Kirsteen, up to this time, had kept as much as possible out of her
father’s way, and he had taken no notice of her presence in the house.
When she came within his range of vision he turned his back upon her but
said nothing. It appeared to her now, however, that it was necessary to
change her procedure. If she were to do anything for Jeanie she must
take a more decided part. Accordingly, on the evening of her mother’s
funeral, Kirsteen appeared at the family table among the others. Her
father perceived her as he took his place, and gave her a somewhat fixed
look from under his eyebrows, along with a muttered exclamation; but he
said nothing, and suffered her presence without any demonstration of
displeasure. The evening was like and yet unlike one of the former
ceremonials of the house on the eve of the departure of sons. It was a
celebration like that, but the hero of the occasion was not there, and
the party at table after a week of composed, quiet, subdued voices, and
melancholy subjects, showed a certain relief in the fact that all was
over, and nothing further required to show their respect. The black
ribbons in Miss Eelen’s cap nodded as she moved her head, and Mary was
very careful of the crisp new crape which ornamented her dress, while
Mr. Pyper, the minister, would make an occasional remark in conformity
with what were supposed to be the feelings of the bereaved family. But
these were almost the only signs of mourning. Jeanie, after all the
agitation of the morning, presented a changeful aspect, and her eyes
were heavy and a little red with tears; and Jamie, the last of the boys,
had an open-eyed, wistful, almost startled look, feeling very solitary,
poor boy, and wishing to be away like the rest. There was no one who had
felt the mother’s death, or perhaps it would be almost more just to say
the presence of death in the house, as this boy, more imaginative than
the rest, to whom the week’s interval had been a terrible one. He was
pale under his freckles, with a dismal look in his wide eyes, the
impression of the funeral still too strong upon him for any other
feeling. But the others were relieved; it is impossible to use another
word.
“The country will be very quiet this year with nobody at the castle,”
said Mary in subdued tones.
“It will make little difference to ainy of you,” replied Miss Eelen, her
black bows nodding in her cap, “for if there had been fifty balls, ye
could not in decency have gone to ainy one o’ them.”
“There are more folk in the country than us,” said Mary, with a little
sharpness. “But I hear Lady Chatty’s far from happy, poor thing. For my
part I never had any confidence in the man.”
“The man was well enough; there’s nothing to be said against the man;
they’re just both spenders, and no siller to spend.”
“That is what I am saying,” said Mary. “The Duke’s daughter, and her
beauty, and her fashion, and all that--and at the last to take up with a
poor man.”
“What do you think, Drumcarro, of this Catholic Emancipation that is
making such a noise?” said Glendochart, as the ladies continued to argue
over the subject of Lady Chatty.
“I just think that we’ll have all the wild Irish and the wild North on
our hands before we know where we are--and Jesuits going to and fro over
the face of the earth like Sawtan in the Scriptures--if the Government
doesn’t stand firm.”
“I cannot but think, however,” said Glendochart, “that there’s something
to be said on the other side. A large number of our country folk just
put out of the question altogether.”
“There’s nothing to be said on the other side of the question,” cried
Drumcarro, with his fierce look. “Fellow subjects! just thae deevils of
Irish and a whean idle Crofters that will neither fish the seas nor
delve the land--and a horde of priests at the head of them. Them that
think the Pope of Rome should have a hand in governing this country will
get little backing from me.”
“I allow,” said Mr. Pyper, “that it’s a difficult question with modern
notions of toleration, and all that--but violent evils must have
violent remedies--and when ye think, Glendochart, what this country has
suffered from Papal rule--”
“I would just have no dealings with the pooers of darkness,” said Mr.
Douglas, bringing down his hand upon the table with a force which made
everything tremble.
“Bless me,” cried Miss Eelen, “what’s wrong with ye, Drumcarro? Ye’ll
break all the glasses. Eh, but the pooers o’ darkness are no so easy to
make or meddle with. The minister will tell ye that they are just in our
hearts and at our doors.”
