Rose Galbraith (27 page)

The letter went on its way the next day, and Rose, though her days were full with dear delights, remembered often to pray for the poor forlorn hard old woman who seemed to have sold the beautiful birthright that might have been hers, for a life of rules and regulations, a castle in Scotland, and a dominating cross old lord.

Rose could well remember her father, and the new Aunt Rose reminded her of him constantly. The way her eyes lighted up when anyone spoke to her, the way she crinkled her eyes when she smiled, the way she moved and spoke, the sound of her voice and the motion of her hands. It was all a dear memory, which made her love her aunt most tenderly.

The little boys were a joy, full of life and fun, twinkling eyes, unruly hair always in a curly tumult, daring dimples in the curves of cheek and chin, rollicking laughter, untiring bodies always ready for a hike or fishing or blackberrying, not afraid of snakes or any other creature that came in their way, willing to work like all the rest of the family, and liking it. Their father was a good man with many of their kindly, witty traits more gravely set, deeply devoted to Aunt Rose, as Rose remembered her father had been to her mother. Oh, it was a dear family to belong to, and the baby was a precious treasure. The days were one sunny group of hours after another. How would she ever bring herself to leave them all and go back to America and teach music and live by herself? Yet she knew that someday she was meaning to do just that, only the time did not seem to have come yet.

If she ever stopped long enough to think it out to a finish, she knew that somewhere in the back of her mind was a responsibility for the grim old relatives in Warloch Castle. Somehow she ought to do something about them before she went back to America. And yet she shrank inexpressibly from ever going there again. She shrank from contact with Lord MacCallummore. Every time she recalled the talk about herself that she had overheard, she shuddered involuntarily. Again and again at night she was kept awake puzzling over that talk. Could it be that her uncle was very hard up and was trying to get money out of Lord MacCallummore? Or was Lord MacCallummore the one who needed it? Yet she had always understood that the MacCallummores were wealthy, owning more than one castle. Perhaps it was all owned by the father and the young lord wouldn't come into it while his father lived. That must be it. He had said as much that night to Uncle Robert, yet she hadn't been able to work it all out.

And then her uncle. Why, if he was hard up, did they keep so many servants and live in a castle and own a fine limousine? Why didn't they go down in the village and live in a simple little apartment where Aunt Janet could do most of the work herself and just get in a woman to wash and clean? She couldn't understand the pride that refused to bow to circumstances, that starved along at half rations rather than own to poverty.

And yet, when she thought it over, she wasn't convinced that Uncle Robert was poor, either. Was he merely stingy? There were such people as misers in the world of course; that is, she had heard there were, but surely not among decent families. Surely it could not be anything like that. But unless it was, why, oh, why had Uncle Robert been so hard against the young lord, refusing to do anything for him unless he paid some debt he seemed to owe him? What did it all mean anyway? And why did they involve her in the questions? Why were they anxious to know how much money she had? More and more as she thought about it, she was convinced that her own thoughtless answer to her uncle's question as to whether her father had left her anything must be responsible for Lord MacCallummore's interest in her. She shuddered at the thought. And often at night, when she knelt in the darkness to pray for Aunt Janet, she began to pray for Uncle Robert also. Poor disagreeable old man! How stricken he had looked when he had walked away from Grandmother that day! Had her words gone deep into his soul, too, as well as into Aunt Janet's conscience-haunted mind? And were they stirring something deeper than just pride? Making them both see themselves as mortal souls who might someday soon stand before their Maker and have to answer for the deeds done in the body?

It was several weeks after her first letter that Rose received a second letter from Aunt Janet. The writing was straggling, as if the hand that held the pen was trembling and uncertain.

Rose sat down weakly on the step and read the letter over again. Strange foreboding filled her heart. Poor things! And they had no one to help! They didn't know the Lord, and they didn't know how to find Him! Their stiff formal church had not given them any intimate touch with the Lord Jesus. Oughtn't she to go? She didn't want to, of course, not with Lord MacCallummore there, and especially when her aunt had told her not to come, but maybe she ought to go anyway! Oh, if there was only someone to ask!

At last she got up slowly and went into the kitchen where she knew Aunt Jessie was at work. Aunt Rose was with Grandmother, trying to coax her to take a nap, the boys were down in the meadow playing, the baby was asleep, and Kirsty had gone down to the store. No one would interrupt.

Aunt Jessie looked up with a smile.

“What's the matter, dear? You look troubled,” she said. “Oh, you have a letter! It's not from your friend in America, is it?”

“Oh, no,” said Rose with a fleeting smile, “I wish it was. No, it's from Warloch Castle, from Aunt Janet, and I don't know just what I ought to do. What do you think?”

So she read the letter, and then she told Aunt Jessie about her aunt's first letter and her own answer.

Jessie Galbraith had wise sweet eyes and she watched the face of the girl tenderly, and her own eyes were filled with sympathy.

When the reading was over she said, “The puir lone buddy! She'll be hungerin' for the bread o' life, an' there's nae mon to gie it her.”

“What do you think I ought to do, Aunt Jessie? Should I go to her? She says not, but I can't help thinking Mother would feel I should.”

Aunt Jessie looked troubled. “Read the letter again,” she said. So Rose read it again.

