The earl reached Edinburg in the beginning of winter, and in those days
an Edinburg winter was a very gay season. That brilliant society, which
has now become a matter of tradition, was then in its zenith. Those
renowned support-parties, where great wits, learned philosophers, and
clever and beautiful women met together, a most enjoyable company, were
going on almost every night, and drawing into their various small
circles every thing that was most attractive in the larger circle
outside.
Lord Cairnforth was a long time before he suffered himself to be drawn
in likewise; but the business which detained him in Edinburg grew more
and more tedious; he found difficulties arise on every hand, and yet he
was determined not to leave until he had done all he wanted to do. Not
only in money, but by personal influence, which, now that he tried to
use it, he found was considerable, he furthered, in many ways, the
interests of Mr. Menteith's sons. The widow, too, a gentle, helpless
woman, soon discovered where to come to, on all occasions, for counsel
and aid. Never had the earl led such a busy life--one more active,
as far as his capabilities allowed.
Still, now and then time hung on his hands, and he felt a great lack of
companionship, until, by degrees, his name and a good deal of his
history got noised abroad, and he was perfectly inundated with
acquaintances. Of course, he had it at his own option how much or how
little he went out into the world. Every advantage that rank or fortune
could give was his already; but he had another possession still--his
own as much here as in the solitudes of Cairnforth, the art of making
himself "weel likit." The mob of "good society," which is not better
than any other mob, will run after money, position, talent, beauty, for
a time; but it requires a quality higher and deeper than these, and
distinct from them all, to produce lasting popularity.
This the earl had. In spite of his infirmities, he possessed the rare
power of winning love, of making people love him for his own sake. At
first, of course, his society was sought from mere curiosity, or even
through meaner motives; but gradually, like the good clergyman with whom
"Fools who came to scoff remained to pray,"
Those who visited him to stare at, or pity a fellow-creature so
afflicted, remained, attached by his gentleness, his patience, his
wonderful unselfishness. And some few, of noble mind, saw in him the
grandest and most religious spectacle that men can look upon--a
human soul which has not suffered itself to be conquered by adversity.
Very soon the earl gathered round him, besides acquaintances, a knot of
real friends, affectionate and true, who, in the charm of his cultivated
mind, and the simplicity of his good heart, found ample amends for every
thing that nature had denied him, the loss of which he bore so
cheerfully and uncomplainingly.
By-and-by, induced by these, the excellent people whom, as by mesmeric
attraction, goodness soon draws to itself, he began to go out a little
into society. It could be done, with some personal difficulty and pain,
and some slight trouble to his friends, which last was for a long time
his chief objection; for a merciful familiarity with his own affliction
had been brought about by time, and by the fact that he had never known
any other sort of existence, and only, as a blind person guesses at
colors, could speculate upon how it must feel to move about freely, to
walk and run. He had also lost much of his early shyness, and ceased to
feel any actual dread of being looked at. His chief difficulty was the
practical one of locomotion, and this for him was solved much easier
than if he had been a man of limited means. By some expenditure of
money, and by a good deal of ingenious contrivance, he managed to be
taken about as easily in Edinburg as at Cairnforth; was present at
church and law-court, theatre and concert-room, and at many a pleasant
reunion of pleasant people every where.
For in his heart Lord Cairnforth rather liked society. To him, whose
external resources were so limited, who could in truth do nothing for
his own amusement but read, social enjoyments were very valuable. He
took pleasure in watching the encounter of keen wits, the talk of clever
conversationalists. His own talent in that line was not small, though
he seldom used it in large circles; but with two or three only about
him, the treasures of his well-stored mind came out often very
brilliantly. Then he was so alive to all that was passing in the world
outside, and took as keen an interest in politics, social ethics, and
schemes of philanthropy as if he himself had been like other men,
instead of being condemned (or exalted--which shall we say? Dis
aliter visum!) to a destiny of such solemn and awful isolation.
Yet he never put forward his affliction so as to make it painful to
those around him. Many, in the generation now nearly passed away, long
and tenderly remembered the little figure, placed motionless in the
centre of a brilliant circle--all clever men and charming women--
yet of whose notice the cleverest and most charming were always proud.
