Miss Bethune

“ A miracle had been wrought!—and yet she had only plaited up her hair, tying it with a bit of blue ribbon, and donned a simple costume of cream-coloured cashmere. She was putting on her gloves now; and he thought that long hands were by far the most beautiful of any.
Well, it was all a bewilderment—this walking along the London streets under the pale saffron of the evening sky, listening to the old man's emphatic monologue, but far more intent on warning Miss Bethune of the approach of a cab, when she was about to cross this or the other thoroughfare. ”

“ It is just as Mr. Thompson said: if you choose to look at George Bethune through blue spectacles, his way of life must appear very doubtful: if you choose to look at him through pink spectacles, there is something almost heroic about him. And I think, Musselburgh, if you knew the lion-hearted old man a little better, you wouldn't shrink from acknowledging that there was something fine and even grand in his character. As for Maisrie—as for Miss Bethune—she asks for no generous consideration, or forbearance, or anything of the kind; she asks for no leniency of judgment, and needs none ”

“ As Bethune looked at her, he thought she was as pretty as a winter robin in her brown furs. Her eyes glistened as she flung quick glances at him; her dimples came and went; her teeth flashed as she chattered at headlong speed. They were going to Sunday service at the village church, a couple of miles away, and Baby was setting forth with a delightful sense of vigour and freedom.
Those whose fate binds them to cities can have no idea of the delicate joys of the country walk, with the beloved one—him or her—who fills the thoughts. ”

“ Bethune, with a shrug. "I do love the nineteenth-century child!"
"If you mean Miss Bolton, so do I," says a young man who has been listening to them, and laughing here and there—a man from the Cavalry Barracks at Ashbridge. "She's quite out-of-the-way charming."
Mrs. Bethune looks at him—he is only a boy and easily to be subdued, and she is glad of the opportunity of giving some little play to the jealous anger that is raging within her.
"She has a hundred thousand charming ways," says she, smiling, but very unpleasantly. "An heiress is always charming." ”

“ Marian Bethune is a tall woman, with a face not perhaps strictly handsome, but yet full of a beautiful diablerie that raises it above mere comeliness. Her hair is red—a rich red—magnificent red hair that coils itself round her shapely head, and adds another lustre to the exquisite purity of her skin. Her eyes have a good deal of red in them, too, mixed with a warm brown—wonderful eyes that hold you when they catch you, and are difficult to forget. Some women are born with strange charms; Marian Bethune is one of them. ”

“ But when, by inadvertence, or by some forced overcoming of her native diffidence, she did raise her eyes, there flashed a revelation upon the world; for these blue-grey deeps seemed to hold light; a mild-shining light, timid, mysterious, appealing almost; the unconsciousness of childhood no longer there, the self-possession of womanhood not yet come: then those beautiful, limpid, pathetic eyes, thus tremblingly glancing out for a second, would be withdrawn, and again the dark lashes would veil the mystic, deep-shining wells. This was Maisrie Bethune; the old man beside her was her grandfather. ”

“ Where is your canniness? If live men have to go slow, what about dead men? ... No—no." The bitter smile came back to his lips. "I lay low, and lived in the bazaar, as good a servant of the prophet as ever salaamed to the East; and then"—his voice changed—"oh, then—I got all the news I wanted!"
Bethune dared not raise his eyes.
"More than I wanted," added Harry English, with his bleak laugh. "You don't need to be told why I remained a Pathan, do you?"
When Bethune once more found courage to speak to his friend, it was because the stillness, pregnant with so much meaning, seemed intolerable. ”

“ She is not what I would have chosen for him, I admit that; but all things must give way before the ruin that threatens us."
"Yes; true—all things," says Mrs. Bethune in a low tone.
"You see that. But how to bring Maurice to the point? He is so very difficult. You, Marian—you have influence with him——"
"I?" Mrs. Bethune rises in the slow, beautiful fashion that is hers always; she moves towards the window. There is no hurry, no undue haste, to betray the disquietude of her soul.
"You—you, of course," says Lady Rylton peevishly. "I always rely upon you." ”

