_FOUND_.
Time hung rather heavily on Kenneth's hand. The raw damp autumn
offered little temptation to exercise out of doors. His daily ride to
Glen Effick was discontinued, his friends having left; and he smoked
cigars in the billiard-room, or wrote letters in his own, the
live-long day. Julia, hitherto so available, was now never to be found
when wanted, or if she did appear, her ready sympathy with the whim of
the moment, and her quickness to suggest congenial pastime, seemed to
have forsaken her. She sat mostly in her own room now, or in Lady
Caroline's, which, as far as Kenneth's entertainment was concerned,
was much the same thing. She, who had formerly taken so much interest
in mess-room reminiscences and general gossip, would now look up
vacantly when she was addressed, as though her thoughts had been far
away, and were only induced to return for a moment by a sense of
politeness. The distribution of the morning letters would rouse her a
little--there appeared always to be letters for her now--but having
secured her own, she would relapse into abstraction, and seize the
earliest opportunity to withdraw.
Kenneth had letters of his own to write now, and knew all about the
coming in and going out of mails for Torquay. But that occupied only a
portion of his time, and he felt aggrieved that Julia should be so
pre-occupied. 'What is the use of a girl in the house if she is always
to be busy?' He expressed his discontent to Lady Caroline, who was
immensely amused.
'Julia is engaged, Kenneth, or almost; for it is not announced yet.'
'I am very glad to hear it, mother, I am sure. If the girl had stayed
here much longer without marrying, she might have felt herself badly
used if I did not marry her myself. And I do not know that I am equal
to marrying for politeness. But why should that prevent her being
jolly at home? unless, indeed, the man is Bluebeard, and she expects a
bad time? _I_ am engaged myself, but I think I could be jolly on that
account, if only there was opportunity.'
Lady Caroline said nothing; but she was amused, as often before, at
the single-minded egotism of his lordly sex, which knows no law but
its own pleasure, and imagines that must be equally delightful to
every one else. The male baby graciously believes that it pleases his
nurse to sing herself hoarse in coaxing him to sleep, and he is
pleased that she should make herself happy, shaking his rattle till
her arm aches, in endeavouring to amuse him; and all subsequent female
ministrations to his solacement are accepted in the like simple good
faith that it must be joy to the girl to be merry in his company, and
that mirth is its own reward.
Lady Caroline liked her son better for his unreasonableness, and felt
proud of herself, in being the mother of such a rajah. Wherever the
idolatrous instinct exists, there must be a love of the unreasonable.
Who could worship a being capable of being argued with, persuaded,
coaxed, or bullied? It is the utter passiveness of Juggernaut that
attracts his devotees. No matter how ugly he may be, he sits there
serene among his gilded carved work, while the crashing wheels of his
car grind on their course regardless of the blood and groans of
mangled victims--force unpitying and inflexible.
It was some weeks before Major Steele would come to Inchbracken, not,
indeed, till the last shred of autumn had been withered up by foot or
swept away by wintry storms. He lingered on by the sea shore,
wandering for hours by the hungry waves which swallowed up his love,
accompanied by his old mother, in whose unspoken sympathy alone he
seemed to find comfort. He seldom spoke to her, but he shunned every
one else. When, however, winter became established, her health
compelled them to return to town. There the closer contact with his
fellows inseparable from city life became intolerable, and he was glad
to avail himself of Kenneth's invitation, reminding him at the same
time of the freedom and privacy he had promised.
Lady Caroline agreed that they should see as few visitors as possible
during the poor man's stay; 'but, indeed,' she added, 'we have all
grown so unsociable since we became engaged, that the excluded will
have nothing to regret.'
'Indeed I am not engaged, dear Lady Caroline!' remonstrated Julia in a
subdued voice.
'And indeed, mother, I am not unsociable,' added Kenneth, who was
going on to 'define his position,' as precisely as an American senator
does, but his voice was drowned in the uproarious guffaw with which
his uncle greeted his opening words.
'Poor man!' moralized Julia, 'the quiet of the country will soothe
him. His was indeed a fearful calamity.'
'Ah yes!' sighed Lady Caroline, 'and I declare I like him the better
for being inconsolable! They are not all so tender-hearted and
faithful, Julia, by any means. Now, my General! Do you think _I_ can
count on leaving so much desolation behind me? The idea would almost
console one for having to go.'
'You forget, my dearest lady,' said the General finishing his egg (it
was at breakfast), Major Steele had been less than two years married.
Providence has been far kinder to us than that, and I doubt not, when
the time of our separation shall arrive at last, that you will wear
your weeds admirably, and continue to justify the opinion I have
always held of you as the best dressed woman of my acquaintance.'
It was December when Major Steele arrived at Inchbracken. The ground
was powdered with early snow, and the higher hilltops looked solidly
white and alpine. The sharp air and the movement had stirred his
torpid blood into some appearance of animation, but as the excitement
of arrival wore off, he relapsed into wan despondency, and was indeed
a melancholy object.
