evening on first entering the room, but he checked himself: telling
tales was not his weakness. And then the idea of a little dalliance with
Alison, under the supercilious nose of her lover, by no means came
amiss. Here was a little diverting vengeance ready to his hand; he
would never carry it too far, he reflected, for, with all his faults, he
was generous and good-natured. So he chuckled, and nodded knowingly to
Nancy.
In the dark little outer lobby, Alison and Herries had met for a brief
moment.
'Archie!' whispered Alison, with an outstretched hand. But he turned
upon her a look of offence so cold, that she was silenced, and her arm
fell to her side.
'I did not know,' he said icily, 'of Miss Graham's intimate acquaintance
with the poet Burns!' And he brushed past her into the parlour.
Alison, feeling as though she had been struck, followed him. It had
been easy to bear his anger in advance; but oh! she had not known how
hard it would be--how hard to meet that changed look in his face, that
coldness in his voice. The wave of courage that had risen so high within
her, receded; but she forced it back. Better he should be angry than
deceived. She did not realise as yet the intricate, net-like nature of
deception, so loth to set one free.
The evening passed. To all outward appearances it was a musical evening
of undeniable edification to all concerned, when a great poet might have
been seen unbending himself, and honouring, with much gallant attention,
the accomplished young lady who helped him with her harp and song.
Nancy sat in her accustomed place, wreathed in smiles, and dispensing
sugared words and glances. Herries, indeed, was totally silent, but it
might have been the silence of appreciation. Alison and her harp, the
poet seated near her, made a central and striking group in the little
room. How fair--how singularly fair--she looked that night! So, at
least, it seemed to her lover, watching her from under lowered lids,
with anger--the anger of love and longing--at his heart. The poet, too,
looked well: strong, manly, massive. Herries, as he watched him bend
over Alison that fine frame and splendid head, hated him at that moment,
not, I fear, for his vices, but for his thews and sinews, his
sun-browned comeliness and daring eye. Like many men, slenderly moulded,
and of delicate constitution, Herries had a passionate and jealous
admiration of manly beauty hardened and developed by all out-door and
vigorous pursuits. Necessity had doomed him to a sedentary life, but it
was against every taste and inclination, every instinct of his being.
He felt now, angrily, that this creature--this ploughman--belittled him.
Certainly the contrast between them was sufficiently striking; it was
the contrast between porcelain and bronze. Yet never had the peculiar
grace of Herries, the marked refinement, the purity of his chiselled
face, shone more by contrast. So, at least, it seemed to one who saw
him, whenever she dared steal a glance upon her angry Jove.
They could not make much headway with the song that night, probably
because Alison's wits were wandering. Burns was working up, after his
usual methods, the 'Lassie wi' the Lint White Locks,' some fag-end of an
old, forgotten country catch, which he set in the jewels of his own
deathless words, and sought to match to some old tune. Alison had found
the air; over and over again she played it, and sang the words as the
poet said, them at her ear. The little room seemed full of the air, of
the words, of the spirit of song:--
_'Lassie wi' the lint white locks,_
_Bonnie lassie, artless lassie!_
_Wilt thou wi' me tend the flocks?_
_Wilt thou be my dearie, O?'_
Over and over and over again--the little fleering, jeering, heartless
tune, with yet its sub-note of pathos and of pain, the tinkle of the
harp, the girlish voice singing, the poet's deeper tones in speech.
Herries had no ear for music or for verse, yet that air and those words
stayed with him all his life. He could never hear a boy whistle the
one, or a lass lilt the other at her work, without an unbearable stab of
pain.
When the singing was over, it became apparent to the astute hostess of
the Potterrow that each of her guests meant to outstay the other.
Herries made no move. The poet, glowering somewhat, now that the mood of
inspiration had left him, chafed visibly under the other's sneering
silence and marked aloofness. In spite of his natural manliness and
independence, he was agonisingly sensitive to a social slight, and
helpless under it. Yet neither would he give in. It grew late. The
poet, it transpired, contemplated an early start the following morning,
when he was to ride to Ayrshire, returning in a fortnight or so to town.
This forced him, at last, to make a move, for he had affairs to attend
to. With a formal adieu to the ladies, and a black look at Herries,
which he could not, for the life of him, decide to make into a bow or
not, he took his departure.
