“My patience! but ye’ll no tell me, Miss Menie, that yon auld antick is
the doctor’s aunt?”
“She was no older than my father, though she was his aunt, Jenny,” said
Menie Laurie, with humility. Menie was something ashamed and had not yet
recovered herself of the first salute.
“Nae aulder than the doctor!--I wouldna say; your mamma hersel is no sae
young as she has been; but the like o’ yon!”
“Look, Jenny, what a pleasant place,” said the evasive Menie; “though
where the heath is--but I suppose as they call this Heathbank we must be
near it. Look, Jenny, down yonder, at the steeple in the smoke, and how
clear the air is here, and this room so pleasant and lightsome. Are you
not pleased, Jenny?”
“Yon’s my lady’s maid,” said Jenny, with a little snort of disdain.
“They ca’ her Maria, nae less--set her up! like a lady’s sel in ane o’
your grand novelles; and as muckle dress on an ilkaday as I’ve seen mony
a young lady gang to the kirk wi’, Miss Menie--no to say your ain very
sel’s been plainer mony a day. Am I no pleased? Is’t like to please folk
to come this far to an outlandish country, and win to a house at last
wi’ a head owre’t like yon!”
“Whisht, Jenny!” Menie Laurie has opened her window softly, with a
consciousness of being still a stranger, and in a stranger’s house. The
pretty white muslin curtains half hide her from Jenny, and Jenny stands
before the glass and little toilet-table, taking up sundry pretty things
that ornament it, with mingled admiration and disdain, surmising what
this, and this, is for, and wondering indignantly whether the lady of
the house can think that Menie stands in need of the perfumes and
cosmetics to which she herself resorts. But the room is a very pretty
room, with its lightly-draped bed, and bright carpet, and clear
lattice-window. Looking round, Jenny may still fuff, but has no reason
to complain.
And Menie, leaning out, feels the soft summer air cool down the flush
upon her cheeks, and lets her thoughts stray away over the great city
yonder, where the sunshine weaves itself among the smoke, and makes a
strange yellow tissue, fine and light to veil the Titan withal. The heat
is leaving her soft cheek, her hair plays on it lightly, the wind
fingering its loosened curls like a child, and Menie’s eyes have
wandered far away with her thoughts and with her heart.
Conscious of the sunshine here, lying steadily on the quiet lawn, the
meagre yew-tree, the distant garden-path--conscious of the soft bank of
turf, where these calm cattle repose luxuriously--of the broad yellow
sandy road which skirts it--of the little gleam of water yonder in a
distant hollow--but, buoyed upon joyous wings, hovering like a bird over
an indistinct vision of yonder pier, and deck, and crowded street--a
little circle enclosing one lofty figure, out of which rises this head,
with its natural state and grace, out of which shine those glowing
ardent eyes--and Menie, charmed and silent, looks on and watches, seeing
him come and go through all the ignoble crowd--the crowd which has
ceased to be ignoble when it encloses him.
And voices of children ringing through the sunshine, and a sweet, soft,
universal tinkle, as of some fairy music in the air, flow into Menie
Laurie’s meditation, but never fret its golden thread; for every joy of
sight and sound finds some kindred in this musing; and the voices grow
into a sweet all-hail, and the hum of distant life lingers on her ear
like the silver tone of fame--Fame that is coming--coming nearer every
day, throwing the glow of its purple royal, the sheen of its diamond
crown upon his head and on his path,--and the girl’s heart, overflooded
with a light more glorious than the sunshine, forgets itself, its own
identity and fate, in dreaming of the nobler fate to which its own is
bound.
“A young friend of yours?--you may depend upon my warmest welcome for
him, my dear Mrs Laurie,” says a voice just emerging into the air below,
which sends Menie back in great haste, and with violent unconscious
blushes, from the window. “Mr Randall Home?--quite a remarkable name, I
am sure. Something in an office? Indeed! But then, really, an office
means so many very different things--may be of any class, in fact--and a
literary man? I am delighted. He must be a very intimate friend to have
seen you already.”
Menie waits breathless for the answer, but in truth Mrs Laurie is very
little more inclined to betray her secret than she is herself.
