“What will ye do now?” said Anne.
Once more Kirsteen had left her carriage in the village where so short a
time before she had paused on a different mission. Every detail of that
journey had been brought back to her by this. The six months had
softened a little the burning of that first bitter wound. The calm of
acknowledged loss had settled down, deep and still upon her life--but
all the breathless excitements of the previous quest, when she knew not
whether the only satisfaction possible to her now might be given or not,
and saw in anticipation the relic that was to make assurance sure, and
felt in her breast the burning of the murderous steel--all these
returned to her soul with double and almost intolerable force as she
retraced the same road. An ailing and feeble mother not seen for
years,--who would not hasten to her bedside, weep over her failing days,
and grieve--but not with the grief that crushes the heart--? That
anguish is soft, even after a time sweet. It is the course of nature, as
we say. The life from which ours came must fade before ours. The light
of day is not obliterated by that natural fading. Kirsteen had set out
at an hour’s notice, and was prepared to risk any encounter, any
hardness or even insult in order to answer her mother’s call. She was
not reluctant like Anne, nor did she grudge the trouble and pain. But as
she returned in thought to her previous lonely flight into these glens
the acuter pang swallowed up the lesser. She had not spoken to her
sister for a long time. Her recollections grew more and more keen, as in
another twilight, yet so different, she again approached the glimmering
loch, the dimly visible hills. Anne’s unsteady grasp upon her arm
brought her to herself.
“What must we do? We must just leave the chaise here, it can go no
further. To drive to the door would frighten them all, and perhaps
betray us. It is not a very long walk.”
“Are ye going to walk? I am not a good walker, Kirsteen. And in the dark
by that wild road? I never could get so far--Oh, I’m so used to town
ways now--I couldna take such a long, dreadful walk.”
“Anne!”
“It would be far better to leave me here. You could send for me if I was
really wanted; I’m very tired already, and not fit--oh, not fit for
more. You’re younger--and ye always was so strong--not like me.”
“Would you like your bairns to leave ye to die alone--for the sake of a
two miles’ walk? Would ye like them to lie down and sleep and rest, and
you dying two miles away?”
“Oh, Kirsteen, you are very cruel to me! What can I do for her?” cried
Anne. “She will have plenty without me.”
It was no time for controversy, and as Anne trembled so that she could
scarcely stand Kirsteen had to consent to take the postchaise on, as far
as was practicable without rousing the household at Drumcarro. For
herself the chill of the wintry night, the cold freshness in the air,
the wild sweep of sound all round her, in the swelling burn, and the
rustle of the naked trees and all those inarticulate murmurs of silence
which come down from the heights of unseen hills were salutary and
sweet. When they paused at last upon the lonely road and stepped out
into the blackness of the night with the lantern that was to guide them
on their further way, that descent into the indecipherable dark, with
all the roaring of wind and stream about them, had indeed something in
it that was appalling. Anne, not able even to complain more, clung to
Kirsteen’s arm with a terrified grasp, and listened among all the other
storms of sound to the rolling of the wheels going back as if her last
hope was thus departing from her. She that ought to have been warm and
safe at home, putting the children to bed, sitting between the bright
fire and the pleasant lamp waiting for David, to think that she should
be here in a darkness that might be felt, with the burn on one side
rushing like some wild beast in the dark, and the wind lashing the bare
branches on the other, and only Kirsteen, a woman like herself, to
protect her! A weak woman with a strong husband loses all faith in other
women. How could Kirsteen protect her? She shivered with cold and terror
clinging to her sister’s arm but without any faith in it, and thinking
of nothing but her own terrors and discomfort. Kirsteen on her side felt
the stimulus of the cold, the tumult of natural sounds, the need of wary
walking, and the responsibility of the burden upon her arm as something
that subdued and softened the storm of recollections in her heart.
