Chapter V: Rowena's Power

You are endowed with Faculties which bear
Annexed to them as 'twere a dispensation
To summon meaner spirits to do their will
And gather round them at their need; inspiring
Such with a love themselves can never feel.
Browning.

"HERE you are! It's good to see you both. Now come and be introduced to my little aunt."

Rowena and her husband were in the big hall of Kestowknockan, and Hector was welcoming them both in his cheerful, hearty manner.

There was a group of his guests round the big fire, and tea was just beginning. Miss Ross rose from her chair behind the silver urn, and shook hands with Rowena. She was a little grey-haired woman with happy smiling eyes, but she appeared a little flustered. Something in Rowena's face made her say in a low tone to her:

"Come and sit by me, Mrs. Macdonald. I have heard all about you from my cousin Hugh. You will help me. Three utter strangers have arrived to-day. Hector knows them, but I don't."

Rowena took a seat by her, but Di Dunstan seized hold of her.

"Here I am! The bad half-penny back again! I came this morning, and Allan Graeme joined me at Euston, so we've been fellow companions all the way. Also Hawtry Norris; do you know him? I've only met him once at the Graemes'—but it seems that he and Mr. Ross ran a ranch together once."

Di was looking very handsome in a dark blue cloth costume with fur trimming. Her fair hair and fresh complexion were set off by the sombreness of her gown. Captain Graeme was delighted to see Rowena again:

"We owe your husband a grudge for carrying you off to these lonely wilds," he said. "Several have been asking 'Where is that bright, jolly girl with the Saxon name, that used to be about town so much with Mrs. Burke?' And I've answered sadly, 'Married and done for.'"

"Do I look done for?" Rowena demanded; then Hector came up and introduced Mr. Norris to her and a Sir William and Lady Bampford. Sir William had been the English Minister at Panama. He was a thin, wiry little man, a great talker; his wife was a silent, stately woman, who seemed rather out of her element in Hector's free and easy household. The only other guest was a young widow, a Scotch cousin of the Rosses, a Mrs. McClintock.

They were all in very good spirits, and Hector was standing a good deal of chaff about his "ancestral halls."

"I own it isn't up to much at present," he said, looking round his rather empty hall with a grimace of disgust. "The last tenant took away everything with him, and my aunt and I have just got a few things together from Glasgow for the time being. I'll furnish it in good style later on."

"What style do you call good?" asked Mrs. McClintock.

"My own, of course. And I shall go in for simplicity and comfort and not have Birmingham suits of armour, and sham tapestry, and faked bronzes. If I haven't the real article—and I haven't—I shan't counterfeit them."

"You've got a few bearskins of your own," said Mr. Norris. "I should have them stuffed and placed about the hall. Try a few natural attitudes. They would keep away burglars, perhaps."

Through this talk Miss Ross was dispensing tea and talking to Rowena.

"Do help me," she said. "I have never visited country houses and I don't know how to entertain. Hector laughs at me if I ask him who is to take who in to dinner. 'Let them sort themselves out,' he says, 'I'm not going to run the place like the fashionable johnnies! It's to be Liberty Hall.' But if you have guests, you must treat them with courtesy and consideration; and I'm too old to be ignorant. I don't like it."

"I think we all enjoy unconventionality sometimes," said Rowena. "If I can help you, I will; but every one seems very happy at present."

Hector's house was like himself, simple and unpretending. There was an absence of soft couches and cushions, and of all the little knick-knacks that women gather round them. Miss Ross sighed for her comfortable little Terrace home, when she encountered the blasts of air through the long draughty passages and big windows that flanked every room. She had never lived in this house; for Hector's father had taken possession of it when she and her sister were living in London; and he had kept it, till his many debts had forced him to sell it. But she valiantly tried to do her best, and she was so anxious and deferential in her efforts to please her nephew's guests, that they could not but respond to her nervous and timid advances.

That evening Di asked Rowena to come into her bedroom the last thing at night. When she did so Di planted her in an easy-chair before the fire and began to talk.

