The question how to dispose of Anne was finally settled by the evident
necessity of sending Duncan, the man from the farm, into the town for
various necessary things, and to call at the merchant’s and other
indispensable errands. Marg’ret decided that he should take the cart,
and convey Mrs. Doctor Dewar to the place where the postchaise had been
left, an arrangement to which Anne did not object, for Anne was one of
the women who have not much confidence in other women, and she was very
willing to exchange Kirsteen’s protection and care for that of a man,
even though he was only Duncan. She made her preparations for departure
more cheerfully than could have been supposed, and even set out in the
dark with Kirsteen and the lantern to walk a part of the way so that the
sound of the cart might not be heard by Drumcarro, with resignation.
They were interrupted however as they stole out of the house, by a
sudden rush upon them of Jeanie who had been sent back to bed, but lying
weeping there had heard the little stir of the departure, carefully as
they had subdued every sound. Jeanie thought it was Kirsteen who was
abandoning her, and rose and rushed to the door still in her nightdress
to implore her sister to stay. “Oh! if ye will not stay, take me with
you, oh, take me with you, Kirsteen!” she cried, flinging herself upon
her sister’s shoulder.
“Oh, Jeanie, whisht, whisht! you will make a noise and wake my father. I
am not going away.”
“Oh, take me with you, Kirsteen!” cried the girl too much excited to
understand what was said. “Oh! dinna leave me here.” She clung to
Kirsteen’s arm embracing it in both her own. “You would not leave me if
you knew! Oh! you would take me with you if you knew. Kirsteen!
Kirsteen!”
It was Anne who interfered with words of wisdom. “Are you out of your
senses, Jeanie?” she said. “Take ye away from your home, and your
father’s house? Kirsteen may be foolish enough but she is not so mad as
that.”
“Oh! Kirsteen,” continued Jeanie imploringly, putting her wet cheek
against her sister’s, rubbing herself against her like a child, “hear
nobody but me! Bide with me, Kirsteen, or take me with you. I will just
die--or worse--if I am left here.”
It was not until Marg’ret had come alarmed from her kitchen to bid them,
“Oh, whisht, bairns, or ye’ll waken your father,” that Jeanie could be
persuaded to silence, and to believe in her sister’s promise to return.
The sounds though so subdued still made a whispering through the hall,
and an alarming movement that shook the house overhead as if Drumcarro
himself had been roused to see what was going on. This precipitated the
departure of Anne, who, frightened as she was for the dark road and the
chill of the morning, was still more alarmed at the idea of her father’s
appearance, and hastened out from the one danger to dare the other,
almost with alertness pulling Kirsteen with her, with a clutch of her
other arm. Anne’s spirit was roused by the episode which had just
passed. She was aware that she was not herself strong or able to move
about unprotected, or take any separate step on her own responsibility,
but she had a great confidence in her own judgment respecting others.
She almost forgot to think of the terrors of the dark in her desire to
make Kirsteen see her duty in respect to Jeanie, and to set everything
right. She panted a little as she spoke walking on in the darkness, with
the lantern throwing a faint light upon the ground at her feet, but
though it affected her breath, it did not affect her certainty of being
able to give good advice.
“Kirsteen--ye will be very wrong--if ye yield to that bairn. She is
little more--than a bairn. She is maybe nervish with a person dead in
the house. You will say it is weak--but I’m nervish myself.
Kirsteen!”--Anne had made a longer pause to take breath,--“ye had ay a
great confidence in yourself. But you see you make a mistake whiles.
Like bringing me here. David--was just silly as well as you. He thought,
if I came, it might mend--maitters--and be good for the bairns. But
I--was right ye see. When a person’s dying--they’ve no time to
think--about other folk.”
“All that my mother thought was about other folk--if you call her
children other folk.”
“Ay, in a kind of a general way. But she never said ‘Where’s Anne? How
many bairns has she?--and is the doctor doing well?’--Which is what I
would have expected. No that I did--expect it,” said Anne panting. “Oh,
Kirsteen, we’ll be in--the burn--if ye do not take care! She
never--asked for me, at all,” Mrs. Dewar continued. “I might have been
safe--in my bed--at home. A long day in a postchaise--and now another
long day--and I’ll get back perished with hunger and cold--and if I
havena an illness, as Marg’ret says--and just for nothing,” said
Anne--“nothing! for all you said--David and you.”
