Black William
A Princess of Thule
“Well, I think I have changed my mind about that, Sheila. I don’t think I shall go to the Lewis this Autumn.”
Her face became more and more embarrassed. How was she to thank him for his continued thoughtfulness and self-sacrifice?
“There is no necessity,” he said lightly. “The man I am going with has no particular purpose in view. We shall merely go cruising about those wonderful lochs and islands, and I am sure to run against some of those young fellows I know, who are prowling about the fishing-villages with portable easels. They are good boys, those boys. They are very hospitable, if they have only a single bedroom in a small cottage as their studio and reception-room combined. I should not wonder, Sheila, if I went ashore somewhere, and put up my lot with those young fellows, and listened to their wicked stories, and lived on whisky and herrings for a month. Would you like to see me return to Whitehall in kilts? And I should go into the office and salute everybody with ‘And are you ferry well?’ just as Mairi does. But don’t be downhearted, Mairi. You speak English a good deal better than many English folks I know; and by the time you go back to the Lewis we shall have you fit to become a school-mistress, not only in Borva, but in Stornoway itself.”
“I was told it is ferry good English they have in Stornoway,” said Mairi, not very sure whether Mr. Ingram was joking or not.
“My dear child,” he cried, “I tell you it is the best English in the world. If the queen only knew, she would send her grandchildren to be educated there. But I must go now. Good-bye, Mairi. I mean to come and take you to a theater some night soon.”
Sheila accompanied him out into the hall. “When shall you see him,” she said, with her eyes cast down.
“This evening,” he answered.
“I should like you to tell him that I am well, and that he need not be anxious about me.”
“And that is all?”
“Yes, that is all.”
“Very well, Sheila. I wish you had given me a pleasanter message to carry, but when you think of doing that I shall be glad to take it.”
Ingram left and hastened in to his office. Sheila’s affairs were considerably interfering with his attendance there – there could be no question of that – but he had the reputation of being able to get through his work thoroughly, whatever might be the hours he devoted to it, so that he did not greatly fear being rebuked for his present irregularities. Perhaps if a grave official warning had been probable, even that would not have interfered with his determination to do what could be done for Sheila.
But this business of carrying a message to Lavender was the most serious he had yet undertaken. He had to make sundry and solemn resolves to put a bold face on the matter at the outset, and declare that wild horses would not tear from him any further information. He feared the piteous appeals that might be made to him; the representations that, merely for the sake of an imprudent promise, he was delaying a reconciliation between these two until that might be impossible; the reasons that would be urged on him for considering Sheila’s welfare as paramount to his own scruples. He went through the interview as he foresaw it, a dozen times over, and constructed replies to each argument and entreaty. Of course, it would be simple enough to meet all Lavender’s demands with a simple “No,” but there are circumstances in which the heroic method of solving difficulties becomes a trifle inhuman.
He had promised to dine with Lavender that evening at his club. When he went along to St. James’ Street at the appointed hour his host had not arrived. He walked for about ten minutes, and then Lavender appeared, haggard and worn out with fatigue. “I have heard nothing – I can hear nothing – I have been everywhere,” he said, leading the way at once into the dining-room. “I am sorry I have kept you waiting, Ingram.”
They sat down at a small side table: there were few men in the club at this late season, so that they could talk freely enough when the waiter had come and gone.
“Well, I have some news for you, Lavender,” Ingram said.
“Do you know where she is?” said the other eagerly.
“Yes.”
“Where?” he almost called aloud in his anxiety.
“Well,” Ingram said slowly, “she is in London, and she is very well; and you need have no anxiety about her.”
“But where is she?” demanded Lavender, taking no heed of the waiter, who was standing by and uncorking a bottle.
“I promised her not to tell you.”
“You have spoken with her, then?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say? Where has she been? Good Heavens, Ingram! you don’t mean to say you are going to keep it a secret?”
“Oh, no,” said the other; “I will tell you everything she said to me, if you like. Only I will not tell you where she is.”
“I will not ask you,” said Lavender at once, “if she does not wish me to know. But you can tell me about herself? What was she looking like? Is Mairi with her?”
“Yes, Mairi is with her. And, of course, she is looking a little troubled and pale, and so forth, but she is very well, I should think, and quite comfortably situated. She said I was to tell you that she was well, and that you need not be anxious.”
