Was she good or bad? A holiday episode

Front matter

If* MfJ WAS SHE GOOD OR BAD? a (SptsoTie EY WILLIAM MINTO * ali iinor- ' rue lkack of doom, 1 'the mediation of KAI.ril ItARDELOr,' &C. H o n B o n CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY iSSy CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. HOW I FIRST HEARD OF MRS. INGERS .... I II. THE EXCITEMENT OF A QUIET PARISH .... 9 III. A HUE AND CRY 17 IV. MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE LADY 21 V. CONVERSATION AMONG THE TOMBS 29 VI. A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA . 41 VII. PERPLEXING BEHAVIOUR 50 VIII. AN INVOLUNTARY EAVESDROPPER FOR THE SECOND TIME . 56 IX. I AM ASKED TO DO THE LADY A SERVICE . . . .64 X. A VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCES 75 XI. A LUCKY ESCAPE S6 XII. I DO MRS. INGERS ANOTHER SERVICE 95 XIII. A STORM AND ITS RESULTS 1

Chapter I. How

I FIEST HEARD OF MRS. INGERS. I first heard of Mrs. Laura Ingers from a fashionable London doctor. He did not, of course, outrage the obligations of professional secrecy by disclosing her name to me, but he excited my interest in a patient whom he did not name, and unwittingly said enough to enable me to discover to whom he referred. It came about in this way. After a University career of no particular distinction, I had made a desperate effort, and, with the aid of a skilful coach, succeeded in winning a humble place in the Home Civil Service. Now it so happened that Doctor XX. (I will disguise his identity under these letters) was a native of the parish of which my uncle was Established Church minister ; and when I went up to London to begin my duties in the Education Office, my uncle conceived it to be for my advantage to send me furnished with an introduction to the great physician, and to bespeak his kind offices for me.

A more courteous or kind-hearted man than Doctor XX. does not live ; he sent for me very soon after my arrival, gave me heaps of good advice, and at parting made me a very sensible and serviceable, if somewhat singular, present. He had a great respect for my uncle, he said, and he had carefully considered how he could show that he was really desirous of befriending and helping the nephew of so good a man, and as a result of this consideration he had come to the conclusion that a very useful present for a young man B and one likely to keep him out of harm's way in his evenings would be an annual subscription to a great lend ing library. Accordingly he handed a reader's ticket to me at parting. Ten months passed, and I had begun to think that my busy patron had forgotten all about me, when quite unex pectedly I received an invitation to breakfast with him one Sunday morning towards the end of July.

Doctor XX. was far too tenacious a man to drop anything or anybody he had once taken in hand. It has often surprised me to find that the busiest men seem to have the most leisure for friendly little attentions. The busy physician had not forgotten me, nor had he forgotten his thoughtful present of a subscription to the circulating library. One of his first questions was whether I had found it useful. Now, it was not without some misgiving and a certain sense of shame that I essayed an answer to this question. For the truth was, that it was not for the more solid kinds of literature that I had taken advantage of my privilege. My reader must remember that when I went up to London I had just passed through the nerve-shattering grind of preparing for a competitive examination. I had conse quently felt the need of a little relaxation, and had shrunk with something like a physical incapacity from the strain of heavy reading.

"When, therefore, my benefactor asked whether I had found his present useful, I assured him that I had found it very useful ; but I could not help reddening as I remembered that the numerous books I had taken out were not of the kind ordinarily called by that adjective. Doctor XX., however, was not to be put off with a general answer. He was really interested in my welfare, and he proceeded to question me more particularly, with the result that the whole truth came out. It was not so dreadful after all, for it appeared that he was himself a great reader of novels, especially of sensational novels. I was much relieved to find this, and we compared notes for a good quarter of an hour over our favourite stories, the laborious professional man astonishing me by showing as minute and exhaustive an acquaintance with recent fiction as myself.

Time passed very pleasantly this way, but all of a sudden an idea struck him that was not so exhilarating for me. He would have it that it was not merely for amusement that I had read so many volumes ; he suspected, or he affected to suspect, that I had a purpose in my reading. So purposeful a man could hardly understand anybody's wasting a great deal of time in a particular line of reading without a purpose. His own purpose in reading novels was relaxation, but he had earned his right to it, and I was young and my professional labours were not heavy. Possibly it was simply inconceivable to him that I read only for amusement ; and if it was conceivable, it would probably have seemed to him highly injudicious at my time of life. At any rate he suspected, or affected to suspect, that my object in reading so much fiction was to study the art and qualify myself for the practice of it.

