Part 14 (1/2)
I explained everything, talking so fast that I got out of breath, while Mr. Somerled walked round the room looking at the curiosities. I was glad no customers came in to interrupt; but luckily there wasn't much danger at that hour, as it wasn't yet half-past two, and people had scarcely finished their luncheons. As I talked, she gave little exclamations almost like the cooing of a dove; and the most desperate thing in our story seemed to be, in her opinion, the fact that we hadn't lunched.
She insisted on giving us eggs and apple-tart and coffee in her own dining-room, and she let us come into the kitchen and help cook. Mr.
Somerled looked quite young and boyish. We all three laughed a good deal. Not a word did Mr. Somerled say about my going to Edinburgh or the chaperon business until we'd finished our picnic meal, and he had selected several of the best and most expensive things in the shop for himself. After that, how could Mrs. James refuse him what he called ”a great favour” even if she'd wished to say no, which she didn't. On the contrary, she was enchanted. Everything had worked together to make her going possible. The curate had gone off for a holiday, giving her permission to use his two rooms if she liked. I could have them till we started; and she would ask a friend from next door to attend to the shop, a nice girl who often helped her, if she were ill or had to go away on a ”curiosity quest.” ”Just think!” she exclaimed, ”I've never been to Scotland, though it's only eight miles distant, and I've pined to go all my life. You'll find that I've a good book-knowledge of the country, if that's any use, for my dear husband's favourite pastime has been the study of history. Since he--left Carlisle, I've devoted much time to following his researches.”
The long words do come so nicely from her pretty little mouth, and she shapes them with such care, that they seem to issue forth one by one like neatly formed birds being let out of a cage. She is making a speciality of p.r.o.nunciation, and what she sometimes speaks of as ”refined wording.” She was a farmer's daughter in Devons.h.i.+re.
It was arranged that the girl from next door should be called in at once, in order that Mrs. James and I might go and buy things. I was rich on the proceeds of the brooch; for Mr. Somerled counted out the rest of the money on the parlour table; and Mrs. James abetted him in saying that fifty pounds was not a penny too much to lend on such a treasure.
But it does seem wonderful! Mrs. James herself must have felt flush after making such good sales, and her eyes lit at the thought of a motor hat and coat--they seemed exciting purchases. But when Mr. Somerled mentioned the fact that mother is one of the best-dressed women in the world, the little woman looked frightened. ”I shan't dare take the responsibility of choosing an outfit for the child, then,” said she nervously. (I do wish people wouldn't call me ”child,” though it's nicer from Mrs. James than Mrs. West!) ”Supposing she shouldn't make the correct impression? Won't you be persuaded to help us, sir, with your advice about the most important articles?”
Somehow I feel that Mr. Somerled hates ”sir” as much as I hate ”child.”
I expected him to make an excuse, that he knew nothing about such things--or ”articles,” according to Mrs. James. But instead, he snapped at the suggestion and looked as pleased as Punch. I suppose he doesn't want me to be a fright and disgrace his car on the journey.
When Miss Hubbell had come in from the next house, smelling of some lovely sort of jam which she and her mother had been making, off we three went in the gray automobile, Mrs. James trying not to look self-conscious and proud, nor to give little jumps and gasps when she thought we were going to run over creatures.
It is many years since she has been to London. I think she was there on her wedding trip and never since: and besides that expedition, Exeter and Carlisle are her two largest cities: but, in order to impress the great artist, she patronized Carlisle, saying we ”mustn't hope for London shops.” I longed to catch his eye, because I'm sure he sees everything that is funny; but it would have been horrid to laugh at the kind darling, trying to be a woman of the world.
In the end, it was Mr. Somerled and I who chose everything, even Mrs.
James's motor coat and hat, for she was too timid to decide; and if she had decided, it would have been to select all the wrong things. I had to get my dresses ready-made, because of starting for Scotland next morning, and it was funny to see how difficult Mr. Somerled was to please. One would have thought he took a real interest in my clothes; but of course it was owing to his artistic nature. We found a blue serge--I wouldn't have believed, after my deadly experience, that blue serge could be so pretty--and a coat and skirt of creamy cloth; and an evening frock of white chiffon, I think the girl called it. Actually it has short sleeves above my elbows, and quite a low neck, that shows where my collar-bone used to be when I was thinner than I am now. It seems an epoch to have a dress like that. It was Mr. Somerled who picked it out from among others, and insisted on my having it, though, simple as it looked, it was terribly expensive. Mrs. James thought I couldn't afford it, as I had so many things to do with my fifty pounds, but Mr.
