The Guinea Stamp Part 27

'Come in,' she said, not thinking it worth while to look round, or to lift her hands from the suds.

'Good-morning, Mrs. Macintyre. How are you to-day?' she heard a sweet voice say, and in a moment she became interested and excited.

'Mercy me, miss, is't you? an' me in a perfick potch,' she said apologetically. 'No' a corner for ye to step dry on, nor a seat to sit doon on. Could ye no' jist tak' a walk the length o' the auld place or I redd up a wee?'

'No, no, Mrs. Macintyre,' replied Gladys, with a laugh. 'Never mind, I'll get a seat somewhere. I have come to see you very particularly, and I'm not going to take any walks till our business is settled. And are you quite well?'

''Deed, I'm jist middlin',' said the good woman, and then, with one extraordinary sweep of her bare arm, she gathered all the soiled linen off the floor and pushed it under the bed, then vigorously rubbing up a chair, she spread a clean ap.r.o.n on it, and having persuaded Gladys to sit down, stood straight in front of her, looking at her with a species of adoring admiration.

'Ye micht hae let a body ken ye were comin'. Sic a potch,' she said ruefully. 'My, but ye are a picter, an nae mistak'.'

Gladys laughed, and the sound rang through the place like sweetest music.

'Have you not been quite well? I think you are thinner,' she said kindly.

'No, I've no' been up to muckle; fair helpless some days wi' rheumatics.

The was.h.i.+n's no' extra guid for them, but a body maun dae something for meat. I've anither mooth to fill noo. My guid-brither, Bob Johnson, is deid since I saw ye, an' I've been obleeged to tak' Tammy--no' an ill loon. He's at the schule, or ye wad hae seen him.'

'I don't suppose you would be sorry to leave this place and give up the was.h.i.+ng if you could get something easier?' said Gladys.

'No' me; a' places are the same to me. Hae ye been up by?' asked Mrs.

Macintyre significantly.

Gladys shook her head.

'I came to see whether you would come and live in the lodge at my gate.

It is a nice little house, and I would like to have you near me; you were such a kind friend in the old days.'

Mrs. Macintyre drew her rough hand across her eyes, and turned somewhat sharply back to her wash-tub, and for the moment she gave no answer, good or bad.

'What aboot Tammy?' she asked at length.

'Oh, he could come with you, of course. He could go to school in Mauchline just as well as in Glasgow. Just say you'll come. I've set my heart on it, and n.o.body refuses me anything just now.'

'I'll come fast enough,' said Mrs. Macintyre, rubbing away as for dear life at her wash-board, upon which the big salt tears were dropping surrept.i.tiously. 'Me no' want to leave this place? I'm no' that fond o't. Sometimes it's a perfect wee h.e.l.l in this stair; it's no' guid for Tammy or ony wean. 'Deed, it's no' guid for onybody livin' in sic a place; but if ye are puir, an' tryin' to live decent, ye jist have to pit up wi' what ye can pay for. Ay, I'll come fast enough, an' thank ye kindly. But ye micht get a mair genty body for yer gate. I'm a rough tyke, an' aye was.'

'It is you I want,' replied Gladys; then, in a few words, she explained the very liberal arrangement she had in view for her old friend. After that, a little silence fell upon them, and a great wistfulness gathered in the girl's gentle eyes.

'So ye hinna been up by?' said Mrs. Macintyre. 'Are ye gaun?'

'Not to-day. Is Walter well?'

'Ay, he is weel. He's a fine chap, an' he's in terrible earnest aboot something,' said Mrs. Macintyre thoughtfully, as she shook out the garment she had been rubbing. 'There's a something deep doon in thon heart no' mony can see. But the place is no' the place it was to him or to me. What way wull ye no' gang up? Eh, but he wad be fell glad to see ye, my lady'--

'I am not going to-day,' replied Gladys quietly, and even with a touch of coldness. 'You can tell him, if you like, that I was here, and that I hoped he was well.'

'Ay, I'll tell him. And are ye happy, my doo?'

It was a beautiful and touching thing to see the rare tenderness in the woman's plain face as she asked that question.