Not because he was an earl--nobility was plentiful enough at Edinburg
then--but because he was himself. It was a pleasure just to sit
beside him, and to meet his pleasantness with cheerful chat, gay banter,
or affectionate earnestness.
For every body loved him. Women, of course, did; they could not help
it; but men were drawn to him likewise, with the sort of reverential
tenderness that they would feel toward a suffering child or woman--
and something more--intense respect. His high sense of honor, his
true manliness, attracted the best of all the notabilities then
constituting that brilliant set; and there was not one of them worth
having for a friend at all who was not, in greater or less degree, the
friend of the Earl of Cairnforth.
But there was another side of his Edinburg life which did not appear
till long after he had quitted Modern Athens forever--nor even then
fully; not until he had passed quite away from the comments of this
mortal world. Then, many a struggling author, or worn-out professional
man, to whom life was all up-hill, or to whom sudden misfortune had made
the handful of "siller" (i.e. "silver") a matter of absolute salvation
to both body and soul--scores of such as these afterward recalled
hours or half hours spent in the cozy study in Charlotte Square, beside
the little figure in its chair--outwardly capable of so little, yet
endowed with both the power and will to do so much. Doing it so
generously, too, and withal so delicately, that the most sensitive went
away with their pride unwounded, and the most hardened and irreligious
were softened by it into thankfulness to One higher than their earthly
benefactor, who was only the medium through whom the blessings came.
These were accidental offices, intermingled with the principal duty
which the earl had undertaken, and which he carried out with unremitting
diligence--the care of his old friend's children. He placed some at
school, and others at college; those who were already afloat in the
world he aided with money and influence--an earl's name was so very
influential, as, with an amused smile, he occasionally discovered.
But, busy as his new life was, he never forgot his old life and his old
friends. He turned a deaf ear to all persuasions to take up his
permanent abode, according as his rank and fortune warranted, in
Edinburg. He was not unhappy there--he had plenty to do and to
enjoy; but his heart was in quiet Cairnforth. Several times,
troublesome, and even painful as the act of penmanship was to him, he
sent a few lines to the Manse. But it happened to be a very severe
winter, which made postal communication difficult. Besides, in those
days people neither wrote nor expected letters very often. During the
three months that Lord Cairnforth remained in Edinburg he only received
two epistles from Mr. Cardross, and those were in prolix and Johnsonian
style, on literary topics, and concerning the great and learned, with
whom the poor learned country minister had all his life longed to mix,
and had never been able.
Helen, who had scarcely penned a dozen letters in her life, wrote to him
once only, in reply to one of his, telling him she was doing every
thing as she thought he would best like; that Captain Bruce had assisted
her and her father in many ways, so far as his health allowed, but he
was very delicate still, and talked of going abroad, to the south of
France probably, as soon as possible. The captain himself never wrote
one single line.
At first the earl was a little surprised at this: however, it was not
his habit easily to take offense at his friends. He was quite without
that morbid self-esteem which is always imagining affronts or injuries.
If people liked him, he was glad; if they showed it, he believed them,
and rested in their affection with the simple faith of a child. But if
they seemed to neglect him, he still was ready to conclude the slight
was accidental, and he rarely grieved over it. Mere acquaintances had
not the power to touch his heart. And this gentle heart which, liking
many, loved but few, none whom he loved ever could really offend. He
"Grappled them to his soul with hooks of steel,"
And believed in them to the last extremity of faith that was possible.
So, whether Captain Bruce came under the latter category or the former,
his conduct was passed over, waiting for future explanation when Lord
Cairnforth returned home, as now, every day, he was wearying to do.
"But I will be back again in pleasant Edinburg next winter," said he to
one of his new friends, who had helped to make his stay pleasant, and
was sorely regretting his departure. "And I shall bring with me some
very old friends of mine, who will enjoy it as much as I shall myself."
And he planned, and even made preliminary arrangements for a house to be
taken, and an establishment formed, where the minister, Helen, and,
indeed, all the Cardross family, if they chose, might find a hospitable
home for the ensuing winter season.
