her. On his side, he has succeeded in piquing her into thinking of him continually, though solely, as she fancies, for the purpose of crossing swords with him. If they ever drop their weapons for an instant, and allow the din of warfare to subside so that they can listen to their own heart-beats, they will discover that they love each other to distraction.”
“Ye ken mair than’s in the catecheesm,” remarked Salemina, yawning a little as she put away her darning-ball. “It is pathetic to see you waste your time painting mediocre pictures, when as a lecturer upon love you could instruct your thousands.”
“The thousands would never satisfy me,” I retorted, “so long as you remained uninstructed, for in your single person you would so swell the sum of human ignorance on that subject that my teaching would be for ever in vain.”
“Very clever indeed! Well, what will Mr. Monroe say to me when I return to New York without his daughter, or with his son-in-law?”
“He has never denied Francesca anything in her life; why should he draw the line at a Scotsman? I am much more concerned about Mr. Macdonald’s congregation.”
“I am not anxious about that,” said Salemina loyally. “Francesca would be the life of an Inchcaldy parish.”
“I dare say,” I observed, “but she might be the death of the pastor.”
“I am ashamed of you, Penelope; or I should be if you meant what you say. She can make the people love her if she tries; when did she ever fail at that? But with Mr. Macdonald’s talent, to say nothing of his family connections, he is sure to get a church in Edinburgh in a few years if he wishes. Undoubtedly, it would not be a great match in a money sense. I suppose he has a manse and three or four hundred pounds a year.”
“That sum would do nicely for cabs.”
“Penelope, you are flippant!”
“I don’t mean it, dear; it’s only for fun; and it would be so absurd if we should leave Francesca over here as the presiding genius of an Inchcaldy parsonage—I mean a manse!”
“It isn’t as if she were penniless,” continued Salemina; “she has fortune enough to assure her own independence, and not enough to threaten his—the ideal amount. I hardly think the good Lord’s first intention was to make her a minister’s wife, but He knows very well that Love is a master architect. Francesca is full of beautiful possibilities if Mr. Macdonald is the man to bring them out, and I am inclined to think he is.”
“He has brought out impishness so far,” I objected.
“The impishness is transitory,” she returned, “and I am speaking of permanent qualities. His is the stronger and more serious nature, Francesca’s the sweeter and more flexible. He will be the oak-tree, and she will be the sunshine playing in the branches.”
“Salemina, dear,” I said penitently, kissing her grey hair, “I apologise: you are not absolutely ignorant about Love, after all, when you call him the master architect; and that is very lovely and very true about the oak-tree and the sunshine.”
Chapter XXIII. Ballad revels at Rowardennan
Jean Dalziel came to visit us a week ago, and has put new life into our little circle. I suppose it was playing ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ that set us thinking about it, for one warm, idle day when we were all in the Glen we began a series of ballad-revels, in which each of us assumed a favourite character. The choice induced so much argument and disagreement that Mr. Beresford was at last appointed head of the clan; and having announced himself formally as The Mackintosh, he was placed on the summit of a hastily arranged pyramidal cairn. He was given an ash wand and a rowan-tree sword; and then, according to ancient custom, his pedigree and the exploits of his ancestors were recounted, and he was exhorted to emulate their example. Now it seems that a Highland chief of the olden time, being as absolute in his patriarchal authority as any prince, had a corresponding number of officers attached to his person. He had a bodyguard, who fought around him in battle, and independent of this he had a staff of officers who accompanied him wherever he went. These our chief proceeded to appoint as follows:—