Mr. Moubraywas in his study, in the gray of the winter’s afternoon. It is never a very cheerful moment. The fire was burning brightly, the room was warm and pleasant, with plenty of books, and many associations; but it was a pensive moment, too dark for reading, when there is nothing to do but to think. And though a man who has begun to grow old, and who is solitary, may be very happy thinking, yet it is a pensive pleasure. He was sitting very quietly, looking out at the shaft of red gold in the west where the sun had disappeared, and watching the light as it stole away, each moment a little less, alittle less brilliant, till it sank altogether in the gray.
To eyes “that have kept watch o’er man’s mortality” there is always an interest in that sight: one going out is so like another: the slow lessening, the final disappearance have an interest that never fails. And the minister can scarcely be said to have been thinking. He was watching, as he had watched at many a death-bed, the slow extinction, the going away. Whether it is a sun or a life that is setting, that last ineffable moment of disappearance cannot but convey a thrill to the heart.
This was how he was seated, meditating in the profoundest tranquillity when, all at once, the door flew open, and a young figure full of agitation, in all the force of life and passion, a creature all alive to the very finger points, to the hem of her skirts, to the crown of her wind-blownhair, burst in breathless, an emblem of disturbance, of conflict, in short, of existence in contrast with the calm of contemplation.
She stood for a moment before him, but only as if under protest, pausing perforce for breath, “Uncle John,” she cried, panting, “come, come with me! I want to tell you, I want to ask you—you must help me—to stop something. But, oh, I can’t wait to explain; come with me, come with me! and I’ll tell you on the way——”
“What is it, Effie?” He got up hastily; but though her influence was strong, it was not strong enough to prevent him from asking an explanation before he obeyed it.
She caught at his arm in her impatience, “Oh, Uncle John, come—come away! I’ll tell you on the road—oh, come away—there is not a moment, not a moment! to lose——”
“Is anybody ill?” he said. She continued to hold his arm, not as a means of support, but by way of pushing him on, which she did, scarcely leaving him a moment to get his hat. Her impetuosity reminded him so much of many a childish raid made into his house that, notwithstanding his alarm, he smiled.
“Oh, no, there is nobody ill, it is much, much worse than that, Uncle John. Oh, don’t smile as if you thought I was joking! It’s just desperation. There is a letter that Mrs. Ogilvie has written, and I must, I must—get it back from the post, or I will die. Oh, come! come! before it is too late.”
“Get a letter back from the post!——”
He turned in spite of Effie’s urgency at the manse door. It stood high, and the cheerful lights were beginning to shine in the village windows below, among which the shop and post-office was conspicuous with its two bright paraffin lamps.
“But that is impossible,” he said.
“Oh, no,” said the girl. “Oh, Uncle John, come quick, come quick! and you will see that we must have it. Mrs. Moffatt will give it when she sees you. Not for me, perhaps, but for you. You will say that something has been forgotten, that another word has to be put in, that—oh, Uncle John when we are there it will come into our heads what to say——”
“Take no thought beforehand what you shall speak, Effie,” said the minister, half smiling, half admonishing; “is it so serious as that?”
He suffered her to lead him down the slope of the manse garden, out upon the road, her light figure foremost, clinging to his arm, yet moving him along; he, heavier, with so much of passive resistance as his large frame, and only half responsive will, gave.
“Oh yes,” she cried, “it is as serious asthat. Uncle John, was not that what our Lord said when His men that He sent out were to stand for Him and not to forsake Him? And to desert your friends when they are in trouble, to turn your back upon them when they need you, to give them up because they are poor, because they are unfortunate, because they have lost everything but you——”
She was holding his arm so closely, urging him on, that he felt the heaving of her heart against his side, the tremor of earnestness in her whole frame as she spoke.
“Effie, my little girl! what strait are you in, that you are driven to use words like these?”
Her voice sounded like a sob in her throat, which was parched with excitement.
“I am in this strait, Uncle John, that he has lost everything, and they have written to say I take back my word. No,no, no,” cried Effie, forcing on with feverish haste the larger shadow by her side. “I will never do it—it shall not be. They made me take him when he was rich, and now that he is poor I will stand by him till I die.”
