A Railway Journey: The Scotch Express.
The two young men set out together from Loch Arroch. The old lady whose
children they both were, waved her handkerchief to them from her window
as the steamer rustled down the loch, and round the windy corner of the
stubble field into Loch Long. They stood on the deck, and gazed at the
quiet scene they were leaving till the farmhouse and the ruin died out
of sight. How peaceful it all looked in the bright but watery sunshine!
The ivy waving softly from the walls of the ruin, the smoke rising blue
from the roof of the farmhouse, which nestled under the shadow of the
old castle, the stooks standing in the pale field glistening with
morning dew. Bell stood at the door in her short petticoats, shading her
eyes with one hand as she watched them, and old Mrs. Murray showed a
smiling, mournful face at her window, and the long branches of the
fuchsias waved and made salutations with all their crimson bells. Even
Bell’s shadow had a distinct importance in the scene, which was so
still--still as the rural country is between mountain and water, with
mysterious shadows flitting in the silence, and strange ripples upon the
beach. The scene was still more sweet from the shore, though not so
entirely enveloped in this peaceable habitual calm; for great Benvohrlan
was kept in constant life with moving clouds which crossed the sunshine;
and the eyes of the spectators on the land did not disdain the bright,
many-coloured boat, floating, as it seemed, between three elements--the
water, the mountain, and the sky. The shadow-ship floated over the side
of the shadow-hill among all the reflected shades; it floated double
like the swan on St. Mary’s Lake, and it was hard to tell which was the
reality and which the symbol. Such were the variations of the scene from
the loch and from the shore.
But though Bell was visible and Bell’s mistress, Jeanie was not to be
seen. She had disappeared within the ruins of the Castle, and watched
the boat from behind an old block of masonry, with eyes full of longing
and sadness. Why had she been so harsh, so hard? Why had she not parted
with him “friends?” What did it matter what he said, so long as he said
that he looked upon her as an elder brother? Was it not better to be
Edgar’s sister than any other man’s beloved? She cried, reflecting sadly
that she had not been so kind, so gentle as she ought to this man who
was so unlike all others. Like an elder brother--what more could she
wish for? Thus poor little Jeanie began to dree her fate.
The day was fine, notwithstanding the prophecy of “saft weather” with
which all the observers of sea and sky in the West of Scotland keep up
their character as weather prophets as Edgar and Charles Murray
travelled to Edinburgh. There was no subject of quarrel between them,
therefore they did not quarrel; indeed Edgar, for his part, was amused,
when he was not pained, by his cousin’s perpetual self-consciousness and
painful desire to keep up his profession of gentleman, and conduct
himself in all details of behaviour as a gentleman should. The young
Doctor nervously unbuttoned his over-coat, which was much more spruce
and glossy than Edgar’s, when he observed that his companion, never a
model of neatness or order, wore his loose. He looked with nervous
observation at Edgar’s portmanteau, at the shape and size of his
umbrella. Edgar had lived in the great world; he had been (or so at
least his cousin thought) fashionable; therefore Dr. Charles gave a
painful regard to all the minutiæ of his appearance. Thus a trim poor
girl might copy a tawdry duchess, knowing no better--might, but seldom
does, having a better instinct. But if any one had breathed into Charles
Murray’s ear a suggestion of what he was consciously (yet almost against
his will) doing, he would have forgiven an accusation of crime more
readily. He knew his own weakness, and the knowledge made him wretched;
but had any one else suspected it, that would have been the height of
insult, and would have roused him to desperate passion.
Thus they travelled together, holding but little communication. The
young Doctor’s destination was one of the smaller stations before they
reached Edinburgh, where Edgar saw, as the train approached, a graceful
young woman, with that air of refinement which a slim and tall figure
gives, but too far off to be recognizable, accompanied by a little
girl--waiting by the roadside in a little open carriage, half phaeton,
half gig.
