Randal returned to the Manse preoccupied and abstracted, his mother
could not tell why. He brought her word that Sir Ludovic was in the
same condition as before, neither better nor worse, and that the ladies
had arrived; but he told no more.
“Did you see nobody?” Mrs. Burnside asked. Perhaps in her heart she had
hoped that her son might occupy some such post of comforter as Rob Glen
had assumed, if not quite in the same way.
“I saw old John,” said Randal; “the ladies were with their father, and
John was so gruff that I fear things must be looking badly. He grumbled
behind his hand, ‘What change could they expect in a day?’ as if your
inquiries irritated him. I don’t wonder if they do. I think I should be
worried too by constant questions, if any one was ill who belonged to
me.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Randal,” said Mrs. Burnside; “we must always pay
proper respect. You may depend upon it, Jean and Grace are capable of
saying that we paid no attention at all if we did not send twice a day.
One must be upon one’s p’s and q’s with such people. And Margaret--you
saw nothing of poor little Margaret? It is for her my heart bleeds. It
is more a ploy than anything else for Jean and Grace.”
The same remark had been made by Bell in the vaulted kitchen the very
same night. “It’s just a ploy for the leddies,” Bell said; “I heard
them say they were going to look out all the old things in the high
room. You’ll see they’ll have a’ out, and make their regulations, wha’s
to have this, and wha’s to have that; but I say it should all go to
Miss Margret. She’ll have little enough else on the Leslie side of the
house. I’ll speak to Mr. Leslie about it. He has not muckle to say, but
he’s a just man.”
“A wheen auld duds and rubbitsh,” said John, who was busy preparing
still another trayful of provisions for his beleaguered city up-stairs.
“Ay; but leddies think muckle o’ them,” said Bell. They had not
surmounted their sorrow, but already it had ceased to affect them as a
novelty, and all the inevitable arrangements had been brought nearer
by the arrival of the visitors. These arrangements, are they not the
saving of humanity, which without them must have suffered so much more
from the perpetual falling out of one after another familiar figure on
the way? Even now it occupied Bell a little, and the ladies a great
deal, to think of these stores, which must be arranged and disposed
of somehow, in the high room. Margaret’s wild grief and terror were
not within the range of any such consolation; but those who felt less
keenly found in them a great relief.
The day after their arrival, Mrs. Bellingham and her sister went
up-stairs with much solemnity of aspect, but great internal
satisfaction, to do their duty. Sir Ludovic was still “very
comfortable,” he said; but dozed a great deal, and even when he was not
dozing kept his eyes shut, while they were with him. They had remained
by his bedside all the previous evening with the most conscientious
discharge of duty, and Jean had done everything a woman could do to
keep up his spirits, assuring him that he would soon feel himself
again, and planning a hundred things which were to be done “as soon as
you are about.” To say that this never deceived Sir Ludovic, is little.
He listened to it all with a smile, knowing that she was as little
deceived as he was. If he had not been in bed and so feeble, he would
have shrugged his shoulders and said it was Jean’s way. Miss Grace had
not the opportunity to talk, had she wished it; but she did not take
the same line in any case. She stood by him on the other side, and from
time to time put down her face to touch his, and said, “Dearest papa!”
When he wanted anything, she was so anxious to be of use that she would
almost choke him by putting his drink to his lips as if he had been a
baby.
Poor Sir Ludovic was very patient; they amused him as if they had
been a scene in a comedy; but he was very tired when night came, and
this was one of the reasons why he kept his eyes closed next morning.
He woke up, however, when Margaret stole in--a pale little ghost,
large-eyed and trembling. She looked at him so piteously, scarcely able
to speak, that the old man was moved to the very heart, notwithstanding
the all-absorbing languor of his condition. “Are you better to-day,
papa?” she said, in a scarcely audible whisper. When he put out his
hand to her, she took it in both hers, and laid down her pretty head
upon it, and cried silently, her shoulders heaving with suppressed
sobs, though she tried her best, poor child, not to betray them.
“My little Peggy!” said her father, “why is this? Have I not told
you I am very comfortable? And by-and-by I shall be more than
comfortable--happy; so everybody says; and so I believe, too, though it
troubles me not to know a little better. And you will be--like all of
us who have lost our parents. It is a loss that must come, my little
girl.”
“Oh no, no, papa!” her voice was muffled and hoarse with crying. She
could not consent to her own desolation.
