THE LADY’S WALK
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
SIR ROBERT’S FORTUNE
THE TWO MARYS
THE PRODIGALS
THE
LADY’S WALK
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1897
THE LADY’S WALK
CHAPTER I
I was on a visit to some people in Scotland when the events I am about
to relate took place. They were not friends in the sense of long or
habitual intercourse; in short, I had met them only in Switzerland in
the previous year; but we saw a great deal of each other while we were
together, and got into that easy intimacy which travelling brings about
more readily than anything else. We had seen each other in very great
_déshabillé_ both of mind and array in the chilly mornings after a
night’s travelling, which perhaps is the severest test that can be
applied in respect to looks, and amid all the annoyances of journeys
short and long, with the usual episodes of lost luggage, indifferent
hotels, fusses of every description, which is an equally severe test for
the temper; and our friendship and liking (I am at liberty to suppose it
was mutual, or they would never have invited me to Ellermore) remained
unimpaired. I have always thought, and still think, that Charlotte
Campbell was one of the most charming young women I ever met with; and
her brothers, if not so entirely delightful, were nice fellows, capital
to travel with, full of fun and spirit. I understood immediately from
their conversation that they were members of a large family. Their
allusions to Tom and Jack and little Harry, and to Mab and Mary, might
perhaps have been tedious to a harsher critic; but I like to hear of
other people’s relations, having scarcely any of my own. I found out by
degrees that Miss Campbell had been taken abroad by her brothers to
recover from a long and severe task of nursing, which had exhausted her
strength. The little ones had all been down with scarlet fever, and she
had not left them night or day. “She gave up seeing the rest of us and
regularly shut herself in,” Charley informed me, who was the younger of
the two. “She would only go out for her walk when all of us were out of
the way. That was the worst of it,” the young fellow said, with great
simplicity. That his sister should give herself up to the nursing was
nothing remarkable; but that she should deny herself their precious
company was a heroism that went to her brother’s heart. Thus by the way
I learned a great deal about the family. Chatty, as they called her, was
the sister-mother, especially of the little ones, who had been left
almost in her sole charge since their mother died many years before. She
was not a girl, strictly speaking. She was in the perfection of her
womanhood and youth--about eight-and-twenty, the age when something of
the composure of maturity has lighted upon the sweetness of the earlier
years, and being so old enhances all the charm of being so young. It is
chiefly among young married women that one sees this gracious and
beautiful type, delightful to every sense and every requirement of the
mind; but when it is to be met with unmarried it is more celestial
still. I cannot but think with reverence that this delicate maternity
and maidenhood--the perfect bounty of the one, the undisturbed grace of
the other--has been the foundation of that adoring devotion which in the
old days brought so many saints to the shrine of the Virgin Mother. But
why I should thus enlarge upon Charlotte Campbell at the beginning of
this story I can scarcely tell, for she is not the foremost figure in
it, and I am unintentionally deceiving the reader to begin with.
They asked me to come and see them at Ellermore when we parted, and, as
I have nothing in the way of a home warmer or more genial than chambers
in the Temple, I accepted, as may be supposed, with enthusiasm. It was
in the first week of June that we parted, and I was invited for the end
of August. They had “plenty of grouse,” Charley said, with a liberality
of expression which was pleasant to hear. Charlotte added, “But you must
be prepared for a homely life, Mr. Temple, and a very quiet one.” I
replied, of course, that if I had chosen what I liked best in the world
it would have been this combination, at which she smiled with an amused
little shake of her head. It did not seem to occur to her that she
herself told for much in the matter. What they all insisted upon was the
“plenty of grouse,” and I do not pretend to say that I was indifferent
to that.
Colin, the eldest son, was the one with whom I had been least familiar.
He was what people call reserved. He did not talk of everything as the
others did. I did not indeed find out till much later that he was
constantly in London, coming and going, so that he and I might have seen
much of each other. Yet he liked me well enough. He joined warmly in his
brother’s invitation. When Charley said there was plenty of grouse, he
added, with the utmost friendliness, “And ye may get a blaze at a stag.”
