Rose Galbraith

  They rose from their knees, strengthened in might and gentled in spirit, and went at the various pleasant tasks that were reserved for the evening hour together.

  But none of them thought to ask Donald what his business letter had been about, and it had gone on its way to Edinburgh.

  Chapter 9

  Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, and for a moment Rose could not remember where she was. Not at home in Shandon! Not on the ship!

  And then she caught a glimpse of the grim stone of the castle and she knew. Her heart went down, down! Somehow she must get away from here as soon as she decently could. That was her first conscious conviction.

  And yet, as she went back over that conversation she had overheard so involuntarily, it did not seem so very dreadful as it had the night before. Not dreadful enough for her to throw her baggage out the castle window and risk losing it. Not dreadful enough to do something desperate and lose the little friendliness she had already gained.

  Oh, of course, she would need to be exceedingly cautious. She would need to beware of the young Lord MacCallummore and her mercenary uncle. She must absolutely refuse to have anything to do with the young man beyond being merely courteous, but surely that would not be hard to do, not in broad daylight, in the presence of her aunt and uncle.

  She lay still a few minutes, trying to think her way ahead. She must have a talk with her aunt as soon as possible, and tell her that she could not stay, that she had promised to go to her grandmother. And yet, perhaps her going there was going to be made very hard for her. If they still carried on the feud in their hearts—and it had seemed yesterday as if they did from what they had said about the name Rose—they might even go so far as to try forcibly to prevent her from going.

  But a glance at her little watch sent her quickly into action. It was almost time for breakfast, and she was not up yet. She rose hastily and got ready quickly, putting on a sober little dark blue silk with white collars and cuffs. There was a little jacket made of the same, and a small stitched hat that her mother had cleverly fashioned from the pieces of silk left over from the dress. Her mother had said it would be suitable for church in the city, she thought. Not a word had been said about church as yet, but she assumed that there would be. Her mother had thought that her sister kept up the ancient family custom of attendance upon divine service, at least in the morning. So Rose went downstairs properly clad for whatever the day might bring forth.

  The aunt and uncle met her rather formally, but with far more apparent interest and kindliness than the day before. Rose felt that the fact that she could play the piano and the possibility that she might be possessed of some unexpected money had made the difference.

  While they were still at the breakfast table the old clock in the hall chimed out the hour, and Rose looked up and asked pleasantly, “What is the hour of your church service, Aunt Janet?”

  The aunt was evidently taken by surprise at the question.

  “Oh, would you care to go to church?” she asked, as if the idea hadn’t occurred to her before.

  “Why, yes,” said Rose brightly, “that is, if you were going anyway. I don’t want to make you any trouble to take me there.”

  “Oh, of course, if you want to go,” her aunt said quickly.

  “Lord MacCallummore would have been very glad to escort her to church, I am sure,” put in the uncle. “I could send the butler over to inform him that our niece would like to attend divine service and that you are not feeling well this morning, Janet. There is plenty of time for him to come for her. He asked me last night if there was anything he could do to help us entertain our guest.”

  “Oh, no, please don’t trouble him, Uncle Robert!” put in Rose quickly. “If Aunt Janet does not feel like going this morning, I would far rather stay here with her.”

  “I assure you it will be no trouble whatever for Lord MacCallummore to take you. He is anxious to serve in some way and I am sure nothing could please him more.”

  Rose felt her heart beat suddenly with a frightened rapidity, and her voice pulsed in her throat so that she was almost short of breath, but she managed a firm tone.

  “No, Uncle Robert! I would not care to go with Lord MacCallummore. I have no interest in him whatever, and I have so little time to be here that I would far rather stay in the castle than go to church with a stranger. Please excuse me.”

  Suddenly her aunt spoke.

  “I think I shall go, Robert. You had better come too. Our niece will like to sit in the old pew where her mother used to sit as a child. There will be a number of people there who will remember her mother, of course. Then we can bring Lord MacCallummore home with us to dinner, and he can carry out his suggestion of taking her to ride. He would take you to his father’s castle, I suppose, where your mother often went when she was a child. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Rose’s heart sank. Her eyes grew troubled.

  “No, Aunt Janet, I don’t think I would care to go there. My mother has told me about it, but I do not think she would care to have me go there. Thank you, no, I would rather stay with you!”

  “But that is nonsense!” said her uncle with irritation. “The MacCullummores are our friends, and if you stay here with us they will expect you to be friendly also. We cannot permit you to be rude to our intimate friends.”