“Is that your sister?” he asked, taking off his hat, as the lady waved
her hand towards them.
“Yes,” said Dr. Charles, shortly, and he added, in his usual tone of
apology, “a doctor can do nothing without a conveyance, and as I had to
get one, and Margaret is so delicate, it was better to have something in
which she could drive with me.”
“Surely,” said Edgar, with some wonder at the appealing tone in which
this half statement, half question was made. But a little sigh came from
his heart, against his will, as he saw Charles Murray’s welcome, and
felt himself rolled away into the cold, into the unknown, without any
one to bear him company. He too had once had, or thought he had, a
sister, and enjoyed for a short time that close, tender, and familiar
friendship which only can exist between a young man and woman when they
are thus closely related. Edgar, who was foolishly soft-hearted, had
gone about the world ever since, missing this, without knowing what it
was he missed. He was fond of the society of women, and he had been shut
out from it; for he neither wished to marry, nor was rich enough so to
indulge himself, and people with daughters, as he found, were not so
anxious to invite a poor man, nor so complacent towards him as they had
been when he was rich. To be sure he had met women as he had met men at
the foreign towns which he had chiefly frequented during the aimless
years just past; but these were chiefly old campaigners, with all the
freshness dried out of them, ground down into the utmost narrowness of
limit in which the mind is capable of being restrained, or else at the
opposite extreme, liberated in an alarming way from all the decorums and
prejudices of life. Neither of these classes were attractive, though
they amused him, each in its way.
But somehow the sight of his two cousins, brother and sister, gave him a
pang which was all the sharper for being entirely unexpected. It made
him feel his own forlornness and solitude, how cut off he was from all
human solace and companionship. Into his ancient surroundings he could
not return; and his present family, the only one which he had any claim
upon, was distasteful beyond description. Even his grandmother and
Jeanie, whom he had known longest, and with whom he felt a certain
sympathy, were people so entirely out of his sphere, that his
intercourse with them never could be easy nor carried on on equal terms.
He admired Mrs. Murray’s noble character, and was proud to have been
able to stand by her against her sordid relations; he even loved her in
a way, but did not, could not adopt the ways of thinking, the manners
and forms of existence, which were natural and seemly in the little
farm-house.
As for Jeanie, poor, gentle, pretty Jeanie! A slight flush came over
Edgar’s face as her name occurred to him; he was no lady-killer, proud
to think that he had awakened a warmer feeling than was safe for her in
the girl’s heart. On the contrary, he was not only pained, but ashamed
of himself for the involuntary consciousness which he never put into
words, that perhaps it was better for Jeanie that he should go away. He
dismissed the thought, feeling hot and ashamed. Was it some latent
coxcombry on his part that brought such an idea into his head?
His business in Edinburgh was of a simple kind, to see the lawyer who
had prepared the papers for the transfer of his little income, and who,
knowing his history, was curious and interested in him, asked him to
dinner, and would have made much of the strange young man who had
descended from the very height of prosperity, and now had denuded
himself of the last humble revenue upon which he could depend.
“I have ventured to express my disapproval, Mr. Earnshaw,” this good man
had said; “but having done so, and cleared my conscience if--there is
anything I can be of use to you in, tell me.”
“Nothing,” said Edgar; “but a thousand thanks for the goodwill, which is
better than anything.”