The two older men from the first gave up the case in reverent despair.
What had there ever been in their most comfortable but burdensome
lives, to entitle them to intrude their ignorant sympathy on the
unparalleled tragedy of this man's sore bereavement? Like Job's three
friends, they would have sat by him without speaking for three days
and three nights, with eyes fixed sorrowfully on the carpet, had human
life been still as of old, a majestic but monotonous sequence
extending over centuries; but in its modern abbreviated form, with so
many things to attend to in the brief threescore and ten, that was
impossible. They sighed and looked gloomy when they found themselves
near him, and then escaped to some other quarter of the house with all
decent speed.
It was on Kenneth, as old friend and special host, that the full duty
of condolence devolved. He led his friend to the smoking-room where
they could sit together by the hour in silent amity, watching the blue
smokerings widen and disappear, companionable to each other's sight,
yet leaving the mind at rest from disturbing talk. Fearing to touch
unwisely on the open wound, Kenneth did not venture on any allusion to
his friend's bereavement. Mary's commission was ever present in his
mind, but he dared not approach the subject to raise a hope that might
only be quenched again in deeper gloom. He dared not question him
even, that he might judge of the probability for himself; he simply
waited, hoping that in time the other would give the opening which he
desired.
Julia was perhaps the most successful sympathizer in the household.
Her fine dramatic instinct enabled her to throw herself into the
artificial mood, and play the part with an abandon relieved and varied
by graceful little touches which she could never have displayed in her
natural character. She was a woman with a head rather than a heart,
and it was when feeling was presented to her through the imagination
rather than her own emotions, that she was able to realize, seize and
clothe it in expression. Her performance in the new rôle of 'Woman the
Consoler,' was delicate, but beautiful and touching in the extreme,
and more than once brought the handkerchief to honest Lady Caroline's
eyes, who declared in confidence to her General that Julia was a 'fine
creature,' and far too good for that vulgar Cr[oe]sus in Manchester.
Perhaps the same idea may have struck Julia, or it may have been that
the artist in her was engrossed by the new delineation of character,
and revelled, for the time, in the artificial emotions of her own
creation. It is certain that the Manchester correspondence lost much
of its interest. The morning letter was slipped into her pocket as
usual, at breakfast, but she no longer seized the first opportunity to
escape with it to her own room, and by the end of the week she found
three of them still in her pocket unopened. They were all opened at
once, glanced over, and locked up in the drawer with those that had
gone before them, and some sort of an answer was scrawled to 'Dear
Augustus.' It was scarcely so charming a letter as some that had
preceded it, and Augustus thought so, with his first twinge of love,
pain, and jealousy; for hitherto his path had been one of rose-strewn
triumph. But the letter did not take long to knock off--that was the
main point at the moment--and she descended the stairs, gloved and
bonneted, for a stroll by the lake, before Major Steele had begun to
think of growing impatient.
When the bereaved widower first arrived at Inchbracken, Julia was very
silent. Young innocence and awakening womanhood stood appalled before
the revelation of grief and mystery in human life. Her eyes and voice
drooped plaintively, but it was not till the following morning that
she and the sufferer exchanged a word. Even then it was but little
that was said, some civil words of routine, but the gentle pensive
droop in word and look, distilled like heavenly dew over some acrid
waste. Even so the Angel of Pity may look down on the vanquished and
sore wounded in the battle of life; and the poor woe-begone Major felt
grateful and consoled at the gentle tribute to his grief. She would
linger in the breakfast-room with needle work or a book, and the Major
got into a way of hovering round, as some frost-benumbed toad might
creep from under his cold stone, to stretch his stiffened limbs, and
thaw them in the watery sunshine of a February afternoon. When this
arrangement seemed growing into a habit, Julia betook herself to the
morning-room, which she could count on having to herself at that hour,
for pursuing her work or studies. Presently the door would open and
the widower would appear, asking her permission to sit awhile, and
apologizing for his intrusion. There must have been companionship in
each other's presence, for there was not much conversation, and what
there was was vapid enough; but the divine pity in Julia's pensive
droop transfused itself through each syllable, and the desolate one
felt soothed and refreshed.
What Julia felt, it is difficult to say, and one cannot but wonder
that, after the first three days, she did not find the whole business
a lackadaisical bore. We can only suppose that life in the proper
character and circumstance of Julia Finlayson had become intolerably
dull, and that she had adopted those of the Angel of Pity by way of a
change. She could not have seriously contemplated capturing the
broken-hearted widower, especially since Lady Caroline had just
secured Mr. MacSiccar's report as to the fortune and standing of
Augustus Wallowby, Esquire. The report had been most satisfactory, in
fact had so far exceeded expectation, that good Lady Caroline had been
seduced into a momentary irreverence at the ways of Providence, in
giving vulgar people so much money. She was sorry for it immediately
after, however, for she was a good Tory, and honoured the powers that
be, among which Providence admittedly takes the first place. As to the
vulgarity even, Lady Caroline might have been brought to admit that
she had seen examples of it in circles bordering very closely on the
Court, and she would not have been at all reluctant to acknowledge
that it existed in the army, and when found there was quite as
offensive as any thing that the proverbial Manchester of her day could
produce.
