The October sun rose brilliantly upon ancient Edinburgh, throwing the
strong radiance of its russet gold upon the noble outline and antique
grandeur of the historic city, and shone joyously into a family room,
where a small household round their breakfast table were discussing the
journey which that fair-haired, smiling girl, half-timorous,
half-exultant, was to undertake that day. The white hair upon the
mother's placid forehead was belied by the fresh cheek and dewy liquid
eye, from which time had not taken the brightness. Her son was entering
upon the strongest years of manhood, with sense and intelligence shining
in his face. Her daughter was a girl, just emerging from the child's
mirth and unrestrained gaiety, into those sensitive, imaginative years,
which form the threshold of graver life--
"Standing with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood sweet."
"But, mother," exclaimed Alice Aytoun, suddenly, "Miss Douglas will see
at once that Bessie has not been my maid at home."
"_Miss_ Douglas!" cried her mother. "Alice, did I not tell you that you
were on no account to call her _Miss_. Remember always, Mrs. Catherine.
And she knows very well that we are not able to keep a maid for you, and
will understand that Bessie is for a companion on the way, and in some
sense a protector. If you stay long, you can send her home."
"And be alone in the strange place, mother," said Alice, the sunshine
fading, for a moment, from her face.
"How long will it be strange, Alice?" said her brother. "How many
acquaintances will you make in a week?"
The sunshine flushed back again.
"And Mrs. Catherine--is she very eccentric, mother? I hope I shall like
her."
"I hope still more, Alice," said Mrs. Aytoun, smiling, "that she may
like you. Mrs. Catherine has many friends who could serve James; and
then, you know, she has no heir. So be as fascinating as possible."
"Mother!" exclaimed James, "this worldly wisdom sounds strangely from
your lips. We do not send Alice away to pay court to Mrs. Catherine
Douglas for her estate's sake."
"By no means," said Mrs. Aytoun. "I have heard Mrs. Catherine spoken of
often as a most kind, loveable person, in her own peculiar way; and I
accepted her invitation to Alice gladly, not because she has an estate
unheired, but because--for various reasons, indeed--but the other, by
the way. You are a landless laird yourself, James, and I am not quite so
stoical as to despise a good inheritance."
"Do you know any of Mrs. Catherine's neighbors, mother?" said Alice,
whose attention, sadly distracted by anticipation, had altogether
wandered during this discussion of motives. "The people I am likely to
meet, do you know any of them?"
"No," said Mrs. Aytoun, "I never was at the Tower; and my mother left
the neighborhood young, and died so soon, too, that I have had very
little connexion with her friends or native place. Indeed, it surprised
me, that Mrs. Catherine should remember our relationship at all: but she
is one of the most generous persons possible, I have heard often; and no
doubt wishes to give you a glimpse, Alice, of the world you should enter
on now." And Mrs. Aytoun gave a very quiet sigh.
"Nonsense, mother!" said her son, energetically. "Alice stands in no
need of generosity: and I should fancy a set of North Country lairds
could be very little superior to the society we have here, landless
though we be."
"There are most gentlemanly and intellectual men in the North Country,
James," said Mrs. Aytoun, quietly shifting her premises.
"No doubt of it, mother; but not better than we have in Edinburgh."
Mrs. Aytoun drew her hand over her daughter's fair curls, and made no
answer; confessing to herself, that a North Country laird would be, in
her eyes, a more suitable partner for her Alice, than any rising W.S.,
or poor advocate of all James Aytoun's friends.
Alice's trunks were standing, corded and ready. Little Bessie, the
daughter of a woman who had been Mrs. Aytoun's nurse in better times,
and who was her humble agent and assistant in all emergencies now, sat
in the kitchen in all the glory of a new shawl and bonnet, a brevet
ladies-maid; and it was nearly time to start. Mrs. Aytoun had yet to
pack some small, forgotten tendernesses in a basket, with tremulous
mother-anxiety, half-pleased, half-sorrowful, while James stood, watch
in hand, warning her of the flight of those quick moments and of the
possible starting of the coach before her cares were at an end.
At last, they left the house, established Alice in the cosiest corner,
set little Bessie by her side, gave the guard all manner of instructions
to attend to their comfort, and waited till the vehicle should start.
"Mind, Alice," whispered Mrs. Aytoun, anxiously; "always to call her
Mrs. Catherine," and, in a moment more, Alice had lost sight of the
compelled smile on her mother's pale face, and had started on her first
journey from home.
