The Heather-Moon Part 37

"Why do you suppose she can't have me the first of the week?" Barrie asked piteously, when she had shown this message.

"I can't say, I'm sure," I cautiously replied. This was literally true.

I could not say: but I could guess. And a letter from Aline which came two or three days later, confirmed my Sherlockian deductions.

"My DEAR OLD BOY" [she wrote]: "I was so glad to get your telegram, and meant to have written at once, but waited on second thoughts to have a little more news. It is a relief to know that Ian hasn't followed that girl. Of course I feel it as much for your sake as my own, for he is a dangerous rival to any man. It _is_ odd where he can have gone; though he may turn up here again any day, as he has left his car and chauffeur. If he had wanted to be nice, he might have offered me the use of both while he was away; but I suppose he blames me for lending myself to Mrs. Bal's wishes about Barrie. Very unreasonable of him, as you have a perfect right to do what you like with the car you've hired, and if Mrs. Bal didn't want her daughter to see too much of _him_, what fault is it of mine?

"I try to amuse myself as well as I can and forget my worries, however, and Mrs. Bal and Morgan Bennett are being very nice. I don't think he's proposed yet, or she would have told me, for we're great friends; but she's pretty sure to land him before he leaves for America, as he is to do the end of her Glasgow week, for a short business trip. I expect to be asked to congratulate them the night before he sails! What a good thing for her and _every one_ that the Vannecks can stand by you longer than we planned. I think, unless you wire me that Ian has appeared upon the scene, I'll stay with Mrs. Bal for her Glasgow week, as she has invited me, and then, when the Vannecks go to the Round House, you can bring Barrie back to her mother."

This explained Mrs. Bal's "best of reasons."

Days went on, and Somerled did not come to our part of the world, which was by this time the heart of the Highlands; but I felt in my bones that Barrie was hearing from him, writing to him; that she knew what I did not know, the mystery of his absence. Of course I could have found out if she were receiving letters from him, for Somerled's handwriting is unmistakable; but villain or no villain, I had to draw the line somewhere, and I drew it at spying upon her.

Aline did go to Glasgow with Mrs. Bal. She wrote to tell me how, with Morgan Bennett in his biggest motor-car, "_much_ higher powered and smarter than poor Ian's," she and Mrs. Bal and George Vanneck had sped away from Edinburgh on Sunday morning early, had a look at their rooms in Glasgow, and dashed on to Arrochar, where they all stopped till Monday afternoon.

"Such an exquisite road!" [said Aline]. "You would have loved it.

High green bank on one side, with cataracts of bracken delicate as maidenhair; dark rocks, wrapped in velvet moss. Trees holding up screens of green lace between your eyes and the blue water of the loch. Pebbles white and round as pearls, or silver coins dropped by fairies in a big "flit." That's one of _your_ similes! Gra.s.s running down to the edge of the water, and full of bluebells. Water the colour of drowned wallflowers. I don't believe your Highland lochs can be prettier or more idyllic, though this is so close to Glasgow.

"We have had a day going through the Kyles of Bute, too--the same party: and a marvellous run along the sh.o.r.es of the Clyde to Skelmorlie. Such red rocks there, and even the sand red. There was a pink haze over everything, like a perpetual sunset. I'm not sure which was better, that, or a trip to Crinan. The dearest little place at the end of the Crinan ca.n.a.l--just a flower-draped hotel, and a sea-wall and a lighthouse, with a distant murmur of 'Corrievrechan's tortured roar,' mingled with the crying of gulls.

What a place for you and Barrie to spend your honeymoon! You see, I speak as if it were certain. Anyhow, I'm sure it all depends on yourself. _Courage, mon brave_!"

But that is exactly the quality which the villain of the piece lacks at present.

