THE QUIET HEART.
“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 of 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 of 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 with 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 distinct 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 Menie, 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.
It is very pleasant here, in the shady drawing-room of Heathbank. Out of doors, these grassy slopes, which Menie Laurie cannot believe to be the heath, are all glowing with sunshine; but within here, the light falls cool and green, the breeze plays through the open window, and golden streaks of sunbeams come in faintly at one end, through the bars of the Venetian blind, upon the pleasant shade, touching it into character and consciousness. It is a long room with a window at either end, a round table in the middle, an open piano in a recess, and pretty bits of feminine-looking furniture straying about in confusion not too studied. The walls are full of gilt frames, too, and look bright, though one need not be unnecessarily critical about the scraps of canvass and broad-margined water-colour drawings which repose quietly within these gilded squares. They are Miss Annie Laurie’s pictures, and Miss Annie Laurie feels herself a connoisseur, and is something proud of them, while it cannot be denied that the frames do excellent service upon the shady drawing-room wall.
Mrs Laurie has found refuge in the corner of a sofa, and, with a very fine picture-book in her hand, escapes from the conversation of Miss Annie, which has been so very much in the style of the picture-book that Menie’s mother still keeps her flush of abashed annoyance upon her cheek, and Menie herself lingers shyly at the door, half afraid to enter. There is something very formidable to Menie in the enthusiasm and sympathy of her aunt.
“My pretty darling!” said Miss Annie—and Miss Annie lifted her dainty perfumed fingers to tap Menie’s cheeks with playful grace. Menie shrank back into a corner, blushing and disconcerted, and drooped her head after a shy girlish fashion, quite unable to make any response. “Don’t be afraid, my love,” said the mistress of the house, with a little laugh. “Don’t fear any jesting from me—no, no—I hope I understand better these sensitive youthful feelings—and we shall say nothing on the subject, my dear Menie—not a word—only you must trust me as a friend, you know, and we must wait tea till he comes—ah, tillhecomes, Menie.”
Poor Menie for the moment could have wishedhima thousand miles away; but she only sat down, very suddenly and quietly, on a low seat by the wall, while Miss Annie tripped away to arrange some ornamental matters on the tea-table, where her little china cups already sparkled, and her silver tea-pot shone. Menie took courage to look at her kinswoman’s face as this duty was being performed. Withered and fantastic in its decayed graces, there was yet a something of kindness in the smile. The face had been pretty once in its youthful days—a sad misfortune to it now, for if it were not for this long-departed, dearly remembered beauty, there might have been a natural sunshine in Miss Annie Laurie’s face.
As it was, the wintry light in it played about gaily, and Miss Annie made very undeniable exertions to please her visitors. She told Menie of her own pursuits, as a girl might have done in expectation of a sharer in them; and to Mrs Laurie she gave a sketch of her “society,” the few friends who, Menie thought, made up a very respectable list in point of numbers. Mrs Laurie from her sofa, and Menie on her seat by the wall, looking slightly prim and very quiet in her shy confusion, made brief answers as they could. Their entertainer did not much want their assistance; and by-and-by Menie woke with a great flush to hear the little gate swing open, to discern a lofty figure passing the window, and the sound of a quick step on the gravel path. Randall was at the door.
And Randall, looking very stately, very gracious and deferential, came through the shower of “delighteds” and “most happys” with which Miss Annie saluted him, with a bow of proud grace and much dignity of manner, to Mrs Laurie’s extreme surprise, and Menie’s shy exultation. Another hour passed over very well. The strangers grew familiar with Miss Annie; then by-and-by they strayed out, all of them, into the sweet evening air, so full of charmed distant voices, the hum and breath of far-off life; and Menie found herself, before she was aware, alone under a sky slowly softening into twilight, in a pretty stretch of sloping turf, where some young birch-trees stood about gracefully, like so many children resting in a game, with Randall Home by her side.
And they had found time for various pieces of talk, quite individual and peculiar to themselves, before Menie lifted her face, with its flush of full unshadowed pleasure, and, glancing up to the other countenance above her, asked, “When is the next book coming, Randall?”
“What next book, May Marion?”
This was his caressing name for her, as May alone was his father’s.
“Thenext book—our next book,” said Menie. “I do not know much, nor maybe care much, about anybody else’s. Randall—our own—when is it coming?”
“What if it should never come at all?”
Randall drew her fingers through his hand with playful tenderness, half as he might have done with a child.
“Yes—but I know it is to come at all, so that is not my question,” said Menie. “I want to knowwhen—not if. Tell me—for you need not be coy, or think of keeping such a secret from me.”
“Did you never hear that it is dangerous to hurry one work upon another?” was the answer somewhat evasively given. “I am to be prudent this time—there is peril in it.”
“Peril to what?” Menie Laurie looked up with simple eyes into a face where there began to rise some faint mists. Looking into them, she did not comprehend at all these floating vapours, nor the curve of fastidious discontent which they brought to Randall’s lip and brow.
“My simple Menie, you do not know how everything gets shaped into a trade,” said Randall, with a certain condescension. “Peril to reputation, risk of losing what one has gained—that is what we all tremble for in London.”
“Randall!” Menie looked up again with a flush of innocent scorn. He might speak it, indeed, but she knew he could mean nothing like this.
There was a slight pause—it might be of embarrassment—on Randall’s part; certainly he made no effort to break the silence.
“But a great gift was not given for that,” said Menie rapidly, in her unwitting enthusiasm. “People do not have unusual endowments given them to be curbed by such things as that; and you never meant it, Randall; it could not moveyou.”
But Randall only drew his hand fondly over the fingers he held, and smiled—smiled with pleasure and pride, natural and becoming. He had not been sophisticated out of regard for the warm appreciation and praise of those most dear to him. He might distrust it—might think the colder world a better judge, and the verdict of strangers a safer rule, but in his heart he loved the other still.
But Menie’s thoughts were disturbed, and moved into a sudden ferment. Her hand trembled a little on Randall’s arm; her eyes forsook his face, and cast long glances instead over the bright air before them; and when she spoke, her voice was as low as her words were quick and hurried.
“It does not become me to teach you, but, Randall, Randall, you used to think otherwise. Do you mind what you used to say about throwing away the scabbard, putting on the harness—Randall, do you mind?”