“She sent a message to me?”
“That is it.”
“By Jove, Ingram! how can I ever thank you enough? I feel as glad just now as if she had really come home again. And how did you manage it?”
Lavender, in his excitement and gratitude, kept filling up his friend’s glass the moment the least quantity had been taken out of it; the wonder was he did not fill all the glasses on that side of the table, and beseech Ingram to have two or three dinners all at once.
“Oh, you needn’t give me any credit about it,” Ingram said. “I stumbled against her by accident: at least, I did not find her out myself.”
“Did she send for you?”
“No. But look here, Lavender, this sort of cross-examination will lead to but one thing; and you say yourself you won’t try to find out where she is.”
“Not from you, any way. But how can I help wanting to know where she is? And my aunt was saying just now that very likely she had gone right away to the other end of London – to Peckham or some such place.”
“You have seen Mrs. Lavender, then?”
“I have just come from there. The old heathen thinks the whole affair rather a good joke; but perhaps that was only her way of showing her temper, for she was in a bit of rage, to be sure. And so Sheila sent me that message?”
“Yes.”
“Does she want money? Would you take her some money from me?” he said eagerly. Any bond of union between him and Sheila would be of some value.
“I don’t think she needs money; and in any case I know she wouldn’t take it from you.”
“Well, now, Ingram, you have seen her and talked with her, what do you think she intends to do? What do you think she would have me do?”
“These are very dangerous questions for me to answer,” Ingram said. “I don’t see how you can expect me to assume the responsibility.”
“I don’t ask you to do that at all. But I never found your advice to fail. And if you give me any hint as to what I should do, I will do it upon my own responsibility.”
“Then I won’t. But this I will do; I will tell you as nearly as ever I can what she said, and you can judge for yourself.”
Very cautiously, indeed, did Ingram set out on this perilous undertaking. It was no easy matter so to shut out all references to Sheila’s surroundings that no hint should be given to this anxious listener as to her whereabouts. But Ingram got through it successfully; and when he had finished Lavender sat some time in silence, merely toying with his knife, for, indeed, he had eaten nothing. “If it is her wish,” he said slowly, “that I should not go to see her, I will try to do so. But I should like to know where she is. You say she is comfortable, and she has Mairi for a companion; and that is something. In the meantime I suppose I must wait.”
“I don’t see, myself, how waiting is likely to do much good,” said Ingram. “That won’t alter your relations much.”
“It may alter her determination. A woman is sure to soften into charity and forgiveness; she can’t help it.”
“If you were to ask Sheila now, she would say she had forgiven you already. But that is a different matter from getting her to resume her former method of life with you. To tell you the truth, I should strongly advise her, if I were to give advice at all, not to attempt anything of the sort. One failure is bad enough, and has wrought sufficient trouble.”
“Then what am I to do, Ingram?”
“You must judge for yourself what is the most likely way of winning back Sheila’s confidence in you, and the most likely conditions under which she might be induced to join you again. You need not expect to get her back into that square, I should fancy; that experiment has rather broken down.”
“Well,” said Lavender, “I shan’t bore you any more just now about my affairs. Look after your dinner, old fellow; your starving yourself won’t help me much.”
“I don’t mean to starve myself at all,” said Ingram, steadily making his way through the abundant dishes his friend had ordered. “But I had a very good luncheon this morning with – ”
“With Sheila,” Lavender said, quickly.
“Yes. Does it surprise you to find that she is in a place where she can get food? I wish the poor child had made better use of her opportunities.”
“Ingram,” he said, after a minute, “could you take some money from me, without her knowing of it, and try to get her some of the little things she likes – some delicacies, you know; they might be smuggled in, as it were, without her knowing who paid for them? There was ice-pudding, you know, with strawberries in it, that she was fond of – ”
“My dear fellow, a woman in her position thinks of something else than ice-pudding in strawberries.”
“But why shouldn’t she have it all the same? I would give twenty pounds to get some little gratification of that sort conveyed to her; and if you could try, Ingram – ”
“My dear fellow, she has got everything she can want; there was no ice-pudding at luncheon, but doubtless there will be at dinner.”
