While the ladies were examining the interior of the great house, the Honourable George Lennox walked through the place alone, taking good care to keep away from the women. He walked all the time like one in a dream. It seemed to him as though he saw ghosts all around him, not only the ghost of his own peerless Lucy, and the other ghost of the poor youth who early on his wedding morning was found, cold and dead, floating on the waters of the mighty lake. Lennox spent much of the time in the grounds of Ardshiel, and heard, to his delight, the wrangling voices of the two women, hoping sincerely that the scheme of having this house of almost royalty turned into a school would be knocked on the head; for when were women, even the best of them, long consistent in their ideas?
Finally, however, the ladies did leave Ardshiel, the whole scheme of turning Ardshiel into a school for lads and lasses marked out in Miss Delacour's active mind. The attics would do for the children's cubicles. The next floor would be devoted to class-rooms of all sorts and descriptions, the ground floor would form the pleasure part of the establishment, and the servants would have a wing quite apart. The school could certainly be opened not later than September. The place was made for a school for the upper classes. It seemed to grow under the eyes of the two women into a delightful resort of youth, learning, and happiness; but Mr Lennox became more opposed to the scheme each moment. His one hope was that Mrs Macintyre might turn out to be impossible, in which case these castles in the air would topple to the ground.
The three parted at the gates of Ardshiel, Miss Delacour and her brother-in-law going one way, and Mrs Constable the other.
'You won't forget, dear,' said Mrs Constable, nodding affectionately to her new friend, 'to be in time for dinner this evening?'
'Oh dear! I forgot that we were to dine with you, Cecilia,' said George Lennox.
'Well, don't forget it, George; and bring all the sweet Flowers with you.'
'Naturally, I should not come without them.' His tone was almost angry.
'What a charming – what a sweet woman Mrs Constable is!' remarked his sister-in-law.
Lennox was silent.
'George,' said Agnes, 'you're sulky.'
'Doubtless I am. Most men would be who are cajoled as I have been into paying the rent of that horrid house. Yes, you are a clever woman, Agnes; but I can tell you once for all that not a single one of my Flowers of the Garden shall enter that school if I do not approve of the head-mistress.'
'I said you were sulky,' repeated Miss Delacour. 'A sulky man is almost as unpleasant as a fidgety man.'
'To tell you frankly, Agnes, I keenly dislike being played the fool with. You saw Cecilia Constable this morning. You won her round to your views when I was asleep.'
'Ha, ha!' laughed Miss Delacour. 'I repeat, she is a sweet woman, and her boys shall go to the school.'
'I thought it was a girls' school.'
'For her dear sake,' replied Miss Delacour, 'it will be a mixed school. Oh, I feel happy! The Lord is directing me.'
They arrived at The Garden, where five gloomy little girls gazed gloomily at their aunt.
'I do wonder when she 'll go,' whispered Hollyhock. 'Look at Dumpy Dad; he's perfectly miserable. If she does not clear out soon, I 'll turn her out, that I will.'
When tea was over, the children and their father went into the spacious grounds, rowed on the lake, and were happy once more, their peals of merriment reaching Miss Delacour as she drew up plans in furtherance of her scheme.
By-and-by the children went upstairs to dress for dinner. Their dress was very simple, sometimes white washing silk, sometimes pink silk, equally soft, sometimes very pale-blue silk. To-night they chose to appear in their pink dresses.
'It will annoy the old crab,' thought Hollyhock.
They always walked the short distance between The Garden and The Paddock.
Miss Delacour put on her 'thistle' gown, assisted by Magsie, who ingratiatingly declared that she looked 'that weel ye hardly kent her.'
'You are a good girl, Margaret,' answered Miss Delacour, 'and if I can I will help you in life.'
'Thank ye, my leddy; thank ye.'
The entire family started off for The Paddock, and on arrival there, to the amazement and indeed sickening surprise of the Honourable George Lennox, were immediately introduced to Mrs Macintyre, who turned out to be, to his intense disappointment, a quiet, sad, lady-like woman, tall and slender, and without a trace of the Scots accent about her. She was perfect as far as speech and manner were concerned.
Mrs Macintyre, however, knew well the important part she had to play. At dinner she sat next to Mr Lennox, and devoted herself to him with a sort of humble devotion, speaking sadly of the school, but assuring him that if he could induce himself to entrust his beautiful little Flower Girls to her care, she would leave no stone unturned to educate them according to his own wishes, and to let them see as much of their father as possible.
Lennox began to feel that he preferred Mrs Macintyre to his sister-in-law or even to his sister, Mrs Constable, at that moment. The woman undoubtedly was a lady. How great, how terrible, had been her sorrow! And then she spoke so prettily of his girls, and said that the flower names were altogether too charming, and nothing would induce her to disturb them.
It was on the lips of Lennox to say, 'I am not going to send my girls to your school,' but he found, as he looked into her sad dark eyes, that he could not dash the hopes of such a woman to the ground. He was therefore silent, and the evening passed agreeably.
Immediately after dinner Mrs Macintyre sat at the piano and sang one Scots song after another. She had a really exquisite voice, and when 'Robin Adair' and 'Ye Banks and Braes' and 'Annie Laurie' rang through the old hall, the man gave himself up to the delight of listening. He stood by her and turned the pages of music, while the two ladies, Mrs Constable and Miss Delacour, looked on with smiling faces. Miss Delacour knew that her cause was won, and that she might with safety leave the precincts of the horrible Garden to-morrow. How miserable she was in that spot! Yes, her friend's future was assured, and she herself must go to Edinburgh and to London to secure sufficiently aristocratic pupils for the new school.
CHAPTER VI.
THE HEAD-MISTRESS
It was, after all, Mrs Macintyre who made the school a great success. Her gentleness, her sweet and noble character, overcame every prejudice, even of Mr Lennox. When she said that she thought his children and their flower names beautiful, the heart of the good man was won. Later in the evening, when the lively little party of Lennoxes, accompanied, of course, by Miss Delacour, went back to The Garden, his sister-in-law called him aside, and informed him somewhat brusquely of the fact that she was leaving for London on the following day.
'Mrs Macintyre will remain behind,' she said. 'I gave her at parting five hundred pounds. You will do your part, of course, George, unless you are an utter fool.'
George Lennox felt so glad at the thought of parting from Miss Delacour that he almost forgave her for calling him a possibly utter fool; nay, more, in his joy at her departure, he nearly, but not quite, kissed