"And how they will like it!" said he, in talking it over with Malcolm
one day. "How the minister will bury himself in old libraries, and Miss
Cardross will admire the grand shops and the beautiful views. And how
the boys will go skating on Dunsappi Loch, and golfing over Bruntsfield
Links. Oh, we'll make them all so happy!" added he, with pleasure
shining in those contented eyes, which drew half their light from the
joy that they saw, and caused to shine in the eyes around him.
It was after many days of fatiguing travel that Lord Cairnforth reached
the ferry opposite Cairnforth.
There the Castle stood, just as he had left it, its white front gleaming
against the black woods, then yellow and brown with autumn, but now only
black, or with a faint amber shadow running through them, preparatory to
the green of spring. Between lay the beautiful loch, looking ten times
more beautiful than ever to eyes which had not seen it for many long
months. How it danced and dimpled, as it had done before the squall in
which the earl's father was drowned, and as it would do many a time
again, after the fashion of these lovely, deceitful lochs, and of many
other things in this world.
"Oh, Malcolm, it's good to be at home!" said the earl, as he gazed
fondly at his white castle walls, at the ivy-covered kirk, and the gable
end of the Manse. He had been happy in Edinburg, but it was far sweeter
to come to the dear old friends that loved him. He seemed as if he had
never before felt how dear they were, and how indispensable to his
happiness.
"You are quite sure, Malcolm, that nobody knows we are coming? I wished
to go down at once to the Manse, and surprise them all."
'Ye'll easy do that, my lord, for there's naebody in sight but Sandy the
ferryman, wha little kens it's the earl himsel he's kepit waiting sae
lang."
"And how's a' wi' ye, Sandy?" said Lord Cairnforth, cheerily, when the
old man was rowing him across. "All well at home--at the Castle, the
Manse, and the clachan"?
"Ou ay, my lord. Except maybe the minister. He's no weel. He's
missing Miss Helen sair."
"Missing Miss Helen!" echoed the earl, turning pale.
"Ay, my lord. She gaed awa--it's just twa days sin syne. She was
sair vexed to leave Cairnforth and the minister."
"Leave her father?"
"A man maun leave father and mither, and cleave unto his wife--the
scripture says it. And a woman maun just do the like for her man, ye
ken. Miss Helen's awa to France, or some sic place, wi' her husband,
Captain Bruce."
The earl was sitting in the stern of the ferry-boat alone, no one being
near him but Sandy, and Malcolm, who had taken the second oar. To old
Sandy's communication he replied not a word--asked not a single
question more--and was lifted out at the end of the five-minutes'
passage just as usual. But the two men, though they also said nothing,
remembered the expression of his face to their dying day.
"Take me home, Malcolm; I will go to the Manse another time. Carry me
in your arms--the quickest way."
Malcolm lifted his master, and carried him, just as in the days when the
earl was a child, through the pleasant woods of Cairnforth, up to the
Castle door.
Nobody had expected them, and there was nothing ready.
"It's no matter--no matter," feebly said the earl, and allowed
himself to be placed in an arm-chair by the fire in the housekeeper's
room. There he sat passive.
"Will I bring the minister?" whispered Malcolm, respectfully. "Maybe
ye wad like to see him, my lord."
"No, no."
"His lordship's no weel please," said the housekeeper to Mrs. Campbell,
when the earl leant his head back, and seemed to be sleeping. "Is it
about the captain's marriage: Did he no ken?"
"Ne'er a word o't"
"That was great lack o'respect on the part o' Captain Bruce, and he sic
a pleasant young man; and Helen, too. Miss Helen tauld me her ain sel
that the earl was greatly set upon her marriage, for the captain gaed to
Edinburg just to tell him o't. And he wrote her word that his lordship
wished him no to bide a single day, but to marry Miss Helen and tak her
awa'. She'd never hae done it, in my opinion, but for that. For the
captain was at her ilka day an a' day lang, looking like a ghaist, and
telling' her he couldna live without her--she's a tender heart, Miss
Helen--and she was sae awfu' vexed for him, ye ken. For, sure,
Malcolm, the captain did seem almost like deein'."
