AUNT JEANIE'S GUEST.
The cooing babe a veil supplied,
And if she listened none might know,
Or if she sighed;
Or if forecasting grief and care,
Unconscious solace then she drew,
And lulled her babe, and unaware
Lulled sorrow too.
JEAN INGELOW.
All the winter Fay remained quietly at the old Manse, tenderly watched
over by her kind old friend and faithful Jean.
For many weeks, indeed months, her want of strength and weary
listlessness caused Mrs. Duncan great anxiety. She used to shake her
head and talk vaguely to Jean of young folk who had gone into a waste
with naught but fretting, and had been in their graves before their
friends realized that they were ill; to which Jean would reply, "'Deed
and it is the truth, mistress; and I am thinking it is time that Mrs.
St. Clair had her few 'broth.'" For all Jean's sympathy found
expression in deeds, not words.
Jean seldom dealt largely in soft words; she was somewhat brisk and
sharp of tongue--a bit biting, like her moorland breezes in winter
time. In spite of her reverential tenderness for Fay, she would chide
her quite roughly for what she called her fretting ways. She almost
snatched the baby away from her one day when Fay was crying over him.
"Ah, my bonny man," she said, indignantly, "would your mither rain
tears down on your sweet face, and make you sair-hearted before your
time? Whisht, then, my bairn, and Jean will catch the sunshine for
you;" and Jean danced him vigorously before the window, while Fay
penitently dried her eyes.
"Oh, Jean, give him back to me. I did not mean to make him cry; the
tears will come sometimes, and I can not keep them back. I will try to
be good--I will, indeed."
But baby Hugh had no wish to go back to his mother; he was crowing and
pulling Jean's flaxen hair, and would not heed Fay's sad little
blandishments.
"The bairns are like auld folks," remarked Jean, triumphant at her
success, and eager to point a moral; "they can not bide what is not
bright. There is a time for everything, as Solomon says, 'a time to
mourn and a time to dance;' but there is never a time for a bairn to
be sair-hearted; neither nature nor Solomon would hold with that, as
Master Fergus would say. Ech, sirs! but he is a fine preacher, is
Master Fergus."
Fay took Jean's reproof very humbly. She shed no more tears when her
baby was in her arms. It was touching to see how she strove to banish
her grief, that the baby smiles might not be dimmed. Jean would nod
her head with grim approval over her pile of finely ironed things as
she heard Fay singing in a low sweet voice, and the baby's delighted
coos answering her. A lump used to come in Jean's throat, and a
suspicious moisture to her keen blue eyes, as she would open the door
in the twilight and see the child-mother kneeling down beside the
old-fashioned cradle, singing him to sleep. "He likes the songs about
the angels best," Fay would say, looking up wistfully in Jean's face.
"I sing him all my pretty songs, only not the sad ones. I am sure he
loves me to do it."
"May be the bairn does not know his mither apart from the women
angels," muttered Jean, in a gruff aside, as she laid down her pile of
dainty linen. Jean knew more than any one else; she could have told
her mistress, if she chose, that it was odd that all Mrs. St. Clair's
linen was marked "F. Redmond." But she kept her own counsel.
Jean would not have lifted a finger to restore Fay to her husband. The
blunt Scotch handmaiden could not abide men--"a puir-hearted, feckless
lot," as she was wont to say. Of course the old master and Mr. Fergus
were exceptions to this. Jean worshiped her master; and though she
held the doctrine of original sin, would never have owned that Mr.
Fergus had a fault. But to the rest of mankind she was suspiciously
uncharitable. "To think he drove her from him--the puir bit lammie,"
she would say; "and yet the law can't have the hanging of him.
Redmond, indeed! but he won't own to any such name. It is lucky the
old mistress is not ower sharp-sighted--but there, such an idea would
never get into her head."
Fay's secret was quite safe with Jean, and, as the weeks and months
went on, a feeling of utter security came over her. She hardly knew
how time passed. There were hours when she did not always feel
unhappy. The truth was, she was for a long time utterly benumbed by
pain; a total collapse of mind and body had ensued on her flight from
her home. She had suffered too much for her age and strength. Sir
Hugh's alarming illness, and her suspense and terror, had been
followed by the shock of hearing from his own lips of his love and
engagement to Margaret; and, before she could rally her forces to bear
this new blow, her baby had been born.