When they came suddenly upon the house of Drumcarro, almost
unexpectedly, although the added roar of the linn coming nearer made
them aware that the house could not be far off, Anne broke down
altogether. The house was faintly lighted, one or two windows up stairs
giving out a faint gleam through the darkness in honour of the
approaching event. The house door stood half open, the shutters were not
closed in the dining-room. That air of domestic disarray, of the
absorption of all thoughts in the tragedy going on up stairs which is
habitual to such moments, had stolen into the house. The two wayfarers
standing outside, both of them trembling with the strangeness of it, and
fear and emotion, could see some one sitting by the fire in the
dining-room with a bowed head. They grasped each other’s hands when they
saw it was their father. He was sitting by the side of the fire bending
forwards, his profile brought out against the dark mantel-piece by the
ruddy glow. Even Kirsteen’s stronger frame trembled a little at sight
of him, and Anne, no better than a helpless lay figure, hung upon her
sister’s arm without power of movement, stifling by force a terrified
cry. It would not have reached him in the tumult of natural noises
outside, but she became more frightened and helpless still when this cry
had burst from her lips. “Oh! come away, come away, I dare not face
him,” she said in Kirsteen’s ear. And Kirsteen too was daunted. She
abandoned the intention of entering by the open door, which had been her
first thought, and softly took the path which led to Marg’ret’s quarters
behind. Drumcarro heard the faint click of the latch as she opened the
gate. He rose up and listened while they shrank into the shelter of the
bushes. Then he came out of the door, and stood there looking out into
the darkness with a faint candle showing his own lowering countenance to
the watchers outside, but to him nothing. “I thought it might be the
doctor,” he said to himself, then went again to his seat by the dull
fire. Anne was no more than a bundle upon Kirsteen’s arm. She dragged
her as softly as might be to the lighted kitchen behind, and looking in
at the uncurtained window had the good fortune to catch Marg’ret’s eye.
“Ye have brought her with ye,” said Marg’ret half reproachfully when
Anne had been placed in a chair before the fire.
“She had the same right as I. We have both deserted the old house.”
“Oh, my bonny dear, but not the same. Kirsteen, my lamb--ye’re all well,
all well?”
Marg’ret searched with longing eyes the face that had so long been lost
to her. Some things she knew, many she divined. She asked no question
but looked and saw, and sighed and shook her head. The face was not the
girl’s face she knew; but she was not aware that the change in it had
come within the last six months, the setting of the mobile lines with a
certain fixedness, the mysterious depths that had come into the
laughing, flashing, soft, fierce eyes she knew, the eyes that were made
of light. Behind the light there was now a deep sea, of which the
meanings were hidden and manifold.
“There’s no question of me,” said Kirsteen, meeting her look
steadfastly, “but of my mother--”
“She is just herself,” said Marg’ret, “just herself, poor body. The end
is coming fast and she has little fear of it. Oh, I think very little
fear; but taken up with small things as she always was.”
“I will just go up--”
“Will ye go up? The Laird is about the house: and I am feared he will
make some stramash when he sees ye. If ye were to wait till he is in
bed? She has not said a word about ye all day, but I’ve seen her as if
she was listening. She’ll maybe have had some inkling from the Lord that
her bairn was coming. She’s real peaceable and contented,” said
Marg’ret, putting her apron to her eyes. “The Almichty is just dealing
with her like a petted bairn. She’s no feared--her that aye thought the
grasshopper a burden--I ken fine that she has been looking for ye the
livelang day.”
“I will just go up,” said Kirsteen again.
“And what am I to do with _her_?”
“Marg’ret, it’s Anne.”
“I ken weel who it is, Dr. Dewar’s wife; you might just have let her
bide with her bairns. What am I to do with her? It’s no her mother she’s
thinking o’. The Laird will never thole her in the house. He’ll just
take her with his foot like a bundle of claes, which is what she is, and
put her to the door.”
“You will take care of her, Marg’ret,” said Kirsteen. There was some
justice in Marg’ret’s description. Anne sat huddled up in a chair by the
fire holding out her hands to it now and then, moaning a little. She had
asked no question as they came in; perhaps she had heard the reply to
Kirsteen’s anxious inquiry. She was cold no doubt and miserable, and
beyond all afraid. When there was any sound in the house she drew
herself together with a shudder. “You will just take care of her,
Marg’ret; let her lie down upon your bed, and keep her warm, and when my
father has gone to his bed--”
“You will not wait for that yoursel’?”
Kirsteen’s answer was to walk away. She went through the passage with
her heart beating, and mounted the dark stair; there were few lights
about the house, a solitary miserable candle at the top of the stair
waving about in the wind that blew in from the open door, and another
placed on a small table near the head of Mrs. Douglas’s bed. The invalid
herself was quite in the dark shade with a curtain between her and this
light. The whiteness of her worn face on the pillow betrayed where she
was but little more. But by the bedside with the gleam of the candle
upon her soft, beautiful hair, and her face, which Kirsteen thought was
like the face of an angel, stood Jeanie, Jeanie woman-grown, the beauty
that all her sisters had expected her to be, radiant in colour and
expression. For the first moment the light that seemed to ray from
Jeanie was the only thing that Kirsteen saw. It was what she had
expected. It gave her almost a pang of sudden exquisite pleasure by her
mother’s deathbed.
“Did ye hear somebody, Jeanie, coming up the stair?”
“It will be Merran, mother, with the things for the night.”
