Part 13 (1/2)
”I thought you trusted me as I trusted you,” was the only answer Mr.
Somerled condescended to make.
Suddenly I saw myself a selfish pig. ”I do trust you,” I insisted. ”But I _ought_ to want to go back of my own accord, rather than let you give up--things--for me. I'm nothing to you----”
”You're Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald's daughter, and--er--a fellow-being.”
”If it comes to that, I suppose a worm's a fellow-being. But this worm has turned, and would as soon cross the path of a perfectly ravenous early bird as go to its grandmother. So I won't do that, even for your sake, though you've been so kind; but I wish you'd drop me at the station where you found me, and let me travel to Edinburgh by train. I can wait there for mother----”
”Nonsense!” he broke in; a word he seems devoted to, as he has already used it several times to pound down some suggestion of mine as if he were breaking it with a hammer. He has the air of a man used to getting his own way with the world, anyhow with women, and I can't think it good for him; though Mrs. West's one idea apparently is to do what will please him, not fussily, but gently and sweetly; so that must be what men like. I should pity him if he lived with Grandma! I suppose it is my living with her for so long which makes me feel like going against strong, dictatorial people, just to see what they will do. With him, that plan would be exciting. It is ungrateful of me, but I long to contradict him about something, it doesn't matter what, and try my naughty little strength against his, like a headstrong, conceited mouse pitting itself against a lion.
I had no inclination to contradict or fight with Mr. Norman. But he has pathetic, wistful eyes, asking for kindness, whereas Mr. Somerled's look bored with things, as if he needed waking up.
I thought these thoughts while he went on to remind me more gently, that he'd promised to motor me to Edinburgh, and that he had quite a strong weakness for not breaking promises.
”But I give you back this one unbroken, not even cracked,” said I. ”So that's different.”
”I don't choose to take it back,” said he. ”You'll humiliate me if you refuse to go to Edinburgh in my car--with a competent chaperon, of course.”
”A chaperon! My gracious!” I couldn't help laughing. ”Aren't you chaperon enough--a great big, grown-up man?”
”I suppose you think me very old,” said he; ”and so I am, compared to you; but I'm afraid--no, I'm _not_ afraid--to tell you the truth, I'm extremely glad that I haven't come yet to the chaperon age.”
”What is the chaperon age for a man?” I inquired.
”Seventy.”
”And you won't be that for a long time,” I added dreamily, wondering how old he really was.
For an instant his eyes waked up thoroughly, and he looked as if he were in a fury; then he burst out laughing. But his brown face was rather red when he asked if I would mind mentioning my honest impression of his age.
I thought a minute, and then said that perhaps he might be--well, nearly thirty. He laughed again, and seemed relieved, but wanted to know if thirty struck me as old or young. I didn't know what to answer, not to be impolite, so I said presently that I had always thought of thirty as being the year when you were not middle-aged yet, though anything that happened to you _after_ your thirtieth birthday couldn't matter.
”Still,” I went on, ”you look young. Only, there's something important and decided about you, as if you must have been grown up for a long time.”
”Not to deceive you, I'm thirty-four,” he said. ”Now, no doubt, you'll consider me a sort of Ancient Mariner. Perhaps that's all the better.”
”Looking at you, I can't, even if it would be better,” I had to confess.
”You're so alive--so strong, so--almost violent. I can't somehow imagine that you've ever been younger, or that you can ever grow older.”
Just then, when we'd forgotten the chaperon part of our conversation, the car slowed down and Vedder made a kind of signal of distress. Mr.
Somerled put his head out through the open window, whereupon I think Vedder must have reminded him that we were coming into town, wanting to know what he was to do next. In came Mr. Somerled's smooth black head again, and he glared at me in a kind of amused desperation. ”You must know some one who would act as your chaperon for a few days, at a good salary--sent home by train when we'd done with her. That ex-governess or nurse of yours, you told me about.”
”Oh, Heppie wouldn't be found _dead_ leaving Grandma,” said I. ”Not that she loves her. Neither does a mouse love a cat, when it won't try to escape. It keeps running back and being polite with its eyes bulging out.”
”There must be somebody else. Think. Has your grandmother any friends?”
”Dear me, no. She'd scorn it. Only a few acquaintances and a relation or two, whom she snubs when they come to see her and scolds if they don't.
They wouldn't--but, oh, perhaps Mrs. James _might_. I wonder?”
”Where does Mrs. James live?”