Ian Hay

“ She was much more silent than usual, but her face was flushed and happy, and somehow I was reminded of the time when I had watched her greeting the dawn on the morning after Dilly's wedding. Robin, with the look of a man who has a hard day's work behind him, a full meal inside him, and a sound night's sleep before him—and what three greater blessings could a man ask for himself?—sat beside her, smiling largely and restfully on the company around him. ”

“ The library is regarded as my workroom—impregnable, inviolable; not to be rudely attempted by devastating housemaids. There is a sort of tacit agreement between Kitty and myself as regards this apartment. Fatima-like, she may do what she pleases with the rest of the house. She may indulge her passion for drawing-room meetings to its fullest extent. She may intertain missionaries in the attics and hold meetings of the Dorcas Society in the basement. She may give reformed burglars the run of the silver-closet, and allow curates and chorus-girls to mingle in sweet companionship on the staircase. ”

“ This document I left in the hands of Dolly, who promised faithfully to send for me, if—if necessary.
Then, putting my paternal instincts into my pocket, I braced myself up and plunged into the vortex of polling-day.
Truly, if Time is the healer, Work is the anesthetic. In the turmoil of the crowded streets and polling-booths, I found myself almost as enthusiastic and whole-hearted as if no little girl of mine were fighting for life in a darkened room not many streets away. ”

“ He leaned back and surveyed the bemused Dubberley with complete and obvious satisfaction. We all sat round breathless, feeling much as Sidney Smith must have felt when some one spoke disrespectfully of the Equator. Great was the fall of Dubberley. He moved, perhaps instinctively, in a society where he was seldom contradicted and never argued with. One does not argue with a gramophone. And here this raw Scottish youth, with the awful thoroughness and relentless common-sense of his race, had taken the very words out of his mouth, torn them to shreds, and thrust them down his throat. ”

“ I may mention here that no subsequent inquiry of mine ever elicited from Robin or any one else what the Old Lady of Dippleton had done. Probably it was one of those things that no real lady ever ought to do, and I discreetly left it at that.
Dolly, too, proved a treasure. Her strong line was canvassing. She could ingratiate herself with short-tempered and over-driven wives apparently without effort; surly husbands melted before her smile; sheepish young men forgot the encumbering existence of their hands and feet in her presence; and she was absolutely infallible with babies. ”

“ Curiosity has been most unfairly ear-marked as the exclusive monopoly of the female sex. But as I stumbled upstairs that night, bearing in my arms the limp but stertorous carcase of my esteemed relative by marriage, I could not help wondering (despite my efforts to put away from me a matter which I had decided was not my business) exactly what Robin had said to Dolly behind that locked door. ”

“ Robin's came first. One was his uncle, the other his book.
One night it fell to my lot to dine in the City, as the guest of the Honourable Company of Tile-Glazers and Mortar-Mixers. As I swam forlornly through a turgid ocean of turtle-soup and clarified punch towards an unyielding continent of fish, irrigated by brown sherry, mechanically rehearsing to myself the series of sparkling yet statesmanlike epigrams with which I proposed to reply to the toast of his Majesty's Ministers I became aware that the gentleman on my left was addressing me in a voice that seemed vaguely familiar. ”

“ There are two types, you know—two types of good wife, that is."
"I would have given worlds," says Dolly here, "just to have said 'Oh!' or something; but for the life of me I couldn't help asking what the two types were."
"The first," said Robin, "is the wife who loves her husband because she is proud of him, because he is successful and powerful, and people admire him; and not because she has any conception of or sympathy with the qualities which have made him what he is. To such a one the husband must come with his reputation ready made, and they will enjoy it together. ”

“ After Dicky and Dilly—the latter miraculously restored to high spirits and looking radiant—had passed smiling and blushing down the aisle, to be received outside with breathless stares by a large assemblage of that peculiar class of people—chiefly females of a certain age—who seem to spend their lives in attending the weddings of total strangers, we all got home, where there was much champagne, and cake-cutting, and bride-kissing, and melody from the aforementioned musicians in the garden. ”

