During the six years which had passed since she left Drumcarro, Kirsteen
had heard but little of the home which she had sacrificed perhaps too
passionately, too hastily. Marg’ret’s letters indeed were very regular,
if few and scanty in detail, but these were conditions natural to the
time, and Kirsteen had never expected more. “Your mother is just in her
ordinary.” This seemed satisfaction enough to a mind unaccustomed to
correspondence, brought up in the philosophy of long silences, of little
intercourse, of blank years which went over on all sides in an
understood routine, and in which the nearest relations when they met
each other, remarked upon the external “ageing” of so many additional
years with a placid sense that it must be so. Mary also, dutiful to all
the necessities of the family, communicated periodically to Kirsteen the
course of events in her own particular family, as well as a more or less
vague report of the paternal house. She had by this time three little
children in whom, naturally, all her chief interests centred. Old
Glendochart had become “papa” to his wife, and was reported as being
very hale and hearty for his time of life, and very much taken up with
his young family. While “my mother is just in her ordinary,” remained
the habitual report, differing only from Marg’ret’s in the pronoun
employed. Now and then indeed Mary would open out into a report of the
company that had been at Glendochart “for the shooting,” and there was
one subject on which she was even eloquent, and that was the beauty of
Jeanie, the younger sister in whom her family pride was gratified, as
well as perhaps the only bit of romantic and generous feeling which was
in Lady Glendochart’s well-regulated bosom. “Our Jeanie!” From her
babyhood the sisters had all been proud of her. And Mary was pleased
with the distinction she herself had over Kirsteen in having a house to
which she could invite Jeanie, and where the praises of the young beauty
could delight her ears, ever reflecting back again as she felt an honour
upon herself. There was nobody far and near who had not heard of
Drumcarro’s lovely daughter. She was the Lily of Loch Fyne. The visitors
at the Castle took long rides all about Drumcarro, and the linn had been
elevated into one of the sights of the district, all with a view of
procuring a glimpse, if possible, of the beautiful Highland girl. And
Lord John, Mary had reported, was particularly civil, and a very great
admirer, words which were deeply underlined, and which filled Kirsteen
with indignation. To think that after all the rebuffs she had herself
given him he should endeavour to beguile the guileless Jeanie! Kirsteen
had at once written a warning letter to Mary, informing her very
decisively that Lord John was not a man to be allowed the enjoyment of
Jeanie’s company. “For he can have no right meaning, and is only a
useless, idle person,” Kirsteen said. This had produced a warm reply
from Mary under a frank received from the Duke, by means of the same
Lord John.
“You are very ready with your letters, and a heavy postage to pay,” Mrs.
Campbell wrote, aggrieved, “when you have really no news to give us. And
as for the warning about Lord John, I hope me and Glendochart have sense
enough to take care of Jeanie; and what can you, a mantua-maker in
London, know about a young gentleman of such high family, the best of
our name? I would advise you, my dear Kirsteen, not to encourage a
spirit of envy. For if you never received such attention yourself it is
partly the fault of Providence that gave you red hair, and no beauty,
and partly your own that cast away all the advantages of your family.
But you cannot think that me and Glendochart are likely to go to you for
counsel upon affairs of which you can have no experience.”
This letter did not please Kirsteen as may well be supposed. We are all
made up of great feelings and of petty ones, and are not always at our
best. Kirsteen had a heart of the noblest constancy, and held the
contents of her little silver casket above all that the world could
give. But at more vulgar moments it sometimes gave her a sting to know
that, notwithstanding all her passion of love and faithfulness, prosaic
Mary, who had never known a throb of profound feeling in her life,
would assume airs of superior importance, and pity the sister who had no
man, and would be an old maid all her life. A woman may be capable of
taking her part in a tragedy such as Kirsteen’s yet resent the comedy,
generally more or less contemptuous, that winds itself about an
unmarried woman’s life, and more at that period than now. She was very
angry at the neglect of her warning, but this was only an incident and
soon dropped into oblivion.
One day, however, late in the year in which she had performed her rapid
and melancholy journey, Kirsteen received, “by private hand,” and in the
shape of a small brown paper parcel, concealing a letter in many
wrappings, news of a very distressing kind. It was supposed in those
days of dear postage to be illegal to send a letter by the “private
hand,” which most simple country people infinitely preferred as at once
surer and cheaper than the post. This, as Marg’ret informed her in the
hurried scrawl enclosed, was to be taken by a lad from the village who
was going straight to London, and had promised to deliver it at once. It
was to tell Kirsteen that her mother was very ill, so ill that Marg’ret
had given up all hope. “I have never done so before,” Marg’ret wrote,
“so you may trust me that this is not a fright on my part. And she just
yammers for Kirsteen night and day--little, little has she ever said
till now--she’s full of complaints, poor body, but yet she’s more
patient than words can say. Ye must just come without a moment’s delay;
and if he will not let you in, I will let you in, for she shall not be
crossed in her last wish by any man, if he was three times her
husband--so, my dear bairn, just come and let there be no delay.”
