Rowland took off his hat. “I had a sore heart to lose my poor Mary,” he said; “God bless her in Heaven, where she is; but I have got the best blessing a man can have in Rosmore.”
CHAPTER XXI.
Mrs. Brown did not come to Rosmore, though she received a letter from Mrs. Rowland which dissolved her at the first moment of reading in tears and gratitude, but which afterwards she began to fear must have “some motive,” though it was difficult to imagine what. For why should the lady be so kind to her? she asked herself. There are a great many good people in the world, and especially women, who are haunted with this idea of a “motive,” and cannot shake themselves free of it. Jane was herself an innocent person enough, acting upon impulse continually. But all the more was she anxious to investigate the supposed mysterious meaning and suggestion of self-interest which could have dictated Evelyn’s kind and simple letter. “I should have wished that you had come with the children to settle them in their new home, where, of course, there will always be a room for you, their affectionate guardian, who have been a mother to them; but at least I hope you will come now, and that you will approve of all my arrangements for them.” It was difficult to find anything in this that could be objected to, and Jane wept over it at first, as has been said; but then her habitual distrust came in. “What will the woman be wanting with me? It will be to give herself credit with Jims, and throw a’ the blame on me—but I’ll no fa’ into the snare,” she said to herself, falling into it instantly, if snare it was. When Archie appeared in the afternoon to fetch her, she shook her head. “Na, na, I’m no gaun—no a fit. It’s just some plan for exposing your poor mammaw’s family, and letting him see we’re no to be evened to her. No, no, I will never set my fit within Rosmore.”
Archie himself, though he had gone to Glasgow on Mrs. Rowland’s gentle compulsion to escort his aunt, was not perhaps very anxious that she should come. Though he was full of affection for her, it is to be feared that already the cold eye of the butler had worked its effect upon Archie. He felt himself grow red and a cold dew come over his forehead when he thought of that functionary holding his silver dish at Mrs. Brown’s elbow. What unutterable things would be in his eye! Archie felt that Morris looked at himself with a pitying wonder. What, then, would he feel for Mrs. Brown? Therefore he was not disposed to press the matter. As for Mrs. Rowland, the lively prejudice with which he had met her, had been kept up with difficulty in her presence, and he could throw no light on the motive she could have in asking Mrs. Brown. There was, alas, no difficulty whatever in proving to the most casual observer that Mr. Rowland’s family, which in this case was Mrs. Brown’s family, could not in any way be “evened” to the new wife who was supreme at Rosmore. To bring Mrs. Brown to make that doubly sure was a work of supererogation. Archie did not say this to his aunt, but with a burning sense of disadvantages which he had never suspected before he felt it in his own breast.
“And how is Mey getting on?” said Jane, when this question was decided.
“Oh, well enough. She is just copying everything she sees, like a little parrot, as she is.”
“There’s no harm in that,” said Jane, “for I suppose the leddy’s real well-bred and a’ that. It would be nothing but that he marriet her for. He was aye an ambitious man, Jims Rowland. But eh! he’s a good-hearted man—just ower good. I got a letter from him this morning, and he says the allowance will just go on, and I’m to keep the house, and make myself comfortable.”
Jane’s ready tears flowed forth upon this argument. “It’s awfu’ kind,” she sobbed; “I wouldna say a word against one of them, nor do a thing to vex him. If he had been my ain brother, he couldna have been more kind—I’m just at my ease for life; and if you could tell me ony thing I could do to please him——”
“Maybe it would please him,” said Archie doubtfully, “if you were to come to Rosmore.”
“Na, na, I’ll no do that—just to graitify that prideful woman. But ye can tell him that I want the house for his, and that whatever use can be made of it to send things to, or to come for a night’s lodging instead of one of thae dear hotels—it will be ready. There will be beds ready, and linen aired ready to put on, night and day,” said Mrs. Brown in the fervour of her gratitude. “And ye can say to her, Archie, that I’m very much obliged, but that I have not sleepit out of my own house for years, which is just the real truth, as ye can certify, though maybe it’s no just the reason in the present case; and ye may say I will be glad to see her if she comes to Gleskie—which is no perhaps exactly the case, but we maun be ceevil. Mind ye must always be ceevil, whatever happens. It would give her a grand hold upon ye, if ye were ever wanting in respec’.”