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ANGUS COMES TO THE ABBEY

“Joy, come and look,” Joan called softly.

Joy’s Schubert Impromptu came to a sudden end and she rose from the piano.

“Bother you, Joan! Why did you spoil it? I was miles away.”

“I’m sorry. But you can dream some other time. This seems likely to be important. It’s very odd.”

Joy came through the long windows on to the terrace, where her cousin leaned on the stone balustrade and gazed across the lawn. They were much alike, tall, good-looking girls, with brown eyes and beautiful dark red hair; Joan, the elder by a month, wore hers in big plaits round her head; Joy’s was rolled up over her ears. They were nineteen, and had left school a year ago.

The Hall, on the terrace of which they stood, had come to Joy from her grandfather three years before. The Abbey ruins, in the grounds of the big house, had been left to Joan, to her great joy and pride.

“What’s very odd?” Joy stood beside Joan and stared at the drive, where a figure had appeared at the end of the beech avenue. “Somebody coming? Who is it?”

“Yes, who is it? Look again.”

“It looks like Angus Reekie. It can’t be Angus! He’s in Glasgow.”

“He’s in our drive,” Joan said. “I can’t imagine why, but he’s certainly coming across our garden.”

“Has he come to ask for another ruby, to help him in his career?”

“Don’t be unkind,” Joan scolded.

“But, of course, he didn’t ask last time. He took—or at least he tried to take.”

“But he didn’t do it,” Joan said quickly. “We gave him the ruby. Joy, you ought to forget that horrid story.”

Joy’s thoughts had gone back two months, when this same lad had come to the Abbey by night, urged on by his small half-sister, and had been tempted by the sight of the jewels inherited from Joy’s ancestress, Lady Jehane, into nearly committing a great folly. Discovered just in time by Joan and her younger friend Jen, he had been deeply penitent and ashamed. Joan had sympathised with his distress and Joy with his craving for a musical education; they had sold one ruby and given the proceeds to help with his lessons from a good teacher in Glasgow, his home town.

“If he’s come to ask for another ruby he won’t get it,” Joy remarked, as they watched Angus in his approach to the house. “It would be thundering cheek.”

“He’s coming very slowly,” Joan said. “He’s doubtful of us and a little bit afraid. I wonder if he really is going to ask for something more?”

Angus did, indeed, seem hesitant, as if not sure how he would be received.

“We’re not going to give him any more of Jehane’s jewels.”

“There might be something else,” Joan said. “He didn’t seem to have anybody to turn to, if he was in a hole. He may want advice.”

“You’re good at advice,” Joy observed. “But I’m not good at giving away rubies. Once was enough. He hasn’t brought the fiddle,” she added.

Joan gazed down at Angus gravely, as he stood below the terrace, cap in hand. He was a thin, fair-haired lad, not looking in the least like his twenty-one years. Then she smiled a welcome.

“Come up here and talk to us. We didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

“Don’t stand there like a criminal in the dock,” Joy scolded. “Joan and I aren’t as horrible as all that, I hope.”

Angus came up the wide stone steps. “I feel rather like that, Miss Joy—like a criminal, I mean. I’ve come to ask you to help me again, and when you were so good last time it seems—well, I’m no’ feeling too good about it. But I don’t know where else to go, and you’re so terribly kind that I thought maybe——”

“I’m not terribly kind,” Joy scoffed. “That’s Joan. You’re mixing us up.”

“You’re both kind,” Angus insisted. “I don’t feel I can ask any more. It’s been hard to come, and it’s hard to tell you. But you were so good to Rykie all summer, and then so marvellously generous to us both, when—when we——”

“Don’t!” Joan interrupted him. “We don’t want to think any more about that. What do you want us to do for you now?”

“Not another ruby, I hope?”

“Joy! How can you?” Joan cried indignantly. “That was brutal, and very ungenerous.”

Angus had grown white. But he said sturdily, “I deserve it, Miss Joan.”

“I’m sorry,” Joy exclaimed. “I didn’t mean it. I spoke without thinking; I’m always doing it. Angus Reekie, I apologise abjectly! But if you’d tell us what you really have come for, we wouldn’t need to imagine horrible things.”

