This afternoon I went up the Scar by myself. First I climbed right to
the top, and after looking round a little, as I always like to do on the
top of a mountain, I went down a few yards to the flat bit where the old
Roman wall runs, and sat down on the grass just above. It was a lovely
day. I had not an idea that any one was near the place but myself, and
I was just going to sing, when to my surprise I heard a voice on the
other side of the Roman wall. It was Angus Drummond's.
"Duncan Keith, why don't you say something?" He broke out suddenly, in
a petulant tone--rather the tone of a child who knows it has been
naughty, and wants to get the scolding over which it feels sure is
coming some time.
"What do you wish me to say?"
Mr Keith's tone was cold and constrained, I thought.
"Why don't you tell me I am an unhanged reprobate, and that you are
ashamed to be seen walking with me? You know you are thinking it."
"No, Angus. I was thinking something very different."
"What, then?" asked Angus, sulkily.
"`Doth He not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after
that which is lost, _until He find it_?'"
There was no coldness in Mr Keith's tone now.
"What has that got to do with it?" growled Angus in his throat.
"Angus," was the soft answer, "the sheep sometimes makes it a very hard
journey for Him."
I know I ought to have risen and crept away long before this: but I did
not. It was not right of me, but I sat on. I knew they could not see
me through the wall, nor could they get across it at any place so near
that I could not be gone far enough before they could catch sight of me.
"I suppose," said Angus, in the same sort of sulky murmur, "that is your
way of telling me, Mr Keith, that I am a miserable sinner."
"Are you not?"
"Miserable enough, Heaven knows! But, Duncan, I don't see why you, and
Flora, and Mrs Kezia, and all the good folks, or the folks who think
themselves extra good, which comes to the same thing--"
"Does it? I was not aware of that," said Mr Keith.
"I can't see," Angus went on, "why you must all turn up the whites of
your eyes like a duck in thunder, and hold up your hands in pious horror
at me, because I have done just once what every gentleman in the land
does every week, and thinks nothing of it. If you had not been brought
up in a hen-coop, and ruled like a copy-book, you would not be so con--
so hideously strict and particular! Just ask Ambrose Catterall whether
there is any weight on his conscience; or ask that jolly parson, who
tackled you and Flora at breakfast, what he has to say to it. I'll be
bound he will read prayers next Sabbath with as much grace and unction
as if he had never been drunk in his life. And because I get let in
just once, why--"
Angus paused as if to consider how to finish his sentence, and Mr Keith
answered one point of his long speech, letting all the rest, go.
"Is it just this once, Angus?"
"I suppose you mean that night at York, when I got let in with those
fellows of Greensmith's," growled Angus, more grumpily than ever. "Now,
Duncan, that's not generous of you. I did the humble and penitent for
that, and you should not cast it up to me. Just that time and this!"
"And no more, Angus?"
Angus muttered something which did not reach me.
"Angus, you know why I came with you?"
"Yes, I know well enough why you came with me," said Angus, bitterly.
"Just because that stupid old meddler, Helen Raeburn, took it into her
wooden head that I could not take care of myself, and talked my father
into sending me with you now, instead of letting me go the other way
round by myself! Could not take care of myself, forsooth!"
"Have you done it?"
"I hadn't it to do. Mr Duncan Keith was to take care of me, just as if
I had been a baby--stuff! There is no end to the folly of old women!"
"I think young men might sometimes match them. Well, Angus, I have
taken as much care as you let me. But you deceived me, boy. I know
more about it than you think. It was not one or two transgressions that
let you down to this pitch. I know you had a private key from Rob
Greensmith, and let yourself in and out when I believed you asleep."
Angus sputtered out some angry words, which I did not catch.