"Deein'!" cried Malcolm, contemptuously, and then stopped. For while
they were talking the earl's eyes had open wide, and fixed with a
strange, sad, terrified look upon vacancy.
He remembered it all now--the last night he had spent at Cairnforth
with his cousin--the conversation which passed between them--the
questions asked, which, from his not answering, might have enabled the
captain to guess at the probable disposal of his property. He could
come to no other conclusion than that Captain Bruce had married Helen
with the same motive which must have induced his appearance at the
castle, and his eager and successful efforts to ingratiate himself there
--namely, money; that the fortune which he had himself missed might
accrue to him through his union with Lord Cairnforth's heiress.
How had he possibly accomplished this? How had he succeeded in making
good, innocent, simple Helen love him? For that she would never have
married without love the earl well knew. By what persuasions,
entreaties, or lies--the housekeeper's story involved some evident
lies--he had attained his end, remained, and must ever remain, among
the mysteries of the many mysterious marriages which take place every
day.
And it was all over. She was married, and gone away. Doubtless the
captain had taken his precautions to prevent any possible hinderance.
That it was a safe marriage legally, even though so little was known of
the bridegroom's antecedent life, seemed more than probable--certain,
seeing that the chief object he would have in this marriage was its
legality, to assure himself thereby of the property which should fall to
Helen in the event of the earl's decease. That he loved Helen for
herself, or was capable of loving her or any woman in the one noble,
true way, the largest limit of charitable interpretation could hardly
suppose possible.
Still, she had loved him--she must have done so--with that strange,
sudden idealization of love which sometimes seizes upon a woman who has
reached--more than reached--mature womanhood, and never
experienced the passion. And she had married him, and gone away with
him--left, for his sake, father, brothers, friends--her one
special friend, who was now nothing to her--nothing!
Whatever emotions the earl felt--and it would be almost sacrilegious
to intrude upon them, or to venture on any idle speculation concerning
them--one thing was clear; in losing Helen, the light of his eyes,
the delight of his life was gone.
He sat in his chair quite still, as indeed he always was, but now it was
a deathlike quietness, without the least sign of the wonderful mobility
of feature and cheerfulness of voice and manner which made people so
soon grow used to his infirmity--sat until his room was prepared.
Then he suffered himself to be carried to his bed, which, for the first
time in his life, he refused to leave for several days.
Not that he was ill--he declined any medical help, and declared that
he was only "weary, weary"--at which, after his long journey, no one
was surprised. He refused to see any body, even Mr. Cardross, and would
suffer no one beside him but his old nurse, Mrs. Campbell, whom he
seemed to cling to as when he was a little child. For hours she sat by
his bed, watching him, but scarcely speaking a word; and for hours he
lay, his eyes wide open, but with that blank expression in them which
Mrs. Campbell had first noticed when he sat by the housekeeper's fire.
"My bairn! My bairn!" was all she said--for she loved him. And,
somehow, her love comforted him. "Ye maun live, ye maun live. Maybe
they'll need ye yet," sobbed she, without explaining--perhaps without
knowing--who "they" meant. But she knew enough of her "bairn" to
know that if any thing would rouse him it was the thought of other folk.
"Do you think so, nurse? Do you think I can be of any good to any
creature in this world?"
"Ay, ye can, ye can, my lord--ye'd be awfully missed gin ye were to
dee."
"Then I'll no dee"--faintly smiling, and using the familiar speech of
his childhood. "Call Malcolm. I'll try to rise. And, nurse, if you
would have the carriage ordered--the pony carriage--I will drive
down to the Manse and see how Mr. Cardross is. He must be rather dull
without his daughter."
The earl did not--and it was long before he did--call her by name.
But after that day he always spoke of her as usual to every body; and
from that hour he rose from his bed, and went about his customary work
in his customary manner, taking up all his duties as if he had never
left them, and as if nothing had ever happened to disturb the even tenor
of his life--the strange, peaceful, and yet busy life led by the
solitary master of Cairnforth.