Miss Jean it must be allowed turned to her young companion with some
dismay when Mrs. Campbell of Glendochart had been ceremoniously seen to
her hackney coach, and deeply cast down and discomfited, had driven away
to the respectable person who had been recommended to her to make her
new gown. “Were you meaning yon?” Miss Jean asked with solicitude. “Or
what were you meaning?”
“I was meaning what I said,” cried Kirsteen holding her head high and
with an unusual colour upon her cheeks. “You know yourself that we have
more work than can be done if we were to sit at it day and night.”
“For the moment,” said Miss Jean prudently; “but to refuse work just
goes to my heart--it might spoil the business.”
“It will do the business good,” said Kirsteen. “We will let it be known,
not just yet perhaps, what I said, that we will take no commoners’
orders--that persons who are nobodies need not come here. You did not
take me with you into the business just to go on like other folk.”
“No--that’s quite true,” said Miss Jean, but with a little hesitation
still.
“By the time,” said Kirsteen, “that you have turned away half-a-dozen
from your door, your name will be up over all the town; and whether in
the season or out of it, you will have more to do than you can set your
face to, and thanks for doing it. Will you trust me or not, Miss Jean?
For I allow that I am inexperienced and perhaps I may not be right.”
“It would be very strange if ye were always right,” said Miss Jean with
a smile of affectionate meaning, “for all so young and so sure as ye
are. But ye have a great spirit and there’s something in me too that
just answers till ye. Yes, I’ll trust ye, my dear; and ye’ll just go
insulting all the poor bodies that are not good enough to please ye,
till ye make a spoon or spoil a horn for yourself; for it does not
matter so very much for me.”
“Not the poor bodies,” said Kirsteen, “but the folk with money and
nothing else, that come in as if they were doing us a favour--women
that Marg’ret would not have in her kitchen; and they will come in here
and give their orders as if it was a favour to you and me! I would like
to learn them a lesson: that though we’re mantua-makers, it’s not for
the like of them--a person with no name to speak of--and giving her
orders to one of the Douglases! We will learn them better before we are
done.”
“Oh pride, pride!” said Miss Jean, “there’s something in me that answers
till ye, though well I wot I have little to be proud of; but these half
and half gentry they are just insufferable to me too.”
In all this there was nothing said of Mrs. Mary, to whom none of these
descriptions applied, for she was of course one of the Douglases as well
as her sister, and Glendochart was as good a gentleman as any of his
name. But while Miss Jean Brown, the daughter of a Scotch ploughman,
felt something in her that answered to the pride of the well-born
Highland girl, there was much in the other that resembled the “half and
half gentry,” of whom the experienced mantua-maker had seen many
specimens. Miss Jean’s prognostics however were carried into effect with
stern certainty in the disappointment of the country visitors. They did
indeed dine in Portman Square, but chiefly because of Lady Chatty’s
desire to see the personages of the story which she was so fond of
telling, and then only on a Sunday evening when the family were alone.
Alone, or all but alone, for there was one guest to meet them in the
person of Miss Kirsteen Douglas, who was not a stranger in the house nor
awkward, as the bride was in her new gown and much overdressed for the
family party. It was impossible for Kirsteen to meet Glendochart, whose
wooing had been of so much importance in her life, without a warmer
tinge of colour and a slight shade of consciousness. But the good man
was so completely unaware of any cause for feeling, that she came to
herself with a little start and shock, which was highly salutary and
chastised that pride which was Kirsteen’s leading quality at this period
of her career. Glendochart was so completely married, so pleased with
his young wife, and with himself for having secured her, that all former
dreams had departed totally from his mind--a discovery which Kirsteen
made instantaneously so soon as their eyes met, and which went through
and through her with angry amazement, consternation, wonder, mingled
after a little while with a keen humorous sense of the absurdity of the
situation. He came after dinner and talked to her a little about her
circumstances, and how difficult it was to know what to do. “For your
father is a very dour man, as Mary says, and having once passed his word
that you are never to enter his door, it will be hard, hard to make him
change. You know how obdurate he has been about Anne; but we will always
be on the watch, and if the time ever comes that a word may be of
use----”
“I beg you will take no trouble about it, Glendochart. I knew what I was
risking; and but for my mother I have little to regret. And she has not
been any the worse,” Kirsteen said, almost with bitterness. Nobody
seemed to have been the worse for her departure, not even her mother.
“No, I believe she has been none the worse. She is coming to pay us a
visit so soon as we get back.”
Kirsteen could have laughed, and she could have cried. She could have
seized upon this precise, well-got-up elderly gentleman and given him a
good shake. To think that she should have been frightened almost out of
her wits, and flung all her life to the winds, because of him; and that
he was here advising her for her good, as well satisfied with Mary as he
ever could have been with herself!