So Sheila was staying in a house in which ices could be prepared? Lavender’s suggestion had had no cunning intention in it, but here was an obvious piece of information. She was in no humble lodging-house, then. She was either staying with some friends – and she had no friend but Lavender’s friends – or she was staying at a hotel. He remembered that she had once dined at the Langham, Mrs. Kavanagh having persuaded her to go to meet some American visitors. Might she have gone thither?
Lavender was somewhat silent during the rest of that meal, for he was thinking of other things besides the mere question as to where Sheila might be staying. He was trying to imagine what she might have felt before she was driven to this step. He was trying to recall all manner of incidents of their daily life that he now saw might have appeared to her in a very different light from that in which he saw them. He was wondering, too, how all this could be altered, and a new life begun for them both, if that were still possible.
They had gone up stairs into the smoking-room when a card was brought to Lavender.
“Young Mosenberg is below,” he said to Ingram. “He will be a livelier companion for you than I could be. Waiter, ask this gentleman to come up.”
The handsome Jew boy came eagerly into the room, with much excitement visible on his face.
“Oh, do you know,” he said to Lavender, “I have found out where Mrs. Lavender is – yes. She is at your aunt’s house. I saw her this afternoon for one moment – ” He stopped, for he saw by the vexation on Ingram’s face that he had done something wrong. “Is it a mistake?” he said. “Is it a secret?”
“It is not likely to be a secret if you have got hold of it,” said Ingram, sharply.
“I am very sorry,” said the boy. “I thought you were all anxious to know – ”
“It does not matter in the least,” said Lavender quietly to both of them. “I shall not seek to disturb her. I am about to leave London.”
“Where are you going?” said the boy.
“I don’t know yet.”
That, at least, had been part of the result of his meditations; and Ingram, looking at him, wondered whether he meant to go away without trying to say one word to Sheila.
“Look here, Lavender,” he said, “you must not fancy we were trying to play any useless and impertinent trick. To-morrow or next day Sheila will leave your aunt’s house, and then I should have told you that she had been there, and how the old lady received her. It was Sheila’s own wish that the lodgings she is going to should not be known. She fancies that would save both of you a great deal of unnecessary and fruitless pain, do you see? That really is her only object in wishing to have any concealment about the matter.”
“But there is no need of any such concealment,” he said. “You may tell Sheila that if she likes to stay on with my aunt, so much the better; and I take it very kind of her that she went there, instead of going home or to a strange house.”
“Am I to tell her that you mean to leave London?”
“Yes.”
They went into the billiard-room. Mosenberg was not permitted to play, as he had not dined in the club, but Ingram and Lavender proceeded to have a game, the former being content to accept something like thirty in a hundred. It was speedily very clear that Lavender’s heart was not in the contest. He kept forgetting which ball he had been playing, missing easy shots, playing a perversely wrong game, and so forth. And yet his spirits were not much downcast.
“Is Peter Hewetson still at Tarbert, do you know?” he asked of Ingram.
“I believe so. I heard of him lately. He and one or two more are there.”
“I suppose you’ll look in on them if you go North?”
“Certainly. The place is badly perfumed, but picturesque, and there is generally plenty of whisky about.”
“When do you go North?”
“I don’t know. In a week or two.”
That was all Lavender hinted of his plans. He went home early that night, and spent an hour or two in packing up some things, and in writing a long letter to his aunt, which was destined considerably to astonish that lady. Then he lay down and had a few hours’ rest.
In the early morning he went out and walked across Kensington Gardens down to the Gore. He wished to have one look at the house in which Sheila was, or perhaps he might, from a distance, see her come out on a simple errand? He knew, for example, that she had a superstitious liking for posting her letters herself; in wet weather or dry, she invariably carried her own correspondence to the nearest pillar-post. Perhaps he might have one glimpse at her face, to see how she was looking, before he left London.