“ Gilchrist laid the pretty dress lovingly in a roomy drawer, smoothing out all its creases by soft pats of her accustomed hands, and then returned to her mistress to talk over the little incident of the evening.
Miss Bethune’s spirits were improved also by that little exhibition. What a thing it is to be able to draw a woman softly out of her troubles by the sight of a pretty child in a pretty new dress! Contemptible the love of clothes, the love of finery, and so forth, let the philosophers say. ”

“ Not, indeed, that Miss Cuningham acknowledged even to herself that Raymond Bethune was the present lord of her mind, much less her beloved. Nevertheless, the glamour of that hour that strikes but once in a lifetime was upon her. Love, first love, the only love, comparable but to the most exquisite mystery of the dawn, of the spring; happiness so evanescent that a touch will destroy it, so delicate that the scent of it is obliterated by fulfilment ”

“ A sly little wretch she used to be—making people fond of her with her earnest eyes—"
"I don't think you quite understand," said Vincent, who resented this familiar tone, though in truth it only meant an affectionate kindliness. "Miss Bethune is no longer the little girl you seem to imagine; she is quite a young lady now—and taller than most."
"The little Omahussy grown up to be a tall young lady?" ”

“ No traveller that lands after a long sea journey is the same as he who started. Sometimes, indeed, he will look back upon his former self as upon another, with surprise.
So it was with Raymond Bethune; and if he came to view himself with surprise, still more inexplicable to him was the new Lady Gerardine as he learned to regard her. According to his presentiment, these two women—she to whose puzzling personality he had vowed antipathy, and she whose fresh young presence made dangerously strong demands upon his sympathy—soon began to absorb all the energies of his thoughts. ”

“ There was a grandeur in his very presence, a dignity in his demeanour, that was far from the artful complaisance of a schemer. Then his undaunted courage—his proud spirit—and above all, the tender and affectionate guardianship he bestowed on his granddaughter: Vincent could not forget all these things. No, nor could he forget how he had enjoyed George Bethune's society on these many and pleasant evenings; and how he had learned more and more to respect him, his unflinching fortitude, his generous enthusiasms, and even, at times, his innocent vanity. ”

“ The guest of the Old Ancient House had strolled out by himself to smoke a solitary meditative pipe in the wild avenue. Seeing Muhammed's flaming headgear, he had deliberately directed his steps towards him; for Bethune would not have been that self that India had made him, had he not felt instinctively lured into the company of the Eastern, all degenerate as he chose to consider him. Moreover, the personality of Sir Arthur's secretary baffled him, and Bethune resented being baffled. He fixed his eye keenly upon the Pathan, turned babu. ”

“ As for these repeated allegations that old George Bethune was nothing less than a mendicant impostor, what did that matter to him? Even if these charges could be substantiated, how was that to affect Maisrie or himself? No association could sully that pure soul. Perhaps it was the case that Mr. Bethune was not over-scrupulous and careful about money matters; many otherwise excellent persons had been of like habit. The band of private inquiry agents had amongst them discovered that the old man had allowed Vincent to pay the bill at the various restaurants they frequented. ”

“ For under plaster shaken down by calamity, and red dust that once was bricks, it is our own age that is lying; and the little things that lie about the floors are relics of the twentieth century. Therefore in the streets of Bethune the wistful appeal that is in all things lost far off and utterly passed away cries out with an insistence that is never felt in the older fallen cities. No doubt to future times the age that lies under plaster in Bethune, with thin, bare laths standing over it, will appear an age of glory ”

“ His cold somewhat grating voice deepened into a note of such tenderness that Baby wondered in her childish mind. She did not know that a man could so love and mourn a friend. Lady Gerardine had leant back in her chair, her hands clasping the arms. Bethune saw her revolving the question in her mind with such pallid suffering upon her features that he felt torn between anger and a sort of unwilling pity. ”

