“Oh, doctor, you’re very kind—we’ve perhaps not been such good friends to ye as we might——”
“Friends, toots!” said the doctor, “we’re all friends at heart.”
Meantime the stir of an accident had got into the air. Miss Beenie’s cries had no doubt reached some rustic ears; but it takes a long time to rouse attention in those regions.
“What will yon be? It would be somebody crying. It sounded awfu’ like somebody crying. It will be some tramp about the roads; it will be somebody frighted at the muckle bull——” Then at last there came into all minds the leisurely impulse—“Goodsake, gang to the door and see——”
Janet Murray was the first to run out to her door. When her intelligence was at length awakened to the fact that something had happened, nobody could be more kind. She rushed out and ran against Fred Dirom, who was hurrying towards the cottage with a startled face.
“Can you get me a mattress or something to carry her upon?” he cried, breathless.
“Is it an accident?” said Janet.
“It is a fit. I think she is dying,” cried the young man much excited.
Janet flew back and pulled the mattress off her own bed. “It’s no a very soft one,” she said apologetically. Her man had come out of the byre, where he was ministering to a sick cow, an invalid of vast importancewhom he left reluctantly; another man developed somehow out of the fields from nowhere in particular, and they all hurried towards the spot where Miss Beenie sat on the ground, without a thought of her best gown, holding her sister’s head on her breast, and letting tears fall over the crushed bonnet which the doctor had loosened, and which was dropping off the old gray head.
“Oh, Sarah, can ye hear me? Oh, Sarah, do you know me? I’m your poor sister Beenie. Oh if ye could try to rouse yourself up to say a word. There was never anything you couldna do if ye would only try.”
“She’ll not try this time,” said the doctor. “You must not blame her. There’s one who has her in his grips that will not hear reason; but we’ll hope she’ll mend; and in the meantime you must not think she can help it, or that she’s to blame.”
“To blame!” cried Beenie, with that acute cry. “I am silly many a time; but she isnever to blame.” In sight of the motionless figure which lay in her arms, Miss Beenie’s thoughts already began to take that tinge of enthusiastic loyalty with which we contemplate the dead.
“Here they come, God be thanked!” said the doctor. And by and by a little procession made its way between the fields. Miss Dempster, as if lying in state on the mattress, Beenie beside her crying and mourning. She had followed at first, but then it came into her simple mind with a shiver that this was like following the funeral, and she had roused herself and taken her place a little in advance. It was a sad little procession, and when it reached the village street, all the women came out to their doors to ask what was the matter, and to shake their heads, and wonder at the sight.
The village jumped to the fatal conclusion with that desire to heighten every event which is common to all communities: andthe news ran over the parish like lightning.
“Miss Dempster, Rosebank, has had a stroke. She has never spoken since. She is just dead to this world, and little likelihood she will ever come back at her age.” That was the first report; but before evening it had risen to the distinct information—“Miss Dempster, Rosebank, is dead!”
Fred Dirom had been on his way to Gilston, when he was stopped and ordered into the service of the sick woman. He answered to the call with the readiness of a kind heart, and was not only the most active and careful executor of the doctor’s orders, but remained after the patient was conveyed home, to be ready, he said, to run for anything that was wanted, to do anything that might be necessary—nay, after all was done that could be done, to comfort Miss Beenie, who almost shed her tears upon the young man’s shoulder.
“Eh,” she said, “there’s the doctor we have aye thought so rough, and not a gentleman—and there’s you, young Mr. Dirom, that Sarah was not satisfied with for Effie; and you’ve just been like two ministering angels sent out to minister to them that are in sore trouble. Oh, but I wonder if she will ever be able to thank you herself.”
“Not that any thanks are wanted,” cried Fred cheerfully; “but of course she will, much more than we deserve.”
“You’ve just been as kind as—I cannot find any word to say for it, both the doctor and you.”
“He is a capital fellow, Miss Dempster.”
“Oh, do not call me Miss Dempster—not such a thing, not such a thing! I’m Miss Beenie. The Lord preserve me from ever being called Miss Dempster,” she cried, with a movement of terror. But Fred neither laughed at her nor her words. He was very respectful of her, full of pity and almost tenderness, not thinking of how much advantage to himself this adventure was to prove. It ran over the whole countryside next day, and gained “that young Dirom” many a friend.
And Effie, to whom the fall of Miss Dempster was like the fall of one of the familiar hills, and who only discovered how much she loved those oldest of friends after she began to feel as if she must lose them—Effie showed her sense of his good behaviour in the most entrancing way, putting off the shy and frightened aspect with which she had staved off all discussion of matters more important, and beginning to treat him with a timid kindness and respect which bewildered the young man. Perhaps he would rather even now have had something warmer and less (so to speak) accidental: but he was a wise young man, and contented himself with what he could get.
Effie now became capable of “hearingreason,” as Mrs. Ogilvie said. She no longer ran away from any suggestion of the natural end of all such engagements. She suffered it to be concluded that her marriage should take place at Christmas, and gave at last a passive consent to all the arrangements made for her. She even submitted to her stepmother’s suggestions about the trousseau, and suffered various dresses to be chosen, and boundless orders for linen to be given. That she should have a fit providing and go out of her father’s house as it became a bride to do, with dozens of every possible undergarments, and an inexhaustible supply of handkerchiefs and collars, was the ambition of Mrs. Ogilvie’s heart.
She said herself that Miss Dempster’s “stroke,” from which the old lady recovered slowly, was “just a providence.” It brought Effie to her senses, it made her see the real qualities of the young man whom she had not prized at his true value, and whose superiority as the best match in the countryside, she could not even now be made to see. Effie yielded, not because he was the best match, but because he had shown so kind a heart, and all the preparations went merrily forward, and the list of the marriage guests was made out and everything got ready.
But yet for all that, there was full time for that slip between the cup and the lip which so often comes in, contrary to the dearest expectations, in human affairs.