"No. You are mistaken. Leigh did not tell of you or his brother. Your
friend Robert told me himself. He wanted to get out of the scrape, and
he did not care about leaving you in it. The friendship of the wicked
is not worth much, Angus. But if I had not known it, I should still
have felt perfectly sure that there had been more going on than you ever
confessed to me. Three months since, Angus, you would not have used
words which you have used this day. You would not have spoken so
lightly of being `let in'--let into what? Just stop and think. And
twice to-day--once in Flora's presence--you have only just stopped your
tongue from a worse word than that. Would you have said such a thing to
your father before we left Abbotscliff?"
"Uncle Courtenay was as drunk as any of them last night," Angus blurted
out.
I did not like to hear that of Father. Till now I never thought much
about such things, except that they were imperfections which men had and
women had not, and the women must put up with them. Sins?--well, yes, I
suppose getting drunk is a sin, if you come to think about it; but so is
getting into a passion, and telling falsehoods, and plenty more things
which one thinks little or nothing about, because one sees everybody do
them every day. It is only the extra good people, like my Aunt Kezia,
and Flora, and Mr Keith, that put on grave faces about things of that
kind.
But stay! God must be better than the extra good people. Then will He
not think even worse of such things than they do?
It was just because those three seemed to think it so awful, and to be
inclined to make a fuss over it, that I did not like to hear what Angus
said about Father. Grandmamma never thought anything about it; she
always said drinking and gaming were gentlemanly vices, which the King
himself--(I mean, of course, the Elector, but Grandmamma said the
King)--need not be ashamed of practising.
I listened rather uneasily for Mr Keith's answer. I am beginning to
feel a good deal of respect for his opinion and himself, and I did not
want to hear him say anything about Father that was not agreeable. But
he put it quietly aside.
"If you please, Angus, we will let other people alone. Both you and I
shall find our own sins quite enough to repent of, I expect. You have
not answered my question, Angus."
"What question?" grumbled Angus. I fancy he did not want to answer it.
"Would you, three months since, have let your father see and hear what
you have let me do within even the last week?"
Angus growled something in the bottom of his throat which I could not
make out.
Mr Keith's tone changed suddenly.
"Angus, dear old fellow, are you happier now than you were then?"
"Duncan, I am the most miserable wretch that ever lived! I want no
preaching to, I can tell you. That last text my father preached from
keeps tolling in my ear like a funeral bell--and it is all the worse
because it comes in his voice: `Remember from whence thou art fallen!'
Don't I remember it? Do I want telling whence I have fallen? Haven't I
made a thousand resolves never, _never_ to fail again, and the next time
I get into company, all my resolves melt away and my hard knots come
undone, and I feel as strong as a spoonful of water, and any of them can
lead me that tries, like an animal with a ring through his nose?"
"Water is not a bad comparison, Angus, if you look at both sides of it.
What is stronger than water, when the wind blows it with power? And you
know who is compared to the wind. `Awake, O North Wind, and come, Thou
South; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.' It
is the wind of God's Spirit that we want, to blow the water--powerless
of itself--in the right direction. It will carry all before it then."
"Oh, yes, all that sounds very well," said Angus, but in a pleasanter
tone than before--not so much like a big growling dog. "But you don't
know, Duncan--you don't know! You have no temptations. What can you
know about it? I tell you I _can't_ keep out of it. It is no good
talking."
"`No temptations!' I wish that were true. But you are quite right as
to yourself; you cannot keep out of it. Do you mean to add that God
cannot keep you?"
I did not hear Angus's reply, and I fancy it came in a gesture, and not
in words. But Mr Keith said, very softly,--
"Angus, will you let Him keep you?"
Instead of the answer for which I was eagerly listening, another sound
came to my ear, which made me jump up in a hurry, almost without caring
whether I was heard or not. That was the clock of Brocklebank Church
striking twelve. I should be ever so much too late for dinner; and what
would my Aunt Kezia say? I got away as quietly as I could for a few
yards, and then ran down the Scar as fast as I dared for fear of
falling, and came into the dining-room, feeling hot and breathless, just
as Cecilia, looking fresh and bright as a white lily, was entering it
from the other end. The rest were seated at the table. Of course Mr
Keith and Angus were not there.