  “Besides,” said her aunt decidedly, “it is wicked to carry on old feuds. I am surprised that your mother was so unchristian as to give you such an impression of a family that has been friendly with her family through the years. You will, while you are here, put all such ideas out of your mind. Your mother is dead now and is not the one to decide anymore what you shall do. We are your natural guardians, and I intend to see that you meet the right people and do the things that carry out your family traditions. Now, if we are going to church, it is time for us to go upstairs and get ready. I shall expect you to be down here, Margaret, in just an hour, and Robert, you can give orders for the car to be at the door then.”

  Primly she stood aside at the foot of the stairs and motioned Rose to go on up to her room. Rose, as she climbed up the grim castle stairs again, had a feeling that behind her back her aunt and uncle were exchanging confidences about her. So she went slowly up, with trouble in her eyes, and when she reached her room she went to her knees again.

  “Dear Father,” she prayed, “please take care of this for me. Don’t let me have to go anywhere or do anything with that MacCallummore man, please, dear Lord.”

  When she arose she looked about her with eyes that were touched with peace again. Now she mustn’t just sit here and brood over this thing. She had given it into God’s hands, and that was all there was to do at present. Should she find a book to read? Or should she write a letter?

  Then suddenly the memory of Gordon McCarroll came to her mind. He had asked her to write at once, as soon as she reached her first stopping place. This was the first opportunity she had had, except those very first few minutes, and then she hadn’t got her bearings yet to know what to tell him.

  But now it came to her as a pleasant task. She could write and have the letter ready to mail tomorrow if there came opportunity. So she got out her paper and pen and sat down at the quaint old desk.

  Dear friend,

  she wrote, and smiled to think she had a right to call him her friend. She paused to look thoughtfully down at the paper with a little frown, and then wrote rapidly.

  I reached here late yesterday after a comfortable voyage. I find things strange and not altogether as I had hoped.

  I am in a great old castle, like those we used to read about in the old Scotch novels in lit class. It is very grim and awesome, and I feel as if I were somebody else every time I look around on the old stone walls and see the old-time furniture. I can’t help being interested in it all, but somehow I don’t feel at home, and I don’t think I shall stay here very long.

  My mother’s sister and her husband never knew my father, and they did not want my mother to marry
him, so they have no sympathy with things that are dear to me. I would not have come here, only my mother wanted me to meet them. But they are very formal, rather worldly people, so I think I shall try to get away soon and go to my father’s family.

  My voyage over was very pleasant, and I did get acquainted with a few people. One woman, Lady Campbell, was very kind and has invited me to visit her in London. Her husband has something to do with the English government. She came and sat by me one day on the deck and said that I looked like an old school friend of hers. It turned out that her old friend was my own Aunt Rose Galbraith, who is married and lives in Australia. I thought that was rather a wonderful thing to happen, and we got to be very dear friends indeed before we landed.

  It seems as if God has just been taking care of me on this trip and making things nice for me. At least until I came here to the castle. And yet even here there is one nice thing, my dear mother’s girlhood picture, painted by a famous artist! I would have been willing to suffer a great many hardships just for the privilege of seeing that. And standing just below that lovely picture is my mother’s piano. They have kept it tuned all these years and they let me play on it for a long time.

  It was very nice of you to ask me to write when I got here. It makes me feel as if I had a native country and a home and someone who is friendly over there. Thank you, too, for the delightful message you sent to the ship.

  I hope everything is going well with you and that nice things will come to you every day.

  With all best wishes,

  Your friend,

  Rose Galbraith

  She had become so absorbed in her letter that she had forgotten about watching the hour. She had just sealed and addressed her letter when Maggie tapped at her door and told her the car was waiting below and her aunt wished her to come at once.

  With a startled look at the clock, Rose rushed for her hat and jacket and gloves, and putting her letter away in her suitcase, hurried down the stairs to find her aunt and uncle grimly waiting for her in the hall.

  The drive to church was most intriguing, down the winding way to the valley, and over a charming road through the village.

  They stopped before an old stone church, fascinating inside and out, a quaint gem of the old world.

  “Was this the church my mother used to attend?” she asked her aunt as they got out of the car and went up the path to the door.

  Her aunt answered grimly, “Yes, it was!” as if somehow the fact were condemnatory, as if a person who had been privileged to attend that old historic church were a criminal indeed to have alienated her family and married an unknown man, and as if this Rose were, at least in part, responsible for it all.

  But the service was quite formal and not at all the sweet informal gathering of the little chapel where she and her mother had worshipped in Shandon, and Rose was homesick indeed for the worship to which she was accustomed. Oh, was it just because she felt strange that it did not seem as if God were there? Or, if He was there He seemed so far away? Not the dear heavenly Father she knew so well?

