For mine inheritance I take this grave;
Myself shall be its constant monument.
I have spent all my tears. In other fashion
Than with faint weepings must my dead be mourned.
For on this little sod I have beside
A battle-ground. Think you the caitiff shame
Shall share this consecrated spot with me?
OLD PLAY.
“THEY must not bid me; I cannot sell the land,” said Martha, firmly.
Young Mr. Dunlop, deputed by his father to offer any “reasonable”
assistance in arranging her affairs, or any quantity of advice
reasonable or otherwise, sat opposite her in the library; Cuthbert
Charteris waited rather impatiently. They had been engaged in an
important consultation when Mr. Dunlop entered, and Cuthbert was
turning over some papers restlessly, and looking round now and then,
as if about to speak; but young Mr. Dunlop still roused anything but
peaceable feelings in Cuthbert’s mind, and he remained silent.
“Of course, Miss Allenders, my father would never dream of forcing his
advice upon you. All I have to say is, that in case you are disposed to
sell the land, as we heard you were, Sir John would be glad to make you
an offer for part of it--that is all.”
“I am much obliged to Sir John Dunlop,” said Martha, “but we have no
intention--I cannot see we have any right--to dispose of any part of
Allenders. Thanks, many thanks; but we must try to increase, not to
alienate.”
After some time, Mr. Dunlop went away. He did not understand the quiet
gravity with which he was received, and carried home such an account
of Martha’s callousness, that his sister laughed scornfully, and said
Miss Allenders had provided for herself, and would soon recover of her
grief. Good Lady Dunlop only shook her head, and secretly resolved
to call at Allenders, and see about this for herself; she could not
believe that Harry’s trusted sister was callous to his loss, when she
herself, Lady Dunlop, who never had known death, except twenty years
ago, when she lost a very little lisping child--a meeting with the
adversary which she never could forget--always lifted her handkerchief
to her eyes, and gave a sigh to poor Allenders when his name was
mentioned. She could not believe in Martha’s hardness of heart.
“It must be attended with very considerable expense,” said Charteris.
“You must either part with Allenders, or double its value--there is no
alternative. And I do not see at present where this necessary seed of
capital is to be procured. But, we must try. You will come to Edinburgh
then, on Monday, and see the creditor?”
“That is four thousand pounds, and Miss Jean one; and I have heard
there were other bills,” said Martha. “Yes, I will go on Monday. Can
we pay all this, do you think, in one lifetime? And then there is the
present money to be thought of; another thousand they say would do. We
could manage to pay the interest of all that.”
“But not to live besides,” said Cuthbert, hastily.
Martha’s head rose with a slight proud motion. “I have provided for
that,” she said, with haughtiness; but immediately softening, added so
frankly that Cuthbert was touched almost to tears: “I mean we are all
ready to work, and very willing. We are now as we were before we came
to Allenders; one is not--but what remains to do is for him; and we,
all of us, sisters, and dearest to each other, are as we were.”
As she concluded, her tears fell silently upon the desk before her.
“God is visiting my heart with the dews of youth,” said Martha, looking
up with a sad smile of surprise. “I can cry now, whenever I would, like
a bairn.”
And Cuthbert, who was a man, and a strong one, felt his heart swell;
and with a strong impulse of help, bethought himself what he could do
for those sisters, to aid them in their work.
“The houses at Maidlin must stand for a time,” said Martha. “You will
think me weak, Mr. Charteris, but I cannot abandon even them; and we
must try to find a place for John, and to sell the carriage and the
horses. We will keep the gig which the old Laird of Allenders left, and
Mysie--”
Martha stopped, with white lips and a strong shiver. She was about to
say, that Mysie, like many other country girls, could drive; but just
then there occurred to her the time when Mysie made trial of her skill,
through the darkness of that Hallowe’en night, and for a moment she was
silent.
“It will do for Agnes; all the rest of us are strong,” resumed Martha,
with a voice that sounded harshly. “I think I can undertake that the
house itself will cost the land nothing; and Armstrong is good and
honest, and only wants some one to _bid_ him do what he knows is
necessary to be done; I can undertake that, too, I think. He was here
yesterday. See what our calculations were, Mr. Charteris.”
Charteris took the paper and read. Though not in the ordinary business
form, it was a statement of expenses for a year, including the interest
to Miss Jean, and Harry’s other creditor. He asked to keep it, and she
permitted him. Cuthbert began to be very sanguine; he thought he saw
now where to find the money to complete poor Harry’s experiment with
the land.
Then he rose to take his leave.
“Can you not stay to-night? They will be disappointed,” said Martha.
“We have seen very little of you, Mr. Charteris, since--since we came
here; but pray stay to-night, and cheer these poor girls. I am perhaps
too much occupied for them, poor things! and they are going with my
uncle to Ayr. Stay and see them to-night, or you will disappoint them.”