At last a morning came, when, over a sympathetic pipe, the Major
expressed a wish to go and look at the Effick water, where all his
happiness and love had come to such dismal shipwreck.
'All right,' said Kenneth; 'would you like to drive over to-day? We
shall have plenty of time if we start at once. The dog-cart can be got
out in twenty minutes, and we may be off in half an hour.'
He had now the opportunity he had been waiting for to fulfil Mary's
commission, and already he felt himself writing to her in triumph, and
describing how judiciously he had fulfilled her wish. He took the
proofs she had given him of the poor baby's identity from his desk,
and placing them in his pocket, was ready to mount the dogcart when it
was brought round. The brotherhood of so many silent pipes had at last
established itself between him and his friend Steele. The poor fellow
at last felt able to speak the thoughts that were gnawing at his
heart, and as they drove along that wintry road down to the sea, he
spoke freely of his misery and of the shipwreck.
'Were there any passengers by the 'Maid of Cashmere' besides Mrs.
Steele?' Kenneth ventured to ask.
'Old Brigadier Currie had engaged the state-room on one side of the
cabin for himself and his native servants, and I had taken the other.'
'And had the captain or crew any women and children on board, do you
think?'
'My wife, her maid, and the baby were the only females on board.'
'Then cheer up, old fellow! Perhaps things are not so bad as we have
been thinking! Do you know that, now, for instance?' he added, pulling
out the gold chain from his pocket.
'Know it? That? If I could believe my eyes I would say it belonged to
my wife!' He took the chain and handled it very tenderly, and then
went on. 'There was an old Begum we had been able to be kind to. A
hill tribe had attacked her town, and she had fled for protection to
Dourgapore, where we were stationed. My wife was the only lady in the
station, therefore she was put under her care, and when she went back
to her principality, after we had driven off the marauders, she made
my wife some presents, and among the rest a bag of gold mohurs. I was
doubtful how receiving a money present would sound at head-quarters,
but our Colonel said it was a matter between the women, I could not be
held to know anything about. However, to prevent misrepresentation, we
determined to make it into jewellery, so we got a native goldsmith to
string the pieces into a long chain. He sat in our compound and
riveted the coins together with bits of gold wire, while we sat under
the verandah looking on. You know these creatures are always watched
while they work, to prevent their swallowing the gold, they are such
inveterate thieves. But how came this into your possession? A piece of
it was found clutched in my poor Lydia's hands when she was found.'
'Then I may tell you. I would have written weeks ago, but I was afraid
to add disappointment to your other misfortunes, so I asked you to
come here, and when you had come I found I could not speak to you
about it. A man's grief seems such a sacred thing. But now. There was
a friend of mine actually saw that ship caught up by the storm, and
carried in shore and dashed against the rocks. They are rocks
completely surrounded by water and surf at a high tide, and with an
easterly wind. He could not possibly get near, and there was no human
dwelling within sight, or for miles around, so he could give no help.
But the following morning he was riding along the shore very
early--earlier than the fisher folk, who, of course, came prowling
along later in search of plunder and sea wreck. He came on the bodies
of several of the drowned, and at last on a lady with her Indian maid.
The lady had a piece of that chain twisted in her fingers, and not far
off he came on a little baby so carefully tied up, and still alive. He
had his own duties for the day, and he could be of no service to the
dead, who, he knew besides, would be cared for by the proper
authorities in a very little while, so he left them where they lay.
But the baby was alive, and while he was examining it looked up in his
face with such a friendly trustful look that he could not help taking
it up and vowing to be a father to it till its own should be found.'
'And so he has been keeping my child hidden away through all these
months of desolation!'
'My dear fellow, he had' no intention of that whatever. He wrote to
the Edinburgh newspapers at once; but you must remember that at the
time of the shipwreck your father was not aware that he had a
grandchild at all, nor for weeks after. If Roderick Brown had left the
child beside its mother to be found by the coastguards or the
fishermen, it would have been handed over to the mercy of parish
charity, which is perhaps not over tender. And who can tell if it
would have survived till you went to claim it? The chain, too, is
heavy and valuable, and who knows but that might have been temptation
enough to keep the child out of your sight for ever?'
'Let us go to the child at once, then, Kenneth! and not to the shore
with its miserable memories of wrecks and corpses.'
So the horse was put about, and they struck across the moor to Glen
Effick.