CHAPTER XXII.
Rowland’s ideas of the absence of society in his new home were confounded by the number of visits his wife received within the first six weeks of their stay at Rosmore. It had, I have no doubt, been noised abroad that the wife of the great railway man was, in the loose but convenient phraseology of the time, “a lady,” and that there was therefore no appreciable peril to the gentility of her caller, from making her acquaintance. Lady Jean, of course, was one of the first to call upon her brother’s tenant. Her arrival was attended by circumstances of which James Rowland could never think afterwards without shame and humiliation. Indeed it all but happened to him to turn the little shabby old lady who was trudging through the woods in short petticoats and a waterproof to the kitchen door as the natural entrance. Lady Jean was a little woman of about fifty, who had long ceased to take the least pride in her appearance, or to care what people thought on the subject. This last presumption was of course quite unnecessary in the parish of Rosmore, where everybody knew who she was, and where, had she gone about in cloth of gold, it would have made no particular difference. She wore tweed accordingly with the most reckless indifference to quality (I believe the quality was generally good—it came in bales from Romans and Paterson, which the Glasgow shopkeepers thought disloyal to them, and unpatriotic)—one society gown after another being manufactured for her as need arose; and she was fond of giving a gown-piece to any girl that might strike her fancy, walked well, and was, as she expressed it in pregnant Scotch, “purpose-like.” This is not to say that Lady Jean could not be every inch the Earl’s sister when occasion demanded, and strike terror into the Radical multitude, or that she did not possess, and occasionally wear, a wardrobe more fitted to her condition.
Her arrival at Rosmore had nearly led to disastrous effects, as I have said. For when Mr. Rowland saw the little old lady nimbly climbing the hill, with the tweed petticoats reaching to her ankles, and her hat bearing traces of encounters with several showers, he had not a doubt in his mind that she was a friend of the housekeeper or some of the servants. He had said “Hi!” and he was hurrying along partly out of kindness, for the way to the servants’ entrance was shorter than the one which swept round to the front of the house, when he saw Archie meet and pause to answer the old lady’s questions. His father, deeply critical, yet not so critical as he would have been had he known who the visitor was, saw his son turn and accompany her, taking off his hat, which Rowland thought unnecessary (though to be over civil was always better than being rude) not to the servants’ door, but up to the left hand, to the front of the house. He had another “Hi!” on his very lips, but stopped, thinking he might as well leave it to Archie, no great harm being possible. If the housekeeper’s friend did get admission at the great door, what then? He gave a regretful thought to the evident fact that Archie was more at home with the old lady than he was with people in his own position. Mr. Rowland shook his head sadly over this, and said to himself that it was in the boy’s blood, and that he would never make a gentleman: yet comforted himself next moment and justified Archie by declaring to himself with some warmth that he had a better opinion of a lad when he was civil to those who had but little claim to the civility of their neighbours.
Consequent upon this, however, a little curiosity about this old lady came into Rowland’s mind. She was perhaps some ancient sempstress—some old pensioner of “the family,” which was a title only accorded by the public in general to the Clydesdale family, not to the interlopers at present at the house. The old person was very nimble, whoever she was, and she had “neat feet,” Mr. Rowland remarked, who had always an eye for a good point in a woman—very neat feet—shod with strong, purpose-like shoes. If Marion would only learn to have shoes like that instead of the things like paper she went about in. He went on very much at his leisure, following till the old lady disappeared under the colonnade. It would do her good to get a glimpse of the hall with its Indian carpets and wonderful hangings. It’s fine to show a poor old body like that once in a way what wealth can do. It would be a thing for her to make a great gossip about in the village when she got home. Mr. Rowland was still smiling with the pleasure of this benevolent view when he saw Archie come out again. “Who is that old dame you were showing in? I’m glad to see you so civil,” said the father.
“Civil!” said the young man. And then he added with his usual look of suppressed indignation, “I’m surprised you did not know her: it is Lady Jean.”
“Lady Jean!!” But a thousand notes of admiration could not express the dismay of Rowland when he found out that he had very nearly called out “Hi!” to Lady Jean.
Lady Jean was greatly pleased with Mrs. Rowland, whom she described as “probably a little too English for this place—but very well meaning, and a gentlewoman. It appears I once knew her grandmother,” said Lady Jean. This, so far as the point was concerned, was as good as a patent of nobility. Her grandmother!—it added the charm of antiquity to all the rest—though, indeed, Lady Jean was not more than a dozen years older than Mrs. Rowland. Evelyn had besought the Earl’s sister to let her take charge of “the poor” in the village, which gave Lady Jean occasion for a lecture, which pleased her. “But I must ask you not to call them the poor. They are neighbours not so well off in this world’s goods as we are. ‘Poor folk’ is an allowable phrase, meaning a large class; and it is mostly neighbourly kindness, not charity, that you will be called on to give. Something off your own table to the sick and ailing—that’s a fashion of speaking—something off your housekeeper’s table, not French dishes, will be the best, and a helping hand with the schooling, and a kind thought of the old people. That is what you want here.”
“But that is very much what is wanted everywhere,” Evelyn said.
“Very true, but there are Scotch susceptibilities which you must respect,” said Lady Jean. She liked to make this explanation, and then to laugh at it, with a twinkle in her eye.
But her conclusion was that Mrs. Rowland was a most creditable person. “Rich, oh richer than anybody has a right to be—but not much the worse, considering—just a well-looking, well-mannered gentlewoman.”