Rose Galbraith (9 page)

Then the uncle took up the conversation.

“You came over
alone
?” he asked with more disapproval in his tone. “Or did you have friends with you?”

“No, I had no one with me,” said Rose quietly, “but I met some very pleasant people on the boat.”

It is never wise to pick up strangers indiscriminately,” averred the aunt autocratically. “You never can tell about them. The very people you judge to be nice might turn out to be quite common, and become a nuisance afterward. If I had known you were coming alone I should have given you that advice beforehand. But of course we couldn't foresee that your mother was going to pass away before you came. It would have been so much better if she could have lived to come back to her own first, but of course it is too late to say that now. Hereafter, however, if you ever have occasion to travel alone, make no friends whatsoever! That is the safest rule.”

Rose was struggling to keep back the tears which her aunt's ruthless words brought to the overflowing point. She lifted a little smile.

“Well,” she said, “I guess God must have taken care of me, for I met the dearest lady, and she was so sweet to me. She knew who you were, had met you once in London, I think she said.”

“A great many people know who
we
are of course, whom
we
have never met,” said the aunt loftily. “What was her name?”

“She was Lady Campbell. She was charming. I am sure you would approve of her.”

“Campbell?” said the aunt, “I know some Campbells, of course, but probably not the same. The Lady Campbell I refer to would never be around getting acquainted with stray girls traveling alone. Was she introduced to you by someone?”

“No,” said Rose. “She came and sat down beside my deck chair and told me that I looked so much like an old school friend of hers that she wanted to get acquainted with me.”

“Yes, that's an old trick. Quite unscrupulous women have sometimes used it, I suppose, to get young unsuspecting girls under their influence. It is never safe to trust unknown people. I suppose this person didn't tell you where she lived, did she?”

“Oh, yes,” said Rose, smiling at the remembrance. “She's invited me to visit her. I have her address right here in my purse.”

“Well, don't go near her! That's all I have to say. You would find yourself caught in some terrible situation.”

“Oh, you don't understand, Aunt Janet. Her husband is something in the Government. They are very noted people. I heard people on the ship telling about them. They were at the captain's table, and everyone thought a great deal of them. Here is the address!” And Rose handed over the dainty engraved card.

The aunt looked up after glancing at it.

“Why, I don't understand!” she exclaimed in astonishment. “Robert,” she said, looking sternly at her husband as if this were suddenly all his fault, “it seems to be
the
Lady Campbell. My dear, how did you say you happened to meet her?'

“She just came and sat down in the deck chair next to mine, which did not seem to belong to anyone, and she told me she had asked permission to sit there because she wanted to get to know me. We had a very beautiful talk, and I found out that it was my father's youngest sister who was her friend. And she knew my father when he was in college; she had often visited at my grandmother's home when she was a girl. She knows and loves my grandmother, though she has not seen her in a good many years, because after my Aunt Rose married and went to Australia she lost track of them, as they had moved away about the time she herself was married.”

“We shall have to look into this,” said the aunt, handing the card back to Rose. “We cannot, of course, have you intimate with any people who are not genuine.”

Rose felt her anger rising, but she dropped her glance and reflected that no good could come from answering back. She was here only for a few days anyway, and why get up an argument? It was best to be peaceable with whatever was said if she possibly could.

Just then a servant arrived to announce that the young lady's luggage was unpacked and she might go up to her room. Rose was relieved when she found that she was to go with the servant and that her aunt was not accompanying her to her room.

“You'd best lie down and rest awhile.” Aunt Janet's cold voice followed her out of the room. “And then you can dress for dinner. Maggie will tell you what to put on—if you have anything with you that's fit to appear in. We are expecting a guest to dinner. If you didn't bring along suitable evening garments, we can send a tray up to you tonight.”

Rose hesitated at the door and looked at her aunt.

“Would you rather I stayed upstairs?” she asked with quiet dignity.

“No, not if you have a dinner dress with you. If you haven't one, I shall have to see about getting you something,” went on the implacable voice.

“I have dinner dresses,” said Rose quietly, and followed the maid out of the room, resolved that she would make her stay in this castle brief indeed.

But she was intrigued by the stateliness of the old building as she followed the woman up the great stone staircase. The lofty gloom of the stone walls seemed so to fit her preconceived ideas of what an old-world castle should be. Her heart thrilled with the thought that it was some very old castle like this in which her mother used to live when she was a little girl. Tomorrow she would manage to ask a few questions and find out all the family history that she could get from the severe taciturn old woman. Surely her aunt would be willing to tell of old times. She must be patient and get as much as she could to carry away for the sake of her own knowledge of her mother's early home.

Up in the great room that had been assigned to her Rose found her meager wardrobe spread out, some of it upon the bed, some hung in the wide old wardrobe.

“I thot yo'd be wearin' this the nicht,” said Maggie, pointing to a simple blue crepe with a froth of lace about the becoming square neck and the brief sleeves. The very dress that mother had wanted her first to appear in before her family. There were others as pretty perhaps, but this was the one upon which mother had spent the most of her delicate workmanship, and Rose loved it very much. She had safely guarded it and packed it most carefully, so that it was as fresh as when it was first made.

“Yes,” said Rose, “that is what I intended.”

But when the woman left her, Rose did not lie down immediately. Instead she went to the great wide windows and looked off across the hills of Scotland and thought how, when a girl like herself, her mother might have stood and looked at almost this same view of the far beautiful stretches of country, not knowing then how it was to fare with her in life; how she was to love one of God's noblemen, go to a far land, and be separated entirely from her family, her proud worldly family!

