Red Rowans. Flora Annie Webster Steel
while you can safely assume that an undergraduate has not worked more than so many hours or minutes a day, it is quite possible that a girl student may have sate up half the night over a trivial exercise. The primal curse on labour, it must be remembered, was not extended to the woman, who had a peculiar ban of her own.
So, by the time she was seventeen, Marjory Carmichael was learned beyond her years in Greek and Latin, and displayed a genius for mathematics which fairly surprised her uncle. Then he died suddenly, leaving her to the guardianship of a distant relation and ardent disciple in Edinburgh, who was instructed to spend what small sum might remain, after paying just debts, on completing the girl's education, and starting her, not before the age of twenty-one, in a career; preferably teaching, which he considered the most suitable opening for her. She was strong, he said, in the letter in which he informed Dr. Kennedy of his wishes, and singularly sensible for a girl, despite a distressing want of proportion in her estimate of things. Being neither sentimental nor sensitive, she was not likely to give trouble. So far good, but at the very end of the letter came a remark showing that the old man was not quite the fossil he pretended to be. It ran thus: "All this concerns her head only; of her heart I know nothing. Let us hope she has none; for it is a terrible drawback to a woman who has brains. Anyhow, it has had no education from me."
The description somehow did not prepare Dr. Tom Kennedy for either the face or manner which greeted him on his arrival at the house of mourning, but then he himself had the softest heart in the world, and the mere sight of a lonely slip of a thing in a black dress gave him a pang. But that was only for a moment; five minutes afterwards he wondered how that suggestion of kissing and comforting her in semi-fatherly fashion could have arisen. Yet the same evening after she had bidden him good-night with a little stilted hope that he would be comfortable, the temptation returned with redoubled force, when, on going into the study for another volume of the book he had taken up to his bedroom to read, he found her fast asleep in the dead man's chair, her arms flung out over the table, her cheek resting on one of the ponderous volumes which had been the dead man's real companions. Her fresh young face looked happy enough in its sleep, though the marks of tears were still visible, and yet Dr. Kennedy felt another pang. Had the child no better confidante than that musty, fusty old book? Yet he did not dare to rouse her, even though the room struck cold and dreary, for he felt that the knowledge that he had so far been witness of her weakness would be an offence, a barrier between them, and that was the last thing he desired. So he crept out of the room again discreetly, and smoked another cigar over the not uninteresting novelty of his guardianship. For Tom Kennedy was sentimental, and gloried in the fact.
"You are very kind," said Marjory to him, a day or two afterwards, with a half-puzzled and critical appreciation of his tact and consideration. "But I don't see why you should take such trouble about me. I shall get on all right, I expect. I think it is a mistake that uncle has forbidden my beginning work till I am twenty-one, but, as it can't be helped, I must go on as I've been doing, I suppose. I would rather not go to school if that can be arranged. You see I don't know any girls, and I am not sure if I should get on with them. If I could stop here, Mr. Wilson at the Manse would look over my work, and I could come up to Edinburgh for my examinations, you know."
Evidently his guardianship was not going to be a burden to him. This clear-eyed young damsel, despite a very dainty feminine appearance, was evidently quite capable of looking ahead.
"I will do my best to arrange everything as you wish," he replied, feeling somehow a little hurt in his feelings. "My great object, of course, will be that you shall be as happy as possible."
"Happy?" she echoed, quaintly. "Uncle never said anything about that. I'm not sure if I want that sort of thing."
"What sort of thing?" he put in, rather aghast.
"Oh! nonsense, and all that; and yet----" She looked at him with almost tragic earnestness. "I am not sure if I don't like it after all. It is funny, but it is nice."
"What is nice?"
"You're being so kind. Only I think it would make me lazy, and that wouldn't do at all. Uncle used to say I must never forget that I had to earn my own living."
"And I--well! I'm afraid I should like to make you forget it," he answered; "but we needn't quarrel about it, I suppose. At any rate, not for the next four years."
"But I don't mean to quarrel with you at all," she said, very sedately. "I mean to be friends; it is so much more convenient." Perhaps it was on the whole; even though as the years went on Dr. Thomas Kennedy, aged forty, began to wish that her twenty-first birthday would find her willing to continue the tie on another footing. And yet he recognised, not without a certain admiration, that she was not likely to be happy, even if married to one whom she trusted and liked as she trusted and liked him, unless she had first faced the world by herself. Of course, if she were to fall in love it would be different; then, like other women, she might take a certain pride in giving up her future. But she was scarcely likely to fall in love with him, unless he made love to her, and that was exactly what he could not do. In a sort of whimsical way he told himself it would not be fair, since in his heart of hearts he did not believe in the master passion! not, at least, in the romantic form in which alone it would appeal to a girl like Marjory. To affect her it must be something very intense indeed; something, in short, which his infinite tenderness for the girl prevented him from giving. Perhaps if there had been any symptoms of another lover appearing on the scene all this philosophic consideration might have disappeared under the pressure of rudimentary jealousy; but there were none. Indeed, barring the Episcopalian clergyman, who was quite out of the question, there was no young man of Marjory's own rank, or near it, at Gleneira, where he had arranged for her to stay on with a distant cousin of his own. And neither Will Cameron, the factor, nor old Mr. Wilson, at the Manse, nor any of the occasional visitors were more likely to stir the romantic side of the girl's nature than he was himself. Less likely, indeed, since he had the manifest charm of being a person of more importance. In appearance he was a small, dark man with a vivacious face and something of a foreign manner, the latter being due to his having wandered about on the Continent for years seeking surgical experience at the cannon's mouth. So, on his last visit to Gleneira, where he spent all his rare holidays, he had told himself point-blank that he of all men in the world was bound in honour not to take advantage of his ward's innocence and undisguised affection. She was exceptionally fitted for the future she had mapped out for herself, so in a way he was bound to let her try it.
Consequently, as she sate that July afternoon teaching the children their duty to their neighbour, there was no arrière pensée of any kind in her affectionate reliance on Cousin Tom's unfailing interest. That would last until she grew tired of teaching, and he grew old. Then, always supposing that it was agreeable to both parties, they might settle down somewhere and be the best of friends till death did them part.
Weary of teaching! That did not seem likely, to judge by the way she taught; and yet through all her work she was conscious of that postcard in her pocket; conscious of the fact that there was no denying Donald's proposition, and that it brought great news whatever. But as she followed the trooping children out of doors to the horse-chestnut shade, she took no notice whatever of Mr. McColl's evident desire to re-open the question, and, with a curt remark that the children knew their duty to their neighbour admirably, she set off with a light, rapid step down the white road.
Mr. McColl looked after her admiringly, unresentfully. Miss Marjory was Miss Marjory, and without her help his grant in aid would be but a poor thing, what with the Bishop's lawn sleeves and the new standards; both of which are stumbling-blocks in a remote Highland parish even when there is no other school within ten miles. Well, well, it was grand news for the Glen that the laird was to be home, and there were others besides Miss Marjory who would be glad to hear it.
Mr. McColl was right, as Marjory herself had ere long to acknowledge; for she