BOOK IV

WHAT BECAME OF BARRIE

I

Letter From Barrie Macdonald To Ian Somerled Macdonald

DEAR SIR KNIGHT: I was glad the morning we saw Mrs. James off that you said you'd like to hear from me, and if I needed help or comfort in any trouble I must let you know. I haven't such an excuse for writing to you now, but you did say that you wanted to hear anyway, and that you'd find out where we were going, so you could wire me your plans. Now I've had two telegrams from you, and a letter; and if they hadn't come I should have been disappointed.

I thought we might have seen you and the Gray Dragon before this, but the telegrams have made me understand. That is, I _don't_ understand, because what you tell me sounds very mysterious. Still, as you went back to Carlisle and are now in London, it is no use hoping to see the Gray Dragon's bonnet flash into sight round some complicated Highland corner.

What _could_ have taken you to call on Grandma again? I am almost dying of curiosity. You say 'perhaps you may be able to explain when we meet': but everybody is saying that to me, just now--at least, Barbara is, about not letting me go back to Glasgow till the end of her week there--so it is rather aggravating. Still, it is good to know that we may meet. I wonder when? You don't give me a hint, and it stirs up my curiosity from deeper depths to be told, as if you half expected me to guess what you mean, that 'you're in London for reinforcements.' Shall I ever know? It seems a long time since I said good-bye to you in front of the Caledonian Hotel. Not that I'm having a dull trip. I should be very dull myself if that were true, for everything is beautiful, and every one kind. It is the most wonderful luck for a girl like me, who had never seen anything in her life, suddenly to be seeing all Scotland. But I had grown rather _used_ to seeing things with you and Mrs. James, after I escaped from the 'gla.s.s retort,' and I can't accustom myself yet to being with others, and you far away--Mrs. James too, of course.

I try to console myself if I feel a tiny bit homesick, thinking how happy she is, and how wonderful everything is going to be for her and her strange, unpractical doctor. It was splendid of you to give him all that money. But wouldn't it have been fun if he could have come over, instead of her going to him? Maybe, if it had turned out so, you would be in the Highlands now.

Do you remember how I used to say that _my_ tour under the heather moon would soon be over, but you would be going on just as if we had never met? Well, it has turned out quite differently, hasn't it, for both of us? Only the heather moon is the same. But I never talk of her now that you are gone.

I don't want you to think I am ungrateful to _any one_, if I sign myself, Your rather homesick little 'princess,'

BARRIE.

P.S.--It does not seem right to have crossed over the borderline into our Highlands without you!

LETTER FROM BARRIE TO HER MOTHER

DEAREST,DARLING BARBARA: Can it really be that it won't bother you to have me write to you often and tell you everything interesting that happens? You see, I might think it interesting, and you might think it a bore. I know you are easily bored, dear, so I am not quite sure what I ought to write. I can only tell you about seeing places, because that is all we do. But they are so beautiful, perhaps you may like to hear. If I write about the wrong things, do promise that you'll speak out and tell me to stop. I won't let my feelings be hurt.

Basil is trying to show me as much of Scotland as he possibly can, he says, before I 'get tired of him and Blunderbore.' That is a bad way to put it, and so I have told him, because I should be horribly ungrateful to tire of him. But he says he dislikes grat.i.tude and thinks it an overestimated virtue.

I suppose you have often been in Scotland before, and you are not Scottish yourself, so perhaps you can't quite feel as I do about it. Basil, who has travelled so much, says that Scotland has in miniature almost all the picked bits of scenery of other countries; but they do not _appear_ to be in miniature when you're motoring through them. They seem on an enormous scale; and each beauty spot is different from every other. You can't help remembering and keeping them apart in your mind, though there are so many that they are crowded together, all over the map. I think of the map of Scotland being purple, like heather, don't you? And if I have to live anywhere else, I shall always be homesick for this country now. If we are not in some fairy-like, green glen, we are in a wild and awesome mountain pa.s.s; or else in a blue labyrinth of lochs; or we come out upon endless, billowing moorlands; or suddenly we find ourselves on a long road like an avenue in some great private park, with the singing of a river in our ears.