Theslip between the cup and the lip came in two ways. The first was the arrival from India—in advance of Eric who was to get the short leave which his stepmother thought such a piece of extravagance, in order to be present at the marriage of his only sister—of Ronald Sutherland, in order to take possession of the inheritance which had fallen to him on the death of his uncle.
It was not a very great inheritance—an old house with an old tower, the old “peel” of the Border, attached to it; a few farms, a little money, the succession of a family sufficiently well known in the countryside, but which had never been one of the greatfamilies. It was not much certainly. It was no more to be compared with the possessions in fact and expectation of Fred Dirom than twilight is with day; but still it made a great difference.
Ronald Sutherland of the 111th, serving in India with nothing at all but his pay, and Ronald Sutherland of Haythorn with a commission in her Majesty’s service, were two very different persons. Mrs. Ogilvie allowed that had old David Hay been so sensible as to die three years previously, she would not have been so absolutely determined that Ronald’s suit should be kept secret from Effie; but all that was over, and there was no use thinking of it. It had been done “for the best”—and what it had produced was unquestionably the best.
If it had so happened that Effie had never got another “offer,” then indeed there might have been something to regret; but as, on the contrary, she had secured the best matchin the county, her stepmother still saw no reason for anything but satisfaction in her own diplomacy. It had been done for the best; and it had succeeded, which is by no means invariably the case.
But Mrs. Ogilvie allowed that she was a little anxious about Ronald’s first appearance at Gilston. It was inevitable that he should come; for all the early years of his life Gilston had been a second home to him. He had been in and out like one of the children of the house. Mrs. Ogilvie declared she had always said that where there were girls this was a most imprudent thing: but she allowed at the same time that it is difficult to anticipate the moment when a girl will become marriageable, and had better be kept out of knowing and sight of the ineligible, so long as that girl is a child. Consequently, she did not blame her predecessor, Effie’s mother, for permitting an intimacy which at six was innocentenough, though it became dangerous at sixteen.
“Even me,” she said candidly, “I cannot throw my mind so far forward as to see any risks that little Annabella Johnston can run in seeing Rory every day—though sixteen years hence it will be different; for Rory, to be sure, will never be an eligible young man as long as his step-brother Eric is to the fore—and God forbid that anything should happen to Eric,” she added piously.
On this ground, and also because Ronald had the latest news to give of Eric, it was impossible to shut him out of Gilston, though Mrs. Ogilvie could not but feel that it was very bad taste of him to appear with these troubled and melancholy airs, and to look at Effie as he did. It was not that he made any attempt to interfere with the settlement of affairs. He made the proper congratulations though in a very stiff and formal way, and said he hoped that they would be happy.But there was an air about him which was very likely to make an impression on a silly, romantic girl.
He was handsomer than Fred Dirom—he was bronzed with Indian suns, which gave him a manly look. He had seen a little service, he was taller than Fred, stronger, with all those qualities which women specially esteem. And he looked at Effie when she was not observing—oh, but Mrs. Ogilvie said: “It is not an easy thing to tell when a girl is not observing!—for all that kind of thing they are always quick enough.”
And as a matter of fact, Effie observed keenly, and most keenly, perhaps, when she had the air of taking no notice. The first time this long, loosely clothed, somewhat languid, although well-built and manly figure had come in, Effie had felt by the sudden jump of her heart that it was no ordinary visitor. He had been something like a second brother when he went away, Eric’s invariablecompanion, another Eric with hardly any individual claim of his own: but everything now was very different. She said to herself that this jump of her heart which had surprised her so much, had come when she heard his step drawing near the door, so that it must be surely his connection with Eric and not anything in himself that had done it; but this was a poor and unsatisfactory explanation.
After that first visit in which he had hoped that Miss Effie would be very happy, and said everything that was proper, Effie knew almost as well as if she had been informed from the first, all that had passed: his eyes conveyed to her an amount of information which he was little aware of. She recognized with many tremors and a strange force of divination, not only that there had been things said and steps taken before his departure of which she had never been told, but also, as well as if it had beenput into words, that he had come home, happy in the thought of the fortune which now would make him more acceptable in the eyes of the father and stepmother, building all manner of castles in the air; and that all these fairy fabrics had fallen with a crash, and he had awakened painfully from his dream to hear of her engagement, and that a few weeks more would see her Fred Dirom’s wife.
The looks he cast at her, the looks which he averted, the thrill imperceptible to the others which went over him when he took her hand at coming and going, were all eloquent to Effie. All that she had felt for Fred Dirom at the moment when the genuine emotion in him had touched her to the warmest sympathy, was nothing like that which penetrated her heart at Ronald’s hasty, self-restrained, and, as far as he was aware, self-concealing glance.
In a moment the girl perceived, with amingled thrill of painful pleasure and anguish, what might have been. It was one of those sudden perceptions which light up the whole moral landscape in a moment, as a sudden flash of lightning reveals the hidden expanse of storm and sea.
Such intimations are most often given when they are ineffectual—not when they might guide the mind to a choice which would secure its happiness, but after all such possibilities are over and that happy choice can never be made. When he had gone away Effie slid out of sight too, and sought the shelter of her room, that little sanctuary which had hid so many agitations within the last few weeks, but none so tremendous as this. The discovery seemed to stun her. She could only sit still and look at it, her bosom heaving, her heart beating loudly, painfully like a funeral toll against her breast.
So, she said to herself,thatmight havebeen; andthiswas. No, she did not say it to herself: such discoveries are not made by any rational and independent action of mind. It was put before her by that visionary second which is always with us in all our mental operations, the spectator, “qui me resemblait comme mon frère,” whom the poet saw in every crisis of his career. That spiritual spectator who is so seldom a counsellor, whose office is to show the might-have-beens of life and to confound the helpless, unwarned sufferer with the sight of his mistakes when they are past, set this swiftly and silently before her with the force of a conviction. This might have been the real hero, this was the true companion, the mate congenial, the one in the world for Effie. But in the moment of beholding she knew that it was never to be.
