“I mean to call on Miss Logan at the manse to-day,” said Patricia
Huntley, as she took her place with great dignity in “the carriage,”
which she had previously employed Joanna to bully Melmar into ordering
for her conveyance. Mrs. Huntley was too great an invalid to make calls,
and Aunt Jean was perfectly impracticable as a companion, so Patricia
armed herself with her mother’s card-case, and set out alone.
Alone, save for the society of Joanna, who was glad enough of a little
locomotion, but did not much enjoy the call-making portion of the
enterprise. Joanna, whom no pains, it was agreed, could persuade into
looking genteel, had her red hair put up in bows under her big bonnet,
and a large fur tippet on her shoulders. Her brown merino frock was
short, as Joanna’s frocks invariably became after a few weeks’ wearing;
and the abundant display of ankle appearing under it said more for the
strength than the elegance of its proprietor. Patricia, for her part,
wore a colored silk cloak, perfectly shapeless, and as long as her
dress, with holes for her arms, and a tippet of ermine to complete it.
It was a dress which was very much admired, and “quite the fashion” in
those days; when the benighted individuals who wore such vestments
actually supposed themselves as well-dressed as _we_ have the comfort of
knowing ourselves now.
“For I am sure,” said Patricia, as they drove along towards Kirkbride,
“that there is some mystery going on. I am quite sure of it. I never
will forget how shamefully papa treated me that day Mr. Cassilis was at
Melmar--before a stranger and a gentleman too! and you know as well as I
do, Joanna, how often that poor creature, Whitelaw, from Melrose, has
been at our house since then.”
“Yes, I know,” said Joanna, carelessly. “I wonder what Katie Logan will
say when she knows I’m going to school?”
“What a selfish thing you are, always thinking about your own concerns,”
said Patricia; “do you hear what I say? I think there’s a mystery--I’m
sure there’s a secret--either papa is not the right proprietor, or
somebody else has a claim, or there’s something wrong. He is always
making us uncomfortable some way or other; wouldn’t it be dreadful if we
were all ruined and brought to poverty at the end?”
“Ruined and brought to poverty? it would be very good fun to see what
mamma and you would do,” cried the irreverent Joanna. “_I_ could do
plenty things; but I’m no’ feared--it’s you, that’s always reading
story-books.”
“It’s not a story-book; I almost heard papa say it,” said Patricia,
reddening slightly.
“Then you’ve been listening!” cried her bolder sister. “I would scorn to
do that. I would ask him like a man what it was, if it was me, but I
wouldna go stealing about the passages like a thief. I wouldna do it for
twice Melmar--nor for all the secrets in the world!”
“I wish you would not be so violent, Joanna! my poor nerves can not
stand it,” said Patricia; “a thoughtless creature like you never looks
for any information, but I’m older, and I know we’ve no fortunes but
what papa can give us, and we need to think of ourselves. Think, Joanna,
if you can think. If anybody were to take Melmar from papa, what would
become of you and me?”
“You and me!” the girl cried, in great excitement. “I would think of
Oswald and papa himsel’, if it was true. Me! I could nurse bairns, or
keep a school, or go to Australia, like Huntley Livingstone. I’m no’
feared! and it would be fun to watch _you_, what you would do. But if
papa had cheated anybody and was found out--oh, Patricia! could you
think of yourself instead of thinking on that?”
“When a man does wrong, and ruins his family, he has no right to look
for any thing else,” said Patricia.
“I would hate him,” cried Joanna, vehemently, “but I wouldna forsake
him--but it’s all havers; we’ve been at Melmar almost as long as I can
mind, and never any one heard tell of it before.”
“I mean to hear what Katie Logan says--for Mr. Cassilis is her cousin,”
said Patricia, “and just look, there she is, on the road, tying little
Isabel’s bonnet. She’s just as sure to be an old maid as can be--look
how prim she is! and never once looking to see what carriage it is, as
if carriages were common at the manse. Don’t call her Katie, Joanna;
call her Miss Logan; I mean to show her that there is a difference
between us and the minister’s daughter at Kirkbride.”