“Disappoint them? should I?” said Cuthbert, smiling faintly.
“I stayed away because I thought myself very magnanimous and
self-denying--perhaps it was only because my pride was wounded; but to
disappoint them, or think I did, would be too great a pleasure--I must
see them, to convince myself that I have not so much cause for pride.”
And Cuthbert, in a little flush of growing hope and gladness, looked
up into Martha’s face--Martha’s face, calm and unchangeable, full of
the great still sorrow, for which half an hour ago he had himself wept,
struck him like an accusation. He cast down his eyes in silence, and
stood before her almost like a culprit; for the warm hopes and joys of
the future looked selfish and small in the presence of this absorbed
and quiet grief.
Just then Mysie entered, and gave Martha a letter. As she opened it, a
piece of paper fell to the ground. Cuthbert lifted it up; it was a note
for fifty pounds.
Martha ran over the note quickly, yet with perfectly collected
attention; then, after a moment’s hesitation, she handed it to
Cuthbert, and sat down at her desk to write. The letter was from
Gilbert Allenders.
“Madam,
I borrowed at various times, little sums from your brother,
the late Allenders--I cannot undertake to say what they came to
exactly, but not above this I enclose. I am leaving Allender Mains
next week, and would be glad to call, if there is no objection; and
would be glad to know whether I have your permission, as I believe
I had the permission of your brother, to pay my addresses to your
sister, Miss Rose. This is not a suitable time to ask, but I am
anxious to know, and intend to settle down in Stirling; and will be
profited, I trust, by the late solemn warning, which, I assure you,
has caused me the deepest regret.
With much sympathy, and compliments to all the family,
I remain, dear Madam,
Yours faithfully,
GILBERT ALLENDERS.”
Cuthbert unconsciously crushed the letter in his hand. Inconsiderable
as his rival was, he was a rival still.
Martha’s answer was very brief.
“I return you, with thanks, the money you have sent me. We who
remain have nothing to do with what passed between the dead and
you. Let this be past, like everything else which put your names
together. We are little disposed to receive callers. Without any
discourtesy, I think it is better that you should not come.
MARTHA MUIR ALLENDERS.”
It was the first time she had signed her name so; and Martha
placed the fifty-pound note within her letter, when she had shown
it to Cuthbert, who looked on with some astonishment. Collected and
self-possessed as she was, Martha could not, without strong emotion,
either write or speak poor Harry’s name, and her whole frame quivered
with nervous excitement as she closed her letter. Cuthbert was much
surprised; he thought this a piece of quite unnecessary generosity.
“Is it foolish?” said Martha, answering his look. “Well, be it so;
but no one shall say that _he_ gave this to a careless companion, and
that it was exacted back again. I tell you, the meanest gift he ever
gave, were it for his own destruction, is sacred to me--never to be
reclaimed. It was his own. I will not hear a word of blame.”
And this irritation and defiance was the weakness of Martha’s grief.
To subdue it, she rose abruptly, and went up-stairs to the
drawing-room, where Agnes now sat by the fire, watching the wintry
sunshine steal in at the window. Over the bright hair, which never
before had been covered with a matron’s hood, Agnes wore the close,
sombre cap of a widow. They had tried to persuade her that this was
unnecessary; but poor little invalid, heart-broken Agnes had a little
petulance too, and insisted. Wrapped in a heavy black shawl, and
with everything about her of the deepest mourning, her face, closely
surrounded by those folds of muslin, looked very thin and pale; but the
faint colour of reviving health began to rise in her cheek, and Agnes
sometimes, in the impatience of early sorrow, wept that she could not
die.
Uncle Sandy sat beside her, and a faint attempt at conversation had
been going on; but it failed often, and had long breaks of listless
silence; and Cuthbert fancied the patient, uncomplaining sorrow of
the old man--the weakness which seemed to have fallen over him, the
trembling hand, and husky voice, were almost the most moving of all.
Rose sat by the table, working; Lettie and Katie Calder were at the
window; but you scarcely needed to look at their black dresses, to
know that those strange words, “It is all over,” with their solemn
mystery of significance, had been lately spoken here. All was
over--everything--life, death, anxiety, excitement. Their heads were
dizzy, and their minds reeled under the recent blow; yet nothing was
visible but langour, and a dim exhausted calm.
And this evening passed, as every other evening seemed to pass, like
some strange vacant space, blank and still; yet Rose, when Cuthbert
sat beside her, felt a grateful ease at her heart. It seemed as if
some one had lifted from her, for a moment, her individual burden; and
sad though the family was, and languid and melancholy the afflicted
house, Cuthbert remembered this evening with a thrill of subdued and
half-guilty delight, and again his heart longed, and his arms expanded,
to carry away into the sunshine his drooping Rose.