“I thought maybe you would help me with Selma,” Angus said simply. “I’ve nobody to ask, and I don’t know what to do.”

The girls stared blankly at him. “With—with whom?” Joan stammered.

“Or what?” Joy added. “What, or who, is Selma?”

“My girl,” Angus said, more simply still.

“Your—Angus Reekie, don’t tell us you’re engaged?” Joan cried.

Joy pursed her lips. “That would be mad, with all your career before you. Don’t go and do anything crazy! You’ve your way to make yet.”

“We’re no’ engaged. She doesn’t know. But she’s my lassie, all the same.”

“Tell us more!” Joan commanded. “Who is she? And how can she be your girl, if she doesn’t know?”

“Sounds silly to me,” Joy said severely. “And what’s her name? What did you call her?”

“Selma. Selma Andersson, Miss Joy.”

“How odd! Where did she find a name like that?”

“Never mind her name just now. You can tell us all that later.” Joan spoke with authority. “Angus, tell us more about—about Selma! Why doesn’t she know you want her to be your girl?”

Angus looked at them, his face set and determined.

“I want her, when she’s old enough. She’s only sixteen. I’ve no’ said a word; I’m ready to wait. I know some girls get engaged at sixteen, but Selma’s no’ that kind. She’s no’ thinking like that. But we’re pals; she’s my friend; and when the time comes I want her for my own.”

“I see,” Joan said slowly. “But you may change your mind. She won’t be ready for some time yet.”

“That’s a thing I want to know,” Angus cried. “How old should a girl be before she marries? I know lots of them do it quite early, but is it right? Is it fair to her? I don’t know, and I’ve nobody to ask.”

“It seems to me you want a mother,” Joy said solemnly.

He looked at her. “Well, I do. I haven’t anybody. I want to do the right thing by Selma. I don’t want to tease her too soon. Will you no’ help me?” He turned to Joan, his face wistful.

Joan’s voice was almost motherly, though she was two years his junior, as she said gently, “It’s very nice of you to consider Selma like that, Angus. Some boys would think only of themselves and would try to rush the girl along too quickly. If you can wait till she is eighteen, I think you should. But if you feel she really cares, you could have some understanding with her. If she begins to care for you, she ought to know you care for her too. Don’t talk of marrying before she is nineteen; that’s quite early enough, I should say.”

“Spoken like a mother!” Joy mocked. “I’ll do the heavy father. Don’t talk of marriage till you’ve made a good start on your career. Don’t hamper yourself with a wife till you really see where you are going. And—Angus! We don’t know Selma, but if you are going to be a great violinist and play at big concerts, be sure she is the right kind of wife for you. Is she, by the way?”

Angus looked at her steadily. “Not yet, Miss Joy. I’ve thought of that. But she will be some day; she must, because she’s my lassie and I can’t do without her.”

“This is very intriguing!” Joan murmured, gazing at him with fascinated eyes. “Angus, I’m beginning to like you rather a lot!”

Angus knitted his brows. “I don’t understand. I want Selma. She’s no’ ready yet; I want to help her. I thought perhaps you would advise me, Miss Joan. I’ve no one else to ask.”

The girls gazed at him, not yet grasping the real reason for his coming.

“You sound a bit forlorn,” Joy observed. “But what can we do?”

“Tell us more, Angus!” Joan coaxed. “How can we help? We’ll advise you in any way we can, but Mother could help you still better. We’ve had no experience in this sort of thing.”

“And we don’t want it,” Joy said emphatically. “Getting married must be an awful bore; a man always fussing round and having to be consulted and expecting to get his own way! Not for me, thank you!”

“There’s more in it than that. Don’t be silly, Joy! Angus, how can we help you?” Joan asked.

Angus, with desperate courage, threw back his head and took the plunge.

“If Selma could come here and—and stay with folks like you, and learn to be like you! That’s what she needs and what I want for her, Miss Joan.”

“Oh!” The girls stared at him again, dumb with surprise.