She kissed Rose like a dear old friend and sat right down with them all, as if she were one of them, and such a nice time as they had together! Jessie Galbraith felt that she would always count Lady Campbell as a personal friend after this. The lady drew her chair up to Grandmother’s and watched her knit, and then asked her to show her how to make that particular stitch, which was new to her. With her own hands Lady Campbell knit a round or two, just to be sure she would remember, and when she handed it back to the old lady, Grandmother said, “I shull never let John wear that sock. I shull always keep it tae show how Lady Cawmill knit in it hersel’!”
When she got up to go, she told them she was going back to London the next week to attend a big government affair, and she would like to take Rose and Kirsty with her to stay for a few days. She would like to take the girls around and show them a few sights in London. Perhaps they would catch a glimpse of Her Majesty the Queen, for she was to be in town.
The girls’ eyes glowed like two pairs of stars and they caught their breath in delight. Nothing like that had ever come to Kirsty, and as for Rose, she hadn’t ever expected any such greatness in her life.
“Mother?” said Kirsty in wonder. And Rose’s eyes turned toward her aunt with a question.
Jessie’s smiling eyes looked from one to the other girl and then beamed at Lady Campbell.
“That is a beautiful invaetation, Lady Cawmill, and I ken the twa lassies are verra gratefu’ tae ye. But I’m thinkin’ mayhap they’ve not the gairments tae wear, an’ fittin’ raiment. Rose might, as she came prepared for a holiday, but my Kirsty’s not sae well supplied, an’ mayhap I wudn have time tae remedy the lack.”
The girls gave a quick look at one another, Kirsty’s a withdrawing glance and Rose’s full of eagerness.
“Oh, Kirsty can have anything of mine she needs,” said Rose. “I haven’t much that’s grand, but Mother got me some pretty things before she went, and she would like me to share them. Kirsty and I are about the same size.”
“Dear children!” said Lady Campbell. “That is lovely! But I don’t think there will be any lack. And if there is, it will be my dear pleasure to supply it. You know I have no daughters of my own, and I have always wanted some. I shall be so glad if you will share your girls with me for a few days, Mrs. Galbraith. Just let them come with what they have, and if there are extra occasions, I can lend them anything they need. I have a whole wardrobe in my house of garments my nieces have left when they came up to London to stay over to some affair. So you needn’t worry. I’m sure we can fix them up if necessary. Don’t let clothes worry you for a minute! And now, that’s lovely, and I shall stop by for you early next week.”
They arranged the time and she drove away, leaving a much excited group in the cottage, the mother and grandmother no less pleased than were the girls.
And so it came about that early the next week when Lord MacCallummore returned insolently, he found Rose had gone up to London to Lady Campbell’s. And it happened that he knew who Lady Campbell’s husband was and what position he occupied in the government. He turned without a word to hurry back to his car, when up came Donald and David, those two stalwart young men, and met him face to face! Like a barrier they stood in his way.
“Is there aught I cud do for ye?” asked Donald, with the courtesy a better lord than MacCallummore might have shown.
And David squared his broad shoulders and scowled at the lord.
Lord MacCallummore’s light blue eyes showed fright like a runaway horse, and he said with a drawn attempt at a smile, “No thank you, I’m just going!” and strode down the walk and made quick his departure.
Chapter 17
When the girls got back from London they had many wonderful things to tell.
“Oh, Grandmither, it was sae wonderful!” cried Kirsty. “The palaces, the gardens, the towers. And Grandmither, the parties! It was grand! But the best of a’ we saw the Queen. Ah, but she’s bonnie! And Grandmither, she smiled at me! Of coorse she didna ken me at a’, but she lookit richt straight at me, and bowed and waved her dainty hand!”
The girls scarcely gave anyone else a chance to speak for days as they chattered on about their adventures.
Rose wrote to Gordon, a great fat letter, and there were a couple of paragraphs that Gordon read over and over thoughtfully:
And just think who we saw and heard in London! Our own wonderful preacher from the kirk here in Kilcreggan! It seems he spends most of the winter in London, where there is a conference place very much like the one here.
