Aline induced Mrs. Bal to telegraph Barrie, "Await my messenger"; nevertheless the girl was greatly surprised to see Mrs. West. She had vaguely thought that Barbara might send one of the red-headed maids, to take her back to Glasgow.
Of course Basil must have known, but he had not told. Since Somerled and the MacDonalds came, he had kept to himself with his writing as an excuse. Now Barrie realized that certainly he had been expecting his sister; yet he had not gone to meet her with his car. Perhaps there had not been time: or perhaps he had an inspiration, and could not tear himself from work, even for a few hours.
When Aline arrived at Ballachulish, Barrie and Somerled and Margaret MacDonald were walking together by the side of fair Loch Leven. Barrie wore a white dress and no hat. The late afternoon sun was dazzling on her hair, and as Somerled looked at her, across Miss MacDonald (it was like Margaret to walk between them), there was an expression on his face which made Aline feel capable of desperate things. A child like Barrie to win him away from her so easily! There was something wrong about the world. Aline yearned to right it, and live happily ever after. She had travelled all night by train, and had been hours in a motor-car, never once noticing the scenery; and instead of being enchanted with Connel Ferry had regarded the crossing as a vexatious delay. Some of the most beautiful scenes in Scotland had passed before her eyes between Oban and Ballachulish; but if she thought of such things at all, she thought that even a romantic writer couldn't be expected to notice irrelevant trifles like nature, when bound up heart and soul in her own private romance.
Somerled wondered how he could possibly have found her face interesting. He did not know which of her two smiles had less genuine human nature in it, the sad one or the gay one. And he wondered for the first time if Basil didn't write the best part of their books.
"I've come in a great hurry on an important mission from Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald to Barrie," she explained to Somerled rather than to the girl, as she got stiffly out of the motor-car. She was almost pathetically anxious not to produce the impression that this frantic journey had been undertaken on Ian's account. If she failed, she would put George Vanneck out of his long misery by marrying him. She would even say that they had been secretly engaged for some time. Anything rather than Somerled should suspect the truth. But she was going to try hard not to fail.
"I'll see Basil presently," she said when Barrie asked if they oughtn't to let him know. It occurred to Somerled that Aline did not want to meet her brother before strangers. "Let me just get rid of this hired motor-car—and then I must fulfil my mission before doing anything else. Basil and I will have plenty of time together. I've finished my visit to Mrs. Bal. Dear child, may I have a little talk with you in your own room, and give you your Barbara's message?"
Barrie was eager, yet frightened. She could hardly wait to hear what was her mother's verdict on the Plan; but it seemed ominous that she was to learn it through Aline. Nothing good had come to her so far through Mrs. West.
Barrie's room was small, and looked over a dovecote. The doves were mourning a good deal more than was reasonable considering that their griefs must have happened generations ago. Their continuous cooing rasped Aline's nerves. How would it be best to begin? She had planned it out a dozen times in the train, and a dozen times more in the car: but a few doves and a disturbance in an unseen family of chickens were enough to put everything out of her head. Suddenly she began to cry. That was not a part of her design; but no inspiration could have been more useful. The pretty, serene mask of her smooth face wrinkled up pitifully, and made her seem real and human. Barrie's heart warmed to her for the first time.
"Oh, Mrs. West, what is it?" she exclaimed. "Nothing has happened to moth—to Barbara?"
Nothing that happened to any one except herself could have drawn tears from Aline West, but Barrie did not know that.