Kirsteen obeyed this summons, as she was commanded at once. To go so
soon again over the same ground, and undertake once more such a
wearisome and protracted journey was very unusual, and was thought
something dreadful by all who heard of it. “You will feel as if you were
always on the road,” Miss Jean said; and she felt an inclination to
blame her sister who thought that the pleasure of her dying mistress was
worth the great disturbance of Kirsteen’s life which must result. “What
good will it do her, a dying woman? It will just disturb her when her
mind should be taken up with other things,” said Miss Jean.
But it was perhaps natural that Kirsteen should not take it in the same
way. She set off that evening, by the night coach, arriving in Glasgow
on the morning of the second day. But this time Kirsteen remembered her
kindred, and finding with difficulty the new house of Dr. Dewar, now a
fine tall “self-contained” house with a main door and a brass plate upon
it, suddenly appeared at the breakfast table where Anne and her doctor
presided over a party consisting of two tall children of nine and ten,
and two more set up in high chairs to reach the board. Anne was so much
absorbed in the feeding of those small creatures that she scarcely
observed the stranger whom Dr. Dewar rose with an apology and a little
embarrassment to meet, thinking her a patient improperly introduced into
the domestic scene. An exclamation “It’s your sister Kirsteen, Anne!”
roused the absorbed mother, at that moment holding a spoonful of
porridge to the mouth of one of the babies. Anne had developed much
since her sister had seen her last. She had become stout, yet not
unpleasantly so, but in a manner which suggested the motherly hen whose
wings can extend over many chickens. She wore a cap with plaited lace
borders tied under her chin, encircling a rosy face, which, though still
young, was losing its higher aspect a little in the roundness of comfort
and ease. Her soul was absorbed in the little ones, and in domestic
cares. She thrust the spoon into the baby’s mouth before she rose with a
wondering cry of “Kirsteen!” And all the children stared, knowing
nothing of aunts, except some on the side of the doctor who were not of
the same kind as the fashionably dressed London lady in her black
fur-trimmed pelisse. Kirsteen was still in something of the solemnity of
her first mourning. Her natural colour was subdued, she was slighter
than ever she had been, graver, more pale. Her hair once so rebellious
was smoothed away. She looked many years older, and very grave, serious
and imposing. The two elder children looked at each other with mingled
pride and alarm. This grand lady! The doctor was the only one who fully
retained his wits. He put a chair to the table for the new comer. “You
will have arrived this morning by the coach? And the first thing wanting
will be a good cup of tea?”
“Yes, I will take the tea thankfully, for it is very cold, but what I
have come for is Anne. There will be a postchaise at the door in an
hour.”
“Are you going to run away with my wife?” said the doctor with a smile.
“A postchaise!” cried Anne in dismay.
“Anne!--my mother is dying.”
“God save us, Kirsteen!”
“I want you to come with me, take your warmest cloak: there will be no
change of clothes necessary that I know of, for we will most likely be
back to-morrow.”
“To go with ye?” faltered Anne--“to--to Drumcarro, Kirsteen?” All the
blood forsook her face.
“Where else? My mother is there, and she’s dying, and crying for us.”
“Oh, I dare not--I dare not! Oh, I cannot go with ye, Kirsteen! You
don’t know, you’ve got great courage--but me, I’m just a coward. Oh, I
canna go.”
“My mother is dying,” said Kirsteen, “and crying for you and me. Can we
let her go down to her grave without a word? We’ve both left her in her
life, and maybe we were to blame; but to leave her to die is more than I
can do. Anne, you must come.”
Anne fell back in her chair, her rosy face the colour of ashes, her
plump person limp with terror and dismay. “Oh, I canna go. Oh, I canna
leave the bairns! Oh, David!” She turned to him with a gasp, terrified
by the blazing of Kirsteen’s eyes.
“Well, my dear,” said the doctor, “your sister’s right and ye ought to
go. But when ye get there,” he added turning to Kirsteen, “have you any
surety that they will let you in? To go all that way for nothing would
be little good to your mother: and I will not have my wife insulted with
a door steekit in her face--even if it is her father’s door.”
