The drawing-room of Melmar was a large room tolerably well furnished.
Three long windows on one side of the apartment looked out upon the lawn
before the house, carefully avoiding the view “up Tyne,” which a little
management might have made visible. The fire-place was at the upper end
of the room, sparkling coldly with polished steel and brass, and
decorated with a very elaborate construction of cut paper. The chairs
were all covered with chintz in a large-flowered pattern, red and
green--chintz which did not fit on well, and looked creasy and
disorderly. A large crumb-cloth, spread over the bright-colored carpet,
had the same disadvantage; one corner of it was constantly loose,
folding up under the chairs and tripping unwary passengers. There was a
round rose-wood table, sparely covered with books and ornaments, and
another oblong one with a cover on it, which was meant for use.
By this last sat Mrs. Huntley, with some knitting in her lap, reclining
in a cushioned chair, with her feet upon a high footstool. She was pale,
with faint pink cheeks, and small, delicate features, a woman who had,
to use her own expression, “enjoyed very bad health” all her life. She
had very little character, not much animation, nothing very good nor
very bad about her. It would scarcely have been true even to say that
she loved her children; she was fond of them--particularly of
Patricia--gave them a great many caresses and sweetmeats while they were
young enough, and afterwards let them have their own will without
restraint; but there did not seem enough of active life in her to
deserve the title of any active sentiment. She was deeply learned in
physic and invalid dietry, and liked to be petted and attended, to come
down stairs at twelve o’clock, to lie on the sofa, to be led out for a
little walk, carefully adapted to her weakness, and to receive all the
little attentions proper to an invalid. Her exclusive pretensions in
this respect had, it is true, been rather infringed upon of late years
by Patricia, who sometimes threatened to be a more serious invalid than
her mother, and who certainly assumed the character with almost equal
satisfaction. However, Patricia was pretty well at the present moment,
and Mrs. Huntley, supported by her maid, had only about half an hour ago
come down stairs. She had a glass of toast-and-water on the table beside
her, a smelling-bottle, an orange cut into quarters upon a china plate,
a newspaper within reach of her hand, and her knitting in her lap. We
beg Mrs. Huntley’s pardon, it was not knitting, but netting--her
industry consisted in making strange, shapeless caps, bags, and
window-curtains, which became excessively yellow after they were washed,
and were of no use to any creature; for the refined art of crotchet was
not then invented, nor had fancy-work reached that perfection which
belongs to it now.
In an arm-chair by one of the windows sat a very different person--an
old woman, black-eyed, white-haired, wearing an old-fashioned black
dress, with a snowy white muslin handkerchief pinned down to her waist
in front and behind--a large muslin apron of the same spotless
complexion, a cap of clear cambric trimmed with rich old-fashioned lace,
and bound round with a broad black ribbon, which was tied in a bow on
the top of her head. This was a relative of Mrs. Huntley, known as Aunt
Jean in the house of Melmar. She was the last survivor of her family,
and had a little annuity, just enough to keep her muslin kerchiefs and
aprons and old-fashioned caps from wearing out. She was quite kindly
used in this house where nobody paid any particular regard to her, but
where long ago it had seemed very good fun to Melmar himself to get up a
little delusion on the score of Aunt Jean’s wealth, which, according to
the inventor of it, was to be bequeathed to his daughter Joanna. This
was a favorite joke of the head of the house; he was never tired of
referring to Aunt Jean’s fortune, or threatening Joanna with the chance
of forfeiting it, which delicate and exquisite piece of fun was always
followed by a loud laugh, equally delicate and characteristic. Aunt
Jean, however, fortunately, was deaf, and never quite understood the wit
of her nephew-in-law; she stuck quietly to her corner, made rather a pet
of Joanna, persisted in horrifying Patricia by her dress and her
dialect, which breathed somewhat strongly of Aberdeenshire, and by dint
of keeping “thretty pennies,” as she said, in the corner of her
old-fashioned leather purse--pennies which were like the oil in the
widow’s cruse, often spent, yet always existing--and in her drawers in
her own room an unfailing store of lace, and muslins, and ribbons, old
dresses, quaint examples of forgotten fashion, and pieces of rich stuff,
such as girls love to turn over and speculate on possible uses for--kept
up an extensive popularity. Aunt Jean was not in the very slightest
degree an invalid--the tap of her little foot, which wore high-heeled
shoes, was almost the smartest in the house. She sat in winter by the
fire, in summer by one of the windows, knitting endless pairs of
stockings, mits, and those shapeless little gloves, with a separate
stall for the thumb, and one little bag for all the fingers, in which
the hapless hands of babies are wont to be imprisoned. It was from an
occupation of this kind that Aunt Jean turned, when the din of Joanna’s
accusation penetrated faintly into her ears.
“Eh, fat’s that?” said Aunt Jean; it was something about a debt and a
funeral, two things which were not particularly likely to interest
Joanna. Something remarkably out of the usual course must have happened,
and the old lady had all the likings of an old woman in the country.
Gossip was sweet to her soul.
“Oh, mamma, so vexatious!” cried Patricia, in a voice which could not by
any possibility reach the ears of Aunt Jean; “papa has been doing
something to Mr. Livingstone, of Norlaw--he’s dead, and there’s been
something done that looks cruel--oh! I’m sure I don’t know exactly what
it is--Joanna knows;--but only think how the people will look at us
to-morrow night.”
“Perhaps I may not be able to go, my dear,” said Mrs. Huntley, with a
sigh.
“Not able to go? after promising so long! mamma, that is cruel!” cried
Patricia; “but nobody cares for me. I never have what other people have.