"Caroline, where have you been?" saith my Aunt Kezia.
I trembled, for I knew what I had to expect when my Aunt Kezia said
Caroline in full.
"I am very sorry, Aunt," said I. "I went up the Scar, and--well, I am
afraid I forgot all about the time."
My Aunt Kezia nodded, as if my frank confession satisfied her, and
Father said, "Good maid!" as I slipped into the chair where I always
sit, on his left hand. But Cecilia, who was arranging her skirts just
opposite, said in that way which men seem to call charming, and women
always see through and despise (at least my Aunt Kezia says so),--
"Am I a little late?"
"Don't name it!" said Father.
"Dear, no, my charmer!" cried Hatty. "Cary's shockingly late, of
course: but you are not--quite impossible."
Cecilia gave one of her soft smiles, and said no more.
I really am beginning to wish the Bracewells gone. Yet it is not so
much on their own account, Amelia is vain and silly, and Charlotte rude
and romping; but I do not think either of them is a hypocrite.
Charlotte is not, I am sure; she lets you see the very worst side of
her: and Amelia's affectation is so plain and unmistakable, that it
cannot be called insincerity. It is on account of that horrid Cecilia
that I want them to go, because I suppose she will go with them. Yes,
truth is truth, and Cecilia is horrid. I am getting quite frightened of
her. I do not know what she means to do next: but she seems to me to be
always laying traps of some sort, and for somebody.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wonder if people ever do what you expect of them? If somebody had
asked me to make a list of things that could not happen, I expect that I
should have put on it one thing that has just happened.
Sophy and I went up this morning to Goody Branscombe's cot, to take her
some wine and eggs from my Aunt Kezia. Anne Branscombe thinks she is
failing, poor old woman, and my Aunt Kezia told her to beat up an egg
with a little wine and sugar, and give it to her fasting of a morning:
she thinks it a fine thing for keeping up strength. We came round by
the Vicarage on our way back, and stepped in to see old Elspie. We
found her ironing the Vicar's shirts and ruffles, and she put us in
rocking-chairs while we sat and talked.
Old Elspie wanted to know all we could tell her about Flora and Angus,
and I promised I would bring Flora to see her some day. She says Mr
Keith--Mr Duncan Keith's father, that is--is the squire of Abbotscliff,
a very rich man, and a tremendous Tory.
"You're vara nigh strangers, young leddies," said Elspie, as she ironed
away. "Miss Fanny, she came to see me a twa-three days back, and Miss
Bracewell wi' her; and there was anither young leddy, but I disremember
her name."
"Was it Charlotte Bracewell?" said Sophy.
"Na, na, I ken Miss Charlotte ower weel to forget her, though she has
grown a deal sin' I saw her afore. This was a lassie wi' black hair,
and e'en like the new wood the minister has his dinner-table, wi' the
fine name--what ca' ye that, now?"
"Mahogany?" said I.
"Ay, it has some sic fremit soun'," said old Elspie, rather scornfully.
"I ken it was no sae far frae muggins [mugwort]. Mrs Sophy, my dear,
ha'e ye e'er suppit muggins in May? 'Tis the finest thing going for
keeping a lassie in gude health, and it suld be drinkit in the spring.
Atweel, what's her name wi' the copper-colourit e'en?"
"Cecilia Osborne," said I. "What did you think of her, Elspie?"
The iron went up and down the Vicar's shirt-front, and I saw a curious
gathering together of old Elspie's lips--still she did not speak. At
last Sophy said,--
"Couldn't you make up your mind about her, Elspie?"
"I had nae mickle fash about _that_, Mrs Sophy," said Elspeth, setting
down her iron on the stand with something like a bang. "And gin I can
see through a millstane a wee bittie, she'll gi'e ye the chance to make
up yourn afore lang."
"Nay, mine's made up long since," answered Sophy. "I shall see the back
of her with a deal more pleasure than I did her face a month ago. Won't
you, Cary?"
