The Imperialist

CHAPTER XIII

They sat talking on the verandah in the close of the May evening, Mr and Mrs Murchison. The Plummer Place was the Murchison Place in the town’s mouth now, and that was only fair; the Murchisons had overstamped the Plummers. It lay about them like a map of their lives: the big horse chestnut stood again in flower to lighten the spring dusk for them, as it had done faithfully for thirty years. John was no longer in his shirt-sleeves; the growing authority of his family had long prescribed a black alpaca coat. He smoked his meerschaum with the same old deliberation, however, holding it by the bowl as considerately as he held its original, which lasted him fifteen years. A great deal of John Murchison’s character was there, in the way he held his pipe, his gentleness and patience, even the justice and repose and quiet strength of his nature. He smoked and read the paper the unfailing double solace of his evenings. I should have said that it was Mrs Murchison who talked. She had the advantage of a free mind, only subconsciously occupied with her white wool and agile needles; and John had frequently to choose between her observations and the politics of the day.

“You saw Lorne’s letter this morning, Father?”

John took his pipe out of his mouth. “Yes,” he said.

“He seems tremendously taken up with Wallingham. It was all Wallingham, from one end to the other.”

“It’s not remarkable,” said John Murchison, patiently.

“You’d think he had nothing else to write about. There was that reception at Lord What-you-may-call-him’s, the Canadian Commissioner’s, when the Prince and Princess of Wales came, and brought their family. I’d like to have heard something more about that than just that he was there. He might have noticed what the children had on. Now that Abby’s family is coming about her I seem to have my hands as full of children’s clothes as ever I had. Abby seems to think there’s nothing like my old patterns; I’m sure I’m sick of the sight of them!”

Mr Murchison refolded his newspaper, took his pipe once more from his mouth, and said nothing.

“John, put down that paper! I declare it’s enough to drive anybody crazy! Now look at that boy walking across the lawn. He does it every night, delivering the Express, and you take no more notice! He’s wearing a regular path!”

“Sonny,” said Mr Murchison, as the urchin approached, “you mustn’t walk across the grass.”

“Much good that will do!” remarked Mrs Murchison. “I’d teach him to walk across the grass, if—if it were my business. Boy—isn’t your name Willie Parker? Then it was your mother I promised the coat and the other things to, and you’ll find them ready there, just inside the hall door. They’ll make down very well for you, but you can tell her from me that she’d better double-seam them, for the stuff’s apt to ravel. And attend to what Mr Murchison says; go out by the gravel—what do you suppose it’s there for?”

Mrs Murchison readjusted her glasses, and turned another row of the tiny sock. “I must say it’s a pleasure to have the lawn neat and green,” she said, with a sigh. “Never did I expect to see the day it would be anything but chickweed and dandelions. We’ve a great deal to be thankful for, and all our children spared to us, too. John,” she continued, casting a shrewd glance over her needles at nothing in particular; “do you suppose anything was settled between Lorne and Dora Milburn before he Started?”

“He said nothing to me about it.”

“Oh, well, very likely he wouldn’t. Young people keep such a tremendous lot to themselves nowadays. But it’s my belief they’ve come to an understanding.”

“Lily might do worse,” said John Murchison, judicially.

“I should think Dora might do worse! I don’t know where she’s going to do better! The most promising young man in Elgin, well brought up, well educated, well started in a profession! There’s not a young fellow in this town to compare with Lorne, and perfectly well you know it, John. Might do worse! But that’s you all over. Belittle your own belongings!”

Mr Murchison smiled in amused tolerance. “They’ve always got you to blow their trumpet, Mother,” he replied.

“And more than me. You ought to hear Dr Drummond about Lorne! He says that if the English Government starts that line of boats to Halifax the country will owe it to him, much more than to Cruickshank, or anybody else.”

“Dr Drummond likes to talk,” said John Murchison.

“Lorne’s keeping his end up all right,” remarked Stella, jumping off her bicycle in time to hear what her mother said. “It’s great, that old Wallingham asking him to dinner. And haven’t I just been spreading it!”

“Where have you been, Stella?” asked Mrs Murchison.

“Oh, only over to the Milburns’. Dora asked me to come and show her the new flower-stitch for table centres. Dora’s suddenly taken to fancy work. She’s started a lot—a lot too much!” Stella added gloomily.

“If Dora likes to do fancy work I don’t see why anybody should want to stop her,” remarked Mrs Murchison, with a meaning glance at her husband.

“I suppose she thinks she’s going to get Lorne,” said Stella. Her resentment was only half-serious, but the note was there.

“What put that into your head?” asked her mother.