She was seventeen only, and her heart was bounding high within her. The
October morning was so bright and invigorating, the beautiful world so
new and so unknown. A transitory qualm passed over the unclouded,
youthful spirit, as she thought it not right, perhaps, to rejoice at
leaving home, but that passed speedily. A temporary anxiety as to the
unknown Mrs. Catherine, whom she was hastening to see: but that
disappeared also. The brilliant dreams that had been rising by day and
night, since that momentous invitation came, floated together in
indistinct brightness before her. The red October sunbeams, the bracing
October breeze, the beautiful landscapes on that northern road--though
these danced but indistinctly in her eyes, a part of the exhilaration of
spirit, yet scarcely things rejoiced in for their own beauty--filled up
her gladness to overflowing. The little heart at her side danced too, in
its degree, as blithely, for after the young lady herself, in the great
house to which they journeyed, was not the young lady's maid next in
dignity.
At one of the stages of the journey, a hypochondriac old gentleman, who
had been the only other tenant of the coach, became faint, and declared
himself unable to remain in the inside; whereupon, after some delay, an
outside passenger was prevailed upon to exchange. A by no means
unpleasant exchange, for the new comer was a young man of good looks,
and frank, prepossessing manners, to whom the innocent, youthful face,
with its blue eyes and fair curls might, or might not, have been an
inducement to descend.
The beauty of the road became more articulate after that, as the polite
stranger, apparently well-acquainted with the way, took care to point
out to his young fellow-traveller its various points of interest, and
imperceptibly, Alice scarce knew how, they glided into confidential
conversation. For Strathoran, the stranger said, was his home and
birth-place, whither he was returning after a long absence, and Mrs.
Catherine Douglas was one of his oldest friends--he had known her all
his life. So the hours went on, quick and pleasantly, and the long miles
gradually dwindled down. Her new friend talked, Alice thought, as few
could talk, and interspersed his comments on their present road so
gracefully, with anecdotes of other roads, world-famed and wonderful,
which she had read of often, but which he had seen.
He told her of her kinswoman, too, and of the Tower, and hinted how her
own gentle presence would brighten the old walls and recall its youth
again, till Alice, with all these magic influences about her, began to
discover that this journey, instead of the weary means of reaching a
wished-for destination, was in itself a young Elysium, unthought of,
and delightful--the first homage rendered to the youthful woman, no
longer a child: the first sign of her entrance into that fair world of
more eventful life, whose air seemed now so golden with smiles and
sunshine.
The dim lights of Portoran began to blink at last through the mists of
the October night, and by and bye, the coach stopped at the door of the
principal inn, in the main street. Already Alice could perceive various
individual loungers without, touching their hats as they caught a
glimpse of her companion, and while she herself began to wonder how she
was to travel the remaining five or six miles to the Tower, the head of
a tall and gaunt, elderly woman, dressed in stiff old-fashioned
garments, looked in at the coach window.
"Is Miss Aytoun here?" said a harsh voice.
Alice answered timidly to her name.
"Quite safe; but very weary I am afraid," said the gentleman, "Mistress
Elspat, you have forgotten me, I see. How are they all at the Tower?"
"Bless me, Mr. Lewis, is't you?" said the stately Mrs. Elspat Henderson,
own woman to Mrs. Catherine Douglas, of the Tower. "Who would have
thought of meeting you here? They're a' well, Sir. I left Miss Anne
there even now; but the carriage is waiting for the young lady. The
carriage is waiting, Miss Aytoun."
And, beginning to tremble, with a revulsion of all her simple
apprehensions and timidity, Alice Aytoun was transferred to Mrs.
Catherine's comfortable carriage, and leaving Lewis Ross at the inn
door, looking after her, rolled away through the darkness to the Tower.
It was not a pleasant change; to leave the cheerful voice and vivacious
conversation of Lewis, for those formal questions as to her journey, and
the terrified stillness of little Bessie, as she sat tremulously by Mrs.
Elspat's side. Alice had scarcely ever seen before the dense darkness of
starless nights in so wide and lonely a country, as she looked out
through the carriage window, and saw, or fancied she saw the body of
darkness floating round about her, the countless swimming atoms of gloom
that filled the air, her bounding heart was chilled. The faint autumnal
breeze, too, pouring its sweeping, sighing lengths, through those
endless walls of trees; the excited throb of her pulse when in some
gaunt congregation of firs, she fancied she could trace the quaint
gables and high roof of some olden dwelling-place; the disappointment of
hearing in answer to her timid question that the Tower was yet miles
away! Alice sank back into her corner in silence, and closed her eyes,
feeling now many fears and misgivings, and almost wishing herself at
home.