And this was not her fault—which made it the more confusing, the more miserable. When it is ourselves who have made the mistake that spoils our lives, we have, at least, had something for it, the gratification of having had our own way, the pleasure of going wrong. But Effie had not even secured this pleasure. She would be the sufferer for other people’s miscalculations and mistakes. All this that concerned her so deeply she had never known. She faced the future with all the more dismay that it thus appeared to her to be spoiled for no end, destroyed at once for herself and Ronald and Fred. For what advantage could it be to Fred to have a wife who felt that he was not her chief good, that her happiness was with another? Something doubly poignant was in the feeling with which the poor girl perceived this.
Fred even, poor Fred, whom she approved and liked and sympathized with and did all but love—Fred would be nonethe better. He would be wronged even in having his heart’s desire conceded to him, whereas—it all came before Effie with another flash of realization—Fred would never have thought of her in that way had she been pledged to Ronald. They would have been friends—oh! such good friends. She would have been able to appreciate all his good qualities, the excellence that was in him, and no close and inappropriate relationship could have been formed between the two who were not made for each other.
But now all was wrong! It was Fred and she, who might have been such excellent friends, who were destined to work through life together, badly matched, not right, not right, whatever might happen. If trouble came she would not know how to comfort him, as she would have known how to comfort Ronald. She would not know how to help him. How was it shehad not thought of that before? They belonged to different worlds, not to the same world as she and Ronald did, and when the first superficial charm was over, and different habits, different associations, life, which was altogether pitched upon a different key, began to tell!
Alarm seized upon Effie, and dismay. She had been frightened before at the setting up of a new life which she felt no wish for, no impulse to embrace; but she had not thought how different was the life of Allonby from that of Gilston, and her modest notions of rustic gentility from the luxury and show to which the rich man’s son had been accustomed. Doris and Phyllis and their ways of thought, and their habits of existence, came before her in a moment as part of the strange shifting panorama which encompassed her about. How was she to get to think as they did, to accustom herself to their ways of living?She had wondered and smiled, and in her heart unconsciously criticised these ways: but that was Fred’s way as well as theirs. And how was she with her country prejudices, her Scotch education, her limitations, her different standard, how was she to fit into it? But with Ronald she would have dwelt among her own people—oh, the different life! Oh, the things that might have been!
Poor Ronald went his way sadly from the same meeting with a consciousness that was sharp and confusing and terrible. After the first miserable shock of disappointment which he had felt on hearing of Effie’s engagement, he had conversed much with himself. He had said to himself that she was little more than a child when he had set his boyish heart upon her, that since then a long time had passed, momentous years: that he had changed in many ways, and that she toomust have changed—that the mere fact of her engagement must have made a great difference—that she had bound herself to another kind of existence, not anything he knew, and that it was not possible that the betrothed of another man could be any longer the little Effie of his dreams.
But he had looked at her, and he had felt that he was mistaken. She was his Effie, not that other man’s: there was nothing changed in her, only perfected and made more sweet. Very few were the words that passed between them—few looks even, for they were afraid to look at each other—but even that unnatural reluctance said more than words. He it was who was her mate, not the stranger, the Englishman, the millionaire, whose ways and the ways of his people were not as her ways.
And yet it was too late! He could neither say anything nor do anything toshow to Effie that she had made a mistake, that it was he, Ronald, whom Heaven had intended for her. The young man, we may be sure, saw nothing ludicrous in this conviction that was in his mind; but he could not plead it. He went home to the old-fashioned homely house, which he said to himself no wife of his should ever make bright, in which he would settle down, no doubt, like his old uncle, and grow into an old misanthrope, a crotchety original, as his predecessor had done. Poor old uncle David! what was it that had made him so? perhaps a fatal mistake, occurring somehow by no fault of his—perhaps a little Effie, thrown away upon a stranger, too—
“What made you ask him to his dinner, though I made you signs to the contrary?” said Mrs. Ogilvie to her husband, as soon as, each in a different direction, the two young people had disappeared. “You mighthave seen I was not wanting him to his dinner; but when was there ever a man that could tell the meaning of a look? I might have spared my pains.”
“And why should he not be asked to his dinner?” said Mr. Ogilvie. “You go beyond my understanding. Ronald Sutherland, a lad that I have known since he wasthathigh, and his father and his grandfather before him. I think the woman is going out of her wits. Because you’re marrying Effie to one of those rich upstarts, am I never to ask a decent lad here?”
“You and your decent lads!” said his wife; she was at the end of her Latin, as the French say, and of her patience too. “Just listen to me, Robert,” she added, with that calm of exasperation which is sometimes so impressive. “I’m marrying Effie, since you like to put it that way (and it’s a great deal more than any of herrelations would have had the sense to do), to the best match on all this side of Scotland. I’m not saying this county; there’s nobody in the county that is in any way on the same footing as Fred. There is rank, to be sure, but as for money he could buy them all up, and settlements just such as were never heard of. Well, that’s what I’m doing, if you give me the credit of it. But there’s just one little hindrance, and that’s Ronald Sutherland. If he’s to come here on the ground of your knowing him since he wasthathigh, and being Eric’s friend—that’s to say, like a son of the house—I have just this to say, Robert, that I will not answer for Effie, and this great match may not take place after all.”
“What do you mean, you daft woman? Do you mean to tell me there has been any carrying on, any correspondence——”
“Have some respect to your own child,Robert, if not to your wife. Am I a woman to allow any carrying on? And Effie, to do her justice, though she has very little sense in some respects, is not a creature of that kind; and mind, she never heard a word of yon old story. No, no, it’s not that. But it’s a great deal worse—it’s just this, that there’s an old kindness, and they know each other far better than either Effie or you or me knows Fred Dirom. They are the same kind of person, and they have things to talk about if once they begin. And, in short, I cannot tell you all my drithers—but I’m very clear on this. If you want that marriage to come off, which is the best match that’s been made in Dumfriess-shire for generations, just you keep Ronald Sutherland at arm’s length, and take care you don’t ask him here to his dinner every second day.”
