So there was no effort to Paul Macleod in taking up the thread of his past life at Gleneira; at the same time, he felt no more regret at hearing, as he did through Will's answers to his inquiries, of Jeanie Duncan's death, somewhere in the vague South country, than he did for many another item of news. Partly because that old life had really passed out of existence for him altogether, and partly because Will, being a good-natured kindly soul, said nothing about the child which poor old Peggy had brought with her. There are many men of this sort--more men for the matter of that than there are women--who hate to face the sad aspect of life, and slur over a painful story whenever they can.
Thus Captain Macleod was able to quit the past and plunge into the future without even the slight regret which the news must have brought him; for in his way he had really loved Jeanie, and the thought that his admirable self-sacrifice had not availed to keep her memory pleasant, would have been a distinct annoyance. As it was, he began at once on plans and arrangements, which convinced Will Cameron that the laird must be going, unconsciously, to follow his advice, and marry a rich wife. Nothing else could explain the fact that Gleneira House had to be generally smartened up for the present, pending more solid repairs during winter, that carriages and horses had to be bought at once, and preparations of all sorts made for the houseful of guests which would come with the shooting season. In the matter of slates, glass, stables, and garden, Will Cameron felt himself equal to the occasion, but when chintzes and furniture came under discussion he meekly suggested a reference to Maples', or Morris, or his mother.
"I should prefer Mrs. Cameron," replied the laird, with a laugh. "If I wanted the other sort of thing my sister Blanche would do it for me fast enough. Take a brougham by the day--to save her own horse, you know--and re-create poor old Gleneira. First day, paper, painting, draping; second day, furnishing; third day, creeping things innumerable--you know them. Chenille things climbing up the lamp, a Japanese toad on the writing-table, and a spider on the edge of a teacup." He rose and went to the window. "But that sort of thing is desecration of this," he went on, looking out on the opalescent shimmer of sea and sky and hills; "though it does well enough in South Kensington. I never could fit myself out, even in clothes, with a view to both hemispheres, and though some folk profess to prepare for heaven and enjoy earth at the same time, I'm not made that way."
He pulled himself up with an airy smile, and turned round again.
"So let us be off to Mrs. Cameron, and perhaps that young lady who is staying with you--I met her by the river this morning----"
"Marjory," put in Will, eagerly; "why, yes, of course, she is the very person we want--has awfully good taste."
"Indeed," said the other, smiling again. He was thinking that in that case he could not claim distinction since she had not favoured him with much of her approval. Not that it mattered, since he had quite made up his mind that during the next few weeks, before his married sister came to do hostess, Marjory would be a decided acquisition to the limited society at his command; for Paul was distinctly gregarious in his tastes. It did not take much to amuse him; but he needed some gentle interest to start the wheels of his pleasure, and that interest was, preferably, a woman. So, being able thus to combine duty and amusement by a visit to the Lodge, he calmly suggested an adjournment on the spot, to which Will agreed, blissfully oblivious of the fact that not half-an-hour before he had left his mother in the agonies of redding up the best parlour, with a view to the laird's expected visit in the afternoon.
No doubt when the women of the future have won large interests for themselves, such a spectacle as Mrs. Cameron presented when she saw two tweed-clad figures lounging up the path together will be impossible. Even nowadays the attempt to describe her feelings must fall far short of the reality, since few of this generation can grasp the mental position of the last, and Mrs. Cameron belonged to the generation before that. Of far better birth than many a farmer's wife who would be ashamed at being discovered engaged in household work, Mrs. Cameron would as a rule have gloried in what was to her the sole aim and object of woman's creation; but this was no ordinary occasion; how could that be one which necessitated clean muslin curtains at a time when clean muslin curtains should not be, a cake made after her mother's original recipe baking in the oven, and a bottle of her dead husband's very best Madeira waiting to be decanted on the sideboard?
She stood transfixed on the steps, in the very act of running a tape through the stiffened hem of the curtain, an operation which in itself had reduced her patience to the lowest ebb; and then, after an instant's pause, her resentment found an outlet in one expressive epithet.
"The Gowk!" For it was Will's fault, of course; had not the lad been a perfect dispensation ever since he was born? (this being her favourite word for describing all the inevitable trials of her life). Besides, after the manner of most housewifely women, she always visited any failure in domestic arrangements on the head of the nearest male belonging to the family. No one but a man, no one but a man, sent to make her life a burden, could have been guilty of such a disgraceful blunder, when a word, a hint, could have kept the laird from coming until the afternoon. The conviction brought a sort of martyred resignation with it, as she continued in a lower key, "and the parlour as bare as the loof o' my hand, save for the tea leaves on the drugget."