“Oh, well, anybody can see that he’s devoted to her, and has been for ages, and it isn’t as if Lorne was one to HAVE girlfriends; she’s absolutely the only thing he’s ever looked at twice. She hasn’t got a ring, that’s true, but it would be just like her to want him to get it in England. And I know they correspond. She doesn’t make any secret of it.”

“Oh, I dare say! Other people have eyes in their head as well as you, Stella,” said Mrs Murchison, stooping for her ball. “But there’s no need to take things for granted at such a rate. And, above all, you’re not to go TALKING, remember!”

“Well, if you think Dora Milburn’s good enough,” returned Lorne’s youngest sister in threatening accents, “it’s more than I do, that’s all. Hello, Miss Murchison!” she continued, as Advena appeared. “You’re looking ‘xtremely dinky-dink. Expecting his reverence?”

Advena made no further reply than a look of scornful amusement, which Stella, bicycling forth again, received in the back of her head.

“Father,” said Mrs Murchison, “if you had taken any share in the bringing up of this family, Stella ought to have her ears boxed this minute!”

“We’ll have to box them,” said Mr Murchison, “when she comes back.” Advena had retreated into the house. “IS she expecting his reverence?” asked her father with a twinkle.

“Don’t ask me! I’m sure it’s more than I can tell you. It’s a mystery to me, that matter, altogether. I’ve known him come three evenings in a week and not again for a month of Sundays. And when he does come there they sit, talking about their books and their authors; you’d think the world had nothing else in it! I know, for I’ve heard them, hard at it, there in the library. Books and authors won’t keep their house or look after their family for them; I can tell them that, if it does come to anything, which I hope it won’t.”

“Finlay’s fine in the pulpit,” said John Murchison cautiously.

“Oh, the man’s well enough; it’s him I’m sorry for. I don’t call Advena fitted to be a wife, and last of all a minister’s. Abby was a treasure for any man to get, and Stella won’t turn out at all badly; she’s taking hold very well for her age. But Advena simply hasn’t got it in her, and that’s all there is to say about it.” Mrs Murchison pulled her needles out right side out with finality. “I don’t deny the girl’s talented in her own way, but it’s no way to marry on. She’d much better make up her mind just to be a happy independent old maid; any woman might do worse. And take no responsibilities.”

“There would always be you, Mother, for them to fall back on.” It was as near as John Murchison ever got to flattery.

“No thank you, then! I’ve brought up six of my own, as well as I was able, which isn’t saying much, and a hard life I’ve had of it. Now I’m done with it; they’ll have to find somebody else to fall back on. If they get themselves into such a mess”—Mrs Murchison stopped to laugh with sincere enjoyment—“they needn’t look to me to get them out.”

“I guess you’d have a hand, Mother.”

“Not I. But the man isn’t thinking of any such folly. What do you suppose his salary is?”

“Eight hundred and fifty dollars a year. They raised it last month.”

“And how far would Advena be able to make that go, with servants getting the money they do and expecting the washing put out as a matter of course? Do you remember Eliza, John, that we had when we were first married? Seven dollars a month she got; she would split wood at a pinch, and I’ve never had one since that could do up shirts like her. Three years and a half she was with me, and did everything, everything I didn’t do. But that was management, and Advena’s no manager. It would be me that would tell him, if I had the chance. Then he couldn’t say he hadn’t been warned. But I don’t think he has any such idea.”

“Advena,” pronounced Mr Murchison, “might do worse.”

“Well, I don’t know whether she might. The creature is well enough to preach before a congregation. But what she can see in him out of the pulpit is more than I know. A great gawk of a fellow, with eyes that always look as if he were in the middle of next week! He may be able to talk to Advena, but he’s no hand at general conversation; I know he finds precious little to say to me. But he’s got no such notion. He comes here because, being human, he’s got to open his mouth some time or other, I suppose; but it’s my opinion he has neither Advena nor anybody else in his mind’s eye at present. He doesn’t go the right way about it.”

“H’m!” said John Murchison.

“He brought her a book the last time he came—what do you think the name of it was? The something or other of Plato! Do you call that a natural gift from a young man who is thinking seriously of a girl? Besides, if I know anything about Plato he was a Greek heathen, and no writer for a Presbyterian minister to go lending around. I’d Plato him to the rightabout if it was me!”

“She might read worse than Plato,” remarked John.

“Oh, well, she read it fast enough. She’s your own daughter for outlandish books. Mercy on us, here comes the man! We’ll just say ‘How d’ye do?’ to him, and then start for Abby’s, John. I’m not easy in my mind about the baby, and I haven’t been over since the morning. Harry says it’s nothing but stomach, but I think I know whooping-cough when I hear it. And if it is whooping-cough the boy will have to come here and rampage, I suppose, till they’re clear of it. There’s some use in grandmothers, if I do say it myself!”