Graham Travers

“ Dr Dudley was not in love with Mona. It was his own firm conviction that he never would be really in love at all. All women attracted him who in any respect or in any degree approached his ideal; the devoted wife and mother, the artist, the beautiful dancer, the severe student, the capable housewife, the eloquent platform speaker,—in all of these he saw different manifestations of the eternal idea of womanhood, and he never thought of demanding that one woman should in herself combine the characteristics of all. ”

“ You were futile and vain, for Dudley had a sufficiently just estimate of his capabilities to abstain at all times from dancing; and at that moment, with fur cap over his eyes, he was sleeping fitfully in the night express; and yet perhaps you were a wise little wish, and how different things might have been if you could have been realised!
The wish was gone, however, and Mona was watching her friends. A woman must be plain indeed if she is not to look pretty in becoming evening dress; and Doris, in her soft grey silk, looked like a Christmas rose in the mists of winter. ”

“ Do you consider yourself even qualified to be a linen-draper's shop-girl? Are you in the habit of submitting to the whims and caprices of every Tom, Dick, and Harry who confers on you the favour of bargaining with you for a good penny's-worth? Is it possible you do not realise the extent to which you have always been—to use a metaphor of your own—the positively electrified object in the field?—how we have all meekly turned a negative side to you, and have revenged ourselves by being positive to the rest of the world? Can you hope to be a comfort even to your cousin? ”

“ How little we can tell in life what actions or omissions will throw their light or shadow over our whole future!
"What right have we," he said musingly at last, "to say what is normal and what is not? How can we presume to make one ideal of virtue the standard for all? Look round the world boldly—not through the medium of tinted glass—and choose at random a dozen types. If there be a God at all, it is awful to think of His catholicity!"
Mona looked up with a smile.
"Forgive me, Miss Maclean," he said. ”

“ What is the use of friendship, if we never fall back upon it in time of need? I want you to tell me what it was that spoilt your visit to Cannes."
"Nothing," said Lucy, with burning face, "unless, perhaps, my own idiocy. Oh, Mona, you dear old bully, there is not anything to tell! I thought I was always going to get the best of it with men, and now a man has got the best of it with me. It's only fair. Now you know the whole story. Despise me as much as you like."
"When I take to despising people, I imagine I shall have to begin even nearer home than with my plucky little Lucy. ”

“ Dr Dudley rose to his feet, and kicked a footstool across the room. You would scarcely have recognised his face as the one that had smiled at Mona across the counter. The wind played on his nerves as if they had been an instrument, but he was not thinking of the storm.
"Three years more before I can begin to do a man's work in the world," he said, "and nearly thirty lie behind me! It is enough to make one make tracks for the gold-fields to-morrow. What surety have I that all my life won't drift, drift, drift away, as the last thirty years have done? ”

“ Mona raised her eyes.
"What answer do you want, Mr Dickinson?" she said quietly.
If the Sahib had been absolutely honest he would have replied, "Upon my soul, I don't know!" but there are moments when the best of men think it necessary to adapt the truth to circumstances. Before Mona came to Edinburgh he had certainly regretted those hasty words of his at the ball; but, now that he was in her presence again, now especially that he was alone in her presence, the old charm returned with all its force. Doris was a pearl, but Mona was a diamond; Doris was spotless, but Mona was crystalline. ”

“ But I like Dr Dudley all the same. He seems to have an awfully good influence on the students. He is a good deal older than they are, and he lives his life according to his own tastes, without posing as a saint or being mistaken for a muff. What I liked was his manner with those horrid dirty 'casuals.' And then he is just enough of a cynic to give an edge to it all."
"I am afraid I am too old to appreciate cynics."
"Poor soul!" said Lucy, in a tone of profound commiseration. "Life is indeed a thing of the past for you. Cynics are the spice of the world. ”

“ Now that she knew where he sat, Mona had no difficulty in avoiding his short-sighted eyes. In fact, as time went on, she grew bolder, and loved to look on from a distance, while Dudley's fellow-students gathered round and assailed him with a torrent of questions, the moment each paper was over. It was pleasant to see his relations with those lads,—the friendly raillery which they took in such good part. Clearly they looked upon him as a very good fellow, and a mine of wisdom.
"You are mere boys to him," thought Mona proudly. "He is willing to play with you; but I am his friend!" ”

“ The half lights, the subtle Eastern aroma, and the picturesque figure of Nubboo had disappeared, giving place to a blaze of pretty lamps, festoons of æsthetic drapery, profuse vegetation, and groups of magnificent footmen.
"Come along, Mona!" Evelyn cried impatiently. "Lucy has been here for half an hour. I was so afraid you would be too late to see the rooms before the bloom is knocked off them. The supper-table is simply a dream."
"Bless my soul!" said Lucy, in an awestruck whisper, as Mona threw off her cloak. "You do look imposing! Mary Stuart going to the scaffold is not in it. ”

