Chapter XVI: The Purple Lady

The little menage on the Moor of Creagh was a mistake from the beginning, and was bound, in the very nature of things, to have a quick and disastrous end.

This, it must be at once said, was not altogether the fault of Malcolm, though Isla thought it was. Her fine nature had been soured by her experiences, and the hard side of her developed by the responsibilities which she had had to shoulder in her young girlhood, when her heart ought to have been at play.

She had acquired the habit of legislating for everybody, and up to a certain point of setting the standard of conduct. Her conscience she would make the universal conscience, forgetting that there were degrees and differences of temperament. By an effort of will she had held out a sort of grudging olive branch to Malcolm. But she had done this simply and solely because she wished to remain in Glenogle and because there was no place for her except under his roof. The injustice of it all ate into her heart. Malcolm, who had done nothing for the Glen, and who, in her estimation, was totally unfitted to have the destinies of so many in his keeping, had the whole power in his hands, and none could say him nay.

The sudden change in his position had made a great difference to Malcolm.

From being a guest on sufferance, disapproved of by Isla, who was mistress of the situation, he had stepped into power, which simply reversed their positions. Isla, so to speak, was now his guest, and, because there had been no will and there was nothing except the land to divide, a pensioner on his bounty.

Love would have laughed at the difficulties with which the situation bristled. But the difficulty of existence in these circumstances became more acute, and, to Isla, every day more unbearable. It was not that Malcolm was rude or actively unkind. Nay, his gay good humour never failed. But he had no use for her advice and he absolutely ignored anything she said as to his conduct of affairs.

Take the case of the Maclures, for instance.

"You'll never put Donald Maclure out of Darrach, Malcolm," she said one day in the autumn, when Martinmas was looming in sight. "I met him yesterday, and he looked like a man under sentence of death. He had heard that you have been in communication with a man in Fife about the croft. Is that true?"

"It might be, and, again, it might not be," he answered, though there was not a word of truth in the report yet.

He had thought of it, but it was characteristic of Malcolm's nature to postpone most of the serious things of life till a more convenient season. And just then his energies and his hopes were elsewhere engaged.

"But, Malcolm," she said, with a touch of passion, "it isn't right to treat the folk like that--to torment them without sense or purpose. They haven't been used to it."

"No--they've been used to nothing but having their own way, to paying when they liked and what they liked," he answered, with a touch of grimness. "But I'm going to alter all that."

They were at breakfast at the moment, and she looked down the narrow table at him with a feeling of strong disgust. There is no bitterness like the bitterness between those of one blood who persistently misunderstand and misjudge each other.

Malcolm Mackinnon was not wholly bad. Nay, at that very time he was honestly striving to do his duty and to establish himself in the esteem of those whose esteem he valued. But among these he did not include his dependants. Towards them he was a bit of a martinet, as his mother--a creature from the nether world dressed in a little brief authority--had been before him.

Isla knew nothing about her mother except that she had been very pretty and that she had died young. Had she known more she would have understood that alien and lawless blood run in Malcolm's veins. But the old General had never spoken of the one irretrievable mistake of his life--a mistake which had left his heart seared and made his life desolate in the summer of his days. Happily perhaps for Isla the brief tragedy had been enacted in India, and General Mackinnon's wife had never beheld the place of her husband's birth and true affection.

"I am sure Mr. Cattanach can't approve of your turning out the folk like that. And what will a few shillings or pounds a year more do for you? It will make so little difference that, looking at it even from the sordid standpoint, it isn't worth while."

Isla spoke thus because she was intensely of opinion that Malcolm had no feelings, and that this was the only appeal that would strike home. He, knowing perfectly well how she regarded him, was pleased to play upon her erroneous conceptions.

"It's worth while, my dear," he said, with his ready and, to her, most aggravating smile, "because these Highland folk want waking up. They are like the Irish--lazy, easy-going, and without independence. You should hear George Larmer on the state of things on his Wicklow place. He says it is due partly to the rain and partly to the whisky, but there is not a man of them who will do a decent day's work."