Now, nothing was further from my thoughts. The bare idea was horrible to me. I had roused myself to make a furious cram for the competition, but once in I had no intention of doing any more work than the public service required of me. My father had left me a little money, though not enough to live upon. I was obliged to choose some bread-winning occupation, and it was because I believed the Civil Service to be an easy life that I had made such an effort to get into it. The work of the office was quite enough for my appetite; I could have been content with less. But it was in vain that I protested. My good friend, full of energy himself, would have it that I was possessed of literary ambition. I confessed to having written verses, though not for publication, but as regarded anything further assured him that he was mistaken.

Still he professed not to be convinced, perhaps thinking this a good way to kindle a wholesome spirit in an indolent young man ; and throwing himself back in his chair, he gave me his own ideas on the subject of novel-writing. The successful physician was eminently a man of practical talent. " Passion and incident, d'ye see? — passion and incident, that's what you want — what we want, I should rather say, d'ye see? Something out of the common. Characters, too, of course. If I take up a novel I don't want to be bored with the ins and the outs of humdrum people. It may be very good psychology and all that, d'ye see ? very good psychology and very clever and all that, but it's not what we want, d'ye see? not what we want." I entirely agreed with him, and said so ; and he continued, still holding himself well back in his chair, grasping an arm in each hand, and looking me directly and energetically in the sac 3 : — " Passion and incident — I don't pretend to know much about it, but it strikes me that that is what you ought to look out for, d'ye see? if you mean to write novels and mean them to be read.

If you have plenty of passion you may get along with comparatively little incident, and if you have plenty of incident you may get along with comparatively little passion. But it is better to have a good deal of both, d'ye see, particularly incident, unless the passion happens to be " He paused an instant for a word and added, " tremendous, d'ye see?" All this was said in an offhand way, but with great vigour of manner. When the great doctor's mind was unbent, he did not take much trouble about his words, as long as they came near his meaning ; and it was his habit, in familiar explanation, to keep alongside of his hearer's understanding by frequent repetition of the formula " d'ye see?" He grappled on by it, so to speak; it answered the same purpose as holding on by a button, all the better that every time he used it he gave a straight and vivid look into his hearer's eyes, compelling attention.

But it would not be fair, in reporting what he said, to write down this exple tive as often as he used it ; the words alone, without the keen, frank look that accompanied them, would give no idea of their peculiar effect. His earnestness, which would probably have been equally great on any other topic, made me smile, and I repeated that I entirely agreed with him. " But," I added, " if you mean that I should try to write fiction, I am none the better for knowing this, for I have not a spark of imagination or invention in me." " Urn," he said, " that's a pity." He pondered for a second or two ; but having once decided that I must have a turn for writing, he would not let me off. " But it's not invention that does it, d'ye see ? You've only got to look out, look round you, d'ye see? Much stranger things happen than ever were invented.

We doctors, for example, could supply you with heaps of stranger things — if we were not under the seal of secrecy, d'ye see? professional confidence — heaps of stranger things than any fellow could invent. Nature 's much wider, d'ye see ? than a man's brain — more room for queer combinations." I politely said that I quite believed it ; but something false in my tone must have struck him, for he proceeded energetically to strengthen his assertion. " Yes, I believe I could keep half-a-dozen novelists going, with raw materials, d'ye see ? and sometimes they would want very little dressing. Now, for example, a few weeks ago I had a very interesting patient. Yes, I often have interesting patients, but this one was particularly so. A fine woman, a very fine woman, married to a man old enough to be her father ; fashionable, d'ye see? utterly bored from having nothing particular to do ; not having been bred to the life, d'ye see? perhaps eating too much, and certainly drinking too much.

I ordered her down to the quiet of the country and the bracing air of the east coast, and put her on milk and that sort of thing, d'ye see ? The air may do her good, but as for quiet — the woman couldn't be quiet." I gave an appreciative laugh, but could think of nothing better to say than " Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." "Eh, what?" said the doctor. The extreme common placeness of the remark evidently staggered him. "Idle hands, yes. The woman couldn't be quiet, d'ye see? She's sure to make mischief wherever she goes. Now, if I wanted to write a novel, and wanted to have a fresh plot, 4 should simply go down 'to the same neighbourhood, d'ye see ? and watch what happened ; taking care to keep out of her way myself, of course," added the doctor, with a hearty laugh; "of course taking care to keep out of her way myself."

