‘Now,’ said Miss Catherine, when it approached the end of June, and
Edinburgh, like other towns, began to empty itself of its prisoners.
‘Now, minister, you may go your ways, and settle down in your parish. I
am going to take her home.’
‘Home!’ said Mr. Lothian; ‘to the Glebe?’ and his countenance fell. For,
to come and go a dozen times a day to Miss Catherine’s lodgings, and to
see her young companion constantly under the shelter of her presence,
without awaking Isabel’s susceptibilities or seeming to seek her, was
very different from going to visit her in her own cottage, putting her
on her guard by the very act.
‘Yes, to the Glebe!’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Don’t look at me as if you
thought me an old witch. Maybe I am an old witch. No, she is not coming
to my house. I mean to plunge her back into her own--to Jean Campbell
and the bairns; and then if you cannot make something of the situation,
it will be your fault and not mine.’
Mr. Lothian paused, and mused over this last wile. He smiled a little,
and then he shook his head. ‘It might be good for me,’ he said; ‘but it
would be cruel to her.’
‘Go away with your nonsense!’ said Miss Catherine; ‘I hope I know the
world and what I’m speaking of; but men are fools. I have given her all
the change that was good for her here, and she has had just a taste of
what life is, a flavour to linger in her thoughts. And now she shall
know the cold plunge of the home-coming. Do you think I don’t know it
will give her pain? But how can I help that? It will show her what she
wants, and where she is to get it; and if she does not make up her mind
that it is to be found in the Manse parlour, I tell you again it will be
your fault and not mine.’
‘My bonnie young darling!’ said the minister, moved to unusual
tenderness; ‘but I feel as if we were cheating her, conspiring and
taking advantage of her innocence. If it could be done at less cost----
’
‘Go away and mind your own affairs,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘leave Isabel
to me. Am not I seeking her good? and must I hesitate because my physic
has an ill taste? Not I. Go home with your scruples and see what you’ll
make of it. And you need not take advantage of my work if you have any
objections. It’s in your own hand.’
Upon which the minister went away, shaking his head more and more. ‘You
know my scruples will yield but too soon if Isabel is the price held out
before me,’ he said. And he obeyed his general and went away; but
foolishly freighted himself in the very teeth of Miss Catherine’s plans,
with everything he could think of to lessen the dreariness and change
the aspect of the Glebe Cottage. He sent a great box before him when he
arrived at Loch Diarmid, which was on Saturday; and on the Monday he
hastened up to the cottage, and unpacked the case with his own hands,
and took from it pictures and bookshelves, and books to fill them, ‘a
whole plenishing,’ as it appeared to Jean. ‘What is this all for?’ she
said, looking at the arrivals with a sceptical eye.
‘It is that Isabel may not think too much of the past when she comes
back--that there may be something new to cheer her,’ said the minister,
somewhat struck by a sudden consciousness that his motives were not much
more noble or innocent than those of his ally and fellow-conspirator.
Jean stood and looked on while he hung the pictures and put up the
shelves, very critically, and with her own thoughts.
‘Then Isabel is coming back,’ she said, ‘and I’m glad of it; among all
your grandeur she was like to forget her home. And by all I can see you
mean her to stay, or you would not spend good siller and time fitting up
all this nonsense to please her e’e.’
‘It is to comfort her heart, if that may be,’ said the minister; ‘that
coming back may not be more than she can bear.’
Jean was offended, and tossed her head with an impatience she did not
attempt to conceal. ‘I’m no one for forgetting them that’s dead and
gone,’ she said, ‘nor changing the place they’ve been in. For my part I
would keep a’ thing the same. It’s like running away from God’s hand, to
run away from the thought of a bereavement. And I would rather mind upon
our Margaret than look at a’ your bonnie pictures; and so, if she’s no
spoilt, would Isabel.’
On the Saturday of Mr. Lothian’s return to Loch Diarmid, Miss Catherine
intimated her intention to Isabel. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘the summer is
wearing on. I would not say a word about it if I did not see how much
better you are. But I think, now that you are able to bear it, we should
be thinking of home.’
And in a moment the chill which the minister had foreseen fell upon
Isabel. It came upon her like a sudden frost, suddenly quenching the
light out of her eyes. She said ‘Yes?’ not so much in acquiescence as
with a sudden wistful question as to when and how this change was to
come.
‘I was thinking of the end of the week,’ said Miss Catherine steadily,
‘if that would be agreeable to you.’