“Ye may say that, Miss Eelen,” said Mr. Pyper, shaking his head
professionally; “but it was in the sphere of politics our friend was
meaning. It would be a fine thing if, with all our progress, we were to
find ourselves back again in the hands of the Inquiseetion and yon wild
Irishman O’Connell.”
“I would learn them a lesson,” cried Drumcarro, “there’s none o’ them to
be trusted. I would let them know there would be no trafficking with
treason. We’ve had enough in Scotland of the thumbscrew and the boot--no
but what judeeciously employed,” he added a moment after, “with the
ignorant, when ye cannot get at them in any other way--”
“I hope ye don’t advocate torture, Drumcarro; that would be a curious
way of opposing Catholic Emancipation,” said Glendochart.
“I’m not saying, sir, that I advocate torture; but I’ve seen
cases--when deevilish obstinacy had to be dealt with,” said the old
slave-driver, with a gleam of fire from under his shaggy eyebrows.
“Well, well,” said the minister softly, raising a large hand in
deprecation of the argument, “that’s perhaps departing from the
immediate question. I hear there’s like to be trouble in your parish,
Glendochart, about the new presentee. The Duke has been maybe a little
hasty--an old tutor, that had to be provided for.”
“If he manages the parish as ill as he managed some of the young lords,”
said Glendochart, with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I will not have a word said against the young lords,” cried Mary.
“They’re just very pleasant--and as ceevil young men as ye could meet
anywhere--there’s Lord John that we know best.”
Miss Eelen shook her head till the black bows fluttered as if in a
strong wind. “You’re all just infatuate about Lord John. I would not
trust him, not a step out o’ my sight. I have no faith in your Lord
Johns. Begging your pardon, Glendochart, they’re not a true race, and
Lord John he is the worst of a’.”
“I think you might know better, Aunt Eelen, than to bring up accusations
against the head of my husband’s name.”
“Your husband quotha!” cried Miss Eelen. “It was said of them for
hundreds of years before your husband was born or thought of.”
The minister again intervened to smooth matters down with instances of
the power and value of the race thus called in question. Jeanie was
seated at the other end of the table out of reach of the principal
personages who kept up the conversation, but she started at the name of
Lord John, and her pale face with the faint redness round the eyes,
which appealed so powerfully to Kirsteen’s sympathies, grew suddenly
crimson. She cast a terrified look at her sister who sat silently by
her, and caught Kirsteen’s hand under the table with a clutch as of
despair. Lord John! Kirsteen had made no attempt to identify Jeanie’s
wooer whom the girl held in such strange terror. Her own heart gave a
bound of alarm yet disdain. She asked with her eyes, “Is that the man?”
and received from Jeanie an answering look of confusion and trouble.
There were no words exchanged between them. Kirsteen shook her head with
a gesture which to Jeanie’s eyes expressed not only disapproval but
surprise and scorn, and Jeanie let go her hold of her sister’s hand with
an impulse of impatience much like that with which she had cried, “I
thought you would understand!” This little conversation by pantomime
made the heart of the elder sister ache. “Lord John,” she said to
herself, “Lord John!” with mingled fear and astonishment. That Jeanie
should be in danger from him--that he should dare! that her little
sister with that angelic face, who had once been touched as Kirsteen
said by true love should feel a temptation in the flattering words of
the man from whom she yet desired to escape, conscious that he was not
a true man! Kirsteen’s experiences had been of a simple kind hitherto.
She was acquainted with no such problems. It cost her a painful effort
to bring herself even to the threshold of Jeanie’s confused mind. She
could not comprehend the conflict that was going on there. And yet she
could not forsake her little sister even though the circumstances were
such as she did not understand.
