The Guinea Stamp: A Tale of Modern Glasgow

by Annie S. Swan

'THE DAYS THAT ARE NOT.'

he last days of April came, the family in Bellairs Crescent were making preparations for an immediate departure to the Ayrshire coast, and as yet Gladys had not seen or heard anything of Walter. She had a longing to revisit the old home, and yet a curious reluctance held her back. She felt hurt, and even a trifle irritated against Walter; and though she understood, and in a measure sympathised with his feelings, she thought him needlessly morbid and sensitive regarding their new relation towards each other.

'Gladys,' said Clara one day, when she had watched in silence the girl's sweet face, and noticed its half-sad, half-wistful expression, 'what is the matter with you? You are fretting about something. Tell me what it is. Do you not wish to go to Troon with us, or would you rather go to Bourhill? Do tell us what you would like best to do?'

They were quite alone in the little morning-room, which had been given up to the girls of the house to adorn as they liked. It was a pretty corner, dainty, home-like, cosy, with a long window opening out to the garden, which was as beautiful as it is possible for a city garden to be.

Gladys gave a little start, and coloured slightly under Clara's earnest gaze.

'I am quite happy at the idea of going to Troon; remember I have never seen the sea,' she answered quickly. 'What makes you think I am unhappy?'

'My dear, you look it. You can't hide it from me, and you are going to tell me this very moment what is vexing you.'

Clara knelt down on the rug, and, with her hands folded, looked up in her friend's face. Gladys passed her hand lightly over the smooth braids of Clara's beautiful hair, and did not for a moment speak.

'Did you ever have a great faith in any one who after a time disappointed you?' she asked suddenly.

'No, I don't think so. I am not naturally trusting, Gladys. I have to be very sure before I put absolute faith in any one.'

'I cannot believe that of you, Clara. How kind you have been to me, an utter stranger! You have treated me like a sister since the first happy day I entered the house.'

'Oh, that is different. You know very well, you little fraud, that your very eyes disarm suspicion, as somebody says. You are making conquests everywhere. But now we are away from the point. What is vexing you? Shall I make a guess?'

'Oh, if you like,' answered Gladys, with interest.

'Well, you are thinking of past days. You have not forgotten the companions of the old life, and it is grieving you, because it would appear that they have forgotten you.'

'He might have come, only once,' cried Gladys rebelliously, not for a moment seeking to deny or admit in words the truth of Clara's words. 'We were a great deal to each other. It is hard to be forgotten so soon.'

'Gladys dear, listen to me.'

Clara's voice became quite grave, and she folded her hands impressively above her companion's.

'You must not be angry at what I am going to say, because it is true. Has it not occurred to you that this young man, in thus keeping a distance from you, shows himself wiser than you?'

'How?' asked Gladys coldly. 'It can never be wise to wound the feelings of another.'

'My dear, though your simplicity is the loveliest thing about you, it is awfully difficult to deal with,' said Clara perplexedly. 'You must know, must admit, Gladys, that everything is changed, and that while you might be quite courteous, and even friendly after a fashion, with this Mr. Hepburn, anything more is quite out of the question. He must move in his own sphere, you in yours. People are happier in their own sphere. To try and lift them out of it is always a mistake, and ends in disaster and defeat. Would you have liked mamma to invite him here?'

'He would not come,' said Gladys proudly. 'He would never come. He said so again and again.'

'Then it seems to me that it is you who are lacking in proper pride,' said Clara calmly.

'What is proper pride?'

Gladys smiled with the faintest touch of scorn as she asked the question.

'You know what it is just as well as I can tell you, only it pleases you to be perverse this morning,' said Clara good-humouredly, 'and I am not going to say any more.'

'Yes you are. I want to understand this thing. Is it imperative that the mere fact that my uncle has left me money and a house should make me a different person altogether?'

'It affects your position, not necessarily you. Don't be silly and aggravating, Gladys, or I must shake you,' said Clara, with the frank candour of a privileged friend. 'And really I cannot understand why you should be anxious to keep in touch with that old life, which was so awfully mean and miserable.'

'It had compensations,' said Gladys quickly. 'And I do think, that if it is all as you say, there is more sincerity among poor people than among rich. There is no court paid, anyhow, to money and position.'

'My dear, you are not at all complimentary to us,' laughed Clara. 'Your ingenuousness is truly refreshing.'

'I am not speaking about you, and you know it quite well,' answered Gladys. 'But if the world is as fond of outward things as you say, I do not wish to know anything of it. I could not feel at home in it, I am sure.'

'My dear little girl, wait till your place is put in order, and you take up your abode in it, Miss Graham of Bourhill, the envied and the admired of a whole county, and you will change your mind about the world. Just wait till the next Hunt Ball at Ayr, and we'll see what changes it will bring.'

There was no refuting Clara's good-natured worldly wisdom, and Gladys had to be silent. But she pondered many things in her heart.

'When do we go to Troon? Isn't it next week?'

'Yes, on Tuesday.'

'Do you think,' she asked then, with a slight hesitation, 'that Mrs. Fordyce would allow me to pay a little visit to my old home before I go, for the last time?'

There was all the simplicity and wistfulness of a child in her manner, and it touched Clara to the quick.

'Gladys, are you a prisoner here, dear? Don't vex me by saying things like that. Do you not know that you can go out and in just as you like? Of course you shall go. I will take you myself, if mamma cannot, and wait for you outside.'

