Chapter II: Some Guests

"Be useful where thou livest, that they may
Both want and wish thy pleasing presence still ...
Find out men's wants and will
And meet them there."
Herbert.

"HUGH, we shall have to do entertaining."

General Macdonald gave a little groan.

"I have patiently gone round with you to leave cards when people are out. Then you have dragged me to dinners and lunches and teas, and I hoped now that we might be left in peace. Of course, I expected the neighbours to call, and they have done their duty. Are we to go round and round the treadmill of society as they do in town?"

Rowena laughed lightly. She was a three-months-old bride now, and was quite able to manage this husband of hers.

"My dear, we have our duties as well as they. And we are told to be 'given to hospitality.' We cannot accept invitations and never give any in return. Shall we have a simple garden-party? An 'At Home' in about a fortnight from now? The strawberries and peaches will be ripe, and we can have tea under the cedars on the lawn."

"I believe you love crowds. Personally, I loathe them." General Macdonald's tone was sharp. He added more gently:

"We have not been very long married, Rowena, and we had no proper honeymoon. You must forgive me if I still wish to keep you to myself."

"We must not be selfish, dear. You wrong me when you think I love gaiety. But I do love my fellow-creatures; and this one afternoon in their society will not hurt us. I want to get it over before Mysie's holidays begin. Now, please, put on your pleasantest expression, for I am going to ask another favour. Don't you think Mysie would like some companions sometimes? It would be so good for her as she does not go to school. I thought we might ask George Holt and his sisters up here and give them a good time; and Marion would be able to have a nice quiet holiday with her mother. Will you let me invite them here for a month of their holidays? Oh, do!"

She had drawn nearer him, and General Macdonald put his arm round her.

"I will do anything you like, Rowena, when you look at me like that!"

She laughed again gaily.

"What a confession of weakness!" she said. "Now I know how I can get my way with you."

And so the garden-party was given, and Rowena moved about amongst her guests and captivated them all by her charming words and smiles. Mysie, in a soft muslin frock and large shady straw hat, was such a transformation from the little kilted tomboy that some who had seen her scrambling about in the glen before hardly recognized her now. The General was drawn out of his shell. He even found points of interest with Colonel Arnold Rashleigh, who had taken the lodge where Rowena had spent her year of convalescence.

The Miss Arnold Rashleighs spent most of their time on the tennis-courts, but one of them, Dora by name, attached herself to Rowena during the latter part of the afternoon, and they made friends over Shags, who had been with old Mrs. Mactavish when she was caretaker of the lodge, and who now had been adopted by the Arnold Rashleighs.

"I was very fond of him," Rowena admitted; "but when I came here, I heard that you had taken him, and my husband has six dogs already, so I felt I had better not add to the number. Shags is very human. As you may have heard, I spent a lonely year at the lodge, and he was my constant companion."

"How could you have stood it? Three months are all we can put in. Joyce and I are much too energetic to waste our time over these wilds."

"But you are young and strong. I had to follow doctor's orders, or I dare say I should have been on my back still. And I found during that year at the lodge that life was much fuller and richer than I had ever imagined before. I was introduced into a perfectly new environment."

"How interesting! Tell me."

"How can I tell you in a few words? I found that a part of me had never been cultivated or enjoyed life at all, it was sleeping—almost dead. It began to wake up, and every day or so I saw fresh things."

"Oh, I suppose you set to work to study Nature with microscopes, and that kind of thing?"

"I must tell you about it another day," said Rowena, smiling down upon the puzzled face of the girl. "Anyhow, I learnt some of the secret joys of solitude; and when I was frivolously inclined, Shags whiled away my time with his tricks and gambols. I wish you loved the loch and glen as I do. Now tell me about your life in town."

"Oh, I'm not quite so ambitious as Joyce. She means to go into Parliament, but I'm not keen on politics. I work a good deal for women's industries. We aren't idlers, I can assure you. We mean to take our proper place in the world now."

"It's splendid having work like that," said Rowena enthusiastically. "Are you an idealist, I wonder? What is your goal?"

"Oh, I suppose it is to do something worth living for before one dies," said Dora. "We can dispense with men, you know; they're very good for recreation and amusement, but as for settling down with one in these wilds, as you have done, I couldn't, to save my life!"