" And you would find both passion and incident in her proceedings," I echoed. "Exactly," said the doctor; "we doctors don't believe in Fate, in one sense, d'ye see? but it comes to the same thing. Given a certain constitution and certain fixed cir cumstances, the rest follows as a matter of course. You can't predict the exact thing, d'ye see ? but you can predict the kind of thing." The doctor relapsed into silence, and an abstracted look took possession of his features. Forgetting for the moment his professional position, and hardly thinking of what I was saying, I startled him by asking what was the lady's name. "Eh? Her name?" he said, starting out of his reverie. "I beg your pardon," I said. "Of course I shouldn't have asked that. I didn't really mean it. I spoke without thinking." " No, of course I could not tell you her name," he said, with a smile, and looked at his watch.

"But you should think seriously of it — I mean of writing and that sort of thing, d'ye see ? " I did think of it, but not perhaps so seriously as my friendly patron would have approved of. His offer of unlimited raw material for stories out of his rich experience struck me as comical. I had not the faintest intention of attempting any such manufacture. I knew I had no talent for it ; and even if I had supposed myself to be so gifted, I was not inclined to sacrifice my leisure for the sake of developing my talent. I had entered a public office with the intention of leading a quiet, leisurely existence, and I meant to do it. I was a little inclined, too, to be incredulous about the marvels at which the doctor hinted as having occurred within his professional experience ; and his idea of being able to diagnose a woman as certain to produce strange events worth recording wherever she went, particularly tickled me.

By-and-by, as I turned the amusing idea over in my mind, I found myself beginning to wonder whether after all it was possible. I was leaving for a month's holiday at the end of the week. I began to think that it might have been good fun to have the opportunity of testing the doctor's predic tion, and to regret that as I did not know the name of the interesting patient, or where the doctor had ordered her to, this was out of my power. All through the day the idea haunted me, till at last my curiosity on the point became so keen that I actually began to consider whether I could trace the lady with such information as the doctor had given. It was still, however, more in a spirit of whimsical speculation than serious intention that I reckoned up what I knew. It amounted to this, that she was a woman of fashion, and that she had been ordered to try the bracing air of the east coast.

This was not very definite, seeing that there are many resorts for invalids on the east coast of Britain. But as I reflected it occurred to me that the clue might be more definite than I was at first inclined to suppose. There are many salubrious resorts on the east coast, but almost every physician has his pet sanatorium, and I remembered that Doctor XX. was known to have great faith in the restorative virtue of the air of his own native coast. Now that particular part of the east coast of Scotland is somewhat bare and bleak, entirely destitute of fashionable watering-places, and not at all richly provided with suitable accommodation for fashionable visitors. It occurred to me, then, that if I were to spend part of my holiday with my uncle at the Manse of Garvalt, as I already half thought of doing, I could easily discover whether any person answering to the doctor's description of his patient was settled anywhere in the neighbourhood within twenty miles.

It so happened that in the parish itself lay the house of a somewhat embarrassed landowner which was occasionally let for the shooting season ; it was just possible that the lady was there, for Doctor XX. 's recommendation had once before obtained a tenant for it. I wrote at once to my uncle, and asked whether Garacraig House was let for the season. An answer came by return of post. My uncle was a bit of a humourist in his solemn, old-fashioned way. He affected to believe that I was after the house for myself, and wrote that he was glad that I found the public service so profitable that I was in a position to look out for a country house in which to recruit my exhausted energies. Garacraig was unfortunately let to a Manchester man of the name of Ingers, whose lady had already come into residence.

But if the Manse was not beneath his nephew's dignity, and he cared to spend a week or two there, an affectionate and respectful uncle would be most happy to see him. This looked rather promising. It was, of course, but a remote chance that Mrs. Ingers would prove to be the doctor's patient, but it was enough to decide me to spend the first part of my holiday in Garvalt. She must be a very turbulent person indeed, it struck me, if she could contrive to make a commotion of any kind in this staid and quiet parish — a person really worth observing. When, however, I had reached this stage, a new considera tion made me hesitate. Was it quite the right thing to set myself deliberately in this way to spy upon the woman ? If this was she, I had discovered her secret by accident, by unintentional slip on the part of her medical attendant.

