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Chapter XXII. Francesca entertains the green-eyed monster
‘“O has he chosen a bonny bride,
An’ has he clean forgotten me?”
An’ sighing said that gay ladye,
“I would I were in my ain countrie!”’
Lord Beichan.
It rained in torrents; Salemina was darning stockings in the inglenook at Bide-a-Wee Cottage, and I was reading her a Scotch letter which Francesca and I had concocted the evening before. I proposed sending the document to certain chosen spirits in our own country, who were pleased to be facetious concerning our devotion to Scotland. It contained, in sooth, little that was new, and still less that was true, for we were confined to a very small vocabulary which we were obliged to supplement now and then by a dip into Burns and Allan Ramsay.
Here is the letter:—
Bide-a-Wee Cottage, Pettybaw, East Neuk o’ Fife.
To my trusty fieres,
Mony’s the time I hae ettled to send ye a screed, but there was aye something that cam’ i’ the gait. It wisna that I couldna be fashed, for aften hae I thocht o’ ye and my hairt has been wi’ ye mony’s the day. There’s no’ muckle fowk frae Ameriky hereawa; they’re a’ jist Fife bodies, and a lass canna get her tongue roun’ their thrapple-taxin’ words ava’, so it’s like I may een drap a’ the sweetness o’ my good mither-tongue.
‘Tis a dulefu’ nicht, and an awfu’ blash is ragin’ wi’oot. Fanny’s awa’ at the gowff rinnin’ aboot wi’ a bag o’ sticks after a wee bit ba’, and Sally and I are hame by oor lane. Laith will the lassie be to weet her bonny shoon, but lang ere the play’ll be ower she’ll wat her hat aboon. A gust o’ win’ is skirlin’ the noo, and as we luik ower the faem, the haar is risin’, weetin’ the green swaird wi’ misty shoo’rs.
Yestreen was a calm simmer gloamin’, sae sweet an’ bonnie that when the sun was sinkin’ doon ower Pettybaw Sands we daundered ower the muir. As we cam’ through the scented birks, we saw a trottin’ burnie wimplin’ ‘neath the white-blossomed slaes and hirplin’ doon the hillside; an’ while a herd-laddie lilted ower the fernie brae, a cushat cooed leesomely doon i’ the dale. We pit aff oor shoon, sae blithe were we, kilted oor coats a little aboon the knee, and paidilt i’ the burn, gettin’ geyan weet the while. Then Sally pu’d the gowans wat wi’ dew an’ twined her bree wi’ tasselled broom, while I had a wee crackie wi’ Tibby Buchan, the flesher’s dochter frae Auld Reekie. Tibby’s nae giglet gawky like the lave, ye ken,—she’s a sonsie maid, as sweet as ony hinny pear, wi’ her twa pawky een an’ her cockernony snooded up fu’ sleek.
We were unco gleg to win hame when a’ this was dune, an’ after steekin’ the door, to sit an’ birsle oor taes at the bit blaze. Mickle thocht we o’ the gentles ayont the sea, an’ sair grat we for a’ frien’s we kent lang syne in oor ain countree.
Late at nicht, Fanny, the bonny gypsy, cam’ ben the hoose an’ tirled at the pin of oor bigly bower door, speirin’ for baps and bannocks.
“Hoots, lassie!” cried oot Sally, “th’ auld carline i’ the kitchen is i’ her box-bed, an’ weel aneuch ye ken is lang syne cuddled doon.”
“Oo ay!” said Fanny, strikin’ her curly pow, “then fetch me parritch, an’ dinna be lang wi’ them, for I’ve lickit a Pettybaw lad at the gowff, an’ I could eat twa guid jints o’ beef gin I had them!”
“Losh girl,” said I, “gie ower makin’ sic a mickle din. Ye ken verra weel ye’ll get nae parritch the nicht. I’ll rin and fetch ye a ‘piece’ to stap awee the soun’.”
“Blethers an’ havers!” cried Fanny, but she blinkit bonnily the while, an’ when the tea was weel maskit, she smoored her wrath an’ stappit her mooth wi’ a bit o’ oaten cake. We aye keep that i’ the hoose, for th’ auld servant-body is geyan bad at the cookin’, an’ she’s sae dour an’ dowie that to speak but till her we daur hardly mint.