At last the voice of the Oran roused her; there was something homelike
in its tinkling musical footsteps, and Alice looked up.--Dimly the massy
Tower was rising before her, planting its strong breadth firmly upon its
knoll, like some stout sentinel of old. The great door was flung wide
open as they approached, and a flood of light, and warmth, and
kindliness beaming out, dazzled and made denser the intervening gloom.
Foremost on the broad threshold, stood a young lady, whose graver and
elder womanhood, brought confidence to the throbbing girlish heart;
behind stood the portly Mrs. Euphan Morison--the elfin Jacky, and
furthest back of all, a tall figure, enveloped in the wide soft folds of
the gray shawl, Mrs. Catherine's characteristic costume. Little Alice
alighted, half stumbling in bashful awkwardness, the young lady on the
threshold came forward, took her hand, and said some kindly words of
welcome. Jacky curtsied; the tall figure advanced.
"I have brought ye the young lady--Miss Aytoun, ma'am," said Mrs. Elspat
Henderson, and Alice lifted her girlish face, shy and blushing, to the
scrutiny of her ancient kinswoman. Mrs. Catherine drew the young
stranger forward, took her hand, and looked at her earnestly.
"A right bonnie countenance it is," she said at last, bending to kiss
the white forehead of the tremulous Alice. "You are welcome to my house,
Alison Aytoun. Anne, the bairn is doubtless cold and wearied. Do you
guide her up the stair."
Up the fine old staircase, into the inner drawing-room, which was Mrs.
Catherine's especial sanctum, with its warm colors, and blazing fire,
and shining tea equipage. Little Alice had to close her blue eyes
perforce, dazzled as they were, that no one might see the happy dew that
gathered in them. The contrast was so pleasant, and forthwith the
bounding of that gay heart, and all its bright dreams and sunshiny
anticipations came flushing back again.
"And so you had a pleasant journey," said Mrs. Catherine, kindly, when
after half an hour which Alice had spent arranging her dress, half in
awe, and more than half in pleasure, in the beautiful apartment called
her dressing-room, they were seated at table--Anne Ross presiding over
the massy silver tea-pot, and hissing urn: "and were not feared to
travel your lane? Jacky, you elf! what call had you to open that door,
and let in a draft upon us? The bairn will get her death of cold."
"If you please, Miss Anne," said Jacky, resolutely holding the door of
the outer room open, as she kept her ground.
"Come in, ye fairy, and shut the door," commanded Mrs. Catherine.
The girl obeyed, casting long sharp glances from under her dark
eye-brows at the wondering Alice.
"If you please, Miss Anne, my grandmother says--"
"What, Jacky?"
Jacky had paused to ascertain who it was that the young stranger was
like, and muttered a private memorandum of her discovery before she went
on.
"It's the little picture in the west room--my grandmother says, Miss
Anne, that Mr. Lewis--but she bade me say, Merkland--"
"What of him, Jacky?" said Anne, rising hastily.
"If ye please, Miss Anne, he came to Portoran in the coach with a young
lady to-night."
"Came to Portoran to-night!" repeated Anne, "then you must let me leave
you immediately, Mrs. Catherine. I must hasten to tell my mother, if
indeed Lewis is not at home already."
"Away with you down the stairs, you elf," cried Mrs. Catherine, "and see
if the horses are put up yet; and if they're not, let Simon be ready to
drive Miss Ross to Merkland. Anne, doubtless you must go, but mind the
bairn Alison is not used to such company as a staid auld wife like me,
and be soon back again."
"I will bring Lewis to see you to-morrow, Mrs. Catherine," said Anne, as
she hastily bade Alice good night.
"It must have been your brother who travelled with me, Miss Ross," said
Alice. "He said he had been abroad, and knew Mrs. Catherine--and he was
very kind. Will you thank him for me?"
Anne Ross felt herself shrink and tremble from the touch of the small
soft hand, the innocent frank look of the girlish face--the child of the
slain man, whose blood was on Norman's hand.
