A PENITENT.
When, on the Sunday morning, Coquette, having risen, dressed, and
come into her sitting-room, went forward to one of the small windows,
she uttered a cry of delight. She had no idea that the surroundings
of her new home were so beautiful. Outside the bright sunlight of
the morning fell on the Minister's garden and orchard--a somewhat
tangled mass, it is true, of flower beds and apple trees, with
patches of cabbage, pease, and other kitchen stuff filling up every
corner. A white rose-tree nearly covered the wall of the Manse, and
hung its leaves and blooms round the two windows; and when she opened
one of these to let the fresh air rush in, there was a fragrance that
filled the room in a second.
But far beyond the precincts of the Manse stretched a great
landscape, so spacious, so varied, so graduated in hue and tone that
her eye ran over it with an ever-increasing delight and wonder.
First, the sea. Just over the mountains of the distant island of
Arran--a spectral blue mass lying along the horizon--there was a
confusion of clouds that let the sunlight fall down on the plain of
water in misty, slanting lines. The plain was dark, except where
those rays smote it sharp and clear, glimmering in silver: while a
black steamer, a mere speck, slowly crept across the lines of
blinding light. Down in the south there was a small grey cloud, the
size of a man's hand, resting on the water; but she did not know that
that was the rock of Ailsa. Then, nearer shore the blue sea fringed
with white ran into two long bays, bordered by a waste of ruddy sand;
and above the largest of these great bays she saw a thin line of dark
houses and gleaming slates, stretching from the old-world town of
Saltcoats up to its more modern suburb of Ardrossan, where a small
fleet of coasting vessels rocked in the harbour. So near were these
houses to the water that, from where Coquette stood, they seemed a
black fringe of breastwork to the land; and the spire of Saltcoats
church, rising from above the slates, was sharply defined aginst the
wide and windy breidth of waves.
Then inland. Her room looked south; and before her stretched the
fair and fertile valleys and hills of Ayrshire--undulating heights
and hollows, intersected by dark green lines of copse running down to
the sea. The red flames of the Stevenston ironworks flickered in the
daylight: a mist of blue smoke hung over Irvine and Troon; and, had
her eyes known where to look, she might have caught the pale grey
glimmer of the houses of Ayr. As the white clouds sailed across the
sky, azure shadows crept across the variegated landscape, momentarily
changing its many hues and colours; and while some dark wood would
suddenly deepen in gloom, lo! beside it, some hitherto unperceived
corn-field would as suddenly burst out in a gleam of yellow, burning
like gold.
So still it was on this quiet Sunday morning, that she could hear the
"click" of a grasshopper on the warm gravel outside, and the hum of a
passing bee as it buried itself in one of the white roses, and then
flew on. Nay, as she continued gazing away towards the south, it
seemed to her that she could hear more. Was not that the plashing of
the sea on the sunny coast of France? Was not that the sound of
chanting in the small chapel at Le Croisic, out there the point of
land that runs into the sea above the estuary of the Loire. Her
mental vision followed the line of coast running inward--passing the
quaint houses and the great building yards of St. Nazaire--and then,
as she followed the windings of the broad blue river, she came to her
own home, high up on the bank, overlooking the islands on the stream
and the lower land and green woods beyond.
"If I had a pair of wings," she said, with a laugh, "I would fly
ayvay." She had determined she would always speak English now, even
to herself.
She went to her piano and sat down and began to sing the old and
simple air that she had sung when she left her southern home. She
sang of "Normandie, ma Normandie;" and the sensitive thrill of a rich
and soft contralto voice lent a singular pathos to the air, although
she had gone to the piano chiefly from lightness of heart. Now it
happened that the Whaup was passing the foot of the stair leading up
to her room. At first he could not believe his ears that any one was
actually singing a profane song on the Sabbath morning; but no sooner
had he heard "O Normandie, ma Normandie!" than he flew up the stairs,
three steps at a bound, to stop such wickedness.
She did not sing loudly, but he thought he had never heard such
singing. He paused for a moment at the top of the stair. He
listened, and succumbed to the temptress. The peculiar penetrating
timbre of the contralto voice pierced him and fixed him there, so
that he forgot all about his well-meant interference. He listened
breathlessly, and with a certain amount of awe, as if it had been
vouchsafed to him to hear the chanting of angels. He remembered no
more that it was sinful; and when the girl ceased, it seemed to him
there was a terrible void in the silence, which was almost misery.