He was hardly out of the room, when Herries walked to the window and set
it open.
'Pah!' he said, 'there's too much of your poet in here!' Then he fell
silent, for words wanted him. In olden days he would have rated his
cousin in no measured terms. But now the woman he wanted to rate was
not his cousin, but another, and his lips were sealed to her in the
presence of a third person. Besides, he was not only angry, when it is
easy to speak; but he was sore, when it is almost impossible for a proud
and sensitive man to find words. And, as yet, he did not know what
words to use.
'I'll reserve my criticism on your "symposium" for another occasion,
Nancy,' he said. ''Twill be so very full and appreciative a one that
'twill require more time than is left us this evening,' he added
significantly. He said good-night to his cousin. To Alison he bowed
coldly as he left the room.
'My lord is fine and angry,' said Nancy, as she shut the door on him,
'but that's of course. On the whole, the matter has passed off better
than I could have expected, though Lord only knows what is to come.
'Twas at _your_ feet the poet sat, Ally, no doubt about that!' And she
tittered, well pleased.
'Oh, Nancy, Nancy!' cried Alison; she knew not what she was about to
say, but the impulse seemed to be on her to be out with it all.
'Hush, child!' said Nancy, sharply. 'Listen!' There was a bounding
step upon the stair, and she ran to the door, laughing, and flung it
wide. The poet had tricked the lawyer prettily. He had simply hidden
himself in a dark niche of the stair until he saw his enemy depart, and
here he was again, bursting with successful mischief.
'Did Clarinda fancy her Sylvander would leave her with a formal, cold
farewell?' he asked, with a fine rolling eye.
Alison ran to her room, and shut herself up in it in a passion of just
anger--just, but helpless.
So Clarinda and her Sylvander had a long and tender parting, and felt
that they took a well-deserved, as well as most enjoyable, revenge upon
her disagreeable relative.
*CHAPTER XXXII.*
Alison's struggles that night were like those of a bird that is caught
in a net. The bird cannot free itself, not altogether for want of
strength, but because it does not understand the nature of nets. And
thus it was with Alison. The meshes, not of her own will or seeking,
were all round and about her; so slight, so thread-like they seemed, yet
they had entangled her, and the more she strove to cast them off the
more they clung. Her lover was offended--justly offended. Alison's
straight inward eye saw that at once. She had deceived him, though
bitterly against her will. She had connived, and still connived, at his
deception by another. That other was her friend and benefactress whose
bread she ate, who had loaded her with kindness. She could not unravel
the deception. She could not seek forgiveness from her lover by
confession without betraying Nancy.
'I see that it is wrong ever to hide anything,' was one of her thoughts
that night. ''Twould have been far better to have told Nancy at once
that we loved each other.' And yet that deception, if, indeed, it could
be called one, had seemed so innocent. It had arisen, not from ideas of
expediency, but from sheer strength of feeling--the feeling of reserved
and silent natures that longed for privacy in a sacred moment. Had they
not a perfect right to keep their happiness to themselves--a happiness
that injured or robbed no one--that concerned no one but their two
selves? That night it had been in her to tell Nancy, but what would she
have gained by such a telling? Was it conceivable that Nancy, even
though knowing all, would put matters straight by a full confession to
Herries, exposing herself, her passion, her duplicity, and then,
renouncing all her misdeeds, sit calmly down to a benignant
contemplation of Herries's happiness? Alison almost laughed as she
thought of it. No, that was not conceivable. It seemed to her--and
Alison was very clear-headed--that a full knowledge of the facts--of the
facts that bound her and Herries together--would merely drive Nancy into
further and fiercer deceit. She would simply regard them both as enemies
leagued together against her, and deceive both, whereas, as yet, she
deceived only the one. Not only was there no help, but there might be
danger in telling Nancy now.
And then the thought--the temptation--came to Alison: she might go home!
She might cut the strings that bound her--never heeding that they bound
another, too--and be free and fly away to that dear, that safe old home,
where there were no deceptions, where everybody spoke the truth with
disagreeable plainness, if need be, but always the unvarnished truth.
Herries would have her do this. He might bid her do it yet. But ah!