There were few people about; one or two well-known lawyers and merchants were riding by to have their morning canter in the Park; the shops were being opened. Over there was the house – with its dark front of bricks, its hard ivy, and its small windows with formal red curtains – in which Sheila was immured. That was certainly not the palace that a beautiful sea-princess should have inhabited. Where were the pine woods around it, and the lofty hills, and the wild beating of the waves on the sands below! And now it seemed strange and sad that just as he was about to go away to the North, and breathe the salt air again, and find the strong West winds blowing across the mountain peaks and through the furze, Sheila, a daughter of the sea and the rocks, should be hiding herself in obscure lodgings in the heart of the great city. Perhaps – he could not but think at this time – if he had only the chance of speaking to her for a couple of moments, he could persuade her to forgive him everything that had happened, and go away with him – away from London and all the associations that had vexed her and almost broken her heart – to the free, and open, and joyous life on the far sea coasts of the Hebrides.
Something caused him to turn his head for a second, and he knew that Sheila was coming along the pavement – not from, but towards the house. It was too late to think of getting out of her way, and yet he dared not go up to her and speak to her, as he had wished to do. She, too, had seen him. There was a quick, frightened look in her eyes, and then she came along, with her face pale and her head downcast. He did not seek to interrupt her. His eyes, too, were lowered as she passed him without taking any notice of his presence, although the sad face and the troubled lips told of the pain at her heart. He had hoped, perchance, for one word, for even a sign of recognition, but she went by him calmly, gravely and silently. She went into the house and he turned away with a weight at his heart, as though the gates of heaven had been closed against him.
PART X
CHAPTER XXII.
“LIKE HADRIANUS AND AUGUSTUS.”
The island of Borva lay warm and green and bright under a blue sky; there were no white curls of foam on Loch Roag, but only the long Atlantic swell coming in to fall on the white beach; away over there in the South the fine grays and purples of the giant Suainabhal shone in the sunlight amid the clear air; and the beautiful sea-pyots flew about the rocks, their screaming being the only sound audible in the stillness. The King of Borva was down by the shore, seated on a stool, and engaged in the idyllic operation of painting a boat which had been hauled up on the sand. It was the Maighdean-mhara. He would let no one else on the island touch Sheila’s boat. Duncan, it is true, was permitted to keep her masts and sails and seats sound and white, but as for the decorative painting of the small craft – including a little bit of amateur gilding – that was the exclusive right of Mr. Mackenzie himself. For, of course, the old man said to himself, Sheila was coming back to Borva one of these days, and she would be proud to find her own boat bright and sound. If she and her husband should resolve to spend half the year in Stornoway, would not the small craft be of use to her there? and sure he was that a prettier little vessel never entered Stornoway Bay. Mr. Mackenzie was at this moment engaged in putting a thin line of green around the white bulwarks that might have been distinguished across Loch Roag, so keen and pure was the color.
A much heavier boat, broad-beamed, red-hulled and brown-sailed, was slowly coming around the point at this moment. Mr. Mackenzie raised his eyes from his work, and knew that Duncan was coming back from Callernish. Some few minutes thereafter the boat was run into her moorings, and Duncan came along the beach with a parcel in his hand. “Here wass your letters, sir,” he said. “And there iss one of them will be from Miss Sheila, if I wass make no mistake.”
He remained there. Duncan generally knew pretty well when a letter from Sheila was among the documents he had to deliver, and on such an occasion he invariably lingered about to hear the news, which was immediately spread abroad throughout the island. The old King of Borva was not a garrulous man, but he was glad that the people about him should know that his Sheila had become a fine lady in the South, and saw fine things and went among fine people. Perhaps this notion of his was a sort of apology to them – perhaps it was an apology to himself – for his having let her go away from the island; but at all events the simple folks about Borva knew that Miss Sheila, as they still invariably called her, lived in the same town as the queen herself, and saw many lords and ladies, and was present at great festivities, as became Mr. Mackenzie’s only daughter. And naturally these rumors and stories were exaggerated by the kindly interest and affection of the people into something far beyond what Sheila’s father intended; insomuch that many an old crone would proudly and sagaciously wag her head, and say that when Miss Sheila came back to Borva strange things might be seen, and it would be a proud day for Mr. Mackenzie if he was to go down to the shore to meet Queen Victoria herself, and the princes and princesses, and many fine people, all come to stay at his house and have great rejoicings in Borva.
Thus it was that Duncan invariably lingered about when he brought a letter from Sheila; and if her father happened to forget or be pre-occupied, Duncan would humbly but firmly remind him. On this occasion Mr. Mackenzie put down his paint-brush and took the bundle of letters and newspapers Duncan had brought him. He selected that from Sheila, and threw the others on the beach beside him.
