Marjory did not leave the house for some days. She was disgusted with
everything. She had no heart to encounter the shining of the ceaseless
sunshine out of doors, and the gay scenes upon the Links--gay yet sober,
with a Northern brightness. They seemed to tantalise and mock her in the
heaviness of her heart. And yet when she considered calmly (or tried to
do so) she had so little foundation for this excessive and fantastic
feeling. So far as Fanshawe went, she might never, she said to herself,
see him again; and though of course she could not help having a certain
feeling of friendship for him, considering the circumstances in which
they had been drawn together, yet, after all, whether he was a
good-for-nothing, or the most useful and admirable member of society, it
mattered very little to Marjory. And in so far as respected this unknown
girl, it mattered less still--it mattered absolutely nothing. Marjory
knew, as all who know the peasant population of Scotland are compelled
to admit, however reluctantly, that deviations of such a kind are
unfortunately much too common, and in general much too leniently judged.
Such painful incidents of rural life had come in her way before, and
shocked and disturbed her without having this paralyzing and sickening
effect. Why was it? Was it her nerves, her bodily health, one of those
simple physical reasons which disagreeable philosophers represent as at
the bottom of all our supposed moral sentiments? This was an explanation
which Marjory hated and scorned, as was natural, and which vexed her
already wounded mind all the more that she could not absolutely put it
out of the question. It might be that suffering and exhaustion had given
to events, which would have affected her little under other
circumstances, a special power to sting. She had to account for her
gloom to her uncle by a headache, that most plausible excuse for all
unrevealable griefs, and she overcame Milly by a quick prayer for
silence--
“Never mind me, dear,” she said. “I am worried; my head aches--don’t ask
me any questions.”
Obedient Milly asked no more, but she crept to her sister’s side, and
kept looking at her with wistful glances, which were more inquisitive
than the questions themselves. Marjory was a person of too much
importance to be allowed to be out of temper, or out of heart, with
impunity.
“Your headache is lasting a long time, my dear,” Mr. Charles said, after
vainly suggesting “a turn on the Links” by way of remedy. “Don’t you
think it would be well to see the doctor?”
And Milly wept a few ready tears at the idea that May might be ill. Thus
Marjory was compelled to give up her headache; but her heartache, which
nobody knew of, was more difficult to get rid of. She went no more to
the Spindle, but strayed listlessly along the country roads, which are
not interesting, and tried her best to forget all about an encounter
which had interested her so much at first, and had wounded her so
unduly. Both the interest and the vexation were, she felt, excessive--a
trick of the nerves, a weakness of the body, a tendency to emotion,
produced by the strain she had sustained for so long.
A whole week had elapsed in this way, when one day she was told that a
woman wanted to see her; “a decent woman, but a poor body,” was the
description of the maid. Marjory went down to the court to see this
visitor, expecting some applicant from the poor quarter of the town, or
other petitioner. She was surprised and excited to see that it was the
woman who had caused her so much vexation, the mistress of the cottage
at the Spindle, who stood with an anxious face, expecting her approach.
“Oh, mem,” she cried, almost as soon as Marjory came in sight. “Come
back, come back, and see yon poor lass! She’s breaking her heart. She’s
been worse than ever, crying for you night and day, and since she heard
that I had tell’t ye, she’s had no peace in her mind. All her cry is,
‘Bring back the leddy, bring back the leddy! I canna die till I’ve seen
the leddy.’ We’ve tried to pacify her a’ we could. We’ve said nae doubt
you were gane away; folk come to St. Andrews for the sea-bathing, and
then they go away; or we said nae doubt the leddy finds it’s ower long a
walk; but naething would content her; and at last I came away, seeing it
was my fault, to try if I could find you. And oh, mem, maybe I was
hard-hearted yon day. We mauna be unforgiving. She’s but a bairn, so to
speak, and it was a gentleman that deluded her with his flattering
tongue. When it’s a gentleman it’s a’ the harder on a poor lass; and
they have such deceiving ways. When I was young myself, there was a
student lad, a minister’s son, no less----”
“What does she want with me?” said Marjory, coldly.