‘Anything would be agreeable to me,’ said Isabel, with a little rush of
tears to her eyes--‘whatever pleases you. It has been so kind, oh! so
kind of you----’
‘You are not to speak to me of kindness,’ said the old lady. ‘It was a
pleasure to myself. But now, God be thanked! you’re well and strong; and
bonnie Loch Diarmid will be in all its beauty. Are you not wearying to
get home?’
‘Oh, yes. I shall be glad----’ faltered Isabel. But it took the colour
from her cheek, and silenced all the little cheerful strain of talk
which by degrees had developed in her. ‘You have stayed away all this
time for me,’ she said, feeling this a subject on which she could more
easily enlarge.
‘Yes,’ said Miss Catherine, without hesitation; ‘I don’t pretend to deny
it, my dear. It has been for you. And I am very glad I came. You are a
different creature. But all the same it will be a great pleasure to get
home.’
Isabel said nothing more. Oh, why was not the minister there to take
her part? He would have read the sudden dullness in her eye, the change
upon her voice. She sat for the rest of the day quenched out, making
attempts to speak now and then, but failing utterly; trying to smile and
to talk as Miss Catherine did about the proposed return. Oh! how the
girl envied Miss Catherine! The old woman was as lonely as the young
one. She had her duties, it was true; but no one to make Loch Diarmid
pleasant to her. And yet how pleased she was to go back to all the
tedium! Was it only because she was old and Isabel young?
‘You’ll feel the change, my dear,’ said Miss Catherine the day after, as
they sat together alone. ‘It will be a trial to you going home.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Isabel, eagerly; and then she made an effort and said,
very low, ‘It will bring everything to my mind--but, then, it was never
out of my mind; it will be as if it had all happened over again----’
‘It would have been the same sooner or later,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘It
has to be got over. And now, I hope, you are able to bear it. And when
you weary, my dear, you can come to me. I will always be glad to see
you--when I have the time.’
‘Thank you,’ said Isabel, feeling her heart sink in her breast. Glad to
see her--when she had time! After having been a mother to her, and her
companion for so long, opening up all her various stores of experience
and knowledge on Isabel’s behalf, feeding her with legend and tale. And
now that was over, too--and Jean Campbell and Jean Campbell’s bairns
were all the companions she should have in the dim future. Oh, for
Margaret! Oh, for the love that was gone! Oh, for---- Isabel knew not
what she would have said. Anything that would have warded off from her
the blank that was about to come.
‘It will not be cheerful for you, Isabel,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘but you
have a stout heart, and you must not forget it is your duty. This has
been very pleasant for the time. It is cheery to see new people and new
places. But home is ay home.’
‘Yes,’ assented Isabel, feeling in her heart that she was the most
abandoned of sinners not to be able to feel any rapture at the thought.
‘And there is no saying when we may have another such holiday,’ said
Miss Catherine, cheerfully. Isabel could make no reply. The full force
of the change rushed upon her. The sounds in the street seemed to grow
melodious as she thought how short a time she would have it in her power
to listen to them. And it seemed to her that her friend was quite
unaware of the tumult which this intimation had raised in her breast.
Had Isabel known how cunningly Miss Catherine had contrived it, how she
had been working up to this climax, and kept the ‘cold plunge’ as her
most effectual weapon, the girl’s mind would have risen up in arms
against such cruelty. Miss Catherine left her seated, melancholy, over
some work, with every line in her face turned downwards, and the new
life gone out of her, and retired to her own room that she might be able
to chuckle unrestrained over her success. ‘She’ll marry him, if he ask
her, in six weeks,’ Miss Catherine said to herself.
Left to herself, Isabel cried--not altogether because she was going
home--because she was so wicked as not to be glad at going home--because
her badness of heart was such that she regretted her holiday life with
all its indulgences. When she returned to the Glebe, should she be able,
she asked herself, to resist the movements of her own feelings, to think
as little of Stapylton as he did of her, to keep from longing and
looking and listening till the suspense brought on another fever? What
should she do to occupy herself? to keep off such a humbling absorption
in one thought? There was but one bright spot in all the monotonous
landscape: the minister would stand by her, whatever happened to her.
Night or day she could trust to his sympathy. He would come to her when
she called him, stand by her, be her support, her counsellor, her guide.
She thought not of him, but of herself, with youth’s spontaneous,
unintentional selfishness. It did not occur to her to think of him. But
so far already Miss Catherine’s spells had wrought.