Alison knew she could not--might not--dared not do it, for heart and
conscience both said no. What--and she hardly dared ask herself the
question--what would come to Nancy if she were left alone? Alison had
learned many things of late, and her girlish eyes had been opened to
much--to so much that was not fit for them to see, but that they saw
because they were clear-sighted eyes that always read the truth. What
would become of Nancy now if the one barrier--the restraining presence
of a companion of her own sex--were taken away, and she were left an
absolutely unprotected prey to that overpowering influence that shadowed
all she did and all she thought? The face of the man rose before
Alison--the masterful, sensual face, the riveting eyes--and she heard
the stealing steps that now too often and too late--far, far too late
into the night--would come creeping up the stair. Jean would be long
since safely bedded in her attic--but, at least until now, Alison had
always been at hand, with the certain safety of her presence, though
fully conscious how angrily that presence was resented by one of the
pair, if not indeed by both. Alison was innocent, as the pure are
innocent, but she was not stupid, and she was not blind. She knew
enough to know that even if Nancy were yet guiltless, her good name was
fearfully at stake; it hung by a thread, and one end of that thread was
in Alison's hands. And it was Nancy--the dear, dainty, sweet
Nancy--that had so twined herself round the simple affections of the
country girl! It was the Nancy that had saved Alison from Mr. Cheape,
and that had brought her to Archibald Herries. No, Nancy should never be
deserted in her peril. Even if Alison's early love for her were gone,
there was yet loyalty, and Alison would be unswervingly loyal. She must
bide her time and wait. She trusted Herries with a passion of trust.
Whatever he did, that must be right, and she would abide by it.
In the meantime, Alison's lover had gone home, far more deeply perturbed
than she, because totally in the dark, and because he had not, as had
the woman he loved, the solid ground beneath his feet of a nature that
could trust. Suspicion and mistrust had dogged the beginning of his
love for Alison, but then Creighton had been at his elbow to fight each
doubt as it arose; and after that his own love had grown strong, so
strong that it grappled with the enemies of his nature, and overthrew
them for a time. But now they sprang upon him from their old ambush,
and how alive, how terribly alive, they were! The angry blood rushed to
his brow as he thought himself deceived. Had she really tricked him?
He recalled the ugly little circumstances of the early winter--the
meeting in St. James's Square--the fee to Mysie; and then--and then,
could it be that Alison had begged for secrecy in their engagement, had
deprecated the frequency of his visits to the Potterrow, bidden him come
on certain evenings and at certain hours only, because she played a
double game, and fooled him in it? But no, this was monstrous, and he
did not believe it in his soul--not yet at least. Only, in his
bitterness, he said to himself that all women were the same; they all
deceived, prevaricated, lied and hid, and this seeming-true, fair
creature that he had taken to his heart was only a woman after all. Ah,
but he loved her! Not till now had he known the strength of his love,
not till his heart pained him as it did this night, with its abominable
aching. There was nothing for it but that he must write to her before
he slept, and he did so.
He made his accusation in plain terms. 'You have deceived me,' he
wrote, 'in regard to an intimacy, which you have hidden, with a man whom
you knew well that I abhorred. I did suspect at one time that Burns
might possibly frequent my cousin's house, because of her foolish craze
for literary lions and the like. But the suspicion left me utterly,
because I did not believe that such a matter would be kept from my
knowledge by you. But now I suddenly find you intimate with this man,
singing to him, and having in common with him, apparently, the memory of
countless meetings. What am I to think? To this intimacy--at anyrate in
my cousin's household--it is my resolution and my duty to put an instant
termination, and I shall know what measures to take to that end. If I
have any claim on you--and you yourself only can decide whether I have
or not--I forbid you to see or have speech with this man again. He is a
profligate. I have reasons, believe me, that make me urge your
obedience in this matter. I am harsh with you--I was harsh
to-night--but I would not be too harsh, Alison. I know not yet how far
you may have acted under influence,--perhaps my cousin's. I have often
felt she was no safe guardian for a young girl. Have you found out yet
that you left my mother's ring--the ring of our betrothal--in my hands?
You started so, when that accursed poet came into the room, and were so
visibly taken aback that you forgot my gift! I desire and hope to God
you may yet wear it--and wear it worthily. But I will keep it for a
little while. You will not see me for some days. I learn that Mr.