Poor Basil sometimes feels ashamed of Blunderbore, and certainly it _is_ different from travelling in Mr. Somerled's Gray Dragon.

With the Dragon, spirits of the wind used to rush out of forests to meet and dash ozone in our faces. With Blunderbore, if they come at all, they merely spray us lazily.

Going from Stirling to Crieff we crossed the borderline of the Highlands. There was a park-like world round the Bridge of Allan: and at Ardoch, the greatest Roman station left in Britain, lots of turfed banks showing still where 26,000 Romans tried to bridle the Northern Caledonians, the red-haired people. I'm glad they never quite succeeded!

Crieff was sweet, and all round it, half hidden in woods, the most beautiful houses. But Basil had forgotten to wire, so we couldn't get into one of the nice hotels, but stayed in a very funny one.

When Mrs. Vanneck asked for communicating rooms, the landlady said, 'Oh, _no_, Madam, we've no such things as _that_ in _our_ house!'

We went on to Perth early next morning, and every minute along the road we seemed to be pa.s.sing happy people who'd come to play in Scotland: nice golfing girls and men, and men with guns over their shoulders, or followed by gillies with fis.h.i.+ng-tackle. I wish men could amuse themselves, though, don't you, without killing creatures more beautiful and happy than themselves?

It was such a pretty road, past Methven, where, alas! the English beat Bruce; and if I hadn't been grieved to find that by John Knox's advice all the nicest buildings had been pulled down, I shouldn't have felt disappointed in Perth. It is a very fine town anyhow, with glorious trees; and the two great bridges over the Tay are splendid if they _are_ made of iron. They look as if people had planned them especially to give all the view there could be of the sunset.

Of course the 'Fair Maid's' house was the most interesting thing.

I hope it really was hers. I don't see why not. It _is_ in the old glover's quarter. And the shrine with the crucifix and death's head and cross-bones they found hidden in the wall of her room is too fascinating. I could just see her praying there, so beautiful that all the young men of Perth were in love with her. And talking of the young men of Perth, Basil says the ball in the Games Week is supposed to be the best show of the year--such splendid men come. I should love to see them in the kilt, with their brown knees, like the pipers in Edinburgh.

St. Andrews was our next place, and we arrived the same day, for we didn't stop in Perth after we had seen the sights there. I wonder if you have been to St. Andrews? I know so little about you yet, dearest. I fell in love with the place--not so much with the links (though they must be the most beautiful as well as the most famous in the world) as with that old ruined castle built on the dark rocks rising out of the sea. I know I shall dream of the awful, bottle-necked dungeon! Basil said it was the worst thing he had ever seen except at Loches. I hope it isn't wicked to be pleased that Cardinal Beaton, after he sat in his window to watch Wishart burn, was soon killed, and salted, and preserved in the same dungeon where he used to keep martyrs. The 'undergrads' of the University looked so attractive in their red gowns, and the girl students in their mortar boards! They were like scarlet birds, against the gray walls and gray arches of the town. But I suppose people in St. Andrews think even more about golf than about learning, don't they? There were hundreds of all ages on the links--so grave and eager: and at the hotels they _never_ know when anybody will come in to meals. There's the cemetery, too; that shows the importance of golf. All the 'smartest' monuments are of famous golfers, knitted caps and clubs and everything, neatly done in marble. But I wonder anybody ever contrives to die at St.

Andrews. I never felt such delicious air!

Crossing the ferry for Dundee was fun. It was a very big boat, and several other motors on it as well as ours. We sat in Blunderbore all the way across the wide sheet of silver that was the Tay, gazing up at the marvellous giant bridge, and then we spent several hours in Dundee, seeing the Steeple, and Queen Mary's Orchard, and lots of things. This was so near the Round House that I suppose the Vannecks would have gone if it hadn't been for me. But I am the stumbling block in everybody's way.

Going on to Aberdeen, we ran along a fine coast dotted with ruined castles--Dunottar for one, where the Regalia was hidden once.