They arrived at Loch Diarmid at the end of the ensuing week; and were
met, not only by Mr. Lothian and by the carriage and servants from
Lochhead, but also by Jean Campbell, eager to see her charge, and
rapturous over the change in her appearance. From the moment in which
they left the steamer. Miss Catherine began to carry out her remorseless
policy. She kissed Isabel as soon as she had stepped ashore, and took
leave of her.
‘You’ll come and see me, my dear, whenever you have time,’ she said;
‘but you’ve a good long walk to the Glebe, and I will not hinder you
now.’ And Isabel, standing still by her stepmother’s side, waiting till
Jean had arranged to have someone sent after them with the boxes,
watched her friend drive away with an undescribable sinking at her
heart. Miss Catherine compelled the minister to enter the carriage with
her. She pulled him by the sleeve, and whispered in his ear, and
resorted to violent measures to bring him, as she called it, to himself.
‘Go with her now, and you show her her own power, and you’ll spoil
all,’ she said; and the bewildered man yielded. The carriage flashed
away, while Isabel stood, not able to believe her eyes, on the little
pier. The summer evening light was sweet upon the Loch, glancing down
aslant on the braes, which were golden with the setting sun; and the
labourers were going home, and all the soft sounds of repose and
domestic reunion were in the air. Jean was busy with the man on the pier
about the luggage. Since Isabel had left that same spot nearly three
months before, nobody of Jean’s appearance or manners had come near her,
except as an attendant; and it would be difficult to explain the sudden
sense of desertion, the cruel solitude, and mortification and falling
back upon herself, with which the girl looked after her friend.
Her friend! Had it been love for her at all which had moved Miss
Catherine, or only pity, and a disagreeable duty, from which she was
glad to be relieved. Was there anyone in the world who cared for
Isabel--for herself? They had been sorry when she was ill; they had
pitied her. Even the minister--he was gone too, with Miss Catherine,
leaving her in the first moment of her return all by herself. Tears
flooded to Isabel’s eyes, and these were driven back by pride, and
rushed to her heart again, filling it with a silent bitterness beyond
all expression. It was a kind of public affront to her, leaving her
there on the pier to make her way home as she could. Even Jean opened
her eyes when she returned to the spot where her stepdaughter stood
forlorn.
‘They might have taken you with them as far as Lochhead,’ said Jean. ‘Is
that the way your grand friends part with you? And the minister, too! I
canna understand it. They might have taken you with them as far as
Lochhead.’
‘I would rather walk,’ said Isabel, though she had a struggle to
enunciate the words; and then the two took the familiar road and went on
together, as if it were all a dream.
There was a little consolation in the changed aspect of the little
parlour, the engravings on the walls, the little bookshelves, the
volumes the minister had chosen. It would not be _his_ fault that he had
so left her. And for the first time a sense of pleasure and pride in the
watchful, anxious tenderness of her elderly lover came into Isabel’s
mind. At that particular moment she was so forlorn that these marks of
his thought for her came sweet to her heart. It could not be his fault.
As soon as she had taken off her bonnet, she who had come up the road
with such languor, feeling a weariness altogether out of proportion with
the fatigue she had undergone, came eager to look at her new treasures.
He had consulted her about them all, though she had not known why. She
it was who had unwittingly chosen the half-dozen prints which so changed
the aspect of the grey walls. He had remembered exactly what she liked,
what she had said, shy as her opinions on such subjects always were. Her
countenance smoothed out under this influence. Jean, who had been rather
contemptuous of the ‘nonsense,’ followed her about while she examined
everything with anxious eyes. ‘She’s real weel in her health; but oh,
I’m feared she’s changed,’ had been Jean’s first thought as Isabel’s
abstracted looks and indifferent answers to all her news chilled her
warm delight in her stepdaughter’s return. ‘After a’ your grandeur,
you’ll no think much of your ain little house,’ she had even said, with
a perceptible taunt as they entered it. And Isabel’s first step, which
had been to sit down on Margaret’s sofa, and cry her heart out, had,
natural as it was, been a blow to Jean. She had herself become callous
to the associations of the place; and she had taken so much trouble to
set out the tea there, and brighten it for the home-coming. But when
Isabel perceived the change about her, and began to brighten, Jean
brightened too.