“I am not so fond of having strangersto their dinner,” said Mr. Ogilvie, with great truth. “It’s very rarely that the invitation comes from me. And as for your prudence and your wisdom and your grand managing, it might perhaps be just as well, on the whole, for Effie if she had two strings to her bow.”
Mrs. Ogilvie uttered a suppressed shriek in her astonishment. “For any sake! what, in the name of all that’s wonderful, are you meaning now?”
“You give me no credit for ever meaning anything, or taking the least interest, so far as I can see, in what’s happening in my own family,” said the head of the house, standing on his dignity.
“Oh, Robert, man! didn’t I send the young man to you, and would not listen to him myself! I said her father is the right person: and so you were, and very well you managed it, as you always do when you will take the trouble. But whatis this about a second string to her bow?”
Mr. Ogilviese faisait prier. He would not at first relinquish the pride of superior knowledge. At last, when his wife had been tantalized sufficiently, he opened his budget.
“The truth is, that things, very queer things, are said in London about Dirom’s house. There is a kind of a hint in the money article of theTimes. You would not look at that, even if we got theTimes. I saw it yesterday in Dumfries. They say ‘a great firm that has gone largely into mines of late’—and something about Basinghall Street, and a hope that their information may not be correct, and that sort of thing—which means more even than it says.”
“Lord preserve us!” said Mrs. Ogilvie. She sat down, in her consternation, upon Rory’s favourite toy lamb, which utteredthe squeak peculiar to such pieces of mechanism. Probably this helped to increase her annoyance. She seized it with impatient warmth and flung it on the floor.
“The horrible little beast!—But, Robert, this may be just a rumour. There are plenty of firms that do business in mines, and as for Basinghall Street, it’s just a street of offices. My own uncle had a place of business there.”
“You’ll see I’m right for all that,” said her husband, piqued to have his information doubted.
“Well, I’ll see it when I do see it; but I have just the most perfect confidence—What is this, George? Is there no answer? Well, you need not wait.”
“I was to wait, mem,” said George, “to let the cook ken if there was nobody expected to their dinner; for in that case, mem, there was yon birds that was quite good, that could keep to another day.”
“Cook’s just very impatient to send me such a message. Oh, well, you may tell her that there will be nobody to dinner. Mr. Dirom has to go to London in a hurry,” she said, half for the servant and half for her husband. She turned a glance full of alarm, yet defiance, upon the latter as old George trotted away.
“Well, what do you say to that?” cried Mr. Ogilvie, with a mixture of satisfaction and vexation.
“I just say what I said before—that I’ve perfect confidence.” But nevertheless a cloud hung all the rest of the day upon Mrs. Ogilvie’s brow.
Twoor three days had passed after Fred’s departure, when Mrs. Ogilvie stated her intention of going to Allonby to call upon his mother.
“You have not been there for a long time, Effie. You have just contented yourself with Fred—which is natural enough, I say nothing against that—and left the sisters alone who have always been so kind to you. It was perhaps not to be wondered at, but still I would not have done it. If they were not just very good-natured and ready to make the best of everything, they might think you were neglecting them, now that you have got Fred.”
As was natural, Effie was much injured and offended by this suggestion.
“I have never neglected them,” she said. “I never went but when they asked me, and they have not asked me for a long time. It is their fault.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “it is winter weather, and there is nothing going on. Your tennis and all that is stopped, and yet there’s no frost for skating. But whether they have asked you or not, just put on your new frock and come over with me. They are perhaps in some trouble, for anything we can tell.”
“In trouble? How could they be in trouble?”
“Do you think, you silly thing, that they are free of trouble because they’re so well off? No, no; there are plenty of things to vex you in this world, however rich you may be: though you are dressed in silks and satins and eat off silver plate,and have all the delicacies of the season upon your table, like daily bread, you will find that you have troubles with it, all the same, just like ordinary folk.”
Effie thought truly that she had no need of being taught that lesson. She knew far better than her stepmother what trouble was. She was going to marry Fred Dirom, and yet if her heart had its way! And she could not blame anybody, not even herself, for the position in which she was. It had come about—she could not tell how or why.
But she could not associate Phyllis and Doris with anything that could be called trouble. Neither was her mind at all awake or impressionable on this subject. To lose money was to her the least of all inconveniences, a thing not to be counted as trouble at all. She had never known anything about money, neither the pleasure of possession nor the vexation of losing it.Her indifference was that of entire ignorance; it seemed to her a poor thing to distress one’s self about.
She put on her new frock, however, as she was commanded, to pay the visit, and drove to Allonby with her stepmother, much as she had driven on that momentous day when for the first time she had seen them all, and when Mrs. Ogilvie had carried on a monologue, just as she was doing now, though not precisely to the same effect and under circumstances so changed. Effie then had been excited about the sisters and a little curious about the brother, amused and pleased with the new acquaintances to be made, and the novelty of the proceeding altogether. Now there was no longer any novelty. She was on the eve of becoming a member of the family, and it was with a very different degree of seriousness and interest that she contemplated them and their ways. But still Mrs. Ogilvie was full of speculation.
“I wonder,” she said, “if they will say anything about what is going on? You have had no right explanation, so far as I am aware, of Fred’s hurrying away like yon; I think he should have given you more explanation. And I wonder if they will say anything about that report—And, Effie, I wonder——” It appeared to Effie as they drove along that all that had passed in the meantime was a dream, and that Mrs. Ogilvie was wondering again as when they had first approached the unknown household upon that fateful day.
Doris and Phyllis were seated in a room with which neither Effie nor her stepmother were familiar, and which was not dark, and bore but few marks of the amendments and re-arrangements which occupied the family so largely on their first arrival at Allonby. Perhaps their interest had flagged in the embellishment of the old house, which was no longer a stranger to them; or perhapsthe claims of comfort were paramount in November. There was still a little afternoon sunshine coming in to help the comfortable fire which blazed so cheerfully, and Lady Allonby’s old sofas and easy chairs were very snug in the warm atmosphere.
