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THE QUIET HEART
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
THE
QUIET HEART
BY THE
AUTHOR OF “KATIE STEWART”
SECOND EDITION
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLIV
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.
THE QUIET HEART.
CHAPTER I.
“Ye’ll no ken, Jenny, if Miss Menie’s in?”
“And what for should I no ken?” exclaimed the hot and impatient Jenny
Durward, sole servant, housekeeper, and self-constituted guardian of
Mrs. Laurie of Burnside, and her young fatherless daughter. “Do ye think
ony ane comes or gangs in the house out of my knowledge? And where
should Miss Menie be but in, sitting at her seam in the mistress’s
parlour, at this hour of the day?”
“I was meaning nae offence,” said meek Nelly Panton: “I’m sure ye ken,
Jenny woman, I wouldna disturb the very cat by the fire if it was just
me; but my mother, you see, has ta’en an ill turn, and there’s nae
peace wi’ her, day or night, a’ for naething but because she’s anxious
in her mind--and if you would just let me get a word o’ Miss Menie--”
“Am I hindering ye?” cried the indignant Jenny; “she’s no ill to be
seen, in her wilful way, even on wandering about the garden, damp roads
or dry; but for a’ the whims I’ve kent in her head, ae time and anither,
I never heard of her setting up for either skill or wisdom past the
common. I reckon she never had a sair head hersel--what kind of a helper
could she be to your mother? and if she’s heard of a sair heart, that’s
a’ the length her knowledge gangs--what good is Miss Menie to do to
you?”
“I’m sure I’m no meaning ony ill,” said Nelly, disconsolately, sitting
down on a wooden stool with passive resignation; “and it’s aye kent o’
me that I never provokit onybody a’ my born days. I’m just wanting to
speak a word to the young leddy, that’s a’.”
Now Nelly Panton, meekly passive as she was, had an eminent gift in the
way of provocation, and kept in a perpetual fever the warmer tempers in
her neighbourhood. Jenny, virtuously resolved to command herself, went
out with sufficient abruptness to her kitchen door, to “fuff,” as she
herself called it, her incipient passion away. The visitor took no
notice of Jenny’s withdrawal from the field. Slow pertinacity, certain
of ultimate success, calmed away all excitement from Nelly. She had
taken her place with perfect composure, to wait, though it might be for
hours, till the person she wished to see came to her call.
It was a day of early spring, and had rained plentifully in the morning.
Light white clouds, tossed and blown about by a fantastic wind, threw
their soft shadow on a clear deep sky of blue; and raindrops, glittering
in the sunshine, hung upon flowers and branches, and fell now and then
in a gleam from the shaken hedge or garden fruit-trees. The garden paths
were wet--the road without had a flowing rivulet of accumulated rain,
which almost made as much ringing with its hasty footsteps as did the
burn itself under the little bridge which crossed the way--and the
blue-slated roof of this house of Burnside blazed like a slanted mirror
in the eyes of the full sun.
Not the faintest shade of architectural pretensions dignified this house
of Burnside. Four substantial walls of rough grey stone, a slated roof,
with but one projecting attic window to break its slope--a door in the
gable where one would least have expected a door to be--and windows
breaking the wall just where the builder found it convenient that the
wall should be broken. The house stood upon a little knoll, the ground
on all sides sloping downward,--at one hand to the course of the
burn--at the other, to the edge of the plantation which benevolently
threw up a line of tall firs to screen its human neighbours from the
unfriendly east. Close upon the very edge of the walls pressed the soft
grass of the lawn; some spring-flowers looked out from little bits of
border soil here and there; and a fairy larch stood half-way up the
ascent on the sunniest side, shaking itself free of the encumbering rain
with a pretty, coquettish grace, and throwing a glistening flash of
little diamonds, now and then, as if in sport, over the fluttering hair
and sunny face, which seem to have a natural sisterhood and
companionship with the free and graceful tree.
