The March sun shone clear and cold on grey Staneholme, standing on the
verge of a wide moor, with the troubled German Ocean for a background,
and the piping east wind rattling each casement. There was haste and
hurry in Staneholme, from the Laird's mother down through her buxom
merry daughters to the bareheaded servant-lasses, and the substitutes
for groom and lacquey, in coarse homespun, and honest, broad blue
bonnets. There was bustle in the little dining-room with its high
windows, which the sea-foam sometimes dimmed, and its spindle-legged
chairs and smoked pictures. There was blithe work in the cheerful hall,
in whose broad chimney great seacoal fires blazed--at whose humming
wheels the young Mays of Staneholme, as well as its dependants, still
took their morning turn. There was willing toil in the sleeping-rooms,
with their black cabinets and heavy worsted curtains. And there was a
thronged _mêlée_ in the court formed by the outhouses, over whose walls
the small-leaved ivy of the coast clustered untreasured. Staneholme's
favourite horse was rubbing down; and Staneholme's dogs were airing in
couples. Even the tenantry of the never-failing pigeon-house at the
corner of the old garden were in turmoil, for half-a-score of their
number had been transferred to the kitchen this morning to fill the
goodly pasties which were to anticipate the blackberry tarts and sweet
puddings, freezing in rich cream. But the sun had sunk behind the moor
where the broom was only budding, and the last sea-mew had flown to its
scaur, and the smouldering whins had leaped up into the first yellow
flame of the bonfires, and the more shifting, fantastic, brilliant
banners of the aurora borealis shot across the frosty sky, before the
first faint shout announced that Staneholme and his lady had come home.
With his wife behind him on his bay, with pistols at his saddle-bow, and
"Jock" on "the long-tailed yad" at his back, with tenant retainers and
veteran domestics pressing round--and ringing shouts and homely huzzas
and good wishes filling the air, already heavy with the smoke of good
cheer--Staneholme rode in. He lifted down an unresisting burden, took in
his a damp, passive hand, and throwing over his shoulder brief, broken
thanks, hurried up the flight of stairs, through the rambling, crooked
passages into the hall.
Staneholme was always a man of few words. He was taken up, as was right,
with the little lady, whose habit trailed behind her, and who never
raised her modest eyes. "Well-a-day! the Laird's bargain was of sma'
buik," thought the retainers, but "Hurrah" for the fat brose and lumps
of corned beef, and the ale and the whisky, with which they are now to
be regaled!
In the hall stood Joan and Madge and Mysie, panting to see their grand
Edinburgh sister. They were only hindered from running down into the
yard by the deposed mistress of Staneholme, whose hair was as white as
snow, and who wore no mode mantle nor furbelows nor laces, like proud
Lady Carnegie. She was dressed in a warm plaiden gown and a close mob
cap, with huge keys and huswife balancing each other at either
pocket-hole, and her cracked voice was very sweet as she reiterated
"Bide till he bring her here, my bairns," and her kindly smile was
motherly to the whole world. But think you poor vanquished Nelly
Carnegie's crushed heart leapt up to meet these Homes--that her eyes
glanced cordially at Joan, and Madge, and Mysie--that her cheek was
bent gratefully to receive old Lady Staneholme's caress? No, no; Nelly
was too wretched to cry, but she stood there like a marble statue, and
with no more feeling, or show of feeling. Was this colourless,
motionless young girl, in her dusty, disarranged habit, and the feather
of her hat ruffled by the wind, the gay Edinburgh beauty who had won
Staneholme! What glamour of perverse fashion had she cast into his eyes!
"Wae's me, will dule never end in this weary warld? Adam lad, Adam, what
doom have you dragged doon on yoursel'?" cried Lady Staneholme; and
while the thoughtless, self-absorbed girls drew back in disappointment,
she met her son's proud eyes, and stepping past him, let her hand press
lightly for a second on his shoulder as she took in hers Nelly's
lifeless fingers. She said simply to the bride, "You are cold and weary,
my dear, and supper is served, and we'll no bide making compliments, but
you're welcome hame to your ain gudeman's house and folk; and so I'll
lead you to your chamber in Staneholme, and then to the table-head, your
future place." And on the way she explained first with noble humility
that she did not wait for a rejoinder, because she had been deaf ever
since Staneholme rode post haste from Edinburgh from the last sitting of
the Parliament; and that since she was growing old, although it was
pleasant to her to serve the bairns, yet she would be glad to relinquish
her cares, and retire to the chimney-corner to her wheel and her book;
and she blessed the Lord that she had lived to see the young mistress of
Staneholme who would guide the household when she was at her rest.
Nelly heard not, did not care to recognise that the Lady of Staneholme,
in her looks, words, and actions, was beautiful with the rare beauty of
a meek, quiet, loving spirit which in those troublous days had budded
and bloomed and been mellowed by time and trial. Nor did Nelly pause to
consider that had she chosen, she whose own mother's heart had never
melted towards her, might have been nestled in that bosom as in an ark
of peace.
When Lady Staneholme conducted Nelly down the wide staircase into the
chill dining-room, and to the chair opposite the claret-jug of the
master of the house, Nelly drew back with sullen determination.
"Na, but, my bairn, I'm blithe for you to fill my place; Staneholme's
mither may well make room for Staneholme's wife," urged the lady,
gently.
But Nelly remained childishly rooted in her refusal to preside at his
board, unless compelled; and her brow, knit at the remembrance of her
fall, was set to meet the further encounter. Joan and Madge and Mysie,
with their blooming cheeks, and their kissing-strings new for the
occasion, stared as if their strange sister was but half endowed with
mother wit; and Lady Staneholme hesitated until Adam Home uttered his
short, emphatic "As she pleases, mother," while the flush flew to his
forehead, and his firm lip shook.
Staneholme had resolved never to control the wife he had forced into his
arms, beyond the cold, daily intercourse which men will interchange with
a deadly foe, as well as with a trusty frere; never to approach her
side, nor attempt to assuage her malice nor court her frozen lips into
a smile. This was his purpose, and he abode by it. He farmed his land,
he hunted, and speared salmon, was rocked in his fishing-boat as far as
St. Abbs, read political pamphlets, and sat late over his wine, and
sometimes abetted the bold smuggling, much like his contemporaries. But
no pursuit which he followed with fitful excess seemed to satisfy him as
it did others, and he never sought to supplement it by courting his
alien wife.
Lady Staneholme would fain have made her town-bred daughter-in-law
enamoured with the duties of a country life, and cheered the strange
joylessness of her honeymoon. Failing in this attempt, she, with a
covert sigh, half-pain, half-pleasure, resumed the old oversight of
larder and dairy. Such care was then the delight of many an
unsophisticated laird's helpmate; and, to the contented Lady of
Staneholme, it had quite made up for the partial deprivation of social
intercourse to which her infirmity had subjected her. Joan, Madge, and
Mysie, wearied of haughty Nelly after they had grown accustomed to the
grand attire she wore, denied that they had ever been dazzled with it,
and ceased to believe that she had danced minuets in the Assembly Rooms
before Miss Jacky Murray. They had their own company and their own
stories, into which they had no temptation to drag an interloper.
Nelly, in her desolation standing apart in the centre of the wholesome,
happy family circle, grew to have her peculiar habits and occupations,
her self-contained life into which none of the others could penetrate.