The young ladies were, as was usual to them, doing nothing in particular, and they were very glad to welcome visitors, any visitor, to break the monotony of the afternoon. There was not the slightest diminution visible of their friendship for Effie, which is a thing that sometimes happens when the sister’s friend becomes thefiancéeof the brother. They fell upon her with open arms.
“Why, it is Effie! How nice of you to come just when we wanted you,” they cried, making very little count of Mrs. Ogilvie. Mothers and stepmothers were of the opposite faction, and Doris and Phyllis did not pretend to take any interest in them. “Mother will be here presently,” they said to her, and no more. But Effie they led to a sofa and surrounded with attentions.
“We have not seen you for an age. You are going to say it is our fault, but it is not our fault. You have Fred constantly at Gilston, and you did not want us there too. No, three of one family would be insufferable; you couldn’t have wanted us; and what was the use of asking you to come here, when Fred was always with you at your own house? Now that he is away we were wondering would you come—I said yes, I felt sure you would; but Doris——”
“Doris is never so confident as her sister,” said that young lady, “and when a friendship that has begun between girls runs into a love affair, one never can know.”
“It was not any doing of mine that itran into—anything,” said Effie, indignant. “I liked you the——” She was going to say the best, which was not civil certainly to the absent Fred, and would not have been true. But partly prudence restrained her, and partly Phyllis, who gave her at that moment a sudden kiss, and declared that she had always said that Effie was a dear.
“And no doubt you have heard from your brother,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, who was not to be silenced, “and has he got his business done? I hope everything is satisfactory, and nothing to make your good father and mother anxious. These kind of cares do not tell upon the young, but when people are getting up in years it’s then that business really troubles them. We have been thinking a great deal of your worthy father—Mr. Ogilvie and me. I hope he is seeing his way——”
The young ladies stared at her for amoment, in the intervals of various remarks to Effie; and then Doris said, with a little evident effort, as of one who wanted to be civil, yet not to conceal that she was bored: “Oh, you mean about the firm? Of course we are interested; it would make such a change, you know. I have taken all my measures, however, and I feel sure I shall be the greatest success.”
“I was speaking of real serious business, Miss Doris. Perhaps I was just a fool for my pains, for they would not put the like of that before you. No, no, I am aware it was just very silly of me; but since it has been settled between Effie and Mr. Fred, I take a great interest. I am one that takes a great deal of thought, more than I get any thanks for, of all my friends.”
“I should not like to trouble about all my friends, for then one would never be out of it,” said Doris, calmly. “Of course,however, you must be anxious about Fred. There is less harm, though, with him than with most young men; for you know if the worst comes to the worst he has got a profession. I cannot say that I have a profession, but still it comes almost to the same thing; for I have quite made up my mind what to do. It is a pity, Effie,” she said, turning to the audience she preferred, “if the Great Smash is going to come that it should not come before you are married; for then I could dress you, which would be good for both of us—an advantage to your appearance, and a capital advertisement for me.”
“That is all very well for her,” said Miss Phyllis, plaintively. “She talks at her ease about the Great Smash; but I should have nothing to do except to marry somebody, which would be no joke at all for me.”
“The Great Smash,” repeated Mrs. Ogilvie, aghast. All the colour had gone out of her face. She turned from one to the other with dismay. “Then am I to understand that it has come to that?” she cried, with despair in her looks. “Oh! Effie, Effie, do you hear them? The Great Smash!”
“Who said that?” said another voice—a soft voice grown harsh, sweet bells jangled out of tune. There had been a little nervous movement of the handle of the door some moments before, and now Mrs. Dirom came in quickly, as if she had been listening to what was said, and was too much excited and distracted to remember that it was evident that she had been listening. She came in in much haste and with a heated air.
“If you credit these silly girls you will believe anything. What do they know? A Great Smash—!” Her voice trembled as she said the words. “It’s ridiculous,and it’s vulgar too. I wonder where they learned such words. I would not repeat them if I could help it—if it was not necessary to make you understand. There will be no Smash, Mrs. Ogilvie, neither great nor small. Do you know what you are talking of? The great house of the Diroms, which is as sure as the Bank of England? It is their joke, it is the way they talk; nothing is sacred for them. They don’t know what the credit of a great firm means. There is no more danger of our firm—no more danger—than there is of the Bank of England.”
The poor lady was so much disturbed that her voice, and, indeed, her whole person, which was substantial, trembled. She dropped suddenly on a chair, and taking up one of the Japanese fans which were everywhere about, fanned herself violently, though it was late November, and the day was cold.
“Dear me,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “I am sorry if I have put you about; I had no thought that it was serious at all. I just asked the question for conversation’s sake. I never could have supposed for a moment that the great house, as you say, of Dirom and Co. could ever take it in a serious light.”
Upon this poor Mrs. Dirom put down her fan, and laughed somewhat loudly—a laugh that was harsh and strained, and in which no confidence was.
“That is quite true,” she said, “Mrs. Ogilvie. You are full of sense, as I have always said. It is only a thing to laugh at. Their papa would be very much amused if he were to hear. But it makes me angry when I have no occasion to be angry, for it is so silly. If it was said by other people I should take it with a smile; but to hear my own children talking such nonsense, it is this that makes me angry. If it was anyone else I shouldn’t mind.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “I understand that; for if other people make fools of themselves it is of no particular consequence; but when it’s your own it’s a different matter. But Miss Doris, I suppose, has just taken a notion into her head, and she does not care what it costs to carry it out. Effie, now, really we must go. It is getting quite dark, the days are so short. No, I thank you, we’ll not take any tea; for Mr. Ogilvie has taken a habit of coming in for his cup of tea, and he just cannot bear us to be away. When a man takes a notion of that kind, the ladies of his family just have to give in to it. Good-bye, young ladies, good-bye. But I hope you’ll not be disappointed to find that there’s no Great Smash coming; for I don’t think that I should relish it at all if it was me.”
