“No, Beenie,” said Miss Dempster solemnly, “her heart is not in it. Do
you think it is possible at her age that a young creature could resist
all the excitement and the importance, and the wedding presents and the
wedding clothes? It was bad enough in our own time, but it’s just twice
as bad now when every mortal thinks it needful to give their present,
and boxes are coming in every day for months. That’s a terrible bad
custom: it’s no better than the penny weddings the poor people used to
have. But to think a young thing would be quite indifferent to all that,
if everything was natural, is more than I can understand.”
“That’s very true,” said Miss Beenie, “and all her new things. If it was
nothing but the collars and fichus that are so pretty nowadays, and all
the new pocket-handkerchiefs.”
“It’s not natural,” the elder sister said.
“And if you will remember, there was a wonderful look about the little
thing’s eyes when Ronald went away. To be sure there was Eric with him.
She was really a little thing then, though now she’s grown up. You may
depend upon it that though maybe she may not be conscious of it herself,
there is another Eemage in her poor bit little heart.”
“Ye are too sentimental, Beenie. That’s not necessary. There may be a
shrinking without that. I know no harm of young Dirom. He’s not one that
would ever take my fancy, but still there’s no harm in him. The
stepmother is just ridiculous. She thinks it’s her that’s getting the
elevation. There will never be a word out of her mouth but Allonby if
this comes to pass. But the heart of the little thing is not in it. She
was angry; that was what her colour came from. It was no blush, yon; it
was out of an angry and an unwilling mind. I have not lived to my
present considerable age without knowing what a girl’s looks mean.”
“You are not so old as you make yourself out. A person would think you
were just a Methusaleh; when it is well known there is only five years
between us,” said Miss Beenie in an aggrieved tone.
“I always say there’s a lifetime--so you may be easy in your mind so far
as that goes. I am just as near a Methusaleh as I’ve any desire to be. I
wonder now if Mrs. Ogilvie knows what has happened about Ronald, and
that he’s coming home. To be a well-born woman herself, she has very
little understanding about inter-marriages and that kind of thing. It’s
more than likely that she doesn’t know. And to think that young man
should come back, with a nice property though it’s small, and in a
condition to marry, just when this is settled! Bless me! if he had come
three months ago! Providence is a real mystery!” said Miss Dempster,
with the air of one who is reluctant to blame, but cannot sincerely
excuse. “Three months more or less, what were they to auld Dauvid Hay?
He was just doited; he neither knew morning nor evening: and most likely
that would have changed the lives of three other folk. It is a great
mystery to me.”
“He will maybe not be too late yet,” said Miss Beenie significantly.
“Woman, you are just without conscience,” cried her sister. “Would that
be either right or fair? No, no, they must just abide by their lot as it
is shaped out. It would be a cruel thing to drop that poor lad now for
no fault of his--just because she did not know her own mind. No, no, I
have Ronald’s interest much at heart, and I’m fond in a way of that bit
little Effie, though she’s often been impertinent--but I would never
interfere. Bless me! If I had known there was to be so little
satisfaction got out of it, that’s a veesit I never would have paid. I
am turning terrible giddy. I can scarcely see where I’m going. I wish I
had stayed at home.”
“If we had not just come away as it were in a fuff,” said Miss Beenie,
“you would have had your cup of tea, and that would have kept up your
strength.”
“Ay, _if_,” said Miss Dempster. “That’s no doubt an argument for keeping
one’s temper, but it’s a little too late. Yes, I wish I had got my cup
of tea. I am feeling very strange; everything’s going round and round
before my eyes. Eh, I wish I was at my own door!”
“It’s from want of taking your food. You’ve eaten nothing this two or
three days. Dear me, Sarah, you’re not going to faint at your age! Take
a hold of my arm and we’ll get as far as Janet Murray’s. She’s a very
decent woman. She will soon make you a cup of tea.”
“No, no--I’ll have none of your arm. I can just manage,” said Miss
Dempster. But her face had grown ashy pale. “We’re poor creatures,” she
murmured, “poor creatures: it’s all the want of--the want of--that cup
oreplace with’ tea.”
“You’ll have to see the doctor,” said Miss Beenie. “I’m no more disposed
to pin my faith in him than you are; but there are many persons that
think him a very clever man----”
“No, no, no doctor. Old Jardine’s son that kept a shop in---- No, no;
I’ll have no doctor. I’ll get home--I’ll----”
“Oh,” cried Miss Beenie. “I will just run on to Janet Murray’s and bid
her see that her kettle is aboil. You’ll be right again when you’ve had
your tea.”
“Yes, I’ll be--all right,” murmured the old lady. The road was soft and
muddy with rain, the air very gray, the clouds hanging heavy and full of
moisture over the earth. Miss Beenie hastened on for a few steps, and
then she paused, she knew not why, and looked round and uttered a loud
cry; there seemed to be no one but herself on the solitary country road.
But after a moment she perceived a little heap of black satin on the
path. Her first thought, unconscious of the catastrophe, was for this
cherished black satin, the pride of Miss Dempster’s heart.