Miss Jean proved however a true prophet in respect to the disappointment
of the newly-married couple with their reception in London, and their
willingness eventually to accept the hospitality of the mantua-maker,
and meet her friends, the minister, the doctor, the silk-mercer, and the
old lady of quality, at her comfortable table. Miss Jean gave them a
supper at which all these highly respectable persons were present, along
with another who gave a character of distinction to the assembly, being
no less a person than young Captain Gordon, promoted on the field of
battle and sent home with despatches, the son of the old lady above
mentioned, who was not too grand, though all the fine houses in London
were open to him, to come with his mother, covering her with glory in
the eyes of the humbler friends who had been kind to her poverty. This
encounter was the only one which brought Glendochart and his wife within
the range of the commotion which was filling all society and occupying
all talk. Afterwards, when they returned home, it was the main feature
of their record, what Captain Gordon had said, and his account of the
battle--“which, you see, we had, so to speak, at first hand; for he got
his promotion upon the field, and was sent home with despatches, which
is only done when a young man has distinguished himself; and a near
connection of the Huntly family.” I am not sure that Mary did not allow
it to be understood that she had met this young hero at the Duke’s table
in Portman Square, but certainly she never disclosed the fact that it
was at the mantua-maker’s in Chapel Street, Mayfair. Captain Gordon
proved to be of much after importance in the family, so that the mode of
his first introduction cannot be without interest. The old lady who
patronized Miss Jean by sharing her Sunday dinners, and many other
satisfactory meals, felt herself, and was acknowledged by all, to have
amply repaid her humble friend by bringing this brilliant young hero
fresh from Waterloo to that entertainment, thus doing Miss Jean an
honour which “the best in the land” coveted. Alick, so far as he was
concerned, made himself exceedingly agreeable. He fought the great
battle over again, holding his auditors breathless; he gave the doctor
details about the hospitals, and told the minister how the army chaplain
went among the poor Highlanders from bed to bed. And he accepted an
invitation from Glendochart for the shooting with enthusiasm. “But they
will want you at Castle Gordon,” said the proud mother, desirous to show
that her son had more gorgeous possibilities. “Then they must just want
me,” cried the young soldier. “They were not so keen about me when I was
a poor little ensign.” Everything was at the feet of the Waterloo hero,
who was in a position to snap his fingers at his grand relations and
their tardy hospitality. Kirsteen in particular was attracted by his
cheerful looks and his high spirit, and his pleasure in his independence
and promotion. It was in accord with her own feeling. She said that he
put her in mind of her brothers in India--all soldiers, but none of them
so fortunate as to have taken part in such a great decisive battle; and
thought with a poignant regret how it might have been had Ronald
Drummond continued with Lord Wellington’s army instead of changing into
the Company’s service. It might have been he that would have been sent
over with the despatches, and received with all this honour and
renown--and then!--Kirsteen’s countenance in the shade where she was
sitting was suffused with a soft colour, and the tears came into her
eyes.
“They get plenty of fighting out there,” said the young soldier, who was
very willing to console the only pretty girl in the room; “and if it’s
not so decisive it may be just as important in the long run, for India
is a grand possession--the grandest of all. I will probably go there
myself, Miss Douglas, for though Waterloo’s a fine thing, it will end
the war, and what’s a poor soldier lad to do?”
“You will just find plenty to do in your own country, Alick,” said his
mother eagerly.
“Barrack duty, mother! it’s not very exciting--after a taste of the
other.”
“A taste!” said the proud old lady. “He’s just been in everything, since
the time he put on his first pair of trews. I know those outlandish
places, as if they were on Deeside, always following my soldier
laddie--Vimiera, and Badajos, and down to Salamanca and Toulouse in
France. I could put my finger on them in the map in the dark,” she cried
with a glow of enthusiasm; then falling into a little murmur of happy
sobbing, “God be thanked they’re all over,” she cried, putting her
trembling hand upon her son’s arm.
“Amen!” said the minister, “to the final destruction of the usurper and
the restoring of law and order in a distracted land!”
“We’ll just see how long it lasts,” said the doctor, who was a little of
a free thinker, and was believed to have had sympathies with the
Revolution.
“We’ll have French tastes and French fashions in again, and they’re very
ingenious with their new patterns it must be allowed,” said the
silk-mercer; “but it will be an ill day for Spitalfields and other
places when the French silks are plentiful again.”
“There’s ill and good in all things. You must just do your best, Miss
Jean, to keep British manufactures in the first place,” the minister
said. “It’s astonishing in that way how much the ladies have in their
hands.”
“Were you at Salamanca--and Toulouse?” said Kirsteen in her corner,
where she kept as far as possible from the light of the candles, lest
any one should see the emotion in her face.
“Indeed I was, and the last was a field of carnage,” said the young
soldier. “Perhaps you had a brother there?”
