CHAPTER XVIII

THE BOX WITH THE LAUREL-WREATH

SPEID rode home without seeing a step of the way, though he never put

his horse out of a walk; he was like a man inheriting a fortune which

has vanished before he has had time to do more than sign his name to

the document that makes it his. But, in spite of the misery of their

parting, he could not and would not realize that it was final. He was

hot and tingling with the determination to wear down Lady Eliza’s

opposition; for he had decided, with Cecilia’s concurrence or without

it, to see her himself, and to do what he could to bring home to her

the ruin she was making of two lives.

He could not find any justice in her standpoint; if she had refused to

admit him to her house or her acquaintance, there might have been some

reason in her act, but she had acknowledged him as a neighbour, invited

him to Morphie, and had at times been on the verge of friendliness. She

knew that, in spite of any talk that was afloat, he had been well

received by the people of the county, for the fact that he had not

mixed much with them was due to his own want of inclination for the

company offered him. He was quite man of the world enough to see that

his presence was more than welcome wherever mothers congregated who had

daughters to dispose of, and, on one or two occasions of the sort, he

remembered that Lady Eliza had been present, and knew she must have

seen it too.

As he had no false pride, he had also no false humility, for the two

are so much alike that it is only by the artificial light of special

occasions that their difference can be seen. He had believed that Lady

Eliza would be glad to give him Cecilia. He knew very well that the

girl had no fortune, for it was a truth which the female part of the

community were not likely to let a young bachelor of means forget; and

he had supposed that a man who could provide for her, without taking

her four miles from the gates of Morphie, would have been a desirable

suitor in Lady Eliza’s eyes. Her opposition must, as he had been told,

be rooted in an unknown obstacle; but, more ruthless than Cecilia, he

was not going to let the hidden thing rest. He would drag it to the

light, and deal with it as he would deal with anything which stood in

his way to her. Few of us are perfect; Gilbert certainly was not, and

he did not care what Lady Eliza felt. It was not often that he had set

his heart upon a woman, and he had never set his heart and soul upon

one before. If he had not been accustomed to turn back when there was

no soul in the affair, he was not going to do so now that it was a

deeper question.

The curious thing was that, though it went against himself, he admired

Cecilia’s attitude enormously; at the same time, the feeling stopped

short of imitation. While with her he had been unable to go against

her, and the creeping shadow of their imminent parting had wrought a

feeling of exaltation in him which prevented him from thinking clearly.

But that moment had passed. He understood her feelings, and respected

them, but they were not his, and he was going to the root of the matter

without scruple.

For all that, it was with a heavy heart that he stood at his own door

and saw Macquean, who looked upon every horse as a dangerous wild

beast, leading the roan to the stable at the full stretch of his arm.

With a heavier one still he sat, when the household had gone to bed,

contrasting to-night with yesterday. Last night Whanland had been

filled with dreams; to-night it was filled with forebodings. To-morrow

he must collect his ideas, and send his urgent request for an interview

with Lady Eliza Lamont; and, if she refused to see him, he would put

all he meant to ask into writing and despatch the letter by hand to

Morphie.

In his writing-table drawer was the chain with the emerald and diamond

ends, which he had left there in readiness to give to Cecilia, and he

sighed as he took it out, meaning to return it to its iron

resting-place in the room by the cellar. What if it should have to rest

there for years? He opened the little laurel-wreathed box and drew out

the jewel; the drop of green fire lay in his hand like a splash of

magic. Though he had no heart for its beauty to-night, all precious

gems fascinated Gilbert, this one almost more than any he had ever

seen. Emeralds are stones for enchantresses, speaking as they do of

velvet, of poison, of serpents, of forests, of things buried in

enchanted seas, rising and falling under the green moonlight of

dream-countries beyond the bounds of the world. But all he could think

of was that he must hide it away in the dark, when it ought to be lying

on Cecilia’s bosom.

He replaced it in its box, shutting the lid, and went to the

writing-table behind him to close the drawer; as he turned back

quickly, his coat-tail swept the whole thing off the polished mahogany,

and sent it spinning into the darkness. He saw the lid open as it went

and the chain flash into a corner of the room, like a snake with

glittering eyes. He sprang after it, and brought it back to the light

to find it unhurt, then went to recover the box. This was not easy to

do, for the lid had rolled under one piece of furniture and the lower

part under another; but, with the help of a stick, he raked both out of

the shadows, and carried them, one in either hand, to examine them

under the candle. It struck him that, for an object of its size, the

lower half was curiously heavy, and he weighed it up and down,

considering it. As he did so, it rattled, showing that the fall must

have loosened something in its construction. It was a deep box, and its

oval shape did not give the idea that it had been originally made to

hold the chain he had found in it. It was lined with silk which had

faded to a nondescript colour, and he guessed, from the presence of a

tiny knob which he could feel under the thin stuff, that it had a false

bottom and that the protuberance was the spring which opened it. This

had either got out of repair from long disuse, or else its leap across

the floor had injured it, for, press as he might, sideways or

downwards, he could produce no effect. He turned the box upside down,

and the false bottom fell out, broken, upon the table, exposing a

miniature which fitted closely into the real one behind it.

It was the carefully-executed likeness of a young man, whose face set

some fugitive note of association vibrating in him, and made him pause

as he looked, while he mentally reviewed the various ancestors on his

walls. The portrait had been taken full face, which prevented the

actual outline of the features from being revealed, but it was the

expression which puzzled Gilbert by its familiarity. The character of

the eyebrows, drooping at the outer corner of the eyes, gave a certain

look of petulance that had nothing transient and was evidently natural

to the face. He had seen something like it quite lately, though whether

on a human countenance or a painted one, he could not tell. The young

man’s dress was of a fashion which had long died out. Under the glass

was a lock of hair, tied with a twist of gold thread and not unlike his

own in colour, and the gold rim which formed the frame was engraved

with letters so fine as to be almost illegible. He tried to take out

the miniature, but he could not do so, for it was fixed firmly into the

bottom of the box, with the evident purpose of making its concealment

certain. He drew the light close. The sentence running round the band

was ‘_Addio, anima mia_,’ and, in a circle just below the hair, was

engraved in a smaller size these words: ‘_To C. L. from R. F._, 1765.’

He was face to face with the secret of his own life, and, in an

instant, he understood the impression of familiarity produced upon him

by the picture, for the ‘_R. F._’ told him all that he had not

known. There was no drop in his veins of the blood of the race whose

name he bore, for he was no Speid. Now all was plain. He was Robert

Fullarton’s illegitimate son.

He sat in the sleeping house looking at the little box which had

wrecked his hopes more effectually than anything he had experienced

that day. Now he understood Lady Eliza; now he realized how justifiable

was her opposition. How could he, knowing what he knew, and what no

doubt every soul around him knew, stand up before his neighbours and

take Cecilia by the hand? how ask her to share the name which everyone

could say was not his own? how endure that she should face with him a

state of affairs which, for the first time, he clearly understood? He

had been morally certain, before, that the bar sinister shadowed him,

but, though he could have asked her to live under it with him when its

existence was only known to herself and to him, the question being a

social, not an ethical one, it would be an impossibility when the whole

world was aware of it; when the father who could not acknowledge him

was his neighbour. Never should she spend her life in a place where she

might be pointed at as the wife of the nameless man. Ah, how well he

understood Lady Eliza!

But, thoroughly as he believed himself able to appreciate her motives,

he had no idea of the extraordinary mixture of personal feeling in

which they were founded, and he credited her with the sole desire to

save Cecilia from an intolerable position. Though he never doubted that

those among whom he lived were as enlightened as he himself now was,

the substance of the posthumous revival of rumours, attributed by many

to gossip arising from Mr. Speid’s actions after his wife’s death, was,

in reality, the only clue possessed by anyone.

By an act the generosity of which he admired with all his soul, his

so-called father had legitimized him as far as lay in his power. No

person could bring any proof against him of being other than he

appeared, and in the eyes of the law he was as much Speid of Whanland

as the man he had succeeded. He admired him all the more when he

remembered that it was not an overwhelming affection for himself which

had led him to take the step, but pure, abstract justice to a human

being, who, through no fault of his own, had come into the world at a

disadvantage. Nevertheless, whatever his legal position, he was an

interloper, a pretender. He had identified himself with Whanland and

loved every stick and stone in it, but he had been masquerading, for

all that. What a trick she had played him, that beautiful creature upon

the wall!

That the initials painted on the box and engraved on the frame inside

were C. L. and not C. S. proved one thing. However guilty she had been,

it was no transient influence which had ruined Clementina. Had any

chance revealed the miniature’s existence to Mr. Speid, it would have

explained the letter he had received from her father after his own

refusal by her, and it would have shown him an everyday tragedy upon

which he had unwittingly intruded, to his own undoing and to hers. Like

many another, she had given her affections to a younger son--for Robert,

in inheriting Fullarton, had succeeded a brother--and, her parents being

ambitious, the obstacle which has sundered so many since the world

began had sundered these two also. Mr. Lauder was a violent and

determined man, and his daughter, through fear of him, had kept secret

the engagement which she knew must be a forlorn hope so soon as he

should discover it. When chance, which played traitor to the couple,

brought it to light, the sword fell, and Robert, banished from the

presence of the Lauder family, returned to Fullarton and to the society

of his devoted elder brother, who asked no more than that the younger,

so much cleverer than himself, should share all he had. The miniature,

which he had gone to Edinburgh to sit for, and for which he had caused

the little box to be contrived, was conveyed to Clementina with much

difficulty and some bribery. He had chosen Italian words to surround

it, for he had made the ‘grand tour’ with his brother, and had some

knowledge of that language. There is a fashion, even in sentiment, and,

in those days, Italian was as acceptable a vehicle for it to the polite

world as French would be now. She yielded to circumstances which she

had no more strength to fight and married Mr. Speid a couple of years

later; and she kept the relic locked away among her most cherished

treasures. She had not changed, not one whit, and when, at her

husband’s desire, she sat for her portrait to David Martin, then in the

zenith of his work in the Scottish capital, she held the little box in

her hand, telling the painter it was too pretty to go down to oblivion,

and must be immortalized also. Martin, vastly admiring his sitter,

replied gallantly, and poor Clementina, who never allowed her dangerous

treasure to leave her hand, sat in agony till it was painted, and she

could return it to the locked drawer in which it was kept. There was a

vague hope in her mind that the man she had not ceased to love might,

one day, see the portrait and understand the silent message it

contained.

Meanwhile, at Fullarton, Robert, who had been absent when Clementina

came to Whanland as a bride, was trying to cure his grief, and,

superficially, succeeding well enough to make him think himself a

sounder man than he was.

He went about among the neighbours far and near, plunged into the

field-sports he loved, and, in so doing, saw a great deal of Mr.

Lamont, of Morphie, and his sister, a rather peculiar but companionable

young woman, whose very absence of feminine charm made him feel an

additional freedom in her society.

At this time his elder brother, who had a delicate heart, quitted this

world quietly one morning, leaving the household awestruck and Robert

half frantic with grief. In this second sorrow he clung more closely to

his friends, and was more than ever thrown into the company of Lady

Eliza. To her, this period was the halcyon time of her life, and to

him, there is no knowing what it might have become if Clementina Speid

had not returned from the tour she was making with her husband, to find

her old lover installed a few miles from her door. Was ever woman so

conspired against by the caprices of Fate?

Afterwards, when her short life ended in that stirring of conscience

which opened her lips, she confessed all. She had now lain for years

expiating her sin upon the shore by Garviekirk.

And that sin had risen to shadow her son; he remembered how he had been

moved to a certain comprehension on first seeing her pictured face,

without even knowing the sum of the forces against her. Little had he

thought how sorely the price of her misdoing was to fall upon himself.

It would be a heavy price, involving more than the loss of Cecilia, for

it would involve banishment too. He could not stay at Whanland. In

time, possibly, when she had married--he ground his teeth as he told

himself this--when she was the wife of some thrice-fortunate man whose

name was his own, he might return to the things he loved and finish his

life quietly among them. But not this year nor the next, not in five

years nor in ten. He had no more heart for pretence. This was not his

true place; he should never have come to take up a part which the very

gods must have laughed to see him assume. What a dupe, what a fool he

had been!