“We have known him for many years--a neighbour’s son,” said Mrs Laurie,
with hesitation; “yet indeed it is foolish to put off what I must tell
you when you see them together. Randall and my Menie are--I suppose I
must say, though both so young--engaged, and of course it is natural he
should be anxious. I have no doubt you will be pleased with him; but I
was hurried and nervous a little this morning, or I should have
postponed his first visit a day or two, till we ourselves were less
perfect strangers to you, Miss Annie.”
“I beg--” said Miss Annie Laurie, lifting with courteous deprecation her
thin and half-bared arm. “I felt quite sure, when I got your letter,
that we could not be strangers half an hour, and this is really quite a
delightful addition;--true love--young love!--ah, my dear Mrs Laurie,
where can there be a greater pleasure than to watch two unsophisticated
hearts expanding themselves! I am quite charmed--a man of talent,
too--and your pretty little daughter, so young and so fresh, and so
beautifully simple. I am sure you could not have conferred a greater
privilege upon me--I shall feel quite a delight in their young love.
Dear little creature--she must be so happy; and I am sure a good mother
like you must be as much devoted to him as your darling Menie.”
Mrs Laurie, who was not used to speak of darling Menies, nor to think it
at all essential that she should be devoted to Randall Home, was
considerably confused by this appeal, and could only answer in a very
quiet tone, which quite acted as a shadow to Miss Annie’s glow of
enthusiasm, that Randall was a very good young man, and that she had
never objected to him.
“The course of true love never did run smooth,” said the greatly
interested Miss Annie. “My dear Mrs Laurie, I am afraid you must have
had some other, perhaps more ambitious views, or you could not
possibly--with your experience, too--speak with so little interest of
your dear child’s happiness.”
Here Menie ventured to glance out. The lady of the house swayed lightly
back and forward, with one foot on the ground and another on the close
turf of the little lawn, switching the yew-tree playfully with a wand of
hawthorn; and the wind blew Miss Annie’s long ringlets against her
withered cheek and fluttered the lace upon her arm, with a strange
contempt for her airy graces, and for the levity so decayed and out of
date, which Menie felt herself blush to see. Opposite, upon the grass,
stood Mrs Laurie, the sun beating down upon her snowy matron-cap, her
healthful cheek, her sober household dignity. But the sun revealed to
Menie something more than the natural good looks of that familiar face.
Mrs Laurie’s cheek was flushed a little. Mrs Laurie’s fine clear dark
eye wandered uneasily over the garden, and Mrs Laurie’s foot patted the
grass with a considerable impatience. Half angry, disconcerted,
abashed, annoyed, Menie’s mother could but half conceal an involuntary
smile of amusement, too.
“Yes, my child’s happiness is very dear to me,” said Mrs Laurie, with
half a shade of offence in her tone. “But Menie is very young--I am in
no haste to part with her.”
“Ah, my dear, youth is the time,” said Miss Annie pathetically--“the
first freshness, you know, and that dear, sweet, early susceptibility,
of which one might say so many charming things. For my part, I am quite
delighted to think that she has given her heart so early, so many
experiences are lost otherwise. I remember--ah, I remember!--but really,
Mrs Laurie, you surprise me. I see I must give my confidence to Menie.
Poor little darling--I am afraid you have not encouraged her to confide
all her little romantic distresses to you.”
“I have always respected Menie’s good sense,” said Mrs Laurie hastily.
Then she made a somewhat abrupt pause, and then glanced up with her look
of disconcertment and confusion, half covered with a smile. “I am
Menie’s mother, and an old wife now, Miss Annie. I am afraid I have lost
a great deal of that early susceptibility you spoke of--and I scarcely
think my daughter would care to find it in me--but we are very good
friends for all that.”
And Mrs Laurie’s eye, glistening with mother pride, and quite a
different order of sentiment from Miss Annie’s, glanced up involuntarily
to Menie’s window. Menie had but time to answer with a shy child’s look
of love out of her downcast eyes--for Menie shrank back timidly from the
more enthusiastic sympathy with which her grand-aunt waited to overpower
her--and disappeared into the quiet of her room, to sit down in a shady
corner a little, and wind her maze of thoughts into some good order. The
sun was drawing towards the west--it was time to descend to the shady
drawing-room of Heathbank, where Randall by-and-by should be received
for the first time as Miss Annie Laurie’s guest.