"I don't like her the least bit," said I.
"Ye'll be wiser lassies, young leddies, gin ye're no ower ready to say
it," said Elspie, coolly. "It was no ane o' _your_ white days when she
came to Brocklebank Fells. Ay, weel, weel! The Lord's ower a'."
As we went down the road, I said to Sophy, "What did old Elspie mean, do
you suppose?"
"I am afraid I can guess what she meant, Cary."
Sophy's tone was so strange that I looked up at her; and I saw her eyes
flashing and her lips set and white.
"Sophy! what is the matter?" I cried.
"Don't trouble your little head, Cary," she said, kindly enough. "It
will be trouble in plenty when it comes."
I could not get her to say more. As we reached the door, Hatty came
dancing out to meet us.
"`The rose is white, the rose is red,'--
The sun gives light, Queen Anne is dead:
Ladies with white and rosy hues,
What will you give me for my news?"
"Hatty, you must have made that yourself!" said Sophy.
"I have, just this minute," laughed Hatty. "Now then, who'll bid for my
news?"
"I dare say it isn't worth a farthing," said Sophy.
"Well, to you, perhaps not. It may be rather mortifying. My sweet
Sophia, you are the eldest of us, but your younger sister has stolen a
march on you. You have played your cards ill, Miss Courtenay. Fanny is
going to be the first of us married, unless I contrive to run away with
somebody in the interval. I don't know whom--there's the difficulty."
"Well, I always thought she would be," said Sophy, quite
good-humouredly. "She is the prettiest of us, is Fanny."
"So much obliged for the compliment!" gleefully cried Hatty. "Cary,
don't you feel delighted?"
"Is Ephraim here now?" I said, for of course I never thought of anybody
else.
"Ephraim!" Hatty whirled round, laughing heartily. "Ephraim, my dear,
will have to break his heart at leisure. Ambrose Catterall has stolen a
march on _him_."
"You don't mean that Fanny and Ambrose are to be married!" cried Sophy,
with wide-open eyes.
"I do, Madam; and my Aunt Kezia is as mad as a hatter about it. She
would have liked Ephraim for her nephew ever so much better than
Ambrose."
"Well, I do think!" exclaimed Sophy. "If Ephraim did really care for
Fanny, she has used him shamefully."
"So _I_ think!" said Hatty. "I mean to present him on his next birthday
with a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs, embroidered in the corner with an urn
and a willow-tree."
"An urn, you ridiculous child!" returned Sophy. "That means that
somebody is dead."
"Don't throw cold water on my charming conceits!" pleaded Hatty. "Now
go in and face my Aunt Kezia--if you dare."
We found her cutting out flannel petticoats in the parlour. My Aunt
Kezia's brows were drawn together, and my Aunt Kezia's lips were thin;
and I trembled. However, she took no note of us, but went on tearing up
flannel, and making little piles of it upon the table end.
Sophy, with heroic bravery, attacked the citadel at once.
"Well, Aunt, this is pretty news!"
"What is?" said my Aunt Kezia, standing up straight and stiff.
"Why, this about Fanny and Ambrose Catterall."
"Oh, that! I wish there were nothing worse than that in _this_ world."
My Aunt Kezia spoke as if she would have preferred some other world,
where things went straighter than they do in this.
"Hatty said you were put out about it, Aunt."
"That's all Hatty knows. I think 'tis a blunder, and Fanny will find it
out, likely enough. But if that were all--Girls, 'tis nigh dinner-time.
You had better take your bonnets off."
"What is the matter with my Aunt Kezia?" said I to Sophy, as we went
up-stairs.
"Don't ask _me_!" said that young lady.
Half-way up-stairs we met Charlotte.
"Oh, what fun you have missed, you two!" cried she. "Why didn't you
come home a little sooner? I would not have lost it for a hundred
pounds."
"Lost what, Charlotte?"