“My little Effie!” was all the minister said. She still hurried him along, but yet he half carried her with an arm round her slender figure. What with agitation and the unaccustomed conflict in her mind, Effie’s slight physical frame was failing her. It was her heart and soul that were pushing on. Her brain swam, the village lights fluttered in her eyes, her voice had gone altogether, lost in the climbing sob which was at once breath and utterance. She was unconscious of everything save her one object, to be in time, to recover the letter, to avert that cowardly blow.
But when Effie came to herself in the little shop with its close atmosphere, thesmell of the paraffin, the dazzling glare of the light, under the astonished gaze of Mrs. Moffatt the postmistress, who stood at her counter stamping the letters spread out before her, and who stopped short, bewildered by the sudden entrance of so much passion, of something entirely out of the ordinary, which she felt, but could not understand—the girl could bring forth nothing from that slender, convulsed throat but a gasp. It was Mr. Moubray who spoke.
“My niece wishes you to give her back a letter—a letter in which something must be altered, something added: a letter with the Gilston stamp.”
“Eh, Mr. Moubray! but I canna do that,” the postmistress cried.
“Why can’t you do it? I am here to keep you free of blame. There is no harm in it. Give her back her letter, and she will add what she wishes to add.”
“Is it Miss Effie’s own letter? I’m nosure it’s just right even in that point of view. Folk should ken their own minds,” said Mrs. Moffatt, shuffling the letters about with her hands, “before they put pen to paper. If I did it for ane, I would have to do it for a’ that ask. And where would I be then? I would just never be done——”
“Let us hope there are but few that are so important: and my niece is not just any one,” said the minister, with a little natural self-assertion. “I will clear you of the blame if there is any blame.”
“I am not saying but what Miss Effie—— Still the post-office is just like the grave, Mr. Moubray, what’s put in canna be taken out. Na, I do not think I can do it, if it was for the Queen hersel’.”
Effie had not stood still while this conversation was going on; she had taken the matter into her own hands, and was turning over the letters with her tremblingfingers without waiting for any permission.
“Na, Miss Effie; na, Miss Effie,” said the postmistress, trying to withdraw them from her. But Effie paid no attention. Her extreme and passionate agitation was such that even official zeal, though strengthened by ignorance, could not stand before it. Notwithstanding all Mrs. Moffatt’s efforts, the girl examined everything with a swift desperation and keenness which contrasted strangely with her incapacity to see or know anything besides. It was not till she had turned over every one that she flung up her hands with a cry of dismay, and fell back upon the shoulder of the minister, who had held her all the time with his arm.
“Oh, Uncle John! oh, Uncle John!” she cried with a voice of despair.
“Perhaps it has not been sent, Effie. It was only a threat perhaps. It mightbe said to see how you felt. Rest a little, and then we will think what to do——”
“I will have to go,” she said, struggling from him, getting out to the door of the shop. “Oh, I cannot breathe! Uncle John, when does the train go?”
“My dear child!”
“Uncle John, what time does the train go? No, I will not listen,” said the girl. The fresh air revived her, and she hurried along a little way: but soon her limbs failed her, and she dropped down trembling upon the stone seat in front of one of the cottages. There she sat for a few minutes, taking off her hat, putting back her hair from her forehead instinctively, as if that would relieve the pressure on her heart.
She was still for a moment, and then burst forth again: “I must go. Oh, you are not to say a word. Do you know what it is to love some one, Uncle John? Yes,youknow. It is only a few who cantell what that is. Well,” she said, the sob in her throat interrupting her, making her voice sound like the voice of a child; “that is how he thinks of me; you will think it strange. He is not like a serious man, you will say, to feel so; but he does. Not me! oh, not me!” said Effie, contending with the sob; “I am not like that. But he does. I am not so stupid, nor so insensible, but I know it when I see it, Uncle John.”
