Chapter VII: Across Clyde Water

“Ardmore Castle!” said the station-master in broad Scotch; “ye’ll be going there? Well, they’ve no sent for ye. Ye can get a fly to the ferry.” And he turned away.

“I’m----” Dolly was going to say Lady Barnysdale, but Magdalen caught her arm.

“It’s none of his business who you are,” she said angrily. “What does he mean about the ferry?”

“Ardmore’s across the Firth of Clyde. There’s no station; it’s an island. How dare the servants behave like this? I telegraphed.”

“Perhaps they didn’t get it,” indifferently. For it was cold, nearly dark, and she was tired of Dolly’s new grandeur, full of senseless, terrified depression that grew on her with each mile from London. If she could have done it decently she would have turned on the dirty little station and taken the first train back. But there was no leaving Dolly in a strange place to fight her own battles.

“Though there can’t be any to fight,” the girl thought scornfully as she collected the luggage and pushed Dolly into the moldy fly. It seemed a week before they stopped at a long pier, and even in the dusk could see the dark, swirling river between them and the opposite hills.

“And that’s what I’m named after!” exclaimed Dolly.

Magdalen turned from the roaring tide that held death in it to the black hills, the flying clouds. “I always knew I should hate it. I always knew it was just like this.”

The ferry was only a rowboat. It seemed there was no regular ferry to Ardmore. And to the girl’s foreboding spirit every wave and eddy of the Clyde seemed to snatch at them threateningly, every whine of the wind from the hills to mock them.

“The tide runs strong the night,” said one of the two boys who rowed. “They say Clyde has its nights, and this’ll be one of them.”

“What do you mean?” said Magdalen fiercely.

“Night’s that it drowns,” carelessly. “Ye’re here. This is Ardmore.”

The girl looked at the towering shore. It would be pitch-dark among those rocks and bushes.

“Show us the way,” she said. “I’ll pay you.” And so it was that Lady Barnysdale came for the first time to her husband’s house--by a back way, in the dark, and with no more state than one sulky boy could lend her.

“They’ll no’ be expecting you,” said the boy insolently as they rounded a turn and saw the castle black against the sky, not a light in all the height of it.

Lady Barnysdale knocked and rang furiously at her own door without noticing him.

To her surprise it opened almost instantaneously, and an old man peered out.

“What’s wanting?” he said, standing with bleared eyes and a hanging, repulsive lip.

“Open the door!” cried Dolly furiously. “Did you not get my telegram that I’m left to come here like this? I’m Lady Barnysdale.”

“Mrs. Keith’s away,” the old man returned dully. “There was a telgram. I did na’ open it. I ask your ladyship’s pardon.”

He took the bag she gave him, but he bestowed neither glance nor word on the new earl, who, being three years old, was placidly asleep in his nurse’s arms. Magdalen saw the servant was very old and half palsied, and a queer shudder came over her.

What a home-coming! A doddering old man, who had not a word of welcome, a great stone hall, cold as a vault, with no fire in its wide hearth, one candle to light its lurking shadows.

It was all she could do to lift her foot and cross the threshold. She would as soon have entered a den of thieves as this house. Something tangible seemed to warn her out of the chilly, echoing place to go back; something evil seemed lying in wait for her, just as every wave of the river had seemed to snatch at her. Was she getting nerves like Dolly’s?

With a queer effort the girl stepped forward.

“Is there no one here but you?” she asked kindly.

“There’s Grizel and Sophy,” doubtfully. “Mrs. Keith’s away,” he repeated, as if that explained everything.

“Mrs. Keith’s the housekeeper,” interrupted Dolly. “Please fetch one of the other servants and bring the telegram. Hurry!” furiously, conscious of the wondering gaze of Ronald’s grand new nurse, she stamped her foot at the old man.

It was a long while before a footstep came from the door by which he had vanished. And then it was only an obsequious country girl, with Lady Barnysdale’s unopened telegram in her hand.

“I suppose there are beds in the house,” Dolly cried, opening her own telegram and showing it to the girl. “Here is a letter from Lord Stratharden to Mrs. Keith. As she’s away perhaps you had better open it.”

“I wouldn’t dare, my lady!” the girl faltered. “I’ll give it to David. He’s Mrs. Keith’s husband; but you’ll have seen he’s doddering. Grizel is lighting the fires in the guest-rooms, if you’ll please to come with me.”

“Guest-rooms!” cried Dolly. “Didn’t Mrs. Keith get my letter either? Why are my rooms not ready?”

“I couldn’t say, my lady. I’ll do my best,” nervously; “but you’ll understand we’d heard nothing but that his lordship was dead, and----”

“Oh, never mind!” sharply. “Take me to a fire, my good girl, and get us something to eat.” She would not have her antecedents aired before Ronald’s nurse.

But when she saw the bare, half-warmed rooms got ready for her she looked at Ronald with terror. The child might get his death here!

About one room only was there any semblance of comfort. It was small, with chintz-hung walls, less barnlike and drafty than the others. With her own hands Dolly--whom Magdalen had never known to do anything--aired sheets, piled wood on the fire, saw Ronald bathed and fed before she went down to her own dinner, and even then gave sharp instructions to his nurse not to leave him. As she opened the nursery door on the cold stone passage old David stood there.

“Dinner is served, your ladyship,” he said dully, as if he were repeating a lesson.

Dolly, with a queer impulse, drew the old man into the warm room behind her.

“Won’t you welcome Lord Barnysdale home?” she said almost piteously, pointing to the pretty child in his cot.

The nurse was for the moment in the next room and could not hear the tremor in her voice.

The old man glanced at the boy with a momentary flash in his old eyes.

“That’s no him!” he said contemptuously.

Dolly turned on him savagely, her grand manner all forgotten. Not Barnysdale’s son! This child at whom she looked with terror sometimes, lest she should see his father’s likeness in him; her trust for whom she had faced the whole world.

“How dare you say he’s not Barnysdale’s son?” she cried, her muffled voice furious.

But the old man never even looked at her.

“Barnysdale’s son,” he mumbled toothlessly. “Oh, ay! Ye’re dinner is served.”

Magdalen looked from Dolly to him as he shuffled out.

“Never mind him,” she said contemptuously. “Can’t you see he’s childish?”

“He can go and be childish somewhere else then!” Dolly’s fury was more like that of a lady’s-maid than a countess. “Every servant in this house shall go packing, except that Sophy girl. She did her best.”

She swept out into the bare stone passage, where a hanging lamp shone pale and every footstep rang. Down-stairs a fire had been lit on the wide hearth in the hall, but the crackling logs gave only light as they roared up the chimney.

Old David shambled forward and pointed to the dining-room door. As Magdalen followed Dolly in the quaintness of the room pleased her, for there was no stone here, only high oak wainscoting that shone with age and blackness. With shaded lights, new, brisk servants, a cook--and she laughed as she saw the new countess’ home-coming dinner was cold mutton--this room at least would lose the eery look of the rest of the house.

She looked behind her and was not so sure.

A long, low window in the wall opened into the great hall itself. Through it weird shadows from the sputtering fire seemed to nod at her. It looked a place for spying, for eavesdropping.

“Is there a curtain outside?” Involuntarily she had turned to David. “Then draw it, please.”

But it was Sophy, who was quicker-witted, that obeyed her. The old man only gave her a cunning glance as he lifted a decanter with a shaking hand.