“I mind many a delightful hour up on the hillside yonder,” said Randall affectionately, “when my May Marion began to enter into all my dreams and hopes; and I mind about the scabbard and the harness no less,” he continued, laughing, “and how I meditated flashing my sword in the eyes of all the world, like a schoolboy with his first endowment of gunpowder; but one learns to know that the world cares so wonderfully little about one’s sword, Menie; and moreover—you must find out for me the reason why—this same world seems to creep round one’s-self strangely, and by-and-by one begins to feel it more decorous to hide the glitter of the trenchant steel. What a coxcomb you make me,” said Randall, abruptly breaking off with a short laugh; “one would fancy this same weapon of mine was the sword of Wallace wight.”
Menie made no answer, and the discontent on Randall’s face wavered into various shades of scorn,—a strange scorn, such as Menie Laurie had never seen before on any face—scorn half of himself, wholly of the world.
“When I knew I had succeeded,” said Randall at length, with still a tone of condescension in his confidence, “I was a little elated, I confess, Menie, foolish as it seems, and thought of nothing but setting to work again, and producing something worthy to live. Well, that is just the first impulse; by-and-by I came to see what a poor affair this applause was after all, and to think I had better keep what I had, without running the risk of losing my advantage by a less successful stroke. After all, this tide of popularity depends on nothing less than real ‘merit,’ as the critics call it; so I apprehend we will have no new book, Menie; we will be content with what we have gained.”
“If applause is such a poor affair, why be afraid of the chance of losing it?” said Menie; but she added hastily, “I want to know about Johnnie Lithgow, Randall; is it possible that he has come to be a great writer too?”
“If I only knew what you meant by a great writertoo,” said Randall, with a smile. “Johnnie Lithgow is quite a popular man, Menie—one of the oracles of the press.”
“Is it a derogation, then, to be a popular man?” said the puzzled Menie; “or is he afraid to risk his fame, like you?”
The lofty head elevated itself slightly. “No. Johnnie Lithgow is not a man for fame,” said Randall, with some pride. “Johnnie does his literary work like any other day’s work; and, indeed, why should he not?”
Menie looked up with a blank look, surprised, and not comprehending. Even the stronger emotions of life, the passions and the anguishes, had never yet taken hold of Menie; still less had the subtle refining, the artificial stoicism of mere mind and intellect, living and feeding on itself; and Menie’s eye followed his slight unconscious gestures with wistful wonderment as Randall went on.
“After all, what does it signify—what does anything of this kind signify? One time or another appreciation comes; and if appreciation never should come, what then? So much as is good will remain. I do not care a straw for applause myself. I rate it at its own value; and that is nothing.”
It began to grow somewhat dark, and Menie drew her shawl closer. “I think it is time to go home,” she said softly; and as she spoke, a vision of the kindly home she had left—of the brave protecting hills, the broad fair country, the sky and atmosphere, all too humble for this self-abstraction, which answered in clouds and tears, in glorious laughter and sunshine, to every daily change—rose up before her; some tears, uncalled for and against her will, stole into Menie’s eyes. With a little awe, in her innocence, she took Randall’s arm again. He must be right, she supposed; and something very grand and superior was in Randall’s indifference—yet somehow the night air crept into Menie’s heart, as she had never felt it do before. Many an hour this soft night air had blown about her uncovered head, and tossed her hair in curls about her cheeks—to-night she felt it cold, she knew not why—to-night she was almost glad to hurry home.
“Randall Home is a very superior young man,” said Mrs Laurie, with quiet approbation. “Do you know, Menie, I had begun to have serious thoughts about permitting your engagement so early?—if my only bairn should leave me—leave me, and get estranged into another house and home, with a man that was a stranger in his heart to me. Whisht, Menie—my darling, what makes you cry?”
But Menie could not tell; the night air was still cold at her heart, and she could not keep back these unseasonable tears.
“But I am better pleased to-night than I have been for many a day,” said Mrs Laurie. “I never saw him so kindly, so like what I would desire. I was a little proud of him to-night, if it were for nothing but letting Miss Annie see that we are not all such common folk as she thinks down in the south country—though, I suppose, I should say the north country here. Menie! he will lose my good opinion again if I think he has vexed you. What ails you, bairn? Menie, my dear?”
“I don’t know what it is, mother—no, no, he did not vex me. I suppose I am glad to hear you speak of him so,” said the shy Menie, ashamed of her tears. The mother and daughter were in their own room preparing for rest, and Menie let down her hair over her face, and played with it in her fingers, that there might be no more remark or notice of this unwilling emotion. It was strange—never all her life before had Menie wept for anything indefinite: for childish provocations—for little vexations of early youth—for pity—she had shed bright transitory tears, but she had never “cried for nothing” until now.
“Yes, I am pleased,” said Mrs Laurie, as she tied her muslin cap over her ears: “what did you say, Menie? I thought this coming to London would satisfy me on the one point which is likely to be more important than all others, and I was right. Yes, Menie, lie down, like a good girl; you must be wearied—and lie down with a good heart—you have a fair prospect, as fair as woman could wish. I am quite satisfied myself.”
But how it came about that Menie only slept in broken snatches—that Menie dreamt uncomfortable dreams of harassment and annoyance—dangers in which Randall forsook her—cares of which he had no part—Menie did not know. A day ago, and Mrs Laurie’s unsolicited avowal of “satisfaction” had lifted Menie into the purest glow of joy, but to-night she cannot tell what makes her so restless and uneasy—what prompts her now and then to fall a-weeping, all unwillingly, and “for nothing.” Alas for Menie Laurie’s quiet heart!—something has come to trouble the waters, but in other guise than an angel’s.
The grass is soft and mossy under the elm trees, and the morning air—a world of sweetness—beautifies their every branch and stem. Down yonder in the hollow, low at your feet, Menie Laurie, the great slave Titan has wakened to his daily toil. Is that the sweep of his mighty arm stirring the heavy mist which hangs above him? Is this the clang of his ponderous tools ringing up faintly into the quiet skies? The children are not astir yet, to seek their pleasure in these precincts. Nothing seems awake in this composed and sober place; but yonder, with many a conflict in his heart, with many a throbbing purpose in his brain, with life and strength tingling to his finger-points, with sighs and laughter swelling in his breath—yonder great vassal of the world is up and doing, holding the fate of a new day undeveloped in his busy hand.