They had a silent drive home. Effie had so many thoughts at that moment that she was always glad, when she could, to returninto them. She thought no more of the Great Smash than of any other of the nonsensical utterances which it might have pleased Doris to make. Indeed, the Great Smash, even if it had been certain, would not have affected her mind much, so entirely unconscious was she what its meaning might be. She retired into her own thoughts, which were many, without having received any impression from this new subject.
But it vaguely surprised her that her stepmother should be so silent. She was so accustomed to that lively monologue which served as a background to all manner of thoughts, that Effie was more or less disturbed by its failure, without knowing why. Mrs. Ogilvie scarcely said a word all the way home. It was incredible, but it was true. Her friends would scarcely have believed it—they would have perceived that matters must have been very serious indeed, before she could be reduced to such silence.But Effie was heedless, and did not ask herself what the reason was.
This was the evening that Ronald had been invited “to his dinner,” an invitation which had called forth a protest from Mrs. Ogilvie; but, notwithstanding, she was very kind to Ronald. It was Effie, not she, who kept him at a distance, who avoided any conversation except the vaguest, and, indeed, sat almost silent all the evening, as if her lover being absent she had no attention to bestow upon another. That was not the real state of Effie’s mind; but a delicate instinct drew her away, and gave her a refuge in the silence which looked like indifference.
Mrs. Ogilvie, however, showed no indifference to Ronald. She questioned him about his house, and with all the freedom which old family connection permitted, about the fortune which he had “come into,” about what he meant to do, and many other subjects. Ronald gave her, with much gravity, the information she asked. He told her no—that he did not mean to remain—that he was going back to his regiment. Why should he stay, there was nothing for him to do at Haythorne?
“Hoot,” Mrs. Ogilvie said, “there is always this to do, that you must marry and settle; that is the right thing for a young man. To be sure, when there is no place to take a wife home to, but just to follow the regiment, that’s very different; for parents that are in their senses would never let a girl do that. But when you have the house first, then the wife must follow. It is just the right order of things.”
“For some men,” said Ronald, “but not for me; it is either too early, or, perhaps, too late.”
“Oh, too late! a lad like you to speak such nonsense!—and there’s never any saying what may happen,” the lady said.This strange speech made two hearts beat: Ronald’s with great surprise, and devouring curiosity. Had he perhaps been premature in thinking that all was settled—was it a mistake? But oh, no, he remembered that he had made his congratulations, and they had been received; that Eric was coming back to the marriage; that already the wedding guests were being invited, and all was in train. Effie’s heart beat too, where she sat silent at a distance, close to the lamp, on pretence of needing light for her work; but it was with a muffled, melancholy movement, no sign of hope or possibility in it, only the stir of regret and trouble over what might have been.
“Are you going to write letters, at this time of night?” said Mr. Ogilvie, as he came back from the door, after seeing Ronald away.
“Just one, Robert; I cannot bear this suspense if the rest of you can. I am goingto write to my cousin John, who is a business man, and has his office, as his father had before him, in Basinghall Street in London city. I am going to ask him a question or two.”
“If I were you,” said Mr. Ogilvie, with some energy, “I would neither make nor meddle in other folk’s affairs.”
“What do you call other folk’s affairs? It is my own folk’s affairs. If there ever was a thing that was our business and not another’s, it’s this. Do you think I would ever permit—and there is very little time to be lost. I wonder I never thought of John before—he is just the person to let me know.”
Mr. Ogilvie put his hands behind his back, and walked up and down the room in great perturbation.
“I cannot see my way to making that kind of inquiry. It might do harm, and I don’t see what good it can do. It mightset people thinking. It might bring on just what we’re wanting to avoid.”
“I am wanting to know, that is all,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “As for setting people thinking, that’s done as you’re aware. And if it’s done down here, what must it be in the city? But I must be at the bottom of it, whether it’s false, or whether it’s true.”
Mr. Ogilvie was not accustomed to such energy. He said, “Tchk, tchk, tchk,” as people do so often in perplexity: and then he caught sight of his daughter, holding Rory’s little stocking in the lamplight, and knitting with nervous fingers. It was a good opportunity for getting rid of the irritation which any new thing raised in him.
“Surely,” he said, with an air of virtuous indignation, “it is high time that Effie, at least, should be in her bed!”
“Yes, Ronald, my man. It was a great peety,” Miss Dempster said.
She was lying on a sofa in the little drawing-room, between the fireplace and the window, where she could both feel and see the fire, and yet command a glimpse of the village and Dr. Jardine’s house. She could still see the window to which the doctor came defiantly when he took his mid-morning refreshment, to let the ladies at Rosebank see that he was not afraid of them.
The relations between the doctor and the ladies had modified a little, but still that little conflict went on. He did notany longer nod at them with the “Here’s to you!” of his old fury at what he thought their constantespionage, but he still flaunted his dram before their eyes, and still they made mental notes on the subject, and Miss Beenie shook her head. She did not say, “There’s that abominable man with his dram again. I am sure I cannot think how respectable people can put up with that smell of whisky. Did you say sherry? Well, sherry is very near as bad taken at all hours.”
What Miss Beenie said now was: “I wish the doctor would take a cup of tea or even a little broth instead of that wine. No doubt he wants support with all he has to do; but the other would be far better for him.”
This will show how the relations had improved. He had brought Miss Dempster “through.” Instead of her bedroom at the back of the house, which allowed of littlediversion, she had got so far as to be removed to the drawing-room, and lie on the sofa for the greater part of the day. It was a great improvement, and people who knew no better believed that the old lady was getting better. Miss Beenie was warmly of this opinion; she held it with such heat indeed that she might have been supposed to be not so certain as she said.