“Yes, Effie, I never doubted it; he loves you dearly, poor fellow. My dear little girl, there is time enough to set all right——”
“To set it right! If he hears just at the moment of his trouble that I—that I—— What is the word when a woman is a traitor? Is there such a thing as that a girl should be a traitor to one that puts his trust in her? I never pretended to be likethat, Uncle John. He knew that itwas different with me. But true—Oh, I can be true. More, more!I can’t be false.Do you hear me?Youbrought me up, how could I? I can’t be false; it will kill me. I would rather die——”
“Effie! Effie! No one would have you to be false. Compose yourself, my dear. Come home with me and I will speak to them, and everything will come right. There cannot be any harm done yet. Effie, my poor little girl, come home.”
Effie did not move, except to put back as before her hair from her forehead.
“I know,” she said, “that there is no hurry, that the train does not go till night. I will tell you everything as if you were my mother, Uncle John. You are the nearest to her. I was silly—I never thought:—but I was proud too. Girls are made like that: and just to be praised and made much of pleases us; and to have somebody that thinks there is no one inthe world like you—for that,” she said, with a little pause, and a voice full of awe, “is what he thinks of me. It is very strange, but it is true. And if I were to let him think for a moment—oh, for one moment!—that the girl he thought so much of would cast him off, because he was poor!——”
Effie sprang up from her seat in the excitement of this thought. She turned upon her uncle, with her face shining, her head held high.
“Do you think I could let him think that for an hour? for a day? Oh, no! no! Yes, I will go home to get my cloak and a bonnet, for you cannot go to London just in a little hat like mine; but don’t say to me, Uncle John, that I must not do it, for IWILL.”
She took his arm again in the force of this resolution. Then she added, in the tone of one who is conceding a greatfavour: “But you may come with me if you like.”
Between the real feeling which her words had roused in him and the humour of this permission, Mr. Moubray scarcely knew how to reply. He said: “I would not advise you to go, Effie. It will be better for me to go in your place if anyone must go; but is that necessary? Let us go quietly home in the meantime. You owe something to your father, my dear; you must not take a step like this without his knowledge at least.”
“If you are going to betray me to Mrs. Ogilvie, Uncle John——”
“My little Effie, there is no question of betrayal. There is no need for running away, for acting as if you were oppressed at home. You have never been oppressed at home, my dear. If Mrs. Ogilvie has written to Mr. Dirom, at least she was honest and told you. And you must behonest. It must all be spoken of on the true ground, which is that you can do only what is right, Effie.”
“Uncle John,” cried Effie, “if to give up Fred is right, then I will not do it—whatever you say, I will not do it. He may never want me in my life again, but he wants me now. Abandon him because he is in need of me! Oh, could you believe it of Effie? And if you say it is wrong, I do not care, I will do it. I will not desert him when he is poor, not for all the—not for anybody in the world——”
“Is that Effie that is speaking so loud? is that you, John?”
This was the voice of Mr. Ogilvie himself, which suddenly rose out of the dim evening air close by. They had gone along in their excitement scarce knowing where they went, or how near they were to the house, and now, close to the dark shrubberies, encountered suddenly Effie’s father,who, somewhat against his own will, had come out to look for her.
His wife had been anxious, which he thought absurd, and he had been driven out rather by impatience of her continual inquiries: “I wonder where that girl has gone. I wonder what she is doing. Dear me, Robert, if you will not go out and look after her, I will just have to do it myself,”—than from any other motive. Effie’s declaration had been made accordingly to other ears than those she intended; and her father’s slow but hot temper was roused.
“I would like to know,” he said, “for what reason it is that you are out so late as this, and going hectoring about the roads like a play-acting woman? John, you might have more sense than to encourage her in such behaviour. Go home to your mother this moment, Effie, and let me hear no such language out of your head. I will notask what it’s about. I have nothing to say to women’s quarrels. Go home, I tell you, to your mother.”
Effie had caught with both her hands her uncle’s arm.
“Oh, I wish that I could—Oh, if I only could,” she cried, “that would make all clear.”
“Ogilvie, she is in a state of great excitement—I hope you will set her mind at rest. I tell her she shall be forced to nothing. You are not the man, though you may be a little careless, to permit any tyranny over your child.”
