Grandmother and the Priests (13 page)

The other young lady, doubtless Miss Mary Joyce, was quite different, for which the slightly dizzy Robert was grateful. Smaller, but with the daintiest figure clad in yellow silk, she had an oval, pointed face, tinted warmly with scarlet and olive, and her black and curling hair fell down to her shoulders in a glistening tide from behind her pretty ears. She was winning and beautiful at first sight, with dimples about a rich full mouth, a tilted nose that hinted of Irish blood, and eyes so full and black and shining and so brimming with mischief and joy that Robert was immediately her champion, ready to defend her with his life and rescue her from her direful condition. Her ears sparkled with long gold and diamond ornaments, and there was a ring of diamonds about her soft and girlish throat.

But it was not to her, this charming and delightful girl, that the MacDougall went and bowed before. It was to the proud fair lady, tall and stiff as a young tree and about as yielding. She refused his outstretched hand, but breeding and courtesy impelled her to turn imperially on her heel and stare at the priest, a cold and repelling stare.

“Miss Mary Joyce,” said the MacDougall, almost humbly, and with open pride. “And our new priest, Faether MacBurne, who welcomes ye in my hoose.”

I do not! thought Robert, vehemently, and he did not know if his outrage came from the thought of the kidnapping or from the idea that the MacDougall, with all his splendor and glory, should love such a lass as this — lovely, aye, but like granite, and as kind.

The other girl was surveying all this with eyes glimmering with mirth, and the dimples deepened entrancingly when Robert was introduced to her. Miss Pamela Stone. Now, thought Robert, wildly, when she touched his hand with warm soft fingers, this is a one for the MacDougall, and not the other who has no heart and no blood. The girl even curtseyed to him, a trifle mockingly, but she said, in a voice like a dove, “A good evening to you — Father.” Her English accent did not strike harshly on his ear; it lingered in it, like music.

Mary accepted a chair, without looking at the MacDougall directly, but Pamela blithely spread her yellow skirts and openly prepared to enjoy herself on this odd evening. “And how do you find our prison?” she asked the priest, as she accepted a glass of sherry with an upward and merry glance at the MacDougall.

Robert did not know what to say. He had not been taught at the Seminary how a priest should conduct himself in such a situation. He pondered, his cheeks flushing. “Cold,” he said at last.

Pamela laughed. It was a full-throated laugh, without reserve or demureness. It was the laugh of a woman who loved to live and who found every day enthralling, even a day like this.

Miss Joyce said nothing. She had refused sherry with the mere turning aside of her head. Robert had not yet heard her voice. He was sure that it would be chill and metallic, and he started when she turned her aristocratic head to him and fixed him with those pale blue eyes glinting like stone between golden lashes.

“He” — she said, indicating the MacDougall as though he were a servant, and not looking at him but merely bending the back of her long white hand in his direction — “is holding us prisoner here unlawfully and against our will. I hope you can help us, and then arrange for his punishment.”

Her voice was exactly as Robert had expected. He struggled, but he disliked her with growing strength.

“I shall countenance no unlawfulness in my parish,” he said.

He looked at Douglass, who was standing on the hearth and smiling fatuously at the bride he intended to take, who most obviously did not intend to take him. In fact, he was listening to her as though she were uttering tender words of grace and kindness.

“Then, rescue us,” said Miss Joyce, imperiously, and her tones were the tones one used to an underling fitted only to obey.

Robert flushed brightly. “I am sure the laird will not refuse you passage, if it is your will,” he said. He wished to add: “And I pray to the guid God he will not!”

“Oh, it is a holiday,” said Pamela. “And Douglass has promised us that we may write letters to our families in London, by the next boat to visit the post island.”

Robert was certain that the post would be long in going. He looked at Douglass and frowned in sudden anxiety and anger. “The families of these young ladies dinna know where they are? Are ye so heartless that ye can let them suffer?”

“Ah, not sae heartless, and they know it well,” said Douglass, never once taking his eyes from the cold Mary. “They wrote letters with their ain little hands, and they were posted in Dundee.”

“He is a liar as well as a criminal who should be hanged,” said Mary. “It is true that he permitted me to write to my parents, but he would let me write only that Pamela and I were staying in Dundee with new friends. As for Pamela, she has only a great-grandmother, and no one else, Lady Clarice Stone, and the old lady will be satisfied. He even ‘permitted’ me,” the girl continued, bitterly, “to say in my letter that my parents must not worry. It is possible they received my letter today, and if the police have been looking for us they will now look no longer.” She gave Pamela a cool look. “Lady Clarice is senile, Pamela. She will not be concerned, but my parents will wonder how two young ladies could have been so imprudent as to travel to Dundee alone.”