“ Mona paused, and in the darkness she heard a suppressed sob.
"I am not a child, Jenny," she went on. "I know as well as you do what the world would say, but we are away from the world just now, you and I; we are alone in the darkness with God. Let us try for a little to see things as He sees them. Don't you think He knows as well as we do that if Maggie is kindly and lovingly dealt with now, she may live to be a better woman and not a worse, because of this fall? He puts it into her mother's power to turn this evil into good. And you must not think that her life is spoilt. ”

“ By the way, do you know that Castle Maclean is yours for life now? At least Carlton Lodge is, and only the sea-gulls are likely to dispute my princess's claim to her battlements."
He handed her into a boat, and rowed out into the middle of the river.
"Now," he said, "you shall see what your slave's muscles are worth."
Like an arrow the little boat shot through the water in the sunshine, and Mona laughed with delight at the exhilaration of the swift rushing movement.
"That will do, Dr Dudley," she said at last. "Don't kill yourself." ”

“ Miss Lascelles glanced round the pretty room.
"I almost envy you," she said. "It must be very pleasant to be able to shut one's eyes to abuses, and eat one's pudding in comfort."
"Ay, or to shut one's eyes to one's father's shortcomings, and make the best of them."
"It is not the shortcomings I object to, it is the false pretensions. Give me honesty at all costs. Let everything be open and above-board."
"Honesty—honesty—honesty!" said Mona. "I sometimes think I hate honesty; it is so often another name for ingratitude and brutality. ”

“ Yet even where the bazaar is already dead, we all seem to combine, sorely against our will, to keep the old mummy on its feet. Nor is the reason for our inconsistency far to seek. The bazaar knows its world; there is scarcely a human weakness—a weakness either for good or for evil—to which it does not appeal; so it dies hard, and, in spite of ourselves, we cherish it to the last. ”

“ He held out his hand, forgetful of the frayed cuff, and Mona's eyes filled with tears as she took it.
"It is true it can never be, Mr Brown," she said—"not because I am above you, but because I don't love you as a good woman will some day. But I shall be proud and grateful, as long as I live, to think that so good a man has honoured me with his love." ”

“ He had noticed few things in the last six months that had given him half the pleasure of that sweeping reformation. Dudley was no giant among men; but, if he cared for name and outward appearance, at least he cared more for reality; and, I think, the sight of that fresh, business-like, creditable shop was a greater comfort to his mind than it would have been to see his Cinderella at the ball. He had ceased to regret that Mona was a shopkeeper, but he was not too much in love to be glad that she was a good shopkeeper. ”

“ Perhaps Mona's frankness was spoiling him.
"Tell me," he said sharply, "in the old Norway days, when we saw so much of each other, was there some one else then?"
Mona drew herself up. "I do call that an insult," she said quietly. "Do you suppose that every unmarried woman is standing in the market-place waiting for a husband? Is it impossible that a woman may prefer to remain unmarried for the sake of all the work in the world that only an unmarried woman can do?" ”

“ Not a trace of mist or cloud lingered about the hillsides; the Nærodal was once more asleep in sunshine and shadow.
"Well, I am sure we shall not soon forget Stalheim," said Lady Munro. "It has been quite a new experience."
"Quite," agreed Sir Douglas. "It has been an absolutely new experience to me to see a hard-worked horse go up a hen's ladder to bed, with only a bundle of hay for supper, and never a touch from his groom. It is astonishing what plucky little beasts they are in spite of it."
"Now don't enjoy the scenery too much," said the Sahib, driving up alongside. ”

“ I do not believe in running hysterically round with a farthing dip into every nook and cranny where we think some one may be guided by it."
"You are severe," he said quietly.
"Forgive me!" said Mona. "In truth, it is the metaphor that is too heavy for me: Fools and firearms—'the proverb is something musty.' Let me choose a weapon that I can use, and you will see what I mean.
"Let us say that each man's life is a garden, which he is called upon to cultivate to the best of his ability. ”

“ Mona was thankful there was so much to do, for her indignation burned like fire at the sight of that altered, chubby face. All honour to the stern and noble women who, by the severity of their views, have done so much to preserve the purity of their sex; but let us be thankful, too, for those who, like Mona, in time of need lose sight of the sinning woman in the injured suffering child. ”