And you, young wondering heart, look out upon him, innocent, ignorant, wistful, like an angel on the threshold of the world—nothing knowing the wiles and snares, the tortures and deliriums that live yonder under the battle-cloud, unacquainted with those prodigious penalties of social life, which yonder are paid and borne every hour; but looking out with your head bent forward, and your innocent eyes piercing far in the dreamy vision of reverie, making wistful investigation into the new marvels round you, pondering and bewildered in your own secret soul.
Randall—looking out thus through the morning light upon the city, one can see him in so many aspects;—the light shines upon his lofty head, reaching almost to the skies, like the hill of his quiet home—and Menie lifts her eyes to follow that noble daring look of his, piercing up through mortal clouds and vapours to do homage with the gifts God has given him, at his Master’s throne and footstool; but anon there steals a cloud round the hero of Menie’s vision—a dim background, which still reveals him, not less clearly, nor with less fascination, but with a sadder wonder of interest—for Randall’s eyes are bent earthward, Randall’s lofty head is bowed, and Menie, though she watches him with yearning curiosity, can never meet his downcast look to read what is there—can never fathom what lies within the veiled heart and self-abstracted soul. You would think now that her eyes are caught by the sunshine yonder making such mischievous confusion among the city vapours: Not so; for Menie’s eyes, under that troubled curve of her forehead, are studying Randall, and see only an incomprehensible something in him, overshadowing all the earth and all the skies.
With her little basket in her hand, with her dainty step, and fluttering muslin gown, Miss Annie brushes the dew from the grass, as she draws near the elm trees. But though Miss Annie has been very confidential with her grand-niece on the subject of her own juvenile occupations, one little piece of daily business Miss Annie has forborne to tell of, and that is a morning visit she pays to a poor pensioner or two in the village, where, if perhaps her charity may be sometimes intrusive, it is always real. For poor Miss Annie’s heart, though it figures so much in her common talk, and is overlaid with so many false sentimentalities, has a true little fountain of human kindness in it, spite of the fantastic pretences that hide it from common view. Absorbed with her new thoughts, Menie neither heard nor saw her aunt’s approach, till she woke with a start to hear a gay laugh behind her, and to feel the pressure of those long thin fingers upon her eyelids. “Dreaming, Menie? ah, my pretty love! but not ‘in maiden meditation fancy free.’”
Startled and abashed, Menie drew back, but Miss Annie’s ringlets had already touched her forehead, as Miss Annie bestowed the morning salutation upon Menie’s cheek; and now they are seated side by side under shadow of the greatest elm.
“My dear, I am afraid your mamma does not encourage you to confide in her; you must tell me all your little trials, Menie,” said Miss Annie, fluttering with her finger-points upon Menie’s hand; “and now, my darling, speak to me freely—you were delighted to meet him last night.”
But Menie had no voice to answer, and could only bend down her flushed face, and pluck up the grass with her disengaged hand.
“Don’t be shy, love. I am so much interested; and tell me, Menie, you found him quite unchanged?—just as devoted as he used to be? I am sure one only needed to look at him—and how delightful to find him quite unchanged!”
“How far is it to London, aunt?” said Menie, with confusion.
“So near that your thoughts have travelled there this morning to find him out, I know,” said Miss Annie,—“so near that he can come out every night, so we need not talk of London: but come now, darling; have you nothing to tell me?”
“You are very good,” said Menie, with a slight falter in her voice. “I—I should like very well to take Jenny, if you please, to see some of the great sights.”
Miss Annie shook her head—“Ah, Menie, how mischievous! Don’t you think I deserve your confidence?”
“But, indeed, I have no confidence to give,” said Menie, almost under her breath.
“My dear, I was just like you: the Scotch system is so restrictive—I was afraid to speak to any one,” said Miss Annie; “and so you see I had a little misunderstanding; and he was angry, and I was angry; and first we quarrelled, and then we sulked at each other, and so at last it came about that we were parted. Yes, Menie, dear! just now you are happy; you do not care for a sympathising heart; but if you should chance to be disappointed—I trust not, my love, but such things will happen—you will then remember that I too have been blighted—oh, my dear child!”
And with a wave of her hand, expressing unutterable things, Miss Annie arranged her light silken mantle over this same blighted heart of hers, as if to hide the wound.
But Menie, whose mind already had recovered its tone—Menie, who now only remembered Randall unchanged, unchangeable, towering high above all vulgar quarrels and sullennesses, a very fortress for a generous heart to dwell in—Menie sprang lightly up from the elastic turf, and stood with her slight young figure relieved against the morning sky, and all her frame vibrating with pride and joy in her worthy choice. What chance that she should ever give this wished-for confidence—should ever turn to seek such sympathy—should ever find comfort or solace in hearing of Miss Annie Laurie’s kindred woe?
“It is two years now since Randall came to London. From Dumfriesshire we send out a great many cadets into the world, Miss Annie; and some one who knew his father found a situation here for Randall Home. He brought his book with him, and it was published, and very successful; then he came home, and sought my consent to his engagement with Menie. That is all Randall’s history in connection with us. The other young man you expect to-night, Miss Annie, is only a cottager’s son—very clever, I hear, but not in any way, I fancy, to be put in comparison with Randall Home.”
And Mrs Laurie took up her work with a little quiet pride, resolved to be very kind to Johnnie Lithgow, but by no means pleased to have him mentioned in the same breath with her future son-in-law.
“I adore talent,” said Miss Annie, opening her work-table to take out a tiny bit of “fancy” work. “I could not describe the delight I have in the society of people of genius—self-taught genius too—so charming; and both of these delightful young men must be self-taught.”
Mrs Laurie drew herself up with a little hauteur.
“Mr Home has had an excellent education; his father is a very superior man. Johnnie Lithgow, as I said before, is only a cottager’s son.”
But Miss Annie could not see the distinction, and ran on in such a flutter of delight in anticipation of her guests, that Mrs Laurie quietly retired into the intricacies of her work, and contented herself with a resolution to be very kind and condescending to the popular editor, the cottager’s son.
