The presence of Desirée made no small sensation in the house of Norlaw,
which did not quite know what to make of her. The Mistress herself,
after that first strange impulse of kin and kindness which prompted her
to bring the young stranger home, relapsed into her usual ways, and did
not conceal from either son or servant that she expected to be “fashed”
by the little Frenchwoman; while Marget, rather displeased that so
important a step should be taken without her sanction, and mightily
curious to know the reason, was highly impatient at first of Desirée’s
name and nation, and discontented with her presence here.
“I canna faddom the Mistress,” said Marget, angrily; “what she’s
thinking upon, to bring a young flirt of a Frenchwoman into this decent
house, and ane of our lads at home is just beyond me. Do I think her
bonnie? No’ me! She’s French, and I daur to say, a papisher to the boot;
but the lads will, take my word for it--callants are aye keen about a
thing that’s outray. I’m just as thankfu’ as I can be that Huntley’s at
the other end of the world--there’s nae fears of our Patie--and Cosmo,
you see, he’s ower young.”
This latter proposition Marget repeated to herself as she went about her
dairy. It did not seem an entirely satisfactory statement of the case,
for if Cosmo was too young to be injured, Desirée was also a couple of
years his junior, and could scarcely be supposed old enough to do any
great harm.
“Ay, but it’s in them frae their cradle,” said the uncharitable Marget,
as she rinsed her great wooden bowls and set them ready for the milk.
The honest retainer of the family was quite disturbed by this new
arrival. She could not “get her mouth about the like of thae outlandish
names,” so she never called Desirée any thing but Miss, which title in
Marget’s lips, unassociated with a Christian name, was by no means a
title of high respect, and she grumbled as she was quite unwont to
grumble, over the additional trouble of another inmate. Altogether
Marget was totally dissatisfied.
While Desirée, suddenly dropped into this strange house, every custom of
which was strange to her, and where girlhood and its occupations were
unknown, felt somewhat forlorn and desolate, it must be confessed, and
sometimes even longed to be back again in Melmar, where there were many
women, and where her pretty needle-works and graceful accomplishments
were not reckoned frivolous, the Mistress was busy all day long, and
when she had ended her household employments, sat down with her
work-basket to mend shirts or stockings with a steadiness which did not
care to accept any assistance.
“Thank you, they’re for my son, Huntley; I like to do them a’ mysel’,”
she would answer to Desirée’s offer of aid. “Much obliged to you, but
Cosmo’s stockings, poor callant, are no work for the like of you.” In
like manner, Desirée was debarred from the most trifling assistance in
the house. Marget was furious when she ventured to wash the Mistress’s
best tea-service, or to sweep the hearth on occasion.
“Na, miss, we’re no’ come to that pass in Norlaw that a stranger visitor
needs to file her fingers,” said Marget, taking the brush from Desirée’s
hand; so that, condemned to an uncomfortable idleness in the midst of
busy people, and aware that the Mistress’s “Humph!” on one occasion, at
least, referred to her pretty embroideries, poor little Desirée found
little better for it than to wander round and round the old castle of
Norlaw, and up the banks of Tyne, where, to say truth, Cosmo liked
nothing better than to wander along with her, talking about her mother,
about St. Ouen, about his travels, about every thing in earth and
heaven.
And whether Cosmo was “ower young” remains to be seen.