‘Eh! if I had but thought you would have cared,’ she said. ‘There’s the
history o’ the Prodigal up in the garret, a’ painted and grand, no like
thae black-and-white things. But I never thought ye would care. Oh, aye,
it was just the minister! and a foolish thing it was for a man of his
years, climbing up on chairs and hammering away like a working man. But
so long as you’re pleased----’
‘Did he do everything himself?’ said Isabel.
‘Oh, ‘deed did he--everything; and would have jumpit into the Loch at
the end, if that would have pleased ye. The man’s just infatuate. I
think shame to see it--at his time of life.’
‘He is not so old,’ said Isabel.
‘Ye’ve gotten to your English the time you’ve been away,’ said Jean;
‘and nae doubt it’s as it should be, for you that’s a lady born--but it
doesna sound so kindly as the auld way. And you’re bonnier than ever;’
she added, walking round her stepdaughter with admiring eyes; ‘and it’s
a pleasure to see a gown that fits like that; and you’ve gotten a new
way of doing your hair; you’re like some of the Miss Campbells that
visited Lochhead, or that English young lady that was living down the
Loch. But eh, my bonnie woman, ye’re no like the Captain’s Isabel.’
‘I don’t know that there is any difference,’ said Isabel, touched in
spite of herself by the tears that rose in her stepmother’s eyes.
‘Nor me,’ said Jean, putting up her apron. ‘I canna tell what it is, but
I see it. Eh, Isabel, I’m an auld fool. I’ve been thinking we might be
real happy, now you kent me better. But I see the Glebe’s nae place for
you now. You’ll no bide long here.’
‘Where should I go to?’ said Isabel, with a little bitterness; ‘no, you
need not be afraid. I am wanted nowhere but in my own house.’
‘You couldna be any place where you would be mair thought of,’ said Jean
wistfully, ‘but you’re no to be angry at Miss Catherine either. It was
want of thought, maybe, or that she took it into her head that you and
me--after being so long parted--would like best to be alone.’
‘Angry! why should I be angry?’ said Isabel. ‘It is not that. I did not
think of Miss Catherine. She has been very kind, and I hope I am
grateful----’
‘You’re her ain kith and kin. I dinna see the call for gratitude,’ said
Jean, with a little heat. ‘And she might have brought ye hame in the
carriage, and nae harm done. I never understand your fine folk. But sit
down, my lamb, and I’ll pour you out your tea, and ye maun try to mind
we would a’ lay down our lives for you, and that you’re in your ain
house, and can do as you please.’
Perhaps there was a forlorn satisfaction in that, after all. But when
Isabel crept to bed, a few hours later, without any visit from the
minister, without any communication from Lochhead, her heart was far
from light. She wept in the dark when she laid herself down in her own
little bed. It had been a dream, that was all; and now she had come
back, and was no longer of consequence to anyone--a Miss Diarmid,
companion of Miss Catherine, and favourite of society no longer; but
only the Captain’s Isabel, too lowly for the lairds, too high for the
peasants. Visions came across her mind of the scenes she had lately
taken a part in, of the smiles that had been bestowed upon her, of the
interest with which her simple words had been listened to; and now no
smiles, no flattering tribute of admiring looks, were to be hers. Miss
Catherine had put her back decisively into her own place; and the
minister--even the minister! Yes, he was very good to her; he had given
her books and pictures to amuse her, as if she had been a solitary
child. It was the last little mark, no doubt, of the interest in her
which she had attributed to another feeling. But why should Mr. Lothian
care for her? Why should Miss Catherine care for her? They had been very
kind to her, which is quite a different matter. They had cured her of
her illness, and done a great deal to improve her; and now they had put
her back softly, but firmly, at once into her own place. No doubt it was
best, Isabel thought, turning her face to the wall, that she should know
at once how it was to be; but yet it was a strange downfall--and very
hard to bear.
She did not go to church on the following Sunday, pleading her fatigue;
and with an unexpressed hope that Miss Catherine would have sent to take
her along with herself; but Miss Catherine took no notice. She made the
proper inquiries of Jean, and was sorry to hear Isabel was tired; but
that was all. Mortification, anger, and disappointed affection surged up
all together in poor Isabel’s mind. One of those forlorn days, with her
veil over her face, she made her way, by the most unfrequented paths she
could think of, to her sister’s grave. It was in a corner of the
churchyard, out of the way of passers-by; and Isabel threw herself down
by it and clasped her arms round the white stone in all the abandonment
of her immediate pain, though that pain was not primarily called forth
by the loss of Margaret. After she had wept out all her tears, she still
retained her position, her soft arms wound about the stone, clinging to
it as she might have clung to her sister, her head leaning against it,
her dilated, tear-worn eyes gazing sadly into the air at their full
strain, though she saw nothing.