Then he went away, declining the invitation, and walked about Edinburgh
in the dreamy solitude which began to be habitual to him, friendly and
social as his nature was. In the evening he dined alone in one of the
Princes Street hotels, near a window which looked out upon the Castle
and the old town, all glimmering with lights in the soft darkness, which
was just touched with frost. The irregular twinkle of the lights
scattered about upon the fine bank of towers and spires and houses
opposite; the dark depth below, where dark trees rustled, and stray
lights gleamed here and there; the stream of traffic always pouring
through the street below, notwithstanding the picturesque landscape on
the other side--all attracted Edgar with the charm which they exercise
on every sensitive mind. When the bugle sounded low and sweet up in
mid-air from the Castle, he started up as if that visionary note had
been for him. The darkness and the lights, the new and the old, seemed
to him alike a dream, and he not less a dream pursuing his way between
them, not sure which was real and which fictitious in his own life;
which present and which past. The bugle called him--to what? Not to the
sober limits of duty, to obedience and to rest, as it called the
unwilling soldiers out of their riots and amusements; but perhaps to as
real a world still unknown to him, compassed--like the dark Castle,
standing deep in undistinguishable, rustling trees--with mists and
dream-like uncertainty. Who has ever sat at a dark window looking out
upon the gleaming, darkling crest of that old Edinburgh, with the crown
of St. Giles hovering over it in the blue, and the Castle half way up to
heaven, without feeling something weird and mystical beyond words, in
the call of the bugle, sudden, sweet, and penetrating, out of the
clouds? What Edgar had to do after the call of this bugle was no deed of
high emprise. He had no princess to rescue, no dragon to kill. He got up
with that half-laugh at himself and his own fancies which was habitual
to him, and paid his bill and collected his few properties, and went to
the railway. Other people were beginning to go to bed; the shop windows
were closing; the lights mounting higher from story to story. But a
stream of people and carriages was pouring steadily down into the
hollow, bound like himself, for the London Express. Edgar walked up
naturally, mechanically to the window at which firstclass tickets were
being issued. But while he waited his turn, his eye and his ear were
attracted by a couple of women in the dress of an English Sisterhood,
who were standing in front of him, holding a close conversation. One of
them, at least, was in the nun’s costume of severe black and white; the
other, a young slim figure, wore a black cloak and close bonnet, and was
deeply veiled; but was not a “Sister,” though in dress closely
approaching the garb. Edgar’s eyes however were not clever enough to
make out this difference. The younger one seemed to him to have made
some timid objection to the second class.
“Second class, my dear!” said the elder. “I understand first class, and
I understand third; but second is neither one thing nor another. No, my
dear. If we profess to give up forms and ceremonies and the pomps of
this world, let us do it thoroughly, or not at all. If you take second
class, you will be put in with your friend’s maid and footman. No, no,
no; third class is the thing.”
“To be sure. What am I thinking of?” said Edgar to himself, with his
habitual smile. “Of course, third class is the thing.”
It had been from pure inadvertence that he had been about to take the
most expensive place, nothing else having occurred to him. I do not know
whether I can make the reader understand how entirely without
bitterness, and, indeed, with how much amusement Edgar contemplated
himself in his downfall and penniless condition, and what a joke he
found it. For the moment rather a good joke--for, indeed, he had
suffered nothing, his _amour propre_ not being any way involved, and no
immediate want of a five-pound note or a shilling having yet happened to
him to ruffle his composure. He kept the two Sisters in sight as he went
down the long stairs to the railway with his third-class ticket. He
thought it possible that they might be exposed to some annoyance, two
women in so strange a garb, and in a country where Sisterhoods have not
yet developed, and where the rudeness of the vulgar is doubly rude,
perhaps in contrast with, perhaps in consequence of (who knows?) the
general higher level of education on which we Scotch plume ourselves.
They had given him his first lesson in practical contempt of the world;
he would give them the protection of his presence, at least, in case of
any annoyance. Not to give them any reason, however, to suppose that he
was following them, he waited for some minutes before he took his seat
in a corner of the same carriage in which they had established
themselves. He took off his hat, foreign fashion, as he went into the
railway carriage (Edgar had many foreign fashions). At sight of him
there seemed a little flutter of interest between the Sisters, and when
he took his seat they bent their heads together, and talked long in
whispers. The result of this was that the two changed seats, the younger
one taking the further corner of the same seat on which he had placed
himself; while the elder, a cheerful middle-aged woman, whose comely
countenance became the close white cap, and whose pleasant smile did it
honour, sat opposite to her companion.
