THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
"The strongest mental tonic in the world is solitude, but it takes a
strong mind, fully equipped with thoughts, aims, work, to support it
long without suffering. But once a man has made his best companion of
his own mind, he has learned the secret of living."
So I had written in an essay on Senancour during the days when the
little white house was but a dream, and Irma had never come to me across
the cleared space in front of Greyfriars Kirk amid the thud of mallets
and the "chip" of trowels. But Irma taught me better things. She knew
when to be silent. She understood, also, when speech would slacken the
tension of the mind. As I sat writing by the soft glow of the lamp I
could hear the rustle of her house-dress, the sharp, almost inaudible,
_tick-tick_ of her needle, and the soft sound as she smoothed out her
seam. Little things that happen to everybody, but--well, I for one had
never noticed them before.
It seemed as if this period of contentment would always continue. The
present was so good that, save a little additional in the way of income,
I asked for no better.
But one day the Advocate rudely shook my equanimity.
"You must have some of your family--some good woman--to be with Irma.
Write at once!"
I could only look at him in amazement.
"Why, Irma is very well," I said; "she never looked better in her life."
"My boy," said the Advocate, laying his hand gently on my arm, "I have
loved a wife, and I have lost a wife who loved me; I do not wish to
stand by and let you do the same for the want of a friend's word. Write
to-night!"
And he turned on his heel and marched off. At twenty steps' distance he
turned. "Duncan," he said, "we will need all your time at the _Review_;
you had better give up the Secretary's office. I have spoken to Morrison
about it. I shall be so much in London for a year or two that you will
be practically in charge. We will get a smart young colleger to take
your place."
That night I wrote to my Aunt Janet. It was after Irma, fatigued more
easily than was usual with her, had gone to bed. Four days afterwards, I
was looking over some manuscript sheets which that day had to go to the
printer. Mistress Pathrick, who had just arrived to prepare the
breakfast (I had lit the kitchen fire when I got up), burst in upon me
with the announcement that there was "sic a gathering o' folk" at the
door, and a "great muckle owld woman coming in!"
I hastened down, and there in the little lobby stood--my grandmother.
She was arrayed in her oldest black bombazine. A travel-crushed beaver
bonnet was clapped tightly on her head. The black velvet band about her
white hair had slipped down and now crossed her brow transversely a
little above one bushy eyebrow, giving an inconceivably rakish
appearance to her face. She held a small urchin, evidently from the
Grassmarket or the Cowgate, firmly by the cuff of his ragged jacket. She
was threatening him with her great blue umbrella.
"If ye hae led me astray, ye skirmishing blastie, I'll let ye ken the
weight o' this!"
The youth was guarding himself with one hand and declaring alternately
that, "This is the hoose, mem," and, "I want my saxpence!"
A little behind two sturdy porters, laden with a box apiece, blocked up
the doorway, and loomed large across the garden.
"Eh, Duncan, but this is an awesome place," cried my grandmother. "So
many folk, and it's pay this, and so much for that! It's a fair
disgrace. There's no man in Eden Valley that wadna hae been pleased to
gie me a lift from the coach wi' my bit boxes. But here, certes, it's
sae muckle for liftin' them up and sae muckle more for settin' them
doon, and to crown a' a saxpence to a laddie for showin' me the road to
your house! It's a terrible difference to Heathknowes, laddie. Now, I
wadna wonder if ye hae to pay for your very firewood!"
I assured her that we had neither peat nor woodcutting privileges on the
Meadows, and to change the subject asked her if she would not go up and
see Irma.
"A' in guid time," she said. "I hae a word or two to ask ye first,
laddie. No that muckle is to be expected o' a man that wad write to puir
Janet Lyon instead o' to _me_, Duncan MacAlpine!"
As I did not volunteer anything, she exclaimed, stamping her foot,
"Dinna stand there glowering at me. Man alive, Duncan lad, ye can hae no
idea how like an eediot ye can look when ye put your mind to it!"
I had been reared in the knowledge that it was a vain thing to argue
with my grandmother, so I listened patiently to all she had to say, and
I answered, to the best of my ability, all the questions she asked. Most
she seemed to have no need to ask at all, for she knew the answers
before they were out of my mouth, and paid no attention to my words
when I did get in a word.
"Humph, you are stupider than most men, and that's saying no trifle!"
was her comment when all was finished.
I asked Mary Lyon if there was nothing I could do to assist her--help
with her unpacking, or any trifle like that.
"Aye, there is," she answered, with her old verve, "get out o' the
house, man, and leave me to my work while you do yours."
I took my hat, the cane which the Advocate had given me, and with them
my way to the office of the _Universal Review._ I had a busy day, which
perhaps was as well, for all the time my mind was wandering disconsolate
about the little white house above the Meadows.
I returned to find all well, my supper laid in the kitchen and the
contents of grandmother's trunks apparently filling the rest of the
house. Irma gave me a little, perfunctory kiss; said, "Oh, if you could
only----!" and so vanished to where my grandmother was unfolding still
more things and other treasures to the rustle of fine tissue paper, and
the gasps and little hand-clappings of Irma.
