_MARY_.
It was a revival of the dear dead past to Mary Brown, to find herself
again at Inchbracken. General Drysdale took her in to dinner, and,
perhaps because he would not touch upon the present, leading, as it
must, to her brother's defection from the national Church, nor, in
fact, on that young man in any way or respect whatever, he talked to
her about her father and mother.
She found it very grateful to listen to their praises; and something
like a tear glistened in her eye while she looked in the old
gentleman's face, and the faint colour of her cheek deepened into a
warmer pink.
We value our powers to interest others most when we feel them leaving
us, and it is not often that an old man's conversation can bring a
flush or a tear to the cheek of youth and beauty. General Drysdale
felt pleased as he marked the effect of his words. It recalled, who
can say what associations with the time when he was a young man, and
an object of more interest to the fair, and he became more and more
warmed himself, out of sympathy, as he dwelt on the charities and the
worth of Mary's parents.
Julia, from her place across the table, remarked with surprise the
General's unusual animation and loquacity, and his unwonted
inattention to the high duty of the hour--dining. Mary's eyes were
shining, and in her plain black dress with the roses, she bloomed a
brighter flower than they, radiant in pure content. So, at least, it
was evident that Kenneth thought. He sat at some distance from her,
and had even to lean forward somewhat to see, but his eyes were ever
travelling in that direction, and he appeared to answer the gentlemen
on either side of him in so distraught and unsatisfactory a manner,
that they soon ceased to disturb his musings by further talk.
Julia had arrayed herself for conquest. She always dressed well and
carefully, but on the present occasion her effort had risen into the
region of art. Arrayed in some combination of white and green, which
cured any tendency to yellowness in her complexion (and her shoulders
at times were a trifle too suggestive of old waxwork), her pale eyes
twinkled with quite an unwonted lustre, and there was positively a
bloom on her cheeks and lips, while the falling ringlets were longer
and more poetic than ever. When Briggs went into her room during the
dressing hour, she had surprised her in the act of locking something
very like a paint-box into her desk, and she had made a pretty sharp
survey while she added the few pins that were all the office required
of her; but, as she remarked subsequently, 'I could not take my oath
of it, Mrs. Kipper; if she do, she manages uncommon clever.' Painting
is a fine art, and Julia had studied it as well as all the others, and
would have thought it but a paltry achievement to deceive the stupid
eyes of poor Briggs.
There were several strange gentlemen at table, and Julia was on her
mettle. The two who sat next her found her most agreeable, but sparkle
her best, she failed to catch one glance of appreciation from
Kenneth's eyes. At the end of the table she saw Mary, and the General
still smiling and engrossed in their talk, and confessed to herself
that she had undervalued the strength of the enemy. To think that that
slip of a girl, brought up in a country manse, should manage so
splendidly, and contrive to win the old gentleman to her side as well
as the young one! How was it done? Through all the years she had dined
at his table, she had never been able to extract more conversation
from him than a casual remark between the courses, and latterly she
had ceased even to expect that.
Matters did not progress much more satisfactorily in the drawing-room.
Julia had sat down to the piano, and played her best, which is saying
a great deal, for she was a brilliant performer. She also sang, and
although her voice was thin, it had had the best training, and she
could warble through the most intricate compositions with consummate
taste and execution. She soon had all the gentlemen gathered around
her in silent admiration, all, that is to say, except the General, who
was in his usual corner, by his own lamp, his eye-glass on his nose
and a blue book in his lap. As one of the legislators of this great
nation, he felt it incumbent to fall asleep--to fall asleep over its
affairs every evening; it reminded him of the House in fact, where he
had had many a good nap in his day. However, as he never spoke, and
always voted straight with his party, that made no difference. Kenneth
too was wanting. Mary Brown sat on a low stool beside Lady Caroline's
arm-chair, who,--the lady that is, not the chair--was chatting
drowsily to her, while she swayed her great fan to and fro, and
Kenneth, with his elbow on the chimney-piece, hung over both. Julia
was by no means insensible to the admiration of the strangers,--at
another time it would have given her great satisfaction; but just at
present, the defection of Kenneth and his father out-weighed it all.
There is now but one chance to outshine her rival--to get her to the
piano and try how her poor little efforts will sound after her own
finished performance. After one more song, therefore, which she took
care should be the _chef d'[oe]uvre_, she declared she could sing no
more, but suggested that some one should ask Miss Brown. Miss Brown
was asked, and would fain have declined, but Lady Caroline recollected
how sweetly her mother used to sing old Scotch ballads, and enquired
if she had not taught them to Mary. Mary had to admit so much, and
thereupon was led to the piano, while Julia seated herself in full
view to enjoy a triumph.
It is no doubt perfectly true that Scotch music is by no means the
highest development of that delightful art. It is but the outcome of
natural feeling in a simple age and among an unsophisticated people;
yet it does not by any means afford a good or safe medium for the
beginner or the bungler to display to advantage his slender skill,
while proficients in operatic music will find little opportunity to
display their vocal feats, and it is quite probable that they may not
be able to render it at all. It has an accent of its own which is not
expressed in the musical notation, and is beyond the reach of any but
a native, and attained but by few of them. Mary Brown's musical
opportunities had not been great, but she had a full pure voice,
always in perfect tune, and she had been accustomed to hear and to
sing Scotch ballads all her life, and she entered into their spirit.
