It was Sabbath morning, but it was not a morning of rest; though it was
Huntley’s first day at home, and though it did his heart good to see his
mother, the young man’s heart was already astray and pre-occupied with
his own thoughts; and Cosmo, full of subdued but unrecoverable
excitement, which his mother’s jealous eye only too plainly perceived,
covered the face of the Mistress with clouds. Yet a spectator might have
supposed that breakfast-table a very centre of family love and harmony.
The snow-white cloth, the basket of brown oat-cakes and white flour
scones, of Marget’s most delicate manufacture, the great jug full of
rich red June roses, which made a glory in the midst, and the mother at
the head of her table, with those two sons in the bloom of their young
manhood, on either side of her, and the dress of her widowhood throwing
a certain, tender, pathetic suggestion into her joy and their love. It
was a picture had it been a picture, which no one could have seen
without a touching consciousness of one of the most touching sides of
human life. A family which at its happiest must always recall and
commemorate a perpetual lack and vacancy, and where all the affections
were the deeper and tenderer for that sorrow which overshadowed them;
the sons of their mother, and she was a widow! But, alas, for human
pictures and ideals! The mother was restless and dissatisfied, feeling
strange interests crowding in to the very hour which should be
peculiarly her own; the young men were stirred with the personal and
undisclosed troubles of their early life. They sat together at their
early meal, speaking of common matters, eating daily bread, united yet
separate, the peace of the morning only vailing over a surface of
commotion, and Sabbath in every thing around save in their hearts.
“It’s a strange minister--you’ll miss the old man, Huntley,” said the
Mistress; “but you’ll write down your thanksgiving like a good bairn,
and put an offering in the plate; put your name, say, ‘Huntley
Livingstone returns thanks to God for his safe home-coming.’ There would
have been nae need for that if Dr. Logan had been to the fore; he aye
minded baith thanks and supplications; and I’ll never forget what
petitions he made in his prayer the last Sabbath you were at hame.
You’re early stirring, Cosmo--it’s no’ time yet for the kirk.”
“I am going to Melmar, mother,” said Cosmo, in a low voice.
The Mistress made no answer; a flush came over her face, and her brow
contracted, but she only said, as if to herself:--
“It’s the Sabbath day.”
“I went there this morning, to warn them of this man’s arrival,” said
Cosmo, with excitement, “saying what _you_ thought. I did not see any of
them; but Marie has one of her illnesses. They have no one to support
them in any emergency. I must see that he does not break in upon them
to-day.”
The Mistress still made no answer. After a little struggle with herself,
she nodded hastily.
“If ye’re a’ done, I’ll rise from the table. I have things to do before
kirk-time,” she said at length, pushing back her chair and turning away.
She had nothing to say against Cosmo’s resolution, but she was deeply
offended by it--deeply, unreasonably, and she knew it--but could not
restrain the bitter emotion. To be absent from the kirk at all, save by
some overpowering necessity, was an offense to all her strong Scottish
prejudices--but it was an especial breach of family decorum, and all the
acknowledged sentiment and punctilio of love, to be absent to-day.
“Keep us a’ patient!” cried Marget, in an indignant undertone, when Mrs.
Livingstone was out of hearing; for Marget, on one pretense or other,
kept going and coming into the dining-parlor the whole morning, to
rejoice her eyes with the sight of Huntley. “Some women come into this
world for nae good reason but to make trouble. To speak to the Mistress
about an emergency! Whaever supported her in _her_ troubles but the
Almighty himsel’ and her ain stout heart? I dinna wonder it’s hard to
bear! Some gang through the fire for their ain hand, and no’ a mortal
nigh them--some maun have a haill houseful to bear them up. Weel, weel,
I’m no’ saying any thing against it--it’s kind o’ you, Mr. Cosmo--but
you should think, laddie, before you speak.”
“_She_ is not like my mother,” said Cosmo, somewhat sullenly.
