White Wings: A Yachting Romance, Volume II. William Black
his fist down on the table with a bang that made everything jump, and his eyes were like coals of fire. "None o' your pistols or rapiers or trash like that! – no, no! – a mark on his face for the rest of his life – the brand of a scoondrel between his eyes – there! will ye do that for me?"
"But, uncle," cried the young man, finding this alternative about as startling as the other, "how on earth can I find him? He is off to Brazil, or Mexico, or California, long ere now, you may depend on it."
The Laird had pulled himself together again.
"I have put two things before ye," said he, calmly. "It is the first time I have asked ye for a service, after having brought ye up as few lads have been brought up. If you think it is unfair of me to make a bargain about such things, I will tell ye frankly that I have more concern in that young thing left to herself than in any creature now living on earth; and I will be a friend to her as well as an old man can. I have asked our friends here to listen to what I had to say; they will tell ye whether I am unreasonable. I will leave ye to talk it over."
He went to the door. Then he turned for a moment to his hostess.
"I am going to see, ma'am, if Mary will go for a bit walk wi' me – down to the shore, or the like; but we will be back before the hour for denner."
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW SUITOR
It is only those who have lived with her for a number of years who can tell when a certain person becomes possessed with the demon of mischief, and allows sarcasm and malignant laughter and other unholy delights to run riot in her brain. The chief symptom is the assumption of an abnormal gravity, and a look of simple and confiding innocence that appears in the eyes. The eyes tell most of all. The dark pupils seem even clearer than is their wont, as if they would let you read them through and through; and there is a sympathetic appeal in them; the woman seems so anxious to be kind, and friendly, and considerate. And all the time – especially if it be a man who is hopelessly dumfoundered – she is revenging the many wrongs of her sex by covertly laughing at him and enjoying his discomfiture.
And no doubt the expression on Howard Smith's face, as he sat there in a bewildered silence, was ludicrous enough. He was inclined to laugh the thing away as a joke, but he knew that the Laird was not given to practical jokes. And yet – and yet —
"Do you really think he is serious?" he blurted out at length, and he spoke to this lady with the gentle innocent eyes.
"Oh, undoubtedly," she answered, with perfect gravity.
"Oh, no; it is impossible!" he said, as if arguing with himself. "Why, my uncle, of all men in the world, – and pretending it was serious – of course people often do wish their sons or daughters to marry a particular person – for a sensible reason, to keep estates together, or to join the fortunes of a family – but this – no, no; this is a joke, or else he wants to drive me into giving that fellow a licking. And that, you know, is quite absurd; you might as well drag the Atlantic for a penknife."
"I am afraid your uncle is quite serious," said she, demurely.
"But it was to be left to you," he answered quickly. "You were to say whether it was unreasonable. Surely you must see it is not reasonable. Neither the one thing nor the other is possible – "
Here the young man paused for a moment.
"Surely," he said, "my uncle can't mean, by putting these impossible things before me, to justify his leaving his property to somebody else? There was no need for any such excuse; I have no claim on him; he has a right to do what he pleases."
"That has nothing to do with it," said Queen T. promptly. "Your uncle is quite resolved, I know, that you should have Denny-mains."
"Yes – and a wife," responded the young man, with a somewhat wry smile. "Oh, but you know, it is quite absurd; you will reason him out of it, won't you? He has such a high opinion of your judgment, I know."
The ingenious youth!
"Besides," said he warmly, "do you think it very complimentary to your friend Miss Avon that any one should be asked to come and marry her?"
This was better; it was an artful thrust. But the bland sympathetic eyes only paid him a respectful attention.
"I know my uncle is pretty firm when he has got a notion into his head," said he, "and – and – no doubt he is quite right in thinking that the young lady has been badly treated, and that somebody should give the absconder a thrashing. All that is quite right; but why should I be made responsible for it? I can't do impossible things."
"Well, you see," said his sage adviser, with a highly matter-of-fact air, "your uncle may not regard either the one thing or the other as impossible."
"But they are impossible," said he.
"Then I am very sorry," said she, with great sweetness. "Because Denny-mains is really a beautiful place. And the house would lend itself splendidly to a thorough scheme of redecoration; the hall could be made perfectly lovely. I would have the wooden dado painted a dark bottle-green, and the wall over it a rich Pompeian red – I don't believe the colours of a hall can be too bold if the tones are good in themselves. Pompeian red is a capital background for pictures, too; and I like to see pictures in the hall; the gentlemen can look at them while they are waiting for their wives. Don't you think Indian matting makes a very nice, serviceable, sober-coloured dado for a dining-room – so long as it does not drive your pictures too high on the wall?"
The fiendishness of this woman! Denny-mains was being withdrawn from him at this very moment; and she was bothering him with questions about its decoration. What did he think of Indian matting?
"Well," said he, "if I am to lose my chance of Denny-mains through this piece of absurdity, I can't help it."
"I beg your pardon," said she most amiably; "but I don't think your uncle's proposal so very absurd. It is the commonest thing in the world for people to wish persons in whom they are interested to marry each other; and very often they succeed by merely getting the young people to meet, and so forth. You say yourself that it is reasonable in certain cases. Well, in this case, you probably don't know how great an interest your uncle takes in Miss Avon, and the affection that he has for her. It is quite remarkable. And he has been dwelling on this possibility of a match between you – of seeing you both settled at Denny-mains – until he almost regards it as already arranged. 'Put yourself in his place,' as Mr. Reade says. It seems to him the most natural thing in the world, and I am afraid he will consider you very ungrateful if you don't fall in with his plan."
Deeper and deeper grew the shadow of perplexity on the young man's brow. At first he had seemed inclined to laugh the whole matter aside, but the gentle reasoning of this small person had a ghastly aspect of seriousness about it.
"Then his notion of my seeking out the man Smethurst and giving him a thrashing: you would justify that, too?" he cried.
"No, not quite," she answered, with a bit of a smile. "That is a little absurd, I admit – it is merely an ebullition of anger. He won't think any more of that in a day or two I am certain. But the other – the other, I fear, is a fixed idea."
At this point we heard some one calling outside:
"Miss Mary! I have been searching for ye everywhere; are ye coming for a walk down to the shore?"
Then a voice, apparently overhead at an open window —
"All right, sir; I will be down in a moment."
Another second or two, and we hear some one singing on the stair, with a fine air of bravado —
A strong sou-wester's blowing, Billy; can't you hear it roar, now?
– the gay voice passes through the hall —
Lord help 'em, how I pities all un —
– then the last phrase is heard outside —
– folks on shore now —
Queen Titania darts to the open window of the dining-room.
"Mary! Mary!"