"My Dearest Sister,--At many risks I venture to write to you, to inform
you that I am still alive, and, as to worldly situation, that I rank
higher than I could expect or merit. If wealth, and distinction, and an
honourable rank, could make a woman happy, I have them all; but you,
Jeanie, whom the world might think placed far beneath me in all these
respects, are far happier than I am. I have had means of hearing of your
welfare, my dearest Jeanie, from time to time--I think I should have
broken my heart otherwise. I have learned with great pleasure of your
increasing family. We have not been worthy of such a blessing; two
infants have been successively removed, and we are now childless--God's
will be done! But, if we had a child, it would perhaps divert him from
the gloomy thoughts which make him terrible to himself and others. Yet do
not let me frighten you, Jeanie; he continues to be kind, and I am far
better off than I deserve. You will wonder at my better scholarship; but
when I was abroad, I had the best teachers, and I worked hard, because my
progress pleased him. He is kind, Jeanie, only he has much to distress
him, especially when he looks backward. When I look backward myself, I
have always a ray of comfort: it is in the generous conduct of a sister,
who forsook me not when I was forsaken by every one. You have had your
reward. You live happy in the esteem and love of all who know you, and I
drag on the life of a miserable impostor, indebted for the marks of
regard I receive to a tissue of deceit and lies, which the slightest
accident may unravel. He has produced me to his friends, since the estate
opened to him, as a daughter of a Scotchman of rank, banished on account
of the Viscount of Dundee's wars--that is, our Fr's old friend Clavers,
you know--and he says I was educated in a Scotch convent; indeed, I lived
in such a place long enough to enable me to support the character. But
when a countryman approaches me, and begins to talk, as they all do, of
the various families engaged in Dundee's affair, and to make inquiries
into my connections, and when I see his eye bent on mine with such an
expression of agony, my terror brings me to the very risk of detection.
Good-nature and politeness have hitherto saved me, as they prevented
people from pressing on me with distressing questions. But how long--O
how long, will this be the case!--And if I bring this disgrace on him, he
will hate me--he will kill me, for as much as he loves me; he is as
jealous of his family honour now, as ever he was careless about it. I
have been in England four months, and have often thought of writing to
you; and yet, such are the dangers that might arise from an intercepted
letter, that I have hitherto forborne. But now I am obliged to run the
risk. Last week I saw your great friend, the D. of A. He came to my box,
and sate by me; and something in the play put him in mind of
you--Gracious Heaven! he told over your whole London journey to all who
were in the box, but particularly to the wretched creature who was the
occasion of it all. If he had known--if he could have conceived, beside
whom he was sitting, and to whom the story was told!--I suffered with
courage, like an Indian at the stake, while they are rending his fibres
and boring his eyes, and while he smiles applause at each well-imagined
contrivance of his torturers. It was too much for me at last, Jeanie--I
fainted; and my agony was imputed partly to the heat of the place, and
partly to my extreme sensibility; and, hypocrite all over, I encouraged
both opinions--anything but discovery! Luckily, _he_ was not there. But
the incident has more alarms. I am obliged to meet your great man often;
and he seldom sees me without talking of E. D. and J. D., and R. B. and
D. D., as persons in whom my amiable sensibility is interested. My
amiable sensibility!!!--And then the cruel tone of light indifference
with which persons in the fashionable world speak together on the most
affecting subjects! To hear my guilt, my folly, my agony, the foibles and
weaknesses of my friends--even your heroic exertions, Jeanie, spoken of
in the drolling style which is the present tone in fashionable
life--Scarce all that I formerly endured is equal to this state of
irritation--then it was blows and stabs--now it is pricking to death
with needles and pins.--He--I mean the D.--goes down next month to spend
the shooting-season in Scotland--he says, he makes a point of always
dining one day at the Manse--be on your guard, and do not betray
yourself, should he mention me--Yourself, alas! _you_ have nothing to
betray--nothing to fear; you, the pure, the virtuous, the heroine of
unstained faith, unblemished purity, what can you have to fear from the
world or its proudest minions? It is E. whose life is once more in your
hands--it is E. whom you are to save from being plucked of her borrowed
plumes, discovered, branded, and trodden down, first by him, perhaps,
who has raised her to this dizzy pinnacle!--The enclosure will reach you
twice a-year--do not refuse it--it is out of my own allowance, and may
be twice as much when you want it. With you it may do good--with me it
never can.
