Red Rowans Part 27

"But I doubt if I have any manners," she protested.

He had, at any rate; and new as the experience of the large party gathered in the big drawing-room was to her, she found immediate confidence in the perception that her companion would stand the test of any society; indeed, as she sate talking to Alice Woodward, she could not help noticing with a certain amused pride Lady George's frigid politeness give way to interested endeavours to find out who this most unusually well-bred specimen of a country doctor could be; for Paul was not there to aid his sister's ignorance.

But by and bye Mrs. Vane came in and made her way straight to Marjory with pretty little words of welcome, yet with the Anglo-Indian lady's reminiscent interest at the sight of a real live man at afternoon tea.

"Who is he?" she asked; "did he come with you?"

"He is my guardian--Dr. Kennedy."

"Kennedy! not the famous Dr. Kennedy--Tom Kennedy of Paris?" And before Marjory could get beyond the first syllable of acquiescence, Mrs. Vane had crossed the room and was standing opposite Lady George.

"I would ask you to introduce me to Dr. Kennedy," she said, "but it would be of no use, for while he has made a name for himself since I knew him, I have lost mine. So I will only ask him if he remembers the jasmine bush at the Chateau Saumarez?"

There was an instant's bewilderment, and then Tommy Kennedy, who had risen at her first word, took a step forward and both his hands went out gladly.

"Pauline!"

"Just so--and you are Alphonse! What a small place the world is after all! To think of finding you at Gleneira. Lady George, you were talking of theatricals this morning, and the idea fell through because no one--not even your brother--would do the _jeune premier_ with me.

He is found! Dr. Kennedy is one of the best amateur actors in Paris."

"The past tense, if you please, my dear lady," protested the doctor.

"Consider my grey hairs."

"That is a remark which should not have been made, for we are contemporaries. He was my first--no! one of my first loves, Lady George. We used to give each other sweeties over the garden wall when his grandmother, the Marquise de Brisson, was not looking; but the jasmine bush, Alphonse, was at your uncle's, Prince Rosignacs's. Why!

you have a bit in your b.u.t.tonhole now, and I----" She pointed to the spray fastened into the laces of her tea-gown.

"_Ce soir ma robe en est tout embaumee_."

"_Respires-en moi l'adorant souvenir_," quoted Dr. Kennedy, looking at the lapel of his coat tenderly; and Marjory, standing a little apart, a mute spectator of the scene, felt a sudden sense of loneliness. He, too, was at home in this idle, careless life, and she was the only one who was out of it. It came upon her by surprise, for though she had known and been proud of the fact that her guardian belonged by virtue of his mother's birth to the best of French society, she had had no actual experience of him in the part of a man of the world. But he was that, and of a good world, too, she recognised frankly as she sate listening to the now animated conversation about people she had never heard of, things she had never seen, and at the same time trying to be agreeable to the girls who, dutiously, had taken her in hand. She felt that it was a duty, and a sort of indifferent resentment possessed her, even when Lady George hoped she would accompany Dr. Kennedy, who had kindly promised to dine with them next day and talk over the now possible theatricals. Yet, rather to his surprise, she accepted without even a look at his face, and made quite a polite little speech about hoping to see more of the girls; and so, with a certain independent grace, pa.s.sed out into the hall, leaving him detained for a moment by some last remark. She could hear Mrs. Vane's light laugh, his voice, and then another laugh, as she stood waiting beside the deferential butler, and all involuntarily her lip curled.

"Miss Carmichael! How glad I am!" It was Paul, newly in from the moor, looking his best, as a handsome man does, in his rough shooting-clothes. He had a tuft of white heather and stag-horn moss in one hand, and with a sudden impulse he held it out gaily to her.

"t.i.t-for-tat! you welcomed me here--though I never thanked you for so doing, did I? It is my turn now."

He had meant the offering for Violet Vane or Alice Woodward, whichever he met first, but now it seemed as if fate had sent it for Marjory and for no one else. He felt as if it were so, he looked as if it were so, and for the first time in her life Marjory felt an odd little thrill run through her veins.

"Thank you," she said soberly. "Yes! I did give it to you; so now we are quits--I mean," she corrected hastily, "that--that we are on the same footing."

There was quite a tremor in her voice, too, as, seeing Dr. Kennedy beside her, she turned to him quickly. "This is Captain Macleod, Tom;--he has been very kind to me."

In nine cases out of ten Paul Macleod on being introduced to a man belonging to a girl in Marjory's position, and, as it were, having a claim on her, would have been studiously, frigidly courteous, and no more; and so might have once and for all chilled Marjory's sudden confidence and relief in finding an old friend in her new environment; but it is difficult for an emotional man to be cold, when a sudden glow of content makes him feel absurdly happy. Consequently he went out of his way to be frank and kindly in expressing his pleasure at making the acquaintance of one of whom Miss Carmichael had so often spoken.

"In terms of reprobation, no doubt," replied Dr. Kennedy, lightly; "a guardian is a disagreeable appendage, though I try to be as little of a nuisance as I can."

"So do I," retorted Paul, with a smile; "but Miss Carmichael is so dreadfully hard to please."

As Dr. Kennedy's keen brown eyes took in the figure before him, he told himself that the girl must be hard indeed to please if she could find fault with it.

"That is the handsomest man I've seen for a long time," he said as they walked home. "What is he like inside?"