Kirsteen said nothing in reply, but instinctively quickened her pace a
little. She heard the rumble of the cart in the darkness round a corner
which was to deliver her from Anne’s wisdom and helplessness, the first
of which was worse than the last. And after a while the gleam of
another lantern, the horse’s hoofs and jog of the cart guided them to
the spot where Duncan stood, his ruddy face grave with sympathy. He made
a little remark about the waeful occasion, and the need of supporting
God’s will, raising his bonnet reverently; and then Mrs. Dewar was
helped into the cart, and went rumbling away into the darkness, still
relieved for a time by the gleams growing fainter and fainter thrown by
Duncan’s lantern from side to side.
The wind had fallen and the burn ran more softly, as Kirsteen walked
home. She was very tired, in that state of exaltation which extreme
exhaustion and sorrow sometimes bring, as if lifted out of herself
altogether into a clear, still atmosphere of utter sadness, yet relief.
The active suffering was over, she was incapable of further pain, but
unutterably sad and sorrowful, hushed out of all complaining. The
darkness enveloped her and soothed her, hiding her from all the world so
that she could go on, weeping all to herself with no one to ask why or
how.
“True loves I may get many an ane,
But minnie ne’er anither.”
These words kept wandering through her mind involuntarily while the
tears fell down, and her mouth quivered with something like a smile. The
futile contrast now, to her who could have no true love but one, and no
second mother. She went on very softly in the dark, as in a dream,
feeling in her face the freshness of the mountain air and the turn of
the night towards morning--silently weeping as she walked. The greater
of her losses was altogether secret, a thing to be known of none.
Neither of her sorrows was for the public eye. Her life, which was so
far from this and so different, awaited her with labours and cares
unknown to this solitude, and she had much to do with which no loss or
sorrow could interfere. She was to be the stand-by of the family, she
who had fled from it to find a shelter among strangers. She must not
even sit down to weep for her mother. Only thus could she allow herself
the indulgence of tears. The darkness was sweet to her, wrapping her
round, keeping all her secrets. The heavens did not open to show her any
beatitude, the landscape which she loved was all hidden away as if it
did not exist. Nor were there any ecstatic thoughts in her heart of
reunion or heavenly rapture. There was a long, long weary road
stretching before her, years that seemed endless going on and on,
through which she must walk, weeping only in the dark, smiling and busy
through the day. Kirsteen made up her mind to all that was before her in
that solitary walk, going towards her desolate home. In a day or two she
would have left it, probably for ever, and gone back to a manifold and
many-coloured life. The stand-by of the family! She had always intended
this, and now there was consecration on her head.
The lights in Drumcarro shone blurred through the dark, a window here
and there with rays of reflection round it hanging suspended in the
night, no walls visible, a faint illumination for the dead. Duncan’s
wife had come in to help, and a silent, solemn bustle was going on, sad,
yet not without an enjoyment in it. Merran went and came up and down
stairs with an occasional sniff and sob, and the importance of a great
event was in the hushed house. Save for a birth or marriage there had
never been so much suppressed excitement in Drumcarro--even Marg’ret was
swept by it, and moved about, observing many punctilios, with a tremor
of emotion which was not altogether painful. She had put the best sheets
upon the bed, and covered the looking-glass with white, and put away
everything that belonged to the usages of life. Kirsteen paused for a
moment to look at the white, serene face upon the pillows, with all the
white, cold surroundings of the death chamber--and then went noiselessly
into the room which had been her own, where Jeanie lay fast asleep,
exhausted with sorrow and trouble, upon one of the beds. She undressed
for the first time since she had left London, and lay down on the other.
But she was too tired and overworn to sleep. She lay with wide-open eyes
in the dark, thinking over and over all the circumstances through which
she found herself again an inmate of her father’s house. It seemed an
endless time before the first greyness of dawn crept into the room,
carrying with it a whole world of the past, beginning, as it seemed to
Kirsteen, a new life of which she but dimly realized the burdens and
anxieties. There was her father to think of, how he would receive her
now that the protection of her mother’s dying presence was withdrawn.