In sic divairsions pass the lang simmer days in braid Scotland, but I canna write mair the nicht, for ‘tis the wee sma’ hours ayont the twal’.
Like th’ auld wife’s parrot, ‘we dinna speak muckle, but we’re deevils to think,’ an’ we’re aye thinkin’ aboot ye. An’ noo I maun leave ye to mak’ what ye can oot o’ this, for I jalouse it’ll pass ye to untaukle the whole hypothec.
Fair fa’ ye a’! Lang may yer lum reek, an’ may prosperity attend oor clan!
Aye your gude frien’, Penelope Hamilton.
“It may be very fine,” remarked Salemina judicially, “though I cannot understand more than half of it.”
“That would also be true of Browning,” I replied. “Don’t you love to see great ideas looming through a mist of words?”
“The words are misty enough in this case,” she said, “and I do wish you would not tell the world that I paddle in the burn, or ‘twine my bree wi’ tasselled broom.’ I’m too old to be made ridiculous.”
“Nobody will believe it,” said Francesca, appearing in the doorway. “They will know it is only Penelope’s havering,” and with this undeserved scoff, she took her mashie and went golfing—not on the links, on this occasion, but in our microscopic sitting-room. It is twelve feet square, and holds a tiny piano, desk, centre-table, sofa, and chairs, but the spot between the fire-place and the table is Francesca’s favourite ‘putting-green.’ She wishes to become more deadly in the matter of approaches, and thinks her tee-shots weak; so these two deficiencies she is trying to make good by home practice in inclement weather. She turns a tumbler on its side on the floor, and ‘putts’ the ball into it, or at it, as the case may be, from the opposite side of the room. It is excellent discipline, and as the tumblers are inexpensive the breakage really does not matter. Whenever Miss Grieve hears the shivering of glass, she murmurs, not without reason, ‘It is not for the knowing what they will be doing next.’
“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
‘“Love, I maun gang to Edinbrugh,
Love, I maun gang an’ leave thee!”
She sighed right sair, an’ said nae mair
But “O gin I were wi’ ye!”’
Andrew Lammie.
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:—
Henchman, Ronald Macdonald; bard, Penelope Hamilton; spokesman or fool, Robin Anstruther; sword-bearer, Francesca Monroe; piper, Salemina; piper’s attendant, Elizabeth Ardmore; baggage gillie, Jean Dalziel; running footman, Ralph; bridle gillie, Jamie; ford gillie, Miss Grieve. The ford gillie carries the chief across fords only, and there are no fords in the vicinity; so Mr. Beresford, not liking to leave a member of our household out of office, thought this the best post for Calamity Jane.
With The Mackintosh on his pyramidal cairn matters went very much better, and at Jamie’s instigation we began to hold rehearsals for certain festivities at Rowardennan; for as Jamie’s birthday fell on the eve of the Queen’s Jubilee, there was to be a gay party at the Castle.
All this occurred days ago, and yesterday evening the ballad-revels came off, and Rowardennan was a scene of great pageant and splendour. Lady Ardmore, dressed as the Lady of Inverleith, received the guests, and there were all manner of tableaux, and ballads in costume, and pantomimes, and a grand march by the clan, in which we appeared in our chosen roles.
Salemina was Lady Maisry—she whom all the lords of the north countrie came wooing.
‘But a’ that they could say to her,
Her answer still was “Na.”’
And again:—
‘“O haud your tongues, young men,” she said,
“And think nae mair on me!”’
Mr. Beresford was Lord Beichan, and I was Shusy Pye
‘Lord Beichan was a Christian born,
And such resolved to live and dee,
So he was ta’en by a savage Moor,
Who treated him right cruellie.
The Moor he had an only daughter,
The damsel’s name was Shusy Pye;
And ilka day as she took the air
Lord Beichan’s prison she pass’d by.’
Elizabeth Ardmore was Leezie Lindsay, who kilted her coats o’ green satin to the knee and was aff to the Hielands so expeditiously when her lover declared himself to be ‘Lord Ronald Macdonald, a chieftain of high degree.’
