‘She was so pleased with the lilies of the valley in the garden, and I asked Robert Fullarton to go out and pull some for her. Poor thing! it is a sad-like place she is buried in, Gilbert.’
‘I have never seen it, ma’am,’ said Speid.
‘It’s at Garviekirk. The kirkyard is on the shore, away along the sands from the mouth of the river. Your father wished it that way, but I could never understand it.’
‘I shall be very pleased to show you the road there,’ broke in Barclay.
‘It was a bitter day,’ continued Miss Robertson. ‘I wondered your father did not get his death o’ cold, standing there without his hat. He spoke to no one, not even to Robert Fullarton who was so well acquainted with him. And when the gentlemen who had come to the burying arrived at the gate of Whanland, he just bade them a good-day and went in. There was not one that was brought in to take a glass of wine. I never saw him after; he went to England.’
While her sister was speaking, Miss Caroline held her peace. Her chin shook as she turned her eyes with dim benevolence from one to the other. At seventy-two, she seemed ten years older than Miss Hersey.
Gilbert could not but ask his cousins to stay and dine with him and they assented very readily. When, at last, dinner was brought, he and Mr. Barclay handed them to the table. There was enough and to spare upon it, in spite of Macquean’s doubts; and Miss Hersey, seated beside him, was gently exultant in the sense of kinship. It was a strange party.
Gilbert, who had never sat at the head of his own table before, looked round with a feeling of detachment. It seemed to him that he was acting in a play and that his three guests, whom, a few hours before, he had never seen, were as unreal as everything else. The environment of this coming life was closing in on him and he could not meet its forces as easily as a more elastic nature would have met them. He accepted change with as little equanimity as a woman, in spite of the many changes of his past, because he knew that both duty and temperament would compel him to take up life, and live it with every nerve alongside the lives running parallel with his own. He could see that he had pleased Miss Hersey and he was glad, as he had a respect for ties of blood imbibed from the atmosphere of ceremonious Spain. He was glad to find something that had definite connection with himself and the silent house he had entered; with its wind-blown beech-trees and the face upstairs in the dust of the garret.
When dinner was over, the Miss Robertsons sent out for the hired coach and pair which they had considered indispensable to the occasion. When they had taken their leave, Gilbert stood and watched the lights of the vehicle disappearing down the road to Kaims. Their departure relieved him, for their presence made him dislike Barclay. Their extreme simplicity might border on the absurd, but it made the lawyer’s exaggerated politenesses and well-to-do complacency look more offensive than they actually were.
It was quite dark as he turned back, and Barclay, who was a man much in request in his own circle, was anxious to get home to the town, where he proposed to enjoy a bottle with some friends. He looked forward keenly to discussing the new-comer over it.