"Write to me soon, Jeanie, or I shall remain in the agonising
apprehension that this has fallen into wrong hands--Address simply to L.
S., under cover, to the Reverend George Whiterose, in the Minster-Close,
York. He thinks I correspond with some of my noble Jacobite relations who
are in Scotland. How high-church and jacobitical zeal would burn in his
checks, if he knew he was the agent, not of Euphemia Setoun, of the
honourable house of Winton, but of E. D., daughter of a Cameronian
cowfeeder!--Jeanie, I can laugh yet sometimes--but God protect you from
such mirth.--My father--I mean your father, would say it was like the
idle crackling of thorns; but the thorns keep their poignancy, they
remain unconsumed. Farewell, my dearest Jeanie--Do not show this even to
Mr. Butler, much less to any one else. I have every respect for him, but
his principles are over strict, and my case will not endure severe
handling.--I rest your affectionate sister, E."
In this long letter there was much to surprise as well as to distress
Mrs. Butler. That Effie--her sister Effie, should be mingling freely in
society, and apparently on not unequal terms, with the Duke of Argyle,
sounded like something so extraordinary, that she even doubted if she
read truly. Not was it less marvellous, that, in the space of four years,
her education should have made such progress. Jeanie's humility readily
allowed that Effie had always, when she chose it, been smarter at her
book than she herself was, but then she was very idle, and, upon the
whole, had made much less proficiency. Love, or fear, or necessity,
however, had proved an able school-mistress, and completely supplied all
her deficiencies.
What Jeanie least liked in the tone of the letter, was a smothered degree
of egotism. "We should have heard little about her," said Jeanie to
herself, "but that she was feared the Duke might come to learn wha she
was, and a' about her puir friends here; but Effie, puir thing, aye looks
her ain way, and folk that do that think mair o' themselves than of their
neighbours.--I am no clear about keeping her siller," she added, taking
up a L50 note which had fallen out of the paper to the floor. "We hae
eneugh, and it looks unco like theftboot, or hushmoney, as they ca' it;
she might hae been sure that I wad say naething wad harm her, for a' the
gowd in Lunnon. And I maun tell the minister about it. I dinna see that
she suld be sae feared for her ain bonny bargain o' a gudeman, and that I
shouldna reverence Mr. Butler just as much; and sae I'll e'en tell him,
when that tippling body the Captain has ta'en boat in the morning.--But I
wonder at my ain state of mind," she added, turning back, after she had
made a step or two to the door to join the gentlemen; "surely I am no sic
a fule as to be angry that Effie's a braw lady, while I am only a
minister's wife?--and yet I am as petted as a bairn, when I should bless
God, that has redeemed her from shame, and poverty, and guilt, as ower
likely she might hae been plunged into."
Sitting down upon a stool at the foot of the bed, she folded her arms
upon her bosom, saying within herself, "From this place will I not rise
till I am in a better frame of mind;" and so placed, by dint of tearing
the veil from the motives of her little temporary spleen against her
sister, she compelled herself to be ashamed of them, and to view as
blessings the advantages of her sister's lot, while its embarrassments
were the necessary consequences of errors long since committed. And thus
she fairly vanquished the feeling of pique which she naturally enough
entertained, at seeing Effie, so long the object of her care and her
pity, soar suddenly so high above her in life, as to reckon amongst the
chief objects of her apprehension the risk of their relationship being
discovered.