The drawing-room is in special glory—the pinafores discarded from the chairs, the little tables crowded with gay books and toys and flowers, and everything in its company dress. Mrs Laurie—who never can be anything but Mrs Laurie, a matron of sober years, and Menie’s mother—sits, in her grave-coloured gown and snowy cap, upon the sofa; while on a stool low down by her side, in a little tremor of expectation, Miss Annie perches like a bird, waiting the arrival of her visitors. Mrs Laurie, with her Dumfriesshire uses, quite believes what Miss Annie says, that only “a few friends” are coming to-night, and has not the slightest idea that the lady of the house will be greatly mortified if her rooms are not filled in an hour or two with a little crowd.
And up-stairs, resplendent in Jenny’s gown, Menie Laurie stands before the glass, fastening on one or two simple ornaments, and admiring, with innocent enjoyment, her unusually elegant dress. You may guess by this glimpse of these well-known striped skirts, full and round, revealing themselves under cover of the curtains, that Jenny too has been admiring her own magnificent purchase. But Jenny by this time has grown impatient, and jealous that Menie’s admiration prolongs itself only to please her, Jenny; so, giving premonition by sundry restless gestures of the advent of a “fuff,” she has turned to look out from the window upon the sandy road which leads to ’Eathbank.
“Eh, Miss Menie! that brockit ane’s a bonnie cow,” said Jenny; “I never see onything else in this outlandish place that minds me of hame, if it binna the mistress and yoursel. I’ll just bide and look out for the young lads, Miss Menie. Ye needna clap your hands, as if Jenny was turning glaikit; if they werena lads frae our ain countryside, they micht come and gang a twelvemonth for me.”
“But the ladies and the gentlemen will see you from the window, Jenny,” said Menie Laurie.
“Ise warrant they’ve seen waur sichts,” said Jenny briskly; “I’m no gaun to let down my ainsel, for a’ Ihavea thraw; and I would just like to ken, if folk wanted to see a purposelike lass, fit for her wark, wha they could come to in this house but me? There’s my lady’s maid—set her up!—in her grand gown, as braw as my lady; and there’s the tither slaving creature put off a’ this morning clavering to somebody, and no fit to be seen now; for a’ they scoff at my short-gown and good linsey coats. But they may scoff till they’re tired, for Jenny; I’m no gaun to change, at my time of life, for a’ the giggling in London town.”
“But you’ll put on your gown to-night, Jenny,” said Menie persuasively, patting her shoulder. “There’s Randall did not see you last time he was here; and Johnnie Lithgow, you would like to see him. Come, Jenny, and put on your gown.”
“It’s no muckle Randall Home heeds about me, and you ken that,” said Jenny; “and for a’ he didna see me, I saw him the last time he was here. I’ll just tell you, Miss Menie, yon lad, to be a richt lad, is owre heeding about himsel.”
“You’re not to say that, Jenny; it vexes me,” said Menie, with simple gravity; “besides, it is not true. You mistake Randall—and then Johnnie Lithgow.”
“I wadna say but what I micht be pleased to get a glint ofhim,” said Jenny. “Eh, my patience! to think of Betty Armstrong’s son sitting down with our mistress. But I’ll be sure to ca’ them by their richt names afore the folk. I canna get my tongue about thae maisters. Maister Lithgow! and me minds him a wee white-headed laddie, hauding up his peeny for cakes on the Hogmanay, and pu’ing John Glendinning’s kailstocks at Hallowe’en. What would I put on my gown for, bairn? As sure as I gang into the room, I’ll ca’ him Johnnie.”
But Jenny’s scruples at last yielded, and Jenny came forth from her chamber glorious in a blue-and-yellow gown, printed in great stripes and figures, and made after an antediluvian fashion, which utterly shocked and horrified the pretty Maria, Miss Annie Laurie’s favourite maid. Nor was Miss Annie Laurie herself less disconcerted, when honest Jenny, the high shoulder largely developed by her tight-fitting gown, and carrying a cake-basket in her brown hands, made her appearance in the partially filled drawing-room, threading her way leisurely through the guests, and examining, with keen glances and much attention, the faces of the masculine portion of them. Miss Annie made a pause in her own lively and juvenile talk, to watch the strange figure and the keen inquiring face, over which a shade of bewilderment gradually crept. But Miss Annie no longer thought it amusing, when Jenny made an abrupt pause before her young mistress, then shyly endeavouring to make acquaintance with some very fine young ladies, daughters of Miss Annie’s loftiest and most aristocratic friends, and said in a startling whisper, which all the room could hear, “Miss Menie! ye micht tell folk which is him, if he’s here; but I canna see a creature that’s like Johnnie Lithgow of Kirklands, nor ony belanging to him, in the haill room.”
Miss Annie Laurie, much horrified, rose from her seat somewhat hastily; but at the same moment up sprang by her side the guest to whom her most particular attentions had been devoted—“And Burnside Jenny has forgotten me!”
Burnside Jenny, quite forgetful of “all the folk,” turned round upon him in an instant. Not quite Johnnie Lithgow, the merriest mischief-doer in Kirklands parish, but a face that prompted recollections of his without dispute—blue eyes, dancing and running over with the light of a happy spirit—and a wisp of close curls, not many shades darker in colour than those of the “white-headed laddie,” whose merry tricks Jenny had not forgotten. “Eh, man! is this you?” said Jenny, with a sigh of satisfaction. “I aye likit the callant for a’ his mischief, and it’s just the same blythe face after a’.”
Randall Home stood leaning his fine figure against the mantelpiece, and took no notice of Jenny. Randall was somewhat afraid of a similar recognition; but Johnnie Lithgow, who did not affect attitudes—Johnnie Lithgow, who was neither proud nor ashamed of being a cottager’s son, and who had a habit of doing such kindly things as occurred to him without consideration of prudence—drew her aside by both her brown hands, out of which Jenny had laid the cake-basket, to talk to her of home. A slight smile curled on the lip of Randall Home. How well he looked, leaning upon his arm, his lofty head towering over every other head in Miss Annie’s drawing-room, with his look of conscious dignity, his intellectual face! Menie Laurie and Menie Laurie’s mother did not find it possible to be other than proud of him; yet the eyes of both turned somewhat wistfully to the corner, to dwell upon a face which for itself could have charmed no one, but which beamed and shone like sunshine upon Jenny, greeting her as an old friend.