A strange contrast--the little throbbing happy heart, whose slight
fears, and shy apprehensions, scarcely graver than a child's, had
trembled and palpitated so short a time before, in the same vehicle
which carried down to Merkland, so grave a burden of grief, so few
hopes, so many sorrows, in Anne's maturer spirit--for before _her_ there
lay no brilliant heritage of unknown good to come. One vision was in her
very heart continually--a wandering, sorrowing, sinning man, buffeting
the wind, striving through the tempest, enveloped with every physical
attribute of misery, and carrying its essence in his soul. It is only
those who have mourned and yearned for such, who can know how the sick
heart, in its anxious agonies, conjures up storm, and blast, and
desolation, to sweep around the beloved head, of whose sin and
wanderings it knows, yet knows not where those wanderings are--the pain
without, symbolizing and heightening the darker pain within, with one of
those touches of tragic art, which grief does so strangely excel in.
Lewis had not arrived when Anne reached Merkland, but he came shortly
after; and the stir of joy incident on his arrival united the family
more closely together than was usual for them. Mrs. Ross's cold bright
eyes were wet with tears of joy that night, and her worldly spirit
melted into kindliness; and the presence of Lewis gave his only sister a
greater share in the household and its rejoicings. He stood between her
step-mother and her, the nearest relation of each, linking them
together. Lewis had been two years away. He had gone, a fairhaired
youth, with a gay party from Strathoran, who, seizing the first
opportunity of restored peace, set out to those sunny continental
countries from which mere tourists had been excluded so long. He was a
man now, bronzed and bearded, and with the independent manners of one
who had been accustomed in all matters to guide and direct himself.
There were various particulars of that same independence which jarred
upon Anne's delicate feelings. A considerable remainder of boyish
self-importance, and braggadocio--a slight loudness of tone, and
flippancy of expression; but there was the excitement of his
home-coming, to excuse these faults in some degree.
"And the Duncombes, Lewis," asked Mrs. Ross, when the first burst of
welcome was over, and they were seated by the fireside, discussing his
journey--"where are they now?"
"Oh, Duncombe's in Gibraltar," said Lewis, "with his regiment of course.
Duncombe can't afford to choose his residence--he must have his full
pay. A dull life they have of it, yonder."
"And how does Isabel Sutherland like that, Lewis?" said Anne.
"Isabel Sutherland? Mrs. Duncombe, do you mean? Why you don't think
_she's_ one of the garrison! She's not such a fool, I can tell you!"
"Where is she then, if she is not with her husband?" said Anne,
wonderingly.
"What an innocent you are, sister Anne!" said Lewis, laughing. "Why,
she's one of the 'unattached,' as Gordon says. I left her in Paris with
Archie. You have no idea what a moody, gloomy fellow Duncombe's grown. I
should think he was enough to frighten anybody!"
"He was always a bilious-looking man," said Mrs. Ross; "and yet Isabel
ran away with him."
"Ah! there's no accounting for the taste of young ladies," said Lewis,
lightly. "I should think she would be more likely to run away _from_
him, than _with_ him, now. But you should see their _menage_ in Paris!
Archie's the man for all that."
"How do you mean, Lewis?" said Anne.
"You used to like him--eh, Annie?" said Lewis. "Don't break your
heart--it's all up with that now. But, I can tell you, he makes the
money fly finely."
Anne's face flushed deeply--perhaps with the faintest shadow of pain at
that intelligence, more than did merely belong to her regret for the
folly of an old neighbor and early companion--but certainly with a
painful feeling of the levity and carelessness of Lewis.
"Well, Lewis," said Mrs. Ross; "I should think Archibald Sutherland
could afford it pretty well. The old people must have saved a great
deal, they lived so quietly. Strathoran is a good estate. Archie does
not need to be so frugal as you."
"Frugal!" echoed her son. "I wish you only saw. But, unless you did,
with your quiet Scotch notions, you could have no idea of it. If Archie
Sutherland is not poorer than we are, I'm mistaken."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Ross; "that will be the reason they are thinning the
woods. Then why don't they come home and economize?"
"Come home!" cried Lewis. "Home to this dull Strathoran after Paris!
It's not such an easy thing, I can tell you, mother. But, to be sure,
one never knows the true reason. I've heard Archie often wishing for
home--perhaps he is afraid of falling in love with Anne."
"At all events, Lewis," said Anne, gravely, "whatever Archie Sutherland
fears, you are not afraid of giving me pain."
"Don't be absurd, Anne," said Mrs. Ross. "The poor boy's first night at
home, to begin with these airs of yours!"
Lewis saw the painful flush upon Anne's face--the look of deep
humiliation with which she turned away her head, and his heart smote
him.
"I did not think you were so easily hurt. Nonsense, Anne! It was mere
thoughtlessness, I assure you. I would not give you pain for anything."