"You think it waste of time."

"You're right. Utter waste!"

Rowena shook her head, with her sunny smile.

"No," she said; "I hope and trust I'm not wasting my life. I have my own scheme of work, and I can pursue it even here. I would like to press you into it as a recruit, but we must know each other better first before I can venture to give you a full explanation of it."

"You sound most mysterious. May I come over one day when you're alone and have a talk with you?"

This was just what Rowena wanted. She felt that her party had not been waste of time when she parted from Dora Rashleigh. The girl had taken to her and wanted to know her better.

In talking over the afternoon with her husband afterwards, Rowena said:

"There are so many kinds that make up a world, Hugh. And so many of these modern girls have such high ideals of work, and of benefiting one's fellow-creatures, that I long to save them from the mistakes they are bound to make if they are building without a foundation. You showed me what a full life could be lived in empty circumstances; I want to show them that the fullest life cannot be full unless they have the 'One thing needful.'"

The three young Holts arrived soon after this. Mysie and Milly became firm friends at once, and though at first Mysie stood a little in awe of George's superior age and inches, yet when she realized he was up to any mad escapade she quickly made friends with him. Bertha was more staid, and loved nothing better than wandering about the garden, book in hand; when she could get Rowena to herself she was supremely happy, for she adored her, but, as a rule, General Macdonald absorbed all his wife's leisure time.

Then one morning Rowena received the following letter from Di Dunstan:

"MY DEAR ROWENA,—"

"I'm taking you at your word, for I know you're the real good sort and mean what you say. Will you have me on a visit now? I have to put in a fortnight with some cousins in Perthshire at the end of the month, and I'm fed up with town. I don't believe I shall ever stick a flat all the year round. It isn't good enough! I'm bored stiff with the pack of humanity round me. I want light and air and breathing space; and, oh, for a horse and a gallop through the fresh untainted air on the heath or moor! Does your good man keep horses? Or is he all for those smelly cars? Rowena, I must come. I think I shall go mad if I don't get out of town pretty soon. So send me a wire on receipt of this, and I'll leave my slang and most of my cigarettes behind, and will be on my best behaviour lest I shock your high-principled husband. Poor Mrs. Burke used to rail against him! In her jolly days, I mean. Poor dear, she wasn't much fun latterly, though she was wonderfully plucky in bearing her lot! I don't see much of Vi—one is at a disadvantage in a married sister's house. She does the high and mighty with me, as if I'm on a lower plane to her. And I can't cotton to Gregory—I never could—and he's too selfish to make a good husband—was a bachelor too long. So long."

"Yours,"
"DI."

Rowena consulted her husband. With a wry face he agreed to send a wire.

"I'm trying to be sociable," he said, "and you must have your friends. I know her sort, and trust that you will not leave me to entertain her."

"Indeed, indeed, I won't!" laughed Rowena. "But, Hugh dear, if you let her ride your cob, she'll want nothing better. Di off a horse is only half herself. And I'm truly sorry for her. She has lost such a lot, and seems to have no object in life."

The wire was sent, and the next evening Di arrived. She was a handsome girl still, but she looked worn and weary, and Rowena saw that she was in a restless unhappy state of mind.

She talked recklessly at dinner and showed her worst side to the General, who was wonderfully forbearing and courteous in his manner towards her.

Bertha Holt looked at her in amazement; never had she in the course of her quiet life come across this type of woman. Di's horsey slang, her astounding statements, and her perfect indifference to the impression she was making upon those around her, startled and puzzled the young girl. When dinner was over the young people disappeared into the garden. Rowena walked her guest along the terrace and down a grassy path which led to a low wall overlooking the loch.

Di promptly lit up her cigarette.

"At last I've got you to myself," she said. "It's no go, Rowena, I can't put on pretty manners to charm your out of date husband. I've come down here hoping you can tip me a wrinkle or two. I've run to earth, and unless I can find a way out I shall come to a bad end like the villain in the story book. I cannot live on my income, and it's no good talking about it. I hate cadging on my friends, but there seems nothing else to do. I know a woman who has any amount of houses open to her the whole year round; but she's one of these adaptable pussycats who settle down by any fireside, and do errands for the hostess, and make up an even number at bridge or dinner, or chaperon a schoolgirl when the mother is too busy or bored to go round with her. I'm not that sort, and in the hunting season I expect my host to mount me well, or I'm off him! I demand too much, and that's the fact, and people aren't keen on having me. To stay in a London flat the whole year round is unthinkable. If Bob would only hand out a little of his superfluous cash, I would try my fortunes at Monte Carlo. I must get money somehow, but I can't rise to the ticket out there!"

