I have now to change the scene and bring before the notice of the reader
another group, representing another side of the picture, with interests
still more opposite to those of Lord Eskside and his heir-apparent than
were, even, the interests of that heir-apparent’s mother. But to exhibit
this other side, I have fortunately no need to descend to the lower
levels of society, to Jean Macfarlane’s disreputable tavern, or any
haunt of doubtful people. On the contrary, I know no region of more
unblemished respectability or higher character than Moray Place in
Edinburgh, which is the spot I wish to indicate. Strangers and tourists
do not know much of Moray Place. To them--and great is their
good-fortune--Edinburgh means the noble crowned ridge of the Old Town,
fading off misty and mysterious into the wooded valley beneath; the
great crags of the castle rising into mid-sky, and the beautiful
background of hills. Upon this they gaze from the plateau of Princes
Street; and far might they wander without seeing anything half so fine
as that storied height, lying grey in sunshine, or twinkling with
multitudinous lights, as the blue poetic twilight steals over the Old
Town. But on the other side of that middle ground of Princes Street lies
a New Town, over which our grandfathers rejoiced greatly as men rejoice
over the works of their own hands, despite the fullest acknowledgment of
the work of their ancestors. There lie crescents, squares, and places,
following the downward sweep of the hill, with, it is true, no
despicable landscape to survey (chiefly from the back windows), yet
shutting themselves out with surprising complacency from all that
distinguishes Edinburgh amid the other cities of the world. Nobody can
say that we of the Scots nation are not proud of our metropolis; but
this is how our fathers and grandfathers--acute humorous souls as most
of them were, with a large spice of romance in them, and of much more
distinctly marked individual character than we possess in our
day--asserted the fundamental indifference of human nature, in the
long-run, to natural beauty. How comfortable, how commodious are those
huge solid houses!--houses built for men to be warm in, to feast in, and
gather their friends about them, but not with any æsthetical meaning. Of
all these streets, and squares, and crescents, Moray Place perhaps is
the most “palatial,” or was, at least, at the period of which I speak.
Personally, I confess that it makes a very peculiar impression on me.
Years ago, so many that I dare not count them, there appeared in the
pages of ‘Blackwood’ a weird and terrible story called the “Iron
Shroud,” in which the feelings of an unhappy criminal shut up in an iron
cell (I think, to make the horror greater, of his own invention) which
by some infernal contrivance diminished every day, window after window
disappearing before the wretch’s eyes, until at last the horrible prison
fell upon him and became at once his grave and his shroud--were depicted
with vivid power. This thrilling tale always returns to my mind when I
stand within the grand and gloomy enclosure of Moray Place. It seems to
me that the walls quiver and draw closer even while I look at them; and
if the circle were gradually to lessen, one window disappearing after
another, and the whole approaching slowly, fatally towards the centre, I
should not be surprised. But in Edinburgh, Moray Place is, or was,
considered a noble circus of houses, and nobody feels afraid to live in
it. I suppose as it has now stood so long, it will never crash together,
and descend on the head of some breathless wretch in the garden which
forms its centre; but a superstitious dread of this catastrophe, I own,
would haunt me if I were rich enough to be able to live in Moray Place.
Mr Alexander Pringle, however, never once thought of this when he
established his tabernacle there. This gentleman was an advocate, to use
the Scotch term--the cosmopolitan and universal term, instead of the
utterly conventional and unmeaning appellation of barrister common to
the English alone--at the Scotch bar. His father before him had been a
W.S., or Writer to the Signet--a title of which I confess myself unable
to explain the exact formal meaning. How these comparatively unimportant
people came to be the heirs-at-law, failing the Rosses, of the barony of
Eskside, I need not tell. Pringle is a name which bears no distinction
in its mere sound like Howard or Seymour; but notwithstanding, it is
what is called in Scotland “a good name;” and this branch of the
Pringles were direct descendants from one of the Eskside barons. When
Dick Ross’s misfortunes happened, and his wife forsook him, Mr Alexander
Pringle, then himself recently married, producing heirs at a rate which
would have frightened any political economist, and possessing a wife far
too virtuous ever to think of running away from him, became all at once
a person of consequence. He felt it himself more than any one, yet all
society (especially in Moray Place) had felt it. By this time he had a
very pretty little family, seven boys and one girl, all healthy,
vigorous, and showing every appearance of long and prosperous life.