“And I mean no such thing,” cried Joanna, with her head half out at the
window; “she’s worth the whole of us put together, except Oswald and
Auntie Jean. Katie! Katie Logan! we’re going to the manse to see you--oh
don’t run away!”
The day was February, cold but sunny, and the manse parlor was almost as
bright in this wintry weather as it had been in summer. The fire
sparkled and crackled with an exhilaration in the sound as well as the
warmth and glow it made, and the sunshine shone in at the end window,
through the leafless branches, with a ruddy wintry cheerfulness, which
brightened one’s thoughts like good news or a positive pleasure. There
were no stockings or pinafores to be mended, but instead, a pretty
covered basket, holding all Katie’s needles and thread, and scraps of
work in safe and orderly retirement, and at the bright window, in an
old-fashioned china flower-pot, a little group of snow-drops, the
earliest possibility of blossom, hung their pale heads in the light.
Joanna Huntley threw herself into the minister’s own easy-chair with a
riotous expression of pleasure.
“Fires never burn as if they liked to burn in Melmar,” cried Joanna;
“oh, Katie Logan, what do you do to yours? for every thing looks as if
something pleasant happened here every day.”
“Something pleasant is always happening,” said Katie, with a smile.
“It depends upon what people think pleasure,” said Patricia. “I am sure
you that have so much to do, and all your little brothers and sisters to
look after, and no society, should be worse off than me and Joanna; but
it’s very seldom that any thing pleasant happens to us.”
“Never mind her, Katie. Listen to me. I’m going to Edinburgh to school,”
cried Joanna. “I don’t know whether to like it or to be angry. What
would you do, if you were me?”
“I don’t think I could fancy myself you, Joanna,” said Katie, laughing;
“but I should have liked it when I was younger, and had less to do. I’m
to go in with papa if he goes to the Assembly this May. We have friends
in Edinburgh, and I like it for that--besides the Assembly and all the
things country folk see there.”
“But Edinburgh is a very poor place after being in London,” said
Patricia; “if you could only see Clapham, where _I_ was at school! But
Mr. Cassilis is a cousin of yours--is he not? I suppose he told you how
papa behaved to me when he was last at Melmar.”
“No, indeed--he did not,” said Katie, with some curiosity.
“Oh! I thought perhaps he noticed it, being a stranger,” said Patricia;
“do you know what was his business with papa?”
“No.”
“You might tell _us_--for we ought to hear, if it is any thing
important,” said Patricia; “and as for papa, he never lets us know any
thing till everybody else has heard it first. I am sure it was some
business, and business which made papa as cross as possible; do tell us
what it was.”
“I don’t know any thing about it,” said Katie. “My cousin staid here
only two or three days, and he never spoke of business to me.”
“Oh! but you know what he came here about,” insisted Patricia.
“He came to see us, and also--oh, yes--to manage something for the
Livingstones, of Norlaw,” said Katie, with a slight increase of color.
For the moment she had actually forgotten this last and more important
reason for the visit of the young lawyer, having a rather uncomfortable
impression that “to see us” was a more urgent inducement to Cousin
Charlie than it had better be. She paused accordingly with a slight
embarrassment, and began to busy herself opening her work basket.
Patricia Huntley was not a person of the liveliest intelligence in
general, but she was quick-sighted enough to see that Katie stumbled in
her statement, and drew up her small shoulders instantly with two
distinct sentiments of jealous offense and disapproval, the first
relating to the presumption of the minister’s daughter in appropriating
the visit of Cassilis to herself, and the second to a suggestion of the
possible rivalry, which could affect the house of Melmar in the family
of Norlaw.
“I think we are never to be done with these Livingstones,” cried
Patricia, “and all because the old man owed papa a quantity of money.
_We_ can’t help it when people owe us money, and I am sure I am very
much surprised at Mr. Cassilis, if he came to annoy papa about a thing
like that. I thought he was a gentleman! I thought it must be something
important he came to say.”
“Perhaps it might be,” said Katie, quietly, coloring rather more, but
losing her embarrassment; “and the more important it was, the less
likely is it that my cousin would tell it to any one whom it did not
concern. Mr. Huntley could answer your questions better than I.”