"I hoped you had made a fresh start as far as your debts were concerned," said Rowena slowly and thoughtfully.

"Oh, you knew that transaction between Mrs. Burke and myself? She was a trump. But she's gone now, and I haven't a friend in the world. Town life makes money go like water. There's nothing for me but a wealthy marriage. I know one man who would have me to-morrow, but he's nearer seventy than sixty, and is rotund, and gouty and jocular. I shudder at the thought of my spending my years with him. Fate is against me. I never ought to have been born. You'll hear one day of the suicide of a society spinster. I shall be driven to it."

"Now, Di, listen to me. It's wicked and foolish for a girl of your intelligence and gifts to talk so. You're just drifting down the stream with all the garbage and useless rubbish that is being washed away. Do, for goodness' sake, pull yourself together and have a better outlook. Is there any real reason for your always living neck-deep in debt? Couldn't you with determined effort cut your coat according to your cloth?"

Di shook her head gloomily.

"What's the use? I've no purpose or interest in life. The only thing I did care for was hunting, and it has been taken from me. Go on, pitch into me. It does me good, but I'm almost past feeling it."

"You're not past feeling. You would never have come to stay with us if you were. You know you're reaching out towards something that will lift you out of your sordid life. There's no other word for it. You're an earth grub, that's what you are. The life you're leading—spending money because other people do it, treating those who take your generosity as a matter of course, and living in mortal dread of every post because it brings you bills and duns which you cannot pay—why, it is a hell on earth!"

"Say on! Hammer me down!"

Rowena laughed a little unsteadily.

"Di, dear. I've always liked you, partly because Mrs. Burke was so fond of you, partly for your own sake. Do use your mental powers. There are many circles in the world, all different, but all moving round their own centres. Change your centre. If one circle fails you—or one centre I'll say—for goodness' sake don't go on tramping it for ever, but leave it and try another."

"Now this is what I like. My brain is just clever enough to understand it!"

"You may laugh and mock at me, but I'm in dead earnest. I feel like Alice through the looking-glass, as if I should like to shake the red queen into a kitten. I would like to shake and shake you till your foundation tumbled down, and you were shaken into a new kind of creature altogether, with fresh joy in life, and fresh springs in your heart, and fresh hopes and ideals in front of you."

"Don't mix your metaphors. Keep to the circles. I won't be shaken into a kitten."

"There's only one circle I want you in."

"Of course, I know which one that is—the one you're in yourself, the one into which you dragged Mrs. Burke. I'll allow it made her happy; but she always was a happy creature, and always would be in any circumstances."

"Do you think she would have been when everything that she cared for was taken from her?"

"Perhaps not; but that was where you and your circle came in. Just in the nick of time you moved her out of the one that was destroyed and planted her in another. Now, I haven't come to the end of mine."

"I thought you had."

"No; I'm not crippled and confined to bed. I can move, and have all the faculties for still enjoying life, but want of money and position prevents me from using them."

"Do you think it's a good thing to wait till utter ruin comes to you?"

"How comforting you are! I honestly want worldly wisdom from you, not pious talk."

"I'm not worldly wise, but I'll try to be. Live within your income, and make the best of your circumstances. Take up some other hobby that will take the place of the one in which you now cannot indulge."

"What dull and impossible counsel. As well tell a fish to live out of water and cultivate the air for his home."

"Exactly," said Rowena. "You've hit the nail on the head."

There was a little silence between them, then Di threw away the last bit of her cigarette, and stared gloomily down from the wall to the waters of the loch below.

"The centre of my circle is, of course, myself. I see that," she said. "Whom else should I revolve round but my dear precious self? It is so very disappointing if you revolve round another. I did that once, but never again."

Rowena knew she was alluding to her unfortunate love affair some years previously.

