UNCLE GAINSWOOD.
The character we are about to pourtray, though not an uncommon one,
is a task alike difficult and distasteful.
Mr. Gideon Gainswood, Writer to the Signet and Notary Public, was a
good example of those coarse-looking local notorieties, who, painted
in accurate black, yearly figure, in kit-cat size, on the walls of
the Royal Scottish Academy. His figure was sturdy, and his hands and
feet were as those of a hodman, which, perhaps, his more worthy
grandfather had been in his time. His features were of a harsh
Scottish type; a cunning and sardonic turn of mind had puckered in
minute wrinkles the skin near his cold-grey, ferret-like eyes, which
seemed to focus on all he addressed. He had coarse hair of a sandy
brown, now well grizzled in his fiftieth year; grey leg-of-mutton
whiskers, and a thin-lipped, cruel-looking mouth, the jaw of a
bull-dog, and a nose that can only be denominated as a large pug. He
seldom laughed; then only from the teeth outwards, and these, being
yellow, contrasted unfavourably with the scrupulously white neck-tie,
which he was never seen without in his double capacity of a
professional man and Elder of the kirk.
Yet he was only one of the legion,--
"Who eat, they drink, they sleep, they spend,
They go to church on Sunday;
For many are afraid of God,
But more of Mrs. Grundy,--"
a typical female who is the bugbear--the modern Gyre Carlin--of "the
genteel" classes in Scotland, especially in her capital, thereby
restraining all honesty of action and inducing an amount of timidity
and snobbery that to a stranger seems astounding.
He certainly had the reputation of being an able lawyer and most
upright Elder--"a sly fox--a sharp fellow," some ill-natured people
averred; "one who took deuced good care not to be found out,"
whatever that might mean. His chief weakness, besides unsatiable
avarice, was that desire, so peculiar to the middle-class Scotsman
and Frenchman, to figure on platforms at public meetings and see
their names duly recorded in the provincial prints. As a general
rule, the learned professions in Scotland now contribute almost
nothing to the literature of the country, but Mr. Gainswood had
emitted an annotated edition of "A Shove Heavenward for Heavy-doupit
Sinners," which won him some fame, and added to the religious
reputation he had won for himself, by perpetually quoting
Scripture--more than we shall do for him. And texts therefrom--not
illuminated, as such savoured of Popery and Episcopacy, but in fair
black roman letters--were hung all over his house, which was one of
the handsomest in the city.
He observed the seventh day with a rigidity that was edifying to
behold. Under the management of Mrs. Elspat McBriar, cold dinners
ever graced the Sunday board, for as a writer has it, "spite may be
permissible on Sabbath, though hot potatoes and novels are not," as
poor Dove sighed to think, when, after three years in France, she
came home to all this sort of thing.
How such a man came to have a daughter so good and artless, and, more
than all, so exquisitely ladylike as Dove, was passing strange, and
one of those idiosyncracies of nature "which," as Dundreary says, "no
fellow can understand."
Though it suited him never to say so, the Colonel's fond and romantic
idea of buying back Avon-na-gillian, spending the last of his days
where its bluff rocks met the vast waves of the Atlantic, and being
laid finally under some old pine trees where generations of the Clan
Lamond lay, he considered "especial bosh," as he had no sympathy with
any such "old world" speculations.
He always deemed the scheme an impracticable one; and, sooth to say,
were the real truth known, for sundry cogent and secret reasons of
his own, it would have proved far from unwelcome, had tidings come,
that his brother-in-law were cut off in India by death in any
fashion, fever, battle, or the assassin's steel, and never came home
at all, as he hoped to do ere Gillian was twenty-one; yet he never
addressed a letter to the confiding old soldier, without preluding it
with "D.V.," as he did those to all his clients.
To such a creature as this, and such as he may prove to be, there
are, no doubt--even in his profession--good and bright exceptions;
yet in the "College of Justice," as it is historically or jocularly
called, they are often far apart; and he was one of the
representative men of a pretty numerous class of religious pretenders
that are to be found in all phases of life.
We have said that, secretly, Mr. Gainswood more than disliked his
nephew, yet for the love of his cousin the young fellow was
unwearying, and left nothing undone to please him; but so absorbed
was the lawyer in his own matters, so little did he seem aware that
such an emotion--"folly," he would have termed it--as love existed,
that when a wealthy client, the old Laird of Torduff, with whom he
was familiar, a sturdy, red-faced old gentleman in a black cutaway
coat, top-boots, and corded breeches, ventured to hint at that which
poor Mrs. McBriar dared not do, the real state of matters, as they
were supposed to be between the cousins, and to offer laughingly his
congratulations thereon, the scales fell suddenly from the
malicious-like eyes of Gainswood, and he really was, as he asserted
himself to be, never more surprised in the whole course of his life.
"What else could you expect, man?" asked Torduff, twirling and
untwirling the lash of his hunting-whip.