“Oh, mem, how can I tell ye? whiles a poor creature like that will take
a yearning; it may be for one thing, it may be for another. Sometimes
it’s for meat and drink; but this poor thing is no of that kind. You’ve
spoken to her soft and kindly, as I dinna doubt is your nature, and she
canna bide that you should think ill of her.”
“How can I do other than think ill of her,” said Marjory, “after what
you said?”
“Well, mem, I canna tell. You maun hear her story; one says one thing,
and another another. I canna tell the rights of it; but this I maun say
that she’s no just a common lass. If there are any excuses that a lady
like you would think excuses, you may be sure she has them; and it would
break a heart of stone to see her there, whiles in her bed, whiles on
her chair, greeting and praying, ‘Oh, bring the leddy back!’ I canna
stand it, mem,” said the woman, wiping her eyes, “I canna stand it, and
if you saw her, neither could you.”
Then a curious sensation came over the proud young lady, who had been so
deeply disgusted. It was as if some frozen spring in her had suddenly
melted; her whole heart seemed to give way. A kind of yearning desire to
obey the call thus made upon her, overcame all other feelings in her
mind. She made a brief, ineffectual stand against this flood of
unaccountable emotion.
“I do not see what good I can do her,” she said. “I have no right to
judge her, and I don’t judge her; but what can I do? If I can help her
in any way, you have only to tell me; but I, whom she scarcely knows,
who know nothing of her, why should I go to her? What good could I do?”
“Na, mem,” said the woman earnestly, “that’s mair than I can tell. It’s
just a fancy. I’m no saying it’s more than a fancy; but ah, you ken
yourself, sometimes all the world is no so much good to us as just
something we have wished for and wanted; some bit thing that was nae
solid advantage. Oh! if you would but come! You’re a leddy well kent and
much thought o’, that can take no harm. It could not harm you; and oh!
the comfort it would be to her!”
“Did you know me?” said Marjory, not knowing how to delay a little
longer, and to make a last effort to stifle the melting of the heart in
her own breast; “or did she know me? How did you trace me here?”
“Poor thing, she knows nobody,” said the woman; “and neither did I ken
ye, mem. I ken few strangers. I found ye out by your description. I
spoke to a friend of mine, a fisher’s wife, that comes whiles with her
creel to the door; and as soon as she had heard me out, she said,
‘Unless I’m sair mista’en, I ken the young leddy;’ and, sure enough,
she brought me to this door; but now I ken ye, Miss Heriot. My man has a
cousin that lives at Comlie, and mony a time I’ve heard of the Laird’s
family. Oh! Miss Heriot, come out with me! She’s in her bed, yon poor
lass. Come and give her a little life, and hear her story. The sight of
her would melt a heart of stone.”
Marjory’s was not a heart of stone, and it pled with her, more strongly
than did this intercessor. She had seen the girl only three or four
times, and had spoken to her but twice; though that had been enough to
rouse in her a vague but powerful sentiment, for which she felt there
was no adequate foundation. Now, however, this sentiment rose into a
certain passionate force; she dismissed her visitor with a vague promise
to go some time or other; but the moment the woman was gone, the
pleading voice within awoke with double force, and gave her no rest. It
interfered with her inevitable duties; it made her silent and
pre-occupied, unable to respond to her little sister’s constant
questions, and the remarks of Mr. Charles, who chose to come home for
luncheon upon that day of all others, and was full of the doings of the
new ladies at Pitcomlie, whom somebody he had met had been telling him
doleful stories about. Mr. Charles’s brow was puckered with anxiety, and
his niece did not give him the sympathy he hoped for. “I do not know
what is to come of the old house, or what I can do,” he cried. “No doubt
I am joint guardian; but how I am to fight against these two young
women, or keep them from having their way--it’s a position I never
anticipated, never anticipated, May.”
