“Na, mem,” said Rankin, “I could swear ye doubted; but being a real lady, and no suspicious as the like of me is always, you couldna believe he was cheating. He might mean it only as a kind of a joke, ye never can tell with these callants. But, madam, this is all very indifferent and not to the purpose; what I’m wanting to tell is, that there was something going on that was no building kirks between these young men.”
Evelyn was not acquainted with the figurative language of the humble Scot, but she divined what he meant. She made a hurried gesture of entreaty that he would go on: “Well! that’s just about all I know; there was something the one wanted and the other was loathe to give. The shabby body was just full of threats, and no blate about saying them before me, a stranger; and young Saumarez, he was holding off, trying his jokes, and to take his attention with the dowgs and various devices. And syne they went out of my house in close colloquy. The wife is not a woman of much book-learning, but she has a wonderful judgment. She said to me, when she came in from showing them to the door. ‘Take you my word, John Rankin,’ says she, ‘if there’s ony mischief comes to pass, thae twa will have the wyte of it,’ which agreed entirely with my ain precognition. I wouldna say but we thought of mair vulgar crimes, being of the practical order ourselves. And I hear the trouble’s about a cheque, whether stolen or what I cannot tell. But my advice to you, maadam, as one educated person with another, is—just look for it there.”
“Eddy!” Evelyn said below her breath, “Eddy!” Long before Rankin’s speech had come to an end, her quick mind had realized the shock, felt it to the bottom of her heart, staggered out of the course of her thoughts for a moment in sheer dismay and horror; then with the sudden spring of intellectual power quickened by pain had returned to the simple question. Eddy! Eddy! who had been so sympathetic, so affectionate, such true feeling in his eyes, such real zeal for the house, so good to James, so generous about Archie. Ah! generous! then she began to think and remember. If Rankin was right, he had introduced that man on a false pretence to her house, and it had been difficult to her to realize that Eddy was really so sympathetic. And surely there were things he had said! Her head began to buzz and ache with the rapid throng of thoughts, thoughts half understood, half seen only in the hurry and rush of bewildering and confusing suggestion. The old gamekeeper went on talking, but she did not hear him, and he perceived what processes he had set in motion, and for a moment was silent too.
“There is just one thing, mem,” he said, “before you go,”—when Evelyn rose, still bewildered, wading through the chaos of her own thoughts. “The night o’ the ball—there’s aye een on the watch in a house like yours—the body Johnson disappeared as soon as the gentleman arrived that came from the bank, him that arrived in a coach all the way round the land road. There was one that saw him leave go of the leddy that was dancing with him—the nasty toad to daur to ask a leddy to dance!—and jump out of the window behind the curtain, and was never seen more. And Mr. Archie to get the wyte of it, a fine, ceevil, well-spoken young man! Na, na, we will not bide that. Just you look in that direction, Mistress Rowland, for there the true culprit’s to be found.”
“I will—I will think of what you say,” cried Evelyn, faltering. “It is a dreadful light, but if it is a light—You are proud people, you Scotch, you don’t like your own secrets to be exposed to all the world. And you don’t know all the story, Rankin, only a bit of it. Stop these people talking! you can surely do it, you who are so clever; think how you would like it. And my husband, my poor husband!”
“I feel for Maister Rowland,” said Rankin, “but a house with a score of servants a’ on the watch, how are ye to keep a thing secret? There are nae secrets in this world. If there’s a thing ye wish to keep quiet, that’s just the thing the haill countryside will jabber about. I’ll do what I can. I’ll do what I can,” he added hurriedly, “but the only thing to stop it is to bring the lad hame.”
CHAPTER XL.
When Evelyn returned to the house she found her husband engaged with a visitor—no less a person than Sir John Marchbanks—who had some works going on near Kilrossie, drainages and such like, on which he was very anxious to have Mr. Rowland’s opinion. And Rowland, recalled to himself by the touch of the practical, had recovered his spirits and energy for the moment at least. He agreed to go and inspect the work, and to add to that kindness, as Sir John said, with a little pompous politeness, by staying to dinner afterwards, as country neighbours use. Evelyn had therefore no means of confiding Rankin’s revelation to her husband, even had she wished; and she was not sure that she wished to do so. The whole matter wanted more thinking over than she could give it in the agitated walk home and the hurried interval before he left with his visitor to walk to Kilrossie and see the works. “I warn you, Mrs. Rowland, that I will keep him as long as I can,” said Sir John. “We have great schemes of public work before us in the peninsula, and there is nobody here whose opinion is worth a button in comparison with his.”
“I shall make no objection; it will do him good,” said Evelyn: but she followed her husband into the library, where he went for a moment to fetch some papers. “James,” she said, with a little timidity, “may I send for Archie home?”
“May you send for—the devil!” said James Rowland. “What do you mean? What’s the boy to you?”