Penelope's Progress Part 12

The only thing that troubles me," I went on, "is the question of Willie Beresford's place of residence. He expects to be somewhere within easy walking or cycling distance,--four or five miles at most."

"He won't be desolate even if he doesn't have a thatched roof, a pansy garden, and a blossoming shrub," said Salemina sleepily, for our business arrangements and discussions had lasted well into the evening. "What he will want is a lodging where he can have frequent sight and speech of you. How I dread him! How I resent his sharing of you with us! I don't know why I use the word 'sharing,' forsooth!

There is nothing half so fair and just in his majesty's greedy mind.

Well, it's the way of the world; only it is odd, with the universe of women to choose from, that he must needs take you. Strathdee seems the most desirable place for him, if he has a mackintosh and rubber boots.

Inchcaldy is another town near here that we didn't see at all,--that might do; the draper's wife says that we can send fine linen to the laundry there."

"Inchcaldy? Oh yes, I think we heard of it in Edinburgh--at least I have some a.s.sociation with the name: it has a fine golf course, I believe, and very likely we ought to have looked at it, though for my part I have no regrets. Nothing can equal Pettybaw; and I am so pleased to be a Scottish householder! Aren't we just like Bessie Bell and Mary Gray?

'They were twa bonnie la.s.sies; They biggit a bower on yon burnbrae, An' theekit it ower wi' rashes.'

Think of our stone-floored kitchen, Salemina! Think of the real box-bed in the wall for little Jane Grieve! She will have red-gold hair, blue eyes, and a pink cotton gown. Think of our own cat! Think how Francesca will admire the 1602 lintel! Think of our back garden, with our own 'neeps' and vegetable marrows growing in it! Think how they will envy us at home when they learn that we have settled down into Scottish yeowomen!

'It's oh, for a patch of land!

It's oh, for a patch of land!

Of all the blessings tongue can name, There's nane like a patch of land!'

Think of Willie coming to step on the floor and look at the bed and stroke the cat and covet the lintel and walk in the garden and weed the turnips and pluck the marrows that grow by our ain wee theekit hoosie!"

"Penelope, you appear slightly intoxicated! Do close the window and come to bed."

"I am intoxicated with the caller air of Pettybaw," I rejoined, leaning on the window-sill and looking at the stars, while I thought: "Edinburgh was beautiful; it is the most beautiful gray city in the world; it lacked one thing only to make it perfect, and Pettybaw will have that before many moons.

'Oh, Willie's rare an' Willie's fair An' Willie's wondrous bonny; An' Willie's hecht to marry me Gin e'er he marries ony.

'O gentle wind that bloweth south, From where my love repaireth, Convey a word from his dear mouth, An' tell me how he fareth.'"

XV

"Gae tak' awa' the china plates, Gae tak' them far frae me; And bring to me a wooden dish, It's that I'm best used wi'.

And tak' awa' thae siller spoons The like I ne'er did see, And bring to me the horn cutties, They're good eneugh for me."

_Earl Richard's Wedding_.

The next day was one of the most cheerful and one of the most fatiguing that I ever spent. Salemina and I moved every article of furniture in our wee theekit hoosie from the place where it originally stood to another and a better place: arguing, of course, over the precise spot it should occupy, which was generally upstairs if the thing were already down, or downstairs if it were already up. We hid all the more hideous ornaments of the draper's wife, and folded away her most objectionable tidies and table-covers, replacing them with our own pretty draperies. There were only two pictures in the sitting-room, and as an artist I would not have parted with them for worlds. The first was The Life of a Fireman, which could only remind one of the explosion of a mammoth tomato, and the other was The Spirit of Poetry Calling Burns from the Plough. Burns wore white knee-breeches, military boots, a splendid waistcoat with lace ruffles, and carried a c.o.c.ked hat. To have been so dressed he must have known the Spirit was intending to come. The plough-horse was a magnificent Arabian, whose tail swept the freshly furrowed earth, while the Spirit of Poetry was issuing from a practicable wigwam on the left, and was a lady of such ample dimensions that no poet would have dared say "no"

when she called him.

The dining-room was blighted by framed photographs of the draper's relations and the draper's wife's relations; all uniformly ugly. (It seems strange that married couples having the least beauty to bequeath to their offspring should persist in having the largest families.) These ladies and gentlemen were too numerous to remove, so we obscured them with trailing branches; reflecting that we only breakfasted in the room, and the morning meal is easily digested when one lives in the open air. We arranged flowers everywhere, and bought potted plants at a little nursery hard by. We apportioned the bedrooms, giving Francesca the hardest bed,--as she is the youngest, and wasn't here to choose,--me the next hardest, and Salemina the best; Francesca the largest looking-gla.s.s and wardrobe, me the best view, and Salemina the biggest bath. We bought housekeeping stores, distributing our patronage equally between the two grocers; we purchased ap.r.o.ns and dusters from the rival drapers, engaged bread and rolls from the baker, milk and cream from the plumber, who keeps three cows, interviewed the flesher about chops; in fact, no young couple facing love in a cottage ever had a busier or happier time than we; and at sundown, when Francesca arrived, we were in the pink of order, standing under our own lintel, ready to welcome her to Pettybaw. As to being strangers in a strange land, we had a bowing acquaintance with everybody on the main street of the tiny village, and were on terms of considerable intimacy with half a dozen families, including dogs and babies.