“Your friend is a literary man?” said somebody inquiringly, taking up a respectful position by Randall’s side.
“Yes, poor fellow; he spins himself out into daily portions for the press,” said Randall.
“A high vocation, sir; leader of public opinions and movements,” said the somebody, who professed to be an intellectual person, a man of progress.
“Say rather the follower,” said Randall; “and well for those who have the happy knack of following wisely—chiming in, before itself is fully aware of it, with the humour of the time.”
Menie Laurie, who was close at hand, and heard all this, ventured a whisper, while Randall’s companion had for the moment turned away.
“Your words sound as if you slighted him, Randall, and you too call yourself a literary man.”
“Good Johnnie Lithgow, I like him extremely,” said Randall, with the half-scornful smile which puzzled Menie; “but he is only a literary workman after all. He does his literature as his day’s labour—he will tell you so himself—a mere craft for daily bread.”
And just then Lithgow turned round, with his radiant face—he who had no fame to lose, and did an honest day’s work in every day, not thinking that the nature of his craft excused him from the natural amount of toil—and again Menie felt a little pang at her heart, as she thought of Randall’s jealous guardianship of Randall’s youthful fame.
“I have been thinking of bringing up my mother to live with me,” said the Mr Lithgow in whom Mrs Laurie and her daughter were beginning to forget the humble Johnnie: “I see no reason why she should live in poverty in Kirklands, while I am comfortable here.”
His face flushed slightly as he concluded, and he began to drum with his fingers in mere shyness and embarrassment upon Miss Annie Laurie’s work-table. Randall, a little distance from him, was turning over with infinite scorn Miss Annie’s picture-books. The two young men had grown familiar in the house, though it was not yet a month since they entered it first.
“And I think you are very right,” said Mrs Laurie cordially, “though whether Mrs Lithgow might be pleased with a town life, or whether—”
She paused; it was not very easy to say “whether your mother would be a suitable housekeeper for you.” Mrs Laurie could not do violence either to her own feelings or his by suggesting such a doubt.
“I think it would be a great risk,” said Randall, “and if you consulted me, would certainly warn you against it. Your mother knows nothing of London—she would not like it; besides, a young man seeking his fortune should be alone.”
“Cold doctrine,” said Lithgow, smiling, “and to come fromyou.”
His eye fell unconsciously upon Menie; then as he met a quick upward glance from her, he stammered, blushed, and stopped short—for Johnnie Lithgow was as shy and sensitive as a girl, and had all the reverence of youthful genius for womanhood and love. With compunction, and an idea that he had been jesting profanely, Lithgow hurriedly began again.
“I am so vain as to thinkImyself would be London to my mother—old ground long known and well explored. If she would not like the change, of course—but I fancy she might.”
“I advise you against it, Lithgow,” said Randall; “in your case I should never entertain such an idea. There is my father—no one can have a greater respect for him than I—but to bring him to live with me—to bring him to London—I should think it the merest folly, injurious to us both.”
“Your wisdom is very safe at least,” said Mrs Laurie, with a little asperity, “since there is no chance of your good father leaving his own respectable house for an unknown and strange place in any case; but I think your wish a very natural one, and very creditable to you, Mr Lithgow; and whether she comes or not, the knowledge that you wish for her will be joy to your mother’s heart.”
With his usual half-disdainful smile Randall had turned away, and there was a slight flush of anger upon Mrs Laurie’s face. Indignation and scorn,—there was not much hope of friendliness where such unpromising elements had flashed into sudden existence. Menie, looking on with terror, and perceiving a new obstacle thrown into her way, hastily endeavoured to make a diversion.
“Do you know, Mr Lithgow, that July Home is coming up to London to see me?”
There came a sudden brightening to all the kindly lines of the young man’s face. “July Home! if I am too familiar, forgive me, Randall—but I have so many boyish recollections of her. She was such a sweet little timid simple womanly child too. I wonder if July minds me as I mind her.”
Randall stood apart still, with his smile upon his lips. True, there had been a momentary curve on his brow at Lithgow’s first mention of his sister’s name, but his face cleared immediately. Poor little July! Randall might know her sufficiently timid and simple—but July was a baby, a toy, a good-hearted kindly little fool to her intellectual brother—and any higher qualities sweet or womanly about her remained to be found out by other eyes than his.
“And Miss Annie has promised us all the sight-seeing in the world,” said Menie with forced gaiety, anxious to talk, and to conciliate—to remove all trace of the little breaking of lances which had just passed. “July and Jenny and I, we are to see all manner of lions; and though they will be very dull at Crofthill when she is gone, Mr Home and Miss Janet have consented—so next week July is to come.”
“Poor July! she will have enough to talk of all her life after,” said her brother.
“Yes; our kindly country seems such a waste and desert place to you London gentlemen,” said Mrs Laurie; “and it is wonderful, after all, how we manage to exist—ay, even to flourish and enjoy ourselves, in these regions out of the world.”
But Randall made no response. A shivering chill came over Menie Laurie; this half-derisive silence on one side, this eager impulse of contradiction and opposition on the other, smote her to the heart. It had been rising gradually for some days past, and Menie, without being quite aware of it, had noticed the bias with which her mother and her betrothed listened and replied to each other; the unconscious inclination of each to give an unfavourable turn to the other’s words, a harshness to the other’s judgment, an air of personal offence to a differing opinion, of grave misdemeanour to a piece of blameless jesting. Lithgow, stranger as he was, discovered in a moment, so quick and sensitive was his nature, the incipient estrangement, and grew embarrassed and annoyed in spite of himself—annoyed, embarrassed, it looked so much like the last ebullition of some domestic quarrel; but Lithgow was a stranger, and had no interest farther than for the harmony of the moment in any strife of these conflicting minds.