  She had not been seated long before she discovered Lord MacCallummore among the worshipers, sitting pompously in a pew a little to one side and in front of them. In that quick glance before she recognized him, it struck her that he had eyes and a mouth like a fish. Then, as he turned his cold fishy eyes in her direction, she suddenly knew him and quickly looked away to the other side of the church. But she could not get away from the fact of his presence there, and more and more her thoughts were turned from worship and filled with anxiety. Now he would be coming home with them to dinner, perhaps, and she would have to talk with him. At least answer his questions if he spoke to her. And how could she do that with the memory of his cold, unfeeling words that she had heard the night before? Oh, it was all terrible, and how was she going to get through that dinner and those trying hours that would follow? And how could she plan to get quickly away from this troublesome place? She simply couldn’t stay here and let her uncle carry on negotiations for her that she would never be willing to carry out. She must get away as soon as possible and yet do it in a way that would not look as if she understood what they were trying to do.

  So she began to pray. When the heads were all bowed, she bent hers and closed her eyes and prayed in her heart that she might be able to trust all this to her Lord and that she might be guided in what she should do and say. When they were singing and listening to the sermon, still she prayed in her heart.

  And now and then her thoughts turned to Gordon McCarroll. He was her friend, and it would be so nice to be able to tell him everything about her life and ask his advice about some things, but of course this was something she could never write about, and it wasn’t in the least likely she would ever be able to tell her troubles to him, or anybody like him. She would just have to realize that the Lord was her only confidant. He was her stay, as the lesson read from the pulpit was saying. “The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.”

  So, between prayer and the sweet repetition of God’s Word in her heart, Rose was comforted and put at her ease, so that she was able to smile sweetly on the way home and respond pleasantly whenever she was addressed.

  Not that she was addressed frequently. Her aunt had paused for an instant as they came out of the pew and indicated to Rose where her mother used to sit when she was a little girl, right beside their mother, who was very particular about her behavior in church and would never allow so much as a paper and pencil to help her while away the long sermon time. Aunt Janet seemed to consider that a great virtue, but to Rose it seemed the very essence of the hardness of that grandmother’s nature, as manifested afterward in the way she treated her child when she was grown. Not that Rose’s mother had ever said anything of this to Rose, but when she had mentioned her mother she had often sighed and said, “My mother was a very serious woman! She felt that a child should always obey her parents, no matter how old she grew.” That was as near to criticizing her mother as Margaret Galbraith had ever come.

  On the way back to the castle after church was over, Lord MacCallummore turned to Rose several times politely and pointed out places of interest.

  “Over that way are lakes. The scenery is generally supposed to be among the most beautiful in the world. I’ll be pleased to take you for a drive and show it to you while you are here.”

  Rose’s heart leaped up into her throat almost with fright at the idea. She didn’t understand why it was that this man frightened her so greatly. He was just a man, of course, and seemed rather courteous at that. But the story of the way his father had fairly pursued her mother to make her marry him hovered in the background for her, and spoiled all possibility of her seeing anything sincerely friendly in his attitude. Also, she could hear his cold voice asking about her supposed fortune the night before.

  “My father and mother are planning to ask you all to dine with us some day this week,” he was saying when Rose suddenly came back from her thoughts and gave attention. “I suggested Tuesday night,” he went on, “if that would be convenient to you?” He turned to Lady Warloch, as if it were only a form, his asking her. Exactly as if he knew perfectly well that Lord Warloch would settle the matter himself.

  “Of course they could make it Wednesday if that suited you better, Lady Warloch?”

  Aunt Janet nodded her head noncommittally, but Lord Warloch said in his cold voice, “Better make it Wednesday, Janet. I have an appointment on Tuesday that may keep me rather late for a dinner engagement.”

  Rose drew a deep breath of relief. Two days more of grace before that would have to come, and almost anything could happen in two days when her Lord was in command.

  She got out of the car at the castle and sped up to her room as fast as she could. Dinner would be announced presently, and she did not want to leave time for talk wi
th the young lord. Something would have to be done, too, about that promise he had made to take her riding some time. She couldn’t go driving with him! She couldn’t! She wouldn’t! She knew now just how her mother had felt when she ran away with her father. Only there was no lover for her to run away with now, no one to defend her and protect her. She had to be on her own!

  But no, that was not so! The Lord was her defense and her protector, and what could the Lord not do?

  After she had smoothed her hair and taken as much time as she dared in her room, she dropped down beside her bed again for just an instant.

  “Oh, Lord, You won’t forget that I’ve nobody else to help me, will You? You will take care of me and help me in all the trying places! Please! I’m depending on You!”

  Then she went down to whatever the rest of the day had in store for her.

  It was after the lengthy dinner had drawn to an end and they were rising from the table that Lord MacCallummore turned to her.

  “And now, Miss Margaret,” he said, “would you like to drive with me? I think I can show you some scenery whose equal you do not have in America.”

  She looked at him with a smile of kindly distance.