“Glendochart,” said Mary when the ladies had retired to the parlour
leaving the gentlemen to consume their toddy, “has had a letter from
Major Gordon that we first met in London, Kirsteen. I cannot call to
mind where my husband met him, if it was at the Duke’s or where. But we
had him down for the shooting, and two or three times he just went and
came--and admired Jeanie--but that’s no wonder, for there’s nobody but
what admires Jeanie. He’s wanting to come again if we’ll ask him. But I
doubt if I’ll do it--for Jeanie--where is she? I hope she cannot hear
me--is on the way to something far grander or I’m much mistaken--and I’m
not one that makes mistakes in that way.”
“If ye paid any attention to me,” said Miss Eelen, “I would say ye were
making the greatest mistake ye ever made in your life.”
“That’s because it’s not one of your Douglas allies--and you’re full of
auld world freats and proverbs about names, but I would like to hear in
our family who had anything to say against my husband’s name.”
“If you mean Lord John--do you know he has not a good reputation? Very
ill things are said of him.”
“In London,” said the Lady of Glendochart with a superior smile. “My
experience is that there’s just nothing but scandal in London. But in
his own country he’s the Duke’s son and one of the first of his name.”
“There are some things that one learns in London,” said Kirsteen with a
little of that quick growing identification of one’s self with one’s
habitation which changes the point of view; “and Mary, if you will let
me say it, this is one. The Duke’s son does not match with a country
laird’s daughter however bonny she may be, unless he may be one of the
romanticks that will make a sacrifice--but Lord John, he is not one.”
“I would hope not,” cried Mary. “The romanticks you are meaning are just
fools and fantastic persons like--“ she was about to have said like
yourself, but forebore.
“He would need to be fantastic that went to the Duke his father, and
said I am going to be married to Jeanie Douglas of Drumcarro.”
“Ye go a little too far, Kirsteen,” said Miss Eelen. “The Douglases
might match with princes so far as blood goes. But I’m not saying (for I
know their ways) that there is not reason in it. He will just get up a
talk about the lassie and then he will go away.”
“Ye are two ravens,” said Mary; “he will do nothing of the kind.”
“I wish you would take her to Glendochart, Mary. She is not happy. If it
is Lord John or something else I cannot tell. She says she would like to
come with me--but what would my father say?”
“Say! just what we all would say--that we would not permit it. A
mantua-maker’s house in London for Jeanie Douglas. Oh, you need not
blaze up, Kirsteen; ye have made your bed and ye must lie on it--but
Jeanie!”
Kirsteen did not blaze up. Her eyes flashed, her colour rose; but she
restrained herself with a great effort--for what would be the use? “The
more reason,” she said, “that you should step in--you that are no
mantua-maker but a lady in your own house. Take Jeanie with you, and
keep her safe--and if you will take my advice ask Major Gordon. He is
not rich but he has a very good name.”
“I mind now,” said Mary, “that these Gordons were friends of yours--and
you want to keep Jeanie down, just in a mean position when she might
take her place among the highest. I would not have thought ye were so
little, Kirsteen. But I have nothing of that. I’ve always been proud of
Jeanie and I’m not minding if she’s put over my head. I’ll bring no man
here to distract her mind--and I’ll put no spoke in her wheel, my bonny
little sister. She shall be the first and grandest of us all, if I can
do it. And then her ladyship,” cried Mary, “will know who was her best
friend.”
“Perhaps I think less of ladyships being more used to them,” cried
Kirsteen, irritated beyond her self-control. “If ye bring her to shame
instead of grandeur who will she thank then?”
“To shame!” cried Mary. “Let them say that word that dare.”
“But I dare! And I know them all, and what they think of him in his own
family. And that he’s not safe for a girl like Jeanie to know. Aunt
Eelen, you know them as well, and you know if what I say is true.”
“Young weemen,” said Miss Eelen, “if ye think that words of strife are
seemly in a house where the mother’s buried that day, it’s not my
opinion. Kirsteen goes too far, though I would not say but there was
reason in it,” she added after a moment “Whisht, both of you--here is
the poor bairn herself.”