"We get rain enough here," said Isla with a sigh, for it had been a very wet summer, and the poor harvest was to be very late. "But our people don't drink whisky. Even Donald is a teetotaller and wears a blue ribbon in his buttonhole."

"Which that shrew of his pinned on, doubtless. Poor devil!--I'm sorry for Donald if that's the set of it, and I'll stand him a drink next time I meet him at a handy place."

"Then, what are you going to do about the Maclures? I wish you would be serious for just a minute, Malcolm. I really want to know what's in store for them. I am almost afraid to go past the door of Darrach now or to meet Eppie. She's wearing herself to a shadow over it all."

"There you are, Isla--you've ruined them, neck and crop, by listening to their grumblings and pandering to their lack of independence! Nobody knows just how much money there is in Glenogle--or in any of the glens, for that matter. It strikes me there are a good many fat stocking-feet hidden among the thatch."

"Oh, nonsense, Malcolm! Nobody does that now. They all use the bank when they have anything to put away, but I don't think that is often the case."

He cut the top neatly off his third egg and proceeded to enjoy it. Malcolm had a healthy appetite, and Margaret Maclaren, still more or less in a state of grumbling rebellion, said that he was hard to fill.

"Look here, Isla, I wish you would take a sensible view of things and leave me to manage my own business. You won't deny that the management is mine now, I suppose? Unfortunately for me, you've been Laird of Achree for the last five or six years, and you're difficult to follow. It's just like what happens in a regiment when an easy Colonel is followed by a smart one. Every unit in it jibs, but they all come into line a little later. And that's what the tenants--my tenants--are going to do if you'll let them alone. But you must let them alone, do you understand? I am sick of all this wrangling, and I won't listen to you any more. It isn't decent for you to act as go-between among the tenants. If they have a grievance let them come to me. Next time you see the Maclures you can tell them it will pay them to address themselves to me instead of putting up a poor face to you."

Isla's colour rose, for both the words and the manner of them were offensive.

"It would be better for yourself, too," he added in a gentler tone. "I don't suppose you ever look at yourself in the glass. You've gone off most frightfully of late. It's the worry and the bearing of loads for other folk that they are perfectly able to bear themselves that are to blame for that. Take me, for instance. You'd like to melt me down and drop me into your own mould. But, my dear, it can't be done. Leave me to go my own way. Maybe it's a blundering bad way, but at least give me credit for trying to make the best of things. Once for all, I won't be dictated to or legislated for. There isn't in the whole world a more difficult or impossible person to live with than the woman who wants to run a universal conscience."

There was just sufficient truth in the words to make their sting doubly telling.

"If that is how you feel about me, Malcolm," she said, rising stiffly, "then the sooner I leave Creagh the better."

"A visit to the Barras Mackinnons would do you a power of good, I admit, and would give me time to look round and get my bearings," he said frankly. "The quarters are a bit close here, you know, for us in our present state. Why not go to Wimereaux to them? The sea air would do you good, and they've asked you often enough, in all conscience."

She rolled up her napkin and pushed it all awry into the ring with the Mackinnon crest on it, and her downcast eyes were full of strange fires.

"I don't want to be unjust or hard. Heaven knows I don't, but you won't do anything," continued Malcolm. "At Achree they're always asking why you don't come down, and I must say I think that, after all their kindness, you've treated them shabbily."

"You go so much," she said sullenly. "We can't both live on the American bounty."

It was a speech wholly unworthy of Isla and unjust to the Rosmeads. But it was prompted by jealousy alone and by the distorted view of things prevailing in the mind of the lonely girl whom nobody now seemed to want.

Her only faithful henchman was Neil Drummond, but on the last occasion on which he had come with words of healing and sympathy on his lips she had sent him away, telling him she would not see him again unless he promised to talk of ordinary things.