"Isn't it queer that I should be down here so soon again? Why did he ask me, I wonder? What an odd fish he is! Did you hear his butler come to him for orders for to-morrow morning. 'How many for church, sir?' he asked. 'Will the wagonette be sufficient?' And then he looked round the hall and counted us all. 'Ten,' he said, and the widow looked up sharply: 'How do you know we all mean to go?' she said. And he laughed and thrust his hands in his pockets in his Colonial way: 'Oh, everybody goes to church in my house,' he said. 'And I give notice to you all that there'll be no billiards and bridge going to-morrow. I'm going to keep Sunday as it used to be kept when I was a kid.'"

"'Of course, in Scotland, we do things still that we don't do in England,'" I put in, and then he rounded on me:

"'Why should Scotland march into heaven first? Can't you English keep to your old traditions and Faith?' I enjoy watching the faces of his guests as he talks."

"And how is it with you?" Rowena asked affectionately. "Are you happier?"

Di shrugged her shoulders.

"I hate town more and more, and have left my flat already. I won't go back there. I'm going to Vi for a little hunting. For the sake of that I'm going to endure a course of snubs from her; and then I don't know what I shall do. Try to be good like you, perhaps, and see how it pays."

"Oh, Di dear!"

"Well, don't you want another convert? You made Mrs. Burke very happy. Will you make me?"

"I have no power to do it; and you know I haven't."

Di laughed.

"I don't want a sermon to-night; but we'll have some jaws together before I leave. What do you think of Mrs. McClintock? She's very sweet on Mr. Ross. Can hear nobody speak in the room but him; she watches him and listens for his every word. I know her sort well."

"I felt sorry for her," said Rowena frankly. "She lost her husband just this time last year. She told me she had come up here to get it off her mind. It is her first Christmas without him, and she dreaded being alone in her empty house."

"Oh, she'll soon solace herself with another husband," said Di, with a scornful smile. "Lady Bampford is the one I am sorry for. I should think her life is an hourly martyrdom with that foolish chatterbox of a husband. She turns from him so wearily sometimes. I should feel inclined to choke him if he belonged to me. Dear Rowena, I'm so glad you don't look shocked! Now tell me your opinion of Mr. Norris?"

"I have only said half a dozen words to him. He's very Colonial; but he's really fond of Hector. He said very pathetically to me 'I should like to have a home of my own—one that belonged to my family, but we've only owned town jerry-built villas for generations.' He told me he had a superstition against buying an old house from anyone else. 'I know I should see strange spooks in it,' he said. 'One wouldn't mind spooks belonging to one's own people, but strange spooks might be up to any jinks!'"

Di laughed.

"We shall be a scratch pack in church to-morrow. I'm wondering whether Mr. Ross will be able to whip us all in!"

But Di need not have wondered. Hector had a way of getting people to do as he wanted, and the next day there was not one absent guest in the little church, five miles away in the hills.

"You're a splendid whipper-in," Di said to him at the church door.

He nodded to her, and from that time the nickname stuck to him.

There were shooting parties in the following week, and Di was out-of-doors all day. General Macdonald took his wife home at the end of the week, but the other guests remained on. Rowena had had several long talks with Di, and parted from her with real regret. Di promised to correspond with her.

"I'm a tough subject," she said to her, laughing; "much tougher than our old friend, Mrs. Burke; but your words stick, and I'll have plenty of time to think them over when I get back to town."

Husband and wife reached home one wild, stormy evening. The warmth and cosiness of their house when they came into it made Rowena look up at her husband and say:

"Isn't it true that one's own fireside is always best? I was sorry for poor little Miss Ross going about that big house wrapped in her voluminous shawls. Hector ought to have central heating."

"He is going to. At present his place is like a barn, but my house was very like his before you came into it. You women have a wonderful gift for making a true home atmosphere."

He drew her to him for a moment and gave her a kiss, then held her out at arm's length from him, and said with smiling eyes:

"I am criticizing my wife. Wondering about this particular glamour in her composition. Do you know, madam, that Miss Dunstan actually held a long conversation with me in the smoking-room this morning? It was when you were completing our packing, and she told me things that have been simmering in my brain ever since."

"Tell me about them."

Rowena moved towards the library fire as she spoke, and seated herself on an old carved log-box in the wide chimney-corner. Her husband followed her.

"She was talking about you; asked me if I knew what was your power over your fellow-creatures. She made me realize, as I never have before, that you have a distinct gift in reaching out and winning people's confidence. She told me that Lady Bampford poured out her soul to you 'on the sly.' Her words, of course. Is this true?"