Fay used to wonder sometimes at her own languid indifference. "Am I
really able to live without Hugh?" she would say to herself. "I thought
it must have killed me long ago, knowing that he does not love me; but
somehow I do not feel able to think of it all; and when I go to bed I
fall asleep."
Fay was mercifully unconscious of her own heart-break, though the look
in her eyes often made Mrs. Duncan weep. When she grew a little
stronger her old restlessness returned, and she went beyond the garden
and the orchard. She never wandered about the village, people seemed
to stare at her so; but her favorite haunt was the falls. There was a
steep little path by a wicket-gate that led to a covered rustic bench,
where Fay could see the falls above her shooting down like a silver
streak from under the single graceful arch of the road-way; not
falling sheer down, but broken by many a ledge and bowlder of black
rock, where in summer-time the spray beat on the long delicate fronds
of ferns.
Fay remembered how she used to stroll through the under-wood and
gather the slender blue and white harebells that came peeping out of
the green moss, or hunted for the waxy blossoms of the bell-heather;
how lovely the place had looked then, with the rowans or witchens, as
they called them--the mountain ash of the south, drooping over the
water, laden heavily with clusters of coral-like berries, sometimes
tinging the snowy foam with a faint rose-tint, and fringed in the
background with larch and silver birch; the whole mass of luxuriant
foliage nearly shutting out the little strip of sky which gleamed
pearly blue through a delicate network of leaves.
It was an enchanting spot in summer or autumn, but even in winter Fay
loved it; its solitude and peacefulness fascinated her. But one day
she found its solitude invaded. She had been some months at the Manse,
but she had not once spoken to the young minister during his brief
visits. She had kept to her room with a nervous shrinking from
strangers; but she had watched him sometimes, between the services,
pacing up and down the garden as though he were thinking deeply.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered young man, with a plain,
strong-featured face as rugged as his own mountains; but his keen gray
eyes could look soft enough at times, as pretty Lilian Graham knew
well; for the willful little beauty had been unable to say no to him
as she did her other lovers. It was not easy to bid Fergus Duncan go
about his business when he had made up his mind to bide, and as the
young minister had decidedly made up his mind that Lilian Graham
should be his promised wife, he got his way in that; and Lilian grew
so proud and fond of him that she never found out how completely he
ruled her, and how seldom she had her own will.
Fay heard with some dismay that Mr. Fergus was coming to live at the
Manse after Christmas; she would have to see him at meals, and in the
evening, and would have no excuse for retiring into her room. Now, if
any visitor came to the Manse, Lilian Graham, or one of her
sisters--for there were seven strapping lasses at the farm, and not
one of them wed yet, as Mrs. Duncan would say--Fay would take refuge
in the kitchen, or sit in the minister's room--anything to avoid the
curious eyes and questioning that would have awaited her in the
parlor; but now if Mr. Fergus lived there, Lilian Graham would be
always there too.
Mr. Fergus was rather curious about Aunt Jeanie's mysterious guest. He
had caught sight of Mrs. St. Clair once or twice at the window, and
had been much struck with her appearance of youth; and his remark,
after first seeing her in the little kirk, had been, "Why, Aunt
Jeanie, Mrs. St. Clair looks quite a child; how could any one calling
himself a man ill-use a little creature like that;" for Mrs. Duncan
had carefully infused into her nephew's ear a little fabled account of
Fay's escape from her husband, to which he listened with Scotch
caution and a good deal of incredulity. "Depend upon it, there are
faults on both sides," he returned, obstinately. "We do not deal in
villains now-a-days. You are so soft, Aunt Jeanie; you always believe
what people tell you. I should like to have a talk with Mrs. St.
Clair; indeed, I think it my duty as a minister to remonstrate with a
young wife when she has left her husband."
"Oh, you will frighten the bit lassie, Fergus, if you speak and look
so stern," replied his aunt in an alarmed voice. "You see you are only
a lad yourself, and may be Lilian wouldn't care to have you so ready
with your havers with a pretty young thing like Mrs. St. Clair. Better
leave her to Jean and me." But she might as well have spoken to the
wind, for the young minister had made up his mind that it was his duty
to shepherd this stray lamb.