I am to be shut up in this miserable prison of a place all my life--not
able to go! Oh, mamma! but you’ll all be sorry when there’s no poor
Patricia to be shut up and made a victim of any more!”
“I do think you’re very unreasonable, Patricia,” said Mrs. Huntley;
“I’ve gone out three times this last month to please you--a great
sacrifice for a person in my weak health--and Dr. Tait does not think
late hours proper for you; besides, if there is any thing disagreeable
about your papa, as you say, I really don’t think my nerves could stand
it.”
“Fat’s all this about?” said Aunt Jean; “you ken just as well as me that
I canna hear a word of fat you’re saying. Joan, my bairn, come you
here--fa’s dun wrang? Fat’s happened? Eh! there’s Patricia ta’en to the
tears--fat’s wrang?”
Nothing loth, Joanna rushed forward, and shouted her story into the old
woman’s ears. It was received with great curiosity and interest by the
new hearers. Aunt Jean lifted up her hands in dismay, shook her head,
made all the telegraphic signs with eye and mouth which are common to
people restrained from full communication with their companions. Mrs.
Huntley, too, was roused.
“It’s like a scene in a novel,” she said, with some animation; “but
after all, Mr. Livingstone should not have been in debt to papa, you
know. What with Oswald abroad, and you two at home, you can tell Aunt
Jean we need all our money, Joanna; and if people die when they’re in
debt, what can they expect? I don’t see, really, in my poor health, that
I’m called upon to interfere.”
“Fat’s this I hear?” said Aunt Jean; “Livingstone o’ Norlaw? Na, Jeanie,
if that’s true, your good man’s been sair left to himself. Eh, woman!
Livingstone! fat’s a’body’s thinking of? I would sooner have cut off my
little finger if I had been Me’mar; that man!”
“Oh, what about him, Aunt Jean?” cried Joanna.
“Ay, bairn, but I maun think,” said the old woman. “I’m no’ so clear
it’s my duty to tell you. Your father kens his ain concerns, and so does
your mother, in a measure, and so do I myself. I canna tell onybody mair
than my ain secret, Joan. Hout ay! I’ll tell you, fun I was a young
lass, fat happened to me.”
“I want to hear about Norlaw,” cried Joanna, screaming into the old
woman’s ear.
“Aunt Jean!” cried Mrs. Huntley, making a sudden step out of her chair.
“If you do, Me’mar will kill me--oh! hold your tongues, children! Do you
think I can bear one of papa’s passions--a person in my poor health?
Aunt Jean, if you do, I’ll never speak to you again!”
Aunt Jean contemplated her niece, with her twinkling black eyes, making
a _moue_ of vivid contempt as she nodded her head impatiently.
“Fat for can ye no hold your peace for a fool-wife?” said Aunt Jean;
“did ye think I had as little wit as you? What about Norlaw? You see the
laird here and him were aye ill friends. Hout ay! mony a ane’s ill
friends with Me’mar. I mind the bairns just fun you were born, Joan. Twa
toddling wee anes, and ane in the cradle. Pity me! I mind it because I
was losing my hearing, and turning a cankered auld wife; and it was them
that took and buried their father? Honest lads! I would like to do them
a good turn.”
“But I know there’s something more about Norlaw,” cried Joanna, “and
I’ll say you’re a cankered auld wife till you tell me--I will! and you
would have told me before now but for mamma. Do you hear, Aunt Jean?”
“Hout ay, I hear,” said the old woman, who could manage her deafness
like most people who possess that defect--(where it is not extreme, a
little deafness is in its way quite a possession) “but I maun take time
to think fat it was I promised to tell you. Something that happened when
I was a young lass. Just that, Joan--I was staying at my married
sister’s, that was your grandmother, and Jeanie, there, your mamaw, was
a bit little bairn--she was aye a sma’ thing of her years, taking physic
for a constancy. There was a poor gentleman there, ane of the Gordons,
as good blood in his veins as ony man in the kingdom, and better than
the king’s ain, that was only a German lairdie--but ye see this lad was
poor, and fat should save him but he got into debt, and fat should help
him but he died. So the sheriff’s officers came and stopped the funeral;
and the lads rose, a’ the friends that were at it, and all the men on
the ground, and fat should ail them to crack the officers’ crowns, and
lay them up in a chamber; but I’ve heard say it was a sair sicht to see
the hearse rattling away at a trot, and a’ the black coaches afterhand,
as if it was a bridal--oh fie!--nothing else was in everybody’s mouth on
our side of the water, a’ the mair because the Gordon lad that died was
of the English chapel, and behoved to have a service o’er his grave, and
the English minister was faint-hearted and feared. It wasna done at
nicht, but in broad daylicht, and by the strong hand--and that
happened--I wouldna say but it was forty year ago; for I was a young
lass and your mamaw there a little bairn.”
“I daresay, mamma,” said Patricia, who had dried her tears, “that people
don’t know of it yet; and at the worst it was all papa’s fault--I don’t
think we should be afraid to go--it wasn’t our blame, I’m sure.”
“If I should be able, my dear,” said Mrs. Huntley, with her languid
sigh--whereupon Patricia exerted herself to arrange her mother’s
pillow, and render her sundry little attentions which pleased her.
Poor little Patricia loved “society;” she wanted to shine and to be
admired “like other girls"--even the dull dinner-parties of the
surrounding lairds excited the fragile little soul, who knew no better,
and she spent the rest of the day, oblivious of her former terrors
concerning public opinion, in coaxing Mrs. Huntley into betterness;
while Joanna, for her part, persecuted Aunt Jean with an unavailing but
violent pertinacity, vainly hoping to gain some insight into a family
secret. Patricia was successful in her endeavors; but there never was a
more signal failure than that attack upon Aunt Jean.