Francesca was Mary Ambree.
‘When captaines couragious, whom death cold not daunte,
Did march to the siege of the citty of Gaunt,
They mustred their souldiers by two and by three,
And the foremost in battle was Mary Ambree.
When the brave sergeant-major was slaine in her sight
Who was her true lover, her joy and delight,
Because he was slaine most treacherouslie,
Then vow’d to avenge him Mary Ambree.’
Brenda Macrae from Pettybaw House was Fairly Fair; Jamie, Sir Patrick Spens; Ralph, King Alexander of Dunfermline; Mr. Anstruther, Bonnie Glenlogie, ‘the flower o’ them a’;’ Mr. Macdonald and Miss Dalziel, Young Hynde Horn and the king’s daughter Jean respectively.
‘“Oh, it’s Hynde Horn fair, and it’s Hynde Horn free;
Oh, where were you born, and in what countrie?”
“In a far distant countrie I was born;
But of home and friends I am quite forlorn.”
Oh, it’s seven long years he served the king,
But wages from him he ne’er got a thing;
Oh, it’s seven long years he served, I ween,
And all for love of the king’s daughter Jean.’
It is not to be supposed that all this went off without any of the difficulties and heart-burnings that are incident to things dramatic. When Elizabeth Ardmore chose to be Leezie Lindsay, she asked me to sing the ballad behind the scenes. Mr. Beresford naturally thought that Mr. Macdonald would take the opposite part in the tableau, inasmuch as the hero bears his name; but he positively declined to play Lord Ronald Macdonald, and said it was altogether too personal.
Mr. Anstruther was rather disagreeable at the beginning, and upbraided Miss Dalziel for offering to be the king’s daughter Jean to Mr. Macdonald’s Hynde Horn, when she knew very well he wanted her for Ladye Jeanie in Glenlogie. (She had meantime confided to me that nothing could induce her to appear in Glenlogie; it was far too personal.)
Mr. Macdonald offended Francesca by sending her his cast-off gown and begging her to be Sir Patrick Spens; and she was still more gloomy (so I imagined) because he had not proffered his six feet of manly beauty for the part of the captain in Mary Ambree, when the only other person to take it was Jamie’s tutor. He is an Oxford man and a delightful person, but very bow-legged; added to that, by the time the rehearsals had ended she had been obliged to beg him to love some one more worthy than herself, and did not wish to appear in the same tableau with him, feeling that it was much too personal.
When the eventful hour came, yesterday, Willie and I were the only actors really willing to take lovers’ parts, save Jamie and Ralph, who were but too anxious to play all the characters, whatever their age, sex, colour, or relations. But the guests knew nothing of these trivial disagreements, and at ten o’clock last night it would have been difficult to match Rowardennan Castle for a scene of beauty and revelry. Everything went merrily till we came to Hynde Horn, the concluding tableau, and the most effective and elaborate one on the programme. At the very last moment, when the opening scene was nearly ready, Jean Dalziel fell down a secret staircase that led from the tapestry chamber into Lady Ardmore’s boudoir, where the rest of us were dressing. It was a short flight of steps, but as she held a candle, and was carrying her costume, she fell awkwardly, spraining her wrist and ankle. Finding that she was not maimed for life, Lady Ardmore turned with comical and unsympathetic haste to Francesca, so completely do amateur theatricals dry the milk of kindness in the human breast.
“Put on these clothes at once,” she said imperiously, knowing nothing of the volcanoes beneath the surface. “Hynde Horn is already on the stage, and somebody must be Jean. Take care of Miss Dalziel, girls, and ring for more maids. Helene, come and dress Miss Monroe; put on her slippers while I lace her gown; run and fetch more jewels,—more still,—she can carry off any number; not any rouge, Helene—she has too much colour now; pull the frock more off the shoulders—it’s a pity to cover an inch of them; pile her hair higher—here, take my diamond tiara, child; hurry, Helene, fetch the silver cup and the cake—no, they are on the stage; take her train, Helene. Miss Hamilton, run and open the doors ahead of them, please. I won’t go down for this tableau. I’ll put Miss Dalziel right, and then I’ll slip into the drawing-room, to be ready for the guests when they come in.”