Creighton's illness is become dangerous, and every hour that I can spare
must be spent at his bedside.'
When Alison got this letter, a strange feeling of exaltation moved her.
Severe? But then, how just! Plain? But how she loved his plainness!
Dear--dearer than his very kisses--to this girl, with her own straight,
undeviating nature, was the man's unerring, if narrow, rectitude, his
clean, cold uprightness, his hatred of all false ways. He would not
give her the ring? She almost laughed; he might slay her--but she would
love the slaying from his hands; it would be a noble pain!
Unluckily for himself and all concerned, Herries did not stay his hand
that night, after he had written to Alison. He wrote another letter,
and this time he wrote neither so wisely nor so well. It ran:--
'Mr. Herries presents his compliments to Mr. Robert Burns, and begs to
inform him that he is under the necessity of preventing and forbidding
the visits of Mr. Burns to the house of Mrs. Maclehose in the Potterrow.
The unhappy circumstances which have deprived Mrs. Maclehose of the
protection of a husband, make it indispensable that her relatives and
friends should exercise a supervision over her acquaintance, and should
guard her from the intimacy of persons not of her own station, or known
to her immediate circle.'
This was all--but it was all wrong, and Herries, as a lawyer, if not as
a sensible and prudent man, should certainly have known that it was so.
That he should forbid Alison the intimacy of such-and-such a man was
possibly within his province. That he should advise, cajole or
influence his cousin to close her doors against an objectionable visitor
might certainly be his duty. But that he should forbid, or, with a high
hand, prevent Mr. Burns the poet--a free agent in a free country--from
visiting any house where he was welcomed by the inmates (except it were
his--Herries's own) was an absurdity so glaring, that the only marvel
was it did not strike his vision from the paper as he wrote. It can
only be said for him that he was at the moment a sorely harassed
man--over-worked, in the first instance, and now set upon by jealousy
and suspicion. Hot under these influences, it is perhaps no wonder that
he sat down to commit the one thoroughly ill-judged action of his life.
He was aware that the poet left town next day for a fortnight, but he
directed the letter to his lodgings in St. James's Square, believing
that it would be forwarded by the next mail. As a matter of fact, the
letter lay in town until the poet's return.
*CHAPTER XXXIII.*
The fortnight which now began to pass--the period of the poet's absence
from town--was a very unhappy one in the Potterrow. Alison had, indeed,
her lover's letter, but she would not, or could not, answer it. The
truth she could not write, therefore it seemed to her better not to
write at all. Hard as it was, it seemed she must be silent under his
reproach. Some way out of the mystery might show itself, but it
appeared to Alison that she was bound hand and foot, and could not move
to clear herself. And in these days, though she had a brave heart, she
began to be afraid.
But now the sight of Nancy's wretchedness--no longer to be concealed or
disguised--began, even more than her own uneasiness, to affect her. The
recklessness, the headstrong wilfulness of the little woman when the
object of her passion had been near her, and she could either see him or
hear from him day by day, had been hard enough to cope with, but now
that he was absent, and the constant excitement of the letters and the
meetings was suspended, her state was piteous. She would neither eat nor
sleep, neither rest nor yet employ herself; the irritation of her
temper--sweet turned to bitter under the alchemy of passion--was almost
insupportable. She would still write, by the hour, by day and night,
her feverish, passionate letters, which followed the poet by mail and
post-gig, and must prettily have punctuated his progress as he went.
He, from Glasgow, had scratched her a line as he waited for the Paisley
carrier, promising future and full epistles. But these did not follow
with absolute regularity, and the unreasoning little creature maddened
under his silence. She finally fretted herself into a fever, real
enough, and Alison had the doctor in; and a febrifuge and also a
sleeping-draught prescribed, gave the household a little peace at night
at anyrate.
At last a merciful morning brought a substantial packet from the errant
Bard, handsomely franked by some important personage, for he wrote from
a fine country house in Ayrshire, where he rested on his way from
Mauchline to Dumfriesshire. For hours did Nancy pore over these
precious sheets, reading out now and again laughing extracts to Alison.
This had always been her wont, and not by any means always edifying had
been the nature of these extracts, for Sylvander was a correspondent of
amazing frankness, and hid from his Clarinda none of his peccadillos,
past or present. Nancy, in these matters, had grown curiously hardened,
and probably hardly realised the essence of her revelations to the
shocked ears of a girl.