Fear not, dear reader! I do not mean to follow in this history the
fortunes of Sandy, Willie, Jamie, Val, Bob, Tom, and Ben. They were
excellent fellows, and eventually received an admirable education at the
Edinburgh Academy; but I dare not enter upon the chronicle of such a
race of giants. Val was born about the time that Richard Ross’s children
disappeared, and the Pringles christened the baby Valentine Ross,
feeling that this might be a comfort to the old lord, whose “name-son”
had thus mysteriously disappeared. Mr Pringle spoke of the event as an
“inscrutable dispensation,” and lamented his cousin’s strange
misfortunes to everybody he encountered. But dreadful as the misfortune
was, it made him several inches higher, and threw a wavering and
uncertain glimmer of possible fortune to come over the unconscious heads
of Sandy, Willie, Val, and the rest. They cared very little, but their
father cared much, and was very wide awake, and constantly on the watch
for every new event that might happen on Eskside. The seven years of
quiet, during which nothing was heard of Richard’s children, ripened his
hopes to such an extent that he almost felt himself the next in
succession; for a mild _dilettante_ like Dick Ross, who always lived
abroad, did not seem an obstacle worth counting. Perhaps he was in
consequence a little less careful of his practice at the bar; for this
tantalising shadow of a coronet had an effect upon his being which was
scarcely justified by the circumstances. But at all events, though they
managed to keep up their establishment in Moray Place, and to give the
boys a good education, the Pringles did not advance in prosperity and
comfort as they ought to have done, considering how well-connected they
were, and the “good abilities” of the head of the house. Though he would
sometimes foolishly show a disregard for the punctilios of the law in
his own person, and was now and then outwitted in an argument, yet Mr
Pringle was understood to be an excellent lawyer; and he had a certain
gift of lucidity in stating an argument which found him favour alike in
the eyes of clients and of judges. Had he been a little more energetic,
probably he would have already begun to run the course of legal
preferment in Scotland. He was Sheriff of the county in which his little
property lay; and at one time no man had a better chance of rising to
the rank of Solicitor-General or even Lord Advocate, and of finally
settling as Lord Pringle or Lord Dalrulzian (the name of his property)
upon the judicial bench. But his progress was arrested by this shadow of
a possible promotion with which his profession would have nothing to do.
Lord Dalrulzian might be a sufficiently delightful title if no more
substantial dignity was to be had, but Lord Eskside was higher; and the
man’s imagination went off wildly after the hereditary barony, leaving
the reward of legal eminence far in the background. Gradually he had
built himself up with the thought of this advancement; and though they
were by no means rich enough to afford it, nothing but his wife’s
persistent holding back would have kept him from sending Sandy, his
eldest boy, to Eton, by way of preparing him for his possible dignity.
For the days when boys were sent from far and near to the High School of
Edinburgh are over; and it is now the Scottish parent’s pride to make
English schoolboys of his sons, and to eliminate from the speech of his
daughters all trace of their native accent. Mrs Pringle, however, was
prudent enough to withstand her husband’s desire. “What would he do at
Eton?” she said. “Learn English? If he’s not content with the English
you and I speak, it’s a pity; and as for manners, he behaves himself
very well in company as it is, and you’ll never convince me that
ill-mannered louts will be made into gentlemen by a year or two at a
public school. You may send him if you like, Alexander--you’re the
master--but you will get no countenance from me.” When a
well-conditioned husband is told that he is the master there is an end
of him. Mr Pringle was not made of hard enough material to resist so
strong an opposition; and then it would have cost a great deal of money.
“Well, my dear, we’ll talk it over another time,” he said, and put off
the final decision indefinitely; which was a virtual giving in without
the necessity of acknowledging defeat.
