White Fire Part 10

"The missionary man has done himself well. Poor rich Miss Arnot!"

"Oh, well, you know, she's twenty-seven if she's a day, and when a girl gets to twenty-seven----! And they say he's exceedingly good-looking.

Still, don't you know----"

These behind her back. And to her face:

"He's simply charming, dear. I envy you--I do indeed!

"He's a splendid fellow, Miss Arnot. You will be very happy together."

"My dear,"--this from a very old lady, bearing a very old t.i.tle, whose early married life had been a hideous martyrdom--"you have chosen very wisely. He is a n.o.ble Christian gentleman, and he would lay down his life for you. Believe me, dear, compared with what you have got, all the wealth of the world and all its t.i.tles are nothing but dust and ashes and misery. I know it!"

And everybody else knew that she knew it. And Jean kissed her very tenderly.

And Mr. Punch, when he heard of the matter, in his playful little way quoted:

"Doan't thou marry for munny, but--goa wheer munny is."

CHAPTER VII

SOME ODD FURNIs.h.i.+NGS AND A HONEYMOON

Aunt Jannet Harvey's wardrobe was rapidly approaching completion.

She and Jean had had a busy six weeks. They had neither of them ever been quite so busy in all their lives before, and the curious thing was that it seemed to agree with them mightily, and they, both one and the other, had visibly renewed their youth under the demands made upon them.

Aunt Jannet developed new and surprising traits of character every day; and as for Jean, the days were not half long enough for the joy of life that lay in wait for each one as it came.

She and Kenneth Blair had been quietly married by special licence a month ago, and the sight of their faces, wherever they had been since, had brought new ideals and new possibilities of life to all who looked upon them--all except the cynics and philosophers of Jean's former world, of course.

"Quite so!" said they. "But just wait till the bloom is off the honeymoon, and she finds herself all alone with her little tin G.o.d among the savages! Then she'll find out what's what and sigh for the vanished fleshpots and fripperies."

But there were no signs of incipient sighing about Mrs. Kenneth Blair at present, anyway. She had always been sweet and charming, with a wistful eagerness in her face that filled you with a desire to do for her any mortal thing she might require at your hands. There was still something of that about her, but it was almost hidden now beneath the radiant happiness which enveloped her.

She had urged Blair to a speedy wedding--where no urging whatever was needed--for the delight of spending their last weeks at home, in the house where most of her life had been pa.s.sed. She had had long and peremptory interviews with her lawyers, making wise provision for all possible eventualities, so far as it was possible to foresee them. It was not till she was half-way across to the other side of the world that the aunties in Greenock, and old Mr. and Mrs. MacTavish, and several other old friends, learned what she had been up to, and then she was well out of their reach.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She had long and peremptory interviews with her lawyers.]

And every day since, she and her husband had been out in the market-place with open purse and very definite ideas as to their requirements, and the things they had bought were very extraordinary and about as different from the usual purchases of newly-married couples as they possibly could be.

_Item_.--One 300-ton auxiliary schooner, built to Cla.s.s 17 A.1., by Scott & Sons, Greenock; dimensions 143 O.A.; 23- ft. beam; 13 ft.

draught; 7 ft. headroom, etc. A handsome, roomy boat, stoutly built for comfort and long voyages to the order of a financial magnate, whose health unfortunately broke down before she was quite ready for him, and forced him to seek more genial climatic, and other conditions, in Argentina.

Mr. and Mrs. Blair ran up to Greenock to inspect her, found her exactly to their liking, settled the matter in five minutes in the office inside the big gates, christened her the _Torch_ with a hastily procured bottle of champagne, gave orders for the duplication of every piece of machinery she contained; walked out of the big gates s.h.i.+p-owners, and dropped in on the astonished aunties in Brisbane Street and announced that they had come for a cup of tea and to stop one night.