“ But here is a young man who will make his way—and, for the psychologist, what a study!"
"My faith," said he aloud, "but you have courage, sir."
"Courage?"
"Ah, you thought I did not notice Lady Gerardine! I will tell you something—as one man to another—she is one who will not make her lover's task easy to him, nor amusing, hey! With her it will be all or nothing: the grand passion. Ah, my gallant friend, believe the word of one who has had experience in these matters! Avoid the grand passion, for it's what makes cinders of our manhood."
It was Bethune's turn to halt amazed. ”

“ Perhaps the stranger over there did not know the ballad; but George Bethune knew it only too well; and his voice almost broke into a sob as he said, when she had finished—
"Ah, Maisrie, it was no music-master taught you that; it was born in your nature. Sometimes I wonder if a capacity for intense sympathy means an equal capacity for suffering; it is sad if it should be so; a thick skin would be wholesomer—as far as I have seen the world; and few have seen more of it. Well, what has our neighbour to say?" ”

“ Bethune, arching her brows. "Oh, Tessie!" She pauses, and then with an eloquent gesture goes on again. "After all, why shouldn't I be immoral?" says she. Once again she flings her arms above her head so that her fingers grow clasped behind it. "It pays! It certainly pays. It is only the goody-goodies who go to the wall."
"My dear Marian!" says Lady Rylton, with a delicate pretence at horror; she puts up her hands, but after a second or so bursts out laughing. "I always say you are the one creature who amuses me," cries she, leaning back, and giving full play to her mirth. ”

“ But the entranced young man was hardly prepared for what now followed. When the door opened again, and Maisrie Bethune reappeared (her eyes were averted from him, and there was a self-conscious tinge of colour in her pale and thoughtful face) she seemed to have undergone some sudden transformation. The youthful look lent to her appearance by the long and loose-flowing locks and by her plain dress of blue and white linen had gone; and here was a young lady apparently about twenty, tall, self-possessed (notwithstanding that tinge of colour) and grave in manner. ”

“ I hope your Donald is a punctual lad?"
"Yes. He promised to be back by dark, and I am sure he will be. Could you not wait?"
"No. I never wait for anybody; but keep nobody waiting for me. I'm Bethune & Co., Leith Merchants—practically, old John Bethune, who began life as a message-boy, and has done pretty well, considering."
He had, as Mrs. Boyd was well aware. Bethune & Co. was a name so well known that she could hardly believe in her boy's good luck in getting into that house in any capacity whatever.
"So all is settled," said Mr. Bethune, rising. ”

“ Bethune gathered that this pleasant-spoken, pleasant-smiling neighbour was destined for a public career. There was even something interesting, to one who had grown old and callous of the world's shows, in noting the bright enthusiasm of the young man, the clear light in his eyes, the general air of strength and ease and courage that sate lightly on him, as befitting one who was in the very May-morn of his youth.
But at last, for shame's sake, Vincent had himself to rise and break up this all too-attractive companionship. ”

“ However it may have been, Major Bethune found his welcome at the manor-house sweet. Even the maidenly coldness of her first greeting pleased his fastidious old-fashioned notions; and the subsequent thawing of this delicate rime came upon him with something of the balm of sunshine on a frosty morning.
His face stiffened, however, at Aspasia's first confidence about her aunt, into which she plunged, after her usual manner, without the slightest preamble.
"She's awfully good to me, always; sweeter to me than ever, these last few days—when we meet! But I scarcely see her, except at meals. ”

“ One of those women who create passions that become historic. One of those whose fate is to make havoc as they go. The three men here—they are mad of her, each in his different way. The poor Gerardine, he could have cried like a child, as we turned him from the room ... and the sly, quiet, relentless Bethune, that man of granite ... the lover, he's devoured; the very stone wastes in the furnace. How thin he has grown since that Indian night! ”