He would not try to see Cecilia again, but he would write to her, and

she should know how little he had understood his real position when he

had asked for her love--how he had believed himself secure against the

stirring-up of a past which no one was sufficiently certain of to bring

against him; which was even indefinite to himself. She should hear that

he had meant to tell her all he knew, and that he believed in her so

firmly as never to doubt what the result would have been. He would bid

her good-bye, irrevocably this time; for she should understand that,

whatever her own feelings, he would not permit her to share his false

position before a world which might try to make her feel it. He

thought of the lady in the Leghorn bonnet, who had sat on the red sofa

at the Miss Robertsons’ house, and whose chance words had first made

him realize the place Cecilia had in his heart. How she and her like

would delight to exercise their clacking tongues in wounding her! How

they would welcome such an opportunity for the commonplace ill-nature

which was as meat and drink to them! But it was an opportunity he would

not give them.

So he sat on, determining to sacrifice the greater to the less, and, in

the manliness of his soul, preparing to break the heart of the woman he

loved--to whose mind the approval or disapproval of many ladies in

Leghorn bonnets would be unremarkable, could she but call herself his.

In less than a week he had left the country, and, following an instinct

which led him back to the times before he had known Scotland, was on

his way to Spain.

END OF BOOK I

BOOK II

CHAPTER XIX

SIX MONTHS

IT was six months since Gilbert Speid had gone from Whanland. Summer,

who often lingers in the north, had stayed late into September, to be

scared away by the forest fires of her successor, Autumn. The leaves

had dropped, and the ice-green light which spreads above the horizon

after sunset on the east coast had ushered in the winter.

Christmas, little observed in Scotland, was over; the New Year had

brought its yearly rioting and its general flavour of whisky, goodwill,

and demoralization. Many of the county people had resorted to their

‘town-houses’ in Kaims, where card-parties again held their sway, and

Mrs. Somerville, prominent among local hostesses, dispensed a genteel

hospitality.

The friendship between Barclay and Fordyce was well established, for

the young gentleman had paid the lawyer a second visit, even more

soothing to his feelings than the first. In the minds of these allies

Gilbert’s departure had caused a great stir, for Crauford was still at

Kaims when his rival summoned Barclay, and informed him that he was

leaving Whanland for an indefinite time. But, though Fordyce had no

difficulty in deciding that Speid’s action was the result of his being

refused by Cecilia Raeburn, Kaims fitted a new and more elaborate

explanation to the event each time it was mentioned. The matter had

nothing to do with the young lady, said some. Mr. Speid was ruined.

Anyone who did not know of his disastrous West Indian speculations must

have kept his ears very tight shut. And this school of opinion--a male

one--closed its hands on the top of its cane, and assumed an aspect of

mingled caution and integrity. This view was generally expressed in the

street.

In the drawing-rooms more luscious theories throve. Miss Raeburn, as

everyone must have seen, had made a perfect fool of poor Mr. Speid. All

the time she had been flirting--to call it by no worse a name--with that

rich young Fordyce, and had even enticed him back, when his uncle at

last succeeded in getting him out of her way. It was incredible that

Mr. Speid had only now discovered how the land lay! He had taken it

very hard, but surely, he ought to have known what she was! It was

difficult to pity those very blind people. It was also opined that Mr.

Speid’s departure was but another proof of the depravity of those who

set themselves up and were overnice in their airs. He was already a

married man, and justice, in the shape of an incensed Spanish lady--the

mother of five children--had overtaken him while dangling after Miss

Raeburn. With the greatest trouble, the stranger had been got out of

the country unseen. It was a lesson.

Among the few who had any suspicions of the truth, or, at least, of a

part of it, was Barclay; for he had been a young clerk in his father’s

office at the time when the first Mr. Speid left Whanland in much the

same way. He could not help suspecting that something connected with

the mystery he remembered was now driving Gilbert from Scotland, for he

scorned no means of inquiry, and had heard through channels he was not

ashamed to employ, of a demeanour in Cecilia which proved it impossible

that she had sent her lover away willingly. Some obstacle had come

between them which was not money; the lawyer had good reasons for

knowing that there was enough of that. He also knew how devoted Lady

Eliza was to the young woman, and how welcome it would be to her to

have her settled within such easy reach. He did not believe that any

personal dislike on her part had set her against the marriage, for,

however little he liked Gilbert himself, he knew him for a type of man

which does not generally find its enemies among women. He was certain,

in his own mind, that she had stood in the way, and his suspicion of

her reasons for doing so he duly confided to Fordyce, bidding him pluck

up heart; he was willing, he said, to take a heavy bet that a year

hence would see Cecilia at the head of his table. Thus he expressed

himself.

‘And I hope it may often see you at it too,’ rejoined Crauford, with

what he considered a particularly happy turn of phrase. Barclay

certainly found no fault with it.

Though Crauford’s vanity had made the part of rejected one

insupportable, and therefore spurred him forward, he probably had less

true appreciation of Cecilia than any person who knew her, and in the

satisfactory word ‘ladylike’ he had sunk all her wonderful charm and

unobvious, but very certain, beauty; he would have to be a new man

before they could appeal to him as they appealed to Gilbert. What had

really captivated him was her eminent suitability to great-ladyhood,

for the position of being Mrs. Crauford Fordyce was such an important

one in his eyes that he felt it behoved him to offer it immediately, on

finding anyone who could so markedly adorn it.

But, under the manipulation of Barclay, his feelings were growing more

intense, and he lashed himself into a far more ardent state of mind.

The lawyer hated Gilbert with all his heart, and therefore spared no

pains in urging on his rival. His desire to stand well with Fordyce and

his pleasure in frustrating his client jumped the same way, and he had

roused his new friend’s jealousy until he was almost as bitter against

Speid as himself. Crauford, left alone, would probably have recovered

from his disappointment and betaken himself elsewhere, had he not been

stung by Barclay into a consistent pursuit of his object; and, as it

was upon his worst qualities that the lawyer worked, his character was

beginning to suffer. For all the elder man’s vulgarity, he had a great

share of cleverness in dealing with those who had less brains than

himself, and Fordyce was being flattered into an unscrupulousness of

which no one would have believed him capable. He would have done

anything to worst Gilbert.

Meantime, there was consternation at Fordyce Castle. Crauford had no

wish to be more at home than was necessary, and it was only towards the

end of Lady Maria Milwright’s sojourn there that he returned, to find

his mother torn between wrath at his defection and fear lest he should

escape anew. The latter feeling forced her into an acid compliance

towards him, strange to see. But he was impervious to it, and, to the

innocent admiration of Lady Maria, in whose eyes he was something of a

hero, he made no acknowledgment; his mind was elsewhere. Mary and

Agneta looked on timidly, well aware of a volcanic element working

under their feet; and Agneta, who felt rebellion in the air and had

some perception of expediency, made quite a little harvest, obtaining

concessions she had scarce hoped for through her brother, to whom Lady

Fordyce saw herself unable to deny anything in reason. It was a

self-conscious household, and poor Lady Maria, upon whom the whole

situation turned, was the only really peaceful person in it.

Macquean was again in charge of Whanland and of such things as remained

in the house; the stable was empty, the picture which had so influenced

Gilbert was put away with its fellows, and the iron box of jewels had

returned to the bankers. The place was silent, the gates closed.

Before leaving, Speid had gone to Kaims to bid his cousins good-bye,

and had remained closeted with Miss Hersey for over an hour. He said

nothing of his discovery, and made no allusion to the barrier which had

arisen between him and the woman he loved. He only told her that

Cecilia had refused him at Lady Eliza’s wish, and that, in

consequence, he meant to leave a place where he was continually

reminded of her and take his trouble to Spain, that he might fight it

alone. At Miss Hersey’s age there are few violent griefs, though there

may be many regrets, but it was a real sorrow to her to part with her

kinsman, so great was her pride in him. To her, Lady Eliza’s folly was

inexplicable, and the ‘ill-talk’ on account of which she no longer

visited Mrs. Somerville did not so much as enter her mind. Relations

are the last to hear gossip of their kinsfolk, and the rumours of

thirty years back had only reached her in the vaguest form, to be

looked upon by her with the scorn which scurrilous report merits. That

they had the slightest foundation was an idea which had simply never

presented itself. Very few ideas of any kind presented themselves to

Miss Caroline, and to Miss Hersey, none derogatory to her own family.

‘Her ladyship is very wrong, and she will be punished for it,’ said the

old lady, holding her gray head very high. ‘Mr. Speid of Whanland is a

match for any young lady, I can assure her.’

He looked away. Evidently ‘Speid of Whanland’ sounded differently to

himself and to her. He wondered why she did not understand what had

gone against him, but he could not talk about it, even to Miss Hersey.

‘You will find plenty as good as Miss Raeburn,’ she continued. ‘You

should show her ladyship that others know what is to their advantage

better than herself.’

Gilbert sighed, seeing that his point of view and hers could never

meet. Granny Stirk would have understood him, he knew, for she had

tasted life; but this frail, gentle creature had reached that sexless

femininity of mind which comes after an existence spent apart from men.

And he loved her none the less for her lack of comprehension, knowing

the loyalty of her heart.

‘You will come back,’ she said, ‘and, maybe, bring a wife who will put

the like of Miss Raeburn out of your head. I would like to see it,

Gilbert; but Caroline and I are very old, and I think you will have to

look for news of us on the stone in the churchyard. There are just the

two names to come. But, while we are here, you must tell me anything

that I can do for you after you have gone.’

‘I will write to you, ma’am,’ said Speid, his voice a little thick;

‘and, in any case, I mean to ask you a favour before I go.’

She looked at him with loving eyes.

‘I am going to give you my address,’ he said, ‘or, at least, an address

that will eventually find me. I am going to ask you to send me word of

anything that happens to Miss Raeburn.’

‘You should forget her, Gilbert, my dear.’

‘Oh, ma’am! you surely cannot refuse me? I have no one but you of whom

I can ask it.’

‘I will do it, Gilbert.’

It was with this understanding that they parted.

To Jimmy Stirk and his grandmother his absence made a blank which

nothing could fill. The old woman missed his visits and his talk, his

voice and his step, his friendship which had bridged the gulf between

age and youth, between rich and poor. She was hardly consoled by the

occasional visits of Macquean, who would drop in now and then to

recapitulate to her the circumstances of a departure which had never

ceased to surprise him. He was not cut after her pattern, but she

tolerated him for his master’s sake.

From Morphie bits of information had trickled; on the day of his last

visit the servants had let nothing escape them, and Lady Eliza’s face,

as she went about the house, was enough to convince the dullest that

there was tragedy afoot. A maid had been in the passage, who had seen

Gilbert as he left Cecilia.

‘Ye’ll no have gotten any word o’ the laird?’ inquired Granny on one of

the first days of the young year, as Macquean stopped at her door.

‘Na, na.’

The old woman sighed, but made no gesture of invitation. From behind

her, through the open half of the door, Macquean heard the sound of a

pot boiling propitiously, and a comfortable smell reached him where he

stood.

‘A’ was saying that a’ hadna heard just very muckle,’ continued he, his

nostrils wide--‘just a sma’ word----’

‘Come away in-by,’ interrupted the Queen of the Cadgers, standing back,

and holding the door generously open. ‘Maybe ye’ll take a suppie brose;

they’re just newly made. Bide till a’ gie ye spune to them.’

It was warm inside the cottage, and he entered, and felt the contrast

between its temperature and that of the sharp January air with

satisfaction. Granny tipped some of the savoury contents of the black

pot into a basin.

‘What was it ye was hearin’ about the laird?’ she asked, as she added a

horn spoon to the concoction, and held it out to him.

‘Aw! it was just Wullie Nicol. He was sayin’ that he was thinkin’ the

laird was clean awa’ now. It’s a piecie cauld, d’ye no think?’ replied

Macquean, as well as he could for the pleasures of his occupation.

‘But what else was ye to tell me?’ she said, coming nearer.

‘There was nae mair nor that. Yon’s grand brose.’

With the exception of the old ladies in the close, no one but Barclay

had heard anything of Speid. Macquean received his wages from the

lawyer, and everything went on as it had done before Gilbert’s return,

now more than a year since. Business letters came to Barclay at

intervals, giving no address and containing no news of their writer,

which were answered by him to a mail office in Madrid. To any

communication which he made outside the matter in hand there was no

reply. Miss Hersey had written twice, and whatever she heard in return

from Speid she confided only to her sister. It was almost as though he

had never been among them. The little roan hack and the cabriolet with

the iron-gray mare were sold. As Wullie Nicol had said, he was ‘clean

awa’ now.’