True to her promise, Clara ordered the brougham on Monday afternoon, and carried Gladys off to Colquhoun Street. Clara was, like most quiet people, singularly observant, and she noted with interest, not unmixed with pity, how nervous Gladys became as they neared their destination. Mingling with her pity was a great curiosity to see the young man whose image seemed to dwell in the constant heart of Gladys. It was a romance, redeemed from vulgarity by the beauty and the sweet individuality of the chief actor in it.

'I shall not knock. Don't let James get down,' cried Gladys, when the carriage stopped at the familiar door. 'I shall just run in. I have a fancy to enter unannounced.'

Clara nodded, and Gladys, springing out, opened and closed the familiar door. Her very limbs shook as she went lightly along the dark passage and pushed open the kitchen door. It was unchanged, yet somehow sadly changed. A desolateness chilled her to the soul as she looked round the wide, gaunt place, saw the feeble fire choking in the grate, and the remains of a poor meal on the uncovered table. The light struggling through the barred windows had never looked upon a more cheerless picture. All things, they say, are judged by contrast. Perhaps it was the contrast to what she had just left which made Gladys think she had never seen her old home look more wretched and forlorn.

So lightly had she entered, and so lightly did she steal up the warehouse stair, that the solitary being making out accounts at the desk was not aware of her presence until she spoke. And then, oh how timid her look and tone, just as if she feared greatly her reception.

'Excuse me coming in, Walter. I wanted so much to see you, I could not help coming. I will not hinder you long.'

He leaped up in the greatness of his surprise, in his agitation knocking over the stool on which he had been sitting. His face was dusky red, his firm mouth trembling, as he touched for a moment the outstretched, daintily-gloved hand.

'Oh, it is you? Won't you sit down? It is a battered old chair, but if you wait a moment I'll bring you another,' he said awkwardly.

'No, don't. I have often sat on this box. I can sit on it again,' she said unsteadily. 'I won't sit on ten chairs, Walter, though you should bring them to me this moment.'

She sat down, and her movement sent a faint whiff of perfume about her, dainty as herself. And then there was just a moment's painful silence. The awkwardness of the moment dwelt with them both; it would be hard to say which felt it more.

'I suppose,' said Walter stiffly, 'you are getting on all right?'

'Yes. I thought you would have come to see me before this, Walter,' said Gladys quietly.

'You need not have thought so. I said I wouldn't come, that nothing would induce me to come,' he answered shortly.

'We are going away into Ayrshire, so I thought I must come to say good-bye,' Gladys said then.

'To your estate?'

'No; to Troon, where the sea is.'

'Oh, and will you stay long?'

'Perhaps all the summer. How are you getting on here all alone, Walter? You must tell me that.'

'Oh, well enough.'

'Does Mrs. Macintyre come to work for you?'

'Yes, morning and night she looks in. I'm going to make this thing pay.'

He looked as if he meant it. His square jaw was firmly set, his whole look that of a man determined to succeed.

'I hope you will, Walter. I feel sure of it,' she said brightly.

'It'll be awful drudgery for a while,' he continued, almost in the confidential tones of yore. 'To have so much money, your uncle had the poorest way of doing business. He had the customers all under his thumb, and made them fetch and carry what they wanted themselves; in that way he saved a man's wages. I'm not giving anything on credit, and after they've once freed themselves, and can pay cash for what they get, they'll want it delivered to them, and quite right. Then I'll get a man and a horse and cart, and when I once get that, the thing will grow like a mushroom.'

'How clever you are to think of all that!' said Gladys admiringly. 'I am quite sure you will succeed.'

'I mean to,' he said soberly, but with a quiet determination which convinced Gladys how much in earnest he was.

'But don't let success make you hard, Walter,' she said gently. 'Remember how we used to plan what we should do for the poor if we were rich.'

'Your opportunity is here, then,' he said sharply; 'mine is only to come.'

The tone, more than the words, wounded her afresh. Oh, this was not the Walter of old! She rose from the old box a trifle wearily, and looked round her with slightly saddened air.

'Have you heard anything of your sister?' she asked him.

'No, nothing.'

'She has never written to any one?'

'No. I think she has gone to London to join a theatre. The girl who was her chum thinks so too.'

'Are your father and mother well?'

'As well as they deserve to be. They wanted to come here and live. Had they been decent and respectable, it wouldn't have been a bad arrangement. As they are, I simply wouldn't have it; I'd never get on. Of course they cast my pride in my teeth, but God knows I have little enough to be proud of.'

His mood cast its dark spell over the girl's sensitive heart, and she turned to go.

'It is all so different,' she said in a low voice, 'but the difference is not in me. Shall we never meet now, Walter?'

'It will be better not. If I ever succeed, and I have sworn to do it, we may then meet on more equal ground,' he said steadily, and not a sign of the unutterable longing in his heart betrayed itself in his set face. His pride was as cruel as the grave.

'Till then it is good-bye, then, I suppose?' she said quietly.

'Yes, till then; the day will come, or I shall know the reason why.'

'But it may be too late then, Walter, for us both.'

With these words, destined to ring their warning changes in his ears for many days, she left him, without touch of the hand or other farewell.

'Well, dear,' said Clara, with a slightly quizzical smile, 'has it made you happier to revive the ghosts of the past?'

'No; you were right, and I wrong,' said Gladys, as she sank into the cushioned seat. 'It was a great mistake.'

But even Clara did not know how dark was the shadow which had settled down on the girl's gentle soul.

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