When this unwonted burst of _amour propre_ was thoroughly subdued, she
walked down to the little parlour where the gentlemen were finishing
their game, and heard from the Captain a confirmation of the news
intimated in her letter, that the Duke of Argyle was shortly expected at
Roseneath.
"He'll find plenty of moor-fowls and plack-cock on the moors of
Auchingower, and he'll pe nae doubt for taking a late dinner, and a ped
at the Manse, as he has done pefore now."
"He has a gude right, Captain," said Jeanie.
"Teil ane potter to ony ped in the kintra," answered the Captain. "And ye
had potter tell your father, puir body, to get his beasts a' in order,
and put his tamn'd Cameronian nonsense out o' his head for twa or three
days, if he can pe so opliging; for fan I speak to him apout prute
pestil, he answers me out o' the Pible, whilk is not using a shentleman
weel, unless it be a person of your cloth, Mr. Putler."
No one understood better than Jeanie the merit of the soft answer, which
turneth away wrath; and she only smiled, and hoped that his Grace would
find everything that was under her father's care to his entire
satisfaction.
But the Captain, who had lost the whole postage of the letter at
backgammon, was in the pouting mood not unusual to losers, and which,
says the proverb, must be allowed to them.
"And, Master Putler, though you know I never meddle with the things of
your kirk-sessions, yet I must pe allowed to say that I will not be
pleased to allow Ailie MacClure of Deepheugh to be poonished as a witch,
in respect she only spaes fortunes, and does not lame, or plind, or
pedevil any persons, or coup cadger's carts, or ony sort of mischief; put
only tells people good fortunes, as anent our poats killing so many seals
and doug-fishes, whilk is very pleasant to hear."
"The woman," said Butler, "is, I believe, no witch, but a cheat: and it
is only on that head that she is summoned to the kirk-session, to cause
her to desist in future from practising her impostures upon ignorant
persons."
"I do not know," replied the gracious Duncan, "what her practices or
postures are, but I pelieve that if the poys take hould on her to duck
her in the Clachan purn, it will be a very sorry practice--and I pelieve,
moreover, that if I come in thirdsman among you at the kirk-sessions, you
will be all in a tamn'd pad posture indeed."
Without noticing this threat, Mr. Butler replied, "That he had not
attended to the risk of ill-usage which the poor woman might undergo at
the hands of the rabble, and that he would give her the necessary
admonition in private, instead of bringing her before the assembled
session."
"This," Duncan said, "was speaking like a reasonable shentleman;" and so
the evening passed peaceably off.
Next morning, after the Captain had swallowed his morning draught of
Athole brose, and departed in his coach and six, Mrs. Butler anew
deliberated upon communicating to her husband her sister's letter. But
she was deterred by the recollection, that, in doing so, she would unveil
to him the whole of a dreadful secret, of which, perhaps, his public
character might render him an unfit depositary. Butler already had reason
to believe that Effie had eloped with that same Robertson who had been a
leader in the Porteous mob, and who lay under sentence of death for the
robbery at Kirkcaldy. But he did not know his identity with George
Staunton, a man of birth and fortune, who had now apparently reassumed
his natural rank in society. Jeanie had respected Staunton's own
confession as sacred, and upon reflection she considered the letter of
her sisteras equally so, and resolved to mention the contents to no one.
On reperusing the letter, she could not help observing the staggering and
unsatisfactory condition of those who have risen to distinction by undue
paths, and the outworks and bulwarks of fiction and falsehood, by which
they are under the necessity of surrounding and defending their
precarious advantages. But she was not called upon, she thought, to
unveil her sister's original history--it would restore no right to any
one, for she was usurping none--it would only destroy her happiness, and
degrade her in the public estimation. Had she been wise, Jeanie thought
she would have chosen seclusion and privacy, in place of public life and
gaiety; but the power of choice might not be hers. The money, she
thought, could not be returned without her seeming haughty and unkind.