“Oh, your best gown!” she cried, and hurried back to help her sister out
of the mire. But Miss Beenie soon forgot the best gown. Miss Dempster
lay huddled up among the scanty hawthorn bushes of the broken hedge
which skirted the way. Her hand had caught against a thorny bramble
which supported it. She lay motionless, without speaking, without making
a sign, with nothing that had life about her save her eyes. Those eyes
looked up from the drawn face with an anxious stare of helplessness, as
if speech and movement and every faculty had got concentrated in them.
Miss Beenie gave shriek after shriek as she tried to raise up the
prostrate figure. “Oh, Sarah, what’s the matter? Oh, try to stand up;
oh, let me get you up upon your feet! Oh, my dear, my dear, try if ye
cannot get up and come home! Oh, try! if it’s only as far as Janet
Murray’s. Oh, Sarah!” she cried in despair, “there never was anything
but you could do it, if you were only to try.”
Sarah answered not a word, she who was never without a word to say; she
did not move; she lay like a log while poor Beenie put her arms under
her head and laboured to raise her. Beenie made the bush tremble with
spasmodic movement, but did no more than touch the human form that lay
stricken underneath. And some time passed before the frightened sister
could realize what had happened. She went on with painful efforts trying
to raise the inanimate form, to drag her to the cottage, which was
within sight, to rouse and encourage her to the effort which Miss Beenie
could not believe her sister incapable of making.
“Oh, Sarah, my bonnie woman!--oh, Sarah, Sarah, do you no hear me, do
you not know me? Oh, try if ye cannot get up and stand upon your feet.
I’m no able to carry you, but I’ll support you. Oh, Sarah, Sarah, will
you no try!”
Then there burst upon the poor lady all at once a revelation of what had
happened. She threw herself down by her sister with a shriek that seemed
to rend the skies. “Oh, good Lord,” she cried, “oh, good Lord! I canna
move her, I canna move her; my sister has gotten a stroke----”
“What are you talking about?” said a big voice behind her; and before
Miss Beenie knew, the doctor, in all the enormity of his big beard, his
splashed boots, his smell of tobacco, was kneeling beside her, examining
Miss Dempster, whose wide open eyes seemed to repulse him, though she
herself lay passive under his hand. He kept talking all the time while
he examined her pulse, her looks, her eyes.
“We must get her carried home,” he said. “You must be brave, Miss
Beenie, and keep all your wits about you. I am hoping we will bring her
round. Has there been anything the matter with her, or has it just come
on suddenly to-day?”
“Oh, doctor, she has eaten nothing. She has been very feeble and pale.
She never would let me say it. She is very masterful; she will never
give in. Oh that I should say a word that might have an ill meaning, and
her lying immovable there!”
“There is no ill meaning. It’s your duty to tell me everything. She is a
very masterful woman; by means of that she may pull through. And were
there any preliminaries to-day? Yes, that’s the right thing to do--if it
will not tire you to sit in that position----”
“Tire me!” cried Miss Beenie--“if it eases her.”
“I cannot say it eases her. She is past suffering for the moment. Lord
bless me, I never saw such a case. Those eyes of hers are surely full of
meaning. She is perhaps more conscious than we think. But anyway, it’s
the best thing to do. Stay you here till I get something to carry her
on----”
“What is the matter?” said another voice, and Fred Dirom came hastily
up. “Why, doctor, what has happened--Miss Dempster?”--he said this with
an involuntary cry of surprise and alarm. “I am afraid this is very
serious,” he cried.
“Not so serious as it soon will be if we stand havering,” cried the
doctor. “Get something, a mattress, to put her on. Man, look alive.
There’s a cottage close by. Ye’ll get something if ye stir them up. Fly
there, and I’ll stay with them to give them a heart.”
“Oh, doctor, you’re very kind--we’ve perhaps not been such good friends
to ye as we might----”
“Friends, toots!” said the doctor, “we’re all friends at heart.”
Meantime the stir of an accident had got into the air. Miss Beenie’s
cries had no doubt reached some rustic ears; but it takes a long time to
rouse attention in those regions.
“What will yon be? It would be somebody crying. It sounded awfureplace
with’ like somebody crying. It will be some tramp about the roads; it
will be somebody frighted at the muckle bull----” Then at last there
came into all minds the leisurely impulse--“Goodsake, gang to the door
and see----”
Janet Murray was the first to run out to her door. When her intelligence
was at length awakened to the fact that something had happened, nobody
could be more kind. She rushed out and ran against Fred Dirom, who was
hurrying towards the cottage with a startled face.
“Can you get me a mattress or something to carry her upon?” he cried,
breathless.
“Is it an accident?” said Janet.
“It is a fit. I think she is dying,” cried the young man much excited.
