“Dr. Murray is in the drawing-room,” she said, “and you must come and see him, Matty. They are the first people that have done more than leave cards; and you would not see them when they called last time. He is the clergyman. You must come now.”
“Clergyman? I suppose you mean the Scotch Minister,” said Matilda. “Why should I go? I have nothing to do with him. You don’t suppose I shall go to his miserable old conventicle. Go and see him yourself, Verna. You understand that sort of people. I am engaged; am not I engaged, Mr. Hepburn?” she said, smiling upon her new slave. But Johnnie was not destitute of the prejudices of a man born in the East Neuk.
“Don’t you think you could see him?” he asked with hesitation. “He is a man of some distinction. He is a very well-known man, and he was a great friend of Mr. Heriot’s—”
“Oh, one never will hear an end of the old family,” said Matilda, “but if he is such a great person I suppose I must go. I always thought a Scotch Minister was a kind of Dissenter—oh, do tell me, Mr. Hepburn!—just for the poor people, a sort of man that would not take the liberty of calling. I am so ignorant, don’t be disgusted. I know I am silly; but I will pay such attention to what you say.”
Johnnie led her in, and expounded to her how matters stood. He gave her a sketch of Scotch ecclesiastical history, which was quite brilliant, so eager was he to make himself understood; and Mrs. Charles clung to his arm, and looked up at him, and said “Yes!” with little notes of admiration. What a quick pupil she was! he thought. Needless to add that Matilda was just as wise at the end as at the beginning, and, in short, paid not the slightest attention. It was thus that they entered the drawing-room. Verna followed closely behind. When Matilda appealed so sweetly to her companion, “Am not I engaged, Mr. Hepburn?” a thrill of alarm had passed through Verna’s soul. Could it be possible that the word meant more than met the ear? Had the flirtation which Verna had encouraged, by way of diverting Matilda and keeping her occupied, already come to a serious issue? It was incredible. Charlie was not yet six months dead, poor fellow; but the sister, who knew Matty, was alarmed, and followed closely, with all her senses about her, watching and listening. A mixture of wonder, admiration, contempt, and partial envy, filled her mind. Nobody knew so well as she what Matilda was; to think that any man should be such a fool! Verna, it must be remembered, used very plain expressions. And yet she admired her sister for this one thing which she could do, and which Verna herself could not do. She admired, and wondered, and half envied. How did she do it? And how was it that other people could not do it? And oh! what a fool the man was!
CHAPTER X.
Mrs. Murray was standing in the middle of the drawing-room in a state of dismay. The change which had come over it was greater than the actual transformation. One soul had gone out of the place, and another, a totally different soul, had come in. I suppose if this could be done with our bodies, we should cease to recognise even those familiar garments of flesh and blood. The furniture was the same, the old walls were the same, and yet the place was different. The Minister had found on the table, spread out to invite attention, Verna’s new plan, made out in very bright colours, which caught the eye—and was reading to his wife the words “new wing, on the site of old tower,” with a tone of consternation impossible to reproduce. The good people had come with friendly meaning to do what they could for the two young strangers, whom they were sorry for as having been thus suddenly thrown into a new country without any knowledge of its habits and traditions.
“Depend upon it, my dear, it is chiefly gaucheréé,” Dr. Murray had said, with a very broad accent on the last syllable. “Half of what is called rudeness is just shyness—and so it must have been in this case.”
The excellent Doctor said this as a compliment to Mrs. Charles’s beauty, which precluded the idea of impertinence on her part. Mrs. Murray had not seen Mrs. Charles, and therefore was unaffected by her beauty, but she accepted the suggestion as possible. Marjory was no doubt hasty, and Miss Jean crabbed, and very likely “the young women at Pitcomlie” were only gauches—not intentionally disagreeable. But when Matilda entered, leaning on young Hepburn’s arm, Mrs. Murray was confounded. Johnnie Hepburn! he whose hopeless devotion to Marjory had been known over all the country—who had written verses under so thin a disguise that no one could possibly mistake it, to her, in the “Fifeshire Journal”—who had tormented all her friends with offers of service, and who finally had come here upon Marjory’s business a messenger from her! Matilda did not relinquish his arm till she had reached the centre of the room, when she performed a curtsey to her guests.
“Excuse me if I put up my feet,” she said, as she placed herself on a sofa. The Minister’s wife could do nothing but sit and look at her, so entirely was she taken by surprise. Naturally it was Dr. Murray, as the most important person, who spoke first.