“We traveled from London alone,” said Pamela, returning the look with one not much kinder than the one given her by her cousin. “Except for that silly maid of yours, Aggie. If she does not return to London, dithering all sorts of mad things, your parents will not be anxious, dear Mary, and I hope our friends in Edinburgh will have intelligence enough to detain the idiot until we have the opportunity to tell our families just where we are and when we intend to return.”

For the first time Mary looked straight at the MacDougall, whose fatuousness increased. It was not possible, thought Robert, that those rather protuberant blue eyes of hers actually softened just a little! He leaned forward to see more clearly. Yes, they were softer, though her mouth remained prim and closed. She will make a harsh, demanding wife, thought the priest, and will wither the heart of a man, even the heart of the MacDougall.

“When will Your Highness permit us to leave?” asked Mary in her clipped voice with its undertone of hard struck silver. “Yes, we have asked it before, but now I ask you before a witness.”

“When we are married, my dear love,” said the MacDougall in softest tones which startled Robert by their depth of emotion. “Then we shall visit your parents together.”

“Then I shall never see my parents again,” said Mary, without inflection. “They will wonder who our invented friends are in Dundee, when they receive no further letters from us, and I assure you I do not intend to write them again. They will make more inquiries; they will go to Edinburgh, if they are not already there — ”

“Not your sweet Mama, my pet,” said Pamela, smiling happily. “Hasn’t she been an invalid since your last darling brother was born, and bedridden, with three nurses in constant attendance? As for your dear Papa, would he be so rash as to leave his counting-house to search for you furiously, especially as he will have received your letter today, possibly? Do you remember the time your brother Will had an accident on the railway, and nothing was heard of him for two weeks, until it was discovered he was bedded down safely in some farmhouse? Your dear Papa did not rush to his side, nor did he worry over-much, though he cares for Will more than he does for all the rest of you put together.” She turned her merry, sparkling face to Robert. “Do not fear, Father, that our families are in distress. Only Mary is. I think.”

Mary colored so vividly that Robert knew at once that she had a very bad temper, indeed, a bad augury in an intended wife. He did not like to see a woman’s hands clench in rage, but Mary’s were clenching now. And in some fashion he knew the rage was directed at Pamela, who had so blithely belittled her before strangers.

Pamela, glancing up sideways at Douglass, lifted her glass. “More sherry, Douglass, if you please,” she said. Her voice was seductive, and Robert’s head swung to her. He saw her eyes, so black and so shining, and he saw them glisten, and he knew at once that this girl, this charming, merry-hearted and realistic girl, loved the MacDougall, and loved him passionately. He had heard of love-light in one’s eyes, but he had never seen it before. He recognized it as one recognizes all true things at once.

But the MacDougall had no thought for her. He refilled the glass, and he looked only at his Mary, who was suddenly looking only at Pamela with a most interesting expression. Mary’s face changed. It hardened, tightened. “Is one glass not enough, Pamela?” she asked.

“Never enough,” said Pamela. Her fingers had managed to touch the MacDougall’s fingers, but they might not have touched him at all, for all he seemed to know.

An elaborate, and obviously false, curve of disgust appeared on Mary’s lifted upper lip, and revealed teeth that were entirely too large for a woman and entirely too glowingly wet. Pamela’s teeth, showing now in a pert smile at her cousin, were as tiny and bright as pearls in comparison. Mary turned her head on its long neck to Robert again.

“You see our plight,” she said. “You must prevail on this man to free us and return us to our families.”

“I am in no hurry,” said Pamela with a naughty flirt of her thick black lashes at Douglass, who, alas, did not see it at all.

“Shameless!” cried Mary. She clasped her hands and turned again to Robert. “Help us!” she implored.

“I will do all I can,” he promised, and did not know his voice was grim and firm.

“How will ye?” asked the MacDougall with genuine interest. “Not one MacDougall will take a message from ye, Faether, to the nearest isle, nor will he take ye, himsel’. Ye cannot bribe a MacDougall. If ye could, the mon would niver dare show his face to his ain folk here again, and that is death to a MacDougall. Nor can ye tell a Sister to send a message in your name, for none would take it for her, though the Sisters are loved and MacDougalls themsel’s. Ye could thunder and refuse absolution, but I — I am the MacDougall. Bear your soul in patience, Faether. My Mary and I will be married soon.”