"It is a complication on which I did not calculate--a mistake I could
not foresee, when I undertook the care--the guardianship of my late
wife's nephew," said Gainswood, as if half speaking to himself.
"They are a likely and a handsome couple, and all who know and see
them say it will be an excellent match."
"The devil they do!" nearly escaped the Elder. "Excellent match for
whom?" he asked, with his bushy brows knit and his thin lips set.
"Why, the Colonel's son, of course," stammered the other; "he is a
fine manly fellow--young, of course; but I approve of young
marriages."
"I don't--marry in haste and repent at leisure."
"No," replied Torduff, testily; "our Scot's proverb says, 'Marry for
love and work for siller.'"
"He who marries my daughter shall have no need to work; besides, the
relationship is too near, and I have other thoughts for Dove."
"Then, I am sorry to hear it. Come, come, Gainswood, don't be hard
on the young folks," rejoined the cheery old country gentleman; "you
have made up a jolly big bank-book by this time."
"My dear sir, the grace of God is enough for me," said Gainswood,
suddenly relapsing into his pious whine; "I am one of those who take
no heed to gather up riches--those of this world, at least."
"Well, I hope I have done no mischief in telling you the _on dit_--I
had it from my own girls," added Torduff, buttoning his riding
gloves; "but you go so seldom to places of amusement that you don't
know what goes on even in our little world here. And now I am off to
the club--good morning."
"Good morning, my _dear_ sir--good morning."
With a serene smile, great _empressement_, and a warm shake of the
hand, he bowed his client out; then, stamping his heel on the floor,
he threw himself into his leathern easy chair with a very
unmistakeable--well, interjection on his tongue; clenched his coarse
hands, and glared with a savage expression at a certain green box on
the iron frame close by--a box containing his correspondence with
Colonel Lamond, and all that related to him, and muttered,--
"On one hand, I cannot send Gillian away, and on the other, this sort
of thing cannot go on longer; at any day his father may come upon me,
and what am I to do then? This upsets all my plans--the plans of
years!"
He ground his yellow teeth, with fury purpling in his face, and his
eyes wandered vacantly on the scenery beyond the tall windows of his
room, without seeming to see it.
The sun of the summer afternoon was shining then in all his beauty
above the woody undulations of the Corstorphine Hills, and on all
that lay between, white-walled villas, green woodlands, and waving
thickets, a scene both varied and charming; but the sordid creature
saw it not; his whole thoughts were intent on his own schemes, on
what he had heard, and the contents of the green box.
So--so! matters must have gone far indeed, between these young folks
at home, when others saw plainly that to which he had been blind, and
were coupling their names together, as an engaged pair.
So full was he of his own dark thoughts and of his schemes, that some
minutes elapsed before he saw one of his clerks, a mere boy, an
unpaid drudge, who had timidly approached him from an outer-room, and
was silently regarding him with wonder; and certes! at that
particular time, Mr. Gideon Gainswood would not have made a pleasant
picture; so here now was a helpless object on which to expend the
vials of his wrath.
Knitting his brows more deeply, he demanded, in a voice of thunder,--
"Did you fee-fund those papers in Graball's process, at the
Register-house, at the time I told you?"
"You told me too late, sir," replied the little lad, trembling from
head to heel.
"Too late--you young whelp!"
Though not blessed with much patience, it was seldom that he
exhibited himself in this unchristian fashion.
"Sir, it was a Box-day," urged the lad; "when the office closes at
two o'clock, and so--so--I thought----"
"What business have you to think? Leave my office, Macquillan, this
instant, and let me see you no more!"
He was a knowing young fellow, Macquillan, who kept a copy of "The
Shove Heavenward" on his desk, though some lighter literature was
often in the recesses thereof; but the former availed him not now.
What could it all mean?
He felt himself ruined by this dismissal--ruined without knowing why,
and slunk away in utter bewilderment, to weep his heart out on his
mother's shoulder in some sordid quarter of the city; and a month
from that time found the poor little quill-driver making more noise
in the world than he ever expected to do, by beating a drum in Her
Majesty's Black Watch.
A sudden thought seized Mr. Gainswood, and he sharply summoned
Gillian Lamond, but that young gentleman had left the office early,
and assuming his hat and gloves, the former walked sullenly home,
when, to Dove's surprise, he presented himself in the drawing-room
just as she was having afternoon tea, an hour before his usual time,
and near her stood Gillian, suddenly busying himself with a
periodical and paper-knife.
"Here is your tea, papa dear--this is an unexpected treat," said the
girl, turning up her soft and beautiful face to his, the expression
of which was smoothed now and inscrutable to all but his daughter.
"You know I never take tea, Dove, especially at this time of the day,
nor can I understand any but fools taking it at the really usual
dinner hour," he replied, gruffly. "You left your desk betimes,
Gillian," he added.
"Only to bring Dove this magazine."
"And do you mean to return?"