There were so many things to look at. The furniture was quaint and old and of rarely fine workmanship, but the needlepoint of the chairs was faded and worn. There was nothing bright nor modern about the room. The carpets, dim and thick and pretentious, spoke of other days, and the pictures were oil paintings in great gold frames, ancestral pictures most of them, earls and dukes and lords and ladies, white wigs and hoop skirts, high ruffs and headdresses. She spent much time looking at them, studying their faces for some likeness to her beloved mother, wondering who they were.

She had not been told what time she would be expected downstairs, but at last her little watch, which had been her mother's commencement gift to her, the result of savings from the years, told her it was time to be dressed and ready for whatever was suggested.

When she was ready, she sat down with a quaint old book she had found in the bookcase, a book of Scotch traditions, wit and wisdom, tales of the old days.

And so she sat and read until the twilight came down, making it hard to see. Then she looked about for a way to turn on the light, but there seemed to be no lights except for the tall candles against the grim stone walls. Of course an old castle wouldn't have electric lights, though she wondered at it. Would it cost so much to have a castle wired?

She sat dreamily beside the window looking out across the moors, watching a lovely sunset in this strange new land and thinking that God's sun was alike everywhere. She was wondering too, if her mother could look down and see what her child was doing, thinking, here in this great lonely castle among almost hostile relatives.

It was perhaps these few minutes of communing with her dear mother's hopes and wishes for her that gave Rose a gentleness during the trying places of the evening and helped her to wear a high look of victory when at last there came the summons to go down into the candlelit castle.

She went down the stairs slowly, pondering on the words of the old servant who had called her.

The woman had paused in the doorway and looked her over with a satisfied glance.

“Ye favor some o' the gowans in the garden,” she said happily. “Ye'd best be gaen doon the stair the noo. The yoong Lord MacCallummore will soon be arrivin'.”

MacCallummore! Where had she heard that name? Ah! That was the name of the man they had wanted her mother to marry! Could it be that they had invited him for her to see what her mother had missed when she married her father?

She entered the great gloomy room where her aunt and uncle were sitting and looked about uncertainly. They sat in stately manner as if they awaited royalty.

She saw at once that they had changed into evening dress. Her aunt was wearing black, gleaming and sinister with jet strewn about it, from which her skinny bare arms protruded gauntly, and her long bony neck like a yoke of tan leather.

Rose sat down on a low hassock not far from the open fire that burned inadequately in the great barracks of a room. She gave a little shiver as she drew the hassock nearer to the fire. For now that the dark had come, the castle seemed wide and chilly. It was, of course, a wonderful place, and it was so different from any dwelling she had ever been in that it much intrigued her, but there was nothing cozy or homelike about it. Or, she reflected, perhaps it was the coldness in the faces and glances of the owners, rather than the atmosphere, that made that involuntary shiver as she sat down. She wondered.

For almost a full minute after she entered the room, neither the aunt nor the uncle spoke. Then a solemn old clock spoke, chiming out the time, and Lady Warloch, looking up at it as if it had been a servant who had announced a guest or a meal, said, “Our guest will be soon arriving now.”

She did not look at Rose, so Rose concluded the announcement was for the benefit of Lord Warloch.

At last he cleared his throat impressively and said, “Yes!” And then as if suddenly he was in a hurry, he looked at Rose and said, “There are questions I want to ask you.”

His piercing eyes looked through her and made her feel as if she were all at once a prisoner at the bar. His voice had long ago been wrung dry.

“Yes?” she said politely.

“Several matters that I wanted to satisfy myself about before the arrival of our guest. It is well to know just where we stand, you know, in introducing relatives, especially to our friends; and of course, under the painful circumstances, we have not been in touch with you through the years, and have therefore not the knowledge that we should have had if we had been residing in close proximity.”

He paused as if expecting an answer, and Rose smiled and said once more, “Yes?” There seemed nothing else appropriate to say.

“Very well, then, suppose we begin at the beginning. I would like to have you tell me fully and definitely, what are your circumstances?”

“Circumstances?” repeated Rose in bewilderment.

“Circumstances? I don't know that I understand just what it is you want to know, Uncle. I am sure Mother must have told you in her letters all that you would need to know.”

“No,” said the uncle severely, “I don't recall that she said one word with regard to your circumstances. She merely said that now that her husband had passed away she was contemplating visiting her homeland and wanted to know if it would be acceptable to us for her to make us a short visit, as she longed to see her sister.”

“Yes,” said Rose. “She gave me the letters to read before she posted them. I know what she said, but I don't know just what you mean about circumstances. What is it you want to know, Uncle?”

“Why, naturally I am speaking of money,” said the old man with great dignity. “In other words, to speak plainly, I am wanting to know about your financial circumstances. I have always understood that your father was not a financial success. In other words, he did not exert himself to get into any sort of lucrative business. I am inquiring to know if your father was able to leave you and your mother in comfortable circumstances. In plain language, did your father leave you anything at all?”

Roses cheeks were glowing by this time, as she gradually became aware of her uncle's meaning, and her loyal young heart sprang to quick defense of the father whom she had almost adored.

“Oh!” she said with quick lofty unconcern and a sudden memory of the fund of five hundred dollars in the bank that her father had started for her the day she was born, by depositing a few scanty painfully saved dollars, and was supposedly to be for his daughter's education, or her start in life. She recalled his sadness as he talked it over with her mother the night before he died, regretting that he had not been able to save more. She recalled the fact that her mother would never let it be touched for anything, not even when they were in their worst straits, saying, “No, child! Your father wanted that to be kept for you, at any cost. He said there might come a time when you were in dire stress, and would need it. He wanted to leave you something material that would show he thought of your future. It isn't much of course, but we'll not touch it ever, unless we have to for a matter of life or death.”