“Me, careless! You are civil,” said the father. “Just you recollect, John Moubray, that I will have no interference—if you were the minister ten times over, and her uncle to the boot. I am well able to look after my own family and concerns. Effie, go home.”
Effie said nothing; but she stood stillclinging to her uncle’s arm. She would not advance though he tried to draw her towards the gate, nor would she make any reply: she wound her arms about his, and held him fast. She had carried him along with the force of her young passion; but he could not move her. Her brain was whirling, her whole being in the wildest commotion. Her intelligence had partially given way, but her power of resistance was strong.
“Effie,” he said softly, “come home. My dear, you must let your father see what is in your mind. How is he to learn if you will not tell him? Effie! for my part, I will do whatever you please,” he said in a low tone in her ear. “I promise to go to him if you wish it—only obey your father and come home.”
“Go home this moment to your mother,” Mr. Ogilvie repeated. “Is this a time to be wandering about the world? She mayjust keep her mind to herself, John Moubray. I’ll have nothing to say to women’s quarrels, and if you are a wise man you will do the same. Effie, go home.”
Effie paused a moment between the two, one of whom repulsed her, while the other did no more than soothe and still her excitement as best he could. She was not capable of being soothed. The fire and passion in her veins required an outlet. She was so young, unaccustomed to emotion. She would not yield to do nothing, that hard part which women in so many circumstances have to play.
Suddenly she loosed her arms from that of the minister, and without a word, in an instant, before anything could be said, darted away from them into the gathering night.
“Wewere just bringing her back. No doubt she has darted in at the side door—she was always a hasty creature—and got into her own room. That’s where ye will find her. I cannot tell you what has come over the monkey. She is just out of what little wits she ever had.”
“I can tell very well what has come over her,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “She is just wild that I have interfered, which it was my clear duty to do. If she had been heart and soul in the matter it would have been different—but she was never that. These old cats at Rosebank, they thoughtthere was nobody saw it but themselves; but I saw it well enough.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Moubray, “perhaps it would have been better to interfere sooner. I wish you would send some one to see if Effie is really there.”
“Why should I have interfered sooner? If everything had gone well, it was such a match as Effie had no chance of making; but when it turned out that it was a mistake, and the other there breaking his heart, that had always been more suitable, and her with no heart in it——” Mrs. Ogilvie paused for a moment in the satisfaction of triumphant self-vindication. “But if you’re just sentimental and childish and come in my way, you bind her to a bankrupt that she does not care for, because of what you call honour—honour is all very well,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “for men; but whoever supposes that a bit little creature of a girl——”
“Will ye go and see if Effie is in her room?” said her husband impatiently.
“Ye may just ring the bell, Robert, and send one of the maids to see; what would I do with her? If I said anything it would only make her worse. I am not one of the people that shilly shally. I just act, and am done with it. I’m very glad I put in my letter myself that it might go in the first bag. But if you will take my advice you will just let her be: at this moment she could not bear the sight of me, and I’m not blaming her. I’ve taken it in my own hands, at my own risk, and if she’s angry I’m not surprised. Let her be. She will come to herself by-and-bye, and at the bottom of her heart she will be very well pleased, and then I will ask Ronald Sutherland to his dinner, and then——”
“I wish,” said Mr. Moubray, “you would ease my mind at least by making sure that Effie has really come in. I have a misgiving, which is perhaps foolish: I will go myself if you will let me.”
“No need for that,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, ringing the bell. “George, you will send Margaret to tell Miss Effie—but what am I to tell her? that is just the question. She will not want anything to say to me, and she will perhaps think—— You will say just that her uncle wants her, that will be the best thing to say.”
There was a pause while George departed on his errand: not that Mrs. Ogilvie had nothing to say or was affected by the anxiety of others. It had indeed been a relief to her when her husband informed her that Effie, no doubt, had come in and was in her own room. The stepmother, who had been a little uneasy before, took this for granted with a sigh of relief, and felt that a certain little danger which she had not defined to herself was over.