She resolved, therefore, upon reconsidering this point, to employ it as
occasion should serve, either in educating her children better than her
own means could compass, or for their future portion. Her sister had
enough, was strongly bound to assist Jeanie by any means in her power,
and the arrangement was so natural and proper, that it ought not to be
declined out of fastidious or romantic delicacy. Jeanie accordingly wrote
to her sister, acknowledging her letter, and requesting to hear from her
as often as she could. In entering into her own little details of news,
chiefly respecting domestic affairs, she experienced a singular
vacillation of ideas; for sometimes she apologised for mentioning things
unworthy the notice of a lady of rank, and then recollected that
everything which concerned her should be interesting to Effie. Her
letter, under the cover of Mr. Whiterose, she committed to the
post-office at Glasgow, by the intervention of a parishioner who had
business at that city.
The next week brought the Duke to Roseneath, and shortly afterwards he
intimated his intention of sporting in their neighbourhood, and taking
his bed at the Manse; an honour which he had once or twice done to its
inmates on former occasions.
Effie proved to be perfectly right in her auticipations. The Duke had
hardly set himself down at Mrs. Butler's right hand, and taken upon
himself the task of carving the excellent "barn-door chucky," which had
been selected as the high dishes upon this honourable occasion, before he
began to speak of Lady Staunton of Willingham, in Lincolnshire, and the
great noise which her wit and beauty made in London. For much of this
Jeanie was, in some measure, prepared--but Effie's wit! that would never
have entered into her imagination, being ignorant how exactly raillery in
the higher rank resembles flippancy among their inferiors.
"She has been the ruling belle--the blazing star--the universal toast of
the winter," said the Duke; "and is really the most beautiful creature
that was seen at court upon the birth-day."
The birthday! and at court!--Jeanie was annihilated, remembering well her
own presentation, all its extraordinary circumstances, and particularly
the cause of it.
"I mention this lady particularly to you, Mrs. Butler," said the Duke,
"because she has something in the sound of her voice, and cast of her
countenance, that reminded me of you--not when you look so pale
though--you have over-fatigued yourself--you must pledge me in a glass
of wine."
She did so, and Butler observed, "It was dangerous flattery in his Grace
to tell a poor minister's wife that she was like a court-beauty."
"Oho, Mr. Butler," said the Duke, "I find you are growing jealous; but
it's rather too late in the day, for you know how long I have admired
your wife. But seriously, there is betwixt them one of those inexplicable
likenesses which we see in countenances, that do not otherwise resemble
each other."
"The perilous part of the compliment has flown off," thought Mr. Butler.
His wife, feeling the awkwardness of silence, forced herself to say,
"That, perhaps, the lady might be her countrywoman, and the language
might have made some resemblance."
"You are quite right," replied the Duke. "She is a Scotch-woman, and
speaks with a Scotch accent, and now and then a provincial word drops out
so prettily, that it is quite Doric, Mr. Butler."
"I should have thought," said the clergyman, "that would have sounded
vulgar in the great city."
"Not at all," replied the Duke; "you must suppose it is not the broad
coarse Scotch that is spoken in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, or in the
Gorbals. This lady has been very little in Scotland, in fact she was
educated in a convent abroad, and speaks that pure court-Scotch, which
was common in my younger days; but it is so generally disused now, that
it sounds like a different dialect, entirely distinct from our modern
_patois._"
Notwithstanding her anxiety, Jeanie could not help admiring within
herself, how the most correct judges of life and manners can be imposed
on by their own preconceptions, while the Duke proceeded thus: "She is of
the unfortunate house of Winton, I believe; but, being bred abroad, she
had missed the opportunity of learning her own pedigree, and was obliged
to me for informing her, that she must certainly come of the Setons of
Windygoul. I wish you could have seen how prettily she blushed at her own
ignorance. Amidst her noble and elegant manners, there is now and then a
little touch of bashfulness and conventual rusticity, if I may call it
so, that makes her quite enchanting. You see at once the rose that had
bloomed untouched amid the chaste precincts of the cloister, Mr. Butler."