“No doubt.” She was thinking she heard the cry “bring back the leddy!”
and Matilda and her sister had no interest for Marjory, even though they
were turning upside down her father’s house.
“For you see,” said Mr. Charles, with his perplexed look; “though I am
joint guardian, so is she; and you may say what you please, May, when it
comes to be judged between two people, and one of them a pretty young
woman, there’s no tribunal yet invented that will hold the scales of
justice altogether even. I might do the best for the boy and his
inheritance; but she’s his mother, and has nature on her side. The
claims of nature might not tell so much if she were not bonnie; but the
two together are irresistible. I do not know if I have your attention--”
“Oh yes, uncle!” said Marjory. But she was not, in reality, paying any
attention. Her mind was away, speeding along the coast towards the
Spindle Rock, and the lowly cottage under its shadow. Mr. Charles went
back to his golf somewhat disappointed at the want of interest with
which his plaints had been heard, and with a secret uneasiness in his
mind as to the cause of Marjory’s abstraction. He ran over all the list
of men whom he had asked to dinner, in the accidental manner suggested
by Miss Jean, with an anxious self-inquiry whether any of them might
have to do with it. The idea was not a pleasant one. He had obeyed the
old woman’s suggestion because he could not help himself, and with a
secret certainty that nothing would come of it; but the thought that
something might come of it was not agreeable. It confused him in his
playing that afternoon; he made such a failure on the putting green as
had not been known to be made by an experienced player for many a day,
and covered himself with confusion. “It’s all these young women,” Mr.
Charles said to himself ruefully; as, indeed, many another man has felt,
if not said.
“May I come with you, May?” said little Milly wistfully. This was
another difficulty to be got over. “I never go with you now; and at
Pitcomlie I never was away from you.”
“At Pitcomlie there were no links,” said Marjory, smiling; and with a
promise to walk with her in the evening, she disposed of her little
sister. The afternoon sunshine was blazing over the coast when she set
out finally on her long walk. A whole fleet of red-sailed fishing-boats
were out at sea, and dropping forth from the sheltered embrace of the
little harbour; a brisk little wind was blowing from the west, a genial
breeze which never disturbs the Firth, or brings up foaming waters in
the bay. The sun shone with that soft and tempered light which rejoices
the heart, without affecting unpleasantly the physical frame. Marjory
hastened on, tracing the turnings of the coast, ascending and
descending, now on the crest of the cliffs, now at their feet. She had
no eyes for the landscape, no ear for the soft splash and murmur of the
waves; her heart beat with anticipations for which it was impossible to
give, even in imagination, any reasonable motive. Nothing that she could
hear could affect her personally, and yet the emotion which possessed
her was too strong to be entirely sympathetic. She said to herself that
it must be some tale of pathetic shame for sin at the best, which
awaited her; some story which might rouse her pity, but which would
probably repel and disgust her at the same time. What better could she
look for? But she hastened as if to hear news of the greatest personal
importance, with a thrill in her veins, and a quite unusual palpitation
in her heart.
Just before she came in sight of the Spindle, a very unlooked-for
encounter happened to Marjory; she had heard steps following her for
some time, but was too much pre-occupied to notice them; nor was it
until she heard a voice from behind addressing her that she thought at
all on the subject. When she heard herself called, she turned round
hastily, and to her great surprise found herself face to face with the
young woman whom she had seen at Pitcomlie, and at the family
burying-place. Her aspect, however, was changed; she it was now who
accosted Marjory; and there was an amount of anxiety in her round face
which changed its expression entirely; she kept calling, as if this
anxiety had excited her beyond all ordinary habits of self-control.
