Chapter XLI

ATHOLE MURRAY SKETCHES A MODERN FUGGEREI--THE MISS MACKINNONS’ ULTIMATUM.

Athole Murray did not see her father for the next twenty-four hours. He lingered at Drysdale Hall till it was late, not returning to Barley Riggs till she had reluctantly retired--ostensibly to rest, actually to pass a sleepless night. She would fain have sat up for him, but did not like to disobey his orders on this night of all others. He had to start by break of day to attend a professional consultation which was to be held at some distance. He was detained longer than he expected, took the round of his patients on his way home, and did not reappear at Barley Riggs till Athole’s tea-hour, when he walked in almost simultaneously with auld and young Tam.

In the interval Athole had got sufficient time to brood over what she had made out of his conversation the previous day, with the conclusion she had leaped to of calamity, not unmingled with disgrace, hanging over the Drysdales. She could not fathom it, but the impression was there. When the blow fell, would her relations be the same to young Tam? All her heart was melting to him to atone for the injustice of fortune and the injury inflicted by another, though she knew not by whom. She had been fond of auld Tam. She could not lightly think evil of him, though she had been sorely perplexed by his conduct lately; but at least young Tam was blameless, honourable, and trustworthy--she could swear to that. She felt all at once impelled to comfort him, with a soft but irresistible impulse which no force could stay.

While she was in this mood the three men walked in upon her, full of their strange story of a marriage contract, and a last will, of lost documents, and overlooked problems of science, restitution, and compromise. The speakers were all eager, and, as it seemed to her in her shaken spirits, all rejoicing to the verge of exultation. They were so bent on telling her their story, and so sure of her sympathy, that they did not miss it when it failed to flow forth as it ought to have done; nobody said, as he might have said, ‘You are not answering--you are not glad; what has come over you?’

Young Tam would have been the last to do it, for he was the most carried away, the gayest. He seemed taken out of himself, as he stood there like a victor in the flush of victory, to whom all must yield.

And do what Athole would, she who was still thrilling with the sense of what she had almost made up her mind to be to him if he were the loser, who was dragged two ways between a sense of blank disappointment at the instantaneous fading away of the vision which in a night had grown so sweet and a feeling of intense pride and pleasure for his sake, that his hand had cut the knot and rescued auld Tam from his strait, could not for her life resist young Tam’s new attitude as a conqueror. Her eyes fell before his. Her colour went and came; she could not laugh, she could not speak, she did not know how long she would be able to breathe. Her hands trembled so that she had to clasp them tightly to keep them still. She felt the ground slipping from beneath her feet.

Her father was the first to remark upon her silence.

‘Is there anything the matter with you, Athie?’ inquired Dr. Peter, like a grey-headed _enfant terrible_, and then he wound up with the _mal à propos_ remark, ‘You are not like yourself.’

Auld Tam tapped his friend on the arm:

‘Come awa’, man; we are twa ower mony. Leave her to a younger doctor. Dod! did you never suspect that the wind blew in that quarter?’ in answer to the look of bewilderment, enlightenment, tender regret, and unselfish satisfaction with which his hint was met. ‘There is nane so blind as a clever, honourable gentleman.’

When the pair were beyond hearing, auld Tam had his joke out of the situation.

‘You’ll never have the face to object now, Peter, when you’ve given the lad every encouragement--treated him as if he had been a son of your ain, from the time he went after your lassie.’

‘I cannot leave my father, and I’ll never be able to look your mother in the face. You know she cannot abide me,’ protested Athole to young Tam.

‘You will not be far from your father,’ he told her; ‘and as for my mother, when she sees that you give me more than my due, and finds what you can do for her son, she will not know how highly to prize you. Besides, you are going to make up to her for the loss of Clary and Eppie.’

‘Are you so mad as to think I shall ever be like little Eppie--like Lady Willoughby of Willoughby Court--to your mother?’

‘You will fill your own place as young Mrs. Tam, to whom my mother will pay all respect. I say, Athole, you can afford to be second best with her. You are the style of woman who can consent to that.’

If Athole was likely to be second best with mother Eppie, there was every indication of her holding her own with auld Tam, when before he left she sketched for him a Glasgow version of the Augsburg Fuggerei, a Drysdale quarter of St. Mungo’s city, built expressly for the accommodation of the working classes, which he vowed if he rose above trade troubles he would rear as a memorial of his deliverance from a great temptation and a great downfall.

‘And young Tam’s initials shall be intertwined with yours, Athole, and wrocht beneath mine and Eppie’s aboon ilka door.’

The Lieutenant hesitated whether the two discoveries in relation to the marriage contract and the will should be communicated to his aunts. He was not at all sure how they would take the news. But Claribel advocated entire openness.

‘They are entitled to hear,’ she said. ‘Besides, they will only believe what they like; and they will remain convinced that they did the best for you and everybody. So far as intentions went, I am sure they are right.’

Claribel too proved right, as she generally was.

‘Didna we tell you about the marriage settlement? And were we not to be trusted to mak’ everything as siccar as law and auld Dauvit Milne and that laddie Dalgleish, Teeny Carstairs’ man, could bind them? As for any story at this time of the day about auld Drysdale’s living longer than Maggie Craig’s mother, because he was in Scotland and she was in India, it’s perfect havers on the face o’t--more than that, it’s clean profanity, as if death couldna travel faster than the earth and the sun either, and do his work as sune here as there. We may dismiss that lee. No that I’m for a minute evening your worthy father to be a leear, Clary, my dear,’ Miss Janet condescended to correct herself. ‘Everybody kens he is a maist respectable man. But men, begging your pardon, Lieutenant, are simple, and it stands to nature that they will believe what suits their purpose, though it’s as wild a ferlie as ever set up an auld ballant. So, Lieutenant, you micht have been a bleacher and dyer in your ain person instead of an offisher in her Majesty’s service, but I think you and Clary will agree with me that you’re better as you are--you’ll allow we did the best for you.’

‘’Deed did we,’ chimed in Miss Bethia; ‘and now you’ll get your portion back again, like Joseph--or was it Benjamin?--and Clary here into the bargain.’

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.