Chapter IX: Departure

"But none shall more regretful leave
These waters and these hills than I,
Or distant fonder dream how eve
Or dawn is painting wave and sky."
Whittier.

NOTHING would deter General Macdonald from placing Mysie at school. He came over to Rowena with a most cheerful face, and introduced his friend, a Colonel Cavanagh, to her. He was an Irishman, and Rowena could see at once that his cheery personality had already done the laird good.

"Cavanagh knows of a first-rate school in Edinburgh, where his own daughters are, and I have written to the lady, and she says she can take Mysie at once. The term will be just beginning."

"Then it is all arranged?" queried Rowena. "I hope you have asked her to be lenient to the poor little wild bird when first she is caged?"

"Oh," said Colonel Cavanagh, with a hearty laugh; "Miss Gordon has had experience with wild birds. My girls were as wild as hawks when first she took them; but she has a way with her, and they're quite devoted to her now."

"That sounds nice! Mysie can be led easier than driven."

"Miss Arbuthnot has seen me do the heavy father so often that she speaks from experience," said the General.

"No," said Rowena, "you have got Mysie's affection. Nothing matters when that is won."

Then General Macdonald told her he was going over to Ireland with his friend for a visit.

"And we'll send him back ten years younger," said the cheery Colonel. "He wants to laugh more and think less. We're not given to deep thinking in Ireland."

They did not stay long. As they walked away from the house, Colonel Cavanagh said:

"I'd soon lose my heart to that woman. Why, hasn't she bucked you up, old chap? The very look of her does one good. It's amazing how a woman on her back can get so much fun out of life."

"I'm very fond of Miss Arbuthnot," said General Macdonald, in his simple way. "We have been good chums since I came back, and my small daughter adores her."

Colonel Cavanagh looked at his friend with a spark of amusement in his eye.

"Ah, well, she's not dangerous, down on her back. If she were up and about, it would be a different matter."

General Macdonald said nothing. He would not be drawn. Mysie came over to wish Rowena good-bye; and there were some tears shed.

"Of course, I'm not a baby," she said valiantly; "and Dad says I shall be home for Christmas, and he'll be here too, but I feel as if I'm going to be a prisoner now. And if it gets beyond bearing, I shall run away. I know I shall, and then what will happen?"

"You will be caught and sent back again. I wouldn't do that if I were you. Only cowards run away from disagreeables. A Flora Macdonald never would!"

Mysie tossed her curls back and snorted like a thoroughbred horse.

"Of course I couldn't be a coward. Didn't you say Flora Macdonald went to school in Edinburgh?"

"Yes, I believe so, but I don't know where."

"How wonderful if it was my school she went to!" Rowena laughed.

"I imagine it was," she said.

And Mysie's wonderful eyes grew dreamy and soft, as she thought of her heroine.

She went off fairly happy; but Rowena felt, when both father and child had gone, as if she were bereft of all her friends. If it had not been for Mrs. Macintosh and her son, these autumn months would have been very lonely. The lodges and shooting boxes were soon vacated, and the country round became deserted; wet and storms set in. But Rowena's spirits were never down for long. She was deep in her Highland book, and her bright wood fire and cosy comfort all round her prevented her from feeling the inclemency of the weather. She wrote continually to her brother, and her Indian letters were the delight of her heart. Occasionally the young doctor arrived over to see her. Shags was her constant companion, and Granny was always ready to come in for a "crack."

Snow fell towards the end of November, and Rowena lay looking out at the fairy-like scene with keen enjoyment.

Mrs. Macintosh paid her a visit before it went. She arrived over in a sledge.

"You brave intrepid woman," said Rowena, when she saw her. "How can you venture out in such weather?"

"I am very hardy. It is a real treat to have a talk with you, so don't pity me. I only wish we were nearer you. It is an unnatural life for you to live. You are so young to be so much alone."

"But I feel very matured and old," said Rowena, "especially since my dear Mysie has left me. A child keeps one young."

"Do you have good accounts of her?"

"We write to each other once a fortnight; I believe she is getting on, but a child never expresses her feelings as we should."

"Her father has shut up his house for the winter?"

"I fancy he will come back for Mysie's holidays."

"I was so thankful that my match did not come off! I heard several things afterwards about Miss Falconer that surprised me very much. But I am sure she was in love with him."

Rowena laughed; and Mrs. Macintosh said hurriedly:

"I know you think me an old gossip! But in the wilds here we can't help taking an interest in our neighbours. And I would like to see the laird married again; he is not an old man, and he wants some one to brighten him up, and make him younger!"