“Miss Heriot, Miss Heriot!” she cried, as she came forward, stumbling
among the whin-bushes in her excitement. “Where are you going, where are
you going?” A certain sharp sense of amusement, mingled with anger, a
perception of the ludicrous inappropriateness of the question, as
addressed to herself by a person who had steadily refused to afford her
any information as to her own movements, struck Marjory, amid all her
impatience. She smiled as she turned round, and waited for a moment, in
answer to the urgent appeal.
“Where am I going?” she said.
“Ay, Miss Heriot, where are you going? You may think I’ve nae right to
ask!” cried the girl, breathless; “but you’re a leddy, and I’m but an
ignorant lass. Maybe I have something to hide, but you have nothing. Oh,
for the sake o’ a’ that’s merciful, tell me! it’s straightforward and
simple to you, but no’ to me. You’re going for your diversion, or for
kindness, or for I kenna what; but me, I’m travailing and working for
life and death; for the life or death of a poor sorrowful creature
that’s perishing of grief and shame, and has done nothing, nothing to be
so sore punished!” she cried, with sudden tears.
Marjory had stopped, arrested, in spite of herself, by the passion in
the girl’s voice. Her heart softened unawares towards this penitent
opponent, who had refused all explanation on her own part, and yet
demanded it with such confidence. “I am going to the cottage at the
Spindle,” she said. “You have no right to ask, nor to interfere; but I
tell you because you are in trouble; because you seem to think I have
something to do with it.”
“No!” said the girl, pausing in her breathless course; “no you; but them
that belong to you. Oh, dinna be angry, dinna upbraid me! It maun be
God that’s brought you here. When I heard of the leddy, something told
me it was you; but I wouldna believe it. I wanted to do a’, a’ mysel’;
to bring her up from the gates o’ the grave, to give her back her good
name, to be her Saviour in this world. Eh, the Lord’s hard upon us
whiles! He’ll let you do all the foolishness you please; but if there’s
one great thing, one good thing that ye would like to do, and then
die--oh me, oh me! He brings in other folk; when your heart’s full of
hope, and ye see your way clear before ye--He brings in other folk!”
Here she sat down and covered her face and wept. That these tears sprung
from some disappointment connected with herself, Marjory divined, though
she could not understand how this could be. She stood by for some time,
respecting the strong emotion which she did not understand. At last,
however, she went up to her, and laid her hand softly on the young
woman’s shoulder.
“If I am to help you in anything,” she said, with a sudden inspiration,
as unaccountable to herself as all the rest, “do not stop and cry, and
lose precious time; but come, like a brave girl, as I am sure you are,
and show me the way.”
“I will!” cried the girl, springing suddenly to her feet. “I will! there
is enough for both you and me.”
The cottage door stood half open; everything was still about; there was
at first no one to be seen. A lonely place, musical with ripple of
waves, with soft sough of the quiet winds, with those mysterious
breathings of nature which make for themselves a language in solitary
places. The two anxious and excited human creatures, one full of a
sorrow and enthusiasm which had taken possession of her whole being--the
other almost as much excited with that suspense of uncertainty,
curiosity, and wonder which is equally enthralling--brought their
painful life into the stillness, like creatures of another sphere,
dispersing the natural sentiment of the place.
“There is no one here,” said Marjory, unawares; but her voice produced a
strange echo, a low cry from the half open door, and immediately after
the figure of the sick girl appeared, holding herself up by the door,
and gazed out eagerly. Her face was suddenly suffused with colour and
life as she saw them.
“Oh, come in! oh, come in!” she cried, with pathetic entreaty, tottering
forward with extended hands. The other young woman brushed past Marjory
without a word, and threw her arm round her sister.
“Bell, you’ll kill yourself!” she cried.
“And what if I did?” said the other, softly; “if you will but let me
tell the lady. I must tell the lady. Oh, come in, come in! do not pass
by the door.”