There was a flavour of the North in the speech of all; not disclosed by
mere words, but by an occasional diversity of idiom and change of
pronunciation. They were conscious of this and rather proud of it than
otherwise. They did not say Scotch, but Scots; and their accent could
not be represented by any of the travesties of the theatre, or what we
conventionally accept as the national utterance. When I attempted to
pronounce after them, my own ear informed me what a travesty it was.
It was to the family represented by these young people that I was going
when I started on August 20, a blazing summer day, with dust and heat
enough to merit the name of summer if anything ever did. But when I
arrived at my journey’s end there was just change enough to mark the
line between summer and autumn: a little golden haze in the air, a
purple bloom of heather on the hills, a touch here and there upon a
stray branch, very few, yet enough to swear by. Ellermore lay in the
heart of a beautiful district full of mountains and lochs within the
Highland line, and just on the verge of some of the wildest mountain
scenery in Scotland. It was situated in the midst of an amphitheatre of
hills, not of any very exalted height, but of the most picturesque form,
with peaks and couloirs like an Alpine range in little, all glowing with
the purple blaze of the heather, with gleams upon them that looked like
snow, but were in reality water-white threads of mountain torrents. In
front of the house was a small loch embosomed in the hills, from one end
of which ran a cheerful little stream, much intercepted by boulders, and
much the brighter for its interruptions, which meandered through the
glen and fell into another loch of greater grandeur and pretensions.
Ellermore itself was a comparatively new house, built upon a fine slope
of lawn over the lake, and sheltered by fine trees--great beeches which
would not have done discredit to Berkshire, though that is not what we
expect to see in Scotland, besides the ashes and firs which we are ready
to acknowledge as of northern growth. I was not prepared for the
luxuriance of the West Highlands--the mantling green of ferns and
herbage everywhere, not to say the wealth of flowers, which formed a
centre of still more brilliant colour and cultivation amid all the
purple of the hills. Everything was soft and rich and warm about the
Highland mansion-house. I had expected stern scenery and a grey
atmosphere. I found an almost excessive luxuriance of vegetation and
colour everywhere. The father of my friends received me at a door which
was constantly open, and where it seemed to me after a while that nobody
was ever refused admission. He was a tall old man, dignified but homely,
with white hair and moustache and the fresh colour of a rural patriarch;
which, however, he was not, but an energetic man of business, as I
afterwards found. The Campbells of Ellermore were not great chiefs in
that much-extended clan, though they were perfectly well-known people
and had held their little estate from remote antiquity. But they had not
stood upon their gentility, or refused to avail themselves of the
opportunities that came in their way. I have observed that in the great
and wealthy region of which Glasgow is the capital the number of the
irreconcilables who stand out against trade is few. The gentry have seen
all the advantages of combining commerce with tradition. Had it not been
for this it is likely that Ellermore would have been a very different
place. Now it was overflowing with all those signs of care and simple
luxury which make life so smooth. There was little show, but there was a
profusion of comfort. Everything rolled upon velvet. It was perhaps more
like the house of a rich merchant than of a family of long descent.
Nothing could be more perfect as a pleasure estate than was this little
Highland property. They had “plenty of grouse,” and also of trout in a
succession of little lochs and mountain streams. They had deer on the
hills. They had their own mutton, and everything vegetable that was
needed for the large, profuse household, from potatoes and cabbage up
to grapes and peaches. But with all this primitive wealth there was not
much money got out of Ellermore. The “works” in Glasgow supplied that.
What the works were I have never exactly found out, but they afforded
occupation for all the family, both father and sons; and that the
results were of the most pleasing description as regarded Mr. Campbell’s
banker it was easy to see.