"If you will excuse me, uncle--"
"Do, papa, dear, we are going for a walk," urged Dove in her softest
tone, and with a determination not to perceive that he was annoyed;
for she had a quick apprehension, and detected something, she knew
not what, in the eyes of her father, as he feigned to interest
himself behind a newspaper; but the eyes dealt--that which she had
more than once detected of late--a dark and unpleasant glance at the
unconscious Gillian.
They were unusually silent in his presence to-day, he thought, and
this was not what they were wont to be. Gillian was hovering near
Dove, and a charming picture the girl made, framed in, as it were, by
the drapery of a lofty window, through which a flood of sunshine
seemed to enshrine her, edging her auburn hair with burnished gold,
as she sat upon her ottoman, sipping and toying with her teaspoon in
the prettiest way in the world, and shyly smiling to her lover from
time to time.
Mr. Gainswood watched them narrowly and gloomily. Dove had finished
her tea, and Gillian hastened to place her cup on the nearest
gueridon table. Simple and usual though this small piece of
attention, he could perceive an upward and downward glance exchanged
between the two--a glance full of tenderness and secret
understanding--together with a touch of the hand almost swift as
light, and these seemed quite confirmation of what Torduff said, and
of his own suddenly awakened fears.
Now, whatever were his secret plans and aspirations, Gideon Gainswood
was a man of rapid decision, and when Dove, rising, said,
"Now, Gillian, for our walk--we shall keep papa from his paper."
"Stop," said he; "a word with you, Gillian, in my own room."
The gentlemen retired together, and all that followed was singularly
brief, as compared with the importance of all that hinged on the
interview. The faintest suspicion of what was about to be referred
to, occurred to Gillian Lamond and filled him with confusion,
anxiety, and a general emotion of dread. These were no way lessened
when Mr. Gainswood, while eyeing him very gravely, said somewhat
abruptly,
"This sort of thing between you and Dove cannot go on longer!"
"What sort of thing?" stammered Gillian, scarcely knowing what to say.
"Do not repeat my words, please; you know perfectly well what I mean,
but perhaps not that people--gossips--are already coupling your names
together."
Gillian coloured deeply and then grew very pale. Was this the
beginning of a black ending? and was the bright dawn of love, that
but a short time before had come in so sweetly, to have a sunset of
cloud and storm?
"Dear uncle," he urged, "then is it possible that you, so clever and
sharp, have been the last--the very last to see--"
"What?"
"How much we love each other?"
"Fiddlesticks!"
"Do you disapprove of it?" asked Gillian, almost trembling under the
other's cold grey eyes.
"I do," was the snappish rejoinder.
"Uncle!"
"I do--till we have your father's full sanction."
"Oh, sir, we are sure of that; but have we yours?"
Gideon Gainswood paused and played with his eye-glass, for though
well versed in duplicity and every art and phrase thereof, the
present situation was--to him--a peculiar one. He gave Gillian an
indescribable glance--unless that it seemed a threatening one--yet
said in a voice like a gasp,
"Yes--you have my sanction."
"God bless you, dearest uncle, for these words!" exclaimed the
impulsive young man, as he strove to take one of the other's hands in
his; but his "dearest uncle" deliberately placed them both behind his
back, and said, briefly and almost sternly--strangely so--
"I shall write to-night to your father, the Colonel, and if he
approves, there is nothing more to be said in the matter--the Record
will be closed."
With this professional phrase, he added a wave of the hand, as much
as to say the conversation was ended. The man's whole manner was
singular; in the fulness of his gushing joy, Gillian took no heed of
it then; but there came a time when he was to recall it with sorrow
and dread. He was about to speak again, when Mr. Gainswood said,
"Dove will be ready now; go for your walk and leave me."
"What can be meant by this coldness?" thought Gillian; "what by those
abrupt changes of manner?"
"Oh, what happiness to us, darling," exclaimed Dove, when he had
breathlessly told her all, and she clung to his arm when they set
forth for their walk, after he had with difficulty restrained her
from rushing back to embrace and weep on the breast of her "dearest
papa," who seemed in no mood for such ebullition; "but how did it all
come about?"
"I can scarcely tell--I care not to inquire, or to think of aught but
that you are to be mine--mine for ever, Dove--dearest Dove!"
Yet Gillian was perplexed by the manner of his intended
father-in-law; and still more would he have been so, as to what that
personage meant, had he heard him, while sitting at his desk, and
dipping his pen in a bottle of copying ink--for the letter to the
Colonel was to be duly copied--muttering between his set teeth,
"In this act I do but make the best of it! It is not what I intended
to do--and not what I may do _yet_. But, after all, it might be
worse--it might be worse! If Lachlan Lamond ever comes home, he must
be merciful to me, for the sake of his son, if not for Dove's sake."
Merciful for what? But the lawyer muttered to himself, while with
many a low interjection--many a pause of doubt, and fierce, stealthy
glances at nothing, he penned the promised letter to Colonel Lamond,
then far away in Central India.