"I think he's having a good time over in Ireland," said Rowena. "Perhaps he'll bring back an Irish bride. He is in a house full of young people. Colonel Cavanagh has an old-fashioned family, five daughters and three boys, and three of his daughters have finished schooling and are at home."

"I wish I had a daughter," said Mrs. Macintosh somewhat wistfully. "Robert is a good son to me, but his heart and soul are with his parishioners and his books; and I'm human enough to want a little, idle, frivolous talk sometimes. I have not the 'stability' of the Scotch nature."

"Don't try to get it," said Rowena. "You and I must leaven these Scotch folk with a little seasonable froth."

"Don't think I don't admire goodness," said Mrs. Macintosh hastily. "I do from the bottom of my heart. But a good person need not be dull."

"No," said Rowena, in a more thoughtful tone; then she said abruptly: "I am having fresh aspirations this winter. I wonder if you will see any difference in me by the time the spring is here. I am very slowly going through a transformation. My outlook on life is altering, I am seeing everything from a different standpoint. Pardon my egotism, but tell me, what is your experience? Is life here an enigma to you, or have you the key to it?"

Mrs. Macintosh's whole face softened at once.

"I think I found the key long ago," she said. "Nothing is a puzzle, nothing is a mystery, if you have enough love and trust."

"Ah," said Rowena, with a long-drawn breath, "and that is what I am slowly discovering."

Mrs. Macintosh laid her hand very gently on the little red leather book that was never very far-away from Rowena's couch.

"You are learning out of this," she said.

Rowena nodded brightly.

"It is a new book to me. I have never really studied it in my life before, and it's simply wonderful. It does what the other religious writings never do—it leads you straight to a Person Who becomes more real than anyone else in the world!"

Then there was silence between them which Rowena broke.

"So you see," she said gaily, "I can't be lonely or desolate; it is quite impossible. I have so much lost time to make up, so much to learn and discover."

She did not often open her heart to anyone, and Mrs. Macintosh was touched by it.

After this little talk, she and Rowena drew closer together. And Mrs. Macintosh tried to come over and see her as often as she could.

Rowena had one or two letters from General Macdonald. Then, as December was drawing towards a close, she had one which much distressed her.

"I have just been wired for. Mysie is dangerously ill of
pneumonia. I leave to-morrow. Pray for her. Yours.
HUGH MACDONALD."

Rowena found it hard to lie patiently under this blow. Mysie, with her laughing eyes and active spirits to be stretched on a bed of suffering! It brought an ache to her heart as she thought of her. She longed to rise up from her bed and go off to her. Granny was loud in denunciation of Edinburgh schools.

"The wee lassie hasna the constitootion for that freezin' toon. I aye was once awa' there, an' niver shall I forget et. I cudna keep body and sperrit together. 'Tis the Highlands for soft sweet air, an' winds that blaw aisy, not wi' knives piercin' into your bones!"

Rowena could only write her sympathy and possess her soul in patience. She got a wire one day, when Mysie's life was in danger, and then another to say she was pulling through. Christmas found Mysie still very ill, and her father in an Edinburgh hotel, learning day by day how much he loved his child.

And then when Mysie was quite convalescent, her father wrote that he was bringing her home.

Rowena wrote promptly:

"Will you let Granny and me have her here, to pet her and nurse her
back to health again? She is not too fond of that worthy housekeeper
of yours, and I should love to have her."

By return of post she heard from the General:

"I can't say how good I think it of you! There is no one I would
have her with more willingly. I have business in town, and did not
want to return just yet. I will bring her down myself the first day
the doctor says she can travel."

And so one day, a very frail white little Mysie arrived, but her eyes were blazing with delight and rapture.

When Rowena's arms were round her, she looked up into her face with passionate devotion.

"I've never had anyone to talk to like you! And I've been just sick with wanting you and the glen and the loch!"

"Keep a bit of your heart for your old father," said General Macdonald.

His face looked worn and weary, but Rowena saw that he had improved in health and spirits. His step was brisker, he held himself more alertly.

Mysie looked up at him affectionately.

"Dad has been so kind," she informed Rowena; "he used to play halma with me in bed, and told me stories, almost as good as yours."

When she had been packed off to bed, her father began to talk about her.

"She has not the constitution for a town life, and the doctors advised me to let her go easily for the next year. The schoolmistress said she was, if anything, too eager and quick over her lessons; but her appetite failed, and she had constant headaches; and then, in this last spell of extreme cold, she did not seem to have the strength to withstand it. I don't want to lose her. Do advise me. What shall I do? Not try another governess?"