Gilbert’s one thought, when he found himself again on Spanish soil, was

to obliterate each trace and remembrance of his life in Scotland, and

he set his face to Madrid. On arriving, he began to gather round him

everything which could help him to re-constitute life as it had been in

Mr. Speid’s days, and, though he could not get back the house in which

he had formerly lived, he settled not far from it with a couple of

Spanish servants and began to wonder what he should do with his time.

Nothing interested him, nothing held him. Old friends came flocking

round him and he forced himself to respond to their cordiality; but he

had no heart for them or their interests, for he had gone too far on

that journey from which no one ever returns the same, the road to the

knowledge of the strength of fate. Señor Gilbert was changed, said

everyone; it was that cold north which had done it. The only wonder was

that it had not killed him outright. And, after a time, they let him

alone.

Miss Hersey’s letters did not tell him much; she heeded little of what

took place outside her own house and less since he had gone; only when

Sunday brought its weekly concourse to her drawing-room did she come

into touch with the people round her. Of Lady Eliza, whose Presbyterian

devotions were sheltered by Morphie kirk and who made no visits, she

saw nothing. Now and then the news would reach Spain that ‘Miss Raeburn

was well’ or that ‘Miss Raeburn had ridden into Kaims with her

ladyship,’ but that was all. Gilbert had wished to cut himself

completely adrift and he had his desire. The talk made by his departure

subsided as the circles subside when a stone has been dropped in a

duckpond; only Captain Somerville, seeing Cecilia’s face, longed to

pursue him to the uttermost parts of the earth, and, with oaths and

blows, if need be, to bring him back.

CHAPTER XX

ROCKET

THE January morning was moist and fresh as Lady Eliza and Cecilia

Raeburn, with a groom following them, rode towards that part of the

country where the spacious pasture-land began. The sun was at their

backs and their shadows were shortening in front of them as it rose

higher. The plum-coloured riding-habit was still in existence, a little

more weather-stained, and holding together with a tenacity that

provoked Cecilia, who had pronounced it unfit for human wear and been

disregarded.

Rocket, the bay mare, was pulling at her rider and sidling along the

road, taking no count of remonstrance, for she had not been out for

several days.

‘I wish you had taken Mayfly, aunt,’ remarked Cecilia, whose horse

walked soberly beside his fidgeting companion.

‘And why, pray?’ inquired the other, testily.

‘Rocket has never seen hounds and I am afraid she will give you some

trouble when she does. At any rate, she will tire you out.’

‘Pshaw!’ replied Lady Eliza.

Six months had passed Cecilia, bringing little outward change, though,

thinking of them, she felt as though six years had gone by in their

stead; her spirits were apparently as even, her participation in her

aunt’s interests apparently the same, for she was one who, undertaking

a resolve, did not split it into two and fulfil the half she liked

best. Each of our acts is made of two parts, the spirit and the

letter, and it is wonderful how nominally honest people will divide

them. Not that there is aught wrong in the division; the mistake lies

in taking credit for the whole. She had resolved to pay for her aunt’s

peace of mind with her own happiness, as it seemed that it could be

bought at no other price, and she was determined that that peace of

mind should be complete. She gave full measure and the irrevocableness

of her gift helped her to go on with her life. It was curious that a

stranger, lately introduced to her, and hearing that she lived with

Lady Eliza Lamont, had called her ‘Mrs. Raeburn,’ in the belief that

she was a widow. It was not an unnatural mistake, for there was

something about her that suggested it. Her one day’s engagement to her

lover was a subject never touched upon by the two women. Once, Lady

Eliza had suspected that all was not well with her and had spoken; once

in her life Cecilia had fostered a misunderstanding.

‘I could not have married him,’ she had replied; ‘I have thought over

it well.’

No tone in her voice had hinted at two interpretations, and the elder

woman had read the answer by the light of her own feelings.

The laird with whose harriers they were to hunt that day lived at a

considerable distance. It was not often, in those times before railways

and horse-boxes were invented, that there was hunting of any sort

within reach of Morphie. There were no foxhounds in the county and no

other harriers, though Lady Eliza had, for years, urged Fullarton to

keep them; but the discussion had always ended in his saying that he

could not afford such an expense and in her declaring that she would

keep a pack herself. But things had gone on as they were, and a dozen

or so of days in a season was all that either could generally get. This

year she had only been out twice.

The meet was at a group of houses too small to be called a village, but

distinguished by the presence of a public-house and the remains of an

ancient stone cross. A handful of gentlemen, among whom was Robert

Fullarton, had assembled on horseback when they arrived, and these,

with a few farmers, made up the field. Cecilia and her aunt were the

only females in the little crowd, except a drunken old woman whose

remarks were of so unbridled a nature that she had to be taken away

with some despatch, and the wife of the master, who, drawn up

decorously in a chaise at a decent distance from the public-house, cast

scathing looks upon Lady Eliza’s costume. Urchins, ploughmen, and a few

nondescript men who meant to follow on foot, made a background to the

hounds swarming round the foot of the stone cross and in and out

between the legs of the whips’ horses. The pack, a private one,

consisted of about fifteen couple.

Rocket, who expressed her astonishment at the sight of hounds by

lashing out at them whenever occasion served, was very troublesome and

her rider was obliged to keep her pacing about outside the fringe of

bystanders until they moved off; she could not help wishing she had

done as Cecilia suggested. The mare was always hot and now she bid fair

to weary her out, snatching continually at her bit and never standing

for a moment.

‘Her ladyship is very fond of that mare,’ observed Robert, as he and

Cecilia found themselves near each other. ‘Personally, good-looking as

she is, I could never put up with her. She has no vice, though.’

‘It is her first sight of hounds,’ said his companion, ‘and no other

person would have the patience to keep her as quiet as she is. My

aunt’s saddle could so easily be changed on to Mayfly. She will be worn

out before the day is over.’

‘He will be a bold man who suggests it,’ said he, with a smile which

irritated her unreasonably.

‘If he were yourself, sir, he might succeed. There’s Mayfly behind that

tree with James. It could be done in a moment.’

‘It is not my affair, my dear young lady,’ said he.

They were in a part of the country where they could no longer see the

Grampians as they looked into the eastern end of the Vale of

Strathmore. Brown squares of plough land were beginning to vary the

pastures, and, instead of the stone walls--or ‘dykes,’ as they are

called on the coast--the fields were divided by thorn hedges, planted

thick, and, in some cases, strengthened with fencing. On their right,

the ground ran up to a fringe of scrub and whins under which dew was

still grey round the roots; the spiders’ webs, threading innumerable

tiny drops, looked like pieces of frosted wool, as they spread their

pigmy awnings between the dried black pods of the broom and the hips of

the rose briers.

The rank grass and the bracken had been beaten almost flat by the

storms of winter, and they could get glimpses of the pack moving about

among the bare stems and the tussocks. Fullarton and Cecilia stood in

the lower ground with Lady Eliza, whose mare had quieted down a good

deal as the little handful of riders spread further apart.

As the three looked up, from the outer edge of the undergrowth a brown

form emerged and sped like a silent arrow down the slope towards the

fields in front of them; a quiver of sound came from the whins as a

hound’s head appeared from the scrub. Then, in an instant, the air was

alive with music, and the pack, like a white ribbon, streamed down the

hillside. The whip came slithering and sliding down the steepest part

of the bank, dispersing that portion of the field which had

injudiciously taken up its position close to its base, right and left.

The two women and Fullarton, who were well clear of the rising ground,

took their horses by the head, and Robert’s wise old horse, with

nostrils dilated and ears pointing directly on the hounds, gave an

appreciative shiver; Rocket lifted her forefeet, then, as she felt the

touch of Lady Eliza’s heel, bounded forward through the plough.

They were almost in line as they came to the low fence which stretched

across their front, and, beyond which, the hounds were running in a

compact body. Rocket, who had been schooled at Morphie, jumped well in

the paddock, and, though Cecilia turned rather anxiously in her saddle

when she had landed on the further side of the fence, she saw, with

satisfaction, that Lady Eliza was going evenly along some forty yards

wide of her. They had got a better start than anyone else, but the rest

of the field was coming up and there seemed likely to be a crush at a

gate ahead of them which was being opened by a small boy. Fullarton

ignored it and went over the hedge; his horse, who knew many things,

and, among them, how to take care of himself, measuring the jump to an

inch and putting himself to no inconvenience. In those days few women

really rode to hounds, and, to those present who had come from a

distance, Lady Eliza and her niece were objects of some astonishment.

‘Gosh me!’ exclaimed a rough old man on a still rougher pony, as he

came abreast of Cecilia, ‘I’ll no say but ye can ride bonnie! Wha

learned ye?’

‘My aunt,’ replied she.

‘Will yon be her?’ he inquired, shifting his ash plant into his left

hand and pointing with his thumb.

She assented.

‘Gosh!’ said he again, as he dropped behind.

They were running straight down the strath along the arable land; the

fields were large and Cecilia was relieved to see that Rocket was

settling down and that, though she jumped big, she was carrying Lady

Eliza well. The horse she herself was riding had a good mouth, and

liked hounds; and when they turned aside up a drain, and, crossing the

high road, were running through more broken ground, she found herself

almost the only person with them, except the master, the first whip,

and Fullarton, who was coming up behind. They were heading rather

north-west and were in sight of the Grampians again, and dykes began to

intersect the landscape. Now and then, patches of heather and bits of

swamp intruded themselves on the cultivation. Though they had really

only come a very few miles, they had got into a different part of the

world, and she was beginning to think they would have a long ride home,

considering how far they had come to the meet and how steadily they had

been running inland, when the hounds checked in a small birch

plantation. The fresh air blew from the hills through the leafless

silver stems and the heavy clouds which hung over them seemed laden

with coming rain. The ground had been rising all the way and some of

the horses were rather blown, for, though the ascent was gradual, they

had come fast. The old man on the rough pony got off and stood, the

rein over his arm, on the outskirts of the trees; though he weighed

fifteen stone he had the rudiments of humanity and his beast’s rough

coat was dripping.

‘I’m thinking I’ll awa’ hame,’ he remarked to an acquaintance.

Cecilia was just looking round for Lady Eliza when an old hound’s

tongue announced his discovery, and the pack made once more, with their

heads down, for the lower ground.

‘Down again to the fields, I do believe,’ said Fullarton’s voice. ‘That

horse of yours carries you perfectly, Cecilia.’

‘Do you know anything of my aunt?’ said she, as the hounds turned into

a muddy lane between high banks.

‘She was going well when I saw her,’ he replied. ‘I think she wants to

save Rocket as it is her first day. It does not do to sicken a horse

with hounds at the beginning. Yes, there they go--westward again--down

to the strath. I doubt but they changed their hare in the birches.’

In the first quarter of an hour he had observed how Rocket’s vehemence

was giving way to the persuasion of Lady Eliza’s excellent hands, and

how well the mare carried her over the fences they met. It was a

pleasure to see her enjoying herself, he thought; of late, he had

feared she was ageing, but to-day, she might be twenty-five, as far as

nerve or spirits were concerned. What a wonderful woman she was, how

fine a horsewoman, how loyal a friend! It did him good to see her

happy. It was a pity she had never married, though he could not imagine

her in such a situation and he smiled at the idea. But it _was_ a

pity. It looked as if Cecilia would go the same way, though he could

imagine her married well enough. Two suitors in a year, both young,

both well-off, both well-looking and both sent about their business--one

even as far as Spain! The girl was a fool.

But, meanwhile, in spite of Fullarton’s satisfaction, Lady Eliza had

not got much good out of her day. It was when she was crossing the road

that she felt the mare going short; she was a little behind her

companions, and, by the time she had pulled up and dismounted, they

were galloping down the further side of the hedge which bounded it.

Though Rocket was resting her near foreleg she would hardly stand for a

moment; with staring eyes and head in the air she looked after the

vanishing field and Lady Eliza could hardly get near her to examine the

foot which, she suspected, had picked up a stone. She twisted round and

round, chafing and snatching at the reins; she had not had enough to

tire her in the least degree and her blood was up at the unwonted

excitement and hot with the love of what she had seen. Lady Eliza had

given orders to the groom who was riding Mayfly to keep the direction

of the hounds in his eye and to have the horse waiting, as near to

where they finished as possible, for her to ride home; as Fullarton had

said, she did not want to give Rocket a long day, and she meant, unless

the hounds were actually running, to leave them in the early afternoon.