"Partly, I suppose. Poor thing! She has so longed for children, and her only little girl died of cholera in India at the age of two. She doesn't like England, and has a twin sister married in South America. She wants to go back there, but her husband's appointment is up. I'm afraid he wasn't quite a success out there. He has not much reticence or dignity, has he?"

"The woman appeared to be an iceberg to me. Miss Dunstan said you had thawed her, and would never leave go of her once you had taken hold. Is that true?"

"Di is so ridiculous; she only heard Lady Bampford beg me to write to her, and I have a confession to make: I asked her to pay us a visit some time next summer." Rowena looked up anxiously into her husband's face as she spoke. But he did not frown; only smiled.

"I guessed as much; and the little widow is to come too, is she not?"

"Mrs. McClintock? Oh, Hugh, my heart ached for her. Do you know that her husband was a really good man? She used to laugh at him for his religion, she told me; but now she's just longing to be like him, so that she may join him again. She has been drawn into these spiritualistic circles in town, and has been rather disillusioned. Says her husband did appear one day, or his form did, but his words were so unlike him that she believed some other spirit must have personated him. I would love to see more of her."

"Of course, that's what Miss Dunstan said, and Graeme has always been your devoted pupil, and even Norris argued for a good hour with you on the Divinity of the Bible. How is it that you attract them all so? I repel them. Miss Dunstan says I ought to open my house every summer to worn out disillusioned worldlings. She says you would make a cure of them all. She calls you 'The Society Shepherdess.' I begin to see that I have been a stumbling block in your path. And so, Rowena my darling, I am going to give you carte blanche to have as many visitors as you like, for short or long visits, in winter or in summer, or all the year round. And I'll help you and back you up as much as I can, for I see now that this is the work that has been given to you to do, and which very few others can do."

Rowena hid her face in her hands, and then she looked up, her blue-grey eyes misty with tears.

"We'll work together," she said, taking her husband's hands in hers. "I feel, as I have told you before, that my time amongst Mrs. Burke's friends showed me their need, as I should never have seen it otherwise; and one can't help loving them all. I can't. I long to draw them into the golden sunlight of Christ's Kingdom on Earth. We'll use our home for that purpose, Hugh. You have made me very happy."

Only a few weeks afterwards Rowena was made happier still.

She had a long letter from Di Dunstan.

"DEAREST ROWENA,—"

"You shall be the first to receive my news. For I owe my happiness to you entirely. And looking back I bless the day when you first came into my life. I think of it now—Vi and I were curious to see you; Mrs. Burke had told us that she had seen a charming girl who 'viewed life with half-hidden laughter in her eyes.' I remember how we roared over that description of you, and then you came to lunch, and your friendly confiding mischievous eyes—how well I remember them!—they rested on me as if you liked me from the first minute you set eyes on me. And you weren't a bit shocked by our talk and slang. Well, reminiscences are rather fetching, aren't they? Now for my news: Hector Ross has actually proposed to me, and I have accepted him. Now honour bright, did you think that he was taken by your humble servant when we were at Kestowknockan? I thought if he was smitten by anyone it was by the young widow. But after you left, he and I got very pally. And somehow he has your faculty for expecting the best out of one, and knowing how to extract it, too. Not that I have any best, but one day when I said that horses satisfied every part of my soul and body he took me up in his quick way:"

"'Don't pretend your soul is as small as that, for I know it isn't.' Another day he asked me if I'd come with him to see a keeper who was very ill. 'But I'm not a sick-bed visitor,' I said. 'I run away from sickness always.'"

"'You aren't going to run away from it now,' he answered, 'for you've a warm heart and a woman's pity. I've seen you nurse a sick dog in my stable, and a man is worth more than a dog. You'll come along with me now, and we'll try between us if we can't give the old fellow a word of cheer, before he gets into the Dark Valley.' I was terrified, but off I went with him, and he told me how he'd been left guarding an empty trench one night with two dying men close to him, and how he'd repeated to them like a parrot, a speech he'd heard from a chaplain the day before. Can I tell you about that shepherd's hut? I'll try. Picture a dark little smoke-filled, smoke-dried hole and a low trestle bed by a peat fire, and a dog lying by it, and then an old blue-grey bony face looking up at us through the folds of a ragged plaid. Quite alone he was. A neighbour came across to him two or three times a day. And then, when I was just going to turn tail and run, what did the Whipper-in do but say in his clear, cheerful voice—'This lady has come to see you, McFarlane, and she'll read you a verse or two to comfort you.' With that he stuffed a little Testament into my hand which he produced out of his coat pocket. 'That's what the Padres always do,' he said."