“Ah yes, my little girl, it must come; and so we go on to have children
of our own, and then to leave them _à la grace de Dieu_. My Peggy,
listen! If you were old like Jean and Grace, you would not care; and
then think this wonder to yourself: I am glad that my little girl is so
young and breaks her heart. Glad! think of that, my little Peggy. It
is good to see that your little heart is broken. It will mend, but it
warms my old one.”
“Oh, papa!” she cried, kissing his pale hand, “oh, papa!” but could not
lift her head or look him in the face.
“So now, my little girl,” he said, “we will not make believe, you and
I, but acknowledge that we are going to part for a long, long time,
my Peggy. I hope for a very long time; but probably,” he said, with a
smile, “if all is true that we fancy and believe, it will not be so
long for me as for you. I shall have the best of it. You would like
your old father to have the best of it, my little girl?”
At this she lifted her face and gave him a look which said Yes, yes, a
hundred times! but could not speak.
“I knew you would,” he said. “I, you see, will find myself among old
friends; and we will have our talks about what’s come and gone since we
parted, and there will be a great many people to make acquaintance with
that I have known only--in the spirit, as the Bible says;--and there
will be the One, you know, that you say your prayers to, my Peggy. When
you say your prayers, you can fancy (the best of life is fancy,” said
Sir Ludovic, with a faint smile,) “that I’m there somewhere, about
what the Bible calls His footstool, and that He, perhaps, being so
tender-hearted, may call to me and say, ‘Ludovic! here is your little
girl.’”
“Oh, papa! will you say something more, something more?”
“I would if I could, my Peggy; but I am tired again. I’ll have a little
doze now; but sit still and stay by me, my own little girl.”
And there Margaret sat almost all the day. Excessive weeping brought
its own cure, and she could not weep any more, but sat like a snow
statue, except that her eyes were swollen; and by-and-by fell into a
kind of torpor, a doze of the spirit, sitting in the warm stillness,
with no sound but the soft stir of the fire, and sometimes the
appearance of old John, who would open the door stealthily, and look
in with his long, grave, serious face to see if anything was wanted.
Margaret sat holding her father’s hand, stilled by exhaustion and
warmth, and quiet and grief: and Sir Ludovic dozed, opening his eyes
now and then, smiling, dozing again. So the long, still morning went
by.
A very different scene was going on in the high room, which was over
the long room, and as long and large, running the whole width of the
house. It had a vaulted roof, curiously painted with old coats of arms,
and was hung with old tapestry, gradually falling to pieces by process
of time. Several of the windows, which had originally lighted it, had
been built up in the days of the window-tax, and stretching across the
place where two of them had been was a great oak “aumory” or press,
full of those riches which John called “old rubbitsh,” but which were
prized by ladies, Bell knew. There were old clothes enough to have
set up several theatres, costumes of all kinds, sacques and pelisses,
brocade and velvets, feathers and lace. Mrs. Bellingham remembered
specially that there was a drawer full of lace; but Sir Ludovic
had never permitted these treasures to be ransacked when his elder
daughters were at Earl’s-hall. He would not tolerate any commotion over
his head, and accordingly they had been shut out from these delightful
hoards. It was with corresponding excitement now that they opened the
doors, their fingers trembling with eagerness. Mrs. Bellingham had
interpreted something he said into a desire that they should make this
investigation, and had immediately declared that his wish was a law to
her.
“Certainly, Grace,” she had said; “we will do it at whatever cost,
since papa wishes it.”
“Oh yes, if dearest papa wishes it,” said Grace. And Sir Ludovic
smiled, as usual, seeing the whole, with an amused toleration of their
weakness. Jean got out the drawer of lace with nervous anxiety. “It may
be nothing, it may be nothing,” she said, meaning to save herself from
disappointment. She took out the drawer altogether, and carried it to
the window where there was a good light, with her heart beating.
“Don’t be excited, Grace,” she said, “perhaps it is only modern; most
likely mere babies’ caps, Valenciennes and common stuff.” Then she made
a little pause, gave one hurried glance, and produced the one word
“Point!” with an almost shriek.
“Point?” said Miss Grace, pressing forward with the point of her nose;
she was short-sighted, and only thus could she inspect the treasure.
Mrs. Bellingham held her off with one hand, while with the other she
dived among the delicate yellow rags; the excitement grew to a height
when she brought out her hand garlanded with wreaths as of a fairy web.
There was a moment of silent adoration while the two ladies gazed at
it. Some sea-fairy, with curious knowledge of all the starry fishes and
twisted shells, and filmy fronds of weed at the bottom of the ocean,
must have woven this. “Venice! and I never saw finer; and not a thread
broken!” cried the finder, almost faint with delight.
