"How is the poor child, Bridget Kennedy? Does she fare as she should
do?"
"The child is as fine a child, Master Hector, as if she had been a boy,
and a Garret, on both sides of the house, and will thrive if her mother
will let her. There are mothers that would hinder their bairns in the
death-rattle, and there are others that so watch their little ones that
the angels of God are displaced from their cradles; and the weary human
care haunts and harasses the infant, and stops its growth."
"I am not learned in these matters, Bridget. You brought me up; I trust
you to rear my children."
"None shall rear them but their mother, Master Hector; none shall come
between her and them. I have ruled long at Otter, but I dare not dispute
with her there."
"Settle it as you like. I did not mean them--I was not thinking of them
at all. I asked for their mother. You have experience. Is she
well--happy as she should be?"
"I wish you would not provoke such mistakes, Master Hector," said
Bridget, pettishly; "I wish you would find some other name for your
wife. You should know best, but is it suitable to term the nursling and
the parent by the same title? I am a foolish old woman, but it seems
strange to me. Your father did not confound them."
"Ah! I dare say not. We will find a Christian name for the new comer,
and end the Comedy of Errors, since you dislike it, and Leslie too,
doubtless; for women are nice on these points."
* * * * *
"Leslie, what shall we call the baby?" inquired Hector Garret the next
time he stood by his wife's side, wishing to divert her by a pleasant
difficulty, and to vary the expression of those large eyes--larger now
than ever--which, he knew not why, fascinated him by the intensity of
their gaze. "I cause Bridget to blunder oddly between you two; so set
her at rest by fixing as soon as you can the momentous question."
"I have fixed," answered Leslie, quietly.
"I commend your foresight; a man, now, would have left the alternative
open to the last."
"Mrs. Garret's first daughter must be named after Mrs. Garret's mother,"
declared Bridget, authoritatively.
"No," said Leslie, hastily; "I have named her after myself--if you do
not object," she added, with a flush, half shame, half pride.
"I? Oh, no; do as you will. It will not solve Bridget's puzzle; but I am
content. Leslie is a bonnie name."
Leslie compressed her lip.
"My mother's name is bonnier," she said, abruptly; "my mother's name is
Alice."
He started, and gazed at her keenly while she continued, falteringly,
but with a stubborn will in her speech:--
"I wish my baby to be mine in everything, particularly as she is a
girl. I am neither wise nor clever, nor strong now. I fear I am often
peevish; but you will excuse me, because I am a weak, ignorant woman.
Such defects are not fatal in a mother; hundreds have overcome them
for their children. I trust that I will be, if not what a better woman
might have been, at least more to my child than any other can be. Her
mother!--so holy a tie must confer some peculiar fitness. Yes; my baby
is mine, and must lie on my knees, and learn to laugh in my poor face.
And so I wish her to have my name also, that there may be a complete
union between us."
Hector Garret knew now what intelligence had reached his wife, and while
the old wound burnt afresh, the shyness of his still but sensitive
nature, the pride of the grave strong man, were offended and injured.
But with regard to his wife he was only conscious of the petulant,
unreasonable, unkind surface; he did not sound her deep resentment and
jealousy; he did not dream of the anguish of the secret cry whose
outward expression struck upon his vexed ears; he did not hear her inner
protest: "I will not have my baby bear his love's name, recall her to
him, be a memorial of her--be addressed with fondness as much for the
sake of old times as for her own, the innocent!--be brought up to
resemble Alice, trained to follow in her footsteps, until, if I died,
my child would be more Alice Boswell's than mine. Never, never!"
Hector Garret little knew Leslie Bower; slowly he arrived at the
discovery. First a troubled suspicion, then a dire certainty. Not the
transparent, light-hearted, humble girl, whom a safe, prosperous country
home, an honourable position, a kindly regard, left more than
satisfied--happy: but the visionary, enthusiastic woman, confiding, but
claiming confidence for confidence; tender and true, but demanding like
sincerity, constancy, purity, and power of devotion. Had he but known
her the first! But a man's fate lies in one woman. Had he but left her
in her girlish sweetness and gaiety; had he never approached her with
his cold overtures--his barren, artificial expediency and benevolence!
She erred in ignorance and inexperience; but he against the bitter fruit
of knowledge, in wilful tampering with truth--reluctantly,
misgivingly--selfishly cozening his conscience, hardening himself in
unbelief, applying salve to the old vital stab to his independence. He
had erred with an egotistical and presumptuous conceit of protecting and
defending the young full life which would have found for itself an
outlet, and flown on rapid, free, and rejoicing, had he only refrained
from diverting its current into a dull, dark, long-drained channel,
where it was dammed up, or oozed out sluggishly, gloomily,
despairingly--without natural spring-time, sunshine, abundance,
gladness, until lost in the great sea.