There was really no news in the letter. Sheila merely said that she could not as yet answer her father’s question as to the time she might probably visit Lewis. She hoped that he was well, and that, if she could not get up to Borva that Autumn, he would come South to London for a time, when the hard weather set in in the North. And so forth. But there was something in the tone of the letter that struck the old man as being unusual and strange. It was very formal in its phraseology. He read it twice over very carefully, and forgot altogether that Duncan was waiting. Indeed, he was going to turn away, forgetting his work and the other letters that still lay on the beach, when he observed that there was a postscript on the other side of the last page. It merely said: “Will you please address your letters now to No. – Pembroke road, South Kensington, where I may be for some time?”
That was an imprudent postscript. If she had shown the letter to any one she would have been warned of the blunder she was committing. But the child had not much cunning, and wrote and posted the letter in the belief that her father would simply do as she asked him, and suspect nothing and ask no questions.
When old Mackenzie read that postscript he could only stare at the paper before him.
“Will there be anything wrong, sir?” said the tall keeper, whose keen gray eyes had been fixed on his master’s face.
The sound of Duncan’s voice startled and recalled Mr. Mackenzie, who immediately turned, and said lightly, “Wrong? What wass you thinking would be wrong? Oh, there is nothing wrong, whatever. But Mairi, she will be greatly surprised, and she is going to write no letters until she comes back to tell you what she has seen; that is the message there will be for Scarlett – she is very well.”
Duncan picked up the other letters and newspapers.
“You may tek them to the house, Duncan,” said Mr. Mackenzie; and then he added carelessly, “Did you hear when the steamer was thinking of leaving Stornoway this night?”
“They were saying it would be seven o’clock or six, as there was a great deal of cargo to get on her.”
“Six o’clock? I am thinking, Duncan, I would like to go with her as far as Oban or Glasgow. Oh, yes, I will go with her as far as Glasgow. Be sharp, Duncan, and bring in the boat.”
The keeper stared, fearing his master had gone mad. “You wass going with her this ferry night?”
“Yes. Be sharp, Duncan,” said Mackenzie, doing his best to conceal his impatience and determination under a careless air.
“But, sir, you canna do it,” said Duncan, peevishly. “You hef no things looked out to go. And by the time we would get to Callernish, it was a ferry hard drive, there will be to get to Stornoway by six o’clock; and there is the mare, sir, she will hef lost a shoe – ”
Mr. Mackenzie’s diplomacy gave way. He turned upon his keeper with a sudden fierceness and with a stamp of his foot; “ – you, Duncan MacDonald! is it you or me that is the master? I will go to Stornoway this ferry moment if I hef to buy twenty horses!” And there was a light under the shaggy eyebrows that warned Duncan to have done with his remonstrances.
“Oh, ferry well, sir – ferry well, sir,” he said, going off to the boat, and grumbling as he went. “If Miss Sheila was here, it would be no going away to Glesca without any things wis you, as if you wass a poor traffelin tailor that hass nothing in the world but a needle and a thimble mirover. And what will the people in Styornoway hef to say, and sa captain of sa steamboat, and Scarlett? I will hef no peace from Scarlett if you was going away like this. And as for sa sweerin, it is no use sa sweerin, for I will get sa boat ready – oh, yes, I will get sa boat ready; but I do not understand why I will get sa boat ready.”
By this time, indeed, he had got along to the larger boat, and his grumblings were inaudible to the object of them. Mr. Mackenzie went to the small landing-place and waited. When he got into the boat and sat down in the stern, taking the tiller in his right hand, he still held Sheila’s letter in the other hand, although he did not need to re-read it.
They sailed out into the blue waters of the loch and rounded the point of the island in absolute silence. Duncan meanwhile being both sulky and curious. He could not make out why his master should so suddenly leave the island, without informing any one, without even taking with him that tall and roughly-furred black hat which he sometimes wore on important occasions. Yet there was a letter in his hand, and it was a letter from Miss Sheila. Was the news about Mairi, the only news in it?
