My Heart's in the Highlands
Copyright© 2024 by Amy Le Feuvre
Chapter 4: An Old Friend
“And I perceived no touch of change”
...
“But found him all in all the same.”
Tennyson.
“MY dear girl, you must come with me to Lady Graeme’s At Home this afternoon.”
“Oh, why?” asked Rowena, looking up from her desk with a wrinkle between her brows.
“Well, she made a special point of your accompanying me. She lost her heart to you the other afternoon when she was here. Now I let you off a good many places, but not this one. Will you be ready about half-past four?”
“If you wish.”
And so it came to pass that Rowena found herself, on a foggy November afternoon, in a crowded drawing-room in Palace Gate. She knew many of the young people assembled there, for Lady Graeme, like Mrs. Burke, though old herself, loved to surround herself with the young. It was not a very staid gathering. There was a distinctly rowdy element in it. Every one smoked, and voices were loud and voluble. Rowena got as near the door as she could. She hoped she could slip out into an emptier ante-room, but first one and then another detained her. Lady Graeme’s second son, Alan by name, was a special crony of hers. He had stayed at Minley Court on several occasions, and was a fresh frank young fellow in the Scots Guards. He now slipped into a seat close to her.
“Thanks be, that you are here, at any rate,” he said. “I do loathe the mater’s crushes so. I hardly see you anywhere in town. Don’t you go about?”
“I’m not a gadder by choice,” said Rowena cheerfully.
“You don’t look it! Did you ever see such a set of women as are here this afternoon? I’m getting fed up with it. I should like to go off game hunting in Somaliland or in the Rockies.”
“Why don’t you do it when you get your leave? I agree with you, one does get fed up with all this. So much energy wasted.”
“Oh, I know what you think of us. You and I have had some straight talks. Why don’t you sober your giddy old friend over there. My word! she might be just eighteen!”
Mrs. Burke was the centre of a noisy group—the other end of the room. One of the men was taking off a well-known parliamentary character, and his audience was convulsed with laughter.
Rowena looked across at her and sighed; then she turned to her young companion and smiled.
“Well, you see what life does to those who grow old in this atmosphere! Get your own soul into fresher and clearer air, and do something before you die. Isn’t it Young that says:
“Time wasted is existence—us’d is life.”
“You ought to have lived in the mediæval days,” laughed young Alan. “How you would have buckled on your man’s sword and thrust him forth! Do you seriously think running down a tiger is more soul inspiring than dancing the Tango?”
“Your soul would get a chance of breathing. Life without a pause is so paralysing.”
“We always get into metaphysics—you and I! Hulloo, here is Macdonald by all that’s wonderful! The mater has beguiled him here under false pretences; he’ll never stand this. Take a good look at him. He saved my life out in France—ought to have got a V.C. for it. He’s a cousin of ours.”
Rowena took one look at the tall figure coming in at the door, and a faint flush rose to her cheeks, a breath of Highland air seemed to accompany him. He looked irreproachable in his London clothes, and yet there was some indescribable stamp about him that set him apart from the men around him.
“Let me introduce him,” said her young companion.
“But I know him,” said Rowena.
Alan Graeme started forward and shook hands warmly with the General.
“Awfully good of you to come! The mater’s just gone into the tea room; here’s some one who knows you.”
General Macdonald met Rowena’s bright friendly eyes, with grave pleasure in his own.
He held out his hand to her.
“It seems a long time since we met,” he said. “I have brought Mysie to town for a week or two.”
Alan was seized hold of by a young girl in a startling dress of black and white striped velvet, very open at the neck and back; very short in the skirt.
“Oh, you slacker!” she exclaimed, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t you know that two lady loves await you in that further corner. They have sent me to fetch you. You promised to sing for one, and—”
They moved off.
General Macdonald’s look of disgust made Rowena smile.
“Are you at home in this company?” he asked abruptly; “it somehow does not seem to fit you.”
Then before she had time to reply he went on:
“I am told I am old-fashioned and censorious; but a scene like this repels me. Are these the mothers of our future generation? May God help me to keep Mysie out of fashionable society.”
“Amen,” breathed Rowena.
“Give me news of the Highlands,” she said.
He did not respond, but looked at her in puzzled bewilderment.