“ But Dilly was still quaking on my arm, and the only other spectacle which attracted my attention on the way up the aisle was that of my wife (looking very like a bride herself, I thought) , sitting in a front pew with Master Gerald, that infant phenomenon shining resplendently in a white waistcoat and a "buttonhole" which almost entirely obscured his features. Then I caught sight of Robin's towering shoulders and the pale face and glassy eye of the bridegroom, and I knew that we had brought our horses to the water at last, and all that now remained to do was to make them drink. ”

“ What a pack! Well done, Gerald! Oh, Gilmerton, you old sweep! Fire, man, fire! Good old Admiral! Dermott, man, what the devil—— Have at them!"
I fairly danced in the heather. A perfect cloud of birds was pouring over the lower part of the line. The Admiral, the Gilmertons, and Gerald were firing fast and furiously,—even the laird of Nethercraigs loosed off at birds that were neither running nor sitting,—and when the beaters appeared in sight five minutes later, and the drive came to an end, the four lower butts totalled twelve brace among them. ”

“ I said, and turned into the sitting-room.
The sight of a snug room or a bright fire or a colossal arm-chair is always comforting to a weary man, even though his thoughts admit of little rest. I sank down amid these comforts, and closed my eyes. Now that my long day's play-acting was over, and nothing mattered any more, I began to realise how great the strain had been. I was utterly done. I had no clear recollection of having tasted food since breakfast, but I was not hungry. All I wanted was to be left in peace. Even the sickening anxiety about Phillis had died down to a sort of dull ache. ”

“ He proved to be that rarest of types—the man who has no fear of his fellow-creatures, male or female, singly or in battalions. Our sex is so accustomed to squaring its shoulders, pulling down its waistcoat, and assuming an engaging expression as a preliminary to an encounter with the fair, that the spectacle of a man who enters a strange drawing-room and shakes hands quietly and naturally all round, without twisting his features into an agreeable smile and mumbling entirely inarticulate words of rapture, always arouses in me feelings of envy and respect. ”

“ I had it myself. It is the finest training that a young man can receive. Hard, terribly hard, but invaluable! You will not have seen his father yet—my brother John?"
I told him no.
"Well, try and meet him. You, as an Englishman, would perhaps call him hard and narrow,—after forty years of London I sometimes find him so myself,—but he is a fine man, and he has a good wife. So have you," he added unexpectedly—"Robin has told me that."
I laughed, in what the Twins call the "silly little gratified way" which obtrudes itself into my demeanour when any one praises Kitty. ”

“ Farquharson gave me a draught out of a little glass, which sent a steadying glow all through me, and presently I was able to shake hands, dumbly and mechanically, with the great surgeon, who, I found, was bidding me good-bye; for the world is full of sick folk, and their champion may not stay to see the issue of one battle before he must hurry off to fight another. ”

“ Are you a Liberal or a Conservative?
This was a trifle hard, I thought, coming directly after my speech; but fortunately the audience considered it merely funny, and roared when I remarked pathetically, "This gentleman is evidently deaf."
Then came the question—
Are you in favour of Woman's Suffrage?
This was no novelty, and was fortunately regarded by the gallant electors present as a form of comic relief. I adopted my usual plan under the circumstances, and said—
"I am in favour, sir, of giving a woman whatever she wants. It is always well to make a virtue of necessity." ”

“ Once her voice rose to a scream.
"Uncle Robin! It's the Kelpie! Stop it! It's coming—it's breaving on me! Uncle Robin! oh——!"
I looked at Robin. He was sitting gripping the arms of his chair, with every muscle in his body rigid; and I knew that he, like myself, was praying God to strike down the cowardly devil that would torment a child.
Then I heard, for the first time that night, the soothing murmur of Kitty's voice.
"It's all right, dearie. Mother is holding you fast. It shan't hurt you. There, it's running away now, isn't it? See!" ”

“ I am inclined to be an anxious parent, but there was little time for the exercise of any natural instincts on this occasion. Hounded on by the relentless Cash, I spent the day in a final house-to-house canvass, being fortunate enough to find at home several gentlemen who had been out on previous occasions, and who now graciously permitted Kitty to present them with a resplendent portrait of what at first sight appeared to be a hairdresser's assistant in gala costume, but which an obtrusive inscription below proclaimed to be "Inglethwaite! The Man You Know, and Who Knows You!" ”