“I doot not ye are needed,” said the aunt, “but a'll na gie my consent that ye should gang alane. Wait till the laddies coom hame, an' see what they say. Wait till yir Uncle John cooms. It winna be lang, noo. A'll no consent tae have ye gang in the neighborhood o' that ill-mannered yoong lord, comin' here tae inquire concernin' yir fortune. He bodes nae guid tae ye, my lassie. Na, ye'll not gang alane. Donnie wad gang wi' ye, or Davie, but baith o' them wud be an offense tae the Warlochs. They have an auld grudge frae yir mither's time, an' it wud be better tae have some guid body no connected wi' the family tribble. Let me think a wee whilie till feyther comes hame.”

And then suddenly there came a knock at the door, and Rose hastened to answer it. She opened the door and there stood Gordon McCarroll!

G
ordon McCarroll had arrived at his home in Shandon Heights at half past one o'clock the night he came from Silver Beach. With a warm hug and kiss from his mother and a sleepy growl of welcome from his father, he had gone straight to bed, after assuring his mother, of course, that there was nothing wrong in the world with him. He just wanted to come home, so he came.

He slept late the next morning, and so did they all. But after a good hot breakfast they gathered in the cozy library, Father in his big leather chair, Mother in her own particular rocker, and Gordon stretched on the comfortable old leather lounge that had been his favorite all through the years. And then he began.

“Well you see, Mother, it was this way—”

Even after his strenuous day and his exciting evening and the unexpected journey home, Gordon had not gone to sleep at once. Instead he had lain there in his bed, that was more comfortable than any bed he had found anywhere, and got to thinking. What had he come home for, and just what did he mean to do now?

It was these questions that he was about to bring out for his parents' perusal and advice.

Oh, he had thrashed them all out thoroughly in the night and he knew just where he stood now. There was no uncertainty in him anymore. He knew that he loved Rose, and that he wanted no other girl in his life but her. His next task was to make his mother and father understand that, and be ready to rejoice in it with him. Could he do that?

Through that long sweet night vigil he had seen Rose almost face to face; he had thrilled with the touch of her lips on his; he had held her small white hand, empty of jewels, and seen the beauty in it as he had not seen it in that other jeweled hand. In his thoughts he had gathered her into his arms, and held her to his heart with wonder and amazing joy. Would he ever do it in reality, he wondered?

And so when the morning dawned, he went down to his father and mother and lay on the couch and began to tell them.

His mother looked up with a hungry fear in her eyes and let her loving heart take in the great beauty that love gives to a face when it has just newly come there to dwell. As she studied the beloved face of her boy, somehow she was reassured. He had not done something rash. Surely, surely, all his years of dependableness were not going to end in mistakes!

“Yes?” she said breathlessly.

But the father sat with a casual glance at his son and a quick half fearful one toward the mother, and hid behind a quizzical smile of content. He would bank on his boy every time, but he wasn't just sure how the mother was going to take—well, anything new he might be going to propose. He had never been quite sure just how she was going to take anything.

“About this girl we spoke of several months ago!”

“Yes?” Quick, almost appealing. Oh, if he would only hurry and relieve the anxiety.

“Well, I told you she wasn't anybody new. She's a girl I've known practically all my life.”

“Yes?” Oh if he would only tell her name and end the anxiety. The mother's eyes sought the father's and found quick warning in their gentle smiling depths. No, she knew she mustn't ask for that name. It had to come of itself.

“Why, you don't need to be so darned scared, little moms,” laughed Gordon. “She was just a simple sweet girl who sat across the aisle from me the last two years I was in high school, and before that she was somewhere else in the same room. She was bright as a button and very quiet and shy. She was always well prepared with her lessons and always stood well, sometimes at the head of the class.”

“When you weren't occupying that place,” said his father in a half-comic tone of mingled satisfaction and teasing.

Gordon grinned at his father.

“She was there more often than I, dad. But you see, our contacts at that time were just the usual classroom stuff. We saw each other, we said ‘hello' or asked a question about lessons, that's about all. She almost never came to any class festivity unless it was in regular school hours. She was never at the parties, and never seemed to have any special friends.”

“But why?” interrupted his mother sharply. “Is there something peculiar about her?”

“No, Mother, she was only peculiarly sweet and well behaved. I don't know why she never came to things we had, picnics and the like. I judged perhaps it was lack of time. She may have had to work. She dressed very simply—becomingly, but plainly. She did not seem to have her mind on amusements. She was in school to get her education, and she was doing her best to get it. Beyond that I don't know much even yet.”

“But Gordon, are you
sure
she is all right? You are sure there is no reason—”

“Mother, let the boy tell in his own way!” said the father.

“Yes, Gordon. Go on, please!” Her voice was fairly trembling with eagerness.

“Yes, Mother, I'm quite sure. But you'll have to hear the whole story! We went on like that through the whole last term, and I never knew her any better. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of her as she was studying, and had a passing thought of how interesting she seemed, but I wasn't paying much attention to girls then. Only as I look back now it seems as if I had known her intimately always, since I was a little kid.”

“But why, why, Gordon, didn't she have anything to do with the rest? Was it their fault or hers?” asked his mother impatiently.