The wedding tour was but a short one; and when the snow appeared on the
hills in October, and the early winter began to isolate Loch Diarmid
from the rest of the world, Isabel stood by the Manse window, as she had
pictured herself standing, and looked for her husband coming home. She
had dreamed of it all; and somehow, out of a dream it had come to a
reality, and she found herself in the very position she had imagined,
still somewhat wistful, but no longer sad, or distracted by any of the
doubts of the past. It would be impossible to say how good he was to
her, as good as a good man of the most generous and delicate instincts
could be to a young creature whom he loved with all his heart, and with
a certain touch of compunction and compassion, and a ghost of remorse
mingling in his love. He was not, he knew, the kind of man she should
have married; he was old enough to be her father; and the consciousness
gave to his love a soft delicacy, and reverence, and tenderness, which
are rare in the world. Had she been unreasonable he would have made
himself a very slave to her caprices; but Isabel was not unreasonable.
She was even yet a little timid of expressing her own wishes or
opinions.
The aristocracy of Lochshire was not remarkable for any great
intellectual qualities any more than other rural aristocracies; neither
was it the highest possible school of manners and social grace. But yet
it was a great advance to Isabel of the Glebe Cottage, who had no
training in the ways of the world. She was a lady born, as Jean
Campbell, with pride, had so often asserted; and the gentle blood, or
the gentle mind, or both, asserted themselves. Imperceptibly the change
crept over Isabel. Mr. Lothian was ‘well connected’ in his own person,
and he was well off, having had something to begin upon, and so many
years of frugal bachelor life to provide him with means for the
gratification of his young wife. And Miss Catherine, proud of her
_protégée_ and of the match she had made, superintended Isabel’s
toilette, and watched over her comings and goings. So that the winter
passed away in a pleasant flutter of social occupation, and the new Mrs.
Lothian had such share of _succés_ as is agreeable to a young wife
setting out upon the world.
But yet, on the whole, what she preferred was the long winter nights
when she watched for her husband coming home by the waning twilight, and
sat down with him at the table to which her own hands had added what
decoration was possible. If her eyes did not light up at his approach,
they yet smiled softly on him with that serenity which was so new to
hasty Isabel. She was glad when he liked his dinner, and listened with a
sweet impartial satisfaction while he praised the dishes she had ordered
for him, and sometimes helped to prepare, and her own blooming looks.
She ‘took his kiss sedately,’ not more moved by it than she was by the
whisper into her ear that the tea was ready, of the pretty housemaid,
whom she had known all her life. And then the Dominie would stray in and
deposit his gaunt length in one of the easy chairs by the drawing-room
fire, and the two men would talk of all they knew, and all they had
seen, and all they thought, while she sat working between them, saying
now and then her half-dozen words, listening with all the fresh
curiosity of her age. Her husband would pause now and then to explain to
her some special subject of discourse, and Isabel would listen, smiling,
looking up from her work. At first she had said, ‘Never mind, I like
best to find it out from what you say; I like to hear what Mr. Galbraith
thinks, and what you think, and put them together.’ But Mr. Lothian was
not satisfied with that. If he had a weakness, it was to instruct his
wife, and make her understand everything he was interested in. And he
was a little vexed that he could not persuade her, as he said, ‘to take
a part.’ But that was a slight--a very slight vexation. And Isabel did
not care to take a part. She listened, and she pursued her own thoughts;
and sometimes but half heard the talk, thinking of how to plant a new
flower-bed as spring was coming, or whether little Mary would not be
better for a new frock; or how to arrange the ladies and the gentlemen
at the great dinner-party which she was shortly to give in return for
the civilities of the Loch. Then she would glance at her husband, who
was looking at her with his eyes so full of love. His hair was getting
white, it was true; but then his cheek was still like a rose, and was
set off by the white hair. And Isabel’s eyes dwelt admiringly on the
ruffles which she had hemmed, which she had crimped, and in which she
had placed the little pin she had given him when they were married. It
was not a very valuable ornament. It was a small oblong brooch, set
round with pearls, which she had herself worn with Margaret’s hair in
it, as long as she could remember. Now it held a little curl of her own
intertwined with Margaret’s, and had been placed on a pin to fit it for
its present use. It was the only ornament of the kind the minister ever
wore. And it was Isabel herself who had to put it into the delicate
cambric every morning. He was so particular about his frills. And she
was proud of them, and let no hand touch them but her own.
And when spring came a great idea had developed in Mr. Lothian’s mind.
He had been thinking of it all the time, though he had said nothing. It
was to take his wife to London, to see everything that could be seen, to
go to the theatre, and the opera, and make acquaintance with the big
world. It took away Isabel’s breath when the suggestion was made to her.
