"WILL HE NEVER COME AGAIN?"
Not since the bright old days before the death of Claude's father had
Dunallan Towers looked so cheerful as it did the week before the arrival
of the wanderer himself in Glasgow waters.
"I believe my boy will come to-day," Lady Alwyn would remark to her
maid.
"Something tells me, too, he won't be long," Janet would reply; "and do
you know, my lady, that Alba seems to know it also? He cried, `Claude!
Claude! Claude!' last night quite distinctly in his sleep, and the
sound thrilled every nerve in my body. Oh! I hope nothing has happened
to him, my lady."
"Hush! hush!" replied her ladyship; "you are superstitious, Janet; but
you mustn't try to make me so."
Even as they spoke there came a patter of tiny feet along the passage,
like the rattle of hail on a summer-house roof, and the next moment Alba
himself appeared. He flew up, and on to the back of a quaint old chair,
and gazed first at Janet and then at her mistress with his garnet eyes.
Lady Alwyn smoothed the graceful creature, and it bent low on its perch,
as if enjoying the gentle caress.
"Do you not notice," said the lady, "how white and snowy its plumage has
become of late? It is always thus before my boy arrives."
"Dear Lady Alwyn, I did not like to tell you before; but all the three
days you were at Dumfries Alba was lost, and I never thought to see him
again. He was whiter when he came back than the snows on the
mountains."
"How strange!" said Lady Alwyn, meditatively.
"Claude, Claude!" cried Alba.
There is nothing strange in hearing a seagull talking, and Alba's
vocabulary was not a small one.
Lady Alwyn held out her hand; the bird perched on it, and presently was
nestling fondly on her breast. This did not altogether please Fingal,
Claude's favourite deerhound. He must needs get up from the skin on
which he had been reclining, and lean his noble head on the lady's lap.
And she could spare a hand to fondle the head.
Yes, everything was bright and pleasant. What though the early winter
winds were raving through the leafless trees without, where swayed the
rooks near their cheerless nests? what though the blasts were biting and
cold in the uplands, and the Nith--brown and swollen--roared angrily
over its rocky bed? Bright fires burned in every grate, and were
reflected in patches of crimson from the massive mahogany furniture.
And Lady Alwyn's face was cheerful too. Resigned and calm though she
always appeared, to-day there was a sparkle in her eyes, that made her
look almost young.
Rat-tat! It was a double knock at the front hall door which resounded
through all the house.
Lady Alwyn started from her seat, and stood eager and expectant. She
even went to meet the liveried servant, who presently entered with the
telegram.
"Yes, yes!" she joyfully exclaimed in answer to Janet's inquiring look.
"My boy is coming to-day. I knew he would be. Alba, your master is
coming."
She embraced the bird again. Fingal, sure that something more than
usual was on the _tapis_, began to scamper round the room, jumping over
the chairs--a way he had when excited. He jumped all round the room
twice, then he playfully snatched the telegram from Lady Alwyn's hand
and went jumping round again with that.
How much or how little of the truth Fingal guessed I cannot pretend to
say. It was but a telegram. Had it been a _letter_ written by his
loved master's hand, Fingal would have known it, even had the wanderer
been years away.
So when Claude stepped briskly out of the train at the little station of
P--, there, sure enough, was the great stately old carriage, with its
two splendid dark bays, in their silvered harness, waiting to receive
him.
His mother was not there; but Fingal was, and almost pulled his master
down in the exuberance of his joy.
It was a long five-mile drive from the station to Dunallan. Charming
enough, in all conscience, during the spring and summer months, and even
when autumn tints were on the trees, but cold-looking and dreary now.
All the more so that night was coming on apace, the little of lurid
light which the sun had left in the west getting quickly absorbed in the
heavy banks of rising cloud.
Claude's spirits fell lower now than they had yet fallen. There was
something even in the sombre grandeur of the family carriage that
brought dark clouds around his heart.
Not one thought except those of love for the fair and innocent maiden
far away mingled with these. But his mother? His proud, good, gentle
mother?
How would the Lady Alwyn, the Lady of the Towers, herself of ancient
family, like the idea of her only son marrying a poor Iceland orphan
unblessed with a pedigree?
And he--a lord--Lord Alwyn! Yes, Lord Alwyn. He could not deny it,
though he hated the title, hated it now more than ever for the sake of
Meta.