“Do you often attend these functions? I feel like a fish out of water. Is there nowhere we can get away from this smoke and heat? I came to see my cousin.”
“Shall we go into the tea room? I believe she is there.” But the tea room was overcrowded, and they stood for a moment in the corridor outside. He told her he had brought Mysie up for a fortnight and they were staying with an old cousin of his in Eton Place. Then he asked her about herself, and Rowena pointed out Mrs. Burke to him.
“I live with her, as a companion-secretary.”
General Macdonald looked at Mrs. Burke with her golden wig and rather loud style of dress. He noted the noisy circle in which she was, and he said shortly and sternly, “I am sorry to hear it.”
Rowena’s eyes first twinkled, then softened:
“I do like you,” she said audaciously, “when you act the stern friend.”
He did not smile.
“Mysie will be wild to get hold of you. Can you come round and see us?”
“I think I might perhaps to-morrow, darling Mysie! I expect she is grown.”
He was silent. Rowena was conscious that she was the subject of his close scrutiny.
“You have been through trouble since we met. I did not know your address or would have written you a line of sympathy. Your brother was a great friend of mine.”
“I know. Thank you. My sister-in-law has gone to live with her mother, so I am on my own.”
“And you can do no better than this?”
“You are judging me hardly.”
Rowena’s tone was rather proud, though her heart was beating and her pulses throbbing strangely. She rather resented the effect that this tall grave friend of hers had upon her.
He smiled, and his smile warmed her heart.
“Perhaps I am. You must tell me all about yourself.”
At this moment Lady Graeme came up, and whilst she was greeting her cousin, Mrs. Burke seized hold of Rowena.
“I am off. Come along. I have promised to go to the Ford Curries. If you don’t want to come with me, you can go home.”
So Rowena left the house with her, and when she got home felt strangely dispirited.
“He will never understand. How can I explain? How can I tell him that I am trying to dig out from the mud a treasure which has been lost. It’s like the woman in the Bible. But he only sees the racket and the dust: he doesn’t know the silver bit is there.”
The next day she asked permission from Mrs. Burke for an afternoon to herself, and set off for Eton Place.
She was shown upstairs into a rather gloomy drawing-room, but in a moment Mysie flashed into the room, and in her old impulsive way flung herself upon her.
“Oh, you darling! I can’t believe it’s you. I yelled when Dad told me, and Cousin Bel asked if I was trying to do the Highland Fling. Cousin Bel has a cold and is in bed, and Dad and I sit downstairs in the smoking-room. There’s no fire up here. Come along down.”
Rowena found that Mysie was growing into a very handsome girl. She had developed in many ways, and it was pretty to see her with her father; there was absolute confidence and understanding between them.
“He has got younger, and she has got older,” was Rowena’s conviction. She took Rowena downstairs, and General Macdonald rose to greet her with a bright smile of welcome.
He pulled an easy-chair before the fire for her, and Mysie squatted down on the hearthrug and leant her brown curly head against her knees.
“Isn’t this comfy, just us three! Dad and I often wanted you when the days got dark after you left us. And do you know I’ve got a new name for you. I used to call you the prisoner—now I call you Miss Mignon. I learn French now, so I know a lot of fresh words!”
Rowena laughed.
“Oh, Flora, it is nice to hear you talk again! Tell me all you have been doing.”
Mysie was only too delighted to chatter away. She appealed to her father very often, and he sat for the most part listening to his small daughter, but sometimes putting in a word himself.
“Dad says you live with an old lady now. Couldn’t you leave her, and come and stay with us for a nice long visit? Dad and I thought you were still in India; we would have come to see you long ago, wouldn’t we, Dad, if we had known you were in London.”
“I’m sorry to tell you that young Macintosh is leaving us,” said General Macdonald. “He has been offered a Church in Edinburgh. That is one of the causes which has brought us to town. We are going to try another governess, but we have decided that she must be quite old; somebody who will be content to sit at home over the schoolroom fire whilst Mysie and I tramp the country together.”
“I hope you will find her,” said Rowena gaily. “But I am sorry the Macintoshes are leaving. I liked them so much.”
Then she turned to General Macdonald.
“Are you more at home now? Perhaps you have finished your work?”
“It finished me unfortunately. I had a breakdown, and was ordered back to my native air. A quiet life is the only thing I’m fit for.”
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