Rowena laughed.

"Let me have her. We shall be company for each other, and then you roam the world as you will. I don't believe you will settle down here."

"I want to do something with my life," said the General earnestly. "I'm not keen about politics, I'm afraid; but I've been offered a post by a friend of Cavanagh's. It has to do with the welfare of the deserving unemployed, and they want me to be secretary. It will entail a few months in town, and a good deal of travelling round, but I shall feel I am working again. At the same time, I am not going to live entirely apart from my child, and I have my duties as a landlord here. So the spring will see me opening the house again. I will gladly leave Mysie with you till then."

The matter was settled, and he departed.

Rowena and Mysie were supremely content. The child's rapture at being in the Highlands again was extremely touching.

"I hate towns and houses and people—they make me giddy. When I smelt the air coming in the train from the hills, I nearly cried. I told Dad I couldn't never live away from the Highlands, and he said he didn't think I could, and he wouldn't ask me to. Isn't he a darling! And the girls thought a kilt shocking! But you'll let me wear mine again, won't you? Oh, dearest prisoner, how happy you and me will be! Will Shags be jealous, do you think? He's looking at me out of the corners of his eyes, something like Miss Falconer did. And oh I do just look at the darling loch. Isn't it perfectly sweet with the sun on it? There's nothing for the sun to shine on in Edinburgh. When it did come out, it must have been rather disgusted only to have the streets and houses to shine on, instead of the loch and hills and moor. I kissed the earth when we got out at the station. The only thing I really enjoyed at school was learning poetry. I learnt a lovely piece, but when I had to say it, I cried instead, and Miss Gordon wasn't cross, she said she understood, but I wouldn't not have learnt it for anything. It began:

"'The Highlands, the Highlands, oh, gin I were there,
Though the mountains and moorlands be rugged and bare;
Tho' cold be the climate and scanty the fare,
Oh, my dearly loved Highlands, oh, gin I were there.'"

"And it ends:

"'The Highlands, the Highlands, my once happy home
Through thy glens and thy straths my delight was to roam;
Though on a bright shore, where all nature is fair,
My heart's in the Highlands, oh, gin I were there!'"

"I think it was rather cruel to make you learn that," said Rowena; "but we won't think of the time you were away, little Flora; we'll only think of the good time we're going to have now. Do you know, I'm counting the months to my freedom? Only three more months and then I'll be staggering to my feet. I shall have to learn to walk again, shan't I?"

"And you'll lean on my arm," said Mysie with shining eyes; "and then in a few days you'll be riding and rowing and fishing with me. Oh, it will be glorious!"

Time slipped away very pleasantly. Mysie fast regained her health and strength; and then Rowena suggested a couple of hours at lessons every morning. She was delighted with Mysie's quick intelligence, and Mysie was very naïve in her comments upon Rowena's knowledge.

"Why, you know heaps and heaps more than I do! You're as clever as Miss Falconer, and yet you never show off like she did!"

And then spring came, a late spring in the Highlands, but a marvellously beautiful one.

Rowena had her couch moved out-of-doors for an hour in the sunshine sometimes, and she lay and gazed at the soft shadows chasing each other across the distant hills and loch, and watched the green buds bursting into blossom, and the pale primroses in the banks.

"I may never see another spring here," she said rather sadly once to Mysie. "I feel I'm a bit of the soil, but I shall have to depart when my legs are given back to me."

Mysie was loud in her laments.

"Don't try to get well! We can't spare you. Nobody wants you in India half so bad as Dad and I want you here."

But Rowena shook her head, and very soon her brother Ted received a letter from her which rejoiced his heart.

"DEAR OLD TED,—"

"My year is over! I can hardly believe it, and actually old Niddy-Noddy took it into his wise old head to take his holiday in Scotland this spring. Of course he came on to see me, and much against my will he brought some other old wiseacre from Edinburgh—a chum of his—and they examined me and poked me about, and were highly pleased with the result of my year's rest. I am at present like a baby trying to walk! I am to go slowly, but they say my unused muscles will harden in time, and my back is really cured. What a wonderful thing it is to have a body which will go! I never valued mine properly before, and I assure you I'm going to be very careful and cautious with such a precious possession now. My first walk was taken two days ago. Mysie and Granny nearly cried with the excitement of it. And I staggered and rolled like a drunken tar. But I'm walking more respectably now—only the fatigue of it! I ask myself am I a Rip Van Winkle, and have I spent a hundred years instead of one upon my bed?"

"Well, this is enough about my body."