There was some relief from his present gloom and doubts and fears in
placing his arm round great Fingal--seated so lovingly by his side,--and
breathing into his ears the strange story of his love.
Fingal could listen and sympathise, even if he did not know one whit
what it was all about.
Fingal was a wise old dog, so he wisely held his peace, and offered no
advice on the matter either way. He gave his master one lick on the
cheek, however, as much as to say--
"Whatever you think, dear master, must be right, and whatever you do
can't be wrong in my eyes, so there?"
Mother and son had much to talk of that night. Lady Alwyn's life since
the _Alba_, her son's ship, bore away for the far North, had been
uneventful enough; but _he_ had had adventures numerous indeed--
although, mind you, he did not speak of them as such. Hardly ever is a
rover off the stage heard making use of the word "adventures." Modesty
is one of the leading characteristics of your true hero.
There were times on this first evening when Claude would suddenly lapse
into silence, almost into moodiness. He might be looking at his mother
or not, but his mind was evidently abstracted, preoccupied, and his eyes
had a far-away look in them. This did not escape his mother's notice.
"Could he have any grief?" she thought. "Could he be ill and not know
it?"
"You are sure," she said once, "my dear Claude, that you have quite
recovered from your terrible accident?"
"What, mother? Accident? Oh yes; indeed I had almost forgotten."
"And your nurses, your kindly nurses, Claude: you must never forget
them, dear."
"I'm not likely to," he said, with on emphasis which she thought almost
strange. "Never while I live."
He gazed into the fire.
"Would not this be the right time," he was thinking, "to tell her all:
to tell her I had three nurses instead of only two?"
But no; he dared not just yet. He would not run the risk of bringing a
care to her now happy face. He thought himself thus justified in
putting the evil day--if evil day it were to be--further off.
Claude was no coward, as I believe the sequel of my story will show, but
still he dreaded--oh, how he dreaded!--the effect which the intelligence
he was bound soon to give her would have upon her.
Claude slept but little that night, and slept but ill. More than once
he started from some frightful dream, in which his mother was strangely
mixed up, and not his mother only, but his Meta.
It was about five o'clock, though it would not be daylight for a long
while yet. Claude was lying partially asleep: I say partially, because
he seemed listening to the wind roaring through the leafless boughs of
the trees, and every now and then causing the twiglets to tap and creak
against the panes; but he thought he was at sea, and that the rushing
sound was the rushing of waves, the creaking the yielding of the ship's
timbers to the force of the seas.
Suddenly he sprang half up in bed and listened intently, painfully.
He had distinctly heard some one in the room calling him. He could not
be mistaken, and the voice seemed Meta's.
"Claude! Claude!" cried the voice again, and his heart almost stood
still for a moment as he saw a figure, which his imagination magnified a
hundredfold, near the bed. "Claude?"
Next moment Alba, the snow-bird, alighted on his breast.
He slept soundly soon after this, but still when he appeared at
breakfast he was so jaded looking and restless as to cause his mother
considerable anxiety. He stoutly refused to see a medical man, however.
"It is nothing," he laughed. "Nothing, dear mother, only slight
fatigue. A sailor like myself thinks little of travelling a thousand
miles by sea, yet dreads the rolling, jolting train."
There was plenty to do and think about all day, well calculated to
banish care. The villagers, the tenants, and neighbours all round were
delighted to see the manly face and handsome figure of young Claude
Alwyn once more among them, still accompanied by his pet--his
spirit-bird, as the older cottagers had come to call it.
Then, although grouse were wild, there were hares in plenty, and fish in
the river ready to be wooed by the gentle art of so true a fisherman as
Claude Alwyn. And the walking exercise, through the heather hills, the
fresh air, and the balmy breath of pine trees, never failed to refresh
and invigorate him both in mind and body, so that he always returned to
dinner buoyant and hopeful. But ever at the breakfast-table there was
that weary look of carking care in his face.
He would go no further, however, in explaining it than confessing he did
not sleep very well at night.
"It is the change," he remarked, smiling, "from a hard mattress to one
far too soft and luxuriant for a sailor. Besides, mother, I dare say I
miss the motion of the ship."
His mother only sighed softly.