"You've got into a beastly habit of nagging when you're not curled right up in a hard shell which nobody can open," said Malcolm, enjoying his opportunity now that candour was the order of the day. "You've choked off nearly everybody, and it's your own fault. I find folk very pleasant because I let them alone. I'm not for ever telling them to do this or that. I've enough to do to look after myself. I know you think me a rotter--and all that. But you might do worse than take a leaf out of my book. I've been out in the world, and I've learned two things--that it's ready to laugh with you, but that the moment you show the other side of your face it is bored to extinction. Your long face bores folk, Isla. Nobody has ever told you the truth about yourself before. You've arrogated the role of truth-teller to yourself, but that's it----"

Isla walked out of the room with her head held high in air and fire burning fiercely in her eyes. She was so angry that she dared not trust her voice. Now she knew exactly what position she occupied at Creagh--that Malcolm regarded her as an encumbrance and a nuisance, and that she dwelt there merely on sufferance and during his good pleasure. Well, such a situation being intolerable to a woman of spirit, it must be ended, and that without delay.

She ascended the stairs to her own room, and when she was intercepted by Margaret Maclaren with some inquiry about the meals for the day, she simply told her to get what she liked, and passed on.

Margaret, no stranger to wrangling, having had a bout of it that very morning with her arch-enemy Diarmid, understood that there had been a small storm raging in the dining-room, and discreetly retired.

New, strange, dreadful elements had crept into the quiet life on Creagh Moor, and all its sweet harmony was destroyed.

Isla shut the door of her own room, and dropped for a moment into her chair, wringing her hands the while with a sense of utter helplessness. She was at the end of her tether. Nobody wanted her, and the time had come for her to go away. Not a soul in the Glen, she told herself bitterly, would lament her going. She had dropped into obscurity, and even if she were never to come back any more to Glenogle, how many would mourn her absence or long for her return?

The impulse to go there and then was strong upon her. She even opened the door of her wardrobe and her drawers to take a brief inventory of her belongings and consider what she would take away.

If only she could walk out as she was! But travel, even of the simplest sort, is hampered by the multitude of our needs, by the things which complicate life. Then she looked at her little store of money, counting it out with careful fingers. Eighteen pounds in gold and two handfuls of silver--well, that would keep her until she could earn more for herself.

She was a forlorn creature, without plan or compass, proposing to let herself drift upon an unknown sea. She had not the smallest intention of going to the Barras Mackinnons at Wimereaux. She must get away quite alone, where she could realize herself, and arrive at some conclusion regarding her ultimate fate.

Through the open window she heard Malcolm go off with the dogs, whistling as if he had not a care in the world. The things which daunted her and lay like a nightmare on her white, sensitive soul, had no power over him. Frankly selfish, he lived from day to day, extracting the honey from the hours, and stoically enduring what he could not evade. Perhaps, she said to herself, his was no bad philosophy. She wished somebody had taught it to her sooner; now it was a difficult lesson, baffling her intelligence at every point.

By and by she grew calmer, and her distracted thoughts began to collect themselves. It was not possible to run away in a hurry without telling any one, and her orderly mind shrank from taking such a foolish and unnecessary step. No--whatever she did, she would not forget herself or the dignity of the Mackinnons. She would put no occasion for talk into people's mouths.

In an hour's time she had decided what to do, and, after making a sort of preliminary division of her possessions, she dressed herself and went out. Margaret, having the feeling that Miss Isla wished to be alone, did not intercept her this time.

It was a fine, clear, hard morning in September, with a touch of frost in the air after a night's rain. But the clouds on the far horizon were still watery, and Isla's keen eyes decided that the deluge had not spent itself. She would, however, get fair weather as far as Lochearnhead, which was her present destination, seeing that she had to give a certain order to Jamie Forbes concerning the morrow.

Of a set purpose, she kept to the sheep tracks on the hills, thus avoiding the vicinity of Achree. She had been there very few times since her father's death, and as Mrs. Rosmead had had a somewhat serious illness in the interval, her daughters had been too much engaged in looking after her to pay distant calls. But Isla knew that Malcolm was constantly there--if not every day, at least several times a week.

About half a mile beyond Achree gates, on the Lochearn side of the Glen, she had to come out on the road again, because the sheep track ended suddenly with Donald Maclure's pasture. The heavy rains had washed every superfluous particle of earth from the roads, and left the gravelled bottom bare, while there were delicious runnels of water here and there, all making swiftly for the burn, which was swollen far beyond its ordinary limits. There had been very little fair weather in Glenogle or in the valley of the Earn since the Lammas floods.