"Now about plans. You and Geraldine are very impatient to have me. It is rather pleasant to feel I am wanted so much, and of course the thought of being with you so soon makes me want to dance a jig! This is May. Shall I come out the end of August? Will it be in the middle of the monsoon? But that will be a matter of indifference to me. I must tell you frankly that I shall say good-bye to the Highlands with real concern. My heart has been stolen by its soft air and elusive colours, and the dear simple Gaelic people, not to speak of the charming personality of Mysie Macdonald. And Granny and I have grown into each other's ways, so that it will be hard to snap ourselves asunder."

"I have written to the laird. He's in a predicament about his child, feeling that school has been a failure, and yet governesses are worse. I wish I knew a dear old motherly body who would teach and love the little darling with the same breath. How are your chicks? Grown out of knowledge, I expect. I can't believe that I shall be with you before very long now. Good-bye. My love and kisses to the batch of you. And tell Geraldine that I will stop in town and be fitted up with frocks before I sail, so as not to disgrace her. Your last cheque was far too generous."

"Ever your"
"ROWENA."

General Macdonald arrived over one afternoon. He had returned from town unexpectedly, and had told no one of his coming. Mysie was out when he came. Rowena received him in her green room. The couch was absent. At first he looked quite dazed when he saw a radiant vision crossing the room to meet him. Rowena looked so very much alive, as if every pulse in her body were beating with intense vitality.

"Don't you recognize me?" she said with her mellow laugh.

"Hardly. I did not realize you would be so tall. It is a resurrection. May I say how glad I am!"

His eyes met hers with smiling admiration, then when they were seated his brows contracted.

"Is it true that you're leaving this part for good?"

"I am going to join my brother and family in India."

"But do they want you?"

"How can you be so uncomplimentary! Of course they do!"

He drew a breath.

"I was hoping, for the child's sake—for our sakes—that you would be here a little longer. What am I to do with her? Can you advise me?"

"What do you think about the Macintoshes? Mrs. Macintosh is such a nice woman. She might be inclined to take her, and later on perhaps she would be strong enough to go back to school."

"I can't afford to lose her, but I like Mrs. Macintosh, and if her son would give her an hour or two of lessons every day, it would be the very thing. What a wonderful woman you are for lightening my burdens! I will go to them on my way home and see if they would be willing to do it. I think I shall be away on and off all the summer. There will be no inducement to come down here with you gone."

He stopped and looked at her as Rowena had never seen him look before. She was conscious of the quickened beating of her heart.

Then he compressed his lips.

Rowena said lightly:

"You must be more sociable this coming summer. For your little daughter's sake, you must be; and you will find it better for yourself to mix more with your fellow-creatures. I have come to the conclusion that my enforced seclusion has had its purposes, but it would not be good for me to continue it. A solitary life tends to selfishness; don't you think so?"

"Not in your case," he said warmly; "I have never met with such sympathy and understanding in my life before!" Then abruptly he rose to his feet. "I will go to the Macintoshes now. You will hear from me, if I do not come over to-morrow."

He took his departure. Rowena shook her head when he had gone.

"My dear," she soliloquized to herself, "you're not a young romantic girl! Remember your age and experience. You have had many men friends. Don't expect this particular man to mean anything more than mere platonic friendship. A very good and useful thing in its way!"

The next day came, and the next, but no letter from the laird.

Then at the end of the week Mrs. Macintosh came over and told Rowena that she had promised to give Mysie a home for the summer. And Rowena heard that the laird had gone off suddenly to town. She still waited for his letter, but it did not come, and the next thing was a wire from her brother, asking her to sail at once in the Lesbia, a P. & O. steamer going in a fortnight's time. Mysie went off to Mrs. Macintosh. She felt the parting from Rowena keenly, but, child-like, intended to enjoy her life at the manse. Rowena hastily packed up her things and went up to town. She knew General Macdonald's address there, and one day had talk with him through the telephone.

It was strangely unsatisfactory.

Rowena told him she was going sooner than she had thought, and had left Mysie comfortably settled in the manse. His replies were cold and grave. He wished her a safe journey, and thanked her for all she had done for his little girl.

At the end of the interview, he said:

"I understood your silence, so have not troubled you with any more correspondence."

Rowena was about to inquire what he meant, but they were cut off, and she did not see or hear from him again.

Later she puzzled over his words, then strove to put them from her.

"My Highland life and Highland friends will be only a memory now," she assured herself. "That chapter is closed. I am in another atmosphere altogether."

And she sailed for India with a smiling face and an aching heart.