I think I shall never forget his talk last week. It was on “the power that worketh in us.”
He explained how God has an eternal purpose for His Son, and we (Christians) are all wrapped up in it. To fulfill it, He must fill us with Himself, and so conform every one of us to the image of His Son. His Holy Spirit is the power working in us.
He said we live too much in the realm we call “soul,” the realm of “feelings” and outside influences, the realm where all the fret and worry are, the moods, the forebodings; and we get to thinking that that realm is the only real solid one, and that we must stand or fall according to what happens there. But this realm is not the deepest thing in a child of God. There is something stronger, more lasting than all that: the power within all the members of the Body of Christ. That is more than sufficient to meet and overcome everything in us or outside us which is contrary to the Lord Jesus Christ.
His conclusion was that if we really believed all this we should not be occupied with ourselves, nor our moods. We should not even worry about our own imperfections, because God is surely going to fulfill His purpose by His power that worketh in us. All we need do is yield for Him to do it. And His purpose for us is that we should be conformed to the image of His Son.
This seemed to put Christian living in an entirely different light to me, and I am very thankful for that sermon. I do hope sometime you can hear him. I know you would see how helpful he is.
The rest of her letter dealt with the thrills of her trip to London, the celebration they attended, where they saw the King and Queen. She added a few shy thoughts of her own, how it would be when she someday saw the King of kings in His Glory. And then, just at the end she wrote,
It seems very wonderful to me that I am writing all my thoughts from the inside of my heart to you. I hope you won’t think me bold to do this. Just lay it down to the fact that I am greatly lonely at times, and that you are the one whom God sent to say a few pleasant words to me when I was leaving my own world behind and going to a strange land. And while I have found some very dear relatives and a few friends since, still I feel that you are linked to my old life in which my dear mother was with me. Even though you did not know her, she was the great thing in my young days, and you were a familiar sight every day in school all those years.
I really feel that you are very kind to continue this pleasant friendship, now, after those first few moments of my need are over, and it is a great pleasure to have someone outside of myself to talk to. I only hope I do not bore you too much.
Sincerely,
Rose
When Gordon McCarroll received that letter he was just starting for a weekend house party at the shore. One of his old friends from school had found out where he was in New York, and had called him up on the telephone, begging him to come, as she had an extra girl, and her brother whom she had expected was unavoidably detained by business. Would he be good enough to take her brother’s place at a last-minute call? Especially as it was only because she hadn’t known his address sooner that he had not been invited before.
Gordon hadn’t wanted to go. The friend was not a great favorite, and he was tired to death, for the week had been sultry and his work had been strenuous. But because the girl was so insistent he had finally said yes, and then discovered after he hung up that he had barely time to fling a few things into his suitcase and take a taxi to the train.
As he went out the door, he discovered quite a pile of letters
in the mailbox. He snatched them out and stuffed them into his pocket, too hurried to do more than glance at them. The one on the top was from his mother, he saw, as he tucked them away safely. He was pleased to reflect that he would have it to read on the train.
He was too anxiously busy watching traffic on the way to the station, wondering if he were going to make it in time, to look at his mail. He was getting the taxi fare ready, so that he would lose no time when he reached the station. And even at that he had to sprint to get to his train gate and down the stairs in time. He swung aboard at the last minute.
Then trains mountainward and seaward were full on Saturday afternoon always, and he had to walk through three cars before he sighted a vacant seat. He had asked for a chair as he passed the Pullman conductor, but that official shook his head decidedly. “No sir! Not a chair! All taken!” So Gordon made for the vacancy, scarcely glancing at the woman who sat by the window, her head bent, as she pushed a small overnight bag a little farther over.
“Is this seat taken?” he asked courteously, touching his hat. He glanced at the full rack overhead, noting there was no room for his suitcase. The lady looked up and then he heard his own name.
“Gordon McCarroll! How perfectly gorgeous! Where did you turn up from, and can it be that you and I are going to the same place? How perfectly spiffy!”
And there was Sydney Repplier!