“Oh, I see you’re quite offended. I see you’re quite offended. I am sure
I did not know Mr. Cassilis was any particular kind of cousin,” said
Patricia, spitefully. “If I had known I should have taken care how I
spoke; but if my papa was like yours, and was not very able to afford a
housekeeper, it would need to be another sort of a man from Mr. Cassilis
who could make _me_ go away and leave my home.”
“Katie, you should flyte upon her,” said Joanna. “She does not
understand any thing else--never mind her--talk to me--are all the
Livingstones away but Cosmo? Patricia thinks there’s a mystery and
papa’s wronged somebody. If he has, it’s Norlaw.”
“I don’t think any thing of the sort--hold your tongue, Joanna,” said
her sister.
“Eh, what else?” cried the young lady, roused to recrimination. “Katie,
do you think Mrs. Livingstone knows? for I would go and ask her in a
minute. I would not forsake papa if he was poor, but if he’s wronged
anybody, I’ll no’ stand it--for it would be my blame as well as his the
moment I knew!”
“I don’t think you have any thing to do with it,” said Katie, with
spirit, “nor Patricia either. Girls were not set up to keep watch over
their fathers and mothers; are you the constable at Melmar, Joanna, to
keep everybody in order? I wish you were at the manse sometimes when the
boys have a holiday. Our Johnnie would be a match for you. The
Livingstones are all away,--Cosmo, too; he’s gone to college in
Edinburgh, and some day, perhaps, you’ll hear him preach in Kirkbride.”
“I am quite sure papa would not give him the presentation; he’s promised
it to a cousin of our own,” said Patricia, eagerly.
Katie grew very red, and then very pale.
“My father is minister of Kirkbride,” she said, with a great deal of
simple dignity; “there is no presentation in anybody’s power just now.”
“Katie, I wish you would not speak to her, she’s a cat!” cried Joanna,
with intense disgust, turning her back upon her sister; “oh I wish you
would write Cosmo to come and see me! I’ll be just the same as at
college, too; and I’m sure I’ll like him a great deal better than any of
the girls. Or, never mind; if that’s not right, I’ll be sure to meet him
in the street. I’m to go next week, Katie, and there’s a French
governess and a German master, and an Italian master, and nothing but
vexation and trouble. It’s quite true, and we’re not even to speak our
own tongue, but jabber away at French from morning to night. English is
far better--I know I’ll quarrel with them a’.”
“Do you call your language English, Joanna?” said her sister, with
contempt.
“If it’s no’ English it’s Scotch, and that’s far better,” cried Joanna,
with an angry blush; “wha cares for English? They never say their r’s
and their h’s, except when they shouldna say them, and they never win
the day except by guile, and they canna do a thing out of their own head
till Scotsmen show them how! and it’s a’ true, and I’d rather be a
servant-maid in Melmar, than one of your Clapham fine ladies, so you
needna speak your English either to Katie or me.”
And it must be confessed that Katie, sensible as she was, laughed and
applauded, and that poor little Patricia, who could find nothing
heroical to say on behalf of Clapham, was very much disposed to cry with
vexation, and only covered her defeat by a retreat to the carriage,
where Joanna followed, only after a few minutes’ additional conversation
with Katie, who was by no means disposed to aid the elder sister. When
they were gone, however, Katie Logan shook her wise little
elder-sisterly head over the pair of them. She thought if Charlie (which
diminutive in the manse meant Charlotte) and Isabel grew up like
Patricia and Joanna, she would “break her heart;” and the little
mistress of the manse went into the kitchen to oversee the progress of a
birthday cake and give her homely orders, without once thinking of the
superior grandeur of the carriage, as it rolled down the slope of the
brae and through the village, the scene of a continued and not very
temperate quarrel between the two daughters of Melmar, which was only
finished at last by the sudden giving way of Patricia’s nerves and
breath, to the most uncomfortable triumph of Joanna. Joanna kept sulkily
in her corner, and refused to alight while the other calls were made. On
the whole, it was not a very delightful drive.