Hair that was smoothly shaded this morning over the young, clear,
youthful brow--the wind has found out scores of little curls hidden in
the braids, and turns them out with a child’s laughter, full of sweet
triumph and delight--a face that looks up full and clearly to answer the
brave smile upon the sky. Twenty years old, with warm blood flashing in
her cheeks, a fearless, innocent courage gleaming from her eyes, and
never a cloud over her all her life long, save some such soft, white,
rounded shadow as floats yonder in our sight over the undiscouraged
heavens--for it is very true that neither headache nor heartache has yet
been known to Menie Laurie by any surer knowledge than the hearing of
the ear.
Maiden meditation--No: there is little of this in the stir of life that
makes an unconscious atmosphere about her, here where she stands in the
fearless safety of her natural home. Not that Menie is notably
thoughtless either, or poor in the qualities of mind which produce
thought--but her mind lies still, like a charmed sea under the sunshine.
There has never a ship of hope gone down yet under those dazzling
waters, never a storm arisen upon them to chafe the waves against the
rocks; nothing but flecks of summer clouds, quiet shadows of summer
nights, darkness all lit and glorified with mellow moonbeams--and how
her heart would be if some strange ghost of tempest rose upon the sky,
her heart neither knows nor fears.
The window is open behind you, Menie; Mrs Laurie fears no draughts, and
it is well; but our mother’s patience, like other good things, has a
limit, and having called you vainly three times over, she closes behind
you this mode of return. No great matter. See what a little sparkling
shower this poor brown-coated sparrow has shaken from the thorny branch
he has just perched upon; and as your eyes wander in this direction,
your ear becomes aware of a certain sound, a quick impatient breath sent
hard through the expanded nostrils, which is the well-known token in the
house of Burnside of Jenny’s “fuff;” and straightway your eyes brighten,
Menie Laurie--one could not have fancied it was possible a minute
ago--and smiles half hidden break over all your face, flushing here and
there in such a kindly suffusion of playfulness and mirth, that even
Jenny herself is not angry when she sees how this fuff of hers makes
excellent sport for you.
“What ails our Jenny now?” said Menie, turning the angle of the wall to
enter by the kitchen door.
“Lassie, dinna drive folk doited,” answered Jenny. “I’m thrang at my
wark--gang in yonder and speak to her yoursel.”
Nelly Panton sits mournfully upon the wooden stool. If you take her own
word for it, no one is more contemptuous of “fyking” and “making a wark”
than Jenny of Burnside; but the kitchen--woe be to the hapless stranger
who ventures to commend it!--is quite resplendent with brightness and
good order. The fire, cheerfully burning in the grate, finds a whole
array of brilliant surfaces to dance in, and dances to its heart’s
content. Glittering metal and earthenware, Jenny’s looking-glass at one
side, and the dark polish of Jenny’s oak table with its folding leaf at
the other, line all the walls with warmth and light; and the fire,
repulsed and defeated only by this one obstinately opaque body before
it, besets the dark outline of Nelly Panton with a very tremble of
eagerness, seeking in vain for something, if it were but the pin of her
shawl, or the lifting of her eye, to repeat its kindly glimmer in. There
is no pin visible in Nelly’s doleful shawl, so closely wrapped about her
person, and Nelly’s pensive glances seek the floor, and the light falls
off from her figure foiled and baffled, finding nothing congenial there.
Come you hither, Menie Laurie, that the friendly fireside spirit may be
consoled--playing in warm rays upon your hair, which the wind has blown
about so pleasantly that the bright threads hang a hundred different
ways, and catch a various glow of reflection in every curl--leaping up
triumphantly under the raised lids of these sunny eyes--catching a
little ring upon your finger, a little golden clasp at your white neck.
No wonder Nelly draws her shawl closer, and turns her back upon the
light, as she rises to speak to you.
“My mother’s ill and anxious in her mind, Miss Menie; and no to say
_that_ its lane, but thrawn and perverse as onybody could conceive. I’m
sure ye’ll hear nae character of me in the haill countryside for
onything but being as harmless a person as could gang about quiet wark
in ony house; but she’s ta’en a turn that she canna bide even me; and
aye for ever, night and morning, keeping up a constant wark about her
son. I like Johnnie weel enough mysel--but what’s the guid o’ seeking
letters as lang as we ken he’s weel?--and that’s what I’m aye saying,
but she’ll no hearken to me.”