Whether he would allow her to stay--and what she could answer to
Jeanie’s cry of distress, “Oh, take me with you!” Anne was a fool and
yet she had spoken wisely. The daughter who had herself escaped from
home was the last who could take another away. Perhaps the bonds of
nature seemed all the stronger now to Kirsteen because she had herself
broken them, because even now she shuddered at the thought of being
again bound by them. Even when it is but an interval of a few years
which has made the change, a woman who has gone out into the world and
encountered life is slow to believe that a girl’s troubles can be so
heavy as to warrant such a step. They were in her own case she may
allow--but how to believe that there is anything in a father’s power
tragic enough to make life unbearable for another, or how in Jeanie’s
childlike existence such a necessity should arise, made Kirsteen smile
with half shame of herself who had set the example, half amazement at
her little sister’s exaggerated feelings. It could be nothing surely but
fear of her father’s jibes and frowns. Neither of these things alarmed
Kirsteen now. And who could be harsh to Jeanie?--not even her father,
though she was but a girl!
While the elder sister thought thus, the younger stirred a little and
turned towards her. The daylight was still grey but clear enough to
make the sweet little countenance visible. Jeanie’s yellow hair was all
decently smoothed under her nightcap according to the decorous fashion
of the time. And the little frilled cap surrounding her face made her
look something between an infant and a nun, unspeakably childlike,
innocent and pure to her sister’s admiring eyes. But Jeanie’s face grew
agitated and unquiet as the faint light stole over it and the moment of
waking approached. She put out her hands and seemed to clutch at
something in the air--“I will not go--I will not go--I will go with none
but Kirsteen,” she cried in her sleep. Then, her voice growing thick and
hurried, “No--no--I’ll not do it--I’ll never go--no, no, no.” Jeanie
struggled in her dream as if she were being dragged away struggling with
something stronger than herself. Suddenly she woke, and sat up in her
bed with a dazed look round her, and trouble in every line of her
puckered eyelids. “What is it, Jeanie?” She turned round and saw
Kirsteen, with a sudden lightening of her countenance, as if the sun had
risen, “Oh, Kirsteen, if you’re there! nobody will meddle with me if
you’re there!” “What is it--what is it, Jeanie?” Jeanie looked round
again as if still unassured. “I was only dreaming,” she said.
And there was little time for further inquiries since Marg’ret just then
came into the room. She was very tender to Jeanie but anxious to get her
roused and dressed and sent down stairs, “to give the laddies, poor
things, their breakfast.” Marg’ret had restrained herself with a great
effort that neither might be disturbed before the time after such a
broken night. She herself had not been in bed at all, and felt it quite
natural that it should be so, her fatigue going off with the coming of
the morning, and a still excitement filling all her veins. The loss of
the mistress was perhaps more to Marg’ret than to any one in the house;
but Kirsteen too was more to her than any other. She would have a long
time to indulge her grief, but not long to hear the story and enter into
all the feelings of her child. She had restrained with what was a true
self-sacrifice her eagerness and loving curiosity. When she sat down now
by Kirsteen’s bedside it was with a sigh of satisfaction and relief.
“And now, my own bairn, the pride of my heart!” Marg’ret said.
The conversation lasted a long time. Their letters had been frequent for
the habit of the time, once every quarter of a year at the least they
had exchanged their good wishes and such information to each other about
the other as could be conveyed by “hand o’ write”; but neither of them
had any habit of letter-writing, and there was much to be added, to fill
in the framework of fact which Kirsteen had communicated from time to
time. Everything indeed had to be told from the time of her arrival in
London until the present moment. Marg’ret sat crying softly, holding her
hands, keeping up a low murmur of commentary. “Eh, but I’m glad my
sister Jean had it in her power.” “Eh, but she’s a fortunate woman to
have ye!” “Eh, if I had but been there!” she exclaimed at intervals,
pride and satisfaction mingled with an envy of her sister which
Marg’ret’s better feeling could scarcely overcome. “I am just an ill
woman, full of envy and all uncharitableness. I would fain, fain have
been the one. I would have held ye up in my arms, and let no harm come
near ye! I couldna have seen your bonny fingers spoilt with sewing,” she
cried with outbursts of tears. But when Kirsteen came to the story of
the last year, Marg’ret listened upon her knees, her head bent down upon
the hands which she held clasped in her own, a few sobs bursting from
her breast, her lips pressed in a passion of sympathy which had no words
upon Kirsteen’s hands. The story was told very briefly in a few words.
And then that chapter was closed, and no more was said.
“What is it that ails Jeanie?” asked Kirsteen, after she had come to the
end of her tale, and Marg’ret had resumed her seat by the bed. “Tell me
what has happened to her; there is something on her mind.”
