KIRSTY AND PHEMY
During the first winter which Francis spent at college, his mother was
in England, and remained there all the next summer and winter. When at
last she came home, she was even less pleasant than before in the eyes
of her household, no one of which had ever loved her. Throughout the
summer she had a succession of visitors, and stories began to spread
concerning strange doings at the castle. The neighbours talked of
extravagance, and the censorious among them of riotous living; while
some of the servants more than hinted that the amount of wine and
whisky consumed was far in excess of what served when the old colonel
was alive.
One of them who, in her mistress’s frequent fits of laziness, acted as
housekeeper, had known David Barclay from his boyhood, and understood
his real intimacy with her late master: it was not surprising,
therefore, that she should open her mind to him, while keeping toward
everyone else a settled silence concerning her mistress’s affairs: none
of the stories current in the country-side came from her. David was to
Mrs. Bremner the other side of a deep pit, into the bottom of which
whatever was said between them dropped.
‘There’ll come a catastroff or lang,’ said Mrs. Bremner one evening
when David Barclay overtook her on the road to the town, ‘and that’ll
be seen! The property’s jist awa to the dogs! There’s Maister Donal,
the factor, gaein aboot like ane in a dilemm as to cuttin ’s thro’t or
blawin his harns oot! He daursna say a word, ye see! The auld laird
trustit him, and he’s feart ’at he be blamit, but there’s nae duin
onything wi’ that wuman: the siller maun be forthcomin whan she’s
wantin ’t!’
‘The siller’s no hers ony mair nor the lan’; a’s the yoong laird’s!’
remarked David.
‘That’s true; but she’s i’ the pooer o’ ’t till he come o’ age; and
Maister Donal, puir man, mony’s the time he’s jist driven to ane mair
to get what’s aye wantit and wantit! What comes o’ the siller it jist
blecks me to think: there’s no a thing aboot the hoose to shaw for ’t!
And hearken, Dauvid, but latna baith lugs hear ’t, for dreid the tane
come ower ’t again to the tither--I’m doobtin the drink’s gettin a sair
grup o’ her!’
‘’Deed I wudna be nane surprised!’ returned David. ‘Whatever micht want
in at her door, there’s naething inside to haud it oot. Eh, to think o’
Archie Gordon takin til himsel sic a wife! that a man like him, o’ guid
report, and come to years o’ discretion--to think o’ brains like his
turnin as fozy as an auld neep at sicht o’ a bonny front til an ae wa’
hoose (_a house of but one wall_)! It canna be ’at witchcraft’s clean
dune awa wi’!’
‘Bonny, Dauvid! Ca’d ye the mistress bonny?’
‘She used to be--bonny, that is, as a button or a buckle micht be
bonny. What she may be the noo, I dinna ken, for I haena set e’e upon
her sin’ she cam to the Knowe orderin me to sen’ back Francie’s powny:
she was suppercilly eneuch than for twa cornels and a corporal, but no
ill luikin. Gien she hae a spot o’ beaouty left, the drink ’ll tak it
or it hae dune wi’ her!’
‘Or she hae dune wi’ hit, Dauvid! It’s ta’en ae colour frae her
a’ready, and begud to gie her anither! But it concerns me mair aboot
Francie nor my leddy: what’s to come o’ him when a’s gane? what’ll
there be for him to come intil?’
Gladly would David have interfered, but he was helpless; he had no
legal guardianship over or for the boy! Nothing could be done till he
was a man!--‘gien ever he be a man!’ said David to himself with a sigh,
and he thought how much better off he was with his half-witted Steenie
than his friend with his clever Francie.
Mrs. Bremner was sister-in-law to the schoolmaster, and was then on her
way to see him and his daughter Phemy. From childhood the girl had been
in the way of going to the castle to see her aunt, and so was well
known about the place. Being an engaging child, she had become not only
welcome to the servants but something of a favourite with the mistress,
whom she amused with her little airs, and pleased with her winning
manners. She was now about fourteen, a half-blown beauty of the red and
white, gold and blue kind. She had long been a vain little thing,
approving of her own looks in the glass, and taking much interest in
setting them off, but so simple as to make no attempt at concealing her
self-satisfaction. Her pleased contemplation of this or that portion of
her person, and the frantic attempts she was sometimes espied making to
get a sight of her back, especially when she wore a new frock, were
indeed more amusing than hopeful, but her vanity was not yet so
pronounced as to overshadow her better qualities, and Kirsty had not
thought it well to take notice of it, although, being more than anyone
else a mother to her, she was already a little anxious on the score of
it, and the rather that her aunt, like her father, neither saw nor
imagined fault in her.
That the child had no mother, drew to her the heart of the girl whose
mother was her strength and joy; while gratitude to the child’s father,
who, in opening for her some doors of wisdom and more of knowledge, had
put her under eternal obligations, moved her to make what return she
could. It deepened her sense of debt to Phemy that the schoolmaster did
not do for his daughter anything like what he had years long been doing
for his pupil, whence she almost felt as if she had diverted to her own
use much that rightly belonged to Phemy. At the same time she knew very
well that had she never existed the relation between the father and the
daughter would have been the same. The child of his dearly loved wife,
the schoolmaster was utterly content with his Phemy; for he felt as if
she knew everything her mother knew, had the same inward laws of being
and the same disposition, and was simply, like her, perfect.