“I am coming,” said Marjory; her heart strangely divided between
sympathy and the involuntary repugnance which again made itself felt
within her as she approached the girl who had “gone astray.” It is hard
for a delicate-minded woman, brought up in all feminine traditions, to
overcome, without long training and some strong motive, this
involuntary shrinking. She followed the sisters into the cottage with a
strong thrill of repulsion, which almost tempted her to turn her back
upon the sufferer. But she restrained herself, and entered after them
into the dim little room. The sick girl had been seated near the open
door, in a chair with pillows. Here her sister placed her again,
propping her up. She was breathless with her exertions, but,
notwithstanding her weakness, kept her anxious eye fixed upon Marjory,
with an anguish of eagerness which fascinated the other, and held her
fast. When Marjory sat down by her, this anxious gaze somewhat softened;
the terror went out of it; she looked at her more calmly, her eyes
lingering on her face.
“You do not come near me to-day,” she said. “You’re kind, but I can see
the difference. You have come for Christian duty, but no so soft, no so
sweet as when you came last and knew nothing. Oh, lady! you’ve judged me
in your heart, and it’s no just. You have not waited to hear what I had
to say.”
“No,” said Marjory, “that is true; but I don’t judge you. It is not for
me to judge you, or any one. I have been disappointed--but God knows
your excuses; how can I know them? I am very sorry for you,” Marjory
added, sympathetic tears coming into her eyes as she saw the large drops
that veiled the luminous dying brightness of the other’s.
“Oh, my bonnie Bell,” cried the other girl. “Never heed her; they’re
all hard, hard, there’s nobody that understands but me.”
Bell did not make any answer. She fumbled with a black ribbon round her
neck, pulling out slowly, with an effort which showed how great her
weakness was, something which was hidden within her dress.
“I’ve never taken it from its place,” she said, “because he put it there
himself. He hung it round my neck, and he said, ‘Some day, Isabell, some
day I’ll put it on your finger.’ It’s aye been there since. Why should I
put it on my finger when he’s no here to do it? Rings and ornaments are
no for me. Oh, lady, your heart’s moved! Agnes, she’s saying something.
My heart beats, and I canna hear.”
“She’s saying nothing but your name,” said Agnes, almost harshly,
watching with a keenness that lost not a gesture or motion of the lips,
the proceedings of the visitor. And, indeed, all that Marjory felt able
to say was a startled wondering repetition of the name, “Isabell,
Isabell, Isabell!”
“Here it is,” said the poor girl, panting with the effort, and holding
out in the palm of her worn hand, with a piteous mingling of tears and
pride, a ring attached to her ribbon. “Naebody has seen it till now.
I’ve carried it next my heart. He was not the one, oh, he was never the
one to bring shame on them he loved! I wasna his equal--him a gentleman
that made the heart glad to see him, and me an ignorant creature that
knew nothing. But I took his fancy. Oh, lady, maybe it’s because you
are a lady and kind, that I think you’re sometimes like him, the turns
of your voice and the way you put your hands. I took his fancy. When you
came and sat under the Spindle Rock, and saw me sitting at my door--some
way, oh, mem,” she cried, with a pathetic apology, “I took your fancy
too!”
“Go on, go on!” cried Marjory.
But Isabell knew no reason for haste. She looked at the others
wondering. They were excited, but she, poor soul, had ceased to be
excited. A kind of pensive shadow of happiness stole over her as she
traced out the story of her love, and sought that simple apology for her
lover.
“I took your fancy too,” she repeated, softly. “I watched, and watched,
and wished you would speak, but it was you that came the first. That was
just as he did; but men are no made like us. Yours was kindness, but his
was love. Oh, lady, dinna hurry me; my heart’s fluttering as if it would
break forth; it’s like a bird in my breast. I’m his marriet wife.”
“Whose wife?” cried Marjory, rising up. She came forward in her
excitement, her tall figure towering over the others. Her passion of
anxiety and wonder took almost the form of anger. “Whose wife?” she
repeated, involuntarily taking hold of the ring. “Is this all you have
to make you so? Oh, woman, do not make me curse the dead in his grave!
Is this all? Did he deceive you so?”