He had already spoken out his mind to Lilian; the poor little girl had
been much overpowered by the sight of Fay in the kirk. Fay's beauty
had made a deep impression on her; and the knowledge that her
betrothed would be in daily contact with this dainty piece of
loveliness was decidedly unpalatable to her feelings.
Lilian was quite aware of her own charms; her dimples and sweet
youthful bloom had already brought many a lover to her feet; but she
was a sensible little creature in spite of her vanity, and she knew
that she could not compare with Mrs. St. Clair any more than painted
delf could compare with porcelain.
So first she pouted and gave herself airs when her lover came to the
farm, and then, when he coaxed her, she burst into a flood of honest
tears, and bewailed herself because Fergus was to live up at the
Manse, when no one knew who Mrs. St. Clair might be, for all she had a
face like a picture.
"Oh, oh, I see now," returned Fergus, with just the gleam of a smile
lighting up his rugged face; "it is just a piece of jealousy, Lilian,
because Mrs. St. Clair--to whom I have never spoken, mind you--happens
to be a prettier girl than yourself"--which was wicked and impolitic
of Fergus.
"But you will be speaking to her, and at every meal-time too, and all
the evenings when Mrs. Duncan is up in the minister's room; and it is
not what I call fair, Fergus, with me down at the farm, and you always
up in arms if I venture to give more than a good-day to the lads."
"Well, you see you belong to me, Lilian, and I am a careful man and
look after my belongings. Mrs. St. Clair is one of my flock now, and I
must take her in hand. Whisht, lassie," as Lilian averted her face and
would not look at him, "have you such a mean opinion of me that you
think I am not to be trusted to look at any woman but yourself, and I
a minister with a cure of souls; that is a poor look-out for our
wedded life." And here Fergus whispered something that brought the
dimples into play again; and after a little more judicious coaxing,
Lilian was made to understand that ministers were not just like other
men, and must be suffered to go their "ain gait."
And the upshot of this conversation was that Fay found herself
confronted at the wooden gate one day by a tall, broad-shouldered
young man, who she knew was the young minister. Of course he was going
to see the falls, and she was about to pass him with a slight bow,
when he stopped her and offered his hand. "I think we know each other,
Mrs. St. Clair, without any introduction. I am Fergus Duncan, and I
have long wanted to be acquainted with Aunt Jeanie's guest;" and then
he held open the gate and escorted her back to the Manse.
Fay could not find fault with the young man's bluntness; she had no
right to hold herself aloof from Mrs. Duncan's nephew. He must know
how she had avoided him all these months, but he seemed too
good-humored to resent it. He talked to her very pleasantly about the
weather and the falls and his uncle's health, and Fay answered him
with her usual gentleness.
They parted in the porch mutually pleased with each other; but the
young man drew a long breath when he found himself alone.
"Ech, sirs! as Jean says, but this is the bonniest lass I have ever
set eyes on. Poor little Lilian! no wonder she felt herself a bit
upset. Come, I must get to the bottom of this; Aunt Jeanie is too soft
for anything. Why, the sables she wore were worth a fortune; and when
she took off her gloves her diamond and emerald rings fairly blinded
one."
Fergus arrived at the Manse with all his traps about a fortnight after
this; and when the first few days were over, Fay discovered that she
had no reason to dislike Mr. Fergus's company.
He was always kind and good-natured, and took a great deal of notice
of the baby. Indeed, he never seemed more content than when baby Hugh
was on his knee, pulling his coarse reddish hair, and gurgling
gleefully over this new game. Fay began to like him very much when she
had seen him with her boy; and after that he found little trouble in
drawing her into conversation.
His first victory was inducing her to make friends with Lilian. Fay,
who shrunk painfully from strangers, acceded very nervously to this
request. But when Lilian came, her shy, pretty manners won Fay's
heart, and the two became very fond of each other.
Fergus used to have long puzzled talks with Aunt Jeanie about her
protégé. "What is to be done about Mrs. St. Clair when Lilian and I
are married?" he would ask; "the Manse can not hold us all."
"Eh, lad, that is what Jean and me often say; but then the summer is
not here yet, and may be we can find a cottage in Rowan-Glen, and
there is Mrs. Dacre over at Corrie that would house them for a bit.
Mrs. St. Clair was speaking to me about it yesterday. 'Where do they
mean to live when they are married?' she says, quite sensible-like.