That she should ever do anything wrong was an idea inconceivable to
him. Nor was there much chance of his discovering it if she did. When
not at work, he was constantly reading. Most people close a book
without having gained from it a single germ of thought; Mr. Craig
seldom opened one without falling directly into a brown study over
something suggested by it. But I believe that, even when thus absorbed,
Phemy was never far from his thought. At the same time, like many
Scots, while she was his one joy, he seldom showed her sign of
affection, seldom made her feel, and never sought to make her feel how
he loved her. His love was taken by him for understood by her, and was
to her almost as if it did not exist.
That his child required to be taught had scarcely occurred to the man
who could not have lived without learning, or enjoyed life without
teaching--as witness the eagerness with which he would help Kirsty
along any path of knowledge in which he knew how to walk. The love of
knowledge had grown in him to a possessing passion, paralyzing in a
measure those powers of his life sacred to life--that is, to God and
his neighbour.
Kirsty could not do nearly what she would to make up for his neglect.
For one thing, the child did not take to learning, and though she loved
Kirsty and often tried to please her, would not keep on doing anything
without being more frequently reminded of her duty than the distance
between their two abodes permitted. Kirsty had her to the farm as often
as the schoolmaster would consent to her absence, and kept her as long
as he went on forgetting it; while Phemy was always glad to go to
Corbyknowe, and always glad to get away again. For Mrs. Barclay thought
it her part to teach her household matters, and lessons of that sort
Phemy relished worse than some of a more intellectual nature. If left
with her, the moment Kirsty appeared again, the child would fling from
her whatever might be in her hand, and flee as to her deliverer from
bondage and hard labour. Then would Kirsty always insist on her
finishing what she had been at, and Phemy would obey, with the protest
of silent tears, and the airs of a much injured mortal. Had Kirsty been
backed by the child’s father, she might have made something of her; but
it grew more and more painful to think of her future, when her
self-constituted guardian should have lost what influence she had over
her.
Phemy was rather afraid of Steenie. Her sunny nature shrank from the
shadow, as of a wall, in which Steenie appeared to her always to stand.
From any little attention he would offer her, she, although never rude
to him, would involuntarily recoil, and he soon learned to leave her
undismayed. That the child’s repugnance troubled him, though he never
spoke of it, Kirsty saw quite plainly, for she could read his face like
a book, and heard him sigh when even his mother did not. Her eyes were
constantly regarding him, like sheep feeding on the pasture of his
face:--I think I have used a figure of sir Philip Sidney’s. But say
rather--the thoughts that strayed over his face were the sheep to which
all her life she had been the devoted shepherdess.
At Corbyknowe things went on as hitherto. Kirsty was in no danger of
tiring of the even flow of her life. Steenie’s unselfish solitude of
soul made him every day dearer to her. Books she sought in every
accessible, and found occasionally in an unhopeful quarter. She had no
thought of distinguishing herself, no smallest ambition of becoming
learned; her soul was athirst to understand, and what she understood
found its way from her mind into her life. Much to the advantage of her
thinking were her keen power and constant practice of observation. I
utterly refuse the notion that we cannot think without words, but
certainly the more forms we have ready to embody our thoughts, the
farther we shall be able to carry our thinking. Richly endowed, Kirsty
required the more mental food, and was the more able to use it when she
found it. To such of the neighbours as had no knowledge of any
diligence save that of the hands, she seemed to lead an idle life; but
indeed even Kirsty’s hands were far from idle. When not with Steenie
she was almost always at her mother’s call, who, from the fear that she
might grow up incapable of managing a house, often required a good deal
of her. But the mother did not fail to note with what alacrity she
would lay her book aside, sometimes even dropping it in her eagerness
to answer her summons. Dismissed for the moment, she would at once take
her book again and the seat nearest to it: she could read anywhere, and
gave herself none of the student-airs that make some young people so
pitifully unpleasant. At the same time solitude was preferable for
study, and Kirsty was always glad to find herself with her books in the
little hut, Steenie asleep on the heather carpet on her feet, and the
assurance that there no one would interrupt her.
It was not wonderful that, in the sweet absence of selfish cares, her
mind full of worthy thoughts, and her heart going out in tenderness,
her face should go on growing in beauty and refinement. She was not yet
arrived at physical full growth, and the forms of her person being
therefore in a process of change were the more easily modelled after
her spiritual nature. She seemed almost already one that would not die,
but live for ever, and continue to inherit the earth. Neither her
father nor her mother could have imagined anything better to be made of
her.
Steenie had not changed his habits, neither seemed to grow at all more
like other people. He was now indeed seldom so much depressed as
formerly, but he showed no sign of less dependence on Kirsty.