“It must not be—I cannot permit it,” said Mrs Laurie. “Menie, is this
all that your mother deserves at your hands? to take such a step as this
without even telling me—without giving me an opportunity of
remonstrance? Menie! Menie!”
And with hasty steps Mrs Laurie paces backward and forward the narrow
room. Beside the window, very pale, Menie stands with a half-averted
face, saying nothing—very pale—and there is a sullen suffering in Menie
Laurie’s darkened face.
“I cannot have it—I will not permit it”—Mrs Laurie is much excited. “My
own honour is compromised; it will be said it is I who have separated
you. Menie! it is strange that you should show so little regard either
to Randall or to me. I must do something—I must make an effort—I cannot
have this.”
“Mother, hear me,” exclaimed Menie. “No one shall do anything; I will
not bear it either. In everything else you shall make of me what you
will—here I am not to be swayed; I must decide this for myself—and I
have decided it, mother.”
With astonished eyes Mrs Laurie looked upon her daughter’s face. Flushed
with passion, full of a fierce unrespecting will—was this Menie Laurie?
but her mother turned aside from her. “I am sorry, Menie—I am very
sorry—to see you show such a spirit; another time I will speak of it
again.”
Another time!—Menie Laurie laughed a low laugh when her mother left the
room. Something like a scowl had come to Menie’s brow; a dark abiding
cloud was on her face; and in her heart such bitterness and universal
disappointment as killed every gentle feeling in her soul: disloyal to
the one love, disrespectful and disobedient to the other—bitterly
Menie’s heart turned upon itself—she had pleased no one; her life was
nothing but a great blot before her. She was conscious of a host of evil
feelings—evil spirits waging war with one another in her vexed and
troubled mind. Sullenly she sat down once more upon the ground, not to
seek if there was any comfort in the heavens above or the earth beneath,
but to brood upon her grief, and make it darker, till the clouds closed
over her, and swallowed her up, and not a star remained.
There is a certain obstinate gloomy satisfaction in despair. To decide
that everything is hopeless—that nothing can be done for you—that you
have reached to the pre-eminence of woe—no wonder Menie’s face was dark
and sullen—she had come to this point now.
Like a thunder-storm this intelligence came upon little July Home—she
could not comprehend it, and no one took the trouble to explain to her.
Lithgow, knowing but the fact, was surprised and grieved, and prophesied
their reunion; but no hope was in Menie’s sullen gravity—none in the
haughty resentment of Randall Home.
And Mrs Laurie once more with a troubled brow considers of her
future—will Menie be best in the Dumfriesshire cottage, where no one
will see their poverty, or pursuing some feminine occupation among the
other seamstresses, teachers, poor craftswomen of a less solitary place?
For now that all is done that can be done, there is no hope of
recovering anything of the lost income,—and Mrs Laurie will not live on
Miss Annie’s bounty. She is anxious with all her heart to be away.
Miss Annie herself has not recovered her trial: autumn winds grow cold
at night—autumn rains come down sadly upon the little world which has
had its cheerfulness quenched out of it—and when Randall takes away his
little sister to carry her home, Miss Annie looks a mournful old woman,
sitting there wrapped up by the early lighted fire. These two or three
mornings she has even been seen at the breakfast-table with a cap
protecting the head which is so sadly apt to take cold—and Miss Annie
cries a little to herself, and tells bits of her own love-story to
Menie, absorbed and silent, who sits unanswering beside her—and moans to
herself sadly sometimes, over this other vessel of youthful life, cast
away.
But Miss Annie Laurie never wears ringlets more. Strangely upon her
conscience, like a reproach for her unnatural attenuated youth, came
Menie’s appeal to her for help and comfort. Feeling herself so frivolous
and feeble, so unable to sustain or strengthen, Miss Annie made a
holocaust of her curls, and was satisfied. So much vanity was
relinquished not without a struggle; but great comfort came from the
sacrifice to the heroic penitent.
And Jenny, discontented and angry with them all, furiously now takes the
part of Randall Home, and wonders, in a fuff and outburst, what Miss
Menie can expect that she “lightlies” a bonny lad like yon. A great
change has taken place on Menie; no one can say it is for the better—and
sullenly and sadly this bright year darkens over the house of Heathbank.