Duncan kept looking ahead to see that the boat was steering her right course for the Narrows, and was anxious, now that he had started, to make the voyage in the least possible time, but all the same his eyes would come back to Mr. Mackenzie, who sat very much absorbed, steering almost mechanically, seldom looking ahead, but instinctively guessing his course by the outlines of the shore close by. “Was there any bad news, sir, from Miss Sheila?” he was compelled to say, at last.
“Miss Sheila!” said Mr. Mackenzie, impatiently. “Is it an infant you are that you will call a married woman by such a name?”
Duncan had never been checked before for a habit which was common to the whole Island of Borva.
“There iss no bad news,” continued Mackenzie, impatiently. “Is it a story you would like to tek back to the people of Borvapost?”
“It wass no thought of such a thing wass come into my head, sir,” said Duncan. “There iss no one in sa island would like to carry bad news about Miss Sheila; and there iss no one in sa island would like to hear it – not any one whatever – and I can answer for that.”
“Then hold your tongue about it. There is no bad news from Sheila,” said Mackenzie; and Duncan relapsed into silence, not very well content.
By dint of very hard driving, indeed, Mr. Mackenzie just caught the boat as she was leaving Stornoway harbor, the hurry he was in fortunately saving him from the curiosity and inquiries of the people he knew on the pier. As for the frank and good-natured captain, he did not show that excessive interest in Mr. Mackenzie’s affairs that Duncan had feared; but when the steamer was well away from the coast, and bearing down on her route to Skye, he came and had a chat with the King of Borva about the condition of affairs on the West of the island; and he was good enough to ask, too, about the young lady that had married the English gentleman. Mr. Mackenzie said briefly that she was very well, and returned to the subject of the fishing.
It was on a wet and dreary morning that Mr. Mackenzie arrived in London; and as he was slowly driven through the long and dismal thoroughfares with their gray and melancholy houses, their passers-by under umbrellas, and their smoke and drizzle and dirt, he could not help saying to himself: “My poor Sheila!” It was not a pleasant place surely to live in always, although it might be all very well for a visit. Indeed, the cheerless day added to the gloomy forebodings in his mind, and it needed all his resolve and his pride in his own diplomacy to carry out his plan of approaching Sheila.
When he got down to Pembroke Road he stopped the cab at the corner and paid the man. Then he walked along the thoroughfare, having a look at the houses. At length he came to the number mentioned in Sheila’s letter, and he found that there was a brass plate on the door bearing an unfamiliar name. His suspicions were confirmed.
He went up the steps and knocked; a small girl answered the summons. “Is Mrs. Lavender living here?” he said.
She looked for a moment with some surprise at the short, thick-set man, with his sailor costume, his peaked cap, and his voluminous gray beard and shaggy eyebrows; and then she said that she would ask, and what was his name? But Mr. Mackenzie was too sharp not to know what that meant.
“I am her father. It will do ferry well if you will show me the room.”
And he stepped inside. The small girl obediently shut the door, and then led the way up-stairs. The next minute Mr. Mackenzie had entered the room, and there before him was Sheila, bending over Mairi and teaching her how to do some fancy-work.
The girl looked up on hearing some one enter, and then, when she suddenly saw her father there, she uttered a slight cry of alarm and shrunk back. If he had been less intent on his own plans he would have been amazed and pained by this action on the part of his daughter, who used to run to him, on great occasions and small, whenever she saw him; but the girl had for the last few days been so habitually schooling herself into the notion that she was keeping a secret from him – she had become so deeply conscious of the concealment intended in that brief letter – that she instinctively shrank from him when he suddenly appeared. It was but for a moment.
Mr. Mackenzie came forward with a fine assumption of carelessness and shook hands with Sheila and with Mairi and said, “How do you do, Mairi! And are you ferry well, Sheila? And you will not expect me this morning; but when a man will not pay you what he wass owing, it wass no good letting it go on in that way; and I hef come to London – ”
He shook the rain-drops from his cap, and was a little embarrassed.
“Yes, I hef come to London to have the account settled up; for it wass no good letting him go on for effer and effer. Ay, and how are you, Sheila?”
He looked about the room; he would not look at her. She stood there unable to speak, and with her face grown wild and pale.
“Ah, it wass raining hard all the last night, and there wass a good deal of water came into the carriage; and it is a ferry hard bed you will make of a third-class carriage. Ay, it wass so. And this a new house you will hef, Sheila?”