Isla paused for a moment on the Darrach Brig to watch the brown swirl of the water below, which fascinated her. Her eyes and ears were ever quick and keen to note every change in the aspect of the landscape, and she was more weather-wise than most. She had fallen into a kind of brown study, from which she was awakened very suddenly by the sound of a voice speaking a few yards away.

It was a woman's voice, and when Isla swung round upon her with quickly-uplifted head she saw a lady on the road dressed in garments such as were not often seen in Glenogle. She wore a gown which, Isla decided, was more fitted for an afternoon function than a quiet country road. It was of a somewhat vivid purple hue, trimmed profusely about the bodice with string-coloured lace. The skirt was long, but she had it gathered in her hand, and held high enough to show the froth of white, lace-trimmed petticoats and a mauve stocking against the clear, patent leather of the high-heeled shoes. A large black hat, surmounted with feathers and swathed in a veil like a spider's web, through which the vivid colour of the face appeared somewhat softened, completed the costume, which was certainly a startling one in that remote place, though such a common sight in London streets as to excite no remark.

Isla grew hot and cold, and started back with a little gesture of aversion, for she recognized the woman whose face she had seen once in the flesh, and once again in a photograph in her brother's room.

"Good day," said the stranger quite pleasantly. "Could you tell me whether there is a place close by here called Achree?"

She pronounced the last word without the guttural, so that it sounded like Akree.

"I asked about it at the hotel," the lady continued. "and they directed me along this road. But it seems a good bit away. Is it much farther off?"

"The Lodge gates are half a mile farther on," Isla answered. "Then there is the avenue to the house and that is rather long."

"I may as well go on, now I have come so far, but if I'd known how far off it was I would have hired a trap of some kind."

She leaned against the parapet of the bridge in a quite friendly fashion, as if ready to talk; and Isla hating herself intensely for lingering, yet felt impelled to do so, and even to put a question to the stranger concerning her business at Achree.

"I suppose that it is the American tenants you have come to see? They have been in Achree for about six months now."

The lady shook her head.

"No. I don't know that I've come to see anybody in particular, but I'm interested in the place through a friend of mine. I didn't know there were Americans in it. I thought it belonged to a family called Mackinnon."

"They are the owners, but it is let, as most of the big places are in these days."

"I see. And where are the Mackinnons? Mr. Mackinnon chiefly? He is what you call the laird now, isn't he? I read about his father's death in the newspapers, and what a fuss they made about it! Is he here just now?"

"He is not at Achree."

"But he lives in this neighbourhood, surely? He has not left Scotland?" said the stranger with a quick, apprehensive note in her voice.

"No, he lives farther up the Glen--oh, a long way. You could not possibly walk it," said Isla hastily. "Good morning. I must go on."

She was ashamed of herself for having lingered to parley even a moment with this woman, who, she felt sure, by her coming presaged more dool and woe to Achree. How she longed to get clean away from the Glen before the name of Mackinnon was dragged in the mire! This impossible woman must have a hold of some kind on Malcolm, else she never would have dared to come seeking him in his own glen.

As she turned away her soul felt sick within her.

"I'm sorry you are not walking my way," said the stranger easily. "I'll walk on a bit farther and take a look at the place, now I have come so far. What a country! Such hills! And how dull you must all find it! I'm stopping at Strathyre, and when there are not the hills, there's the water to get on your nerves. I don't wonder the Scotch are a melancholy people. Ta-ta!"

She waved her plump, gloved hand in quite friendly fashion, and showed her dazzling teeth in a pleasant smile as she sauntered off.

Isla, with her limbs positively trembling beneath her, hurried over the bridge, and so on to the hotel, where she merely left a message, ordering the trap to fetch her and her luggage from Creagh in the morning.

She had had various plans when she started out. She had thought she might possibly hire Jamie Forbes to take her through Balquhidder to Garrion, or that she might even on the way home pay a call at Achree.

But after what had just happened, she had only one desire--to get away out of Glenogle as fast as the fastest train could take her.