Was it altogether honourable, was it not rather mean, to take advantage of this ? I put this question to myself, but I am afraid I rather evaded it. I persuaded myself that I was only half serious in my intention of watching her, that it was only a lark ? 9 and that of course I would not really go as a spy or a detective. I should only be iu the neighbourhood if anything in her conduct came to general knowledge. I could not conceive what scope for startling incident any lady, however passionate, could find in so tame and hum drum a parish as Garvalt. But this, so far from diminishing my curiosity, rather whetted it.

Chapter II. The Excitement Of

A QUIET PARISH. The Manse of Garvalt is six miles from the nearest railway station. My cousin, Mary Brown, my uncle's only child, drove the old phaeton to the station to meet me. I caught sight of her face as the train ran in — a bright, clear-complexioned face, scanning the carriage windows with a frank smile of pleased expectation. I had expected to see my old friend Andrew, the Minister's man, in waiting for me, but I was not disappointed to see Mary instead. Now, Mary had very httle to do with the curious series of events that came under my observation. I will keep to them as faithfully as I can, and although she was and is well worth describing I will not linger over the descrip tion of her. Let it be understood once for all that I was not in love with her — at least not very ardently — and that she — I can state this without any qualification — was not in love with me.

She showed this conclusively before a week was over by promising to marry another man, a promise she has since kept. I will not deny that I had made love to her in a mild way, and perhaps the pleasure of seeing her helped unconsciously to bring me to Garvalt at that particular time. She was two years younger than I. I had been brought up from early boyhood in my uncle's house with her, my father and mother having lived in India and having both died young ; and during my college vaca tions and her school holidays, as she grew into womanhood, I had written many verses to Mary and about her. To me, saturated as I was with academic poetry, she was a type of Diana, of fair Cynthia, bright with heavenly radiance ; and even now, as I think of her large dark blue eyes, fringed with dark long lashes, and overarched by clearly pencilled eyebrows, her full lips and perfect teeth, as per fect in shape as flawless in pearly whiteness, her tall, straight figure, and the firm poise of her head on finely moulded shoulders, it seems to me that an artist in search of a model for Diana might have gone farther than Mary Brown and fared worse.

But alas ! she was as cold as Diana to all my boyish sighs and vows ; and whenever I was tempted to make love to her in earnest, she laughed at me and chaffed me till I was fain to abandon my serious vein. Her first words when I had hurried out of the station to the phaeton with my baggage may give some hint of one reason why Mary was so indifferent to me in the character of a lover. "Dear me, Ghillie,"* she said, "what have you been doing to yourself since you went to London ? You have made yourself positively good-looking." The face that I see in the glass when I am shaving is undeniably plain, with rough, swarthy complexion and short, stubby features ; and as I am of middling height and some what heavy build, I daresay my early style of dressing and wearing my hair did not make the most of my natural advantages, if I had any.

I had æsthetic leanings in those days, and wore long hair — something straggling on the chin — low collars, and a soft felt hat. A mistake made by a chance companion in a railway carriage had rudely awakened me from the delusion that this costume was becoming to me, however effective it may be for such as are * Ghillie is a corruption of my baptismal name. My father, though he went into business and made a good deal of money before his pre mature death, had had a college training, and christened me very absurdly after a famous classic. I have always been sensitive on this point, and invariably sign myself "V. Brown." I cannot brin" my self to write the full monstrosity. ? 11 made to wear it. The change to which my cousin Mary gave such warm approval had been effected chiefly by cutting my hair and shaving, and having my clothes fashioned after a tighter and trimmer order of tailoring than had been my wont.

"Positively good-looking!" Well, I freely admit that I thought I had improved my personal appearance, but I did not like to have the improvement thus frankly noticed even by my cousin, because it reflected injuriously on my earlier manner. But I need not recall the chaff that passed between my light-hearted cousin and myself on this and other personal topics. We were very good friends if we were nothing more, and we laughed and chatted merrily enough as we rattled along behind the old white horse. Of course it was not long before I seized an opportunity of asking whether she had seen the new tenant of Gara craig. " He has not made his appearance yet," she said. " He is not expected till it is time for the shooting." "But the lady?" " Mrs. Ingers ? Yes, she has come. But what do you know about her ?