But Miss Dempster and the doctor knew better. The old lady was more than ever distressed that Providence had not taken better care of the affairs of Effie Ogilvie. It was this she was saying to Ronald, as he sat beside her. He had come over with some birds and a great bunch of hothouse grapes. He was, as the reader may remember, a connection—even, Miss Beenie said, anearconnection: and the ladies had been good to him in his early youth.
“Yes, it was a great peety,” Miss Dempster said. “I am not grudging your uncle Dauvid a day of his life, honest man—but the three last months is never much of a boon, as I know by myself. It would have done him no harm, and you a great deal of good. But there’s just a kind of a blundering in these things that is very hard to understand.”
“The chances are it would have made no difference,” said the young man, “so there is nothing to be said.”
“It would have made a great difference; but we’ll say nothing, all the same. And so you’re asked to the wedding? Well, that woman is not blate. She’s interfered with the course of nature and thinks no shame: but perhaps she will get her punishment sooner than she’s looking for. They tell me,” said the old lady, “that the Diroms have had losses, and that probably they will have to leaveAllonby, and come down in their grand way of living. I will say that of Janet Ogilvie that she has a great spirit; she’ll set her face like a rock. The wedding will be just as grand and as much fuss made, and nobody will hear a word from her; she is a woman that can keep her own counsel. But she’ll be gnashing her teeth all the same. She will just be in despair that she cannot get out of it. Oh, I know her well! If it had been three months off instead of three weeks, she would have shaken him off. I have always said Effie’s heart was not in it; but however her heart had been in it, her stepmother would have had her way.”
“We must be charitable, we must think ill of nobody,” said Miss Beenie. “I’m too thankful, for my part, to say an ill word, now you’re getting well again.”
“She might have done all that and done nothing wrong,” said Miss Dempstersharply. And then Ronald rose to go away; he had no desire to hear such possibilities discussed. If it had not been for Eric’s expected arrival he would have gone away before now. It was nothing but misery, he said to himself, to see Effie, and to think that had he been three months sooner, as his old friends said!
But no, he would not believe that; it was injurious to Effie to think that the first who appeared was her choice. He grew red and hot with generous shame and contempt of himself when he thought that this was what he was attributing to one so spotless and so true. The fact that she had consented to marry Fred Dirom, was not that enough to prove his merit, to prove that she would never have regarded any other? What did it not say for a man, the fact that he had been chosen by Effie? It was the finest proof that he was everything a man could be.
Ronald had never seen this happy hero. No doubt there had been surgings of heart against him, and fits of sorrowful fury when he first knew; but the idea that he was Effie’s choice silenced the young man. He himself could have nothing to do with that, he had not even the right to complain. He had to stand aside and see it accomplished. All that the old lady said about the chances of the three months too late was folly. It was one of the strange ways of women that they should think so. It was a wrong to Effie, who not by any guidance of chance, not because (oh horror!) this Dirom fellow was the first to ask her, for nothing but pure love and preference (of which no man was worthy) had chosen him from the world.
Ronald, thinking these thoughts, which were not cheerful, walked down the slope between the laurel hedges with steps much slower and less decided than his ordinarymanly tread. He was a very different type of humanity from Fred Dirom—not nearly so clever, be it said, knowing not half so much, handsomer, taller, and stronger, without any subtlety about him or power of divination, seeing very clearly what was before him with a pair of keen and clear blue eyes, straightforward as an arrow; but with no genius for complication nor much knowledge of the modifying effect of circumstances. He liked or he did not like, he approved or he did not approve: and all of these things strenuously, with the force of a nature which was entirely honest, and knew no guile.
Such a man regards a decision as irrevocable, he understands no playing with possibilities. It did not occur to him to make any effort to shake Effie’s allegiance to her betrothed, or to trouble her with any disclosure of his own sentiments. He accepted what was, with that belief in thecertainty of events which belongs to what is called the practical or positive nature in the new jargon, to the simple and primitive mind, that is to say. Ronald, who was himself as honest as the day, considered it the first principle in existence that his fellow-creatures were honest too, that they meant what they said, and when they had decided upon a course of action did not intend to be turned from it, whatever it might cost to carry it out.
Therefore it was not in this straightforward young man to understand all the commotion which was in poor little Effie’s mind when she avoided him, cast down her eyes not to meet his, and made the shortest answers to the few remarks he ventured to address to her. It hurt him that she should be so distant, making him wonder whether she thought so little of him as to suppose that he would give her any annoyance, say anything or even look anything to disturb her mind.
How little she knew him! but not so little as he knew her. They met this day, as fate would have it, at the gate of Rosebank, and were obliged to stop and talk for a minute, and even to walk along with each other for the few steps during which their road lay in the same direction. They did not know what to say to each other; he because he knew his mind so well, she because she knew hers so imperfectly, and felt her position so much.
Effie was in so strange a condition that it seemed to her she would like to tell Ronald everything: how she was going to marry Fred she could not tell why—because she had not liked to give him pain by refusing him, because she seemed not to be able to do anything else. She did not know why she wanted to tell this to Ronald, which she would not have done to anyoneelse. There seemed to be some reason why he should know the real state of affairs, a sort of apology to make, an explanation—she could not tell what.
But when they stood face to face, neither Ronald nor she could find anything to say. He gave the report of Miss Dempster that she was a little better; that was the bulletin which by tacit agreement was always given—she was a little better, but still a great invalid. When that subject was exhausted, they took refuge in Eric. When was he expected? though the consciousness in both their minds that it was for the wedding he was coming, was a sad obstacle to speech.
“He is expected in three weeks. He is starting, I suppose, now,” Effie said.
“Yes, he must be starting now——” And then they both paused, with the strongest realization of the scene that would ensue. Effie saw herself a bride far more clearly at that moment through the eyes, so tospeak, of Ronald, than she ever had through those of the man who was to be her husband.
“I think I shall go back with him when he goes,” said Ronald, “if I don’t start before.”
“Are you going back?”
He smiled as if it had been very ridiculous to ask him such a question.
“What else,” he said—there seemed a sort of sad scorn in the inquiry—“What else is left for me to do?” Perhaps he would have liked to put it more strongly—What else have you left me to do?