Probably he was not far off at this moment; but, looking up and down

the road, she could see no one, not even a labourer nor a tramp. She

stood exasperated by the short-sighted stupidity of the beast. Again

and again she tried to take the foot up, but Rocket persisted in

swerving whenever she came near; of all created beings, a horse can be

the most enraging.

At last she got in front of her, and, slipping the reins over her arm,

bent down, raising the foot almost by main force; wedged tightly

between the frog and the shoe was a three-cornered flint.

She straightened herself with a sigh, for she felt that there was no

chance of seeing hounds again that day. The stone was firm and it would

take some time to dislodge it. She led the mare to a sign-post which

stood at the roadside with all the officious, pseudo-human air of such

objects, and tied her silly head short to it; then, having wedged her

knee between her own knees, after the manner of smiths, began to hammer

the flint with another she had picked up on a stone-heap. The thing was

as tightly fixed in the foot as if it had grown there.

When, at last, she had succeeded in getting it out, her back was so

stiff that she sat down on a milestone which stood close by, offering

information to the world, and began to clean her gloves, which her

occupation had made very dirty. There was no use in galloping, for the

whole field must be miles away by this time, and her only chance of

coming up with it was the possibility of the hounds doubling back on

the road. She determined to stay about the place where she was and

listen. She mounted from her milestone, after endless frustrated

attempts, and walked Rocket as quietly along the road as she could

prevail upon her to go; luck was undoubtedly against her.

Has any reader of mine ever ridden in the pitch-dark, unwitting that

there is another horse near, and been silently apprized of the fact by

the manner of going of the one under him? If so, he will know the exact

sensations which Rocket communicated to her rider. Lady Eliza’s

attention was centred in the distance in front of her, but she became

aware, through the mare, that an unseen horse was not far off. In

another moment, she saw the rough pony and the rough old man who had

accosted Cecilia emerging from a thicket half-way up the slope above

her.

‘What ails ye?’ he enquired, as he reached the road and observed, from

her looks, that she had been struggling with something.

‘Have you seen the hounds?’ she cried, ignoring his question.

‘I’m awa’ hame,’ replied he, on the same principle.

‘But which way have the hounds gone? God bless me! can’t you hear?’ she

cried, raising her voice louder.

‘Awa’ there!’ he shouted, waving his arm in the direction in which she

was going. ‘A’ saw them coming doon again as a’ cam’ ower the brae;

they’ll be doon across the road by this. Awa’ ye go!’

Before the words were well out of his mouth she was off, scattering a

shower of liquid mud over him.

‘Fiech! ye auld limmer!’ he exclaimed, as he rubbed his face, watching

her angrily out of sight.

As she came to a bit of road where the land sloped away gently to her

left, she saw the hounds--who, as Fullarton guessed, had changed their

hare--in the fields below her. They had checked again, as they crossed

the highway, and just where she stood, there was a broken rail in the

fence. She could tell by the marks in the mud that they had gone over

it at that spot. She had an excellent chance of seeing something of the

sport yet, for Rocket was as fresh as when she had come out and the

land between her and the hounds was all good grass.

She turned her at the broken rail, riding quietly down the slope; then,

once on the level ground of the strath, she set her going.

She put field after field behind her; for though, on the flat, she

could not see far ahead, the ground was wet and the hoof-prints were

deep enough to guide her. Rocket could gallop, and, in spite of her

recent sins, she began to think that she liked her better than ever.

She had bought her on her own initiative, having taken a fancy to her

at a sale, and had ridden her for more than a year. It was from her

back that she had first seen Gilbert Speid at Garviekirk. Fullarton,

while admitting her good looks, had not been enthusiastic, and Cecilia

had said that she was too hot and tried to dissuade her from the

purchase; she remembered that she had been very much put out with the

girl at the time and had asked her whether she supposed her to be made

of anything breakable. Her niece had said ‘no,’ but added that she

probably would be when she had ridden the mare. Cecilia could be vastly

impudent when she chose; her aunt wondered if she had been impudent to

Fordyce. She did not pursue the speculation, for, as she sailed through

an open gate, she found herself in the same field with the tail end of

the hunt and observed that some of the horses looked as though they had

had enough. There must have been a sharp burst, she suspected, while

she was struggling with Rocket near the sign-post. Evidently Fullarton

and Cecilia were in front.

She passed the stragglers, and saw Robert’s old black horse labouring

heavily in a strip of plough on the near side of a stout thickset hedge

which hid the hounds from her view. Rocket saw him too and began to

pull like a fiend; her stall at Morphie was next to the one in which he

invariably stood when his master rode there; that being frequently, she

knew him as well as she did her regular stable companions. Lady Eliza

let her go, rejoicing to have recovered the ground she had lost, and to

be likely, after all her difficulties, to see the end of her morning’s

sport.

Fullarton was making for a thin place in the hedge, for his horse was

getting tired and he was a heavy man; besides which, he knew that there

was a deep drop on the other side. She resolved to take it at the same

gap and began to hold Rocket hard, in order to give him time to get

over before she was upon him.

But Rocket did not understand. The wisdom of the old hunter was not

hers and she only knew that the woman on her back meant to baulk her

of the glories in front. Her rider tried to pull her wide of the black

horse, but in vain; she would have the same place. Robert was about

twenty yards from her when he jumped and she gathered herself together

for a rush. Lady Eliza could not hold her.

To her unutterable horror, just as the mare was about to take off, she

saw that Robert’s horse had stumbled in landing and was there, in front

of her--below her--recovering his feet on the grass.

With an effort of strength which those who witnessed it never forgot,

she wrenched Rocket’s head aside, almost in mid-air. As they fell

headlong, she had time, before her senses went, to see that she had

attained her object.

For Fullarton stood, unhurt, not five paces from where she lay.

CHAPTER XXI

THE BROKEN LINK

IN an upper room, whose window looked into a mass of bare branches,

Lady Eliza lay dying. This last act she was accomplishing with a

deliberation which she had given to nothing else in her life; for it

was two days since the little knot of horrified sportsmen had lifted

her on to the hurdle which someone had run to fetch from a neighbouring

farm. Rocket, unhurt, but for a scratch or two, had rolled over her

twice and she had not fallen clear.

The hounds had just killed when Cecilia, summoned by a stranger who had

pursued her for nearly half a mile, came galloping back to find her

unconscious figure laid upon the grass. The men who stood round made

way for her as she sprang from her horse. She went down on her knees

beside her aunt and took one of her helpless hands.

‘She is not dead?’ she said, looking at Fullarton with wild eyes.

She was not dead, and, but for a few bruises, there were no marks to

show what had happened; for her injuries were internal, and, when, at

last, the endless journey home was over and the two doctors from Kaims

had made their examination, Cecilia had heard the truth. The

plum-coloured habit might be put away, for its disreputable career was

done and Lady Eliza would not need it again. She had had her last ride.

In a few days she would come out of the house; but, for the first time,

perhaps, since it had known her, she would pass the stable door without

going in.

She had been carried every step of the way home, Cecilia and Fullarton

riding one on either side, and, while someone had gone to Kaims for a

doctor, another had pushed his tired horse forward to Morphie to get a

carriage. But, when it met them a few miles from the end of their

march, it had been found impossible to transfer her to it, for

consciousness was returning and each moment was agony. The men had

expressed their willingness to go on, and Robert, though stiff from his

fall, had taken his turn manfully. A mattress had been spread on the

large dining-room table and on it they had laid the hurdle with its

load. Another doctor had been brought from the town to assist his

partner in the examination he thought fit to make before risking the

difficult transport upstairs. Fullarton, when it was over, had taken

one of the men apart. It might be hours, it might even be a couple of

days, he was told. It was likely that there would be suffering, but

there would be no pain at the end, he thought. The spine, as well as

other organs, was injured.

And so, at last, they had carried her up to her own room. Cecilia was

anxious to have one on the ground-floor made ready, but she had prayed

to be taken to the familiar place, and the doctors, knowing that

nothing could avail now, one way or the other, had let her have her

will.

She had never had any doubts about her own condition. Before Cecilia

nerved herself to tell her the verdict that had been passed, she had

spoken.

‘Cecilia, my little girl,’ she had said, ‘what will become of you? What

will you do? If it were not for you, child, God knows I should not mind

going. But I can do nothing for you.’

‘If I could only go with you,’ whispered Cecilia, laying her face down

on the sheet.

‘Perhaps I was wrong,’ continued Lady Eliza, ‘perhaps I have done harm.

I knew how little I could leave you; there were others who would have

taken you. And you were such a nice little girl, Cecilia, but so thin

and shy ... and I shall not see you for a long time ... we went to see

the horses ... look, child!... tell James to come here. Can’t you see

that the mare’s head-collar is coming off?... Run, Cecilia, I tell you!’

In the intervals between the pain and delirium which tortured her for

the first few nights and days, her one cry was about Cecilia--what would

become of Cecilia?

Through the dark hours the girl sat soothing her and holding the

feverish hand as she listened to the rambling talk. Now she was with

the horses, now back in the old days when her brother was alive, now

talking to Fullarton, now straying among the events of the past months;

but always returning again to what weighed on her mind, Cecilia’s

future. Occasionally she would speak to her as though she were

Fullarton, or Fordyce, or even James the groom. Worst of all were the

times when her pain was almost more than she could bear.

A woman had been got from the town to help in nursing her, a good

enough soul, but, with one of those strange whims which torment the

sick, Lady Eliza could not endure her in the room, and she sat in the

dressing-room waiting to do anything that was wanted. Trained nurses

were unknown outside hospitals in those days.

Robert had remained all night at Morphie after the accident and had sat

by the bedside while she was conscious of his presence.

‘I owe you my life,’ he said to her; ‘oh, Eliza! why did you do that?

My worthless existence could have so well been spared!’

He went home in the morning, to return again later, and Cecilia, who

had been resting, went back to her post. The doctor now said that his

patient might linger for days and departed to his business in Kaims for

a few hours.

‘Robert!’ said Lady Eliza, suddenly.

‘It is I, ma’am; here I am,’ answered the girl, laying her fingers upon

her arm; there was no recognition in the eyes which stared, with

unnatural brilliance, into her face.

‘Robert,’ said the voice from the bed, ‘I can never go to Whanland; you

shall not try to take me there ... she is not there--I know that very

well--she is out on the sands--dead and buried under the sand---- But

she can’t marry him.... I could never see her if she went to

Whanland.... How can I part with her? Cecilia, you will not go?’

‘Here I am, dearest aunt, here I am.’ She leaned over Lady Eliza. ‘You

can see me; I am close to you.’

‘Is that impostor gone?’ asked Lady Eliza.

‘Yes, yes, he has gone,’ answered Cecilia, in a choked voice.

A look came into Lady Eliza’s face as though her true mind were

battling, like a swimmer, with the waves of delirium.

‘I have never told Cecilia that he is Fullarton’s son,’ she said, ‘I

have never told anyone.... She was a bad woman--she has taken him from

me and now her son will take my little girl.... Mr. Speid, your face is

cut--come away--come away. Cecilia, we will go to the house.... But that

is Fullarton standing there. Robert, I want to say something to you.

Robert, you know I did not mean to speak like that! Dear Robert, have

you forgiven me?... But what can I do about my little girl? What can I

do for her, Fullarton?’

She held Cecilia’s fingers convulsively. The girl kept her hand closed

round the feeble one on the bed-cover, as though she would put her own

life and strength into it with her grasp; she fancied sometimes that it

quieted the sick woman in some strange way. She sat behind the curtain

like a stone; there was little time to think over what she had just

heard, for the wheels of the doctor’s gig were sounding in the avenue

and she must collect herself to meet him. He was to stay for the night.

But now everything that had been dark was plain to her. Her lover was

Fullarton’s son! Down to the very depths she saw into her aunt’s heart,

and tears, as hot as any she had shed for her own griefs, fell from her

eyes.

‘Thank God, I did what I could for her,’ she said.

The night that followed was quieter than the one preceding it and she

sat up, having had a long rest, insisting that the doctor should go to

bed; while her aunt’s mind ran on things which were for her ears alone,

she did not wish for his presence. Towards morning he came in and

forced her to leave the bedside, and, worn out, she slept on till it

was almost noon. She awoke to find him standing over her.