But Desirée had not been long in Norlaw when letters came from Madame
Roche, one to the Mistress, brief yet effusive, thanking that reserved
Scottish woman for her kindness to “my little one;” another to Cosmo, in
which he was called my child and my friend so often, that though he was
pleased, he was yet half ashamed to show the epistle to his mother; and
a third to Desirée herself. This was the most important of the three,
and contained Madame Roche’s scheme of poetic justice. This is what the
Scotch-French mother said to little Desirée:--
“My child, we, who have been so poor, are coming to a great fortune. It
is as strange as a romance, and we can never forget how it has come to
us. Ay, my Desirée, what noble hearts! what princely young men! Despite
of our good fortune, my heart bleeds for the generous Huntley, for it is
he who is disinherited. Must this be, my child? He is far away, he knows
not we are found; he will return to find his inheritance gone. But I
have trained my Desirée to love honor and virtue, and to be generous as
the Livingstones. Shall I say to you, my child, what would glad my heart
most to see? Our poor Marie has thrown away her happiness and her
liberty; she can not reward any man, however noble; she can not make any
compensation to those whom we must supplant, and her heart wanders after
that vagabond, that abandoned one! But my Desirée is young, only a
child, and has not begun to think of lovers. My love, keep your little
heart safe till Huntley returns--your mother bids you, Desirée. Look not
at any one, think not of any one, till you have seen this noble Huntley;
it is the only return you can give--nay, my little one! it is all _I_
can do to prove that I am not ungrateful. This Melmar, which I had lost
and won without knowing it, will be between Marie and you when I die.
You can not give it all back to your kinsman, but he will think that
half which your sister has doubly made up, my child, when I put into his
hand the hand of my Desirée; and we shall all love each other, and be
good and happy, like a fairy tale.
“This is your mamma’s fondest wish, my pretty one: you must keep your
heart safe, you must love Huntley, you must give him back half of the
inheritance. My poor Marie and I shall live together, and you shall be
near us; and then no one will be injured, but all shall have justice. I
would I had another little daughter for the good Cosmo, who found me out
in St. Ouen. I love the boy, and he shall be with us when he pleases,
and we will do for him all we can. But keep your heart safe, my Desirée,
for Huntley, and thus let us reward him when he comes home.”
Poor Madame Roche! she little knew what a fever of displeasure and
indignation this pretty sentimental letter of hers would rouse in her
little daughter’s heart. Desirée tore the envelope in pieces in her
first burst of vexation, which was meant to express by similitude that
she would have torn the letter, and blotted out its injunctions, if she
dared. She threw the epistle itself out of her hands as if it had stung
her. Not that Desirée’s mind was above those sublime arrangements of
poetic justice, which in this inconsequent world are always so futile;
but, somehow, a plan which might have looked pretty enough had it
concerned another, filled Madame Roche’s independent little daughter
with the utmost shame and mortification when she herself was the
heroine.
“Let him take it all!” she cried out half aloud to herself, in her
little chamber. “Do I care for it? I will work--I will be a governess;
but I will not sell myself to this Huntley--no, not if I should die!”
And having so recorded her determination, poor little Desirée sat down
on the floor and had a hearty cry, and after that thought, with a
girlish effusion of sympathy, of poor Cosmo, who, after all, had done it
all, yet whom no one thought of compensating. When straightway there
came into Desirée’s heart some such bitter thoughts of justice and
injustice as once had filled the mind of Cosmo Livingstone.
Huntley!--what had Huntley done that Madame Roche should dedicate
her--_her_, an unwilling Andromeda, to compensate this unknown monster;
and Desirée sprang up and stamped her little foot, and clapped her
hands, and vowed that no force in the world, not even her mother’s
commands, should compel her to show her mother’s gratitude by becoming
Huntley’s wife.
A most unnecessary passion; for there was Katie Logan all the time,
unpledged and unbetrothed, it is true, but thinking her own thoughts of
some one far away, who might possibly break in some day upon those cares
of elder-sisterhood, which made her as important as a many-childed
mother, even in those grave days of her orphan youth; and there was
Huntley in his hut in the bush, not thriving over well, poor fellow,
thinking very little of Melmar, but thinking a great deal of that manse
parlor, where the sun shone, and Katie darned her children’s
stockings--a scene which always would shine, and never could dim out of
the young man’s recollection. Poor Madame Roche, with her pretty plan of
compensation, and poor Desirée, rebelliously resistant to it, how much
trouble they might both have saved themselves, could some kind fairy
have shown to them a single peep of Huntley Livingstone’s solitary
thoughts.