" " Oh, nothing," I said, with perfect truthfulness; for as yet it was only a wild guess on my part that Mrs. Ingers might be the doctor's patient. " I never heard her name till your father mentioned it in his letter. Is she nice ? " "Very," said Mary; "quite fascinating, particularly with men. My father is quite in love with her, and my mother likes her because she is always so deferential to papa. She hkes the company of clever people, she says. Fancy anybody calling papa clever ! I wish she would call him so to his face. You know how he detests the word. But it is to mamma that she gushes about him, positively gushes about papa and his cleverness. It's a perfect picture to see the three of them together. I really had no idea he could be so fluent. She draws him out so, drinking in every word as if he were an oracle, though all the time it ? must bore her to death to hear his theories about Free Trade, and Communism, and what not — you know them.

And all the time my mother sits by, looking from the one to the other, as if it were the happiest and proudest moment in her life, and she had never before fully realized what a treasure of an old husband Providence had given her. Dear old papa, he does enjoy himself ! We are to have her to tea this afternoon, and you will see. He is quite — what is the word ?— rejuvenated." I allowed Mary to rattle on, and softly drew my own conclusions. First, that if Mrs. Ingers was the doctor's warranted mischief-maker, she would find little scope in my uncle's household, because the more she admired my uncle, the more she would win the gratitude and affection of my aunt. Second, that there was just a touch of jealousy in Mary's account of the fascinating stranger, and that this could not be due entirely to the lady's hypocritical worship at the feet of the old philosopher.

Her "particularly with men " gave me a clue. There must be another man in the case, and I shrewdly suspected that it was a young doctor in the neighbourhood, Alec Errol, whose attentions to Mary in former days had given me my first experience of the green-eyed monster. " So you don't like Mrs. Ingers very much yourself, Mary?" I said. "Oh yes," she protested, "we get on very well — exchange books and all that. But she has not much to say to me when she can get a man to talk to. I must say, though," she added, passing from this hastily, as if it were a sensi tive spot, "that she seems to be very kind-hearted. She came with me one day to see some of the poor fishermen in the village, and I believe she has been constantly sending things to them since. They make a liberal return in the way of flattery, but I don't think she does it for that.

She seems to be really very tender-hearted." There was something very unlike Mary in this veiled detraction, and I was more convinced than before that there must be a reason for it. " Has Alec Errol met her ? " I asked slyly. " Oh yes." " He comes pretty often to the Manse, I suppose ? " Mary coloured slightly, and gave the old horse a slight flick with the whip as she answered that her mother's health was still very uncertain. "Does Mrs. Ingers think him very clever also?" I pursued. The colour in her face deepened. " She seems to think most men clever. She seems very generous in her apprecia tion of men. I shouldn't be surprised if she found something attractive even in you." This was a very vicious cut, and I laughed merrily; while Mary said that really I did not deserve that she should have come all the way to the station for me, braving all the perils of the road.

" You don't know the risk I ran in coming for you." " Is he so dreadfully jealous ? " I asked. " Don't be such a fool, Ghillie," she answered, with every appearance of anger. " Well, what other risk can there be on the Skateness turnpike ? We are not in the Australian bush. Oh, I see. It must be old Mors. He has turned vicious in his old age. I always thought the name was uncanny. Only a horse of the most respectable character could have carried it off so long without misadventure." Mary assured me that it was not Mors, the name we had given to my uncle's white horse when we had studied Latin together. " What can it be, then? " I asked. I saw that I was not likely to get any more information out of her about Mrs. Ingers, and that she was making a violent effort to get away from the subject, so I thought it best to humour her, and made various absurd guesses as to the perils of the road between the Manse and the station, which had the effect of restoring her to her ordinary mirthful serenity.

At last she asked me whether I had not seen a newspaper that morning. " Yes," I said, " I bought oue as I came along, but I was only half awake, and I am not prepared to stand an examination upon it." "And you actually looked at the paper without seeing that our quiet neighbourhood is this day the centre of interest for the whole kingdom, occupying more space than the state of Europe ? " "Goodness gracious, Mary!" I cried. "What has happened? Your manner is most alarming. Do you observe a deathly pallor stealing over my countenance ? If there is not, please take it for granted. I am very pale within if it does not show. Keep me, I pray you, no longer in suspense. Tell me the worst." It passed through my mind that if Mary was not hoax ing me, which I grievously suspected, I might after all find some passion and incident in Garvalt, even although Mrs. Ingers should not prove to be the lady I was in search of.