"Lost _what_? Ask my Aunt Kezia--now just you _do_!"
"My Aunt Kezia seems unapproachable," said Sophy.
Charlotte went off into a fit of laughter, and then slid down the
banister to the hall--a feat which my Aunt Kezia has forbidden her to
perform a dozen times at least. We went forward, made ourselves ready
for dinner, and came down to the dining-parlour.
In the dining-room we found a curious group. My Aunt Kezia looked as
stiff as whalebone; Father, pleased and radiant; Flora and Mr Keith
both seemed rather puzzled. Angus was in a better temper than usual.
Charlotte was evidently full of something very funny, which she did not
want to let out; Cecilia, soft, serene, and velvety; Fanny looked
nervous and uncomfortable; Hatty, scornful; while Amelia was her usual
self.
When dinner was over, we went back to the parlour. My Aunt Kezia
gathered up her heaps of flannel, gave one to Flora and another to me,
and began to stitch away at a third herself. Amelia threw herself on
the sofa, saying she was tired to death; and I was surprised to see that
my Aunt Kezia took no notice. Fanny sat down to draw; Hatty went on
with her knitting; Charlotte strolled out into the garden; and Cecilia
disappeared, I know not whither.
For an hour or more we worked away in solemn silence. Hatty tried to
whisper once or twice to Fanny, making her blush and look uncomfortable;
but Fanny did not speak, and I fancy Hatty got tired. Amelia went to
sleep.
At last, and all at once, Flora--honest, straightforward Flora--laid her
work on her knee, and looked up at my Aunt Kezia's grim set face.
"Aunt Kezia, will you tell me, is something the matter?"
"Yes, my dear," my Aunt Kezia seemed to snap out. "Satan's the matter."
"I don't know what you mean, Aunt," said Flora.
"'Tis a mercy if you don't. No, child, there is not much the matter for
you. The matter's for me and these girls here. Well, to be sure!
there's no fool like an old f--Caroline! (I fairly jumped) can't you
look what you are doing? You are herring-boning that seam on the wrong
side!"
Alas! the charge was true. I cannot tell how or why it is, but if there
are two seams to anything, I am sure to do one of them on the wrong
side. It is very queer. I suppose there is something wanting in my
brains. Hatty says--at least she did once when I said that--the brains
are wanting.
However, we sat on and sewed away, till at last Amelia woke up and went
up-stairs; Flora finished her petticoat, and my Aunt Kezia told her to
go into the garden. Only we four sisters were left. Then my Aunt Kezia
put down her flannel, wiped her spectacles, and looked round at us.
I knew something was coming, and I felt quite sure that it was something
disagreeable; but I could not form an idea what it was.
"Girls," said my Aunt Kezia, "I think you may as well hear at once that
I am going to leave Brocklebank."
I fairly gasped in astonishment. Brocklebank without my Aunt Kezia! It
sounded like hearing that the sun was going out of the sky. I could not
imagine such a state of things.
"Is Sophy to be mistress, then?" said Fanny, blankly.
"Aunt Kezia, are you going to be married?" our impertinent Hatty wanted
to know.
"No, Hester," said my Aunt Kezia, shortly. "At my time of life a woman
has a little sense left; or if she have not, she is only fit for Bedlam.
I do not think Sophy will be mistress, Fanny. Somebody else is going
to take that place. Otherwise, I should have stayed in it."
"What do you mean, Aunt Kezia?" said Fanny, speaking very slowly, and in
a bewildered sort of way.
Sophy said nothing. I think she knew. And all at once it seemed to
come over me--as if somebody had shut me up inside a lump of ice--what
it was that was going to happen.
"I mean, my dear," my Aunt Kezia replied quietly, "that your father
intends to marry again."
Sophy's face and tongue gave no sign that she had heard anything which
was news to her. Fanny cried, "Never, surely!" Hatty said, "How
jolly!" and then in a whisper to me, "Won't I lead her a life!" I
believe I said nothing. I felt shut up in that lump of ice.