We hurried breathlessly through an interminable series of rooms and corridors. I gave the signal to Mr. Beresford, who was nervously waiting for it in the wings, and the curtain went up on Hynde Horn disguised as the auld beggar man at the king’s gate. Mr. Beresford was reading the ballad, and we took up the tableaux at the point where Hynde Horn has come from a far countrie to see why the diamonds in the ring given him by his own true love have grown pale and wan. He hears that the king’s daughter Jean has been married to a knight these nine days past.
‘But unto him a wife the bride winna be,
For love of Hynde Horn, far over the sea.’
He therefore borrows the old beggar’s garments and hobbles to the king’s palace, where he petitions the porter for a cup of wine and a bit of cake to be handed him by the fair bride herself.
‘“Good porter, I pray, for Saints Peter and Paul,
And for sake of the Saviour who died for us all,
For one cup of wine and one bit of bread,
To an auld man with travel and hunger bestead.
And ask the fair bride, for the sake of Hynde Horn,
To hand them to me so sadly forlorn.”
Then the porter for pity the message convey’d,
And told the fair bride all the beggar man said.’
The curtain went up again. The porter, moved to pity, has gone to give the message to his lady. Hynde Horn is watching the staircase at the rear of the stage, his heart in his eyes. The tapestries that hide it are drawn, and there stands the king’s daughter, who tripped down the stair—
‘And in her fair hands did lovingly bear
A cup of red wine, and a farle of cake,
To give the old man for loved Hynde Horn’s sake.’
The hero of the ballad, who had not seen his true love for seven long years, could not have been more amazed at the change in her than was Ronald Macdonald at the sight of the flushed, excited, almost tearful king’s daughter on the staircase, Lady Ardmore’s diamonds flashing from her crimson satin gown, Lady Ardmore’s rubies glowing on her white arms and throat; not Miss Dalziel, as had been arranged, but Francesca, rebellious, reluctant, embarrassed, angrily beautiful and beautifully angry!
In the next scene Hynde Horn has drained the cup and dropped the ring into it.
‘“Oh, found you that ring by sea or on land,
Or got you that ring off a dead man’s hand?”
“Oh, I found not that ring by sea or on land,
But I got that ring from a fair lady’s hand.
As a pledge of true love she gave it to me,
Full seven years ago as I sail’d o’er the sea;
But now that the diamonds are changed in their hue,
I know that my love has to me proved untrue.”’
I never saw a prettier picture of sweet, tremulous womanhood, a more enchanting, breathing image of fidelity, than Francesca looked as Mr. Beresford read:—
‘“Oh, I will cast off my gay costly gown,
And follow thee on from town unto town;
And I will take the gold kaims from my hair,
And follow my true love for evermair.”’
Whereupon Hynde Horn lets his beggar weeds fall, and shines there the foremost and noblest of all the king’s companie as he says:—
‘“You need not cast off your gay costly gown,
To follow me on from town unto town;
You need not take the gold kaims from your hair,
For Hynde Horn has gold enough and to spare.”
Then the bridegrooms were changed, and the lady re-wed
To Hynde Horn thus come back, like one from the dead.’
There is no doubt that this tableau gained the success of the evening, and the participants in it should have modestly and gratefully received the choruses of congratulation that were ready to be offered during the supper and dance that followed. Instead of that, what happened? Francesca drove home with Miss Dalziel before the quadrille d’honneur, and when Willie bade me good night at the gate in the loaning, he said, “I shall not be early to-morrow, dear. I am going to see Macdonald off.”
“Off!” I exclaimed. “Where is he going?”
“Only to Edinburgh and London, to stay till the last of next week.”
“But we may have left Pettybaw by that time.”
“Of course; that is probably what he has in mind. But let me tell you this, Penelope: Macdonald is fathoms deep in love with Francesca, and if she trifles with him she shall know what I think of her!”
“And let me tell you this, sir: Francesca is fathoms deep in love with Ronald Macdonald, little as you suspect it, and if he trifles with her he shall know what I think of him!”