“ The two gentlemen kept the ball going between them most of the time, for Doris never talked much except in a solitude à deux. And yet how intensely she made her presence felt, as she sat at the head of the table,—sweet, gracious, almost childlike, her fair young face scarcely giving a hint of the strength and enthusiasm that lay behind it!
"I can hardly believe that I am to have you for a whole week," she said, following Mona into her bedroom, and rousing the fire; "it is too good to be true. ”

“ Doris laughed. "Oh, I don't know; I never thought of him. I think John is rather attached to me."
"I have yet to meet the man in any rank of life who knows you and is not attached to you. I think that has taught me more of the nature of men than any other one thing. They little dream of the contempt and scorn that lie behind that daisy face, and yet they seem to know by a sort of instinct that their charms are thrown away on you,—that the fruit is out of reach; and instead of sensibly saying 'sour grapes,' they knock themselves to pieces against the wall."
"Mona, you do talk nonsense! ”

“ Mona shrugged her shoulders.
"More things go to making a good physiology lecturer than you imagine,—a great many more," she added impressively.
Doris's face flushed.
"Not vivisection!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, vivisection. It may be that our modern science has gone off on an entirely wrong tack; it may be, as a young doctor said to me at Borrowness the other day, that we cannot logically stop short now of vivisecting human beings; but, as things are at present, I do not see how any man can conscientiously take an important lectureship on physiology, unless he does original work. ”

“ And you knew the ladies, the minister's wife and the doctor's wife like, they come in sometimes and have a cup of tea with me: they don't think me any the less genteel for keeping a shop. But I always tell everybody that it is not that I require to do it. Everybody in Borrowness knows that, and of course it makes a difference."
"The question of 'gentility,'" said Mona, with a comical and saving recollection of Lucy's letter, "seems to me to depend entirely on who does a thing, and the spirit in which it is done, not on the thing itself." ”

“ Mona's laugh only half concealed her rising colour.
"Older has it," she said, nodding to the Sahib. "Score!"
As they went in to dinner, she looked round at the unpretentious perfection of the room and the table, with a long sigh of satisfaction.
"There is no house in the world," she said, "where I have precisely the sense of restfulness that I have here. Nothing jars; I don't need to talk unless I like; and I can afford to be my very own self."
"That's a good hearing," said Mr Colquhoun heartily. "Have some soup!" ”

“ Fifty years hence no woman will have the courage to own that it ever happened to her. But the sacrifice is a fearful one. Picture my allowing Evelyn to go through what you are going through!" And his glance rested fondly on his daughter's fair head.
"I agree with you so far," said Mona, "that no woman should undertake such work under the age of twenty-three."
"Twenty-three!" he repeated. "It is bad for a man, but a man has some virtues which remain untouched by it. A woman loses everything that makes womanhood fair and attractive. You must be becoming hard and blunted?" ”

“ She seated herself on a great mossy boulder, and suddenly bethought herself of Lucy's letter. The familiar handwriting and words looked strangely out of place in this dreary solitude.
"MY DEAR MONA,—Perhaps you would like to know what I did when I read your letter. I sat on the floor and howled! Not with laughter,—don't flatter yourself that your witticisms had anything to do with it. They only added insult to injury. Don't imagine either that I mean to argue with you. It is impossible to influence you when your decision is right; and when it is wrong, one might as well reason with a mule. ”

“ In a very short time a bright fire was blazing in the grate; the bed had been arranged as comfortably as might be, and Mona was holding a cup of hot milk to the lips of the half-starved girl. Only an invalid knows the relief of having some one in the sick-room who, without fuss or questioning, quietly takes the helm of affairs; and poor little Maggie looked up at her comforter with the eyes of a hunted animal, which, bruised and bleeding, finds that it has run by chance into a haven of rest.
For some time Mona doubted whether the baby would live till Dr Dudley's return. ”

“ Mona smiled and drew a long breath.
"What a relief it is to be with people who know one's little weaknesses!" she said.
"What a relief it is to be with people who know one wine from another!" he replied. "Now Doris drinks my Rœderer dutifully, but in her heart she prefers ginger-pop!"
Doris protested indignantly.
"Now don't pretend that you are a wholesome animal," said her father, looking at her with infinite pride. "You like horses and dogs, that is the one human thing about you. By the way, did you make any sketches in Norway, Miss Maclean?"
"Very few. Norway was too big for me. ”

“ More and more heavily the burden of the sorrows of her sex pressed on Mona's heart as the night went on; more and more she longed to carry all suffering women in her arms; more and more she felt her unworthiness for the life-work she had chosen, till at last, half unconsciously, she fell on her knees and her thoughts took the form of a prayer. ”