Marjory paused with her head on one side, considering. "Oh! nice in a way--the way of the world, I suppose, and I thought him nicer than ever to-day; being in his own house agrees with him. Oh, Tom! how I wish you hadn't accepted that invitation to dinner!"

Yet when she returned from the Big House, she had a little flush on her cheek, and when Dr. Kennedy challenged her to tell truth in answer to Mrs. Cameron's inquiry as to how she got on, she answered with a laugh and a nod: "Why not--it was rather interesting; quite an evolutionary process. Before I went I was protoplasmic--all in a jelly. Then at dinner we were all amoebic--digestive apparatus and nothing else. Afterwards, with the ladies, I felt like a worm, or a fish out of water. Then I wanted to have wings like a bird and fly away, but I couldn't, for the quadrumana appeared from the dining-room, and we all became apes!"

"What is the la.s.sie talking about?" put in Mrs. Cameron, with a toss of her head. "Can you no answer a straight question wi' a straight answer? What then, I say, what then?"

"Yes! what then, Marjory?" asked Tom Kennedy, quickly; he knew the answer, and yet he wanted to hear it from her lips, because it would satisfy him that so far he had been right.

"And then--why then I suppose I became a girl--at any rate I enjoyed it. They were all so kind, and Mrs. Vane--I suppose in your world, Tom, there are heaps of women like that?"

"Not many so charming," he answered heartily. In truth it had been very pleasant meeting her again after so many years; for a man, even when he is in love, or supposes himself to be in love, with one woman, is never proof against the pleasure of being made much of by another.

And Dr. Kennedy, with a quaint simplicity and wisdom, was perfectly aware of his own reputation as one of the boldest adventurers in new fields of discovery, and told himself that people made much of him for their own sake, and because he carried his restless energy with him into society as well as into his work. For energy is, as a rule, a G.o.dsend to _fin-de-siecle_ men and women. So the conceit of it slipped off him like water from a duck's back, leaving him free to take his world as he found it.

But Marjory felt once more the little chill of regret for the things she had not known in his life.

"There is one thing I forget to ask you," she said quickly. "Your name is not Alphonse, is it?"

"No! But she thought Tom unromantic, and so I promised to change my name if she changed hers."

"Men don't generally do as much as that," grumbled Will. "So they are going to have theatricals, are they? That means that all the horses will be dead lame, and the laird will be wanting more."

"How on earth do you make that out?" asked Dr. Kennedy.

"Women," said Will, laconically. "Something will always be wanted in a hurry, the telegraph station is ten miles off, and women seem to think a horse can change its legs when it comes home."

There was some truth in his remark during the next ten days. Gleneira House lived in a continual bustle which gave no time for thought, save, perhaps, to Mrs. Vane, who, busy as she was, found time to congratulate herself so far on the success of her plans; for Marjory and Paul had perforce to meet constantly, and more than once something occurred to encourage her belief that there was material for mischief ready to her hand if it was needed.

But other material came to light also, or so it seemed to her cynical experience; and the clue to it came one day when she and Marjory, who had grown keen, as was only natural, over the novelty of amus.e.m.e.nt, were searching through an old portfolio of Paul's sketches for hints likely to be of use for a drop scene.

It was nothing more than the portrait of a girl with a bunch of red rowans held up to her cheek.

"That is very well done, Paul," said Mrs. Vane, holding it up for him to see, as he stood a little way off. "Who was the beautiful model?"

He came over to her hastily. "Oh! no one you know; and it isn't really worth looking at. A wretched caricature--I did not know it was there."

Something in his voice roused the amused malice which always lurked behind Mrs. Vane's treatment of Paul's foibles.

"I disagree with you; look, Miss Carmichael! Don't you think that quite the best thing we have seen of Captain Macleod's doing?"

"It is a lovely face," said the girl, "and it reminds me of someone----"

Then she looked up in sudden interest. "Surely it is Paul--little Paul, I mean, Peggy Duncan's grandson; perhaps----" She stopped abruptly, remembering the big Paul's confession, and blushed, she scarcely knew why. Then, feeling vexed with herself for doing so, put down the sketch, and taking up another, made some trivial remark about its being very pretty. But Mrs. Vane had not done with the sketch.

"That Highland type of face----" she began.

"There is no need to theorise over the likeness in this case,"

interrupted Paul, seeing through her, as he nearly always did. "It was little Paul's mother; and as I think I told you once, Miss Carmichael, the most beautiful woman I ever saw. That is why I call it a caricature, Mrs. Vane."

The anger in his voice was not to be mistaken, and Marjory, as he moved away to resume his _tete-a-tete_ with Alice Woodward, was left with an uncomfortable feeling that she had somehow betrayed a secret, though her common, sense resented the imputation. But Mrs. Vane looked after his retreating figure with one of her fine smiles. So the memory of this particular most-beautiful-woman-in-the-world--there must have been a good many of them in Paul Macleod's life--was not pleasant to him. Wherefore? The question came quite idly, and pa.s.sed from her mind without an answer. Marjory, on the other hand, took hers--as to whether she was to blame or not--seriously to heart. So much so, that when she had speech with Paul alone, which occurred naturally enough when he brought her a cup of tea, as she sate st.i.tching away for dear life at some ridiculous theatrical property near the window, so as to get the full advantage of the waning light, she reverted to the subject at once.

"Don't," he interrupted hurriedly, almost before she had begun.

"Please don't; I would so much rather you said nothing more about it."