‘Lady Eliza is conscious,’ he said, ‘and she is not suffering--at least,

not in body. But she is very uneasy and anxious to see you. I fancy

there is something on her mind. Do what you can to soothe her, Miss

Raeburn, for I doubt if she will last the day; all we can hope for her

now is an easy death.’

Lady Eliza lay with her eyes closed; as Cecilia entered she opened them

and smiled. She went to the bed.

‘How tired you look,’ said Lady Eliza. ‘It will soon be over, my dear,

and we shall have parted at last. Don’t cry, child. What a good girl

you have been! Ah, my dear, I could die happy if it were not for you. I

have nothing to leave you but a few pounds a year and my own belongings

and the horses. Morphie will go to relations I have never seen. What am

I to do for you? What are you to do? Oh, Cecilia! I should have laid by

more. But I never thought of this--of dying like this--and I looked to

your marrying. I have been a bad friend to you--I see that now that I

come to lie here.’

‘If you speak in that way you will break my heart,’ said Cecilia,

covering her face with her hands.

‘Come close; come where I can see you. You must make me a promise,’

said Lady Eliza; ‘you must promise me that you will marry. Crauford

Fordyce will come back--I know that he will, for Fullarton has told me

so. I said it was useless, but that is different now. Cecilia, I can’t

leave you like this, with no one to protect you and no money--promise me

when he comes, that you will say yes.’

‘Oh, aunt! oh, dear aunt!’ cried Cecilia. ‘Oh, not that, not that!’

‘Promise me,’ urged Lady Eliza.

‘Oh, anything but that--do not ask me that! There is only one man in the

world I can ever love. It is the same now as on the day he left.’

‘Love is not for everybody,’ said Lady Eliza, slowly. ‘Some have to do

without it all their lives.’

There was no sound in the room for a little time.

‘The world looks different now,’ began Lady Eliza again; ‘I don’t know

if I was right to do as I did about Gilbert Sp--about Whanland. I am a

wicked woman, my dear, and I cannot forgive--but you don’t know about

that.’

‘If he comes back, aunt--if he comes back?’

‘But you cannot wait all your life for that. He is gone and he has said

he will not come back. Put that away from you; I am thinking only of

you--believe me, my darling. I beg of you, Cecilia, I pray you. You know

I shall never be able to ask anything again, soon.’

‘Give me time,’ she sobbed, terribly moved.

‘In a year, Cecilia--in a year?’

Cecilia rose and went to the window. Outside, over the bare boughs,

some pigeons from the dovecot were whirling in the air. Her heart was

tortured within her. Crauford was almost abhorrent to her but it seemed

as though the relentless driving of fate were forcing her towards him.

She saw no escape. Why had Gilbert gone! His letter had made no mention

of Fullarton’s name and he had only written that he could not ask her

to share with him a position, which, as he now knew, was thoroughly

understood by the world and which she would find unbearable. In his

honesty, he had said nothing that should make her think of him as

anything but a bygone episode in her life, no vow of love, none of

remembrance. Even if she knew where he had gone she could not appeal to

him after that. She looked back at Lady Eliza’s face on the pillow,

now so white, with the shadow of coming death traced on it. She had

thought that she had given up all to buy her peace, but it seemed as if

there were still a higher price to be paid. As she thought of Crauford,

of his dull vanity, of his slow perceptions, of his all-sufficing

egotism, she shuddered. His personality was odious to her. She hated

his heavy, smooth, coarse face and his heavier manner, never so hateful

as when he deemed himself most pleasant. She must think of herself, not

as a woman with a soul and a body, but as a dead thing that can neither

feel nor hope. What mattered it what became of her now? She had lost

all, absolutely all. It only remained for her to secure a quiet end to

the one creature left her for a pitiful few hours.

She went back and stood by the pillow. The dumb question that met her

touched her to the heart.

‘I will promise what you wish,’ she said, steadily. ‘In a year I will

marry him if he asks me. But if, if’--she faltered for a moment and

turned away--‘not if Gilbert Speid comes back. Aunt, tell me that I have

made you happy!’

‘I can rest now,’ said Lady Eliza.

In spite of the predictions of the doctor, the days went on and still

she lingered, steadily losing strength, but with a mind at ease and a

simple acceptance of her case. She had not cared for Crauford, but he

would stand between Cecilia and a life of poverty, of even possible

hardship, and she knew that his faults were those that could only

injure himself. He would never be unkind to his wife, she felt sure.

The world was too bad a place for a beautiful young woman to stand

alone in, and Gilbert would not come back. Why should he when the

causes of his going could not be altered? Now, lying at the gate of

another life, this one, as she said, looked different. Cecilia had told

her, months ago, that she could never marry Speid, but her vision had

cleared enough to show her that she should not have believed her.

However, he was gone.

Her mind was generally clear now: bouts of pain there were, and, at

night, hours of wandering talk; but her days were calm, and, as life

lost its grip, suffering was loosening its hold too.

It was late one night when Cecilia, grudging every moment spent away

from the bedside, saw that a change had come over her. She had been

sleeping, more the sleep of exhaustion than of rest, and, as she awoke,

the girl knew that their parting must be near. The doctor was due at

any moment, for he slept at Morphie every night, going to his other

patients in the day; he was a hard-worked man. She sat listening for

his coming.

The house was very quiet as she heard his wheels roll into the

courtyard. His answer to her question was the one she expected; there

was little time left. She ran out to the stable herself and sent a man

on horseback to Fullarton.

‘Lose no time,’ she said, as she saw him turn away.

When she re-entered the room the doctor looked at her with meaning

eyes.

‘I feel very weak,’ said Lady Eliza, ‘don’t go far from me, my dear.

Cecilia, is Fullarton here?’

‘I have sent for him.’

She took her seat again within sight of the eyes that always sought her

own; they were calm now and she knew that the chain which had held the

passing soul back from peace was broken, for she had broken it with her

own hand. Whatever the consequences, whatever she might be called upon

to go through, she was glad. When the time should come to face the

cost, she would find courage for it.

‘You do not wish to see the minister again?’ she asked, in a little

time. He had visited Lady Eliza once.

‘There is no more to say. Cecilia, do you think I shall go before

Fullarton comes?’

‘I have told them to be quick. They have taken Rocket.’

‘Oh--Rocket. I shall not see Rocket again. She was a good mare. But I

must not think of that now; perhaps I have thought too much of horses.’

It was nearly an hour since her messenger had gone when Cecilia looked

anxiously at the clock. The doctor had given Lady Eliza what stimulant

she could swallow to keep her alive till Fullarton should come, and,

though she could scarcely turn her head, her dying ears were listening

for his step at the door. It came at last.

‘I am here, my lady,’ he whispered, as he took Cecilia’s place.

‘I have been wearying for you, Robert,’ she said, ‘it is time to say

good-bye. You have been good to me.’

He slipped his arm under the pillow and raised her till her head leaned

against his shoulder. She was past feeling pain. Instead of the wig she

had always insisted upon wearing, a few light locks of her own grey

hair strayed on her forehead from under the lace-edged scarf Cecilia

had put round her, softening her face. She looked strangely young.

Robert could not speak.

‘Eliza----’ he began, but his voice broke.

‘Be good to Cecilia, Fullarton. My little girl--if I had done

differently----’

Cecilia rose from her knees and leaned over Fullarton to kiss her.

‘Aunt, I have promised. All will be well with me.’

‘Yes, yes, I know. I am happy. Robert----’

With an effort she raised her hand, whiter, more fragile than when he

had admired it as they sat in the garden; even in her death she

remembered that moment. And, as, for the first and last time in her

life, he laid his lips upon it, the light in her eyes went out.

* * * * *

It was nearing sunrise when he left Cecilia in the dark house, and

daylight was beginning to look blue through the chinks of the shutter

as it met the shine of the candles.

‘I will come back to-day,’ he said; ‘there will be a great many things

I must help you about. To-morrow you must come to Fullarton.’

‘And leave her?’ she exclaimed.

‘If her friendship for me had been less,’ said he, as they parted,

‘you and I would have been happier to-day. My God! what a sacrifice!’

‘Do you call that friendship?’ she cried, facing him, straight and

white in the dimness of the hall. ‘Is _that_ what you call friendship?

Mr. Fullarton, have you never understood?’

* * * * *

Fullarton rode home in the breaking morning, his long coat buttoned

high round his neck. It was chilly and the new day was rising on a

world poor and grey, a world which, yesterday, had held more than he

understood, and to-day, would hold less than he needed. His loss was

heavy on him and he knew that he would feel it more each hour. But what

bore him down was the tardy understanding of what he had done when he

forged the link just broken. He had accepted a life as a gift, without

thanks and without the knowledge of what he did, for he had been too

intent upon himself to see the proportions of anything.

Now only was he to realize how much she had lightened for him the

burden of his barren life. How often he had seen in her face the

forgiveness of his ungracious words, the condoning of his little

selfishnesses, how often known her patience with his ill-humours! She,

who was so impatient, had she ever been ungentle with him? Once only.

It was not so many months since she had asked his pardon for it as they

sat on the garden bench. With what magnanimity he had forgiven her!

He entered the house and sat down at the pale fire which a housemaid

had just lit. His heart was too worn, too numb, too old for tears; it

could only ache. His butler, an Englishman who had been with him twenty

years, came in and put some wine on the table, but he did not turn his

head; the man poured out a glass and brought it to him.

‘It will do you good, sir,’ he said, ‘and your bed is ready upstairs.

You should try to sleep, sir, if you are going to see her ladyship

again to-day.’

Robert looked up.

‘Her ladyship is dead,’ he said.

CHAPTER XXII

CECILIA SEES THE WILD GEESE

THERE are some periods in life when the heart, from very excess of

misery, finds a spurious relief; when pain has so dulled the nerves,

that, hoping nothing, fearing nothing, we sink into an endurance that

is not far from peace.

Thus it was with Cecilia Raeburn. When the vault in the little cemetery

between Morphie House and Morphie Kirk had been closed over Lady Eliza,

Robert brought her and all her belongings to Fullarton, in accordance

with a promise he had made at the bedside of his friend. She went with

him passively, once that the coffin had been taken away, for the house,

after the gloom and silence of its drawn blinds, was beginning to

resume its original look and the sight hurt her. She had been uprooted

many times since her early youth, and, like a wayfarer, she must take

the road again. Her last rest had continued for fourteen happy years

whose happiness made it all the harder to look forward. Her next would

be Fullarton, and, after that, possibly--probably, wherever the solid

heir to the house of Fordyce should pitch his tent. But a year was a

respite, for who knew what might happen in a year? He might transfer

his unwelcome attentions to someone else, or death, even, might step in

to save her; she had just seen how near he could creep without sign or

warning. She would not look forward, but, in her secret heart, she

could not banish the faint hope that Gilbert might come back.

All the dead woman’s possessions which had passed to herself she had

brought to Fullarton. Necessity had compelled her to sell the furniture

and the horses; and the sight of the former being carried away from its

familiar place was softened to her by the fact that Robert had bought

it all. He had also secured Rocket; and, although the mare’s headlong

impatience had dug her owner’s grave, she had been so much loved by

Lady Eliza that Cecilia could scarce have endured to think of her in

strange hands. She had wished to give her to Fullarton, but he, knowing

that each pound must be of importance to her, had refused to accept the

gift. Rocket now stood in a stall next to the black horse she had

followed with such fatal haste.

Among the many things for which Cecilia was grateful to Fullarton, not

the least was the consideration which moved him to forbid Crauford the

house. He was aware that his nephew meant to recommence his suit, and

though, knowing her and being ignorant of Lady Eliza’s dying desire, he

did not think she would accept him now more than before, he would not

allow her to be annoyed. Some weeks after the funeral Fordyce had

proposed himself as his uncle’s guest for a few days and been told

that, for some time to come, it would be inconvenient to receive him.