But here sits one whose brow must own no curve of displeasure, whose voice must falter with no embarrassment. She is sitting by the little work-table in the window, her eyes, so wistful as they have grown, so large and full, and eloquent with many meanings, turning from one to the other with quick earnest glances, which are indeed whispers of deprecation and peace-making. “He means something else than he says; he is not cold-hearted nor insincere; you mistake Randall,” say Menie’s eyes, as they labour to meet her mother’s, and gaze with eager perturbation in her face, deciphering every line and wrinkle there. “Do not speak so—you vex my mother; but she does not mean to be angry,” say the same strained and ever-changing eyes, as they turn their anxious regards to Randall’s face. She sits between us and the light—you can see her girlish figure outlined against the window—her face falling from light to shadow, brightening up again from shadow to light, as she turns from one to the other; you can see how eagerly she listens, prompt to rush forward with her own softening gentle speech upon the very border of the harsher words, whose utterance she cannot prevent. The very stoop of her head—the changeful expression of her face, which already interprets the end of the sentence ere it is well begun—her sudden introduction of one subject after another, foreign to their former talk—her sudden interest in things indifferent, and all the wiles and artifices with which she hedges off all matters of personal or individual interest, and abstracts the conversation into the channel of mere curiosity, of careless and everyday talk—are all sufficiently visible exponents of Menie’s new position, and new trials. She is talking to Lithgow now so rapidly, and with so much demonstration of interest—you would almost fancy this poor loving Menie had caught a contagious enthusiasm from Miss Annie Laurie’s juvenile delights—talking of these sights of the great unknown London, which have grown so indifferent and paltry to this suddenly enlightened and experienced mind of hers; but in the midst of all you can see how steadily her wakeful eyes keep watch upon Randall yonder by Miss Annie’s miniature book-cases, and Mrs Laurie here, with that little angry flush upon her brow.
So slow the hours seem—so full of opportunities of discussion—so overbrimming with subjects on which they are sure to differ; till Menie, in her gradually increasing excitement, forgets to note the progress of time; but is so glad—oh, so glad and joyful—to see the evening fall dark around them, to hear Maria’s step drawing near the door, while the lights she carries already throw their glimmer on the wall. It is late; and now the visitors take leave, somewhat reluctantly, for Lithgow begins to like his new friends greatly; and Randall, though something of irritation is in the face, where his smile of disdain still holds sway, is Menie’s ardent wooer still, and feels a charm in her presence, simple though he has discovered her to be. But at last they are gone—safely gone; and Menie, when she has watched them from the door, and listened to their steps till they die away a distant echo upon the silent air, steals away in the dark to her own room—not for any purpose—simply to rest herself a little; and her manner of rest is, sitting down upon a low stool close by the window, where some pale moonlight comes in faintly, and bending down her face into her clasped hands to weep a little, silently and alone.
Is it but to refresh the wistful eyes which this night have been so busy? is it but to wash and flood away the pain that has been in their eager deprecating looks, their speeches of anxious tenderness? But Menie does not say even to herself what it is for, nor why. For some weeks now, Menie has been sadly given to “crying for nothing,” as she herself calls it. She thinks she ought to be ashamed of her weakness, and would be afraid to acknowledge it to any living creature; but somehow, for these few days, Menie has come away about this same hour every night into the solitude here, to cry, with sometimes a little impatient sob bursting out among her tears—though she cannot tell you, will not tell you—would not whisper even to her own very secret heart, the reason why.
Mrs Laurie sits by the table with her work; but it is still an easy thing to perceive the irritation on Mrs Laurie’s brow; her hand moves with an additional rapidity, her breath comes a little faster; and if you watch, you will see the colour gradually receding from her cheek, like an ebbing tide, and her foot ceasing to play so impatiently upon its supporting stool.
Very humbly, like a culprit, Menie draws forward her chair to the light. She is admonished, ere long, by a hasty answer, an abrupt speech, a slight pushing back from the table, and erection of her figure, that Mrs Laurie is still angry. It is strange how this cows and subdues Menie—how eager she is to say something—how humble her tone is—and how difficult she feels it to find anything to say.
Poor heart! like many another bewildered moth, Menie flutters about the subject it behoves her most to avoid, and cannot help making timid allusions to their future life in London—that future life which begins to darken before her own vision under a cloudy horizon of doubt and dread. It has ceased to be a speculation now, this future; for even within these few days there has been talk of Menie’s marriage.
“We will speak of some other thing; there is no very great charm in the future for me, Menie,” said Mrs Laurie, with a sigh.
But Menie, with trembling temerity, begs to know the reason why. Why?—what concerns her concerns her mother also. Very timid, yet too bold, Menie insists, and will be satisfied—why?
“Because it is hard to lose my only child,” said Mrs Laurie. “Let us not deceive ourselves; it is easy to say we will not be separated, that there shall be no change. I know better, Menie: well, well; do not cry—say it is only the natural lot.”
“What is only the natural lot? O mother, mother! tell me.” Menie is still pertinacious, even through her tears.
“I will tell you, Menie,” said Mrs Laurie, quickly. “Randall Home and I cannot dwell under one roof in peace. I foresee a wretched life for you, if we tried it; a constant struggle—a constant failure. Menie, I will try to be content; but your mother feels it hard to yield up you and your love to a stranger—very hard. I ought to be content and submissive. I ought to remember that it is the common necessity—an everyday trial; but we have been more to each other than mere mother and daughter. I cannot hide it from you, Menie; this trial is very grievous to me.”
“Mother! mother!” It is not “for nothing” now that Menie Laurie weeps.
“You have been the light of my eyes for twenty years—my baby, my only bairn! I have nothing in the world when you are gone. Menie, have patience with your mother. I thought we might have been one household still. I never thought I could have hurt my bairn by clinging to her with all my heart. I see through another medium now. Menie, this that I say is better for us both. I would lose my proper place—I would lose even my own esteem—if I insisted, or if I permitted you to insist, upon our first plan. I do not mean to insist with Randall,” said Mrs Laurie, with a sudden flush of colour, “but with ourselves. It is not for your credit, any more than mine, that your mother should be unnecessarily humiliated; and I choose to make this decision myself, Menie, not to have it forced upon me.”
“If you think so—if I have nothing to hope but this—mother, mother!” cried Menie in her sobs, “there is yet time; we can change it all.”
But Menie’s voice was choked; her head bowed down upon her folded arms; her strength and her heart were overcome. The room was only partially lighted. So vacant—only these two figures, with their little table and their lamp at one end—it looked lonely, silent, desolate; and you could hear so plainly the great struggle which Menie had with these strong sobs and tears.