“Does Johnnie write so seldom?--but I’m sure nothing ails him, or we
should have heard,” said Menie. “Tell her she’s to keep up her
heart--he’ll do very well yonder. You should make her cheery, Nelly, now
when you’re at home the whole day.”
“I do what I can, Miss Menie,” said Nelly, shaking her head mournfully.
“I tell her a lad’s just as safe in the toun as in the country, and that
it’s a real unbelieving-like thing to be aye groaning even on about
Johnnie, and her has mair bairns. But someway she gets nae satisfaction,
and I think she would be mair pleased if you could get a line from Mr
Randall saying when he saw him, and whether he’s doing well or no, than
a’ the reason I could gie her if I was preaching frae this to Martinmas.
I came away from my wark anes errant to bid ye. Will you ask Mr Randall
about Johnnie, Miss Menie, that I may get some peace wi’ my mother?”
The breath comes quickly over Menie Laurie’s lip--a little flutter of
added colour--a momentary falling of the eyelids--a shy, conscious smile
hovering about the mouth--and then Menie nods her head assentingly and
says, “Yes, Nelly, I will.”
“Yes, Nelly, I will,” repeated Menie, after a little pause of blushing
self-communion. “Tell her I’ll come and let her hear as soon as there is
any news; and say I think she should be cheery, Nelly, now she has you
at home.”
Making a meek inclination of her person, neither a bow nor a curtsy, but
something half-way between them, in answer to this speech, Nelly goes
away; and almost encountering her on her outward passage over the
threshold, enters Jenny fuffing at a furious rate, and casting her head
up into the air with wrathful contempt, like some little shaggy Highland
pony whose pride has been wounded. For Jenny’s wrath has nothing of the
dignity conferred by superior stature or commanding person, and it is
hard to restrain a smile at the vigour of her “fuff.”
“Twenty years auld, and nae mair sense than that!--the lassie’s daft! I
would like to ken how it’s possible for mortal woman to be cheery with
Nelly Panton within half a mile o’ her! If they flit to the Brigend at
the next term, as they’re aye threatening, I’ll gie the mistress her
leave mysel.”
“I think I’ll run away if you’re aye so crabbed, Jenny,” said her young
mistress. “What has everybody done?”
“Everybody’s done just a’ the mischief they could do,” said Jenny,
pathetically: “there’s no an article ever happens in this house that
mightna be mended if some ither body had the guiding o’t. There’s a’ the
gangrels o’ the countryside coming and gaun with their stories--there’s
the mistress hersel, that might have mair sense, ta’en a cauld in her
head, and a hoast fit to waken a’ the toun, standing at the door hearing
Bessy Edgar’s clavers about a no-weel wean--and there’s yoursel the
warst of a’. Do you think if onybody had ever askit me, that _I_ would
have gien my consent to let a lassie o’ your years plight her troth to a
wandering lad away to seek his fortune, like Randall Home? But you’ll
never ken the guid friend you’ve lost in Jenny till the puir body’s out
o’ the gate, and in her grave; and I wouldna say how soon that might be
if there’s nae end o’ on-gauns like thir.”
And with a loud long sigh Jenny sallied out through the paved passage,
from which you could catch a gleam of sunshine playing in chequers on
the strip of coloured matting and the margin of stones, to deliver just
such another lecture to the mistress in the parlour.
While Menie stands alone, her head thrown forward a little, her hair
playing lightly on her cheek, in a pause of pleasant fancy--yes, it is
true, Menie is betrothed. Calm as her heart lies in her pure girl’s
breast, Menie has seen the sky flush out of its natural summer beauty
with the warmer passionate hues of this new love; and many a tint of
joyous changeful colour plays about the bright horizon of Menie’s fancy,
and throws a charm of speculation into the future, which never spectre
has risen yet to obscure. It would need a sermon heavier than Jenny’s to
throw a single vapour of doubt or distrust upon Menie Laurie’s quiet
heart.