Gordon was very much afraid his dismay showed in his face, but he tried to muster his courtesy and turn a light of welcome into his eyes.
“Why, Sydney! This is most unexpected! I thought you were already on the way to the Pacific. Wasn’t that what Mother wrote me last?”
“Oh, but I didn’t go!” said Sydney, moving over toward the window hospitably to make room for him. “Fran Tallant called me up and stopped me just in time. So I turned in my ticket and stayed over. Say, isn’t this perfectly spiffy, darling. You of all people! I thought you were so thoroughly engrossed in business that nobody could get anywhere near you. But luck does turn, doesn’t it? Do you know, there isn’t another soul I’d have been as pleased to find sitting down with me as you. It quite makes up for not being able to get a chair. It will be a consolation for having to travel with the angry mob. Are you really going to Silver Beach? Great day!”
Gordon swung his suitcase down in the aisle close to the seat and sat down, firmly endeavoring to adjust the disappointment in his face. He knew that courtesy demanded that he should say the idea was mutual or words to that effect, but he couldn’t lie.
“Well, that’s kind of you,” he said amusedly. “And do you mean that you are going to Fran Tallant’s? Well, now, that’s odd, isn’t it? And it isn’t anything that I expected to do, either. I had just come in from a hard week’s work and Fran called me up and said her brother had failed her and wouldn’t I come. She didn’t know who else she could reach in time. I tried to beg off, for I was worn to a frazzle, but she pleaded so hard I finally said yes, and then had to rush to get the train. If I’d missed it, I would have had to send a telegram instead of going, for I understand this is the last train out there tonight.”
“Yes, so they told me. But say, isn’t it grand you didn’t miss it? I never met Fran’s brother, and it will be darling to have an old friend instead to sport around with.”
She gave him an adoring look. She had evidently taken up a new line, and she no longer attempted to tell him all she knew. That line had failed with him, and she was wise enough to try another.
“Gordon, do you know, your mother was perfectly sweet to me. She took me up to New York and did her best to interest me in the musician of whom I had been told such great things. But he turned out to be rather a flat tire, and I couldn’t see being under him all winter in a strange city, so I decided to have a really good time while I was east, and just leave myself free to go anywhere. And that’s what I’m doing now. And to think my first date led me to an old friend! How wonderful!”
She edged nearer to him. He could smell the fragrance of the perfume she was using. Not bad! Sweet and subdued and refined. Her dress, too, was most attractive. And she was wearing the prettiest transparent gloves of delicate mesh that gave her hands a most alluring look. A couple of diamonds she was wearing sparkled deliciously through the white meshes, and her little wristwatch, delicately encircled with more small but perfect diamonds, made the hand a lovely thing to contemplate. Once the little hand flashed over to his in a beautiful gesture, not exactly shy, but very frank and free.
“Gordon, do you know you have the darlingest mother?” she said in a low, earnest tone, with a warm pressure of that meshed bejeweled hand on his.
He smiled and looked down at the little hand, half annoyed, half surprised. This wasn’t like the former Sydney, this confiding childlikeness. He wanted to get away from her hand, yet not too obviously. He didn’t like to be stirred by a warm, well-tended little hand like that. And yet was he a fool? He didn’t really belong to anyone else, and he mustn’t hurt this girl. Perhaps he had misjudged her. After all, hadn’t his mother sort of wished her on him once? Maybe Mother was keener than he was. For Mother’s sake, he mustn’t hurt her.
“Oh yes,” he answered quickly, “She’s a peach of a mother.” And then, “Excuse me,” he said suddenly, “I’ve just remembered something. Some important papers. I wonder if I’ve left them behind me in my hurry. If I have, I shall have to get off at the next station and go back, for I can’t risk losing them.”
He went wildly feeling through his pockets, and suddenly came upon the little sheaf of letters in the outside pocket next the aisle, the letter he had entirely forgotten. His mother’s letter! And now there wouldn’t be any chance to read it, as he had hoped. His mother’s letters were always a delight, but he didn’t like to share them with strangers.