And, thought Robert dismally, remembering the softening of Mary’s eyes and the faintest softening of her face, and her looks at her sprightly cousin, that will probably be the case. I could wish him a better fate, even gaol.

“I am the magistrate,” said the MacDougall, with good temper. “I am the law. Dinna speak to me of God’s law, Faether. There was many a mon in the Guid Book who took his wife as I took my Mary, and the marriage was blessed by the Laird, Himsel’, Who advised it.”

“Hear, hear,” said Pamela. “But for one thing, Douglass: I think it best to return Mary.”

Fine lassie, thought Robert, smiling in himself. Let Mary take herself off and good riddance to her. She will be a plague in his house if she remains.

Mary clasped her hands to her excellent bosom with a somewhat dramatic gesture and leaned towards Douglass.

“Free us, free us!” she cried. “We will register no complaint against you! Free us!”

“Speak for yourself,” murmured Pamela, but only Robert heard.

The MacDougall looked at Mary with his heart in his eyes. Robert wondered at the stupidity of men in love.

“Mary, ask me aught but that,” he said.

“Ye must let her go,” said Robert, raising his voice wrathfully. “The sooner the better! If I have to row her all the way, mysel’.”

This highly amused the MacDougall. “Ye would drown in the first wave, puir Faether,” he said. “If ye did not puke your heart out first.”

The two girls regarded Robert with deep interest, and he was so mortified that he stood up and said, “I’ll not stay in a hoose where I am insulted and my priesthood humiliated and my requests jeered at. But I warn ye, my laird, that this lass must leave your hoose, and the sooner the better for all of ye.”

“Oh, ye are not leaving, laddie?” said the MacDougall. “We hae a fine joint tonight, and guid fresh fish, not herring, and the finest wines.”

Robert had already smelled the alluring perfume of the dinner, but his mind was made up. He said to Mary, formally, “Miss Joyce, I shall find a way to deliver ye. In the meantime I wish to tell ye that I willna be a witness to any wedding that is forced, or where the bride is unwilling.” He had a sudden inspiration. “Moreover, I willna be a witness to the wedding of a Catholic to a woman not of his Church. I promise ye all this, so he will have to let ye go, and he knows it.”

Mary’s head nodded solemnly, but her eyes, fixed on the priest’s, were suddenly glaucous and veiled, and Robert’s heart plunged with misery.

“Oh, Father,” said Pamela, and her face had paled a little. “I have a friend, Catholic, who is married to a Protestant man — there was no trouble.”

“There are restrictions,” said Robert, and could not help smiling at her as if in comfort, “A lass may take instructions and be admitted to the Church, or if she doesna want that she must only promise that her children be brought up as Catholics.”

Pamela chuckled. “There you are, Mary,” she said in a bright tone. “You have only to refuse all this, and there can be no wedding, not even by another priest. Be firm, Mary, my dear, be firm, and all will be well.”

Mary nodded, but her eyes shone with sudden hate on her cousin. “I will remember; I will be firm,” she said.

“Please God,” said Pamela, and now for the first time Douglass looked at her and seemed to see her for once. “As for myself, if a man worshipped a heathen god, all stone and fire, I would say to him, ‘Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God, and take me, my darling, wherever you will, to the very end of the world — if it is your will’.”

Her voice trembled; tears appeared in her eyes. She made a choking sound, then sprang to her feet and ran from the room.

There was a little silence. The fire roared. The dinner bell sounded. Mary looked at the MacDougall, and her fair face was beautiful and there was no question but that the blue eyes were soft and faintly glazed. But the MacDougall looked at the door through which Pamela had vanished, and he scratched his head and murmured something to himself.

Robert, praying in his heart fervently, took himself off, pausing only in the bannered hall to sniff regretfully at the fragrances of dinner. But he had his pride.

Mistress MacDougall, not expecting him, had left. He had to satisfy his young appetite with cold lamb and colder vegetables and tea and bread. But not so strangely he ate almost with happiness.

Robert told the Sisters, the next day, what all the loyal MacDougalls on the isle already knew. They were shocked to the depths of their Dominican hearts, not, Robert discovered, at the ‘crime’ of kidnapping an unwilling young lady, but because of a young lady who was not Catholic and had no intention of becoming one even if she married the MacDougall. “There’s nae been a Protestant or heretic among the MacDougalls since there was a MacDougall, Faether,” said Mother M. Dominic, almost tearfully. “Is it certain the laird will have her?”

Robert spoke of law. Mother M. Dominic shook her head. “And a Sassenach, too,” she said, and now her tears were frank.