Alas! there were many things for which Lewis Ross would have been
content to pain any one in the world. But Anne was easily mollified, and
he ran on:
"I met a little fairy of a girl in the coach, to-day. She was going to
the Tower, to visit Mrs. Catherine. Hallo! what's the matter, Anne?"
"Nothing," said Anne, forcing a smile on the lip which she had felt
quiver a moment before.
"How pale you were!" said Lewis. "I thought you were ill. I must go up
to see Mrs. Catherine to-morrow. How does she wear, the old lady? She
must be getting very ancient now. But that girl is a pretty little
thing. Who can she be--do you know, Anne? I thought of her being a
companion, or something of that kind; but there was a little maid with
her."
"A relative of Mrs. Catherine's," said Anne, faintly.
"A relative--oh! What if she cuts you out!" said Lewis.--"I should have
thought you sure of a good place in Mrs. Catherine's will, Anne. But
there is no saying what a little fairy like that may do."
Anne Ross felt the pang of dependence bitterly that night. Lewis was too
like his mother to make it light to her; and portionless, with her plain
face, and fastidious taste, what could she ever look for but dependence.
Marriage, that necessity, often enough an unhappy one, to which so many
young women in her position must look, as to a profession, for home and
means, could never be a matter of mercenary convenience to Anne, and
honorable earning of her own bread was an impossibility. And from her
own sombre prospects she could turn for relief to so few of the things
or people around. Lewis, so carelessly unfeeling and indifferent, so
blunted in perception--Norman, whose very life was so great a dread to
her, remaining before her mind's eye for ever--and even the sunny,
youthful face at the Tower, which had lifted its blue eyes so trustfully
to her own--why did its remembrance, and Lewis's light words of comment
on its girlish comeliness, strike so deep a chill of fear into her
heart? Ah! clouds deeply gathering, heavily brooding over this nook of
still and peaceful country, what new combinations were your dark mists
to form?
Alice Aytoun by this time was snugly settled in the Tower, and had
already written a little note, overflowing with innocent pride and
joyousness to her mother at home, describing that most cheerful of all
inner drawing-rooms, and dwelling fully upon the glories of her own
apartments, the carved wardrobe, the old piano, the beautiful flowers;
mentioning, too, in the postscript, in the very slightest manner, a
"young gentleman," who had pointed out all the places to her on the way,
and who turned out to be Miss Ross's brother, though who Miss Ross was,
Alice did not stay to particularize. And after the letter was written,
Mrs. Catherine, whose eyes had been lingering on the youthful face with
most genial kindliness, began to play with her in talk, half childish,
and wholly affectionate, as with some toy of unknown construction, whose
capabilities she did not yet quite see. Jacky, too, with those quick,
sidelong glances, as she went jerking in and out at every possible
opportunity, had commenced her study of the young stranger's character,
and quickened by admiration of the simple pretty face, was advancing in
her study as quickly as her mistress. The minds of the stately old lady
and the elfin girl came to conclusions strangely similar. There rose in
them both an instinctive impulse of kindly protection, natural enough in
Alice Aytoun's aged kinswoman, but contrasting oddly with the age and
position of Jacky Morison.
Anne and Lewis visited the Tower next day. In the Sutherlands, of whom
Lewis brought tidings so unfavorable, Mrs. Catherine was deeply
interested, and listened while he spoke of them, with many shakings of
her head, and doubts and fears.
"Trysted to evil," she exclaimed, as Lewis told her in his careless way,
of Mrs. Duncombe's Paris life. "Did I not say nothing good could come of
the bairn that left the sick bed of her mother, for the sake of a
strange man; ay, and made the sick-bed--a death-bed by the deed. Lewis,
is't the lad's fault, think you, or is't hers?"
"Oh, I don't know that there is much fault in it," said Lewis. "It's not
a formal separation, you know; only Isabel's living with her brother,
because it is, beyond dispute, pleasanter to live in Paris than in
Gibraltar. You don't know really--you can have no idea."
"Think you so?" said Mrs. Catherine, quickly, "but maybe there are folk
living who knew such places and things, before you were born! Why does
Isabel Sutherland not return to the house of her fathers, if she cannot
dwell with the man she left father and mother for?"
"There is no accounting for these things," said Lewis, with a slight
sneer.
"Lewis Ross," said Mrs. Catherine, "hold your peace; you are but a boy,
and should leave that to your elders. Anne, I am sore grieved for Archie
Sutherland; if evil comes to the lad, it will be as hard to me, as if
evil were coming upon you."