“What does she say--what does she say? Oh, my heart’s fluttering! Was
that all? I am his marriet wife,” cried the girl. “I am his marriet
wife!”
Marjory turned her eager eyes to the other, breathless, unable to speak.
Agnes had her arm round her sister, supporting her. She was defiant, as
always, but somewhat subdued by the command in the eyes of the lady,
whom she felt to be her rival.
“It was a private marriage,” she said, hurriedly. “No the minister; poor
folk are no like leddies. It wasna right, but it’s nae shame. They were
marriet--before witnesses. He took her, and she took him. It’s a thing
that’s done among the like of us.”
Marjory stood stupefied in the centre of the little dim room, faintly
lighted by its green windows. It seemed to her that she could neither
move nor speak. Was it a dream? or was it possible? Could it be? All her
old thoughts at the reading of Tom’s letter swept over her mind like a
gust. If this was Isabell, then what was her real position? and what
changes might be involved of which nobody had dreamed? Marjory’s heart
began to flutter like the sick girl’s. A cloud of confusion seemed to
float round her. She saw the others but dimly out of her hot excited
eyes. Isabell--his wife! “God help us,” she stammered, not knowing what
she said. “I don’t understand it--I don’t understand it! Whose wife?”
Isabell raised her pathetic eyes, wondering and appealing, to her
visitor’s face. Agnes looked at her steadily with an uncommunicating
defiance. The one knew nothing of the confusion in Marjory’s mind, but
only felt with a painful anguish such as sometimes rends the hearts of
the dying, that this sympathy which she longed for, had failed her--the
other knew, and confronted the lady who was her rival, daring her to
avoid the revelation which was impending, but altogether unconscious and
incapable of comprehending Marjory’s thoughts. Neither of them spoke.
And in the moment everything that had happened during the last four
months whirled through Marjory’s brain, passed before her eyes like a
panorama. Poor Tom on his death-bed, playing with the something that he
would and would not tell her--then in the last hurried scene of all
believing he had told her, thanking God that he had done it. Oh! the
pitifulness of that thanksgiving for a confession never made! Had he
made it, where would this girl have been now? It might have been life to
her instead of death, it might have saved the life of the old father who
broke his heart for Tom. It might have--God knows what mazes of sudden
fancy she plunged into;--then all in a moment, came back to find herself
crouching down for support in her chair, holding by it, looking at
Isabell’s pale alarmed face through a darkness that slowly dispersed.
“What has happened?” she heard herself saying as she came out of the
darkness. She had not fainted nor fallen; but a mist had come about her,
parting her from reality, and engrossing her faculties at the very
moment when the secret she had sought so long looked at her out of her
companions’ eyes.
As Isabell’s face, however, slowly appeared to her out of that mist,
and she saw the intense expression of suffering and anxiety in it, the
weakness, every blue vein showing, the large circle round those too
luminous eyes, the wistful look in which her whole soul was--Marjory’s
heart was touched so suddenly that one impulse swept all other feelings
away.
“Poor Isabell, poor Isabell!” she said with a cry unawares. “He tried to
tell me on his death-bed. It was not his wish to leave you so. He
thought he had told me;” and with an effusion of pity and tenderness
which overcame all doubt, she took the girl’s wasted hands into her own.
Wonder overcast poor Isabell’s face. She began to cry softly,
overpowered by the sweetness of this accost, but not knowing what it
meant. “Oh, did you know him?” she murmured. “Oh, weel I ken he meant no
harm. Lady, lady, did you know my Mr. Heriot--my man, my dear, dear
man?”
“Bell,” cried Agnes, whispering in her ear. “Bell! it’s Miss Heriot her
very sel’!”
That evening Marjory sent a hurried anxious note to Fanshawe, calling
upon him to come and help her. She did it by a sudden impulse, carried
away by feelings which she felt incapable of expressing to any one else.
Him only she could confide in, he only could help her in the struggle
that was to come.