“And enough to trim you from top to toe,” said Grace, solemnly. Bell
coming in jealously on some pretence, saw them, with their hands
uplifted and eyes gleaming, and approached to see what the cause of so
much emotion might be.
“Eh!” said Bell, “the heap o’ things that us poor folk miss for want
o’ kennin’. Is that something awfu’ grand now, leddies, that makes you
look so fain?”
“It is a most lovely piece of lace,” cried Mrs. Jean. “Venice point;
though I fear, Bell, you will not know what that means. Every little
bit done by the needle--you will understand that. Look at all those
little sprays.”
“Eh, leddies,” said Bell. “Ye ken what the fishwife says in ane o’ Sir
Walter’s novels--‘It’s no fish you’re buyin’, but men’s lives.’ Eh,
what heaps o’ poor women’s een must be workit into that auld rag. But
it was my late lady’s a’ the same. I’ve seen her wear it, and many a
time she’s told me the same story. So it will be Miss Margret’s part
o’ her fortune,” said the old house-keeper, with malicious demureness.
This discouraged the investigators considerably.
“I never saw it before,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “but then I knew but
little of the late Lady Leslie; of course, if it was her mother’s it
must be Margaret’s. Fold it up and put it aside, Grace. Was this Lady
Leslie’s too?”
“Na, I canna say; I never saw that before,” said Bell, overwhelmed.
“Eh, that was never made by woman’s fingers. It must be shaped out o’
the gossamer in the autumn mornings, or the foam of the sea.”
But Bell’s presence disturbed the inquiry; it was not until she was
called away to see to Sir Ludovic’s beef-tea that they fully rallied to
their work.
“I don’t believe a word of what that old woman says. Lady Leslie,
indeed! Lady Leslie was not five-and-twenty when she died, poor
thing. Stand out of the way, Grace, don’t come so close. You may be
sure you shall see it all--and no girl understands lace. It might be
her mother’s? Dear me, what a memory you have got, Grace! She had no
mother. She would never have married poor papa if there had been a
mother to look after her. Thank Providence, Margaret will be better
off. This affliction,” said Mrs. Bellingham, with solemnity, “which is
so sad for all of us, will not be without its good side for poor little
neglected Margaret. Though whether it is not too late to make any
change in her--”
“She is very nice-looking,” said Miss Grace, “and being pretty covers a
great deal--at least as long as you are young.”
“Pretty! None of the Leslies were ever ugly,” said her sister; “but
it breaks my heart to look at her. Neither education nor manners. She
might be a country lass at the meanest farm; she might be a fisher-girl
mending nets-- Grace, I wish you would sometimes let me get in a word!
It’s melancholy to see her running about in those cotton frocks, and
think that she is my father’s daughter. We will have our hands full
with chat girl. Now this is old Flanders--there is not very much of it.
I remember it as well as if I had seen it yesterday, on old Aunt Jean.”
“Then that should be yours, for you were her name-daughter--”
“Grace, how can you be so Scotch! Say godchild--you can always say
godchild--it sounds a great deal better!”
“But we were not English Church people when we were born, and there’s
no godmo--”
“I think there never was such a clatter in this world!” cried Mrs.
Bellingham. “Talk--talk--one cannot get in a word! I know papa’s
old-fashioned ways as well as you do, but why should we publish them?
What would anybody think at the Court if it was known that we were
Presbyterians--not that I ever was a Presbyterian after I was old
enough to think for myself.”
“It was being at school,” said Grace; “and a great trouble it was to
have to drive all the way to Fifetown on Sundays, instead of going to
Dr. Burnside. You were married, it didn’t matter for you; but--do you
mean to have Aubrey down, Jean, after all?”
“Of course I mean to have Aubrey,” said Mrs. Bellingham. She had been
carefully measuring on her finger and marking the lengths of the lace,
which was the reason Miss Leslie had been allowed to deliver herself
of so long a speech. “He will perhaps join us somewhere after this sad
time is over. It is not to be supposed that we will be able for much
company at first,” she said, with a sigh. “There are three yards of
the Flanders--too much for a bodice and too little for anything else,
and it would be wicked to cut it. After all we have gone through, of
course there will be a time when we will have no spirits for company;
but Aubrey is not like a stranger. Being my nephew, he will be a kind
of cousin to Margaret. Dear me, I wish I could think there was a good
chance that he would be something more; for the responsibility on you
and me of a young girl--”
“Oh, he will be very willing to be something more,” cried Miss Grace,
with alacrity; “a pretty young creature like Margaret, and a good
income.”