“It canna be Merran; I know one foot from another though I’m a little
dull, just a little dull in my hearing. Look out and see if your
sister’s come.”
“Do you mean Mary, mother?”
“No, I’m not meaning Mary. She’s the one of all my bairns most like me,
folk say--the same coloured hair--not like your red heads--and Alexander
he was aye a brown-haired laddie. Eh, to think that I will never see one
of them again!--and I’m just quite content, not frettin’ at all. They’ll
be taken care of--they’ll get wives of their own. When they get
wives--or men either--there’s but little room for their mother. But I’m
not heeding--I’m just not heeding. I’m quite content. Look out, Jeanie,
and see if that was your sister at the door.”
Jeanie turned to do her mother’s bidding and found herself almost face
to face with a lady whom she thought at first she had never seen before.
She gave a little cry of instinctive alarm.
“Is she there?” said the mother faintly from the bed. “I knew she would
be there. Come to the other side, Kirsteen, that I may get the light
upon ye, and see it’s you. Ay, it’s just you--my bonny woman!--but
you’ve changed, you’ve changed.”
“No, mother--just the same Kirsteen.”
“In one way. I dinna doubt ye, my dear; but ye’ve come through trouble
and sorrow. I’m thinking there was something I had to say, but it’s
clean gone away out of my mind.” She had put out her hand to Kirsteen,
and was smiling faintly upon her from amidst the pillows. “I knew ye
were coming--I just heard the coach rattling all the day.”
“But, mother, tell me how you are? That’s the most important
thing--you’re easy, at least in no pain?”
“Oh, I’m just very easy. I’m easy about everything. I’m no tormenting
myself any more. I aye told ye I would never live to see my boys come
back. Ye would not believe me, but ye see it’s true. One thing’s just a
great blessing--I’ll be away myself before the next laddie goes.”
“Oh, mother, never mind that; tell me about yourself.”
Mrs. Douglas lay silent for a little while, and then she asked in her
soft, small voice, no longer querulous, “Kirsteen, have ye got a man?”
“No, mother.”
“It’s maybe just as well--it’s maybe better. You’ll give an eye to the
rest. Ye were always more like a mother than Mary. Give an eye to them.
This puir lassie here; she’ll be a wee forlorn when I’m away.”
“Oh, mother!” cried Jeanie, with an outburst of vehement tears.
“There’s something I wanted to tell ye--but it’s gone out of my mind.
Eh, when I think how many of ye have lain at my breast, and only the two
of ye here; but it’s no matter, it’s no matter. I’ve aye been a
complaining creature. Fourteen bairns is a heavy handful, and three of
them dead. My first little girlie of all I lost, and then one between
you and Robbie, and then--all of you weel in health, and like to live,
but just thae three. But that’s plenty to keep a woman’s heart. I have a
notion I’ll find them still little things when I win up yonder,” said
the dying woman, with a flicker of her feeble hand towards the dim roof.
A faint, ineffable smile was upon her face. “She was Alison, after my
mother,” she said.
The two daughters, one on each side of the bed, stood and watched while
this little monologue went on, Jeanie shaken now and then by convulsive
fits of weeping, Kirsteen too much absorbed in her mother for any other
sensation.
“So ye have no man?” said Mrs. Douglas again. “It’s maybe just as well;
you will be a stand-by for them all, Kirsteen, my bonny woman. I’m
thankful there’s one that is not marriet. You will just tell them all
when they come hame that I knew I would never see them more, but just
wore away at the last very easy, very easy and content. I’m waik, but
just bye ordinary comfortable, awfu’ light like, as if I could just
mount up on angels’ wings, ye mind, and flee--”
“It’s wings like eagles, mother,” said Jeanie, anxious for accuracy.
“Well, well, there’s little difference. Kirsteen, she’s very young,
younger than you were at her age. Ye’ll aye give an eye to Jeanie. She
may have need of it when her auld mother’s away. I’ve not been much
protection, ye’ll think, but still it’s a loss to a woman bairn.
Jeanie’s my youngest and Alison my first-born, and yet Jeanie’s a woman
and Alison a little playing bairn at heaven’s gate. Isna that strange?”
A little sound of laughter came from the bed. Never was dying so easy,
so pleasant and gentle. The sand was ebbing out a grain at a time.
Suddenly she roused herself a little, and put out again her hand to
Kirsteen. A little change came over her face. “I hear your father’s step
coming up the stair. But ye’ll no forsake me, Kirsteen--ye’ll not go
away?”
“Never while you want me, mother.”
“It will not be for long,” said the dying woman. Her gratitude was
disturbed by a little alarm; she grasped Kirsteen with her shadowy hand,
and held her fast.