"I think we're a great disappointment to ourselves," said Rowena. "I see my husband coming. Cheer up, Di. I believe you're going to see light soon. We'll have another talk later."

Di turned to the General with her most charming smile.

"Here is your treasure! I make no apology for having purloined her from your side for a bit. Have you discovered any faults in her yet General?"

"Yes," said General Macdonald promptly. "She has too big a heart."

"You mean that you can't keep every hole and corner in it for yourself! Isn't that a man all over? And you've brought her away into your lonely stronghold, where you mean to keep her under lock and key. Oh, you are all alike! A woman's heart must be satisfied with her house, and man, he can roam the whole world over, and open his heart to all the treasures in it."

General Macdonald was about to reply when Di said:

"Rowena and I have been talking ourselves dry. I want to see your stables; may I?"

He led the way without a word, and when she saw a beautiful brown cob which had been a noted hunter, and was offered the use of him for the time of her stay, she was quite elated.

"I'm going to make hay while the sun shines," she said to Rowena, when they were wishing each other good night, later on, "so you'll get no more grave talks out of me for the present."

She took George out with her for a ride over the moor the next morning, and they were away for most of the day. George, of course, was very flattered at being chosen as her cavalier. He was not so critical as his sister Bertha, and thought this new acquaintance most amusing and entertaining.

Two days later, General Macdonald went to Inverness on business. He had to stay away the night, and when he returned home the following afternoon, Rowena saw at once that he had something on his mind.

He called her into his study.

"Have I ever mentioned my cousin Hector Ross to you?" he asked.

"Never," said Rowena.

"He and I were brought up together as boys, and went to the same school, but he went abroad when he was quite a young man, and we have drifted apart. He was rather wild, and got through a lot of money. Then settled down on a South American ranch. I tumbled across him in Inverness yesterday. He has come home, and is thinking of buying back his father's old place in Fifeshire. I told you I have an old cousin living in Inverness. He is her nephew, and I met him at her house."

A smile flitted across his face. "It was like seeing a bull in a china shop! His aunt lives in a tiny terrace house, and everything as orderly and neat as an old maid could have it. He's a big, broad, happy-go-lucky fellow still, but he's made his money, and seems to have steadied down. He came across to the war; I never knew it, and he never told any of his people. I think his experience at the Front altered him, and made him determine to come home and look up his relatives. He wants to come to us."

"Of course he must."

Rowena laughed; she was standing by the open window as her husband talked. Now she turned and gave him a swift little kiss on his forehead.

"You dear old hermit! Has the thought of another visitor brought these aged wrinkles to your brow? We have plenty of room, and I personally shall be delighted to welcome him."

"He's not our sort," General Macdonald said. "And the fact is, Rowena, I am always longing to have you to myself. We have the house full enough now; every additional visitor absorbs more of your time. It sounds selfish—but it's a fact. I want a quiet life."

"My dear Hugh, think of the coming winter. In another month or so all our neighbours will have departed, and you and I will have our fireside to ourselves. I am looking forward to a winter with you alone. And we shall enjoy it all the more for not having the house to ourselves now. When does Mr. Ross want to come?"

"In a few days. Next Saturday—he mentioned. Of course, I could not refuse him; and I know you'll make him welcome. But I only hope he won't hang round me and want me to do the entertaining."

"Is he married?"

"No, he says not."

"I think he'll manage to amuse himself without worrying you; and if you were boys together, you must have some interests in common. It will do you good to have a man to talk to, Hugh. We females are so much in the majority."

Rowena had been so accustomed to a constant relay of visitors at Mrs. Burke's, that she could not understand her husband's dislike to them. And she felt that unless she got him to shake off his solitary habits now she would never succeed in doing it later on.

Beyond preparing a room for this fresh guest she gave little thought to his coming. When she mentioned it to Diana, that young woman shrugged her shoulders:

"What a bore! If he's like your husband, Rowena, I shall elude him all I can. We'll shut them up in the sacred study with their pipes, and leave them to themselves."

Rowena shook her head.

"No, my husband won't have that. But if this glorious weather lasts, there will be no need to amuse him. The beauties of the loch and glen are enough for any man; and there's shooting and fishing for him. I must speak to Donald about that—or Hugh will. He has not preserved his coverts this year. But there's always plenty of rough shooting here they say."