Presently her fingers touched the keys again. What was this now that
filled the air with a melody which had a strange distance and
unearthliness about it? She had begun to play one of Mozart's
sonatas, and was playing it carelessly enough; but the Whaup had
never heard anything like it before. It seemed to him to open with
the sad stateliness of a march, and he could almost hear in it the
tread of aerial hosts; then there was a suggestion of triumph and
joy, subsiding again into that plaintive and measured cadence. It
was full of dreams and mystery to him; he knew no longer that he was
in a Scotch Manse. But when the girl within the room broke into the
rapidity of the first variation, and was indeed provoked into giving
some attention to her playing, he was recalled to himself. He had
been deluded by the devil. He would no longer permit this thing to
go on unchecked. And it is probable he would at once have opened the
door and charged her to desist, but from a sneaking hope that she
might play something more intelligible to him than these variations,
which he regarded as impudent and paganish--the original melody
playing hide-and-seek with you in a demoniac fashion, and laughing at
you from behind a corner, when you thought you had secured it. He
was lingering in this uncertain way when Leezibeth dashed up the
stairs. She saw him standing there, listening, and threw a glance of
contempt upon him. She banged the door open, and advanced into the
room.
"Preserve us a', lassie, do ye think what ye're doing? Do ye no ken
this is the Sabbath, and that you're in a respectable house?"
The girl turned round with more wonder than alarm in her face.
"Is it not right to play music on Sunday?"
"Sunday! Sunday!" exclaimed Leezibeth, who was nearly choking,
partly from excitement and partly from having rushed upstairs; "your
heathenish gibberish accords weel wi' sic conduct! There is nae
Sunday for us. We are no worshippers o' Bel and the Draugon; and
dinna ye tell me that the dochter o' the minister's brither doesna
ken that it is naething less than heathenish to turn a sober and
respectable house into a Babel o' a theatre on a Sabbath morning----"
At this moment the Whaup made his appearance, with his eyes aflame.
"Plenty, plenty, Leezibeth!" said he, standing out in the middle of
the floor.
"Ma certes," said Leezibeth, turning on her new enemy, "and this is a
pretty pass! Is there to be nae order in the house because ye are a'
won ower by a smooth face and a pair o' glintin' een? Is the Manse
to be tumbled tapsalteery, and made a byword o' because o' a foreign
hussy?"
"Leezibeth," said the Whaup, "as sure's death, if ye say another word
to my cousin, ye'll gang fleeing' down that stair quicker than ever
ye came up! Do ye hear?"
Leezibeth threw up her hands, and went away. The Manse would soon be
no longer fit for a respectable woman to live in. Singing, and
dancing, and play-acting on the Sabbath morning--after all, Andrew
was right. It would have been a merciful dispensation if the boat
that brought this Jezebel to the country had foundered in sight of
its shores.
Then the Whaup turned to Coquette.
"Look here," said he, "I don't mean to get into trouble more nor I
can help. Leezibeth is an authority in the Manse, and ye'll hae to
make friends wi' her. Don't you imagine you can play music here or
do what ye like on the Sabbath; for you'll have to be like the
rest--gudeness gracious! what are ye crying for?--"
"I do not know," she said, turning her head aside. "I thank you for
your kindness to me."
"Oh," said he, with a tremendous flush of red to his face--for her
tears had made him valiant--"is that all? Look here, you can depend
on me. When you get into trouble, send for me. If any man or woman
in Airlie says a word to you, by jingo! I'll punch their head!"
And thereupon she turned and looked at him with laughter like
sunshine struggling through the tears in her eyes.
"Is it English--_ponche sare hade_?"
"Not as you pronounce it," he said, coolly. "But as I should show
them, if they interfered wi' you, it's very good English, and Scotch,
and Irish all put together."
On Sunday morning Mr. Cassilis had his breakfast by himself in his
study. The family had theirs in the ordinary breakfast room,
Leezibeth presiding. It was during this meal that Coquette began for
the first time to realise the fact that there existed between her and
the people around her some terrible and inexplicable difference which
shut her out from them. Leezibeth was cold and distant to her. The
boys, all except the Whaup, who manfully took her part, looked
curiously at her. And with her peculiar sensitiveness to outward
impressions, she began to ask herself if there might not be some
cause for this suspicion on their part. Perhaps she was, unknown to
herself, more wicked than others. Perhaps her ignorance--as in this
matter of music, which she had always regarded as harmless--had
blinded her to the fact that there was something more demanded of her
than the simple, and innocent, and joyous life she believed herself
to have led. These doubts and anxieties grew in proportion to their
vagueness. Was she, after all, a dangerous person to have come among
these religious people? Andrew would have been rejoiced to know of
these agitating thoughts: she was awakening to a sense of
wretchedness and sin.
Scarcely was breakfast over than a message was brought that Mr.
Cassilis desired to see his niece privately. Coquette rose up, very
pale. Was it now that she was to have explained to her the measure
of her own godlessness, that seemed to be a barrier between her and
the people among whom she was to live?
She went to the door of the study and paused there, with her heart
beating. Already she felt like a leper that stood at the gates, and
was afraid to talk to any passer-by for fear of a cruel repulse. She
opened the door, with downcast look, and entered. Her agitation
prevented her from speaking. And then, having raised her eyes, and
seeing before her the tall, grey-haired Minister seated in his chair,
she suddenly went forward to him, and flung herself at his feet,
bursting into a wild fit of weeping, and burying her face in his
knees. In broken speech, interrupted by passionate sobbing and
tears, she implored him to deal gently with her if she had done wrong.