They were all at home with the exception of Colin, the eldest son, for
whose absence many apologies, some of which seemed much more elaborate
than were at all necessary, were made to me. I was, for my own part,
quite indifferent to the absence of Colin. He was not the one who had
interested me most; and though Charley was considerably younger than
myself, I had liked him better from the first. Tom and Jack were still
younger. They were well occupied at “the works,” and came home only
from Saturday to Monday. The little trio in the nursery were delightful
children. To see them gathered about Charlotte was enough to melt any
heart. Chatty, they called her, which is not a very dignified name, but
I got to think it the most beautiful in the world as it sounded all over
that cheerful, much-populated house. “Where is Chatty?” was the first
question everyone asked as he came in at the door. If she was not
immediately found, it went volleying through the house, all up the
stairs and through the passages--“Chatty! where are you?”--and was
always answered from somewhere or other in a full, soft voice, which was
audible everywhere though it never was loud. “Here am I, boys,” she
would say, with a pretty inversion which pleased me. Indeed, everything
pleased me in Chatty--too much, more than reason. I found myself
thinking what would become of them all if, for example, she were to
marry, and entered into a hot argument with myself on one occasion by
way of proving that it would be the most selfish thing in the world were
this family to work upon Chatty’s feelings and prevent her from
marrying, as most probably, I could not help feeling, they would. At the
same time, I perceived with a little shudder how entirely the whole
thing would collapse if by any chance Chatty should be decoyed away.
I enjoyed my stay beyond description. In the morning we were out on the
hills or about the country. In the evening it very often happened that
we all strolled out after dinner, and that I was left by Chatty’s side,
“the boys” having a thousand objects of interest, while Mr. Campbell
usually sat in his library and read the newspapers, which arrived at
that time either by the coach from Oban or by the boat. In this way I
went over the whole “policy,” as the grounds surrounding a country
house are called in Scotland, with Chatty, who would not be out of reach
at this hour, lest her father should want her, or the children. She
would bid me not to stay with her, when no doubt it would be more
amusing for me to go with the boys; and when I assured her my pleasure
was far greater as it was, she gave me a gracious, frank smile, with a
little shake of her head. She laughed at me softly, bidding me not to be
too polite or think she would mind if I left her; but I think, on the
whole, she liked to have me with her in her evening walk.
“There is one thing you have not told me of,” I said, “and that you must
possess. I cannot believe that your family has been settled here so long
without having a ghost.”
She had turned round to look at me, to know what it was that had been
omitted in her descriptions. When she heard what it was she smiled a
little, but not with the pleasant mockery I had expected. On the
contrary, it was a sort of gentle smile of recognition of something left
out.
“We don’t call it a ghost,” she said. “I have wondered if you had never
noticed. I am fond of it, for my part; but then I have been used to it
all my life. And here we are, then,” she added, as we reached the top of
a little ascent and came out upon a raised avenue, which I had known by
its name of the Lady’s Walk, without as yet getting any explanation what
that meant. It must have been, I supposed, the avenue to the old house,
and now encircled one portion of the grounds without any distinct
meaning. On the side nearest the gardens and house it was but slightly
raised above the shrubberies, but on the other side rose to the summit
of a high bank, sloping steeply to the river, which, after it escaped
from the loch, made a wide bend round that portion of the grounds. A
row of really grand beeches rose on each side of the path, and through
the openings in the trees the house, the bright gardens, the silvery
gleam of the loch were visible. The evening sun was slanting into our
eyes as we walked along; a little soft yet brisk air was pattering among
the leaves, and here and there a yellow cluster in the middle of a
branch showing the first touch of a cheerful decay. “Here we are, then.”
It was a curious phrase; but there are some odd idioms in the Scotch--I
mean Scots--form of our common language, and I had become accustomed now
to accept them without remark.
“I suppose,” I said, “there must be some back way to the village or to
the farmhouse under this bank, though there seems no room for a path?”
“Why do you ask?” she said, looking at me with a smile.