During the fierce ordeal of her last days at Morphie Cecilia had had

little time to turn over in her mind the startling truth which her

aunt, in her delirious state, had revealed; but now, as she sat in the

long Spring evenings, silent while Fullarton read, she would look

earnestly at him to discover, if she might, some resemblance to his

son. Occasionally she fancied she could trace it, scarcely in feature,

but in voice and figure. Whether rightly or wrongly, what she had

learned drew her closer to him, and she took a sad satisfaction in the

thought that her lover’s father was, till she could settle some way of

existence, playing father to her too. She loved him because he had been

so much to Lady Eliza and because she now saw how profoundly the

revelation of the part he had borne in her life moved him. He had

become sadder, more cynical, more impervious to outer influence, but

she knew what was making him so and loved him for the knowledge. Only

on one point did she judge him hardly, and that was for the entire lack

of interest or sympathy he had shown to Gilbert; not realizing what

havoc had been wrought in his life by his birth nor giving due weight

to the fact that, until a year previously, he had never so much as set

eyes on him. His intense desire had been to bury his past--but for one

adored memory--as deep as the bottomless pit and Gilbert’s return had

undone the work of years. He could never look at him without the

remembrance of what he had cost. He did not know if his son were aware

of the bond between them and he was determined to check any approach,

however small, which might come of his knowledge by an unchangeable

indifference; though he could not banish him, at least he would ignore

him as much as was consistent with civility of a purely formal kind.

Lady Eliza had understood this and it had deepened her prejudice; what

small attention she had given to Speid had been the outcome of her

desire that Robert should appreciate her absolute neutrality; that he

should know she treated him as she would treat any presentable young

man who should become her neighbour; with neither hostility nor special

encouragement.

And so Cecilia stayed on at Fullarton, silenced by Robert when she made

any mention of leaving it, until spring merged into summer and Crauford

Fordyce, making Barclay’s house the base of his operations, knocked

once more at his uncle’s door in the propitious character of wooer. He

returned in the evening to his friend with the news that Miss Raeburn

had refused to listen to his proposal: while Lady Eliza had not been a

year in her grave, she said, she had no wish to think of marrying. To

his emphatic assurance that he would return when that period should be

over she had made no reply, and, as they parted and he reiterated his

intention, she had told him to hope for nothing.

‘I know what women are at when they say that!’ exclaimed Barclay;

‘there is nothing like perseverance, Fordyce. If you don’t get her next

time you may laugh at me for a fool. She got nothing by her ladyship’s

death, and she will find out what that means when she leaves Fullarton.

Keep up heart and trust Alexander Barclay.’

Crauford’s visit shook Cecilia out of the surface composure that her

unmolested life had induced, and brought home to her the truth that

every day was lessening her chance of escape. Apparently, his mind was

the same, and, meanwhile, no word of the man she would never cease to

love came to her from any source. Once she had gone to Kaims and paid a

visit to the Miss Robertsons, hoping for news of him, however meagre,

but she had been stiffly received. A woman who had driven away Gilbert

Speid by her cold refusal was scarcely a guest appreciated by Miss

Hersey, nor was the old lady one to detect anything showing another

side to the situation. She looked with some disdain upon her visitor

and longed very heartily to assure her that such a fine young fellow as

her kinsman was not likely to go solitary about the world for lack of a

wife. She reported the visit duly when she wrote to him, but without

comment.

When winter came hope died in Cecilia; there was no one to stay her up,

no one to whom she could go for a touch of sympathy, and, should

Fordyce carry out his threat of returning in January, the time would

have come when she must redeem her word. She had felt the strength of a

lion when she saw her promise bring content to Lady Eliza; now, her

heart was beginning to fail. But, fail or not, there was but one end to

it.

Sometimes she would go out alone and walk through the wet fields

towards the river--for the higher reaches of the Lour were almost within

sight of the windows of Fullarton--and look at its waters rolling

seaward past that bit of country which had held so much for her. She

loved it the more fiercely for the thought that she must soon turn her

back on it. Once, a skein of wild geese passed over her head on their

flight to the tidal marshes beyond Kaims, and the far-away scream in

the air held her spellbound. High up, pushing their way to the sea,

their necks outstretched as though drawn by a magnet to their goal,

they held on their course; and their cry rang with the voice of the

north--the voice of the soul of the coast. She leaned her head against a

tree and wept unrestrainedly with the relief of one not commonly given

to tears. Once more, she told herself, before leaving Fullarton, she

would ride to Morphie and look at the old house from the road; so far,

she had never had courage to turn her horse in that direction, though

she now rode almost daily. Once too, she would go and stand by the Lour

bridge where she could see the white walls of Whanland.

While Cecilia, at Fullarton, was trying to nerve herself to the part

she must play, Crauford, at Fordyce, was spending a more peaceful time

than he had experienced since he first confided the state of his heart

to his family. Lady Fordyce’s suspicions were lulled by his demeanour

and by a fact, which, to a person of more acumen, would have been

alarming; namely, that he never, by any chance, mentioned Miss

Raeburn’s name nor the name of anything connected with her. He had said

nothing about his fruitless visit to Barclay, and Fullarton, whose

inclination it was to let sleeping dogs lie, did not supplement the

omission. His nephew no longer honoured him with his confidence and he

had no desire to provoke another correspondence with his sister. To

Cecilia also, he said nothing; while he realized that to settle herself

so well would be a good thing from a worldly point of view, his

contempt for Crauford gave him a liberal notion of her feelings when

she refused him. He knew what had happened but he dismissed the episode

without comment.

Autumn had again brought Lady Maria Milwright as a guest to Fordyce,

and the prodigal son, having temporarily finished with his husks and

being inwardly stayed up by Cecilia’s half-implied permission to

address her again, had time for the distractions of home life. Fordyce

Castle blossomed as the rose, and Mary and Agneta would, no doubt, have

done the same thing, had it not been a little late for such an

experience. Lady Fordyce went so far as to give a dinner-party and a

school feast.

Crauford kept his own counsel strictly, and, though he had the honesty

to make no advances to Lady Maria, her appreciation of him made her an

agreeable companion; his sisters looked on with keen interest and

Agneta was emboldened to congratulate him on his return to the paths of

wisdom.

‘Admit, brother,’ she began one day as they found themselves alone

together, ‘that Lady Maria is vastly superior to Miss Raeburn, after

all.’

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed he, taken aback.

‘But why is it nonsense?’ continued his sister, ‘what is amiss with

Lady Maria?’

‘Her face,’ said Crauford shortly.

‘But Mama says it is absurd to think of that; I heard her say so to

Papa--quite lately too.’

‘And what did he answer?’ enquired her brother, thinking of a sentiment

in the memorable letter Sir Thomas had written him.

‘I think he said that he supposed all cats were grey in the dark. He

could not quite have understood what Mama said; it seemed such an odd

answer, for they had not been talking about cats. It made her rather

angry too.’

Crauford said nothing and the two walked on. They were on the lawn,

watching Sir Thomas and the local minister playing bowls in the shower

of dead horse-chestnut leaves, which fell, periodically, like so many

yellow fans, to the ground.

‘Did Miss Raeburn play the harp?’ asked Agneta, at last.

‘No; at least I have never heard her,’ he replied.

‘Lady Maria does; did she sing?’

‘No.’

‘Lady Maria sings. She has had lessons from an Italian master; I saw a

little drawing of him that is in her workbox. What could Miss Raeburn

do that you thought her so wonderful?’ persisted Agneta.

Crauford knit his brows. Cecilia’s general mastery of life was

difficult to explain, nor, indeed, did he quite understand it himself.

‘She is so--so ladylike,’ he said.

‘Why do you always say that? Miss Raeburn was only a companion; now

Lady Maria has a title.’

People were much more outwardly snobbish in those days than they are

now that the disease has become internal; at present, it would scarcely

be possible to make such a speech and survive it.

‘You know nothing about it. Miss Raeburn was Lady Eliza’s relation and

she called her her niece. And why do you say “was”? She is not dead.’

‘I don’t know; I suppose, because we need not trouble about her any

more. Do tell me what she was like, Crauford, I have so often wanted to

know. Do, do, dear Crauford!’

‘If I tell you a great many things, will you promise to keep them

entirely to yourself?’ he enquired, in an access of gracious elder

brotherhood. He longed for a confidant.

‘Oh, yes! yes!’ cried Agneta, running her arm through his, ‘I will not

even tell Mary.’

‘I think she has seen the folly of her refusal,’ said he, gravely. ‘I

saw her a few weeks ago; in fact, I renewed my offer, but she said she

could not listen to me so soon after her aunt’s death. I am going back

next January and I have reason to suppose, in fact, Barc---- I am almost

sure she will accept me then. I trust you will receive her kindly,

Agneta. I shall look to you.’

Between gratification at his words and apprehension for the future his

sister was almost struck dumb.

‘What will Mama say?’ she exclaimed when she found her tongue.

‘I am afraid it does not much matter what Mama says,’ replied Crauford,

with playful intrepidity.

He knew very well that he would not be at Fordyce to hear.

But there was no use in meeting troubles half-way and Agneta was dying

to know more.

‘Is she tall, brother?’

‘Rather tall,’ he replied. ‘She has a beautiful figure--very slender.’

‘As thin as Lady Maria?’

‘Good gracious, no!’ exclaimed Crauford.

‘And what is her hair like, dark or fair?’

‘Rather dark, but not black.’

‘And her eyes?’

‘Remarkable eyes--in fact, rather too extraordinary. Not quite usual.’

‘She does not squint?’ cried Agneta, seized with horror.

‘Should I wish for a wife who squinted?’ asked he, rather huffily.

‘No, no, of course not; don’t be angry, Crauford. Why do you not like

her eyes?’

‘Oh, I do like them; only I wish they were more like other people’s,

wider open and bluer; you will see her for yourself, Agneta. There was

another man who wanted to marry her not long ago, a sulky-looking

fellow called Speid; but she soon sent him away and he has gone off to

Spain.’

‘Because of her? Did he really?’ exclaimed Agneta, taking a long breath

as she recognised the desperate matters life could contain.

Lady Maria’s parasol, which was seen advancing in the distance between

the laurel bushes, put an end to further confidences, for Lady Maria’s

eyes, round enough and blue enough to satisfy anybody, had discovered

the brother and sister and she was coming towards them.

Crauford, having been absent from the breakfast table, had not met the

young lady that morning. He made a stiff, serio-comic bow, laying his

hand on his heart. He could unbend sometimes.

‘I hope your ladyship is well to-day,’ he observed.

She blushed awkwardly, not knowing how to take his pleasantries. She

looked good and modest, and, in feature, rather as if she had changed

faces with a pea-hen. Agneta surveyed her from head to heel, earnestly

and covertly; she did not look as if she would drive anyone to Spain.

She was rather impressed by the idea of a sister-in-law who could so

ruffle her brother and his sex, for, though she was over twenty-six

years old, she had only read of such things in books; she had an

overwhelming respect for men, and it had scarcely occurred to her that

women whom one might meet every day, and who were not constitutionally

wicked, could deal with them so high-handedly. The possibilities of

womanhood had never dawned on her, any more than they dawn on hundreds

of others, both well and ill-favoured, who live contentedly, marry

early, have children frequently, and, finally, die lamented, knowing as

much of the enthralling trade of being a woman as they did on the day

they were born.

But Agneta was groping along the edge of a world of strange

discoveries, as she stood by the bowling-green and mechanically watched

the figures of her father and the Reverend Samuel Mackay straddling as

they appraised their shots. Crauford and Lady Maria had long vanished

into the house by the time she turned to look after them, and the

bowl-players had finished their game, discussed it, and begun another.

She felt that being in her brother’s confidence had given her a great

stride in life.

Four months later, she stood in the same place by the bowling-green and

saw him drive up the avenue to the Castle; he had been at Fullarton for

nearly a week and she went round to the front door to meet him.

‘My news is important, Agneta,’ he said, as he greeted her. ‘Miss

Raeburn has consented; I have come to fetch some clothes I want and am

going away again to-morrow. Say nothing.’

‘Oh!’ said his sister. ‘I----’

The sentence was never completed, for Lady Fordyce appeared in the

hall.

CHAPTER XXIII

AN EMPTY HOUSE

WHEN the decisive step had been taken and Crauford’s perseverance was

at last crowned with success, he straightway informed his uncle of his

good fortune; also, he begged him to say nothing of the matter till he

should have gone to Fordyce Castle to announce his news. As we have

seen, he did not mean to announce it in person, but he wished to see

Agneta before retiring to a safe distance and writing to Sir Thomas, of

whose consent the past had made him sure; from his sister he counted on

hearing how soon it would be wise for him to face Lady Fordyce. Before

he left Fullarton he had allowed himself one day to be spent with

Cecilia.

‘You cannot expect me to go to-morrow,’ he said to her, with solemn

gallantry, as he emerged from Fullarton’s study, where he had been to

declare the engagement.

‘Do you not think your parents might be offended if you delay?’ she

suggested faintly.