Those who know my grandmother do not need to be told that she took
possession of our house and all that was therein, of Irma so completely
that practically I was only allowed to bid my wife "Good-morning" under
the strictest supervision, and of Mistress Pathrick--who, after one sole
taste of my grandmother's tongue, had retired defeated with the muttered
criticism that "that tongue o' the auld leddy's could ding a' the
Luckenbooths--aye, and the West Bow as weel." However, once subjected,
she proved a kindly and a willing slave. I have, however, my suspicions
that in these days Mr. Pathrick McGrier, ex-janitor of the Latin
classroom, had but a poor time of it so far as the preparation of his
meals went, and as to housekeeping she was simply not there.
For she slept now under the stairs in a lair she had rigged up for
herself, which she said was "rale comfortable," but certainly to the
unaccustomed had an air of great stuffiness.
But I need not write at large what, after all, is no unique experience.
One night, upon my grandmother's pressing invitation, I walked out on
Bruntsfield Links, and kicked stones into the golfers' holes for
something to do. It was full moon, I remember, and away to the north the
city slept while St. Giles jangled fitfully. I had come there to be away
from the little white house, where Irma was passing through the first
peril of great waters which makes women's faces different ever after--a
few harder, most softer, none ever the same.
Ten times I came near, stumbling on the short turf, my feet numb and
uncertain beneath me, my limbs flageolating, and my heart rent with a
man's helplessness. I called upon God as I had not done in my life
before. I had been like many men--so long as I could help myself, I saw
no great reason for troubling the Almighty who had already so much on
His hands. But now I could do nothing. I had an appalling sense of
impotence. So I remembered that He was All-powerful, and just because I
had never asked anything with true fervour before, He would the more
surely give this to me. So at least I argued as I prayed.
And, sure enough, the very next time I coasted the northern shore of the
Meadows, as near as I dared, there came one running towards me, clear
in the moonlight--Mistress Pathrick it was and no other.
"A laddie--a fine laddie!" she panted, waving both her hands in her
enthusiasm.
"And Irma?" I cried, for that did not interest me at that moment, no,
not a pennyworth.
"A bhoy--as foine a bhoy----"
"Tell me, how is Irma?" I shouted--"quick!"
"Wud turn the scale at eleven, divil a ounce less----"
"Woman, tell me how is my wife!" I thundered, lifting up my hands, "or
I'll twist your foolish neck!"
"Keep us!" said Mrs. Pathrick, "why, how should she be? Did ye expect
she would be up and bating the carpets?"
In half-a-dozen springs, as it seemed, I was within the gate. Then the
clear, shrill wail with which a new soul prisoned in an unfamiliar body
trumpets its discontent with the vanities of this world stopped me dead.
Scarce knowing what I did, I took off my boots. I trod softly.
There was a hush now in the house--a sudden stoppage of that shrill
bugle-note. I came upon my grandmother, as it seemed, moulding a little
ruddy bundle, with as much apparent ease and absence of fuss as if it
had been a pat of butter in the dairy at home.
And when she put my firstborn son into my arms, I had no high thoughts.
I trembled, indeed, but it was with fear lest I should drop him.
Presently his nurse took him again, grumbling at the innate and
incurable handlessness of men. Could I see Irma? Certainly not. What
would I be doing, disturbing the poor thing? Very likely she was asleep.
Oh, I had promised to go, had I? Well, she had nothing to do with that.
But Irma would be expecting me! Oh, as to that, lad, lad, do not trouble
yourself. She will be resting in a peace like the peace of the Lord, as
you might know, if ever a man could know anything about such things.
Just for a minute? Well, then--a minute, and no more. Mind, she, Mary
Lyon, would be at the door. I was not to speak even.
As I went in, Irma lifted her arms a little way and then let them fall.
There was a kind of shiny dew on her face, little but chill to the touch
of my lips. And, ah, how wistful her smile!
"Your ... little ... girl," she whispered, "has deserved ... well ... of
her country. I hope he will be brave ... like his father. I prayed all
might be well ... for your sake, my dear. His name is to be Duncan....
Yes, Duncan Louis Maitland!"
I had been kneeling at the bedside, kneeling and, well--perhaps sobbing.
But at that moment I felt a hand on my collar. The next I was on my
feet, and so, with only one glimpse of Irma's smile at my fate, I found
myself outside the room.
"What was it I telled ye?--Not to excite her! Was it no?"
And Mary Lyon showed me the way down to the kitchen, which I had
forgotten, where, on condition of not making a noise, I was to be
permitted for the present to abide.
"But mind you," she added, threateningly, "not a foot-sole are ye to set
on thae stairs withoot my permission. Or, my certes, lad, but ye will
hear aboot it!"
Decidedly I was a man under authority. The extraordinary thing was that
I was cautioned to make no noise, and there in the next room was that
red imp yelling the roof off, yet neither of his female relatives
seemed to mind in the least, though his remarks interfered very
seriously with the article on "Irrigation Systems of Southern Europe,"
which I was working up for the _Universal_.
But when was a mere man (and breadwinner) considered at such times?
In all truly Christian and charitable cities refuges should be built for
temporarily dispossessed, homeless, and hungry heads of families.