'Why,' she cried, on this occasion, 'here will be a little excursion for
you, love! My Sylvander begs a favour of me; 'tis to take five
shillings, as from him, to a poor necessitous creature in the Wabster's
Close. Will you do it, dear? You know how miserably unfit your poor
Nancy is to face the streets!' Now, the poet's message ran:--'There is
a poor lass in the Wabster's Close of whom I get a tale of distress that
makes my very heart weep blood. For some part of her trouble I am (with
contrition, I own it) responsible. I will trust that your goodness will
apologise to your delicacy for me, when I beg you, for heaven's sake, to
send the poor woman five shillings in my name, and let the wench leave a
line for me--you know where--and I shall see her, and try what is to be
done for her relief.' Nancy, even, had felt the necessity of editing
this passage, but she dwelt upon the poet's kindliness of nature with
unction.
'He's said to me often and often, Ally,' she took this occasion to
remark, '"I would have all men and women happy! I'd wipe the tears from
all eyes if I could!" He has the tenderest, the most sensitive heart!'
So, would Alison go upon this charitable quest? Of course she
would--thankful to be sent on any quest that did not lead in the
direction of St. James's Square.
Now, it will be said that, in these pages, our poor Alison has run too
many messages, and, indeed, she has. But the reader, of his own
experience, probably knows that there is in this world a certain class
of little, dainty, clinging, tender women whose messages are all run for
them as a matter of course. To this class did Nancy Maclehose belong.
There was a kind of understanding that rough walks in dirty streets, and
in all kinds of weather, were not her portion. Nor did she exact this
consideration from her friends; it came to her as a sort of right, a
kind of tacit acknowledgment of her power--that power to which all bowed
down who came in contact with her--the willing Alison, the sturdy Jean,
her own devoted little boys--even Herries himself, though he, indeed,
was a rebellious slave. So Alison set out, quite willingly, in all good
faith that she went upon a charitable mission.
It was mid-February now, and there was an extraordinary mildness in the
air. The frost and snow, the bitter north winds were gone. A tender
sky, sweet with the very tints of spring, swam above the stern old town,
and a westerly wind, soft as a kiss, touched Alison's cheek as she
walked. She was acquainted with her destination, the Wabster's Close--a
most malodorous and unpleasing quarter; but Alison was not afraid of
such places now, and merely picked her way with added caution over the
foul causeway and slippery cobbles. She had nothing but a name, Clow,
as uncommon as it was hideous to go by, and by inquiry she discovered
the tenement or 'land,' where a family thus named was said to live. It
was up a stair of an agglomerated and indescribable filth--the worst
that Alison had yet seen. No wonder, she thought, that a person living
in such a place needed a charitable dole.
She paused at a door, behind which there seemed to rise a perfect Babel
of sound--a Babel, yet curiously subdued, as though many people spoke,
and spoke at once, yet in hushed voices. She knocked, and a woman
opened, who, with a curious, indescribable air of excitement, plucked
her by the sleeve, whispering hoarsely,--'Come in by--come ben!'
Alison felt impelled to enter, but shrank involuntarily, as the close
air of the darksome and overcrowded chamber, with some nameless horror
in it, assailed her senses. The woman, however, who had admitted her,
now closed the door behind her. Alison noticed that her hands were
shaking, piteously, uncontrollably, and that she was very pale. The
room seemed full--full to overflowing--of women who whispered with bent
heads, gesticulating, raising hands to heaven, and who now turned
curious eyes on Alison.
She stood still in the middle of the wretched place, awed and terrified,
she knew not why, yet instinctively conscious of the nearness of some
tragedy.
'I was sent here,' she whispered to the woman near her, 'with five
shillings for a girl, Clow, said to be in want or sickness.'
A murmur ran round the room. At her words, as if by common consent, the
crowd of women drew aside, and through the clearance thus made Alison
perceived a bed; and on the bed, its dismal occupant, the newly-dead, as
yet untended, the staring eyes unclosed, the pallid hand clenched on the
disordered covering. A woman, standing at the bed's head, still held to
the parted lips the undimmed mirror.