After all this gradually growing satisfaction and confidence in his own
prospects, it is almost impossible to describe the tremendous effect
which the news of Richard’s return, and of the strange events which had
taken place at Rosscraig, had upon the presumptive heir. He spoke not a
word to any one for the first two days, but went about his business
moodily, like a man under the shadow of some deadly cloud. The first
shock was terrible, and scarcely less terrible was the excitement with
which he listened to every rumour that reached him, piecing the bits of
news together. For a week he neglected his business; forsook, except
when his attendance was compulsory, the Parliament House; and, if he
could have had his will, would have done nothing all day but discuss the
astounding tale, which at first he declared to be entire fiction, a
made-up story, and pretended to laugh at. He hung about his
dressing-room door in the morning, while his wife finished her toilet,
talking of it through the doorway; he hovered round the
breakfast-table, after he had finished his meal, neglecting his
‘Scotsman’; he was continually appearing in the drawing-room when Mrs
Pringle did not want him, and “deaved her,” as she said, with this
eternal subject. To no one else could he speak with freedom; but this
sweet privilege of wifehood, instead of being an unmingled good, often
becomes, in the imperfection of all created things, a bore to the happy
being who is thus elevated into the ideal position of her spouse’s
_alter ego_. Mrs Pringle was not sentimental, and she soon got heartily
sick of the subject. She would have cheerfully sold, at any time, for a
new dinner dress--a thing she was pretty generally in want of--all her
chances, which she had no faith in, of ever becoming Lady Eskside.
“Don’t you think, Alexander,” she said, having been driven beyond
endurance by his rejection of a proposed match at golf on Musselburgh
Links--a thing which proved the profound gravity of the crisis,---“don’t
you think that the best thing you could do would be to take the coach
and go out to Lasswade, and inquire for yourself? Take Violet with
you--a little fresh air would do her good; and if you were to talk this
over with somebody who knows about it, instead of with me, that know
nothing more than yourself----”
“Go--to Lasswade!” said Mr Pringle--“that is a step that never occurred
to me. No; I have not been invited to Rosscraig to meet Dick, and it
would look very strange if I were to go where nobody is wanting me. If
you think, indeed, that Vi would be better for a little change---- But
no; Lord Eskside would not like it--there would be an undignified look
about it--an underhand look; still, if you think an expedition would be
good for Vi----”
It was thus that under pressure of personal anxiety a man maundered and
hesitated who could give very sound advice to his clients, and could
speak very much to the purpose before the Lords of Session. Mrs Pringle
knew all this, and did not despise her husband. She felt that she
herself was wiser in their own practical concerns than he was, but gave
him full credit for all his other advantages, and for that ability in
his profession which did not always make itself apparent at home. And
she had a great many things to do on this particular afternoon, and was
driven nearly out of her senses, she allowed afterwards, by this eternal
discussion about Dick Boss’s children and the succession to Eskside.
“Do you remember,” she said, exercising her ingenuity, with as little
waste of words as possible--for the mother of seven sons, not to speak
of one little daughter besides, who is not rich enough to keep a great
many servants, has not much time to waste in talk--“that little cottage
at the Hewan, which I was always so fond of? The children are fond of it
too. As you are off your match, and have the afternoon to spare, go away
down and see if the Hewan is let, and whether we can have it for the
summer.”
“But, my dear, it is not half big enough for us,” Mr Pringle began.
His wife turned upon him a momentary look of impatience. “What does it
matter whether it’s big or little, when you want to see what is going
on?” she said. “Take the child with you, and ask about it. It would be
fine to have such a place, to send Vi when the heat gets too much for
her.” These last words were spoken in perfect good faith, for people in
Edinburgh keep up a fiction of believing that the heat is too much for
them--as if they were in London or Paris, or anywhere else, where people
love a yearly change.
“So it would,” said Mr Pringle; “and you could go out yourself sometimes
and spend a long day. It would do you good, my dear. I think I will go.”
“Run and tell nurse to put on your best hat, Violet,” said her mother;
“and you may have your kid gloves, if you will be sure not to lose them.
You are going out to the country with papa.”