"But, Aunt Kezia, what is to become of us all? Are we to stay here, or
go with you?" asked Fanny.
"Your father desires me to tell you, my dears," said my Aunt Kezia,
"that he wishes to leave you quite free to please yourselves. If you
choose to remain here, he will be glad to have you; and if any of you
like to come with me to Fir Vale, you will be welcome, and you know what
to expect."
"What are we to expect if we stop here?" asked Sophy, in a hard, dry
voice.
"That is more than I can say," was my Aunt Kezia's answer.
"But who is it?" said Fanny, in the same bewildered way.
"O Fanny, what a bat you are!" cried Hatty.
"I wonder you ask," answered Sophy. "I have seen her fishing-rod for
ever so long. Cecilia, of course."
"Cecilia!" screamed Fanny. "I thought it was some middle-aged,
respectable gentlewoman."
Hatty burst out laughing. I never felt less inclined to laugh. My Aunt
Kezia had taken off her spectacles, and was going on with her tucks as
if nothing had happened.
"Well, I will think about it," said Sophy. "I am not sure I shall
stay."
"_I_ shall stay," announced Hatty. "I expect it will be grand fun. She
will fill the house with company--that will suit me; and I shall just
look sharp after her and keep her in order."
"Hatty!" cried Fanny, in a shocked tone.
"I hope you will keep yourself in order," said my Aunt Kezia, drily.
"Little Cary, you have not spoken yet. What do you want to do?"
Her voice softened as I had never heard it do before when she spoke to
me. It touched me very much; yet I think I should have said the same
without it.
"O Aunt Kezia, please let me go with you!"
"Thank you, Cary," said my Aunt Kezia in the same tone. "The old woman
is not to be left quite alone, then? But it will be dull, child, for a
young thing like you."
"I would rather have it dull than lively the wrong way about," said I;
and Hatty broke out again.
"Would you!" said she, when she had done laughing. "I wouldn't, I
promise you. Sophy, don't you know a curate you could marry? You had
better, if you can find one."
"Not one that has asked me," was Sophy's dry answer. "You don't want
me, then, Miss Hatty?"
"You would be rather meddlesome, I am afraid," said Hatty, with charming
frankness. "You would always be doing conscience."
"Don't you intend to keep one?" returned Sophy.
"I mean to lay it up in lavender," said Hatty, "and take it out on
Sundays."
"Hatty, if you haven't a care--"
"Please go on, Aunt Kezia. Unfinished sentences are always awful
things, because you don't know how they are going to end."
"_You_'ll end in the lock-up, if you don't mind," said my Aunt Kezia;
"and if I were you, I wouldn't."
"I'll try to keep on this side the door," said Hatty, as lightly as
ever. "And when is it to be, Aunt Kezia?"
"The month after next, I believe."
"Isn't Cecilia going home first, to see what her friends say about it?"
"She has none belonging to her, except an uncle and his family, and she
says they will be delighted to hear it. Hatty, you had better get out
of the way of calling her Cecilia. It won't do now, you know."
"But you don't mean, Aunt Kezia, that we are to call her Mother!" cried
Fanny, in a most beseeching tone.
"My dear, that must be as your father wishes. He may allow you to call
her Mrs Courtenay. That is what I shall call her."
"Isn't it dreadful!" said poor Fanny.
"One thing more I have to say," continued my Aunt Kezia, laying down her
flannel again and putting on her spectacles. "Your father does not wish
you to be present at his marriage."
"Aunt Kezia!" came, I think, from us all--indignantly from Sophy,
sorrowfully from Fanny, petulantly from Hatty, and from me in sheer
astonishment.
"I suppose he has his reasons," said my Aunt Kezia; "but that being so,
I think Sophy had better go home for a while with the Bracewells, and
Hatty, too. You, Cary, may go with Flora instead, if you like. Fanny,
of course, is arranged for already, as she will be married by then, and
will only have to stop at home."