The parish of Gilston is not a wealthy one. It lies not far from the
Borders, where there is much moorland and pasture-land, and not much
high farming. The farmhouses are distant and scattered, the population
small. The greatest house in the district, indeed, stands within its
boundaries, but that was shut up at this moment, and of use to nobody.
There were two or three country houses of the smaller sort scattered
about, at four and five miles’ distance from each other, and a cluster
of dwellings near the church, in which amid a few cottages rose the
solid square house of the doctor, which he called Gowanbrae, and the
cottage of the Miss Dempsters, which they called Rosebank.
The doctor, whose name was Jardine, had a great deal to do, and rode
about the country early and late. The Miss Dempsters had nothing to do
except to keep up a general supervision of the proceedings of the
neighbours and of all that happened in the country side. It was a
supervision not unkind.
They were good neighbours, always handy and ready in any case of family
affliction or rejoicing. They were ready to lend anything and everything
that might be required--pepper, or a lemon, or cloves, or soap, or any
of the little things that so generally give out before the storeroom is
replenished, when you are out of reach of co-operative stores or
grocers’ shops; or their glass and china, or knives, or lamps--or even a
fine pair of silver candlesticks which they were very proud of--when
their neighbours had company: or good advice to any extent, which
sometimes was not wanted.
It was perhaps because everybody ran to them in case of need that they
were so well acquainted with everybody’s affairs. And then people were
so unreasonable as to find fault and call the Miss Dempsters gossips. It
was undeserved: they spoke ill of nobody unless there was good cause;
they made no mischief: but they did know everything, and they did more
or less superintend the life of the parish, having leisure and unbounded
interest in life.
The neighbours grumbled and sometimes called them names--old maids, old
cats, and many other pretty titles: which did not prevent them from
borrowing the spoons or the candlesticks, or sending for Miss Robina
when anything happened. Had these excellent ladies died the parish would
have mourned sincerely, and they would have been universally missed:
but as they were alive and well they were called the old cats. Human
nature is subject to such perversities.
The rural world in general had thus an affectionate hostility to the
all-seeing, all-knowing, all-aiding ladies of Rosebank; but between them
and Dr. Jardine the feeling was a great deal stronger. Hatred, it was
understood, was not too strong a word. Rosebank stood a little higher
than Gowanbrae: it was raised, indeed, upon a knoll, so that the house,
though in front only one storey, was two storeys behind, and in reality
a much larger house than it looked. The doctor’s house was on the level
of the village, and the Miss Dempsters from their point of vantage
commanded him completely.
He was of opinion that they watched all his proceedings from the windows
of their drawing-room, which in summer were always open, with white
curtains fluttering, and baskets of flowers so arranged that it was
hopeless to attempt to return the inspection. There was a garden bench
on the path that ran in front of the windows, and on fine days Miss
Robina, who was not at all rheumatic, would sit there in order to see
the doctor’s doings more distinctly. So at least the doctor thought.
“You may say it’s as good as a lady at the head of my table,” said the
doctor. “That old cat counts every bite I put into my mouth. She knows
what Merran has got for my dinner, and watches me eat. I cannot take a
glass of wine, when I’m tired, but they make a note of it.”
“Then, doctor, you should draw down your blind,” said the minister, who
was always a peacemaker.
“Me!” cried Dr. Jardine, with a fine Scotch contempt for the other
pronoun. “Me give the old hag that satisfaction. Not for the half of
Scotland! I am doing nothing that I am ashamed of, I hope.”
Miss Robina on her side expressed other views. She had a soft,
slightly-indistinct voice, as if that proverbial butter that “would not
melt in her mouth” was held there when she spoke.
“It’s a great vexation,” she said, in her placid way, “that we cannot
look out at our own windows without being affronted with the sight of
that hideous house. It’s just an offence: and a man’s house that is
shameless--that will come to the window and take off his dram, and nod
his head as if he were saying, Here’s to ye. It is just an offence,”
Miss Robina said.
Miss Robina was the youngest. She was a large woman, soft and
imperfectly laced, like a cushion badly stuffed and bulging here and
there. Her hair was still yellow as it had been in her youth, but her
complexion had not worn so well. Her features were large like her
person. Miss Dempster was smaller and gray, which she considered much
more distinguished than the yellow braids of her sister.
“It’s common to suppose Beenie dyes her hair; but I’m thankful to say
nobody can doubt me,” she would say. “It was very bonny hair when we
were young; but when the face gets old there’s something softening in
the white. I would have everybody gray at our age; not that Beenie
dyes--oh no. She never had that much thought.”
Miss Beenie was always in the foreground, taking up much more room than
her sister, and able to be out in all weathers. But Miss Dempster,
though rheumatic, and often confined to the house, was the real head of
everything. It was she who took upon her chiefly the care of the manners
of the young people, and especially of Effie Ogilvie, who was the
foremost object of regard, inspection, and criticism to these ladies.