Going to London to her was something like what going to Constantinople
would be to a young woman in her position now--only so much more
dazzling and splendid to think of. When Jean Campbell heard of it, it
brought tears of pride to her eyes. ‘Eh, Isabel, my bonnie woman, ye
have a life like a fairy-tale!’ she cried, and such was the effect
produced upon the Loch in general by the news of this wonderful project.
‘His young wife has turned his head,’ said John Macwhirter. ‘There’s nae
fool like an auld fool, especially when there’s a wife in the case.’
‘If it had been in to the Assembly in May, ane could understand,’ said
old Sandy Diarmid, ‘to see the Lord Commissioner and a’ the sights; but
London’s a different story. It would suit him better to save his siller
for the family, when they come.’
‘But I hear there’s nae word of a family,’ said another gossip, ‘and he
has been saving since ever he came to the parish. So long as the
pulpit’s well supplied I see nae harm in’t for my part.’
At the village doors the question was still more hotly discussed.
‘Set her up with her trips to London!’ cried one of the neighbours, ‘and
her only Duncan Diarmid’s daughter, as we a’ ken, and with nae right to
such extravagance.’
‘But by the mother’s side Isabel’s a lady born,’ cried Jenny Spence,
‘and her father was an officer as grand as young Kilcranion, that you
think so much of. When ye marry an auld man ye may well expect mair
consideration at the least. A’ he can do is but little for bonnie
Isabel.’
‘If they were to spend the siller on God’s service it would set them
better--and him a minister,’ said Mary White.
And in higher circles there were a good many smiles and gentle jokes
about the minister’s uxorious fondness. Even Miss Catherine was not
quite sure about such an extravagant notion. But all the criticism did
not affect Mr. Lothian. He had made all his plans, and arranged
everything without regard to the popular babble. ‘I mean my Isabel to
see everything, and have everything I can give her,’ he said. He had
lived in that mysterious world himself when he was young. He had been
tutor to the Marquis, the tutelary deity of the district, who came to
church always when he was on the Loch, and had the minister to dine with
him and showed him every sort of attention. London was no such wonder
and enigma to him as it was to most of his parishioners. And Isabel, for
the first time since her marriage, was moved with an excitement which
almost renewed her impetuosity. The thought of going ‘to England’
stirred up all her dormant faculties for pleasure. She made him tell her
all about it, where they should go; what the Park was like where the
ladies rode; if he was sure it was quite right to go to a theatre--and a
hundred other particulars; and when at last the moment came for setting
out, the young creature almost threw off her wifely gravity and felt
herself a girl again.
They went by sea, which was a somewhat awful experience; but yet, when
she had recovered the first frightful consequences of acquaintance with
the unsteady waters, even the fact of ‘the voyage’ added something to
Isabel’s sense of growing experience and knowledge of life. She walked
about the deck, leaning on her husband’s arm as the steamer went up the
peaceable Thames, quite recovered from all unpleasant sensations, and
full of bright wonder and curiosity. ‘You know everything as if you had
lived here all your life,’ she said, in unfeigned admiration for her
husband’s cleverness, and hung upon him, asking a thousand questions,
pleased with all the novelty about her, proud of his unbounded
information, a sweeter picture he thought than all London besides could
produce.
‘I was here when I was young like you,’ he said, ‘when everything takes
hold of one’s mind--when I did not know I was to be so happy as to bring
my bonnie Isabel. I suppose it was before you were born.’
‘And perhaps you were thinking of some other Isabel,’ she said, looking
up in his face, with the laughing half-jealousy of the wife, a something
more like love and less like simple affection (he thought) than he had
seen in her before.
‘Never,’ he said, bending down over the sweet face that was his own, ‘my
darling, I never loved woman till I saw you. And when I saw you, you
were no woman, but a child. I kept my heart young for you, Isabel.’
She gave him a wondering glance, and then a little flush came over her
face, and she turned to ask him a question about something else which
struck her on the other side of the river. She had not kept her heart
fresh for him. She felt, with a momentary sense of guiltiness, that
they were not equal on that point. But her very thoughts were as
innocently and simply true to him now as if he had been--her father.
Something like this was what Isabel thought, but not with any conscious
sense that her love for her husband should have been different.
She was quite happy standing there with her hand drawn closely within
his arm, proud of him and of everything about him, from his boundless
knowledge down to his spotless ruffles; and felt at the present moment
no need of anything else for the happiness of her life.