Before she had sung two verses, the General's drooping head had
steadied itself, he had risen to his feet, joined the group by the
piano, and was beating time with his eye-glass to the quaint old
measure. Lady Caroline too had risen, a most unusual exertion for her
to make after dinner, and was standing with the rest.
In this highly cultured age, we are all most learnedly musical.
Beethoven, Bach, Spohr, we pay guineas to hear their works rendered,
and are immensely pleased of course; though perhaps there are more of
us than the one of whom it is recorded, who could very well mistake
the tuning of the fiddles for the choicest morceau of the evening, and
who certainly prefer the grand finale to all the rest. But the effect
of a well-sung Scotch song on a roomful of Scotch people is something
markedly different from the conventional and sometimes fictitious
enjoyment of high music. Like the spiders which issued from the
crannies of his cell when the Bastile prisoner touched his lute, so
the inherent nature of the Scot will out and show itself at the sound
of the national music, the dullest eye brightens and the heaviest foot
would join the strathspey. It is in the blood. The artificial and
conventional culture is scarce fifty years old, while the individual
and peculiar nationality, of which our music is the voice, has come
down in the blood through twenty generations, from before Bannockburn
and the wars of independence, and is still present behind the
whitewash of cosmopolitan pretence.
Lady Caroline wiped her eyes under the rendering of Bessie Bell and
Mary Gray's sad fate, and declared it reminded her of the old nursery
at Pitthevlis, when she was a child. The General (who would have
thought it?) was most interested by the woes of true love; and the
'Mill dams of Binnorie' and 'Barbara Allan' made him tug his moustache
very hard. The strangers each had his special favourite, and Mary knew
them all; then at length she was permitted to rise from the piano, and
she did so amid an ovation of thanks. Julia's plan to belittle her had
not succeeded.
The following forenoon Kenneth drove her over to Glen Effick. They
stopped at the inn by Gortonside, where they were told of Roderick's
illness, and how he had started for home only an hour before. That was
the single bitter drop in Mary's cup. She had spent a delightful day
at Inchbracken, and now, undreamed of joy, Kenneth was driving her
home himself. He was, oh! 'so nice,' and was saying----. No matter
what he said, but it seemed the sweetest song she had ever listened
to.
Lady Caroline and Julia had stood together at the window, and watched
the pair drive away.
'It is not often Kenneth is so attentive to any one,' she observed to
Julia. 'The two appear to have settled themselves for a most
comfortable chat. And really she is a nice girl, and so pretty. I am
not surprised at Kenneth's fancy, and if anything comes of it I shall
make no objection. I once tried to bring on an attachment between him
and one of the Pitthevlis girls, quite as much for Pitthevlis' sake
and the girl's as for Kenneth's, for I know she won't have sixpence;
but she thought she could secure a title then, and was disposed to
reserve us for a consolation stake, if the other venture miscarried.
That was more than I could brook, as you may suppose, considering it
was they were to be the gainers, and not I, so Edith has never been
asked to Inchbracken again, nor will be, till either she or Kenneth is
married. Not that it matters, very likely, for of course the plan was
only between Pitthevlis and myself. With his long family and the mess
he has made of his affairs, it was the only way I could think of to
help him, and he appreciated it, but the girl and her mother were both
fools. However, it is doubtful if Kenneth would have fancied her in
any case, he is so whimsical and critical. I have had half-a-dozen
good fortunes staying with me at different times,--and a shocking
ordeal it is, my dear, to undergo, I can tell you; the monkeys seem so
thoroughly to understand why they are there, and presume so abominably
upon it. But the very fact of my having brought them, seemed to set
him against them. He is so wilful and headstrong. I remember, when he
was a baby, the trouble we had with him,--insisting on feeding himself
long before he could hold the spoon. I suppose it is the same temper
that will not allow his old mother to help him in finding a wife. I
have quite made up my mind to acquiesce in his choice, whatever it may
be, for it will do no good to remonstrate; and if this is the girl he
has set his fancy on, I confess I think he might go farther and fare
worse.
Julia listened. Lady Caroline's discourse generally poured itself
forth, irrespective of an interlocutor. She simply thought aloud to an
auditor, who, of course, in the nature of things, must lend an
attentive and sympathising ear to whatever a daughter of Pitthevlis
might choose to say. Considering what had been her own views, it was
hardly an agreeable subject of conversation, but the pain was not very
great. There was nothing emotional, neither jealousy nor wounded love,
in the matter. Next to a cool head a cold heart is perhaps the best
outfit for one who has to get on in the world by the exercise of his
own wits. Julia was a good deal like a spider, thinking that when one
web has been swept, no time should be lost in beginning to weave
another. Hate, spite, jealousy, are all unremunerative; worse, they
are waste of force. Yield to the inevitable, and try a new scheme when
the old miscarries. Julia had to be settled in life, and so soon as
the one desirable party became manifestly unattainable, it was time to
cast about for another.
From Mary Brown she led the conversation back to the circumstance
which had brought her to Inchbracken, and that naturally led back to
the companions who had shared with her the dangers of the mist.
'Would it not be proper, Lady Caroline,' she said, 'since Craig
Findochart is on the Inchbracken property, and a serious accident
might so easily have occurred, to enquire for the people and how they
got home? If you think well, I could drive over and leave your card.'
'I see no objection, my dear, if you want the drive; but she is so
pushing, she will be returning the visit forthwith, and I dread that.
She stifles me. Her very deference is aggravating.'
'I think I should like the drive, dear Lady Caroline, and you shall
have all the news I can pick up on my return.'