Part 54 (1/2)
”Hae ye the spare room ready, Emma?”
”Yes, ma'am,” said the maid.
”And the sheets done airing? And baith the pillows? And the pillow-slips--and everything finished?”
The maid was answering ”Yes” to each of these questions when a hansom cab came rattling up to the front of the house, and the old lady leaped out of her seat.
”It's himself!” she cried, and she ran like a girl to the hall.
The door had been opened before she got there, and a deep voice was saying, ”Is Mrs. Callender----”
”It's John! My gracious! It's John Storm!” the old woman cried, and she lifted both hands as if to fling herself into his arms.
”My guidness, laddie, but you gave poor auld Jane sic a start! Expected ye? To be sure we expected you, and terribly thrang we've been all morning making ready. Only my daft auld brain must have been a wee ajee.
But,” smiling through her tears, ”has a body never a cheek, that you must be kissing at her hand? And is this your dog?” looking down at the bloodhound. ”Welcome? Why, of course it's welcome. What was I saying the day, Emma? 'I'd like fine to have a dog,' didn't I? and here it is to our hand.--Away with ye, James, man, and show Mr. Storm to his room, and then find a bed for the creature somewhere. Letters for ye, laddie?
Letters enough, and you'll find them on the table upstairs. Only, mind ye, the lunch is ready, and your fish is getting cold.”
John Storm opened his letters in his room. One of them was from his uncle, the Prime Minister: ”I rejoice to hear of your most sensible resolution. Come and dine with me at Downing Street this day week at seven o'clock. I have much to say and much to ask, and I expect to be quite alone.”
Another was from his father: ”I am not surprised at your intelligence, but if anything could exceed the folly of going into a monastery it is the imbecility of coming out of it. The former appears to be a subject of common talk in this island already, and no doubt the latter will soon be so.”
John flinched as at a cut across the face and then smiled a smile of relief. Apparently Glory was writing home wherever she was, and there was good news in that, at all events. He went downstairs.
”Come your way in, laddie, and let me look at ye again. Man, but your face is pale and your bonnie eyes are that sunken. But sit ye down and eat. They've been starving ye, I'm thinking, and miscalling it religion.
It's enough to drive a reasonable body to drink. Carnal I am, laddie, and I just want to put some flesh on your bones. Monks indeed! And in this age of the world too! Little Jack Horners sitting in corners and saying, 'Oh, what a good boy am I!'”
John defended his late brethren. They were holy men; they lived a holy life; he had not been good enough for their company. ”But I feel like a sailor home from sea,” he said; ”tell me what has happened.”
”Births, marriages, and deaths? I suppose ye're like the lave of the men, and think nothing else matters to a woman. But come now, more chicken? No? A wee bitty? Aye, but ye're sair altered, laddie! Weel, where can a body begin?”
”The canon--how is he?”
”Fine as fi'pence. Guid as ever in the pulpit? Aye, but it's a pity he doesna' bide there, for he's naething to be windy of when he comes out of it. Deacon now, bless ye, or archdeacon, and some sic botherment, and his daughter is to be married to yon slip of a curate with the rabbit mouth and the heather legs. Weel, she wasna for all markets, ye ken.”
”And Mrs. Macrae?”
”Gone over to the angels. Dead? Nae, ye're too expecting altogether.
She's got religion though, and holds missionary meetings in her drawing-room of a Monday, and gives lunches to actor folk of a Sunday, and now a poor woman that's been working for charity and Christianity all her days has no chance with her anyway.”
”And Miss Macrae?”
”Poor young leddy, they're for marrying her at last! Aye, to that Ure man, that lord thing with the eyegla.s.s. I much mis...o...b.. but her heart's been somewhere else, and there's ane auld woman would a hantle rather have heard tell of her getting the richt man than seeing the laddie bury hisel' in a monastery. She's given in at last though, and it's to be a grand wedding they're telling me. Your Americans are kittle cattle--just the Jews of the West seemingly, and they must do everything splendiferously. There are to be jewels as big as walnuts, and bouquets five feet in diameter, and a rope of pearls for a necklace, and a rehearsal of the hale thing in the church. Aye, indeed, a rehearsal, and the 'deacon, honest man, in the middle of the magnificence.”
John Storm's pale face was twitching. ”And the hospital,” he said, ”has anything happened there--?”
”Nothing.”
”No other case such as the one----”