There came to Claude one night a dream as vivid as any reality. He was
back again in Iceland. He was gazing on the face and form of her whom
he loved, though she did not seem to see him. She was seated on a
hill-top, a favourite spot, where beside her he had often sat, when the
fields beneath were green, the far-off sea an azure blue, when wild
birds sang above and around them, and the perfume of wild flowers filled
the summer air.
But snow was all over the landscape now, save where dark rocks jutted
through the white, and the ocean, foam-flecked, dashed high over the
beetling cliffs. Yes, there sat Meta, but oh! the sad, sad look in
those beautiful eyes! She opened her lips and spoke at last.
"No, no, no!" she murmured; "he will never come again."
He thought he sprang towards her, but she faded away like the mist from
a geyser, and he was alone on the snow.
He slept no more that night. But he formed a resolve.
"No," he said to himself, "I am not a man; not a drop of proud Alwyn's
blood runs through my veins if I hesitate longer. It is a duty I owe to
my mother and to her to speak my mind. Yes, Meta, I will come back
again."
Were I an artist, I should delight in painting only beauty and peace:
the fairest, holiest faces should be transferred to my canvas; the most
smiling summer landscapes, the sunniest seas. But, alas! I am but an
author, and no pen-and-ink depiction of life would be complete without
the shade and shadow of sorrow.
I will not needlessly dwell on the interview that took place in the very
room in which I am sitting writing now, between the proud Lady Alwyn and
her son. Indeed, the interview was brief in itself: I have thus some
excuse for being brevity personified in my description.
Pass we over, then, Claude's introduction, his passionate declaration of
love for Meta, his glowing panegyrics on her person and mind, and even
the statement that only his regard for his mother and fear of hurting
her feelings caused him to conceal the truth so long from her, and then
we come to the _denouement_.
"But, dearest mother, I now know and feel that your constant desire to
do everything for my happiness will cause you to receive my Meta when I
bring her home as my bride."
If she had been silent till now, it was because she seemed as if
thunder-struck.
"My boy," she cried at last, "you are bewitched, or I am dreaming some
hideous dream. Tell me it is all but an ill-timed joke. You are but a
child--"
"I am a man."
"You have been deceived, put upon, tempted by a designing--"
"Hold, mother, hold! Though the few words you have uttered sound like
the death-knell to hopes I have fondly cherished, go no further: forget
not yourself so far as to speak one word against my bride-elect, lest I
forget I am your son."
"My son? _My son_?" exclaimed the proud Lady of the Towers almost
tragically. "Oh! would I could forget it, or that your ship had sunk in
the blackest depths of ocean, rather than you had lived to bring this
disgrace on the noble house of Alwyn."
"Enough, mother; I will hear no more. You have thwarted me in the
dearest wish of my heart, you whose love for a son ought to have
conquered family pride. You have thrust me from the halls of my
ancestors. I go forth into the world of adventure. I will seek in
ambition, in ceaseless change, the only possible balm for the sorrow I
have in parting from you."
He turned on his heel as he spoke. He strode down the hall and through
the avenue; he looked neither to right nor left, and never once behind
him. His mother watched him with clasped hands, with anxious eyes, and
with prayers on her pale and quivering lips.
"Would he turn? Surely, surely he would turn." But nay; the trees soon
hid him from view--hid him, and lastly Fingal, who with tail and head
bent low, as if he knew that sorrow had come, followed at young Claude's
heels.
"Widowed and childless!" These were her words as she sank apparently
lifeless on the floor.
Janet, her maid, found her thus and lifted her gently on to the couch.
But when memory came back, no words her maid could utter could give
comfort.
"I forgive him, Janet," she said, "as he will forgive me. It is fate.
He _may_ write, but he'll _never_ return: too well do I know the pride
of the Highland Alwyns. But, but, dear Janet,"--here all the woman's
nature gushed out in tears--"Janet," she sobbed, "poor Fingal--too--
has--gone."
Sorrow had fallen like a dark cloud on Dunallan Towers, a cloud that was
deepened in its darkness when one morning Alba, the snow-bird, was
missing. It was last seen flying listlessly around the great elm trees,
then straight as lightning bearing northwards. It was Janet who saw it,
and it seemed to say--
"I hear a voice you cannot hear,
That bids me not to stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
That beckons me away."