He had viewed but the soft silken bud, whose deep cup was drunk with
dew,--its subtle, spicy fragrance pervading, lingering after the leaves
were drooping and the bloom fled, but its rich, royal hues were yet to
come. In his blind coarse blundering, he had mistaken the bud for the
flower, the portal for the church; he had entered with heedless, profane
foot, and blighted the blossom and rifled the altar. For the leaves had
been unclosed, the gates unbarred under his neglect; and Leslie, with a
noble woman's frankness, generosity, and meekness--that true meekness
which oftenest cleaves and melts the ringing metal of a high
spirit--Leslie had begun to love him, to fix her heart upon him, to grow
to him--stolid, sardonic statue that he was!--until that shock exposed
his flaws and wrenched her from her hold. Better to be thus rudely
dissevered, perhaps, than to waste her womanliness, puny and pale from
its vague bald nourishment, on a fraud and a farce.
Hector Garret awoke from his delusion, from his scholarly reveries, his
active enterprise. "He that provideth not for his own house is worse
than an infidel." So he watched Leslie: he saw her rise up with her
thoughtful face, very individual it appeared now, and go up and down
carrying her baby. He was aware that she was appropriating it as her
treasure; that she was saying to herself some such words--"Silver and
gold have I none, but this is my pearl beyond price; she will be enough
for me; she must be so; I will make her so. She and I will waste no more
silly tears on hard, changeable men. They are not like us, little
daughter; they pass us by, or they love us once with fierce desire; and
when satiated or balked, they turn to us again to please their eye,
flatter their ear, vary their leisure; to anatomize and torture like
other favourites of an hour. We will have none of them, save to do our
duty. We will live for each other."
Not that she deprived him of his rights as a father; she was too
magnanimous to be unjust, and she would not have balked that puppet, to
whose service she consecrated herself, of one privilege which any pangs
of hers could purchase.
She presented their child to him with a serious stateliness, as if it
was so very solemn a ceremony that its performance emancipated her from
ordinary emotion; she came and consulted him on the small questions that
concerned its welfare with the same absorbing care. If he came near her
when she bore the child in her arms, she offered it to him immediately:
she was righteous as well as valiant--yes, very valiant. He contemplated
her stedfastness with wonder. After the blow which overcame her, when a
compensation was given her--a blessing to atone for the gall in her cup,
she accepted it and cherished it, and set herself to be grateful for it
and worthy of it immediately. The fortitude which, after the
involuntary, inevitable rebellion, would permit no more idle repining,
the decent pride that hid its own disease and bore it bravely, even the
sternness that set its teeth against reaction--he recognised them all;
it was studying the reflection of his own lofty features in the fragile,
quivering flesh of a girl.
What is often proposed, rarely practised, Leslie did. She changed her
ways: with what travail of spirit, what heart-sickness she alone could
tell. It is no common slight or safe influence that causes a revulsion
in the whole bodily system; it is no skin-deep puncture that bleeds
inwardly; it is no easy lesson that the disciple lays to heart; but
Leslie surmounted and survived it. She had escaped her responsibilities,
and slumbered at her post. She would do so no longer. She belonged now,
after little Leslie, to her household, and its members might yet be the
better for her, and Hector Garret should respect--not pity her. She
vindicated her matronhood suddenly and straightforwardly, but with a
sedateness and firmness that was conclusive of her future power; she had
much to acquire, but she would gain something every day and every hour,
until Otter should own no abler mistress. Then for her child, she would
teach herself that she might instruct her daughter, so that if she
proved inquiring and meditative like her father, she need not soon weary
of her simple mother, and turn altogether to a more enlightened and
profound instructor. Surely there was some knowledge that a woman could
best store up and dispense, some gift wherein the vigorous and
well-trained man did not bear the universal palm? Leslie strove to
cultivate her talents; for these, in her position, there was scarcely a
choice of fields, but she had eminently the power of observation, and
her sharpened motives supplied the defects of her early education.
Leslie became a naturalist--the most original and untrammelled of
naturalists, for she proceeded upon that foundation of anecdotal and
experimental acquaintance with herb and tree, insect, bird, and beast,
and even atmospheric phenomena, whose unalloyed riches are peculiar to
rustic and isolated genius.
Hector Garret observed this growing taste, and appreciated it. Leslie
had ceased to apologize for her stupidity, and to be shy of his
scrutiny. When he found her procuring and preserving this or that
specimen, or noting down a primitive fact, if he asked an explanation he
had one directly.
"This pale flower, and that with the green flowers and the great leaves,
are lady's-smock and lady's-mantle; they say they are named after the
Virgin, but I think Adam must have named them in the Garden.--Bridget
tells me that the Irish believe the fairies sleep in these bells.--This
is the plant of whose root cats are so fond that they burrow about it
and nibble it, and as it does not hurt them, I have dug up a bit for our
puss--little Leslie looks after her already.--I have been writing down
the day when the swallows twittered at the window, to compare with their
arrival next summer. Peggy Barbour saw a double nest with one hole last
year; it must have been an old pair and a young maintaining a joint
roof-tree.--Yes, of course, these are jay's feathers."