The next morning Kirsteen, in her despair, took a still bolder step. She
went to the door of the room in which Drumcarro was, and knocked for
admittance. He stared at her as she came in with a lowering brow, and
_humph_! of ungracious surprise, and stopped in his reading of the
paper, but said nothing.
“Father,” said Kirsteen, “I am going away to-day.”
He gave her another lowering and stormy glance. “It is the best thing
you can do,” he said. “You were never wanted here.”
Kirsteen, wounded, could not refrain from saying, “My mother wanted me,”
which was met solely by that impatient indifference which we render
badly by the word _humph_!
“But I did not come to speak of myself. I know,” she said, “father, that
you like where you can to add on a little of the old Douglas lands to
what you have already.”
He gave her a more direct look, astonished, not knowing what she meant;
then, “What o’ that?” he said.
“No more than this--that money’s sometimes wanting, and I thought if the
opportunity arose--I have done very well--I have some siller--at your
command.”
Drumcarro was very much startled; he dropped the newspaper which he had
been holding before him, as an intimation that her visit was an
interruption, and turning round stared at her for a moment with genuine
surprise. Then he said, “Your mantua-making must have thriven. I would
like to know one thing about ye, have you put my name intill your
miserable trade?”
“No,” she said; “so far as any name is in it, it is Miss Kirsteen.”
He gave a sigh of relief. “I’m glad at least that ye have not brought
disgrace upon the name of Douglas.”
“The name of Douglas will never get disgrace from me,” cried Kirsteen
proudly, with an answering glance of fire. “There is no one that bears
it that has more care of it than me. If you kept it in as great honour
at home----”
He laughed grimly. “My lass, you may trust me for that.”
“I hope so, father; I hope there will be no speaking got up about the
bonniest of us all--the youngest and the sweetest.”
His fiery eyes gave forth a gleam of mingled exultation and anger. “I
see,” he said, “you’re jealous, like all your kind. A woman can never
stand another being mounted o’er her head. Trust you me, my woman, to
take care of Jeanie; it’s my place.”
“Yes,” she said, “it’s your place.” Then hesitating, Kirsteen continued:
“She would have liked--to go to London with me.”
“To London with you!”
“It is excusable,” said Kirsteen; “it is natural that a young thing
should desire to see a little of the world.”
Mr. Douglas expressed his feelings in a harsh and angry laugh. “Out of a
mantua-maker’s windows,” he cried; then added with solemnity, “and her
mother dead just a week to-day.”
“It’s not for want of heart,” said Kirsteen. She paused again, and then
speaking quickly with all the courage she could summon up: “Oh, father,
yon Lord John--there’s no truth in him; there’s no trust to be put in
him! She’s frightened for him, father.”
“Hold your peace!” he cried. “I’ll have none of your slandering here.”
“Father, mind--you’ll have to be both father and mother to Jeanie. If it
should come to pass that every old wife in the clachan had a hold of
her bonny name!”
Perhaps it was not unnatural that Drumcarro should resent this speech.
“If ye will mind your own concerns,” he said grimly, “I will take care
of mine. The sooner you go your own gait the better; there will be more
peace left behind.”
“I have delivered my soul,” said Kirsteen; “the wyte will be upon your
own head if you close your eyes. Farewell, father, if we should never
meet again.”
She stood for a moment waiting his reply; then made him a curtsey as she
had done when she was a little girl. Something perhaps in this
salutation touched Drumcarro. He broke out into a laugh, not so harsh as
before. “Fare ye well,” he said, “you were always upsetting, and wiser
than other folk. But I’ll mind what you said about the siller, which was
not without reason. And I’ve little doubt but I’ll see ye again. You’re
too fond o’ meddling not to come back now ye’ve got your hand in.”
This was all the leave-taking between father and daughter, but
Kirsteen’s heart was touched as she went away. It was at once a sign of
amity and a permission--a condoning of her past sins and almost an
invitation to return.