“Help you! how am I to help you? I have nothing to do with it,” she cried.
“With Susie,” he repeated. “I’ll not quarrel with you: you mean well, though you’re so severe. There is nobody like you that could help me with Susie. You could make her see my position—you could make her see her duty——”
“If it is her duty,” Mrs Ogilvy said.
She could scarcely hear what he said in reply. Was that the gate again? and another step on the gravel? Her heart began to choke and to deafen her, beating so loud in her ears. Oh, if she could but get him away before Robbie, with his rough clothes, his big beard, his air of recklessness and vagabondism, should appear! She felt herself walking before him to the door, involuntarily moving him on, indicating his path. I think he was too deeply occupied with his own affairs to note this; but yet he was aware of something repellent in her aspect and tone. It was just like all women, he said to himself: to hear that a poor man was to get a little comfort to himself with a second wife roused up all their prejudices. He might have known.
It was time for Robbie’s train when she got her visitor away. She sat down and listened to his footsteps retiring with a great relief. That sound of the gate had been a mistake. How often, how often had it been a mistake! She lingered now, sitting still, resting from the agitation that had seized upon her till the minister’s steps died away upon the road. And as soon as they were gone, listened, listened over again, with her whole heart in her ears, for the others that now should come.
It was six o’clock past! If he had come by this train he must have been here, and there was not another for more than an hour. He must have been detained. He must have been looking about the new things in the town, the new buildings, the things that had been changed in fifteen years, things that at his age were just the things a young man would remember; or perhaps the tailor might be altering something for him that he had to go back to try on, or perhaps—— It would be all right anyway. What did six o’clock matter, or half-past seven, or whatever it was? It was a fine light summer night; there was plenty of time,—and nobody waiting for him but his mother, that could make every allowance. And it was not as if he had anything to do at home. He had nothing to do. And his first day in Edinburgh after so many years.
She was glad, however, to hear the step of Janet, so that she could call her without rising from her seat, which somehow she felt too tired and feeble to do.
“Janet,” she said, “you will just keep back the dinner. Mr Robert has been detained. I’ve been thinking all day that perhaps he might be detained, maybe even later than this. If we said eight o’clock for once? It’s a late hour; but better that than giving him a bad dinner, neither one thing nor another, neither hot nor cold. Where were you going, my woman?” Mrs Ogilvy added abruptly, with a suspicious glance.
“I was just gaun to take a look out. I said to mysel’ I would just look out and see if he was coming: for it’s very true, you say, a dinner in the dead thraws, neither hot nor cauld, is just worse than no dinner at all.”
“Just bide in your kitchen,” said her mistress, peremptorily. “I’ll let you know when my son comes.”