"I do not know," she said, "I do not know. I do not mean to do
wrong. I will do what you tell me--but I am all alone here--and I
cannot live if you are angry with me. I will go away, if you
like--perhaps it will be better if I go away, and not vex you any
more."
"But you have not vexed me, my lassie--you have done no wrong that I
know of," he said, putting his hand on her head. "What is all this?
What does it mean?"
She looked up to see whether the expression of his face corresponded
with the kindness of his voice. She saw in those worn, grey, lined
features nothing but gentleness and affection; and the ordinary
sternness of the deep-set eyes replaced by a profound pity.
"I cannot tell you in English--in French I could," she said. "They
speak to me as if I was different from them, and wicked; and I do not
know in what. I thought you willed to reproach me. I could not bear
that. If I do without knowing, I will do better if you will tell me;
but I cannot live all by myself, and think that I am wicked, and not
know. If it is wrong to play music, I will not play any more music.
I will ask Lissiebess to pardon me my illness of this morning, which
I did not know at all."
The Minister smiled.
"So you have been playing music this morning, and Leezibeth has
stopped you? I hope she was not to blame in her speech, for to her
it would seem very heinous to hear profane music on the Sabbath.
Indeed, we all of us in Scotland consider that the Sabbath should be
devoted to meditation and worship, not to idleness and amusement; and
ye will doubtless come to consider it no great hardship to shut your
piano one day out o' the seven. But I sent for ye this morning wi'
quite another purpose than to scold ye for having fallen through
ignorance into a fault, of which, indeed, I knew nothing."
He now began to unfold to her the serious perplexity which had been
caused him by the fact of her having been brought up a Roman
Catholic. On the one hand, he had a sacred duty to perform to her as
being almost her sole surviving relation; but on the other hand, was
he justified in supplanting with another faith that faith in which
her mother had desired her to remain? The Minister had been
seriously troubled about this matter; and wished to have it settled
before he permitted her to go to church with the rest of his family.
He was a scrupulously conscientious man. They used to say of him in
Airlie that if Satan, in arguing with him, were to fall into a trap,
Mr. Cassilis would scorn to take advantage of any mere slip of the
tongue--a piece of rectitude not invariably met with in religious
disputes. When, therefore, the Minister saw placed in his hands a
willing convert, he would not accept of the conversion without
explaining to her all the bearings of the case, and pointing out to
her clearly what she was doing.
Coquette solved the difficulty in a second.
"If mamma were here," she said, "she would go at once to your church.
It never mattered to us--the church. The difference--or is it
differation is the proper English?--was nothing to us; and papa did
not mind. I will go to your church, and you will tell me all what it
is right. I will soon know all your religion," she added, more
cheerfully, "and I will sing those dreadful slow tunes which papa
used to sing--to make mamma laugh."
"My brother might have been better employed," said the Minister, with
a frown; but Coquette ran away, light-hearted, to dress herself to go
with the others.
The Whaup was a head taller when he issued from the Manse, by the
side of his new cousin, to go down to the little church. He was her
protector. He snubbed the other boys. To one of them--Wattie the
sneak--he had administered a sharp cuff on the side of the head, when
the latter, on Coquette being summoned into the study, remarked
confidentially, "She's gaun to get her licks;" and now, when the
young lady had come out in all the snowy brightness of her summer
costume, "Wattie revenged himself by murmuring to his companions--
"Doesna she look like a play-actress?"
So the small procession passed along the rough moorland road until
they drew near the little grey church and its graveyard of rude
stones. Towards this point converged the scattered twos and threes
now visible across the moor and down in the village--old men and
women, young men and maidens all in their best Sunday "braws." The
dissonant bell was sounding harshly; and the boys, before going into
the gloomy little building, threw a last and wistful glance over the
broad moor, where the bronzed and the yellow butterflies were
fluttering in the sunlight, and the bees drowsily humming in the
heather.
They entered. Every one stared at Coquette, as they had stared at
her outside. The boys could not understand the easy self-composure
with which she followed the Whaup down between the small wooden
benches, and took her place in the Minister's pew. There was no
confusion or embarrassment in her manner on meeting the eyes of a lot
of strangers.
"She's no feared," said Wattie to his neighbour.
When Coquette had taken her seat, she knelt down and covered her face
with her hands. The Whaup touched her arm quickly.
"Ye must not do that," said he, looking round anxiously to see
whether any of the neighbours had witnessed this piece of Romish
superstition.
That glance round dashed from his lips the cup of pleasure he had
been drinking. Quietly regarding both himself and Coquette, he met
the eyes of Lord Earlshope; and the congregation had not seen
anything of Coquette's kneeling, for the simple reason that they had
turned from her to gaze on the no less startling phenomenon of Lord
Earlshope occupying his family pew, in which he had not been seen for
years.