'Yes, I--I think so,' Gladys replied, but she got up suddenly from her seat, and her voice gave a suspicious tremor. 'Money can do a great deal, Mrs. Macintyre, but it cannot do everything--not everything.'

'Aweel, no. I dinna pray muckle,--there's no' muckle encouragement for sic releegious ordinances this airt,--but I whiles speir at the Lord no'

to mak' siller a wecht for ye to cairry. Weel, are ye awa?'

'Yes; good-bye. When you come down to Bourhill, after I come back, we'll have long talks. I shall be so glad to have you there.'

'Aweel, wha wad hae thocht it? Ye'll no' rue'd, my doo, if I'm spared, that's a' the thanks I can gie. An' wull ye no' gang up by?'

There was distinct anxiety in her repet.i.tion of the question. But Gladys, with averted head, hastened towards the door.

'Not to-day. Good-bye,' she said quickly; and, with a warm hand-shake, which anew convinced the honest woman that the girl in prosperity remained unchanged, she went her way.

But instead of going back through the lane to Argyle Street, she continued up the familiar dull street till she reached the warehouse door. She stopped outside, and there being no one in sight, she laid her slender hand on the handle with a lingering--ay, a caressing touch, and then, as if ashamed, she turned about and quickly hurried out of sight.

And no one saw that tender, touching little act except a grimy sparrow on the leads, and he flew off with a loud chirp, and, joining a neighbour on the old stunted tree, made so much noise that it was just possible he was delivering his opinion of the whole matter.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXI.

ACROSS THE CHANNEL.

For the first time in her life Gladys tasted the novelty of foreign travel. It was quite a lady's party, consisting of Mrs. Fordyce and her daughters, though Mr. Fordyce had promised to join them somewhere abroad, especially if they remained too long away; also, there were vague promises on the part of the Polloks.h.i.+elds cousins to meet them in Paris, after the main object of their visit to Belgium was accomplished.

They stayed a week in London--not the London Gladys remembered as in a shadowy dream. The luxurious life of a first-rate hotel had nothing in it to remind her of the poor, shabby lodging on the Surrey side of the river, which was her early and only recollection of the great city. At the end of a week they crossed from Dover to Ostend, and in the warm, golden light of a lovely autumn evening arrived in quaint, old-world, sleepy Bruges. Madame Bonnemain herself met them at the station, a bright-eyed, red-cheeked, happy-faced little woman, on whom the care and the worry of life appeared to have sat but lightly during all these hard years. She was visibly affected at meeting with her old school-friend.

'Why, Henrietta, you are not one bit changed; you actually look younger than ever,' exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, when the first agitation, of the meeting was over. 'Positively, you look as young as you did in Brussels eight-and-twenty years ago. Just look at me. Yes, these are my daughters; and this is Gladys Graham, whom I am so anxious to see under your care.'

The bright, sharp eyes of Madame Bonnemain took in the three girls at one comprehensive glance, then she shook her head with a half-arch, half-regretful smile.

'A year ago such a prospect would have seemed to lift me to paradise.

Times have been hard with me, Isabel--never harder than last year; but it is always the darkest hour before the dawn, as we used to say in Brussels, when the days seemed interminably awful just before vacation.

Two carriages we must have for so many women. Ah, I am so glad my house is quite, quite empty.'

Beckoning to the drivers of two rather rickety old carriages, somewhat resembling in form the old English chaise, she put all the girls in one, and seated herself beside Mrs. Fordyce in the other.

'Now we can talk. The children will be happier without us. How good, how very good, it is to see you again, Isabel, and how my heart warms to you even yet.'

'It was your own fault, Henrietta, that we did not meet oftener. You have always refused my invitations--sometimes without much ceremony,'

said Mrs. Fordyce rather reproachfully.

'Pride, my dear--Scotch pride; that is what kept me vegetating in this awful place when my heart was in the Highlands. Tell me about Gairloch and Helensburgh, and dear old Glasgow. I have never forgotten it, though I was too proud to parade my poverty in its streets.'

'I will tell you nothing, Henrietta, till I hear what all this means.