“Like your mother!” cried Marget, with the utmost contempt. “She would
smile a hantle mair, and ca’ ye mair dears in a day than _my_ Mistress
in a twelvemonth; but would _she_ have fought and struggled through her
life for a thankless man and thankless bairns--I trow no! Like your
mother! She was bonnie when she was young, and she’s maybe, bonnie now,
for onything I ken; but she never was wordy to tie the shoe upon the
foot of the Mistress of Norlaw!”
“Be silent!” cried Cosmo, angrily; and before Marget’s indignation at
this reproof could find itself words, the young man had hurried out from
the room and from the house, boiling with resentment and a sense of
injury. He saw exactly the other side of the question--his mother’s
jealous temper, and hard-heartedness and dislike to the gentle and
tender Madame Roche--but he could not see how hard it was, after all,
for the honest, faithful heart, which grudged no pain nor hardship for
its own, to find their love beguiled away again and again--or even to
suppose it was beguiled--by one who had never done any thing to deserve
such affection.
And Cosmo hurried on through the narrow paths to Melmar, his heart
a-flame with a young man’s resentment, and impatience, and love. He
scarcely could tell what it was which excited him so entirely. Not,
certainly, the vagabond Pierrot, or any fears for Marie; not even the
displeasure of his mother. He would not acknowledge to himself the
eager, jealous fears which hurried him through those flowery bye-ways
where the blossoms of the hawthorn had fallen in showers like summer
snow, and the wild roses were rich in the hedgerows. Huntley!--why did
he fear Huntley? What was the impulse of unfraternal impatience which
made him turn with indignant offense from every thought of his brother?
Had he put it into words, he would have despised himself; but he only
rushed on in silence through the silent Sabbath fields and bye-ways to
the house of Madame Roche.
It is early, early yet, and there is still no church bell ringing
through the silence of the skies to rouse the farms and cottages. The
whole bright summer world was as silent as a dream--the corn growing,
the flowers opening, the sun shining, without a whisper to tell that
dutiful Nature carried on her pious work through all the day of rest.
The Tyne ran softly beneath his banks, the Kelpie rushed foaming white
down its little ravine, and all the cool burns from among the trees
dropped down into Tyne with a sound like silver bells. Something white
shone upon the path on the very spot where Desirée once lay, proud and
desolate, in the chill of the winter night, brooding over false
friendship and pretended love. Desirée now is sitting on the same stone,
musing once more in her maiden meditation. The universal human trouble
broods even on these thoughts--not heavily--only like the shadow that
flits along the trees of Tyne--a something ruffling the white woman’s
forehead, which is more serious than the girl’s was, and disquieting the
depths of those eyes which Cosmo Livingstone had called stars. Stars do
not mist themselves with tender dew about the perversities of human kind
as these eyes do; yet let nobody suppose that these sweet drops,
lingering bright within the young eyelids, should be called tears.
Tears! words have so many meanings in this world! it is all the same
syllable that describes the child’s passion, the honey-dew of youth, and
that heavy rain of grief which is able sometimes to blot out both the
earth and the skies.
So, after a fashion, there are tears in Desirée’s eyes, and a great many
intermingled thoughts floating in her mind--thoughts troubled by a
little indignation, some fear, and a good deal of that fanciful
exaggeration which is in all youthful trials. She thinks she is very sad
just now as she sits half in the shade and half in the sunshine, leaning
her head upon her hand, while the playful wind occasionally sprinkles
over her those snowy drops of spray from the Kelpie which shine on her
hair; but the truth is that nothing just now could make Desirée sad,
save sudden trouble, change, or danger falling upon one person--that one
person is he who devours the way with eager, flying steps, and who,
still more disturbed than she is, still knows no trouble in the presence
of Desirée; and that is Cosmo Livingstone.
No; there is no love-tale to tell but that which has been told already;
all those preliminaries are over; the Kelpie saw them pledge their faith
to each other, while there still were but a sprinkling of spring leaves
on those trees of June. Desirée; the name that caught the boy’s fancy
when he _was_ a boy, and she unknown to him--the heroine of his dreams
ever since then, the distressed princess to whom his chivalry had
brought fortune--how could the young romance end otherwise? but why,
while all was so natural and suitable, did the young betrothed meet
here?