And now that the alarm was past, andthat she had put forth her defence, it seemed better not to dwell upon this subject. Better to let it drop, she said to herself, better to let Effie think that it was over and nothing more to be made of it. Mrs. Ogilvie was a woman without temper and never ill-natured. She was very willing to let it drop. That she should receive her stepdaughter as if nothing had happened was clearly the right way. Therefore, though she had a thousand things now to say, and could have justified her proceedings in volumes, she decided not to do so; for she could also be self-denying when it was expedient so to be.
There was therefore a pause. Mr. Moubray sat with his eyes fixed on the door and a great disquietude in his mind. He was asking himself what, if she appeared, he could do. Must he promise her her lover, as he would promise a child a plaything? must he ignore altogether the notunreasonable reasons which Mrs. Ogilvie had produced in justification of her conduct? They were abhorrent to his mind, as well as to that of Effie, yet from her point of view they were not unreasonable. But if Effie was not there? Mr. Ogilvie said nothing at all, but he walked from one end of the room to another working his shaggy eyebrows. It was evident he was not so tranquil in his mind as he had pretended to be.
Presently Margaret the housemaid appeared, after a modest tap at the door. “Miss Effie is not in her room, mem,” she said.
“Not in her room? are you quite sure? Perhaps she is in the library waiting for her papa; perhaps she is in the nursery with Rory. She may even have gone into the kitchen, to speak a word to old Mary, or to Pirie’s cottage to see if there are any flowers. You will find her somewhereif you look. Quick, quick, and tell her the minister wants her. You are sure, both of you gentlemen, that you saw her come in at the gate?”
“No doubt she came in,” said Mr. Ogilvie with irritation; “where else would she go at this time of night?”
“I am not sure at all,” said Mr. Moubray, rising up, “I never thought so: and here I have been sitting losing time. I will go myself to Pirie’s cottage—and after that——”
“There is nothing to be frightened about,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, rising too; “if she’s not at Pirie’s she will be at Rosebank, or else she will be in one of the cottages, or else—bless me, there are twenty places she may be, and nothing to make a panic about.”
The minister went out in the middle of this speech waving his hand to her as he went away, and she followed him to thedoor, calling out her consolations across the passage. She met her husband, who was about to follow, as she turned back, and caught his arm with her hands.
“Robert, you’re not in this daft excitement too? Where in the world would she go to, as you say? She’ll just have run somewhere in her pet, not to see me. There can be nothing to be terrified about.”
“You have a way,” cried the husband, “of talking, talking, that a person would fly to the uttermost parts of the airth to get free o’ ye. Let me go! Effie’s young and silly. She may run we know not where, or she may catch a cold to kill her, which is the least of it. Let me go.”
“Sit down in your own chair by your own fireside, and listen to me,” said the wife. “Why should you go on a fool’s errand? one’s enough for that. Did Effie ever give you any real vexation all herlife? No, truly, and why should she begin now? She will be taking a walk, or she will be complaining of me to the Miss Dempsters, or something of that innocent kind. Just you let her be. What did she ever do to give you a bad opinion of her? No, no, she’s come out of a good stock, and she’ll come to no harm.”
“There is something in that,” Mr. Ogilvie said. He was not ill disposed to sit down in his own chair by his own fireside and take his ease, and accept the assurance that Effie would come to no harm.
But when she had thus quieted her husband and disposed of him, Mrs. Ogilvie herself stole out in the dark, first to the house door, then through the ghostly shrubberies to the gate, to see if there was any trace visible of the fugitive. She was not so tranquil as she pretended to be. Effie’s look of consternation and horror was still in her eyes, and she had a sense of guiltwhich she could not shake off. But yet there were so many good reasons for doing what she had done, so many excuses, nay, laudable motives, things that called for immediate action.
“To marry a man you don’t care about, when there is no advantage in it, what a dreadful thing to do. How could I look on and let that little thing make such a sacrifice? and when any person with the least perception could see her heart was not in it. And Ronald, him that she just had a natural bias to, that was just the most suitable match, not a greatpartilike what we all thought young Dirom, but well enough, and her own kind of person!”
It was thus she justified herself, and from her own point of view the justification was complete. But yet she was not a happy woman as she stood within the shadow of the big laurels, and looked out upon the road, hoping every moment tosee a slight shadow flit across the road, and Effie steal in at the open gate. What could the little thing do? As for running away, that was out of the question; and she was so young, knowing nothing. What could she do? It was not possible she should come to any harm.