Janet flew back and pulled the mattress off her own bed. “It’s no a very
soft one,” she said apologetically. Her man had come out of the byre,
where he was ministering to a sick cow, an invalid of vast importance
whom he left reluctantly; another man developed somehow out of the
fields from nowhere in particular, and they all hurried towards the spot
where Miss Beenie sat on the ground, without a thought of her best gown,
holding her sister’s head on her breast, and letting tears fall over the
crushed bonnet which the doctor had loosened, and which was dropping off
the old gray head.
“Oh, Sarah, can ye hear me? Oh, Sarah, do you know me? I’m your poor
sister Beenie. Oh if ye could try to rouse yourself up to say a word.
There was never anything you couldna do if ye would only try.”
“She’ll not try this time,” said the doctor. “You must not blame her.
There’s one who has her in his grips that will not hear reason; but
we’ll hope she’ll mend; and in the meantime you must not think she can
help it, or that she’s to blame.”
“To blame!” cried Beenie, with that acute cry. “I am silly many a time;
but she is never to blame.” In sight of the motionless figure which lay
in her arms, Miss Beenie’s thoughts already began to take that tinge of
enthusiastic loyalty with which we contemplate the dead.
“Here they come, God be thanked!” said the doctor. And by and by a
little procession made its way between the fields. Miss Dempster, as if
lying in state on the mattress, Beenie beside her crying and mourning.
She had followed at first, but then it came into her simple mind with a
shiver that this was like following the funeral, and she had roused
herself and taken her place a little in advance. It was a sad little
procession, and when it reached the village street, all the women came
out to their doors to ask what was the matter, and to shake their heads,
and wonder at the sight.
The village jumped to the fatal conclusion with that desire to heighten
every event which is common to all communities: and the news ran over
the parish like lightning.
“Miss Dempster, Rosebank, has had a stroke. She has never spoken since.
She is just dead to this world, and little likelihood she will ever come
back at her age.” That was the first report; but before evening it had
risen to the distinct information--“Miss Dempster, Rosebank, is dead!”
Fred Dirom had been on his way to Gilston, when he was stopped and
ordered into the service of the sick woman. He answered to the call with
the readiness of a kind heart, and was not only the most active and
careful executor of the doctor’s orders, but remained after the patient
was conveyed home, to be ready, he said, to run for anything that was
wanted, to do anything that might be necessary--nay, after all was done
that could be done, to comfort Miss Beenie, who almost shed her tears
upon the young man’s shoulder.
“Eh,” she said, “there’s the doctor we have aye thought so rough, and
not a gentleman--and there’s you, young Mr. Dirom, that Sarah was not
satisfied with for Effie; and you’ve just been like two ministering
angels sent out to minister to them that are in sore trouble. Oh, but I
wonder if she will ever be able to thank you herself.”
“Not that any thanks are wanted,” cried Fred cheerfully; “but of course
she will, much more than we deserve.”
“You’ve just been as kind as--I cannot find any word to say for it, both
the doctor and you.”
“He is a capital fellow, Miss Dempster.”
“Oh, do not call me Miss Dempster--not such a thing, not such a thing!
I’m Miss Beenie. The Lord preserve me from ever being called Miss
Dempster,” she cried, with a movement of terror. But Fred neither
laughed at her nor her words. He was very respectful of her, full of
pity and almost tenderness, not thinking of how much advantage to
himself this adventure was to prove. It ran over the whole countryside
next day, and gained “that young Dirom” many a friend.
And Effie, to whom the fall of Miss Dempster was like the fall of one of
the familiar hills, and who only discovered how much she loved those
oldest of friends after she began to feel as if she must lose
them--Effie showed her sense of his good behaviour in the most
entrancing way, putting off the shy and frightened aspect with which she
had staved off all discussion of matters more important, and beginning
to treat him with a timid kindness and respect which bewildered the
young man. Perhaps he would rather even now have had something warmer
and less (so to speak) accidental: but he was a wise young man, and
contented himself with what he could get.
Effie now became capable of “hearing reason,” as Mrs. Ogilvie said. She
no longer ran away from any suggestion of the natural end of all such
engagements. She suffered it to be concluded that her marriage should
take place at Christmas, and gave at last a passive consent to all the
arrangements made for her. She even submitted to her stepmother’s
suggestions about the trousseau, and suffered various dresses to be
chosen, and boundless orders for linen to be given. That she should have
a fit providing and go out of her father’s house as it became a bride to
do, with dozens of every possible undergarments, and an inexhaustible
supply of handkerchiefs and collars, was the ambition of Mrs. Ogilvie’s
heart.
She said herself that Miss Dempster’s “stroke,” from which the old lady
recovered slowly, was “just a providence.” It brought Effie to her
senses, it made her see the real qualities of the young man whom she had
not prized at his true value, and whose superiority as the best match
in the countryside, she could not even now be made to see. Effie
yielded, not because he was the best match, but because he had shown so
kind a heart, and all the preparations went merrily forward, and the
list of the marriage guests was made out and everything got ready.
But yet for all that, there was full time for that slip between the cup
and the lip which so often comes in, contrary to the dearest
expectations, in human affairs.