And Isabel enjoyed all the sights of London with the same proud
satisfaction. He could tell her about everything, from Westminster and
St. Paul’s down to the old gentlemen riding in the Row, among whom he
pointed out to her the Duke and Sir Robert Peel, and at least a dozen
more, as if he had known them all his life, she said to herself. He was
not so learned in respect to the ladies, it was true. But still to know
so much was a great thing. And then it made his wife so independent. She
had no need to ask, to consult books, to remain in ignorance of
anything. It gave her the sweetest sense of superiority when she met a
young country lady in the Row with her husband who was not so clever as
the minister, and saw them gaze and gape at the notabilities. ‘Mr.
Lothian will tell you who they are,’ said Isabel, proudly. And when her
countrywoman confided to her how little she knew about the places she
had seen, the gratification of the minister’s wife grew stronger and
stronger. ‘Mr. Lothian was here when he was young,’ she said; ‘and I
never need to ask anybody but him--he knows everything.’
‘Here when he was young, indeed!’ young Mrs. Diarmid, of Ardgartan,
exclaimed to her husband, when they parted company. ‘Here as a tutor, I
suppose; but Isabel gives herself as many airs as if he were the Marquis
himself.’
‘Well, at least he was the Marquis’s tutor,’ said young Ardgartan; ‘and
if she is pleased with her old man, it is very lucky for her.’
And the fact was that Isabel was thoroughly pleased with her old man,
and enjoyed her expedition with all her heart. The Marquis asked his old
tutor to dinner, and gave Isabel his arm, and placed her by his side
with much admiration of her sweet looks. ‘I used to know your father,’
he told her, ‘when I was a lad. What an eye he had! and would tire us
all out shooting over the Kilcranion moors.’ This acknowledgment of
Captain Duncan as himself in some way received by the local deities, was
balm to Isabel’s soul, and opened her shy intelligence to the Marquis,
who found her little sayings as piquant as sayings usually are which
fall from pretty lips. And the Marchioness offered Mrs. Lothian her box
at the Opera to Isabel’s great confusion and perplexity. The young
ladies of the house clustered round her, telling her what the music was
to be, and how she would enjoy it, and how much they envied her her
first opera. ‘You will think you are in Heaven,’ cried one enthusiastic
girl. When she left the grand house in Park Lane, with this ecstatic
prospect before her, Isabel felt that her life, as the stepmother had
said, was indeed like a fairy-tale.
‘But is it so nice as they say?’ she asked her husband, as they went
home.
‘To them it is,’ said that man of universal information, ‘for they have
been brought up to it. I am not so sure about you; but you must ask me
no more questions, for I want you to judge of it for yourself.’
And it was with a sense of responsibility that Isabel set out for this
new felicity. She had put on one of her wedding-dresses, the blue one
which her husband loved--and had white flowers in her pretty brown hair.
Her sense of her present judicial position took from her the pretty
girlish excitement into which she had fallen about all the novelties
that surrounded her, and restored that soft dignity of the old man’s
wife, the look of age she had tried to put on when she first realised
Mrs. Lothian’s responsibility. She looked, perhaps, rather more girlish
in this state of importance and seriousness than she did in her livelier
mood. And there was another reason, too, for unusual dignity. Lady Mary
was to go with her under her charge. ‘And I trust to you, Mrs. Lothian,
to take care of her,’ the Marchioness had said, with a sense of the joke
which was far from being shared by Isabel. It was the first time she had
ever acted as chaperone, and her mind was disturbed by the awful
question what she should do if anyone approached the young lady who was
under her charge. ‘Is she not to speak to anyone?--and am I to keep
everybody away?’ she asked her husband, and if possible admired Mr.
Lothian’s knowledge more than ever when he instructed her in her easy
duties. As for Lady Mary herself, she was quite excited by the prospect
of witnessing Isabel’s delight. ‘Oh I wish I were you!’ she cried, ‘I am
_blasée_, you know. I know them all off by heart, and exactly how they
will look, and how Grisi will bring out her notes. But you will think
you are in Heaven.’ And then they all got into the lordly carriage, with
the powdered footmen, and went to this earthly paradise, with no thought
of any evil awaiting them, or harm which could enter there.
There were many opera-glasses directed to the box when Isabel in her
simplicity and pretty dignity, half-matron half-child, took her seat in
it. Lady Mary was no beauty, and the eyes of the world directed
themselves to the fresh, new face with a rustle of curiosity and
interrogation. Isabel gave one glance round her in acknowledgment of the
fine assembly, and the ladies in their pretty dresses, and then turned
her face intent upon the stage. The opera was _Lucia di Lammermoor_. Her
companions both watched her with much more interest than they did the
scene--Lady Mary with delightful expectation at first, then with a shade
of disappointment and surprise: while the minister looked on amused, and
yet conscious of the least little shade of anxiety, lest his wife should
compromise herself by a total want of susceptibility to the
entertainment. Neither of them observed, at first, among the gazers
below and around one pair of opera-glasses, which the owner with a
sudden start had directed full upon the box at the commencement of the
performance, and which remained fixed, held with rigid hands, during the
whole of the first act. When the curtain fell, Isabel drew breath and
heart, her eyes somewhat strained and dilated with the intense gaze she
had been fixing upon the stage.