Somerled brushed aside her objections in that determined way he has even in little things. He said that it would be money in his pocket, as an artist, to paint me in this gown; and that I must sit for him in it. He would call his picture ”The Girl in the White Dress”; and as he'd show it in London and New York and get a big price, of course he must be allowed to pay for the dress. Mrs. James seemed doubtful about the propriety, but he drew his black eyebrows together, and that made her instantly quite sure he must be right. When she'd agreed to my having the dress on those terms, she couldn't--as he said--stick at a mere hat, so he bought me a lovely one to wear with the creamy cloth. He suggested that I should keep it in the ”tire box” while motoring--a huge round thing on the top of the car.
”It is just like having a kind uncle, isn't it, my dear?” asked Mrs.
James. But I didn't feel that Mr. Somerled was the sort of man I could _ever_ think of as a kind uncle, and I said so before I'd stopped to wonder if it sounded rude. Luckily he didn't seem offended.
I am writing this in the curate's sitting-room upstairs in Mrs. James's house. It is night, and we are to start to-morrow morning very early, because I happened to mention that I'd never seen the inside of Carlisle Castle, or put my nose into the Cathedral. Grandma does not approve of cathedrals, and their being historic makes no difference. Mr. Somerled said that we could visit both, and then ”slip over the border.” Oh, that border! How I have thought of it, as if it were the door of Romance; and so it is, because it is the door of Scotland. I am afraid it must be a dream that I shall cross at last, to see the glories on the other side, and find the lovely lady who to me is Queen of all Romance--my mother.
Still, I've pinched myself several times, and instead of waking up in my old room at Hillard House each time I've found myself with my eyes staring wide open, in the curate's room, which has a lot of books in it and a smell of tobacco smoke, and on the mantelpiece Mrs. James's wedding wreath as an ornament under a gla.s.s case.
Mr. Somerled has gone to a hotel; but he stayed to supper with us, and Mrs. James brought out all her nicest things. It was much pleasanter than supper last night at Moorhill Farm, though Mrs. West had lovely things to eat. I am glad I shall never see Moore again! But I should like to see Mr. Norman. I could feel toward him as if he were a brother.
But I don't know what to say about my feeling toward Mr. Somerled. I think of him as of a knight, come to the rescue of a forlorn damsel in an enchanted forest. After delivering the damsel from one dragon--Grandma--he is going to take her away with another quite different sort of a dragon; a well-trained, winged dragon, which people who don't know any better believe to be only a motor-car.
II
I don't know how I dared with such a man, but I talked foolish fairy talk to Mr. Somerled, _alias_ the Knight, this morning, and he answered gravely in the same language. I should be doing him a great service, he said, if I could lead him back to fairyland, because he used to know the way, but had lost it long ago. He had given up the hope of finding it again, and until the other day had feared that all the fairies were dead.
”If you find fairyland, it ought to be while the heather moon s.h.i.+nes,” I told him. ”But I shan't have much time to help you look for it, because in five days you'll be leaving me with mother, and travelling on alone.
You must search for the key to the rainbow wherever you go; because, you know, it might be _anywhere_, and the light of the heather moon would show it gleaming in the gra.s.s, or under a flower, or even in the middle of the road before your eyes.”
He looked at me in an odd, almost wistful way, and I couldn't look away from him, though I wanted to, for it was as if he were reading my inmost Me--using my eyes for windows, of which I couldn't draw the curtains.
”_You_ might find the key, if you haven't got it already,” he said.
”Anyhow, I can't find it without your help, But no matter. Perhaps I shouldn't know what to do with it if I did, now I've grown old and disillusioned.”
Then I answered, because I couldn't help it under the spell of his eyes.
”You're not old or disillusioned. You're a Knight: and knights who rescue damsels are always young and brave.”
Before I saw him, if any one had told me a person of over thirty was not middle-aged, I should have thought it nonsense. But now I see that even _thirty-four_ is not old. It seems exactly the right age for a man.
”If you dub me Knight, I christen you Princess,” said he, laughing as if embarra.s.sed, yet pleased. ”Because, I confess I wandered near enough to the border last night, to think of you as a princess who'd been shut up in a gla.s.s retort, as all really nice princesses were in my day, in fairyland. Now the retort has been opened, though the princess believed it to be hermetically sealed----”