'Is there anywhere else I can go to make room for them?' And then she
cried, poor bairn, and said she would like to stay in Rowan-Glen."
"Mrs. St. Clair," observed Fergus one day, looking up from his
writing, "don't you think people will be talking if you stay away from
your husband any longer?" for he had once before said a word to her on
the subject, only Fay had been hysterical and had begged him not to go
on.
"Oh," she said, turning very pale, and dropping her work, "why will
you speak to me of my husband, Mr. Fergus?"
"Because I think you ought to go back to him," he replied, in a quiet,
business-like tone; "it is a wife's duty to forgive--and how do you
know that your husband has not bitterly repented driving you away from
him. Would you harden your heart against a repentant man?"
"My husband does not want me," she returned, and a spasm crossed her
face. "Should I have left him if he wanted to keep me? 'One of us must
go,' that is what he said."
"Are you sure you understood him?" asked Fergus, but he felt at the
moment as though it would relieve his feelings to knock that fellow
down; "a man can say a thing when he is angry which he would be sorry
to mean in his cooler moments."
"I saw it written," was the low answer; then, with an effort to
silence him, "Mr. Fergus, you do not know my husband--you can not
judge between us. I was right to leave him; I could not do otherwise."
"Was his name St. Clair?" he asked, somewhat abruptly; and as Fay
reddened under his scrutinizing glance, he continued, rather sternly,
"please do not say 'Yes' if it be untrue; you do not look as though
you could deceive any one."
"My husband's name is St. Clair," replied Fay, with as much
displeasure as she could assume. "I am not obliged to tell you or any
one else that it is only his second name. I have reasons why I wish to
keep the other to myself."
"Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair," answered Fergus, moved to admiration by
this frankness and show of spirit; "believe me, it is through no
feeling of idle curiosity I put this question, but because I want to
help you."
"Yes, I know you are very good," replied Fay, more gently.
"If you would only trust us, and give us your confidence," he
continued, earnestly. "Aunt Jeanie is not a woman of the world, but
she has plenty of common sense; and forgive me if I say you are very
young, and may need guidance. You can not hide from us that you are
very unhappy, and that the husband you have left is still dear to
you--" But Fay could hear no more; she rose with a low sob and left
the room, and Fergus's little homily on wifely forbearance was not
finished.
It was so each time that he reopened the subject. Fay would listen up
to a certain point, and seem touched by the young minister's kindness
and sympathy, but he could not induce her to open her heart to him.
She was unhappy--yes, she allowed that; she had no wish to leave her
husband, but circumstances had been too strong for her, and nothing
would induce her to admit that she had done wrong.
"Who would have thought that little creature had so much tenacity and
will," Fergus said to himself, with a sort of vexed admiration, after
one of these conversations; "why, Lilian is a big woman compared to
Mrs. St. Clair, and yet my lassie has not a tithe of her spirit. Well,
I'll bide my time; but it will not be my fault if I fail to have a
grip of her yet."
But the spring sunshine touched the ragged tops of Ben-muich-dhui and
Ben-na-hourd before Fergus got his "grip."
He was taking his porridge one morning, with an English paper lying
beside his plate, when he suddenly started, and seemed all at once
very much absorbed in what he was reading. A few minutes afterward,
when Fay was stooping over her boy, who lay on the carpet beside her,
sprawling in the sunshine, he raised his eyes, and looked at her
keenly from under his bent brows; but he said nothing, and shortly
afterward went off to his study; and when he was alone, he spread out
the paper before him, and again studied it intently.
A paragraph in the second column had attracted his attention--
"A reward of two hundred pounds is offered to any person who
can give such information of Lady Redmond and her child as may
lead to them being restored to their friends. All
communications to be forwarded to Messrs. Green and
Richardson, Lincoln's Inn."
And just above--
"Fay, your husband entreats you to return to your home, or at
least relieve his anxiety with respect to you and the child.
Only come back, and all will be well.
"HUGH."
"And Hugh is the baby's name. Ay, my lady, I think I have the grip of
you at last," muttered Fergus, as he drew the inkstand nearer to him.
The next morning, Messrs. Green and Richardson received a letter
marked "private," in which the writer begged to be furnished without
delay with full particulars of the appearance of the missing Lady
Redmond, and her age and the age of the child; and the letter was
signed, "Fergus Duncan, the Manse, Rowan-Glen."