“Hoots,” said Marg’ret drying her eyes, “there is little on it, but what
is on most lassies’ minds--most likely a braw marriage so far as I can
see. There is a gentleman that is up in yon lodge on the hill above
Glendyer. It’s said to be for the fishing--but first it was said to be
for the shooting--and my opinion is it’s neither for the one nor the
other, but for our bit bonny Jeanie. It is just what I always said, even
to the Laird himself. She is the bonniest creature in all this country
from Clyde to the sea.”
“But she would not start in her sleep like that, nor cry and pray to me
to take her with me, if that was all. And who is the man?”
“Not like Glendochart, though he’s a clever gentleman and a real good
man to her that has the wit to guide him. A young lad, long and straight
and with a bonny black e’e--and a clever tongue, but leein’, for he says
very ceevil things to me. He’s ceevil to every one about the place, and
great friends with the Laird--and I canna tell what ails her at him, if
there’s anything ails her at him. She was just real pleased to see him
till twa three weeks ago; and then she took an ill turn--but wherefore I
canna say. Wha can say what whimsies come into a lassie’s mind?--and
I’ve been muckle taken up,” said Marg’ret. She paused a moment, and if
she had been a Roman Catholic would have crossed herself; the impulse
was the same, though nothing would have more horrified a Scotch
Protestant than to be told so. She paused, and in a low voice said,
“Muckle taken up--with her that needs nae mortal’s service mair--”
And there was silence between them for a moment, and thought, that
travels so fast, stopped remorseful with a sense of compunction, feeling
how recent was the event, and how swift was the current of life which
had already began to flow.
“You have not told me who he is?” said Kirsteen presently in a subdued
tone.
“Well,” said Marg’ret rousing herself with a smile of pride and
pleasure, “his is a kind of what they ca’ incognity at the lodge; but
I’m thinking, though I’m not quite sure, that it’s just one of the
Duke’s sons.”
“One of the Duke’s sons,” cried Kirsteen aghast.
“Well, my bonny dear! And wherefore no?--the Douglases are as good blood
as any in Scotland, if it were the Queen herself--”
“Oh, Marg’ret,” cried Kirsteen, “my poor little Jeanie! Do ye think she
cares for this man?”
“I make nae doubt ye are used to grander persons than that; but it’s no
just ceevil to call the young lord ‘this man.’”
“Ye don’t understand.--Oh! ye don’t understand,” cried Kirsteen,
wringing her hands. “The blood of the Douglases may be a very fine
thing, but it will not make her a match for the Duke’s son--Marg’ret,
you that have so much sense! And what does my father say?”
“I mind the time,” said Marg’ret, “when ye wouldna have said I didna
understand. Maybe my sister Jean--Oh, my bonny dear, forgive me, I’m
just a jealous fool, and I didna mean it. But there’s naething in it
that’s hard to understand; a bonny lad that’s young and ganging his ain
gait--and he sees a bonny lass, that is just like a flower, the pride of
the place. Is he to wait and reckon, will my father be pleased, and
will my leddy mother be pleased? Set them up! Not to be owerproud of a
Douglas in their house, and a beauty like Jeanie. The pride used to be
on our side once,” said Marg’ret, tossing her head, “if a’ tales be
true.”
“It must have been a long time ago,” said Kirsteen; “and my father, what
does he say?”
“I never saw the laird so father-like--no since the day when I put your
brother Alexander into his arms, that’s now the Cornel and a great man
among the blacks in India. I mind the gleam in his face when he got his
son, and thought upon all the grand things that would come with the
lad-bairn. Ye ken yoursel’ he never heeded a lass he had. But when he
sees my lord coming like a little colley doguie after our Jeanie,
following her wherever she goes, there’s the same look upon his face. I
was the first to tell him,” said Marg’ret with pride, “that it wasna
just a bonny lass that bairn would be, but a beauty to be kent about the
world. And now he sees it himsel’. What your father says?--He just says
naething for pleasure and pride.”
“Oh, Marg’ret--I fear, I fear, that this will be the worst of all.”
“And what is there that’s ill among ye, that ye speak of the worst of
a’. There’s Mrs. Doctor Dewar just a very comfortable-like person,
that’s done weel enough for hersel’. She’s a poor creature with little
heart, wrapt up in her common man and her little vulgar bairns. But that
is just a’ she would have been fit for whether or no. And there’s Leddy
Glendochart that is a real credit to the family, and has travelled, and
can knap English with the best--far better than you. And there’s
yourself, Kirsteen, that makes all the grand London leddies stand about.