"Imagine me, Rowena. I nearly went into hysterics, and then I thought to myself that I always was considered good at acting any part, and I would do the same now. And I opened the Testament and read the first words I came across. They actually seemed to interest him, but I was in such a state of bewilderment that I can't remember now what they were, and the old chap looked up in my face and thanked me quite gratefully, as if I'd given him a tenner! And then the Whipper-in sat down and talked to him like a father. He made me gasp—the things he said. He told me afterwards he had seen many a life flicker out in France, when there was nobody near to have a word with them, and then he said quite humbly, like a boy, 'And if I can't tell them all the orthodox doctrines of our Creed, I can just tell them to catch hold of the Hand that was pierced for them, and that wants to hold them safely.' I tell you, Rowena, he almost made me choke—the way he said it."

"Well, we were good friends till I came away, and I thought I had seen the last of him. And then a week ago he turned up in town and I happened to run across him in the open street. I was staying with the Clarkes—one of the girls was being married. He asked me with beaming eyes whether I would help him choose a few carpets for his house. Said he had meant to come down and see me at Vi's—for that was the only address I'd given him—and he told me his little aunt was ill of bronchitis, and she had only rugs on a polished floor in her bedroom and he wanted to carpet her room from corner to corner and with carpet 'three inches thick.' It was no good laughing at him. He was in dead earnest, and we went off together, and he ordered me about as if I were a two-year-old, and stood me lunch at the 'Carlton.' And then we chose his carpets, and the shopman, of course, alluded to me as his 'lady.' When we came out, we walked in the Park, and he said he wanted me as his 'lady' for life! I was quite bowled over. I am no young girl, and, as you know, I've had my disillusion, but there's something about him I can't resist. You feel he has been everywhere and done everything and knows the world as the majority of us don't know it, and yet he has come back as simple and fresh and believing as any boy. The War taught him, he says, some of the best lessons in life, and he is going to pass on his lessons to me. And I tested myself, Rowena, when he had gone. I said to myself, 'If he lost all his money to-morrow, and his horses, would you be happy married to him?' And I told myself that I would follow him round the world with only a crust between us! So I have no qualms or misgivings. Of course, Vi is enchanted. She's seen him and likes him and the wedding is coming off next June."

"So now my heart thumps madly when I realize that I shall be a close neighbour of yours. Only thirty or forty miles between us, isn't it? And his dear little aunt can stay with us, unless she would rather go back to her doll's house. The Whipper-in thinks she would like that best. Do you think I shall make him a good wife, Rowena? He is determined to make me a good woman. And I've come to the conclusion that the truly good people in this world must of necessity be the happiest, for they have the assurance and hope of a perfect life beyond the grave, and a very comforting one in this."

"So, so—well, you raked my soul fore and aft when you talked to me, so in simple words I tell you that I've taken hold of the Pierced Hand, and believe It will hold me safe through all Eternity."

"My love for always, my dear Shepherdess,"

"One of your grateful flock,"
"Di."

Rowena read this to her husband.

"I know she would not mind. It will show you that she is not so hard as we have thought her."

"I will never think anyone hard again," said General Macdonald gravely, when his wife had finished reading.

And then his eyes rested on her with peculiar satisfaction and trust.

"At least," he added, "I shall never think anyone too shallow, too frivolous, too worldly-minded, to be influenced for good by you, Rowena. I humbly hope I may catch some of your love and tolerance for your fellow-creatures as we journey on together."

Rowena was not fond of hearing her praises sung, but she turned to him with one of her sweet smiles.

"And may I catch some of your single-heartedness and just uprightness. There now, aren't we a model couple! After all, Hugh, we may be seed-throwers, but the real vital work is not done by us at all. Thank God He takes it out of our hands and does it all Himself!"

FINIS