“Because I always hear someone passing along--I imagine down there. The
steps are very distinct. Don’t you hear them now? It has puzzled me a
good deal, for I cannot make out where the path can be.”
She smiled again, with a meaning in her smile, and looked at me
steadily, listening, as I was. And then, after a pause, she said, “That
is what you are asking for. If we did not hear them it would make us
unhappy. Did you never hear why this was called the Lady’s Walk?”
When she said these words I was conscious of an odd enough change in my
sensations--nay, I should say in my very sense of hearing, which was the
one appealed to. I had heard the sound often, and, after looking back at
first to see who it was and seeing no one, had made up my mind that the
steps were on some byway out of sight and came from below. Now my
hearing changed, and I could not understand how I had ever thought
anything else; the steps were on a level with us, by our side--as if
some third person were accompanying us along the avenue. I am no
believer in ghosts, nor the least superstitious, so far as I had ever
been aware (more than everybody is), but I felt myself get out of the
way with great celerity and a certain thrill of curious sensation. The
idea of rubbing shoulders with something unseen gave me a shock in spite
of myself.
“Ah,” said Charlotte, “it gives you an--unpleasant feeling. I forgot you
are not used to it like me.”
“I am tolerably well used to it, for I have heard it often,” I said. It
was cowardly to get to the other side, but I fear I did so with an
involuntary movement. Then I laughed, which I felt to be altogether out
of place and fictitious, and said, “No doubt there is some very easy
explanation of it--some vibration or echo. The science of acoustics
clears up many mysteries.”
“There is no explanation,” Chatty said almost angrily. “She has walked
here far longer than anyone can remember. It is an ill sign for us
Campbells when she goes away. She was the eldest daughter, like me; and
I think she has got to be our guardian angel. There is no harm going to
happen as long as she is here. Listen to her!” she cried, standing still
with her hand raised. The low sun shone full on her, catching her brown
hair, the lucid clearness of her brown eyes, her cheeks so clear and
soft, in colour a little summer-brown too. I stood and listened with a
something of excited feeling which I could not control. If I had
followed my first impulse I am not sure that I should not have bolted
through the shrubbery; but of course I did not. And the sound of this
third person, whose steps were not to be mistaken though she was unseen,
made my heart beat. It was no doubt the utmost folly; for there must be
an explanation for it in nature: of that I could not doubt for a moment.
“You are startled,” she said, with a smile.
“Well, I should not be acting my part, should I, as I ought, if I did
not feel the proper thrill. It must be disrespectful to a ghost not to
be afraid.”
“Don’t say a ghost,” said Chatty; “I think _that_ is disrespectful. It
is the Lady of Ellermore; everybody knows about her. And do you know,”
she added, “when my mother died--the greatest grief I have ever
known--the steps ceased? Oh, it is true! You need not look me in the
face as if there was anything to laugh at. It is ten years ago, and I
was only a silly sort of girl, not much good to anyone. They sent me out
to get the air when she was lying in a doze; and I came here. I was
crying, as you may suppose, and at first I did not pay any attention.
Then it struck me all at once--the Lady was away. They told me
afterwards that was the worst sign. It is always death that is coming
when she goes away.”
The pathos of this incident confused all my attempts to touch it with
levity, and we went on for a little without speaking, during which time
it is almost unnecessary to say that I was listening with all my might
to those strange footsteps, which finally I persuaded myself were no
more than echoes of our own.
“It is very curious,” I said politely. “Of course you were greatly
agitated and too much absorbed in real grief to have any time to think
of any explanation--the state of the atmosphere perhaps”--
She gave me an indignant look. We were nearly at the end of the walk,
and at that moment I could have sworn that the footsteps, which had got
a little in advance, here turned and met us coming back. I am aware
that nothing could sound more foolish, and that it could only be some
vibration or atmospheric phenomenon. But yet this was how it seemed: it
was not an optical but an aural delusion. So long as the steps were
going with us it was less impossible to account for it; but when they
turned and audibly came back to meet us! Not all my strength of mind
could prevent me from springing aside to let them pass. This time they
came directly between us, and the agility of my start and withdrawal was
naturally much more significant than the faltering laugh with which I
excused myself. “It is a very curious sound indeed,” I said, with a
tremor which slightly affected my voice.