Mr. Moubray was more anxious still, for it seemed to him that he knew very well what she would do. He walked about all the neighbouring roads, and peeped into the cottages, and frightened the Miss Dempsters by going up to their door, with heavy feet crushing the gravel at that unaccustomed hour, for no reason but just to ask how the old lady was!
“I must be worse than I think or the minister would never have come all this way once-errand to inquire about me,” Miss Dempster said.
“He would just see the light, and he would mind that he had made no inquiriesfor three days,” said Miss Beenie; but she too was uncomfortable, and felt that there was more in this nocturnal visitation than met the eye.
It did not surprise Mr. Moubray that in all his searches he could find no trace of his little girl. He thought he knew where he would find her—on the platform of the little railway station, ready to get into the train for London. And in the meantime his mind was full of thoughts how to serve her best. He was not like the majority of people who are ready enough to serve others according to what they themselves think best. Uncle John, on the contrary, studied tenderly how he could help Effie in the way she wished.
He paused at the post-office, and sent off a telegram to Fred Dirom, expressed as follows:—“You will receive to-morrow morning a letter from Gilston. E. wishes you to know that it does not express herfeeling, that she stands fast whatever may happen.”
When he had sent this he felt a certain tranquillising influence, as if he had propitiated fate, and said to himself that when she heard what he had done, she might perhaps be persuaded to come back. Then the minister went home, put a few things into his old travelling bag, and told his housekeeper that he was going to meet a friend at the train, and that perhaps he might not return that night, or for two or three nights. When he had done this, he made his evening prayer, in which you may be sure his little Effie occupied the first place, and then set off the long half-hour’s walk to the station.
By this time it was late, and the train was due: but neither on the platform, nor in the office, nor among those who stood on the alert to jump into the train, could he find her. He was at last constrainedto believe that she was not there. Had she gone further to escape pursuit, to the next station, where there would be nobody to stop her? He upbraided himself deeply for letting the train go without him, after he had watched it plunging away in the darkness, into the echoes of the night. It seemed to thunder along through the great silence of the country, waking a hundred reverberations as he stood there with his bag in his hand, aghast, not knowing what to do. There had been time enough for that poor little pilgrim to push her way to the next stopping place, where she could get in unobserved.
Was this what she had done? He felt as if he had abandoned his little girl, deserted her, left her to take her first step in life unprotected, as he went back. And then, as he neared the village, a flicker of hope returned that she might, when left to herself, have come to a more reasonableconclusion and gone home. He went back to Gilston, walking very softly that his step might not disturb them, if the family were all composed to rest. And for a moment his heart gave a bound of relief when he saw something moving among the laurels within the gate.
But it was only Mrs. Ogilvie, who stole out into the open, with a suppressed cry: “Have you not found her?” “Has she come home?” he asked in the same breath: then in the mutual pang of disappointment they stood for a moment and looked at each other, asking no more.
“I have got Robert to go to his bed,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “God forgive me, I just deceived him, saying she was at the manse with you—which was what I hoped—for what would have been the use of him wandering about, exposing himself and getting more rheumatism, when there was you and me to do all we could? And, oh!what shall we do, or where can I send now? I am just at my wit’s end. She would not do any harm to herself, oh! never! I cannot think it; and, besides, what would be the use? for she always had it in her power to write to him, and say it was only me.”
Then the minister explained what he had anticipated, and how he had proved mistaken. “The only thing is, she might have gone on to Lamphray thinking it would be quieter, and taken the train there.”
“Lord bless us!” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “If she has done that we can hear nothing till—there is no saying when we may hear.”
And though they were on different sides, and, so to speak, hostile forces, these two people stood together for a moment with but one thought, listening to every little echo, and every rustle, and the crackingof the twigs, and the sound of the burn, all the soft unreckoned noises of a silent night, but Effie’s step or breath was not among them all.