They knew everything about her from her birth. She could not have a
headache without their knowledge (though indeed she gave them little
trouble in this respect, her headaches being few); and as for her
wardrobe, even her new chemises (if the reader will not be shocked) had
to be exhibited to the sisters, who had an exasperating way of
investigating a hem, and inspecting the stitching, which, as they were
partly made by Effie herself, made that young lady’s brow burn.
“But I approve of your trimmings,” Miss Dempster said; “none of your
common cotton stuff. Take my word for it, a real lace is ten times
thriftier. It will wear and wear--while that rubbish has to be thrown
into the fire.”
“It was some we had in the house,” Mrs. Ogilvie said; “I could not let
her buy thread lace for her underclothes.”
“Oh ay, it would be some of her mother’s,” and Miss Robina, with a nod
and a tone which as good as said, “That accounts for it.” And this made
Mrs. Ogilvie indignant too.
The Miss Dempsters had taken a great interest in Ronald Sutherland. They
knew (of course) how it was that Mrs. Ogilvie so skilfully had baulked
that young hero in his intentions, and they did not approve. The lady
defended herself stoutly.
“An engagement at sixteen!” she cried, “and with a long-legged lad in a
marching regiment, with not enough money to buy himself shoes.”
“And how can ye tell,” said Miss Robina, “that she will ever get another
offer? He was a nice lad--and nice lads are not so plentiful as they
were in our days.”
“For all so plentiful as they were, neither you nor me, Mrs. Ogilvie is
thinking, ever came to that advancement,” said Miss Dempster. “And
that’s true. But I’m not against young engagements, for my part. It is a
great divert to them both, and a very good thing for the young man;
where there’s land and sea between them that they cannot fash their
neighbours I can see no harm in it; and Ronald was a good lad.”
“Without a penny!”
“The pennies will come where there’s good conduct and a good heart. And
I would have let her choose for herself. It’s a great divert----”
“I must do my own business my own way, Miss Dempster, and I think I am
the best judge of what is good for Effie. I and her father.”
“Oh, no doubt--you, and her father; her mother might have been of a
different opinion. But that’s neither here nor there, for the poor thing
is dead and gone.”
“Well, Sarah,” said Miss Robina, “it’s to be hoped so, or the laird,
honest man, would be in a sad position, and our friend here no better.
It’s unbecoming to discourse in that loose way. No, no; we are meaning
no interference. We’ve no right. We are not even cousins or kinswomen,
only old friends. But Ronald, ye see--Ronald is a kind of connection. We
are wae for Ronald, poor lad. But he’s young, and there’s plenty of
time, and there’s no saying what may happen.”
“Nothing shall happen if I can help it; and I hope there will not be a
word said to put anything in Effie’s head,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. And ever
since this discussion she had been more severe than ever against the two
old ladies.
“Take care that ye put no confidence in them,” she said to her
stepdaughter. “They can be very sweet when it suits their purpose. But I
put no faith in them. They will set you against your duties--they will
set you against me. No doubt I’m not your mother: but I have always
tried to do my duty by you.”
Effie had replied with a few words of acknowledgment. Mrs. Ogilvie was
always very kind. It was Uncle John’s conviction, which had a great deal
of weight with the girl, that she meant sincerely to do her duty, as she
said. But, nevertheless, the doors of Effie’s heart would not open; they
yielded a little, just enough to warrant her in feeling that she had not
closed them, but that was all.
She was much more at ease with the Miss Dempsters than with her
stepmother. Her relations with them were quite simple. They had scolded
her and questioned her all her life, and she did not mind what they said
to her. Sometimes she would blaze into sudden resentment and cry, or
else avenge herself with a few hot words. But as there was no bond of
duty in respect to her old friends, there was perfect freedom in their
intercourse. If they hurt her she cried out. But when Mrs. Ogilvie hurt
her she was silent and thought the more.
Effie was just nineteen when it began to be rumoured over the country
that the mansion-house of Allonby was let. There was no place like it
within twenty miles. It was an old house, with the remains of a house
still older by its side--a proof that the Allonbies had been in the
countryside since the old days when life so near the Border was full of
disturbance.
The house lay low on the side of a stream, which, after it had passed
decorously by the green lawns and park, ran into a dell which was famed
far and near. It was in itself a beautiful little ravine, richly wooded,
in the midst of a country not very rich in wood; and at the opening of
the dell or dene, as they called it, was one of those little lonely
churchyards which are so pathetic in Scotland, burying-places of the
past, which are to be found in the strangest unexpected places,
sometimes without any trace of the protecting chapel which in the old
times must have consecrated their loneliness and kept the dead like a
faithful watcher.
In the midst of this little cluster of graves there were, however, the
ruins of a humble little church very primitive and old, which, but for
one corner of masonry with a small lancet window still standing, would
have looked like a mound somewhat larger than the rest; and in the
shadow of the ruin was a tombstone, with an inscription which recorded
an old tragedy of love and death; and this it was which brought pilgrims
to visit the little shrine.
