The Heather-Moon Part 12

"We've quarrelled, then, have we?" he asked. His eyes were blue as the ice of glaciers in his brown face. His mouth and chin looked hard as iron; and never had Aline liked him half as well.

"Yes, we've quarrelled--if you insist," she said.

"Then I must no longer intrude on you as your guest."

"You'll go----"

"Naturally I'll go. I can't stay in your house--it's the same as your house--when you think I no longer deserve your friends.h.i.+p. On my side, I think you're unreasonable; but I may be wrong. Perhaps it's I who am unreasonable, and can't see it. Anyhow, I shall have to go."

"I won't have Miss MacDonald in the house a minute after you leave,"

Aline said, almost threateningly.

"Why should you? Her packing won't take long, poor child."

"You'll have to send her back to her grandmother now," Aline warned him, in a brief flame of defiance.

"That's impossible. I wouldn't break my promise, even if Mrs. MacDonald didn't forbid her the house."

"She can't very well go alone with you to Edinburgh in your car, I suppose?"

"She is going to Edinburgh in my car, but not alone with me. Won't you go too, Mrs. West, and let us forget all this nonsense?"

"You call it nonsense? That shows how little you understand me, how willing you are to spoil everything for the sake of this wretched girl!

Basil and I will simply go back to our original plan, and travel through Scotland together in a hired car."

"Luncheon is served, madam," Moore announced, at the turn of the path.

Luncheon--and the world in ruin!

"Mr. Somerled and Miss MacDonald will not be lunching," said Aline icily.

Moore hid surprise by retiring in decorous haste.

"Good-bye, Mrs. West," said Somerled.

He held out his hand, looking at her steadily, but she turned and rushed away from him, crying.

BOOK II

ACCORDING TO BARRIE

I

When the Great Surprise happened, Mr. Norman and I had just been having a very nice talk. I'd never expected to know a real author, and of course I wanted to talk about him, but he would talk about me instead.

He asked me questions in quite a different way from his sister's, though I can't put the difference into words. I can only feel it. I know his way made me want to answer him, and hers made me want to slap her. That is queer, because she was not rude, but soft and gentle.

Among other things that Mr. Norman teased me to tell, was about the silly stories which I've always been scribbling secretly ever since the time when I had to print because I hadn't learned to write. He said that he would like to see them, but I told him they were torn up, even the last one, which I stuffed into the chimney in my room before I ran away from Grandma's. Then he said I must write another, and he would help me.

I _was_ excited when he went on to say that people who took to writing like ducks to water when they were almost babies, without any one advising them, generally had real talent. This made me wild to begin writing again at once, and I envied him because he and Mrs. West had planned out a story all about their motor trip in Scotland. I thought it would be the greatest fun to write of things that were actually happening; but he explained that he wasn't going to bring in the real people or what they did or said, only the scenery and perhaps a few of the adventures, glorified a little. I told him that I should enjoy even more writing things exactly as they were in life; then he argued that if one did it in that way it wouldn't be a story, but a kind of diary.

Perhaps this _is_ a kind of diary, but I feel as if I must write it, especially as, because of what happened while we were talking, Mr.

Norman's story can't be written after all. At least it can't be written about this trip and this beautiful car.

That prim maid Moore, who looks as if she'd had a rush of teeth to the head, minced to the door of the summer-house where we were sitting, and called us to luncheon. Of course that interrupted our conversation, but Mr. Norman said it must be "continued in our next," like a serial story and we'd make the most of our time between Carlisle and Edinburgh.

"You'll let me help you all I can, won't you, Miss MacDonald?" he asked.

I said "Yes," and thanked him; and then he exclaimed, "Let's shake hands on the compact."

I didn't know precisely what a compact was, but I shook hands, because most things which begin with "com" are pleasant. Just as we were giving the last shake, Mr. Somerled appeared, and I felt myself getting red, because his eyes looked so blue and fierce, as if he were vexed about something.

"We're striking a bargain," Mr. Norman explained. "Miss MacDonald has promised to let me help her up the ladder of fame as an author. How many days are you going to give us together in your motor-car?"

"My dear chap, I'm sorry to tell you that Mrs. West and I have just had a row," said Mr. Somerled, "and she's backed out of the trip."

I've always laughed when I've heard or read the expression, "his face fell"; but faces do fall. Mr. Norman's chin seemed suddenly to grow inches longer. "Backed out of the trip!" he echoed, as if he couldn't believe his ears.