“I have this surety,” said Kirsteen, feeling herself to tower over them
though she was not very tall, “that I will see my mother, whoever steeks
the door in my face, nor think twice if it was the King himself.”
“The King’s the first gentleman in the country,” said the doctor
shrugging his shoulders, “but your father?”
“He is just my father, Dr. Dewar, and Anne’s father, and we will say no
more; the question is my mother that never harmed living creature nor
said an unkind word. How can ye stop to consider, Anne? Your mother! The
more ye cherish your bairns the more ye should mind upon her.”
“I think, my dear,” said the doctor, “that it’s your duty to go. It
might pave the way to a reconciliation,” he added, “which would be good
for us all and good for the bairns. I think you should go.”
“Oh, David!” was all that Anne said.
Kirsteen stood and looked upon them all with a flash of scorn. Was this
the effect of marrying and being happy as people say? The little plump
mother with her rosy face no longer capable of responding to any call
outside of her own little circle of existence, the babies delving with
their spoons into the porridge, covering their faces and pinafores, or
holding up little gaping mouths to be fed. It had been a delightful
picture which she had come in upon before at an earlier stage, when Anne
had wept at her mother’s name, and cried wistfully for a message from
home, and longed to show her children. That had all been sweet--but now
it was sweet no longer. The prosaic interior, the bondage of all these
little necessities, the loosening of all other bonds of older date or
wider reach, was this what happiness meant? Sometimes a sudden _aperçu_
of this kind will flash through the mind of one for whom those ties are
forbidden and give a consolation, a compensation to the fancy. But the
thought only passed as swiftly as a breath through the mind of Kirsteen.
However when the postchaise came to the door, Anne, who had been hurried
into her black silk gown and cloak more by pressure of the doctor than
by any will of her own, was ready to step into it with her sister.
Kirsteen did not quite know how it was done. She would have retired from
the conflict and left her sister with the children and their porridge,
but Dr. Dewar was of a different mind. He had never given up the hope of
having it fully recognized that his wife was one of the old Douglases;
and here there seemed to him an opportunity of bringing about that
hope. He half led, half followed her, into her room, having himself
summoned one of the maids to look after the children. “Ye must just put
the best face upon it, Anne; your sister is right. It would be
unnatural, and a thing that would be generally blamed if you did not try
to see your mother. And as for your father he won’t bite you whatever he
does.”
“Oh, David! he’ll just say things that would make you tremble; he’ll
take me and put me to the door,” said Anne crying with fright and
reluctance.
“Nonsense, woman; and if he does you must just put up with it. You have
a good home to come back to, and you will be none the worse, and ye’ll
have done your duty; but he’ll maybe be much softened by the
circumstances,” said the doctor, “and there is no saying what might
happen. It would have a very good effect if it were known you had gone
to Drumcarro, and think what a fine thing it would be for the bairns.
Take your warmest cloak as your sister said, and my plaid to put over
your knees. It will be a very cold journey.”
“Oh,” cried Anne, “I will just be perished, I know. And very likely
turned to the door in the cold, and never see my mother at all.”
“Well, ye must just try,” said Dr. Dewar, bringing her out of her room
triumphantly, and fully equipped. Anne cried for an hour, sobbing by
Kirsteen’s side over her deserted children and home, and with a
certainty that everything would go wrong while she was away. “David
will get no right dinners, and the two eldest will be late for the
school in the morning, and the little bairns neglected all the day.
There’s no confidence to be put in servants when the mistress is not
there. And most likely I will never get a glimpse of my mother, and my
father will put me to the door.”
“Oh, Anne, is that all you think of her that never was hard upon any of
us--that always was kind--and suffering so long, weary in body and in
soul?”
“You need not instruct me about my mother, Kirsteen. I am the eldest,
and I am a mother myself, and who should know if I don’t?” said Anne
roused at last. Kirsteen was glad to accept the position of inferiority
thus allotted to her on all sides. She was neither mother nor wife, nor
ever would be so. The others took a higher position than hers. She
acquiesced without a word, with a faint smile, and was thankful to be
allowed to sit silent listening to Anne’s querulous murmurs, and still
more thankful when in the unusual movement and silence Mrs. Dewar
dropped to sleep. The journey was doubly sad to her who had so lately
travelled along the same road in the first force of her passionate
misery. That seemed to be long, long ago, as if a dull subduing lifetime
had passed between. The dreadful thing was to think of the long life to
come, which might go on and on for so many years.