“So it is,” said Marion, holding her breath a little. They stood side by side overawed, not venturing to say any more. Indoors they were still more silent, following their father from room to room. In every one of them were workmen, and every kind of luxurious article was being added to the original furniture. By-and-bye they became bewildered by the number of rooms and their names—dining-rooms and drawing-rooms were comprehensible, but the libraries, morning rooms, boudoirs, studies, made their heads go around.
“And what’s this?” said Marion in bewilderment.
“This is Mrs. Rowland’s own sitting-room,” said a polite functionary with what the young people characterised as an English accent.
“What does she want,” said Marion, almost angrily, “with another sitting-room? when she’s got the dining-room and the drawing-room, the morning-room and the library.”
“Oh, that is just the thing, Miss,” said the functionary; an enigmatical saying which made the girl stare at him for a moment in perplexity, but added no light.
They wandered upstairs and downstairs, wondering where their own places were to be in the middle of this bewildering space and unaccustomed luxury. There were some small back rooms in the corner of a wing, to which instinctive suspicion naturally pointed as the “holes” that would be allotted to them.
“That’s where she’ll put us,” said Marion, “to get us out of the way.”
Archie did not make any reply, but he thought it very likely. To tell the truth, those back rooms were larger and quite as well fitted up as the rooms in Sauchiehall Road.
Rowland almost forgot their existence as he went over the house, examining what had been done, pointing out what there was still to do. So much of his ideal was in it, of which nobody knew save himself. He had furnished the house in fancy many a time, fitted it up in such a way as house was never fitted up before. It filled him at once with sweet delight and disappointment, to see the reality growing before him. It was not, and could not be, ever so fine as his dreams, and yet it was Rosmore, and it was his. He went about anxious, yet elated, looking out from every window to savourer over and over again the well-known prospect—the Clyde, visible in a different aspect from every corner; the boats upon its dazzling surface, which seemed to hang in space, which seemed to pause and quiver, as if upon the wing, as they crossed the openings, to give the passengers a sight of the house. He knew what was being said on the deck of the steamboats that rustled across and across. “Oh, ay, it’s let—and maybe it will be sold—to Jims Rowland, that was once a lad in a foundry in Glescow, nae mair, and now is the great Railway Man from India, and has come hame very well-off, and gotten the place he had aye set his heart upon. Oh, my lord doesna like to part with it, nae doubt, but siller is not a thing to be turned from the door.” He knew that was what was being said. He had heard it himself, or something very near it; it kept singing in his ears like a pleasant tune—“Jims Rowland, that was once a lad in a Glescow foundry, and has gotten the place he had aye set his heart upon.” Yes, it was what he had set his heart upon, and it was his at the last. And to make it perfect was all his intent and thought. He forgot again that natural difficulty which his own neglect and forgetfulness had gone so far to make—the two standing under the colonnade, where they had strayed after their examination of the newly furnished rooms, and looking out again with a sullen shade over their eyes upon “the view.”
“Well?” he said, coming suddenly upon them, full of his own elation and excitement, “and what do you think of the house?”