Mrs Laurie wiped a few hot hasty drops from her own eyes. She was not much used to contest; nor was it in her to be inflexible and stern; and the mother could not see her child’s distress. “Menie!” Menie can make no answer; and Mrs Laurie rises to go to her side, to pass a tender caressing hand over the bowed head, to shed back the disordered hair. “Menie, my dear bairn, I did not mean to vex you. I will do anything—anything, Menie; only do not let me see you in such grief as this.”
“He is not what you think, mother—he is not what you think,” cried Menie; “it is not like this what he says of you. O mother! I do not ask you to do him justice—to think well of him. I ask a greater thing of you;—mother, hear me—I ask you to like him for Menie’s sake.”
And it will not do to evade this petition by caresses, by soothing words, by gentle motherly tenderness. “Yes, Menie, my darling, I’ll try,” said Mrs Laurie at last, with tearful eyes. “Do you think it is pleasant to me to be at strife with Randall? God forbid! and him my dear bairn’s choice; but do not look at me with such a pitiful face. Menie, we’ll begin again.”
Was Menie content? for the moment more than content, springing up into a wild exhilaration, a burst of confidence and hope. But by-and-by the conversation slackened—by-and-by the room became quite silent, with its dim corners, its little speck of light, and the two figures at its farther end. A heavy stillness brooded over them—they forgot that they had been talking—they forgot, each of them, that she was not alone. The leaves stirred faintly on the windows—the night wind rustled past the yew-tree on the lawn. From the other end of the house came sometimes a stir of voices, the sound of a closed or opened door; but here everything was silent—as still as if these were weird sisters, weaving, with their monotonous moving fingers, some charm and spell; while, down to the depths—down, down, as far into the chill and dark of sad presentiment as a heart unlearned could go—fluttering, with its wings close upon its breast, its song changed into a mournful cry—down out of the serene heavens, where it had its natural dwelling, came Menie Laurie’s quiet heart.
Through the depth and darkness of the summer night, you can hear Mrs Laurie’s quiet breathing as she lies asleep. With a pain at her heart she lay down, and when she wakes she will feel it, or ever she is aware that she has awaked; but still she sleeps: blessing on the kind oblivion which lays all these troubles for a time to rest.
But what is this white figure erecting itself from the pillow, sitting motionless and silent in the night? It is tears that keep these gentle eyelids apart—tears that banish from them the sleep of youth. Still, that she may not wake the sleeper by her side, scarcely daring to move her hand to wipe away this heavy dew which blinds her eyes. Menie Laurie, Menie Laurie, can this sad watcher be you?
And Menie’s soul is vexing itself with plans and schemes, and Menie’s heart is rising up to God in broken snatches of prayer, constantly interrupted, and merging into the bewilderment of her thoughts. Startled once for all out of the early calm, the serene untroubled youthful life which lies behind her in the past, Menie feels the change very hard and sore as she realises it; from doing nought for her own comfort—from the loving sweet dependence upon others, to which her child’s heart has been accustomed—suddenly, without pause or preparation, to learn that all must depend upon herself—to have the ghost of strife and discord, where such full harmony was wont to be—to feel the two great loves of her nature—the loves which heretofore, in her own innocent and unsuspicious apprehension, have but strengthened and deepened each the other, set forth in antagonism, love against love, and her own heart the battle-ground. Shrinking and failing one moment, longing vainly to flee away—away anywhere into the utmost desolation, if only it were out of this conflict,—the next resolving, with such strong throbs and beatings of her heart, to take up her burden cordially, to be ever awake and alert, to subdue this giant difficulty with the force of her own strong love and ceaseless tenderness—praying now for escape, then for endurance, and anon breaking into silent tears over all. Alas for Menie Laurie in her unaccustomed solitude! and Menie thinks, like every other Menie, that she could have borne anything but this.
But by-and-by, in spite of tears and trouble, the natural rest steals upon Menie—steals upon her unawares, though she feels, in the sadness of her heart, as if she could never rest again; throws back her drooping head upon her pillow, folds her arms meekly on her breast, closes her eyelids over the unshed tear; and thus it is that the dawn finds her out, like a flower overcharged and drooping with its weight of evening dew, but wrapt in sleep as deep and dreamless and unbroken as if her youth had never known a tear.
The sun is full in the room when Menie wakes, and Mrs Laurie has but a moment since closed the door softly behind her, that the sleeper might not be disturbed. Even this tender precaution, when she finds it out, chills Menie to the heart; for heretofore her mother’s voice has roused her, and even her mother’s impatience of her lingering would be joy to her to-day; but Mrs Laurie is not impatient. Mrs Laurie thinks it better, for all the sun’s unceasing proclamation that night and sleep are past, to let the young heart refresh itself a little longer, to leave the young form at rest.
Ay, Menie Laurie, kneel down by your bedside—kneel down and pray; it is not often that your supplications testify themselves in outward attitude. Now there is a murmur of an audible voice speaking words to which no mortal ear has any right to listen; and your downcast face is buried in your hands, and your tears plead with your prayers. For you never thought but to be happy, Menie, and the gentle youthful nature longs and yearns for happiness, and with the strength of a rebel fights against the pain foreseen—poor heart!
“Eh, Jenny! you’re no keeping ill-will?” said a doleful voice upon the lawn below; very distinct, through the open window, it quickened Menie’s morning toilette considerably, and drew her forward, with a wondering face, to make sure. “I’m sure it’s no in me to be unfriends with onybody; and after ane coming a’ this gate for naething but to ask a civil question, how you a’ was. I’m saying, Jenny? you’re no needing to haud ony correspondence with me except ye like; it’s the mistress and Miss Menie I’m wanting to see.”
“Am I to let in a’ the gaun-about vagabones that want to see the mistress and Miss Menie?” said Jenny’s gruff voice in reply. “I trow no; and how ye can have the face to look at Jenny after your last errand till her, I canna tell; ye’ll be for undertaking my service ance mair? but ye may just as weel take my word ance for a’—the mistress canna bide ye ony mair than me.”
“Eh, woman, Jenny, ye’re a thrawn creature!” said Nelly Panton. “I’m sure I never did ye an ill turn a’ my days. But ye needna even the like of your service to me; I’m gaun to live with our Johnnie, and keep his house, and Johnnie’s company are grander folk than the mistress; but I’m no forgetting auld friends, so I came to ask for Miss Menie because I aye likit her, and because she’s a young lass like mysel; and I’ll gang and speak to that ither servant-woman if you’ll no tell Miss Menie I’m here.”