‘Let them!’ exclaimed Crauford.

All next day she had clung to Fullarton’s proximity, hating to be alone

with the man with whom she was to pass her life, and feeling half

desperate when Robert closeted himself with a tenant who had come to

see him on business. Crauford’s blunt lack of perception made him

difficult to keep at a distance, and she had now no right to hurt his

feelings. On her finger was the ring he had, with much forethought,

brought with him; and, had it been an iron chain on her neck, it could

not have galled her more. When, at last, he had driven away, she

rushed to her room and pulled it off; then she dipped her handkerchief

in rose-water and dabbed her face and lips; for, though she had tried

to say good-bye to him in Fullarton’s presence, she had not succeeded

and she had paid heavily for her failure.

For whatever motive she was accepting his name, his protection, and the

ease of life he would give her, she must treat him fairly; she felt

this strongly. She had not hid from him a truth which she would have

liked him better for finding more unpalatable, namely, that she did not

love him.

‘You will learn to, in time,’ he had observed, complacently.

If he had said that he loved her well enough for two, or some such

trite folly as men will say in like circumstances, it would have been

less hateful. But he had merely changed the subject with a commonplace

reflection. For all that, she felt that she was cheating him.

To play her part with any attempt at propriety, she must have time to

bring her mind to it without the strain of his presence. He might

appear at Fullarton at any moment, with the intention of staying for

days, and Cecilia decided that she must escape from a position which

became hourly more difficult. While she racked her brain in thinking

how this might be effected, like a message from the skies, came a

letter from her friend and Fullarton’s cousin, the Lord Advocate’s

widow. ‘Though I know Mr. Crauford Fordyce very slightly,’ she wrote,

‘he is still related to me and I have to thank him warmly for being the

means of bringing my dearest Miss Raeburn into the family. Would that I

could see you to offer you my sincerest good wishes! I do not know

whether the day is yet fixed, but, should you have time to spare me a

visit, or inclination to consult the Edinburgh mantua-makers, I should

receive you with a pleasure of whose reality you know me well enough to

be assured.’

She had still nearly eight weeks’ respite. The wedding, which was to

take place upon the tenth of April, was, at her earnest request, to be

at Morphie Kirk, for she wanted to begin her new life near the scenes

of the old one. She was to be married from Fullarton; Robert, having

constituted himself her guardian, would give her away, and Crauford,

according to time-honoured etiquette, would be lodged in Kaims; Mr.

Barclay had offered his house. In justice to the bridegroom, she must

not fall short of the ordinary standard of bridal appearance, and she

showed Robert his cousin’s letter, saying that, with his permission,

she would go to Edinburgh to buy her wedding gown. On the plea of

ill-health Lady Fordyce had refused to be present at the ceremony, and

it was only the joint pressure brought to bear on her by brother and

husband which forced from her a reluctant consent that Mary and Agneta

should go to Fullarton and play the part of bridesmaids. Sir Thomas had

shown unusual decision.

It was on the day before her departure that Cecilia rode out to take a

last look at Morphie. Though there was, as yet, no hint of coming

spring in the air, in a month the thrushes and blackbirds would be

proclaiming their belief in its approach, and a haze, like a red veil,

would be touching the ends of the boughs. As she stopped on the

highroad and looked across the wall at Morphie House, she felt like a

returned ghost. Its new owners had left it uninhabited and the white

blinds were drawn down like the eyelids of a dead face; her life there

seemed sometimes so real and sometimes so incredible--as if it had never

been. She saw herself going through the rooms, loitering in the garden,

and performing the hundred and one duties and behests she had done so

willingly. She smiled, though her heart ached, as she remembered her

aunt’s short figure leaning out of a window above the stable-yard,

watching the horses being brought out for exercise and calling out her

orders to the men. How silent it all was now; the only moving things

were the pigeons which had always haunted Morphie, the descendants of

those for which Gilbert had fought two years ago. She turned away and

took the road that followed the river’s course to Whanland.

Here too, everything was still, though the entrance gate was standing

open. She had never yet been inside it; long before it had acquired

special interest for her she had felt a curiosity about the untenanted

place; but Lady Eliza had always driven by quickly, giving

unsatisfactory answers to any questions she had put. She rode in,

unable to resist her impulse, and sat on horseback looking up at the

harled walls. The front-door was ajar, and, seeing this, she was just

about to ride away, when there were footsteps behind her and Granny

Stirk, her arms loaded with fresh-cut sticks, came round a corner of

the house. She let her bundle fall in a clattering shower and came up

to Cecilia. Since Gilbert had left she had not seen the woman who, she

was sure, had been the cause of his departure, and her heart was as

hard against her as the heart of Miss Hersey Robertson.

‘Do you take care of the house?’ asked Cecilia, when they had exchanged

a few words.

‘Ay; whiles a’ come in-by an’ put on a bittie fire. The Laird asket me.

But Macquean’s no verra canny to work wi’.’

‘Oh, Granny, let me come in!’ cried Cecilia. ‘I want so much to see

this place, I shall never see it again--I am going away you know.’

The Queen of the Cadgers eyed her like an accusing angel.

‘And what for are ye no here--you that sent the Laird awa’?’ she cried.

‘Puir lad! He cam’ in-by to me, and says he, “Ye’ve been aye fine to

me, Granny,” says he. And a’ just asket him, for a’ kenned him verra

well, “Whaur is she?” says I. “It’s a’ done, Granny,” says he, “it’s a’

done!” An’ he sat down to the fire just wearied-like. “An’ are ye no to

get her?” says I. “Na,” says he. “_Aweel, ye’ll get better_,” says I.

A’ tell’t him that, Miss Raeburn--but he wadna believe it, puir lad.’

Cecilia had not spoken to one living creature who had met Gilbert Speid

since they parted and her eyes filled with tears; she slid from her

horse and stood weeping before the old woman. Her long self-control

gave way, for the picture raised by Granny’s tongue unnerved her so

completely that she seemed to be losing hold of everything but her own

despair. She had not wept since the day she had heard the wild geese.

‘Ay! ye may greet,’ said the Queen of the Cadgers, ‘ye’ve plenty to

greet for! Was there ever a lad like Whanland?’

Cecilia could not speak for sobs; when the barriers of such a nature as

hers are broken down there is no power that can stay the flood.

‘He thocht the world o’ you,’ continued Granny, folding her arms;

‘there was naething braw eneuch for you wi’ him. There wasna mony that

kent him as weel as a’ kent him. He didna say verra muckle, but it was

sair to see him.’

‘Granny! Granny! have pity!’ cried Cecilia, ‘I cannot bear this! Oh,

you don’t understand! I love him with all my heart and I shall never

see him again. You are so cruel, Granny Stirk--where are the reins? I am

going now.’

Blind with her tears, she groped about in the horse’s mane.

‘What ailed ye to let him awa’ then?’ exclaimed the old woman, laying

her hand on the bridle.

‘I could not help it. I cannot tell you, Granny, but I had to give him

up. Don’t ask me--I was obliged to give him up though I loved him better

than anything in the world. It was not my fault; he knew it. I am so

miserable--so miserable!’

‘An’ you that’s to be married to the Laird o’ Fullarton’s nephew!’

cried Granny Stirk.

‘I wish I were dead,’ sobbed Cecilia.

Though Granny knew nothing of the tangle in which her companion was

held, she knew something of life and she knew real trouble when she saw

it. Her fierceness against her was turned into a dawning pity. How any

woman could give up a man she loved was a mystery to her, and how any

woman could give up the Laird of Whanland, incomprehensible. But the

ways of the gentry were past finding out.

‘Come awa’ in,’ she said, as Cecilia dried her eyes, ‘and a’ll cry on

Macquean to tak’ the horse. Jimmy’s at the stable an’ he’ll mind it;

’twas him brocht me here i’ the cairt.’

She took the rein from her and walked round the house, leading the

animal.

‘Macquean, ye thrawn brute!’ she cried, as she went, ‘tak’ yon horse to

Jimmy. He’ll no touch ye, man!’

Cecilia entered, and, through a passage window, she could see Macquean

in a rusty black coat, sitting on a stone-heap outside.

‘Come here, a’ tell ye!’ cried the Queen of the Cadgers.

Cecilia saw him shake his head.

‘Ye’d be mair use as a golloch[1] than a man,’ said Granny, throwing

the reins to her grandson, who was coming towards them.

[1] Blackbeetle.

Cecilia went into a room and sat down on a window-seat; most of the

furniture was put away, and what was left had been covered up carefully

by Granny and Macquean. Clementina’s portrait was gone from the wall,

as well as that of the bay coach-horse, and the alcoves by the

fireplace were empty of books. She sat and gazed at the bare

beech-trees and the fields between Whanland and the sand-hills. He must

have looked out at that view every day, and her eyes drank it in; the

garden wall and the stable buildings broke its flat lines. Being on the

ground floor, she could not see the sea; but the heaven above, with its

long-drawn, fine clouds, wore the green-gray which suggests an

ocean-sky. She was quite calm by the time Granny came in and stood

beside her.

The old woman, though softened and puzzled, was yet in an inquisitorial

mind; she stood before the window-seat, her arms akimbo and her skirt

turned up and drawn through the placket-hole, for she had been

cleaning.

‘An’ what gar’d ye put Whanland awa’ if ye liket him sae weel?’ she

asked again. ‘Dod, that wasna the gait a’ wad hae gaed when a’ was a

lassie!’

‘I cannot speak about it,’ answered Cecilia, rising, her face set;

‘there is no use in asking me. I was forced to do it. God knows I have

no heart left. Oh, Granny! if he could but come back! In two months I

shall be married.’

The Queen of the Cadgers stood silent; there was so much more in the

matter than she had suspected; Cecilia might be a fool, but she was not

the cold-hearted flirt whom she had pictured torturing Gilbert for her

own entertainment.

‘It’s ill work mendin’ ae man’s breeks when yer hairt’s in anither

ane’s pocket,’ she said.

Though mirth was far, indeed, from her, Cecilia could not help smiling

at this crusty cutting from the loaf of wisdom.

‘Ah! ye may lauch now,’ exclaimed Granny solemnly, ‘but what ’ll ye do

when he comes hame, an’ you married? Ye’ll need to mind yersel’ then.’

Neither of the women knew on how appropriate a spot the warning was

offered, as they stood within a few feet of Clementina Speid’s empty

place upon the wall.

‘I shall be gone,’ answered Cecilia. ‘I pray that I may never see his

face again.’

‘Wad ye tak’ him, syne he was hame?’

‘Do you mean if he were to come now?’ asked Cecilia.

‘Ay.’

‘Oh, Granny, stop--there is no use in thinking or hoping.’

‘Wad ye gang wi’ him?’ persisted the old woman.

‘What do you think?’ cried Cecilia, facing her suddenly, ‘do you think

anything could keep me back? Do you think I have ever ceased hoping or

praying? Don’t torment me--I have enough to bear. Come, let me see

Whanland. Show me everything, dear Granny, before I go. I shall look at

it and never forget it; all my life I shall remember it. Come.’

The two went from room to room, Granny leading the way. Cecilia’s eyes

devoured everything, trying to stamp each detail on her mind. They went

through the lower rooms, and upstairs, their steps echoing in the

carpetless passages. There was little to see but the heavy four-post

beds, a few high-backed chairs which still stood in their places, and

the mantelpieces carved with festoon and thyrsus. They went up to the

attics and into the garret; the pictures had come back to the place in

which Gilbert had first found them.

‘Yon’s the Laird’s mother,’ said Granny, turning Clementina’s portrait

to the light, ‘she’s bonnie, puir thing.’

‘Was that like her?’

‘The very marrows o’ her,’ replied she.

The mother Gilbert had never seen and the bride he had never married

were come face to face. The living woman looked at the painted one,

searching for some trace of resemblance to the man from whom she had

divided her; it was too dark for her to see the little box in

Clementina’s hand. There was something in her bearing which recalled

Gilbert, something in the brows and the carriage of the head.

‘Come away,’ she said at last, ‘I must go home now. I shall always

thank you for showing me Whanland.’

They went downstairs and she stood on the doorstep while Granny went to

the stable for her horse; the light was beginning to change; she would

have to ride fast to reach Fullarton before it went. To-morrow she was

to leave for Edinburgh and her return would only take place a few days

before the wedding. A page in her life was turning down. She was to go

to London with her husband, and, in a few months, they were to come

back to settle in a place in Roxburghshire belonging to Sir Thomas

Fordyce. The east coast would soon fade away from her like one of its

own mists; the voice of the North Sea, which came faintly from the

shore, was booming a farewell, for the tide was coming in beyond the

bents.