She was watched, though she did not know that anyone was near. Mr.
Lothian had yielded against his will to Miss Catherine’s peremptory
counsels, but he had kept upon the watch wherever Isabel went, finding
out her movements by that strange mesmerism of sympathy which conveys
our secrets through the air. He had seen her to the grave, though she
had not seen him. And when her tears were over, and she sank down into
this melancholy embrace of all that was left to her, the man’s heart
could bear it no longer. She whom he could scarcely refrain from taking
to his protecting arms when she felt but little need of him, how could
he stand by and see her clinging to the cold gravestone as to her only
refuge? Isabel was too much absorbed, too hopeless of any external
consolation, to hear the rustle through the grass as he came to her. He
had fallen upon his knees by her side before she roused herself to turn
those wistful, strained eyes to him. And then all considerations of what
he might or might not do had been driven out of his mind. He put his
arms tenderly round her, not even thinking of love, thinking of nothing
but her need. ‘My bonnie darling!’ he said with a sob, ‘my precious
Isabel! It’s the living you must come to, and not the dead, my dear! my
dear!’
‘I have nothing but Margaret in the world,’ said the girl, with sudden,
sharp anguish, the fountain of her tears once more opened by this
unexpected tenderness. She thought as little of love or lovemaking as he
did in the sudden flooding of his heart. Nor was Isabel conscious how he
drew her away from the chill stone to his own breast, and held her,
letting fall actual tears over her as he had not done twice in his life
before.
‘No, no; not there!’ he said, unconscious of his own words, holding her
close to him, clasping her fast, and thinking, as men so seldom think,
not of himself, but of her. It did not even occur to him how sweet it
was to appropriate her thus to himself. It was her want, her absolute
need of him, her self-abandonment which he could not bear. ‘Here, my
darling,’ the man murmured, with a pathetic abnegation of his own
feelings, ‘lean here;’ and so held her upon his bosom, schooling himself
to be--if need were--her father instead of her lover--anything to
comfort her in the moment of her weakness. When Isabel came to herself,
he was gazing upon her, as she leant on his shoulder, as if from an
unapproachable distance. She was in his arms, and yet his eyes rested on
her with wistful reverence, as though she had been miles away.
‘I did not mean to be so weak and so foolish,’ she said, gathering
herself away from him with a vivid blush. ‘I thought I was--alone--I
thought----’
‘You thought you had nothing in the world but her that is gone,’ said
the minister. ‘Isabel! and yet you know who is the light of my eyes, and
the desire of my heart?’
She leant her hand again upon the stone, her tears dried, her heart
beating, and visibly a crisis before her, which must affect her whole
life.
‘I am old enough to be your father,’ he said, with his voice trembling.
‘I never forget that. I’ve seen you grow up bonnie and bright, and loved
you more year after year. And now I feel as if I were taking an
advantage of my bonnie darling. Isabel, if your life were bright and
full of love it would be different. But you are alone. And never man on
earth could love you dearer than I do. Will you let me take care of you,
my darling?’ he cried, and took her hands and gazed into her face. ‘Will
you come to my house and make it glad? I’ll be young for my Isabel!’
said the minister, with tears in his eyes. And the virgin heart within
him came to his face and chased away the years as if by magic. He was
kneeling, though he was not aware of it; and his eyes and every line in
his countenance were pleading more eloquently than words. But Isabel, in
whose heart two rival forces were struggling, was too much agitated and
blinded by her own feelings to see.
‘Oh, Mr. Lothian, let me go home!’ she cried, stumbling to her feet.
‘How can I think of this--how can I answer you here?’
‘You shall answer me where you please,’ he cried, rising with her, and
supporting her with his arms. ‘When you please and where you please, my
darling! But it is here of all places that I want you to know--Isabel,
you _know_?--that there is one that loves you above life, above
happiness--more than words can say.’
She turned to him for one moment, and gave a sudden, tearful look at his
agitated face. ‘I know, I know!’ she cried. ‘Oh, let me go home, now!’
And he drew her hand within his arm, and took her home, saying not
another word. All was said that could be said. It was for her to decide
now.