An Orkney Maid by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (classic book list TXT) 📖

As for the Bishop being taken with his beauty, that is nothing! The poorer a man is, the better Bishop Hedley will like him. So it goes! I wish I knew where Boris Ragnor is--I wish----

"Pshaw! I wonder what kind of a dress Mistress Barbara Brodie brought Thora. Not much taste in either men or clothes has she! Too large will the pattern be, or too strong the colours, and too heavy, or too light, will be the material. I know! And it will not fit her. Too big, or too little it is sure to be! With my own dress I am satisfied. And if grandfather asks no questions about it, I shall count it a lucky dress and save it till Boris comes home. I am going to forgive him when he comes home--perhaps----Now I will put the hopes and worries of this world under my pillow and be off to the Land of Dreams----Tomorrow is Sunday, Easter Sunday--I shall sing the solo in my new dress--that is good, I like a religious feeling in a new dress--I think I am rather a religious girl."

Alas for the hopes of all who wanted to dress for Easter. It was an uncompromising, wet day. It was oil skin and rubber for the men; it was cloaks and pattens and umbrellas for the women. Yet, aside from the rain, it was a day full of good things. The cathedral was crowded, there was full cathedral service, and the Bishop preached a transfiguring sermon. The music was good, the home choir did well, and Sunna's solo was effectively sung; but after she had heard Ian Macrae's "Gloria," she was sorry she had sung at all.

"Grandfather!" she commented, "No private person has a right to sing as that man sings! After him, non-professionals make a show of themselves."

"Thou sang well--better than usual, I thought."

"I was told he was such a handsome young man! And he has black hair and black eyes! Even his skin is dark. He looks like a Celt. I don't like Celts. None of our people like them. When they come to the fishing they are not respected."

"Thou art much mistaken. Our men like them."

"Boris Ragnor says they are poor traders."

"Well then, it is to fish they come."

"What they come for is no care of mine. Boris is ten times more of a man than the best of them. No notice shall I take of this Celt."

"Through thy scorn he may live, and even enjoy his life. The English officers do that."

"This chicken is better than might be. Wilt thou have a little more of it?"

"Enough is plenty. I have had enough. At Conall Ragnor's there is always good eating and I am going there for my supper. Wilt thou go with me? Then with Thora thou can talk. This beautiful young man is likely at Ragnor's. It was too stormy for Mistress Brodie to go to her own house at the noonday. Dost thou see then, how it will be?"

"I will go with thee, I want to see Thora's new dress. I need not notice the young man."

"His name? Already I have forgotten it."

"Odd was calling him 'Macrae.'"

"Macrae! That is Highland Scotch. The Macraes are a good family. There is a famous minister in Edinburgh of that name. The Calvinists all swear by him."

"This man sang in a full cathedral service. Dost thou believe a Calvinist would do that? He would be sure it was a disguised mass, and nothing better."

Adam laughed as he said, "Well, then, go with me this night to Ragnor's and between us we will find something out. A mystery is not pleasant to thee."

"There is something wrong in a mystery, that is what I feel."

"Thou can ask Thora all about him."

"I shall not ask her. She will tell me."

Adam laughed again. "That is the best way," he said. "It was thy father's way. Well then, five minutes ago, the wind changed. By four o'clock it will be fair."

"Then I will be ready to go with thee. If I am left alone, I am sad; and that is not good for my health."

"But thou must behave well, even to the Celt."

"Unless it is worth my while, I do not quarrel with any one."

"Was it worth thy while to quarrel with Boris Ragnor?"

"Yes--or I had not quarrelled with him."

"Here comes the sunshine! Gleam upon gloom! Cheery and good it is!"

"They say an Easter dress should be christened with a few drops of rain. That is not my opinion. I like the Easter sunshine on it. Now I shall leave thee and go and rest and dress myself. Very good is thy talk and thy company to me, but to thee, I am foolishness. As I shut the door, the big book thou art reading, thou wilt say to it: 'Now, friend of my soul, some sensible talk we will have together, for that foolish girl has gone to her foolishness at her looking glass.'"

"Run away! I am in a hurry for my big book."

Sunna shut the door with a kiss--and as she took the stairs with hurrying steps, the sunshine came dancing through the long window, and her feet trod on it and it fell all over her.