He took the bunch of letters out of his pocket and ran them through lightly, as if he were hunting for some special paper, and it was then he saw Rose’s letter, hidden between a business letter and his mother’s. The sight of it and the touch of it thrilled him, as no dainty diamond-studded hand could do.
“Oh!” he said, shuffling the letters together and covering them deftly with his hand as he stuffed them into his inner pocket where they seemed to warm his tired heart. “Now I remember where I put it.”
“Have you found it?” asked Sydney eagerly. “You don’t have to go back, do you? Because you couldn’t anyway. This train is an express and doesn’t stop till we get to Silver Beach. What was it that was so important? Couldn’t it wait till Monday morning? It’s horrid that you have to be tied so to business. You don’t seem like a businessman to me. You ought to be having a good time. You’re too young to settle down to business. What was your old paper anyway, that was so important?”
“Just something that I was afraid I had mislaid, something I was entrusted with that I couldn’t leave around for others to see.” Gordon was half musing as he spoke. Speaking in parables with a double meaning for his own soul. For the thing that he had really been afraid of losing, he told his own heart as he talked, was the precious loyalty that belonged to a kiss he had once given almost casually, a kiss that he found later had been real. And that little hand laid on his, those large handsome eyes looking warmly into his eyes had been reaching out for his fleshly soul and trying to seize that loyalty of his for their own. But he was glad beyond anything, with a great relief, that he had drawn away from that detaining little hand, and could now feel the letter over his heart. Perhaps he was being dramatic, but it seemed to him that that letter had come just in time to bring him to himself, before he dallied with a situation that would have always brought him a memory of weakness. He didn’t want to have such memories in his life. They would seem to discount the memory of that kiss on shipboard. It had lived already too long in his heart for him to dishonor it now, even by a passing sensation that belonged to a girl he did not love. If he had wondered but a moment since whether she could ever become one whom he could love, he had no doubt about it now. He
felt that Rose had come, with a look of her clear blue eyes, to make him sure that he wanted no girl like this one beside him.
“By the way,” he said animatedly, suddenly rousing himself to distract her attention from the paper he had professed to lose, “have you ever been down to this house at Silver Beach? Do you know what an altogether delightful place it is? You know it is built practically out on the water, at the end of a long, wide pier. And when there is a storm at sea the beauty is wild, tempestuous. You feel as if you were on a ship and about to go down.”
“Oh, horrid! I shouldn’t like that. Do you mean we’ll be in a place like that tonight? Now you’ve spoiled the whole thing for me. I shan’t sleep a wink tonight, thinking of a possible storm.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t anyway, with all the jamboree they’ll have going on. They always have a good time, lots of fun and frolic for those who like it.”
“But don’t you like it?”
“Well, some of it, but most of it is too sophisticated. I can’t say I’m fond of the modern world. And besides, I’m tired as the dickens after the heat and the hard work of the week.”
“You poor thing!” pitied Sydney. “Why can’t we go out in the woods? Aren’t there woods around there? It seems to me I’ve heard that.”
“There are trees, yes, and a lovely garden built on the pier, and quiet places here and there. Sometimes moonlight on the sea. But you seldom see much of it at such affairs. There’s too much else going on. I fancy you’ll find that out as soon as you get there.”
“Oh Gordon! You’re spoiling it all! And I thought we were to have such a wonderful time among the pines or something like that. But darling, couldn’t you and I wander off and have a quiet restful talk together? That’s just what I’m longing for.”
“Try and do it!” laughed Gordon. “You’ll probably find that everybody else would rather wander off with us. Besides, if I should go where it’s quiet, I’d probably fall asleep, I’m that weary. But don’t you worry. You’ll find something pleasant for every hour of the day and night. Do you play tennis? They have a wonderful tennis court, and a swimming pool. Isn’t that odd, a swimming pool right out above the ocean. Me, I’d much rather have the real ocean than to have it piped through a line and put in a painted pool. However, everything there is odd as it can be, and of course delightful. I’m told there is a very fine collection of Chinese pottery there that the uncle has just brought home from China. He’s quite a collector. Are you much up on that sort of thing? You’ve studied so many odd subjects, have you ever looked into that?”