“Thanks; you seem to think it necessary. I will not trouble you further, Mr. Fanshawe. I am much obliged to you for your advice.”
“What else could I say?” poor Fanshawe asked himself, as he retired. “What the deuce have I done? She talks as if it was my fault. I did not kill Tom Heriot, nor lock up his secrets in his despatch box. I hope, though, she won’t find anything to shock her. What do the people here mean by leaving all this to her? They give her everything to do. By Jove! if it was me she would find the difference. I should be her slave. She should do just what she liked, and so would I. I wonder if she’d like it? I mean not me, but the kind of thing—to be served instead of serving, to be kept from trouble instead of being bothered by everybody. Just for the fun of the thing I should like to know.”
At this stage of his thoughts, Mr. Fanshawe being outside on the platform before the house, lighted his cigar; and then he strolled down the cliff to the rocks, where he wandered about till the hour of luncheon.
“I suppose it’s best as it is,” he said to himself, as he clambered up again at the sound of the bell. Such a sentiment is perhaps less contented, less satisfactory than it looks. “I suppose it’s best as it is!” Certainly there was a certain ruefulness in the countenance with which it was said.
CHAPTER X.
Mr. Heriot did not come to luncheon. A tray carefully piled with everything that old Fleming could think of to tempt his master’s appetite was carried to him in the library; but before the rest of the party had left the table, Fleming came back disconsolate, bearing his tray untouched.
“In case ye shouldna believe me, I’ve brought it back, Miss Marjory,” he said, with an injured air, approaching the young mistress of the house. “Look at it with your ain e’en, and maybe then ye’ll believe me. No a thing tasted, no more nor he did yesterday, and me sent away for an auld bletherin’ scoondrel. An auld bletherin’ scoondrel! Man and boy I’ve been in the house o’ Pitcomlie forty years, and it’s the first time such a name was ever applied to me.”
“Fleming, you must not mind,” said Marjory. “My father did not mean it. It was his grief that spoke, and not he.”
“Nae doubt ye ken better than me, Miss Marjory; the bairns we’ve brought up on our knees are aye wiser than us old folk; but he means that, I suppose?” said old Fleming, holding up his tray triumphantly. “And what kind of a meaning is that for the father of a family? No to take his good food that’s been prepared wi’ a’ the care and pains of a clean and Christian woman, that sud have been accepted wi’ a grace and eaten with thanksgiving. When I mind the luncheons the Laird used to eat, the good dinners he made, the fine nat’rel appetite!” cried Fleming, almost with tears in his eyes, holding up his tray as an eloquent witness of his case, “and now to be sent away with a flea in my lug for a bletherin’ scoondrel,—because I was fain to see him eat a morsel of wholesome meat!”
“Go away to your pantry, Sir, and say no more about it,” said Mr. Charles, authoritatively. “Miss Marjory has plenty to put up with, without your nonsense. Your father, my dear, has been in the house for days together. He has not so much as taken a walk, he that was always afoot. That’s the reason why he cannot eat; for my part, I am not surprised. He’ll be better, I hope, when Charlie comes back.”