"Yes. I asked her to reconsider, but made a mess of it. I fear there's no hope that she'll change her mind. She says you and she will take your trip alone."

I quite wished that he'd invite Mr. Norman to break off from his sister, but he didn't. Perhaps that would not have been etiquette. I don't know anything about such things. The etiquette book Heppie lent me to read once was too uninteresting, worse than Hannah More.

Mr. Norman's face went on falling. His sister would not have been complimented if she had seen it.

"In fact," Mr. Somerled added, "I'm afraid this is good-bye. Mrs. West doesn't expect"--he stopped and laughed a little--"doesn't expect Miss MacDonald and me to stay to luncheon."

I see now that it was horrid of me, but I clapped my hands, and cried out, "How thrilling!" Mr. Norman turned red. I hope he didn't think I was ungrateful. It wasn't that at all which made me clap my hands. It was being coupled with Mr. Somerled in the row, and wondering what was going to become of us both.

"It's like Adam and Eve being turned out of Paradise, by the Angel with the Flaming Sword," I said, to make things better; and perhaps it did, for they both laughed this time, but it was very queer laughter. If Heppie had heard _me_ laugh like that, she would have accused me of hysterics. But it was good for Mr. Norman, and stopped his face from falling. He stammered regrets and apologies and suggestions, and Mr.

Somerled seemed upset, too, though not excited, like Mr. Norman and me.

He went into the house to collect our belongings, and I _was_ thankful not to meet Mrs. West. She kept out of our way, but one of the servants helped Mr. Somerled, who has no man to look after him, and another, not that horrid Moore, offered to help me, but I said, "No, thank you." I knew she would make fun of my bundle to the others afterward. All the maids have stick-out teeth in this house, as if they'd been engaged on purpose, and somehow it makes them seem formidable, like having ogresses to do your packing.

Fancy Mr. Somerled, in the midst of his worry, remembering that I might want to give money to Mrs. West's servants! He doesn't seem the sort of man who would think of little things like that, but I begin to see already that it isn't easy to guess what he is like really, unless he chooses to let one do so. As we were on the way to the house, he said to me in a low tone, "Here's an installment of what I owe you for your brooch," and quickly he slipped a lot of gold and silver into my hand, making my fingers shut round the coins.

"But you haven't got the brooch yet," I whispered back.

"I'll trust you," he said, in an absent-minded way, as already his thoughts had rushed off to something else. And no wonder!

I gave a ten-s.h.i.+lling piece to the maid, with a grand air which must have impressed her, because she treated me almost respectfully after that, and secretly smuggled down my ugly bundle to the front gate, where, in a few minutes more, Mr. Somerled's big car came to fetch us away. Some one must have been sent to fetch it, and there were a few crumbs on the chauffeur's coat, which made me fancy he'd been called away in the midst of his luncheon, poor man. He must have been surprised, but he had that ineffable marble-statue look which I've noticed on the faces of grand coachmen driving high-nosed old ladies in glittering carriages through the streets of Carlisle. Heppie says that the true test of a well-trained servant is to show no emotion in any circ.u.mstances whatever; so I suppose this big chauffeur, whose name is Vedder, must be very well trained indeed. He is a strange looking man, but very smart, and, being a c.o.c.kney, carefully puts all his "h's" in the wrong place. If he forgets to do this, he goes back and p.r.o.nounces the word over again. He travelled to America from London to be Mr.

Somerled's coachman years ago, and then he learned how to drive a motor-car and be a mechanic, because he couldn't bear to have his master tearing over the earth with any one else. Mr. Somerled told me all this, coming from the railway station, when he was bringing me to Moorhill Farm.

Mr. Norman saw us off, and was very cast down as Mr. Somerled's luggage was put on the car, but he was so loyal to his sister, that he would not say much except, "I'm sorry!" over and over again.

I was afraid that Mr. Somerled would drive (as he told me the night before he liked driving his own car) and leave me sitting alone in the immense gray automobile, which has a gla.s.s front and a top you can put up or down. But to my joy he got in beside me, and let Vedder take the wheel in those large, well-made hands which carry out the marble-statue idea. I had no notion where we were going; and Vedder drove so slowly that I guessed he was expecting further instructions.

As soon as we were safely away from the gate I asked the question burning on my tongue: "You _won't_ take me to Grandma?"