“Her income is but a small one to tempt a Bellingham; but I suppose
because he is my nephew you must have a fling at him. I have often
noticed that inclination in you, Grace. I am sure my family, by
marriage, have never but shown you the greatest attention, and Aubrey
never makes any difference between us. He calls you Aunt Grace, though
you are no more his Aunt Grace-- Here is a very nice piece, I don’t know
what it is. It is English, or perhaps it might be Argentan, or one of
the less known kinds. Would you like to have it? It is very pretty. So
here are three pieces to commence with: the Venice point for Margaret,
if it really was her mother’s--but I don’t believe it--and the Flanders
for me.”
Grace lifted the piece allotted to her now with but scant satisfaction.
It was Jean who had always the lion’s share; it was she who took the
management of everything, and put herself forward. Though Miss Leslie
was very willing to sacrifice herself when occasion offered, she did
not like to be sacrificed calmly by others, without deriving any glory
from it. But she said nothing. There was a great deal more still to
be looked over, and Jean could not always have so good an excuse for
appropriating the best, as she had when she secured Aunt Jean’s old
piece of Flanders lace.
While these very different scenes were going on within the walls of
Earl’s-hall, the old gray house in which so soon the last act of a life
was to be accomplished was the centre of many thoughts and discussions
outside. At the breakfast-table at the Manse Mrs. Burnside read aloud
a letter from Mrs. Ludovic in Edinburgh, asking whether the Minister’s
wife could receive her husband, who was uneasy about his father, and
anxious “to be on the spot,” whatever happened.
“I thought of sending my Effie with Ludovic, if you would take her
in,” Mrs. Leslie wrote. “Of course, Earl’s-hall, so little bedroom
accommodation as they have, is quite full with Jean and Grace and
their maid. It is very provoking that it should be such a fine old
house, and one that we would be very unwilling to let go out of the
family, and yet so little use. Ludovic has always such confidence in
your kindness, dear Mrs. Burnside, that I thought I might ask you.
Of course, you will say No _at once_, if it is not convenient.
Effie is not very strong, and I would like her to have a change; and
we thought it might be something for poor little Margaret, if anything
happens, to have some one near her of her own age. She is the one to
be pitied; and yet she has been sadly neglected, poor child--and I
don’t doubt but in this, as in other matters, all things will work
together for good.”
“That’s a sorely misused text,” said the Minister, shaking his head.
“Is this better?” said Randal: “‘Wheresoever the carcass is, there will
the eagles be gathered together.’ They seem all rushing upon their
prey.”
“No, no, you must not say that. Their own father--who should come to
his death-bed but his children? I’ll write and say, ‘Certainly, let
Ludovic come;’ and if you can do without that green room for your
old portmanteaux, Randal, I’ll find a place for them among the other
boxes; and we might take little Effie too. I am always glad to give a
town-child the advantage of good country air.”
“She cannot be such a child if she is the same age as Margaret--”
“And what is Margaret but a child? Poor thing, poor thing! Yes, she has
been neglected; she has not had the up-bringing a lady of her family
should have; but, dear me,” said Mrs. Burnside, who was of the old
school, “I’ve seen such things before, and what harm did it do them?
She cannot play the piano, or speak French, or draw, or even dance,
so far as I can tell; but she cannot but be a lady--it was born with
her--and the questions she asks are just extraordinary. I would not
make a stipulation for the piano myself everywhere; but still there’s
no doubt she has been neglected. Jean and Grace are far from being ill
women; but I don’t think I would like to change old Sir Ludovic, that
never said a harsh word to her, for the like of them.”
“Yes, mother, Margaret can draw. The young fellow who put Sir Ludovic
into his carriage last Sunday, whom you were so impatient of--”
“Me impatient! Randal, you take the very strangest ideas. Why should I
be disturbed, one way or other, by Rob Glen? What about Rob Glen?”
“Not much, except that he is giving her--lessons. It seems he is an
artist--”
“An artist--Rob Glen! But oh, did I not say Mrs. Ludovic was right? She
has been sorely neglected! Not that old Sir Ludovic meant any harm. He
was an old man and she a child; and he forgot she was growing up, and
that a girl is not a child so long as a boy. After all, perhaps, she
will be better in the hands of Grace and Jean.”
“And so the text is not misused, after all,” said the Minister, once
more shaking his head.