Jenny’s fury—for very furious was Jenny’s suppressed fuff at the presumptuous notion of equality or friendship between Menie Laurie and Nelly Panton—was checked by this threat; and fearful lest the dignity of her young mistress should be injured in the eyes of the household by the new-comer’s pretensions, Jenny, who had held this colloquy out of doors, turned hastily round and pattered away by the back entrance to open the door for the visitor, muttering repeated adjurations. “My patience!” and Jenny’s patience had indeed much reason to be called to her aid.
Menie’s curiosity was a little roused—her mind, withdrawn from herself, lightened somewhat of its load, and she hastened down stairs less unwillingly than she would have done without this interruption. Jenny stood by the drawing-room door holding it open; and Jenny’s sturdy little form vibrated, every inch of it, with anger and indignation. “Ane to speak to you, Miss Menie!—ane used with grand society, and owre high for the like of me. Ye’ll have to speak to her yoursel.”
And Menie suddenly found herself thrust into the room, while Jenny, with an audible snort and fuff, remained in possession of the door.
Nelly Panton had too newly entered on her dignities to be able to restrain the ancient curtsey of her humility. Yes, undoubtedly, it was Nelly Panton—with the same faded gown, the same doleful shawl, the same wrapped-up and gloomy figure. Against the well-lighted, well-pictured wall of Miss Annie Laurie’s drawing-room she stood in dingy individuality dropping her curtsey, while Menie, much surprised and silent, stood before her waiting to be addressed.
“Can nane of ye speak?” said the impatient Jenny, from the door. “Miss Menie, are ye no gaun to ask what is her business here? A fule micht ha’e kent this was nae place to come back to, after her last errand to Burnside; and when she kens I canna bide her, and the mistress canna bide her, to come and set up for a friendship with you!”
“She’s just as cankered as she aye was, Miss Menie,” said Nelly Panton, compassionately, shaking her head. “It shows an ill disposition, indeed, when folk canna keep at peace with me, as many a time I’ve telt my mother. But ye see, Miss Menie, I couldna just bide on in Kirklands when ye were a’ away, so I just took my fit in my hand, and came on to London to see after Johnnie with my ain een. He needs somebody to keep him gaun, and set him richt, puir callant; and he’s in a grand way for himsel, and should be attended to—so I think I’ll just stay on, Miss Menie; and the first thing I did was to come and ask for you.”
“You are very kind, Nelly,” said Menie Laurie; but Menie paused with a suppressed laugh when she saw Jenny’s clenched hand shaken at her from the door.
“And ye’ll maybe think I’m no just in condition to set up for friends with the like of you,” said Nelly, glancing down upon her dress; “but I only came in to London the day before yesterday, and I’ve naething yet but my travelling things. I’m hearing that little Juley Home of Braecroft’s coming too; and between you and me, Miss Menie, no to let it gang ony farther, I think it was real richt and prudent of you to show us the first example, and draw us a’ up to London to take care of thae lads.”
“What do you mean, Nelly?” exclaimed Menie, somewhat angrily.
“Ye may weel say what does she mean,” said Jenny, making a sudden inroad from the door. “Do you hear, ye evil speaker!—the mistress is out, and there’s naebody to take care of this puir bairn but me; whatever malice and venom ye have to say, out wi’t, and I’ll tell the young lady what kind of character ye are when a’s dune.”
“I wadna keep such a meddling body in my house—no, if she did the wark twice as weel,” retorted Nelly, with calm superiority; “and I’ve nae call to speak my mind afore Jenny, and her aye misca’in’ me; but it’s nae secret of mine. I was just gaun to say, that for a’ our Johnnie’s a very decent lad, and minds upon his friends, I never saw ane, gentle or simple, sae awfu’ muckle tooken up about himsel as Randy Home. He’s anither lad altogether to what he used to be; and it’s no to be thocht but what he’s wanting a grand wife like a’ the rest. Now, ye’ll just see.”
Menie Laurie put down Jenny’s passionate disclaimer by a motion of her hand. “If this was what you came to tell me, Nelly, I fear I shall scarcely be grateful for your visit. Do you know that it is an impertinence to say this to me? Whisht, Jenny, that is enough; and I came here to look after no one. Whatever you may have thought before, you will believe this now, since I say it. Jenny will see that you are comfortable while you stay out here; but I think, Nelly, you have said enough to me this morning, and I to you—Jenny, whisht.”
“I’ll no whisht,” cried Jenny, at last, freed by Menie’s pause. “Eh, ye evil spirit! will ye tell me what cause of ill-will ye ever could have against this innocent bairn? I’m no gaun to whisht, Miss Menie—to think of her coming up here ance errand to put out her malice on you! My patience! how ony mortal can thole the sicht o’ her, I dinna ken.”
“I can forgive ye, Jenny,” said the meek Nelly Panton, “for a’ your passions, and your glooms, and your ill words—I’m thankful to say I can forgive ye; but, eh, sirs, this is a weary world;—wherever I gang, at hame, or away frae hame, I’m aye miskent—naebody has the heart to take a guid turn frae me—though, I’m sure, I aye mean a’thing for the best, and it was richt Miss Menie should ken. I thocht I would just come up this far to give ye an advice, Miss Menie, when we were our lanes; and I’m no gaun to blaze up into a fuff like Jenny because it’s ill ta’en. I’m just as guid friends as ever. The next time I come I’ll come with our Johnnie, so I bid you a very good morning, Miss Menie Laurie, and mony thanks for your kind welcome. Jenny, fare-ye-well.”
Menie sat down in the window when the dark figure of her unwelcome visitor was gone. The sun came in upon her gaily—the genial August sun—and the leaves without fluttered in a happy wind and a maze of morning sounds, broken with shriller shouts of children, and rings of silvery laughter floated up and floated round her, of themselves an atmosphere fresh and sweet; but Menie bowed her face between her hands, and looked out with wistful eyes into the future, where so many fears and wonders had come to dwell; and vigilant and stern the meagre yew-tree looked in upon her, like an unkindly fate.