Little Violet rose from where she had been sitting, with a family of
dolls round her, on the carpet. She had been giving her family their
daily lessons, and felt it a very important duty. She was but six years
old--one of those fair-haired little maidens who abound in Scotland,
with hair of two shades of colour, much brighter in the half-curled
locks which lay about her shoulders than on her head. With these light
locks she had dark eyes, an unusual combination, and pretty infant
features, scarcely formed yet into anything which gave promise of
beauty. She was so light that Sandy, her big brother, could hold her up
on his hand, to the admiration of all beholders. One daughter in such a
family holds an ideal position, such as few girls achieve otherwise at
so early an age. Their little sister was the very princess of all these
boys. The big ones petted and spoiled her, the little ones believed in
and reverenced her. To the one she was something more dainty than any
plaything--a living doll, the prettiest ornament in the house, and the
only one which could be handled without breaking wantonly, on purpose to
have them punished, in their hands; and to the others she was a small
mother, quaintly unlike the big one, yet imposing upon them by her
assumption of the maternal ways and authority. When she addressed the
nursery audience with, “Now you ’ittle boys, mind what I say to you,”
the babies acknowledged the shadow of authority, and felt that Vi
wielded a visionary sceptre. She was very serious in her views of life,
and held what might appear to some people exaggerated ideas as to the
guilt of spilling your tea upon your frock, or tearing your pinafore;
and was apt to wonder where naughty little children who did such things
expected to go to, with an unswerving and perfectly satisfied faith in
everlasting retribution, such as would have edified the severest
believer. Violet awarded these immense penalties to very trifling
offences, not being as yet wise enough to discriminate or get her
landscape into perspective. Her dolls were taught their duty in the most
forcible way, and she herself carried out her tenets by punishing them
severely when they displeased her. She got up from the midst of them
now, and though she had been lecturing them solemnly a few minutes
before, huddled them up, with legs and arms in every kind of contortion,
into a corner which was appropriated to her. She walked up-stairs very
gravely to be dressed, but made such a fuss about her kid gloves, that
nurse, with two baby boys on her hands, was nearly driven to her wits’
end. On ordinary occasions, Vi wore little cotton gloves, with the tops
of the fingers sewed inside in a little lump, which made her small hands
(as they used to make mine) extremely uncomfortable. When she was fully
equipped, she was a very trim little woman--not fine, but as imposing
and dignified in her appearance as a lady of six can manage to be; and
when the anxious heir-at-law to the Eskside barony came down-stairs with
her to start on this mission of inquiry, she was very particular that he
should have his umbrella nicely rolled, and that his hat should be
brushed to perfection. She liked her papa to be neat, as she was, and
took, in short, a general charge of him, as of all the house.
This, dear reader, is the villain of this history, who is bent on
spoiling, if he can, the hero’s prospects, and working confusion in all
the arrangements of the Eskside family, for the advantage of himself and
his Sandy, the next heir, failing Richard Ross’s problematical children.
But on this particular day when he lifted his little girl into the
coach, and made her comfortable, and smiled at her as she chatted to
him, notwithstanding all his preoccupations, he was not a very bad
villain. He would have liked to turn out to the streets the little
beggar’s brat of whom he had heard such incredible stories, and who was
supposed to be likely to supplant in his lawful inheritance himself and
his handsome boys; but then he had never realised the individuality of
this beggar’s brat, while his heart was very much set upon his own
children and their advantage--a state of mind not very uncommon. He was
as good to little Violet as if he had been an example of all the
virtues, and instead of feeling at all ashamed of so very small a
companion, was as proud of her as if she had been a duchess. To see her
brighten up as the coach rolled on through the green country roads
distracted him for the first time from his all-absorbing anxiety; and as
they came in sight of the village of Lasswade, and he pointed out the
river and the woods and the village houses to little Vi, he almost
forgot all about the barony of Eskside. You would say that evil
intentions could scarcely take very deep root in a heart so occupied;
but human nature is very subtle in its combinations, and it is curious
how easily virtue can sometimes accommodate itself by the side of very
ill neighbours. Mr Pringle had no idea or intention of working mischief,
though mischief might no doubt arise by chance in his path. All that he
wanted, so far as he was aware, was justice, and to make sure that there
was no cuckoo’s egg foisted into the nest at Eskside.