“Not a brother--but a--friend,” said Kirsteen, unable to restrain a
faint little sigh. The young man looked so sympathetic and was so
complete a stranger to her that it was a relief to her full bosom to say
a word more. “I could not but think,” she added in a very low tone,
“that but for that weary India--it might have been him that had come
with glory--from Waterloo.”
“Instead of me,” said the young soldier with a laugh. “No, I know you
did not mean that. But also,” he added gravely, “both him and me we
might have been left on the field where many a fine fellow lies.”
“That is true, that is true!” Kirsteen did not say any more; but it
flashed across her mind how could she know that he was not lying on some
obscure field in India where lives were lost, and little glory or any
advantage that she knew of gained? This gave her, however, a very
friendly feeling to young Gordon, between whom and herself the tie of
something which was almost like a confidence now existed. For the young
man had easily divined what a friend meant in the guarded phraseology of
his country-woman.
It was not till long after this that there came to Kirsteen a little
note out of that far distance which made amends to her for long waiting
and silence. The letter was only from Robbie, whose correspondence with
his sisters was of the most rare and fluctuating kind, yet who for once
in a way, he scarcely himself knew the reason why, had sent Kirsteen a
little enclosure in his letter to his mother, fortunately secured by
Marg’ret, who was now everything--nurse, reader, and companion to the
invalid. Robbie informed his sister that Jeanie’s letter about old
Glendochart had “given him a good laugh,” and that he thought she was
very right to have nothing to say to an old fellow like that. Before the
letter arrived there was already a son and heir born in Glendochart
house, but Robbie was no further on in the family history than to be
aware of the fact that Kirsteen had gone away rather than have the old
lover forced upon her. He told her how on the march he had passed the
station where Ronald Drummond was, “if you mind him, he is the one that
left along with me--but you must mind him,” Robbie continued, “for he
was always about the house the last summer before I came away.”
* * * * *
He was keen for news of home, as we are all when we meet a friend in
this place. And I read him a bit of Jeanie’s letter which was very well
written, the little monkey, for a little thing of her age; how old
Glendochart followed you about like a puppy dog, and how you would never
see it, though all the rest did. We both laughed till we cried at
Jeanie’s story. She most be growing a clever creature, and writes a very
good hand of writing too. But it was more serious when we came to the
part where you ran away in your trouble at finding it out. I hope you
have come home by this time and have not quarrelled with my father; for
after all it never does any good to have quarrels in a family. However I
was saying about Ronald that he was really quite as taken up as I was
with Jeanie’s letter, and told me I was to give you his respects, and
that he would be coming home in a year or two, and would find you out
whether you were at Drumcarro or wherever you were, and give you all the
news about me, which I consider very kind of him, as I am sure you will
do--and he bid me to say that he always kept the little thing he found
in the parlour, and carried it wherever he went: though when I asked
what it was he would not tell me, but said you would understand: so I
suppose it was some joke between you two. And that’s about all the news
I have to tell you, and I hope you’ll think of what I say about not
quarrelling with my father. I am in very good health and liking my
quarters--and I am,
Your affect. brother,
R. D.
If this had been the most eloquent love-letter that ever was written,
and from the hand of her lover himself, it is doubtful whether it would
have more touched the heart of Kirsteen than Robbie’s schoolboy scrawl,
with its complete unconsciousness of every purpose, did. It was the
fashion of their time when correspondence was difficult and dear and
slow, and when a young man with nothing to offer was too honourable to
bind for long years a young woman who in the meantime might change her
mind; although both often held by each other with a supreme and silent
faithfulness. The bond, so completely understood between themselves with
nothing to disclose it to others, was all the dearer for never having
been put into words; although it was often no doubt the cause of
unspeakable pangs of suspense, of doubt--possibly of profound and
unspeakable disappointment if one or the other forgot. Kirsteen read and
re-read Robbie’s letter as if it had been a little gospel. She carried
it about with her, for her refreshment at odd moments. There came upon
her face a softened sweetness, a mildness to the happy eyes, a mellowing
beauty to every line. She grew greatly in beauty as her youth matured,
the softening influence of this sweet spring of life keeping in check
the pride which was so strong in her character, and the perhaps too
great independence and self-reliance which her early elevation to
authority and influence developed. And everything prospered with
Kirsteen. Miss Jean’s business became the most flourishing and
important in town. Not only commoners, whom she had so haughtily
rejected, but persons of the most exalted pretensions had to cast away
their pride and sue for the services of Miss Brown and Miss Kirsteen;
and as may be supposed, the more they refused, the more eager were the
customers at their door. Before Kirsteen was twenty-seven, the fortune
which she had determined to make was already well begun, and Miss Jean
in a position to retire if she wished with the income of a statesman.
This prosperous condition was in its full height in the midst of the
season, the workroom so _throng_ that relays of seamstresses sat up all
night, there being no inspectors to bring the fashionable mantua-makers
under control, when the next great incident happened in the life of our
Kirsteen.