They stopped more than one night, however, for after tea Blair walked in to see the Rev. Archibald for a last talk and a pipe of peace. And when the Rev. Archibald recovered wind and wits from the rapid details Blair gave him of the work he was engaged on, he at once offered to find him a crew through some of the members of his church. Blair desired nothing better, and in five minutes the maid of the Manse was skipping through the dripping streets with kilted skirts to summon to instant conference some nearer members who might be able to advise in the matter. He laid his plans before them, told them to a hair the kind of men he required both for officers and crew, and went back to Brisbane Street in due course, comfortably a.s.sured in his own mind that within two days the _Torch_ would be fitted with a crew worthy of her and the work for which she was destined.

Next day the s.h.i.+p-owners went out for a walk, and did not return till close on tea-time.

They had been on their honeymoon trip: past the cemetery gates, up the brae between the brown stone houses, past the pond, up the cinder path, and along that glorious walk, with the swift brown water of the Cut swirling past to its appointed work in mills and town, on the one side; and on the other, across the br.i.m.m.i.n.g firth, the everlasting hills, grey and green and purple and black, as the suns.h.i.+ne chased the shadows to their hiding-places in the glens; the full sea welling about their feet, now green, now blue; and the sky overhead bluest blue after the rain, with piles of snowy cloud pa.s.sing along in solemn silence like a procession of the chariots of G.o.d.

They did not speak much, hardly a word, but walked hand in hand like a pair of country lovers, till they came to where a flat stone lay alongside the beginnings of a cabin.

And there they stopped; and looking into one another's faces by a common impulse, put their arms round one another's necks and kissed, with br.i.m.m.i.n.g hearts, and eyes that saw none of the glories around because of the glory within them, which was too much for either sight or sound.

The happy tears were running down Jean's cheeks, but they were swallowed up in reminiscent smiles as her husband seated her gently on one projecting rock and himself on the other.

"This is my twelfth birthday," he began; and when Miss Inquisitive looked at him out of her sweet brown eyes, still soft from their recent shower, he explained: "To all intents and purposes my life began that day I met you here, though there had been a previous troubled life in which my dear father gave me all he had to give--the desire to learn."

"And I am about two years old," she said, smiling; and when she saw that he did not understand, explained:

"After meeting you again that second time in the church, when you hardly recognised me----"

"I knew you the moment I looked into your eyes."

"I came up here the next day--I did not know why, but something drew me, and I came. And I sat down here on this stone, and saw you sitting on that stone munching oatcake and cheese, and thought what a greedy little pig I was not to have made you take some of my sandwiches----"

"You couldn't have made me. I wouldn't have touched one for----"

"I know. But I ought to have made you, all the same. And then I thought of you as you were now--that is, then, you know--and what a great, big, strong soul and body you had become, and what great things you were going to do, and how you had got your heart's desire. And then I thought of myself, and the little I had done with all my opportunities. And after that you insisted on coming into my thoughts at all times, and I could not get rid of you. And then you sailed, and I knew I should never see you again, and life felt hollow and hopeless.

And then I saw in the papers about your being murdered. And then you came home, and--here we are. And oh, Ken! it is almost too good to be true."

"Not a bit of it, my dear; it is only just beginning."

Then he drew out two parcels from his pockets, and hers contained some neat little sandwiches and cookies with jam inside, and his contained oatcakes and cheese.

And, being in a raised mood, she laughed till she cried at his oatcakes and cheese, and then insisted on dividing up equally all round, and vowed that his fare was quite as good as her own.

"Of course it is," he said. "I knew that all the time. A boy on the hillsides who can't enjoy oatcakes and cheese would deserve to go empty."

When they had eaten, they still sat looking out over the water at the hills and lochs opposite. In all likelihood they would never see that fairest of scenes again, and they could not have too much of it.

And after they had sat a long time in silence, Blair, leaning forward with his arms on his knees and his eyes drinking in great draughts of delight, said, suddenly--but slowly, as though the words had to be called, or recalled, from afar, and said them, not to her or for her, but to and for something quite outside them both--said them, in fact, as though he were impelled to say them, and could not help himself--

"The hills of G.o.d stand fast and sure."

The words described those hills opposite exactly. Then a pause, and presently--

"His mighty promises endure For ever and for evermore."

Then he fell silent again, and thoughtful, and presently--

"His Mercy is a boundless sea, For ever flowing, full and free."

She saw it there before her just as he saw it. And after another pause--