Before she turned away she leaned down from her saddle.

‘Someday,’ she said, ‘when--if--Mr. Speid comes back, tell him that I

came here and that----’

But she could not go on and rode down the short approach without ending

her sentence. ‘Good-bye!’ she called at the gate, waving her hand.

Cecilia had reached Fullarton by the time Granny Stirk had finished her

cleaning, for her visit had taken a good piece out of the afternoon.

Though she generally was a steady worker, the old woman paused many

times and laid down her duster. She took particular care of the room in

which Gilbert slept, but, as she shook and beat the heavy curtains of

his bed, her mind was not in her task. She was willing to admit that

his passion was not altogether indefensible. As women went, Cecilia was

more than very well, and, like nearly everyone who had once spoken to

her, she did not deny her beauty. She pitied her too; though, it is to

be feared, had her dead body been of any use to Speid, she would have

stood by and seen her murdered. But, as he preferred her living, he

should have her, if she, Joann Stirk, could get him home in time. Once

let him come back and she would tell him what to do.

‘Ye’ll hae to drive me to Kaims i’ the cairt the morn’s morn,’ she

observed to her grandson, as they bowled homewards.

‘I’m for Blackport,’ said Jimmy, laconically.

‘Ye’ll do as ye’re bid,’ replied the Queen of the Cadgers.

CHAPTER XXIV

A ROYAL VISIT

WHILE Granny had shaken the curtains in Gilbert’s bedroom her mind had

worked as hard as her hands; there was no doubt in it of one thing;

namely, that, by hook or by crook, he must be brought home. It was a

large idea for her to have conceived, because she scarcely knew where

he was and had no idea how he might be reached. She understood that

Barclay had means of communication with him, but, since the visit he

had paid her, ostensibly to examine her mended roof, and, really to pry

into Speid’s affairs, she had distrusted him fundamentally. The matter

was intimate and needed the intervention of someone upon whom she could

depend. As the Laird of Fullarton was uncle to the person she wished to

circumvent, he also was an impossible adviser. The Miss Robertsons,

under any aspect but that of being Gilbert’s relations, she looked upon

as futile. ‘Twa doited auld bodies wha’s lives is nae object to them,’

as she had described them, were not worth consideration in such a case.

In her strait she suddenly bethought herself of Captain Somerville. He

had three special advantages; he was her idol’s friend, he was

exceedingly civil to herself, and she had once seen him in uniform.

This last qualification gave him something of the weight and security

of a public character. Also, a person who had fought the French--all

foreigners were French to her--in every quarter of the world, must

surely be able to put his hand on any part of it at a moment’s notice.

As a matter of fact, she could hardly have made a better choice. The

sailor, who bore a most human love to his kind, had appraised many men

and women in his time, and he had a vast admiration for Granny. Gallant

himself, to the core of his simple soul, he loved the quality in

others, and the story of her fight with circumstances and final mastery

of them had struck him in a sensitive place. On that memorable day on

which she had seen him in uniform he was returning from Aberdeen, where

he had gone to meet an official person, and his chaise passed her

cottage. As he drove by, he saw the little upright figure standing on

the doorstep, and, remembering her history, with a sudden impulse, he

raised his hand and saluted her.

Though he was not, perhaps, so renowned a warrior as the Queen of the

Cadgers supposed, Captain Somerville had seen a good deal of service,

and had lost his leg, not in the doing of any melodramatic act, but in

the ordinary course of a very steadily and efficiently performed duty.

As a boy, he had gone to sea when the sea was a harder profession than

it is now and when parents had had to think, not twice but many times,

before committing their sons to it. He had run away and smuggled

himself upon a merchantman lying in the harbour near his home, and

before she sailed, he had been discovered by the first mate. His irate

father, to whom he was returned, thinking to cure him of an infatuation

he could not, himself, understand, arranged with the captain that he

should be taken on the voyage--which was a short one--and made to work

hard. ‘It would show the young fool,’ he said, ‘that the Church’--for

which he was destined--‘was a more comfortable place than a ship.’ But

the treatment produced an exactly contrary result. Finally, the family

three-decker received the person of a younger brother, and, after much

discussion, His Majesty’s Navy that of a new midshipman. More than

fifteen years afterwards he got into a young man’s scrape in an

obscure seaport, and emerged from it with Mrs. Somerville in tow. It

was one from which a less honourable man would have escaped more

fortunately. The lady was accustomed to say, in after times, that she

had been ‘married from the schoolroom,’ but many who heard her

suspected that there had never been a schoolroom in the matter. He had

now been Coastguard Inspector at Kaims for over seven years.

The sailor was sitting at the breakfast-table next morning opposite to

his wife, portions of whose figure were visible behind the urn; Miss

Lucilla was away on a visit. The house stood a little back from the

High Street, and, though the room was quiet, a cart which had stopped

at the foot of the strip of garden was unnoticed by the pair.

‘If ye please,’ said the parlour-maid, looking in, ‘there’s a fishwife

wad like to speak wi’ you.’

‘We require nothing to-day,’ said Mrs. Somerville.

‘She’s no sellin’. She’s just needing a word wi’ the Captain. It’s Mrs.

Stirk--her that bides out by Garviekirk.’

‘It’s Her Majesty of the Cadgers, my dear,’ said the Inspector; ‘we

must ask her to come in.’

The parlour-maid smiled.

‘She says she wad like to see ye alone, sir. “It’ll no keep,” she

says.’

‘Impertinent woman!’ exclaimed Mrs. Somerville, ‘what can she have to

say that I am not supposed to hear?’

‘I would do a good deal to oblige her,’ said Somerville, dragging

himself up. ‘Show her into the next room.’

Granny Stirk had put on her pebble brooch; the little woollen shawl,

crossed over her chest with its long ends tied behind the waist, was of

a bright red and black check; her head was bare and her thick iron-gray

hair held by a black net; her gold earrings shone. An indefinable rush

of fresh air, brine, and tar came in with her.

‘Sit down, Mrs. Stirk,’ said Somerville, as he stumped in. ‘What can I

do for you?’

‘Sir,’ said she, ‘could ye tell me what’s come of the Laird o’

Whanland?’

‘God bless me!’ exclaimed the astonished sailor, ‘I think he’s in

Spain.’

‘Does he no write ye? A’ mind he was aye billies[1] wi’ you.’

[1] Friends.

‘I have heard nothing of him since he left.’

She made a gesture of dismay.

‘Mr. Barclay must know where he is,’ said he. ‘I could get his

direction for you, I dare say, if it was anything urgent.’

‘Fie, na!’ she exclaimed. ‘Lord’s sake! dinna say a word to the like o’

him!’

‘But what is the trouble, my good woman?’

Before replying, Granny drew her chair close to his, throwing a

searching look round the room and at the door; unfortunately, she could

not see through the latter, but had she been able to do so, she would

have noticed Mrs. Somerville standing on the door-mat.

She plunged into her tale.

‘Did ye no ken that the Laird was just deein’ for yon lassie o’ her

ladyship’s? A’ ken’t it fine, but he tell’t me no to speak a word, and,

dod! a’ didna. Well, he cam’ in-by to me and tell’t me he was gangin’

awa’ for she wadna tak’ him. That was the way o’t; that was what gar’d

the puir lad gang. Did ye ken that, sir?’

‘I guessed it,’ said the Inspector, enormously surprised at this

beginning.

‘Well,’ continued the Queen of the Cadgers, leaning forward and

solemnly shaking his knee to compel attention, ‘well, she’s to be

married in April month an’ she’s greetin’ hersel’ to death for the

Laird.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Somerville.

‘A’ was puttin’ on a bittie fire at Whanland yesterday--a’ do that,

whiles--an’ she cam’ ridin’ up. “Oh, Granny, let me come in-by!” says

she. “What way are ye no here?” says I. “What way did ye let the Laird

gang?” An’ she just began greetin’ till I was near feared at her; it

was aye the Laird--the Laird. I wager she canna thole yon lad she’s to

get. Says I, “Wad ye tak’ him if he was to come back i’ the now?” “Oh!”

says she, “div ye think I wadna? Oh! if he was hame! If he was hame!”

A’ could hae greetit mysel’, Captain.’

‘But why did she not marry him at the beginning?’

‘I askit her that. “Granny,” says she, “a’ canna tell ye; a’ couldna

help mysel’. There’s things a’ canna speak o’. A’ wish a’ was dead,”

she says.--An’ there’s Whanland that doesna ken it!’ continued the old

woman. ‘Sir, we’ll need to get him hame afore it’s ower late.’

Somerville was silent, feeling as though he were being invited to

plunge into a torrent. He was certain that every word Granny said was

true, for, though he had only seen Cecilia once since the news of her

engagement was public, that once had been enough to show him that she

was wretched. Some miserable tragedy was certainly brewing.

‘Suppose Mr. Speid has forgotten her?’ he hazarded.

‘_Him_ forget?’ cried Granny, rising with a movement which made her

earrings swing. ‘By Jarvit, Captain, a’ didna think ye was sic a fule!’

‘Perhaps I’m not,’ said he, rather nettled; ‘but what made you come to

me?’

‘Was a’ to gang to the Laird o’ Fullarton that’s uncle to yon red-faced

loon? Was a’ to gang to yon tod Barclay that’s aye wi’ him an’ that

doesna like the Laird--a’ ken fine he doesna. Was a’ to gang to they twa

auld maidies i’ the Close that doesna understand naething? Not me!’

said Granny, tossing her earrings again.

Captain Somerville put his hand on the back of his neck and ran it up

over the top of his head till his nose got in the way; his hair looked

like a field of oats after a rain-shower. Things did seem bad.

‘Ye’ll need to write him--that’s what ye’ll need to do. Tell him if he

doesna come hame, it’ll be ower late,’ continued Granny.

‘But he may not want to come, Mrs. Stirk--he may have changed his mind.

Remember, it is more than a year and a half since he left.’

‘Have a’ no tell’t ye?’ cried she. ‘There’s naebody kens the Laird as

a’ ken him. Gang yer ain gait, sir, but, when Whanland kens the truth,

an’ when yon lassie’s awa’ wi’ the wrang lad, you an’ me’ll need to

think shame o’ oursels!’

There was scarcely anyone who could more fitly appreciate the horror of

Cecilia’s position than the sailor. Long years of a companionship,

whose naked uncongenialness he had decently draped with loyalty, were

behind him to give point to Granny’s words; also, he thought of her

face as he had last seen it; and he had that highest and rarest

courage, the courage that is not afraid of responsibility. The rock on

which second-rate characters go to pieces had no terrors for him.

The silence now was so deep that Mrs. Somerville, on the mat outside,

began to fear a move and made as quiet a retreat as she could to the

breakfast-room. She had heard enough to interest her considerably.

Though the talk was resumed before she was out of earshot, she did not

dare to return, for she saw, looking at the clock, that the maid might

come up at any moment to clear the breakfast-table.

‘I will find out where to write to him,’ said the sailor. ‘We must lose

no time, for the letter may take weeks to reach him. I am afraid it is

a forlorn hope, Mrs. Stirk, but we’ll do our best. I shall write very

urgently to Miss Raeburn and tell her what I have done.’

‘That’s you!’ exclaimed the old woman.

‘I must send the letter out to Fullarton to be addressed,’ continued

he, ‘I have not heard where she is lodging in Edinburgh.’

‘Dinna hae ony steer wi’ that Barclay,’ said Granny. ‘He’s aye keekin’

an’ speerin’ about what doesna concern him, an’ makin’ work wi’ Mr.

Fordyce.’

‘I will go to the Miss Robertsons this afternoon,’ said he, half to

himself. ‘I know Miss Hersey writes to Speid. I suppose that, when I

send my letter to him, I may say you have been here, Mrs. Stirk, and

speak of your meeting with Miss Raeburn?’

‘Ye can that,’ replied she, preparing to go, ‘for a’m terrible pleased

a’ did it. A’ll awa’ now, sir, an’ thank ye.’

Mrs. Somerville, looking out of the window, watched the Queen of the

Cadgers walk down to her cart. A sneer touched the lady’s face as the

old woman got in beside her grandson and was driven away.