I cannot say that this arrangement pleased Edgar, for the other was
young--a fact which betrayed itself rather by some subtle atmosphere
about her than by any visible sign--and his curiosity was piqued and
himself interested to see the veiled maiden. But, after all, the
disappointment was not great, and he leaned back in the hard corner,
saying to himself that the third class might be the thing, but was not
very comfortable, without any particular dissatisfaction.
Two other travellers, a woman and a boy, took their places opposite to
him. They were people from London, who had gone to Scotland for the
boy’s holidays after some illness, and they brought a bag of sandwiches
with them and a bottle of bad sherry, of which they ate and drank as
soon as the train started, preparing themselves for the night. Then
these two went to sleep and snored, and Edgar, too, went partially to
sleep, dozing between the stations, lying back in the corner which was
so hard, and seeing the dim lamp sway, and the wooden box in which he
was confined, creak, and jolt, and roll about as the train rushed on,
clamping and striding like a giant through the dark. What a curious,
prolonged dream it was--the dim, uncertain light swaying like a light at
sea, the figures dimly seen, immoveable, or turning uneasily like
spectres in a fever, veiled figures, with little form visible under the
swaying of the lamp; and now and then the sudden jar and pause, the
unearthly and dissipated gleam from some miserable midnight station,
where the porters ran about pale and yawning, and the whole sleepy,
weary place did its best to thrust them on, and get rid of the intruder.
Just before morning, however, in the cold before the dawning, Edgar had
a real dream, a dream of sleep, and not of waking, so vivid that it came
into his mind often afterwards with a thrill of wonder. He dreamt that
he saw standing by him the figure of her who had touched his heart in
his earlier years, of Gussy, who might have been his wife had all gone
well, and of whom he had thought more warmly and constantly, perhaps,
since she became impossible to him, than when she was within his reach.
She seemed to come to him out of a cloud, out of a mist, stooping over
him with a smile; but when he tried to spring up, to take the hand which
she held out, some icy restraint came upon him--he could not move,
chains of ice seemed to bind his hands and arrest even his voice in his
throat. While he struggled to rise, the beautiful figure glided away,
saying, “After, after--but not yet!” and--strange caprice of
fancy--dropped over her face the heavy veil of the young sister who had
excited his curiosity, and who was seated in the other corner of this
same hard wooden bench, just as Edgar, struggling up, half awake, found
that his railway wrapper had dropped from his knees, and that he was
indeed almost motionless with cold.
The grey dawn was breaking, coldest and most miserable hour of the
twenty-four, and the other figures round him were nodding in their
sleep, or swayed about with the jarring movement of the carriage.
Strange, Edgar thought to himself, how fancy can pick up an external
circumstance, and weave it into the fantastic web of dreams! How
naturally his dream visitor had taken the aspect of the last figure his
musing eyes had closed upon! and how naturally, too, the physical chill
of the moment had shaped itself into a mental impossibility--a chain of
fate. He smiled at the combination as he wrapped himself shivering in
his rug. The slight little figure in the other corner was, he thought,
awake too, she was so perfectly still. The people on the other side
dozed and nodded, changing their positions with the jerking movement of
restless sleep, but she was still, moving only with the swaying of the
carriage. Her veil was still down, but one little white hand came forth
out of the opening of her black cloak. What a pity that so pretty a hand
should not be given to some man to help him along the road of life,
Edgar thought to himself with true English sentiment, and then paused to
remember that English sisterhoods could take no irrevocable vows, at
least, in law. He toyed with this idea, he could not tell why, giving
far more attention to the veiled figure than half-a-dozen unveiled women
would have procured from him.
Foolish and short-sighted mortal! He dreamed and wondered at his dream,
and made his ingenious little theory and amused explanation to himself
of the mutual reaction of imagination and sensation. How little he knew
what eyes were watching him from behind the safe shelter of that heavy
black veil!