“I am very sorry,” said Effie, “I thought——” and then she abandoned this subject altogether. “Do you think Eric will see much change?” she said.
“Eric! Oh, yes; he will see a great deal of change. The country and all look the same to be sure; it is the people who alter. He will see a great deal of change in you, Miss Ogilvie.”
Effie looked up with tears starting in her eyes as if he had given her a sudden blow.
“Oh, Ronald! why do you call me that—am I not Effie—always——” And there came a little sob in her throat, stopping further utterance.
He looked as if he could have cried too, but smiled instead strangely, and said, “When you have—another name, how am I to call you by that? I must try and begin now.”
“But I shall always be Effie, always,” she said.
Ronald did not make any reply. He raised his hands in a momentary protestation, and gave her a look which said more than he had ever said in words. And then they walked on a few steps together in silence, and then stopped and shook hands silently with a mutual impulse, and said to each other “good-bye.”
When Effie got near home, still full ofagitation from this strange little opening and closing of she knew not what—some secret page in her own history, inscribed with a record she had known nothing of—she met her stepmother, who was returning very alert and business-like from a walk.
“What have you been saying to Ronald?” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “to make him look so grave? I saw him turn the corner, and I thought he had seen a ghost, poor lad; but afterwards it proved to be only you. You should not be so severe: for he has liked you long, though you knew nothing about it; and it must have been very hard upon him, poor fellow, to find that he had come home just too late, and that you had been snapped up, as a person may say, under his very nose.”
This was so strange an address that it took away Effie’s breath. She gave her stepmother a look half stupified, half horrified. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“Well, Effie, my dear, you must just learn; and I don’t think you will find it very difficult, if you will give your attention to it. I have been wanting to speak to you for two or three days, and your father too. You must not trouble about Fred Dirom any more. I have never been quite satisfied in my own mind that your heart was in it, if he had not been so pressing and pushing, and, as we all thought, such a good match. But you see it turns out that’s not the case, Effie. I got a letter yesterday from my cousin John; and it’s all true about Dirom’s firm. They are just going down hill as fast as can be, and probably by this time they’ve failed. Though you don’t know about business, you know what that means. It is just the end of all things; and to hold the young man to his promise in such circumstances would be out of the question. We are quite agreed upon that, both your father and me. So, mydear Effie, you are free. It mightn’t have become you to take steps; so your father and me—we have acted for you; and now you are free.”
Effie stopped short in the road, and stared at the speaker aghast. If her heart gave a little leap to hear that word, it was merely an instinctive movement, and meant nothing. Her mind was full of consternation. She was confounded by the suddenness, by the strangeness of the communication.
Free! What did it mean, and why was it? Free! She repeated the word to herself after a while, still looking at her stepmother. It was but a single little word. It meant—what? The world seemed to go round and round with Effie, the dim November skies, the gray of the wintry afternoon, the red shaft of the setting sun beyond—all whirled about her. “Free!” She repeated it as an infant repeats a foreign word without knowing what it means.
“Now, Effie,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “don’t let us have any pretences: that is all I ask of you. Just face the thing honestly, and don’t let us have any make-believe. If you tell me that you are deep in love with Fred Dirom and can’t give him up, I will just not believe you. All I will think is that you are a little cutty, and have no heart at all. I was very glad you should make such a good match; but I could see all along your heart was not in it. And whatever he might say, I made no doubt but you would be thankful. So let us have none of your little deceptions here.”
“I don’t think I understand,” said Effie, striving to speak. “I think I must have lost my senses or my hearing, or something. What was it you were saying? They say people call things by wrong names sometimes, and can’t help it. Perhaps they hear wrong, too. What is it that you mean?”
“You know perfectly well what I mean,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, with some exasperation; “I have just written breaking off your marriage—is that plain enough? I’ve done it under your father’s orders. It was he that accepted and I’m thinking it’s he that has a right to refuse—It’s all broken off—I cannot speak any plainer. Now, do you understand what I say?”
Effie had grown very pale—she shivered as if with cold—her lips quivered when she began to speak.
“And that is,” she said, “because he has failed—because he is not a good match now, but a poor man—is that what it is?”
“If you like to put it in that broad way. Of course he is not in a condition to marry any longer. It is the kindest thing we can do——”
“Give me your letter,” said Effie, holding out her hand. There was something threatening, something dangerous, about the girl, which made Mrs. Ogilvie scream out.
“My letter! I am not in the habit of showing my letters to anybody but your father. And even if I was disposed to show it I cannot, for I’ve just been to the post and put it in with my own hand. And by this time it is stamped and in the bag to go away. So you must take my description of it. I will be very happy to tell you all I have said.”
“You have just been to the post to put it in!” Effie repeated the words, her eyes growing larger every moment, her face more ghastly. Then she gave a strange cry like a wounded creature, and turned and flew back towards the village neither pausing nor looking behind her, without a word more. Mrs. Ogilvie stood for a time, her own heart beating a little faster than usual, and a choking sensation in her throat.
“Effie, Effie!” she cried after her—but Effie took no notice. She went alongthrough the dim air like a flying shadow, and soon was out of sight, taking no time either for breath or thought. Where had she gone? wherever she went, what could she do? It was for her good; all through it had been for her good. If she mistook at first, yet after she must come round.
Effie had fled in the opposite direction to Allonby. Where was she going? what could she do? Mrs. Ogilvie made a rapid glance at the possibilities and decided that there was really nothing which the girl could do. She drew a long breath to relieve the oppression which in spite of herself had seized upon her, the sudden panic and alarm.
What could Effie do?—just nothing! She would run and tell her Uncle John, but though the minister was a man full of crotchets he was still more or less a man of sense, and he had never been very keen on the match. He would speak to hersensibly and she would see it when he said it, though not when Mrs. Ogilvie said it: and she would come home.
And then Ronald would get another invitation to his dinner. It was all as simple as A B C.