Chatty gave me a reassuring smile. She did not laugh at me, which was
consolatory. She stood for a moment as if looking after the visionary
passenger. “We are not afraid,” she said, “even the youngest; we all
know she is our friend.”
When we had got back to the side of the loch, where, I confess, I was
pleased to find myself, in the free open air without any perplexing
shadow of trees, I felt less objection to the subject. “I wish you would
tell me the story; for of course there is a story?” I said.
“No, there is no story--at least nothing tragical or even romantic. They
say she was the eldest daughter. I sometimes wonder,” Chatty said, with
a smile and a faint increase of colour, “whether she might not be a
little like me. She lived here all her life, and had several generations
to take care of. Oh no, there was no murder or wrong about our Lady; she
just loved Ellermore above everything; and my idea is that she has been
allowed the care of us ever since.”
“That is very sweet, to have the care of you,” I said, scarcely
venturing to put any emphasis on the pronoun; “but, after all, it must
be slow work, don’t you think, walking up and down there for ever? I
call that a poor sort of reward for a good woman. If she had been a bad
one, it might have answered very well for a punishment.”
“Mr. Temple!” Chatty said, now reddening with indignation, “do you think
it is a poor thing to have the care of your own people, to watch over
them, whatever may happen--to be all for them and their service? I don’t
think so; I should like to have such a fate.”
Perhaps I had spoken thus on purpose to bring about the discussion.
“There is such a thing as being too devoted to a family. Are they ever
grateful? They go away and marry and leave you in the lurch.”
She looked up at me with a little astonishment. “The members may vary,
but the family never goes away,” she said; “besides, that can apply to
us in our present situation only. _She_ must have seen so many come and
go; but that need not vex her, you know, because they go where she is.”
“My dear Miss Campbell, wait a bit; think a little,” I said. “Where she
is! That is in the Lady’s Walk, according to your story. Let us hope
that all your ancestors and relations are not there.”
“I suppose you want to make me angry,” said Chatty. “She is in
heaven--have you any doubt of that?--but every day when the sun is
setting she comes back home.”
“Oh, come!” I said, “if it is only at the sunset, that is not so bad.”
Miss Campbell looked at me doubtfully, as if not knowing whether to be
angry. “You want to make fun of it,” she said, “to laugh at it; and
yet,” she added, with a little spirit, “you were very nervous half an
hour ago.”
“I acknowledge to being nervous. I am very impressionable. I believe
that is the word. It is a luxury like another to be nervous at the fit
moment. Frightened, you might say, if you prefer plain speaking. And I
am very glad it is at sunset, not in the dark. This completes the circle
of my Highland experiences,” I said; “everything now is perfect. I have
shot grouse on the hill and caught trout on the loch, and been soaked to
the skin and then dried in the wind; I wanted nothing but the family
ghost. And now I have seen her, or at least heard her”--
“If you are resolved to make a joke of it I cannot help it,” said
Chatty, “but I warn you that it is not agreeable to me, Mr. Temple. Let
us talk of something else. In the Highlands,” she said, with dignity,
“we take different views of many things.”
“There are some things,” I said, “of which but one view is
possible--that I should have the audacity and impertinence to laugh at
anything for which you have a veneration! I believe it is only because I
was so frightened”--
She smiled again in her lovely motherly way, a smile of indulgence and
forgiveness and bounty. “You are too humble now,” she said, “and I think
I hear someone calling me. It is time to go in.”
And to be sure there was someone calling her; there always was, I think,
at all hours of the night and day.