At four o'clock she was ready for her evening's inquest and she found her grandfather waiting for her. He had put on a light vest and a white tie, and he had that clean, healthy, good-tempered look that pleases all women. He smiled and bowed to Sunna and she deserved the compliment; for she was beautiful and had dressed her beauty most becomingly. Her gown was of Saxony cloth, the exact colour of her hair, with a collar, stomacher and high cuffs of pale green velvet. The collar was tied with cord and small tassels of gold braid; the stomacher laced with gold braid over small gilt buttons, and the high cuffs were trimmed to match. Very handsome gilt combs held up her rippled hair, and a large red-riding-hood cloak covered her from the crowning bow of her hair to the little French pattens that protected her black satin slippers. She expected to make a conquest, and her thoughts were usually the factors of success.

A little disappointment awaited her. She was usually shown into the right-hand parlour at once, and she relied on the bit of colour afforded by her scarlet cloak to give life to the modest shades of her spring colours of pale fawn and tender green. But servants were setting the dinner table in the right-hand parlour; and Conall and Rahal and Aunt Barbara had taken themselves to Conall's little business room where there was a bright fire burning. There, in his big chair, Conall was next door to sleeping; and Barbara and Rahal were talking in a sleepy, mysterious way about something that did not appear to interest them.

At the sound of Adam Vedder's voice, Conall became wide awake; and Barbara's face lighted up with a fresh interest. If there was nothing else, there was a chronic quarrel between them, which Barbara was ready to lift at a moment's notice. But Sunna was not dissatisfied. Conall's quick look of admiration, and Rahal's and Barbara's glances of surprise, were excellent in their way. She knew she had given them a subject of interest sufficient to make even the hour before dinner appear short.

"Where is Thora?" she asked, as she turned every way, apparently to look for Thora, but really to allow her admirers to convince themselves that her dress was trimmed as handsomely at the back as the front--that if the stomacher was perfect in front, the sash of green velvet at the back was quite as stylish and elaborate.

"Where _is_ Thora?" she asked again.

"In the drawing room thou wilt find Thora with Ian Macrae," said Rahal. "Go to them. They will be glad of thy company."

"Doubtful is their gladness. Two are company, three are a crowd. Yet so it is! I must run into danger, like the rest of women."

"Is that thy Easter gown, Sunna?" asked Mistress Brodie.

"It is. Dost thou like it?"

"Who would not like it? The rumour goes abroad that thy grandfather sent to Inverness for it. Others say it came to thee from Edinburgh."

"Wrong are both stories. I am happy to say that Sunna Vedder gave herself a dress so pretty and so suitable."

With these smiling words she left the room and the elder women shrugged their shoulders and looked expressively at each other. "What can a sensible man like Boris Ragnor see in such a harum-scarum girl!" was Rahal Ragnor's question, and Barbara Brodie thought it was all Adam Vedder's fault. "He ought to have married some sensible woman who would have brought up the girl as girls ought to be brought up," she answered; adding, "We may as well remember that the management of women, at any age, is a business clean beyond Adam Vedder's capabilities."

"Adam is a clever man, Barbie."

"Book clever! What is the use of book wisdom when you have a live girl, full of her own way, to deal with?"

"Conall chose the husbands for his daughters. They were quite suitable to the girls and they have been very happy with them."

"Thora will choose for herself."

"Perhaps, that may be so. Thora has been spoiled. Her marriage need not yet be thought of. In two or three years, we will consider it. The little one has not yet any dreams of that kind."

"Such dreams come in a moment--when you are not thinking of them."

In fact, at that very moment Thora was learning the mystery of "falling in love"; and there is hardly a more vital thing in life than this act. For it is something taking place in the subconscious self; it is a revolution, and a growth. It happened that after dinner, Conall wished to hear Ian sing again that loveliest of all metrical Collects, "Lord of All Power and Might," and Thora went with Ian to do her part as accompanist on the piano. As they sang Conall appeared to fall asleep, and no more music was asked for.

Then Ian lifted a book full of illustrations of the English lake district, and they sat down on the sofa to examine it. Ian had once been at Keswick and Ambleside, and he began to tell her about Lake Windemere and these lovely villages. He was holding Thora's hand and glancing constantly into her face, and before he recognised what he was saying, Ambleside and Windemere were quite forgotten, and he was telling Thora that he loved her with an everlasting love. He vowed that he had loved her in his past lives, and would love her, and only her, forever. And he looked so handsome and spoke in words of the sweetest tenderness, and indeed was amazed at his own passionate eloquence, but knew in his soul that every word he said was true.

And Thora, the innocent little one, was equally sure of his truth. She blushed and listened, while he drew her closer to his side calling her "his own, his very own!" and begging her to promise that she would "marry him, and no other man, in the whole earth."

And Thora promised him what he wished and for one-half hour they were in Paradise.

Now, how could this love affair have come to perfection so rapidly? Because it was