The proprietor of the house was an old Lady Allonby, widowed and
childless, who had long lived in Italy, and was very unlikely ever to
return; consequently it made a great excitement in Gilston when it
became known that at last she had been persuaded to let her house, and
that a very rich family, a very gay family, people with plenty of money,
and the most liberal inclinations in the way of spending, were coming to
Allonby.
They were people who had been in business, rich people, people from
London. There were at least one son and some daughters. The inhabitants
of the smaller houses, the Ogilvies, the Johnstons, the Hopes, and even
the Miss Dempsters--all the families who considered themselves county
people,--had great talks and consultations as to whether they should
call. There were some who thought it was their duty to Lady Allonby, as
an old friend and neighbour; and there were some who thought it a duty
to themselves.
The Diroms, which was the name of the strangers, were not in any case
people to be ignored. They gave, it was said, everything that could be
given in the way of entertainment; the sons and the daughters at least,
if not the father and mother, were well educated.
But there were a few people who were not convinced by these arguments.
The Miss Dempsters stood in the front of this resisting party. They did
not care for entertainments, and they did not like _parvenoos_. The
doctor on the other hand, who had not much family to brag of, went to
Allonby at once. He said, in his rough way, that it was a providence
there was so much influenza fleeing about, which had made it necessary
to send for him so soon.
“I went, you may be sure, as fast as Bess’s four legs could carry me.
I’m of opinion there are many guineas for me lying about there, and it
would be disgraceful not to take them,” the doctor said with a laugh.
“There’s no guineas in the question for Beenie and me,” said Miss
Dempster. “I’m thinking we’ll keep our view of the question. I’m not
fond of new people, and I think Lady Allonby, after staying so long
away, might just have stayed to the end, and let the heirs do what they
liked. She cannot want the money; and it’s just an abomination to put
strange folk in the house of your fathers; and folk that would have
been sent down to the servants’ hall in other days.”
“Not so bad as that,” said the minister, “unless perhaps you are going
back to feudal times. Money has always had its acknowledgment in modern
society--and has paid for it sweetly.”
“We will give it no acknowledgment,” said the old lady. “We’re but
little likely to be the better for their money.”
This conversation took place at a little dinner in Gilston House,
convened, in fact, for the settlement of the question.
“That accounts for the difference of opinion,” said the doctor. “I’ll be
a great deal the better for their money; and I’m not minding about the
blood--so long as they’ll keep it cool with my prescriptions,” he added,
with a laugh. He was a coarse man, as the Rosebank ladies knew, and what
could you expect?
“There is one thing,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “that has a great effect upon
me, and that is, that there are young people in the house. There are not
many young people in the neighbourhood, which is a great disadvantage
for Effie. It would be a fine thing for her to have some companions of
her own age. But I would like to hear something more about the family.
Can anybody tell me who _she_ was? The man may be a _parvenoo_, but
these sort of persons sometimes get very nice wives. There was a friend
of my sister’s that married a person of the name of Dirom. And she was a
Maitland: so there is no telling.”
“There are Maitlands and Maitlands,” said Miss Robina. “It’s a very good
name: but our niece that is married in the north had a butler that was
John Maitland. I said she should just call him John. But he did not like
that. And then there was a joke that they would call him Lauderdale. But
the man was just very much offended, and said the name was his own name,
as much as if was a duke: in which, no doubt, he was right.”
“That’s the way with all Scots names,” said her sister. “There are
Dempsters that I would not hire to wait at my table. We are not setting
up to be better than our neighbours. I’m not standing on a name. But I
would not encourage these mere monied folk to come into a quiet
neighbourhood, and flaunt their big purses in our faces. They’ll spoil
the servants, they’ll learn the common folk ill ways. That’s always what
happens. Ye’ll see the very chickens will be dearer, and Nancy Miller at
the shop will set up her saucy face, and tell ye they’re all ordered for
Allonby; so they shall have no countenance from me.”
“There is something in that,” said Mrs. Ogilvie; “but we have plenty of
chickens of our own: I seldom need to buy. And then there is Effie to
take into consideration. They will be giving balls and parties. I have
Effie to think of. I am thinking I will have to go.”
“I hope Effie will keep them at a distance,” said Miss Robina. Effie
heard this discussion without taking any part in it. She had no
objection to balls and parties, and there was in her mind the vague
excitement with which a girl always hears of possible companions of her
own age.
What might be coming with them? new adventures, new experiences, eternal
friendship perhaps--perhaps--who can tell what? Whether the mother was a
Maitland or the father a _parvenoo_, as the ladies said, it mattered
little to Effie. She had few companions, and her heart was all on the
side of the new people with a thoughtlessness in respect to their
antecedents which perhaps was culpable.
But then Effie was but nineteen, which made a difference, Miss Robina
herself was the first to allow.