“ I turned to Robin.
"You hear that?" I said. "Don't you ever call me a prejudiced old Tory again, Robin."
"Then," continued the dolorous Cash, "you are too squeamish. Those posters that you wouldn't allow to be put up—that was simply throwing away good votes. Politics in this part of the country can't be played with kid gloves. Then there are the meetings. You don't let the other side have it hot enough. Call 'em robbers and liars! That's what wins an election!" ”

“ Isn't she?"
"Is she?" said Dolly, determined this time to maintain her attitude of indifference.
"I think so," said Robin. "However, knowing how impossible it is for one sex to look at a matter from the point of view of another, I decided to stick to my own methods. So I made a summary of my points, good and bad. They are these: I am strong and healthy; I possess an appetite for hard work; I was born with brains; I have considerable capacity for organisation——"
"Some people have a good conceit of themselves!" said Dolly.
"Every one should have," replied Robin with conviction. ”

“ Dolly nodded to show her detached appreciation of the soundness of this point.
"I permitted myself one indulgence," Robin continued. "I dedicated a book to you."
"O-oh!" said Dolly, genuinely interested. "Was that me? Dilly and I thought it must be a girl in Scotland."
Then she realised that this was a step down from her pedestal of aloofness, and was silent again. Robin went on—
"Yes, it was you. It was a sentimental thing to do, but it afforded me immense pleasure. Love lives more on the homage it pays than that which it receives. Have you noticed that?" ”

“ There was no mystery about the Twins' attitude towards Robin. "Here," said they in effect, "is a fine upstanding young man, full of promise, but hampered in every direction by abysmal ignorance on matters of vital importance. His instincts are sound, but at present he is quite impossible. What he wants is mothering."
And so they mothered him, most maternally. They exerted themselves quite strenuously to instil into him the fundamental principles of life—the correct method of tying a dress tie; the intricate ritual which governs such things as visiting-cards and asparagus ”

“ Dolly nodded gravely.
"I see," she said. "I didn't know you meant that. Yes, there is something in what you say."
"I thank you," said Robin. "It is very helpful to me to get this courteous hearing from you; for to tell you the truth," he added rather explosively, "I find it a very, very great effort to speak to you like this at all. You see, I am talking of things that go right to the centre of the human heart—things that a man never speaks of to a man, and only once to a woman. It has to be done, but it is hard, hard!"
He drew a long breath, in a manner which made the sofa tremble ”

“ No one spoke, but Robin saw tears running down his mother's face. John Fordyce deliberately turned back several pages of the Bible.
"We will sing," he said in a clear voice, "in the Twenty-third Psalm—the whole of it!—
'The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want——'"
The Psalms of David, as rendered into English verse by Nahum Tate and others, are not remarkable for poetic merit; neither does the old Scottish fashion of singing the same, seated and without accompaniment, conduce to a concord of sweet sounds. But there are no tunes like old tunes, and there are no hearts like full hearts. ”

“ The book itself dealt with matters rather than men, and with men rather than women; which was characteristic of its author, but rather irritating for the Twins. It had a good deal to say about the under-side of journalism,—graphic and convincing, all this,—and contained a rather technical but absorbingly interesting account of some most exciting financial operations, winding up with a great description of a panic on the Stock Exchange. But there were few light and no tender passages, from which it will be seen that Robin as an author appealed to the male rather than the female intellect. ”

“ Through the clear night air came the sound of frenzied cheering.
"That's it, right enough," said Gerald. "I wonder if you've got the chuck, my bonny boy."
"Ugh! It is cold! Come in," said Kitty.
We shut the window, drew down the blind, returned to the fire, and waited. Dolly joined us now, and Kitty vanished to sit by Phillis. We waited on. Somehow it never occurred to us to send downstairs for news. I suppose there are times when the human craving for sensation is sated. We sat and waited.
At last the door opened, and, as I expected, Robin entered. ”