‘Don’t you feel, then, as if _this_ was all a dream, and _that_ was
true?’ said Lady Mary, who was a musical enthusiast.
‘I don’t know,’ said Isabel. ‘I don’t understand; if I could see what
they all mean.’ She glanced round her and down at the stalls as she
spoke, and there she caught a glimpse of--what was it?--a face, a part
of a face staring up at her, almost hidden by the black circles of the
glasses, but yet with something in its aspect that seemed familiar to
her. ‘Do they always stare like that?’ she said, drawing back with the
sense of having received a shock, though she could not tell how.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lady Mary, hastily. ‘No one minds--don’t think of that.
But tell me, don’t you feel it--doesn’t it go to your heart?’
‘I think, if there was anything in my heart, I would say it, and not
sing it,’ said Isabel. ‘I think they are all mad. Is she Lucy Ashton?
But Lucy would not have the heart to sing. Oh, how could she sing when
she could scarcely speak?’
‘Oh, don’t you see,’ said Lady Mary, ‘that is just what music is? When
you cannot speak, you can burst out in music. You can go to the piano,
and say everything that is in your heart--you can sing----’
‘Yes,’ said Isabel, softly; ‘Auld Robin Gray, or that Irish song the
poor girl sang when her heart was breaking; but all that music, full of
shakes, and trills, and great bursts like the organ made on purpose--oh,
no; not if her heart was breaking!’
‘But, my dear,’ said the minister, ‘how can you tell? an Italian heart
may break in music?’
‘Perhaps an Italian heart, but not Lucy Ashton’s,’ said Isabel, a wave
of sudden colour passing over her face. How strange it was, out of this
crown of her happy, peaceful existence to look back on the time when she
had first read about Lucy Ashton, and understood. She was an
uninstructed rustic, and had never heard any music in her life before.
This historian says not a word in support of her way of thinking; but
such was her ignorant opinion, out of the depths of her reticent Scotch
heart, in which there lay so deep a sense of every emotion. It was her
ignorance, no doubt, which suggested it. Anyone who had read the ‘Bride
of Lammermoor’ to her, with the very least power of characteristic
representation, could have played on her as on a delicate instrument;
but she did not know how to understand the other form of the poem. It
bewildered her. She was not in Heaven, but in the most curious
artificial sphere. And then, what was that thing--those two black
motionless glasses, fixed upon her from below? Whose was the turn of the
head that seemed to appear to her behind them--the aspect of the
half-seen figure lost among the crowd? She could not tell; but it all
awoke the strangest thrill of uneasiness in her heart.
‘I should like to go home,’ she whispered to her husband. ‘Who is that
always staring? And the music makes me dizzy. I should like to go home.’
‘Staring, my darling! There are so many people staring,’ said Mr.
Lothian; ‘and I am not surprised,’ he added, looking down upon her with
fond admiration. The speech and the movement brought him forward to the
front of the box. He took no notice of anything else, having his whole
attention fixed upon his wife; but she saw a sudden movement below, and
the direction of the opera-glasses change a little, as if the gaze was
turned on her husband. The sensation to her was as if some dangerous
being in a mask were watching them. And everything was so unreal--those
people on the stage going through what was supposed to be the business
of life in music, and the spectators periodically rousing themselves to
a little paroxysm of frenzy, according to Isabel’s opinion. She had
never seen anything so unreal and so strange; and it might be some enemy
who was watching them for anything she knew----
But she sat out the performance bravely, trying to conceal her first
impressions, now and then carried away by a splendid outburst of
melody, but still keeping close to her text that Lucy Ashton could not
have had the heart. ‘How could she have remembered to sing like that, if
her heart was breaking?’ said Isabel; and there was a painful pang in
her own which she could not explain. She seemed to see those glasses
before her even on the way out, gazing at her from behind a pillar. They
were before her eyes all the way home, and withdrew her attention even
from Lady Mary’s lamentations over her want of musical taste. ‘But I see
it is because you are not used to it,’ Lady Mary said at last. ‘Half a
dozen more evenings would make you think so differently. Oh, Mr.
Lothian, stay a little longer, and let us educate your wife!’
‘It would take a longer time than we can spare,’ said the minister, only
half pleased with the suggestion; and Isabel gave a little shudder in
her corner. She was thinking of that opera-glass, and of the high crest
of hair rising behind it, and the air of the half-seen figure. Could it
be----? Whom could it be? It was the only unsuccessful attempt at
pleasure she had made since they went to town.