We stopped at Arbroath, which Doctor Johnson admired, to see the great sh.e.l.l of an Abbey, red as dried blood; and all the old town is built out of it, so no wonder there isn't much left but an immense nave. But just think, Arbroath is Sir Walter Scott's 'Fairport,' and I must read "The Antiquarian" again, all about the caves and the secret treasure found in them. As for the treasure of the Abbey, it is nothing less than the heart of William the Lion.

He had it nicely buried near the high altar, as long ago as the twelfth century, wasn't it? But in 1810 they dug it up, found it had ossified, and now they simply have it lying about in a gla.s.s case, practically mixed up with the bones of a lady who left money to the Abbey (she wouldn't, if she'd known what they'd do!) and the singularly long thigh bones of a particularly wicked earl. It was an earl who married a sister of the Lion's, and, because he was jealous, threw her out of the window.

We had to go through Montrose, where the great Marquis was born, and where Sir James Douglas set sail with the Bruce's heart (what a lot of hearts there were travelling about then!) and where now the most curiously exciting things are the Bridie Shops. I _had_ to know what a 'bridie' meant, so we stopped to see; but it's only a rolled meat pasty they love in Forfars.h.i.+re; and brides are supposed to batten on them at their weddings. To please me, Basil would have made a detour to see 'Thrums,' which is really Kerriemuir, you know. And we should have had to pa.s.s through Forfar--the 'Witches Har'--and go on the road that leads to mysterious, wonderful Glamis. I was longing to do it, but Mrs. Vanneck wanted to arrive in Aberdeen in time to do some shopping! I gave up like a lamb, almost hating her inwardly; but afterward I felt better about it, for the Aberdeen shops are so nice. They sell pink pearls, out of Scottish rivers--perfect beauties. I bought you a brooch, and I do hope you'll like it. I don't know much about such things; and of course you have gorgeous jewellery; but this pearl is such a wonderful colour, like snow touched with sunrise.

My eyes and hair were full of granite by the time we got to Aberdeen, because the road is made of it, and the dust sparkles like diamonds.

So does Aberdeen sparkle like diamonds. I shouldn't have thought a city all gray like that, could be so handsome. But it is a gray bright and silky as the wings of doves, and in some lights pale as moonbeams. Sunset was beginning when we arrived, and on the houses and bridges and river, and even on the pavements of the broad streets, there was the same gray-pink sheen as on the pearl I bought for you.

In the morning we went to see the University, and the Cathedral with its lovely rose-pink pillars, and old painted Scandinavian ceiling. Everything would have pa.s.sed off charmingly, if Basil had not begun to be rather foolish and unlike himself, while he and I were in the Cathedral together. Fortunately, an old friend of his he hadn't seen for years, appeared unexpectedly at the critical moment, and invited us to visit him near Aboyne. I hadn't quite time to say 'no' to Basil definitely, and we haven't gone back to the subject since, so I am hoping for the best. I used to think it would be _heavenly_ to have a proposal, but now, I realize that it is much overrated.

Your loving BARRIE, Who hopes she hasn't bored you.

LETTER FROM BARRIE TO SOMERLED

DEAR SIR KNIGHT: I must write to tell you what a surprise I had in Aberdeen. Basil took us all to a biograph theatre--the first one I ever saw--and one set of pictures was labelled, 'A Gretna Green Wedding of the Olden Days.' How my heart beat!--and not for nothing, because, oh, Sir Knight, it was _our_ wedding! My face never showed once, but the hair looked like mine; and _your_ face was just like yours and n.o.body else's, in spite of the old-fas.h.i.+oned costume. Basil said out loud, 'By Jove!' and the Vannecks recognized you, and asked all sorts of questions. I had to tell them the story, but I didn't mind a bit. In fact, I think I was proud. The pictures were coloured, so perhaps that was one reason they guessed, for my hair was so red. I told Basil I always wanted to be married at Gretna Green, and now I _have_ been. But he had the air of being rather _shocked_. I shouldn't have thought he was that kind of person.