Another resource which Leslie found within Hector Garret's perception
was that of music. She had been endowed with a flexible, melodious
voice, and as soon as she had use for them, she gathered by magic a
host of ditties, blithe or sad, stirring or soothing, from the
romantic fervour of 'Charlie, he's my darling,' to the pathos of
'Drummossie Moor,' or the homely, biting humour of 'Tibbie Fowler,' to
carol to the accompaniment of the ancient spinet, in order to cheer or
lull the child.
Hector Garret would move to his study-window, and open it softly, in the
gloaming hour when the purple sunset was on the sea, and the bats
abroad from the old chimneys, to listen to his wife in the room above
singing to her child. He did not hear her music otherwise: if he had
solicited it, she would have complied, with a little surprise, but he
did not seek the indulgence.
The alteration in Leslie which matured her unexpectedly from a girl to a
woman affected powerfully both the arbiters of her destiny. Bridget
Kennedy, from a tyrant, was fairly transformed into her warmest and most
faithful adherent. There was something high and great in the wild old
woman, that could thus at once confess her error, admit greatness in any
form in another, and succumb to it reverently. Truly, Bridget Kennedy
was like fire to the weak and foolish, a scourge and a grizzly phantom;
to the brave and capable, a minister fearless, fond, and untiring to her
last breath.
It was very strange to Hector Garret to be sensible of Bridget's lapse
from his side,--to hear the present mistress, the subdued diligent
woman, canonized to the level of the grand, glad lady of Otter to whom
Bridget had been so long fanatically loyal. He said to himself that the
child had helped to effect it, the precious descendant, the doted-on
third generation; but he was uncertain. He himself was so impressed with
the patient woman he had formed out of the lively girl, so tortured by a
conviction that he had gagged and fettered her--that her limbs were
cramped and benumbed, her atmosphere oppressive, her life
self-denying--that he could bear it no longer.
"God forgive me, Leslie, for the wrong I have done you!" he confessed
one night with a haggard, remorseful face, when she stood, constrained
and pensive, on his joyless hearth.
She looked up quickly, and laughed a dry laugh. "You are dreaming," she
replied. "How much larger Otter is than the Glasgow house! it was a mere
cupboard in comparison. How much pleasanter the fields and hills and
sands than the grimy, noisy streets where my head ached and my eyes were
weary. And little Leslie is a thousand times dearer than my own people,
or any companions that I ever possessed. Hush! hush! I hear her cry;
don't detain me, unless for anything I can do for you--because nothing
keeps me from Leslie."
The coals of fire were heaped upon his head: there could be no
reparation.
Why was Hector Garret not resigned? It was a cruel mistake, but it might
have been worse, for hearts are deceitful, and what is false and baneful
is apt to prove an edge-tool. Here was permanent estrangement,
comfortless formality, cold, compulsory esteem; but there was no
treachery in the household, no malignant hate, no base revenge.
But Hector Garret would not rest: he had far less or far more energy
than his wife; he walked his lands a moody, harassed man. The turmoil
and distraction of his youth seemed recalled; he lost his equanimity;
his regular habits faded from him. Leslie could no longer count on his
prolonged absence, his short stated visits; he would be with her at any
time within doors or without--to exchange a word or look, and go as he
came, to return as unaccountably and inconsistently. It vexed Leslie;
she tried not to see it; it made her curious, anxious; and what had she
to do with Hector Garret's flushed cheek and shining eye? Some
anniversary, some combination of present associations and past
recollections--a tendency to fly from himself, besetting at times the
most self-controlled--might have caused this change in his appearance.
Ah! better twist and untwist the rings of little Leslie's fair hair, and
dress and undress her as she had done her doll; better examine the shell
cracked by the yellow-hammer, and count the spots on the broad, brown
leaf of the plane, than perplex herself with so uncongenial a
difficulty. But the difficulty pursued her nevertheless, and baffled and
bewitched her as it has done wiser people.
The master and mistress of Otter were spectators of the harvest home,
the plentiful feast, the merry dance in the spacious barn where their
share of the fruits of the earth was about to be garnered. Leslie stood
in her complimentary, gay gala ribbons, with her fingers meeting upon
her wedding-ring, looking composedly and with interest on the buxom
women and stalwart men, the loving lads and lasses, the cordial husbands
and wives. Hector Garret, however, scarcely tarried to reply to his
health and prosperity drunk in a flowing bumper, but broke from the
scene as if its good was his evil, its blessing his curse.
In the parish church where Leslie had exhibited her bridal finery she
now listened to the clergyman, and bent her head in penitence and
worship, and was disturbed by Hector Garret's gesture of restlessness
and attitude of care.
When the new moon was rising in the sky, Leslie would bid the little one
look up and clap her hands, while Hector paced up and down unquiet and
dissatisfied. Then she would carry the child off to her cradle pillow,
and coming back would stand and look at the moon, while he was close to
her, murmuring "Leslie! Leslie!" But she would turn upon him pale and
cold as the moon above her, and would address him, "See, yonder is a
ship doubling Earlscraig point and steering into the Otter sea."