Francesca was delighted with everything, from the station (Pettybaw Sands, two miles away) to Jane Grieve's name, which she thought as perfect, in its way, as Susanna Crum's. She had purchased a "tirling-pin," that old-time precursor of knockers and bells, at an antique shop in Oban, and we fastened it on the front door at once, taking turns at risping it until our own nerves were shattered, and the draper's wife ran down the loaning to see if we were in need of anything. The twisted bar of iron stands out from the door and the ring is drawn up and down over a series of nicks, making a rasping noise. The lovers and ghaists in the old ballads always "tirled at the pin," you remember; that is, touched it gently.

Francesca brought us letters from Edinburgh, and what was my joy, in opening Willie's, to learn that he begged us to find a place in Fifes.h.i.+re, and as near St. Rules or Strathdee as convenient; for in that case he could accept an invitation he had just received to visit his friend Robin Anstruther, at Rowardennan Castle.

"It is not the visit at the castle I wish so much, you may be sure,"

he wrote, "as the fact that Lady Ardmore will make everything pleasant for you. You will like my friend Robin Anstruther, who is Lady Ardmore's youngest brother, and who is going to her to be nursed and coddled after a baddish accident in the hunting-field. He is very sweet-tempered, and will get on well with Francesca"--

"I don't see the connection," rudely interrupted that spirited young person.

"I suppose she has more room on her list in the country than she had in Edinburgh; but if my remembrance serves me, she always enrolls a goodly number of victims, whether she has any immediate use for them or not."

"Mr. Beresford's manners have not been improved by his residence in Paris," observed Francesca, with resentment in her tone and delight in her eye.

"Mr. Beresford's manners are always perfect," said Salemina loyally, "and I have no doubt that this visit to Lady Ardmore will be extremely pleasant for him, though very embarra.s.sing to us. If we are thrown into forced intimacy with a castle" (Salemina spoke of it as if it had fangs and a las.h.i.+ng tail), "what shall we do in this draper's hut?"

"Salemina!" I expostulated, "the bears will devour you as they did the ungrateful child in the fairy-tale. I wonder at your daring to use the word 'hut' in connection with our wee theekit hoosie!"

"They will never understand that we are doing all this for the novelty of it," she objected. "The Scottish n.o.bility and gentry probably never think of renting a house for a joke. Imagine Lord and Lady Ardmore, the young Ardmores, Robin Anstruther, and Willie Beresford calling upon us in this sitting-room! We ourselves would have to sit in the hall and talk in through the doorway."

"All will be well," Francesca a.s.sured her soothingly. "We shall be pardoned much because we are Americans, and will not be expected to know any better. Besides, the gifted Miss Hamilton is an artist, and that covers a mult.i.tude of sins against conventionality. When the castle people 'tirl at the pin,' I will appear as the maid, if you like, following your example at Mrs. Bobby's cottage in Belvern, Pen."

"And it isn't as if there were many houses to choose from, Salemina, nor as if Bide-a-Wee Cottage were cheap," I continued. "Think of the rent we pay and keep your head high. Remember that the draper's wife says there is nothing half so comfortable in Inchcaldy, although that is twice as large a town."

"_Inchcaldy!_" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Francesca, sitting down heavily upon the sofa and staring at me.

"Inchcaldy, my dear,--spelled _caldy_, but p.r.o.nounced _cawdy_; the town where you are to take your nonsensical little fripperies to be laundered."

"Where is Inchcaldy? How far away?"

"About five miles, I believe, but a lovely road."

"Well," she exclaimed bitterly, "of course Scotland is a small, insignificant country; but, tiny as it is, it presents some liberty of choice, and why you need have pitched upon Pettybaw, and brought me here, when it is only five miles from Inchcaldy, and a lovely road besides, is more than I can understand!"

"In what way has Inchcaldy been so unhappy as to offend you?" I asked.

"It has not offended me, save that it chances to be Ronald Macdonald's parish,--that is all."

"Ronald Macdonald's paris.h.!.+" we repeated automatically.

"Certainly,--you must have heard him mention Inchcaldy; and how queer he will think it that I have come to Pettybaw, under all the circ.u.mstances!"

"We do not know 'all the circ.u.mstances,'" quoted Salemina somewhat haughtily; "and you must remember, my dear, that our opportunities for speech with Mr. Macdonald have been very rare when you were present.

For my part, I was always in such a tremor of anxiety during his visits lest one or both of you should descend to blows that I remember no details of his conversation. Besides, we did not choose Pettybaw; we discovered it by chance as we were driving from Strathdee to St.

Rules. How were we to know that it was near this fatal Inchcaldy? If you think it best, we will hold no communication with the place, and Mr. Macdonald need never know you are here."

I thought Francesca looked rather startled at this proposition. At all events she said hastily, "Oh well, let it go; we could not avoid each other long, anyway, though it is very awkward, of course; you see, we did not part friends."

"I thought I had never seen you on more cordial terms," remarked Salemina.

"But you weren't there," answered Francesca unguardedly.

"Weren't where?"

"Weren't there."

"Where?"