And where is the ill among ye, that our bonny little Jeanie should be
the worst of a’?”
Marg’ret raised her voice unconsciously as she gave forth this flourish,
with her head in the air and all her banners waving. But the sound of
her own utterance brought her back with a shock to the reality of
things. She gave a low cry. “Eh, to think I should forget myself and
brag and boast--with her, just an angel of God lying ben the house.”
And once more Marg’ret paid a little hasty hot tribute of tears to the
presence, now so solemn, but which till now had counted for so little
amid the agitations of the family. During those days of mourning, at
least the mistress could not be altogether forgotten.
Mary and her husband arrived from Glendochart in the afternoon of that
day. She was very full of explanations as to how it was impossible to
come sooner, and how the illness had gone on so long, she had no belief
in its speedy ending. She went up dutifully to the death-chamber, and
shed a natural tear or two and came down again with her handkerchief to
her eyes. “I thought my mother would have seen us all out, I never mind
of her anything but ill,” she remarked, her ideas still being Scottish
though her voice, since her visit to London, had taken on what she
considered an English accent. “We had got to think, Glendochart and me,
that she would go on as long as any of us. It was a great shock. If I
had thought there was danger, I would have been here.”
Then there was a little natural family conversation and a few more
natural tears. And Kirsteen gave her sister an account of the last hours
which she had witnessed, which Mary listened to with due gravity and a
little feeling, saying at intervals, “My poor mother!” “She had always a
very feeling heart!” “She was always so proud of her family!” as
occasion required. “And what did my father say when he saw you,
Kirsteen? I did not think you would dare to come, but Glendochart
thought ye would dare anything, and it appears he knew better than me.”
Kirsteen repressed the spark of resentment which this speech called
forth. “My father said little to me. He made no objection, but he was
not kind to Anne.”
“To Anne!” Mary cried with horror, looking round lest any one should
hear.
“I brought her, that she might see her mother before she died. But I am
not unwilling to allow,” said Kirsteen, “that it was a mistake. My
mother took no notice of her, and my father--I did it for the best, but
she came against her will--and it was a mistake.”
“Little doubt of that,” said Mary; “but I’m very glad ye see it,
Kirsteen, for it’s not often ye’ll yield to say ye have made a mistake.
And it will be a lesson to you another time.”
“Let us hope so,” said Kirsteen. “There is one thing I would fain have
ye do, and that will save me maybe from making another. Mary, our little
Jeanie is not happy, I cannot tell why.”
“It would be very unnatural if she were happy, when her mother died this
morning.”
“It is not that. Grief is one thing and trouble is another. She has
something on her mind. Will ye take her back with ye to Glendochart, and
take care of her, when I go away?”
“Take her back? And who would be left with my father, to keep him
company? And the two callants, that have nobody to look after them?”
“Marg’ret would look after them. And my father wants no company. Jeanie
will miss my mother more than any of us.”
“You will not miss her,” said Mary; “I well believe that. But me that
came to see her every six months.”
“Still that is different from Jeanie that has been always here. The
little thing will be very solitary. There may be people about that are
not company for the like of her. I could not take her, it would not be
allowed.”
“I hope, Kirsteen, you will put nothing like that into Jeanie’s head.
You to take her! There are many things ye must have forgotten to propose
that.”
“I do not propose it. On the contrary I ask you to take her. I am not
easy about her. I would not like to have her left here.”
“Do you think because you could not put up with your home that nobody
can put up with it?” said Mary. “Ye are just far mistaken, Kirsteen.
Jeanie is a contented creature, of a quiet mind, and she’ll do very well
and keep very happy doing her duty to her father. None of us want to be
hard upon you, but perhaps if my mother had not had all the charge left
upon her, poor body, she might have had a longer and a more peaceful
life; when the daughters of the house just take their own way--”
“You did not stay long after me,” said Kirsteen, out of patience.
“I was very different,” said Mary, holding up her head. “I had my duty
to my husband to think of; a married woman cannot please herself.
You,--it was just your own fancy, but I had to think of Glendochart, for
the Scripture says ye are to leave your parents and your father’s
house.”
Kirsteen was silent and said no more.