“I must tell your mother! I must speak to her to-day! I owe it both to
myself and Huntley,” cried Cosmo. “I can not go away again with this
jealous terror of my brother in my heart; I dare not, Desirée! I must
speak to her to-day.”
“Terror? and jealous? Ah, then, you do not trust me,” said Desirée, with
a smile. Her heart beat quicker, but she was not anxious; she held up
her hand to the wind till it was all gemmed with the spray of the
waterfall, and then shook it over the head of Cosmo, as he half sat,
half knelt by her side. He, however, was too much excited to be amused;
he seized upon the wet hand and held it fast in his own.
“I did not think it possible,” said Cosmo. “Huntley, whom I supposed I
could have died for, my kind brother! but it makes me frantic when I
think what your mother has said--what she _intends_. Heaven! if he
himself should think of _you_!”
“Go, you are rude,” said Desirée; “if I am so good as you say, he must
think of me; but am _I_ nothing then,” she cried, suddenly springing up,
and stamping her little firm foot, half in sport, half in anger; “how do
you dare speak of me so? Do you think mamma can give me away like a
ring, or a jewel? Do you think it will be different to me whether he
thinks or does not think of Desirée? You make me angry, Monsieur Cosmo;
if that is all you come to tell me, go away!”
“What can I tell you else?” cried Cosmo. “I must and will be satisfied.
I can not go on with this hanging over me. Do you remember what you told
me, Desirée, that Madame Roche meant to offer you--_you_! to my brother?
and you expect me to have patience! No, I am going to her now.”
“Then it is all over,” cried Desirée, “all these sunny days--all these
dreams! She will say no, no. She will say it must not be--she will
forbid me meeting you; but if you do not care, why should I?” exclaimed
the little Frenchwoman, rapidly. “Nay, you must do what you will--you
must be satisfied. Why should you care for what _I_ say? and as for me I
shall be alone.”
So Desirée dropped again upon her stone seat, and put her face down into
her hands, and shed a few tears; and Cosmo, half beside himself, drew
away the hands from her face, and remonstrated, pleaded, urged his
claim.
“Why should not you acknowledge me?” said the young lover. “Desirée,
long before I ventured to speak it you knew where my heart was--and now
I have your own word and promise. Your mother will not deny you. Come
with me, and say to Madame Roche--”
“What?” said Madame Roche’s daughter, glancing up at him as he paused.
But Cosmo was in earnest now:--
“What is in your heart!” he said breathlessly. “You turn away from me,
and I can not look into it. What is in your heart, whether it is joy, or
destruction, I care not,” cried the young man suddenly, “I must know my
fate.”
Desirée raised her head and looked at him with some surprise and a quick
flush of anger:--
“What have I done that you dare doubt me?” she cried, clapping her hands
together with natural petulance. “You are impatient--you are angry--you
are jealous--but does all that change me?”
“Then come with me to Madame Roche,” said the pertinacious lover.
Desirée had the greatest mind in the world to make a quarrel and leave
him. She was not much averse now and then to a quarrel with Cosmo, for
she was a most faulty and imperfect little heroine, as has been already
confessed in these pages; but in good time another caprice seized her,
and she changed her mind.
“Marie is ill,” she said softly, in a tone which melted Cosmo; “let us
not go now to trouble poor mamma.”
“Marie! I came this morning to warn her, or rather to warn Madame
Roche,” said Cosmo, recalled to the ostensible cause of his visit. “A
Frenchman, called Pierrot, came home with Huntley--”
But before he could finish his sentence, Desirée started up with a
scream at the name, and seizing his arm, in her French impatience
overwhelmed him with terrified questions:--
“Pierrot? quick! speak! where is he? does he seek Marie? is he here?
quick, quick, quick, tell me where he is! he must never come to poor
Marie! he must not find us--tell me, Cosmo! do you hear?”
“He spent last night at Norlaw--he seeks his wife,” said Cosmo, when she
was out of breath; at which word Desirée sprang up the path with excited
haste:--
“I go to tell mamma,” she said, beckoning Cosmo to follow, and in a few
minutes more disappeared breathless within the open door of Melmar,
leaving him still behind.