Effiehad darted away from the side of her father and uncle in one of thoseaccèsof impatience which are common to the young and inexperienced. She had no training in that science of endurance which is one of the chief bulwarks of life. Everything had become intolerable to her. She “could not bear it,” words which are so often said, but which in most cases mean little more than the unavailing human cry against the hardships to which we have all to submit, and which most of us learn must be borne after all whatever may be the struggle. By times the young, the unprepared, the undisciplined fly out and will notsubmit, to the confusion of their own existence first, and that of all others involved.
Effie meant little more than this uncontrollable expression of impatience, and sense of the intolerableness of the circumstances, when she loosed her arm from that of Uncle John, and fled—she knew not where. She was not far off, standing trembling and excited among the shadows, while they called her and searched for her along the different paths; and when they went hastily into the house on the supposition that she had found her way there, her heart for a moment failed her, and an inclination to realize their thoughts, to escape no farther than to the seclusion and safety of her own room, crossed her mind like one of the flying clouds that were traversing the sky. But not only her excitement and rebellion against the treason which she was being compelled to, but even her pride was now in arms, preventing any return.
She stood among the trees, among the evening damps, for some time after the gentlemen had disappeared, thought after thought coursing through her brain. Her determination was unchanged to go South by the night train, though she had no clear idea what was next to be done when she should reach London, that great fabulous place where she had never been, and of which she had not the faintest understanding. She would seek out Fred, tell him that she would stand by him whatever his trouble might be—that nothing should detach her from his side—that if he was poor that was all the more reason.
So far as this went, Effie knew what to say, her heart was full of eloquence and fervour. The intermediate steps were difficult, but that was easy. She had been shy with him and reticent, receiving what he gave, listening to what he said, of herself giving little. But now a new impulsepossessed her. She would throw herself heart and soul into his fortunes. She would help him now that he needed her. She would be true, ah! more than that as she had said—she could not be false—it was an impossibility. Now that he was in need she was all his to work or watch, to console or to cheer as might be most needful—his by the securest, most urgent of bonds, by right of his necessities.
The enthusiasm which she had never felt for Fred came now at the thought of his poverty and loss. She could smile in the force of her resolution at the folly of the woman who thought this would break the tie between them; break it! when it made it like steel.
This fire in her heart kept Effie warm, and glowed about her with a semblance of passion; but first there was a difficult moment which she did not know how to pass. Had the train gone at once all wouldhave been easy; but it would not go yet for hours, and she could not pass the time standing on the damp grass, her feet getting wet, her damp skirts clinging about her, the wintry dews dropping upon her, under those trees. She began to think and ask herself where she would go to wait and get a little warm before it should be time for the train.
To Rosebank? but they were on the other side she reflected, with a vague pang and misty passing realization of all that the other side meant. She had been on the other side herself, against her will, till to-day; but not now, oh, not now! She felt the pang, like a cutting asunder, a tearing away; but would not dwell upon it, felt it only in passing. No, she would not go into the atmosphere of the other side.
And how could she go to the manse where Uncle John would beg and pray to go instead of her, which was so very different; for Effie required not only to demonstrate her strong faithfulness, but to keep it up, to keep it in the state of passion.
Then there suddenly came upon her a gleam of illumination. Yes! that was the only place to go. To whom but to those who would suffer with him, who would have need also of strengthening and encouragement, who had such a change before them, and so much occasion for the support of their friends—could Effie betake herself? It did not occur to her that Doris and Phyllis, under the influence of depression and loss, were almost inconceivable, and that to cheer them by the sympathy and backing up of a little girl like herself, was something which the imagination failed to grasp. Not that thought, but the difficulties of the way chilled her a little. The dark, dark road over the brae which reached the waterside close to the churchyard, thelittle path by the river, the wide, silent, solitary park—all this made her shiver a little.
But she said to herself with a forlorn rallying of her forces that such trifles mattered nothing, that she was beyond thinking of anything so unimportant, that there was the place for her, that she must go to his sisters to give them confidence, to comfort them on Fred’s account, to say, “I am going to him, to stand by him.” They who knew him so well, would know that when she said that, all was said, and Fred’s strength and endurance secured.
This decision was made very rapidly, the mental processes being so much quicker than anything that is physical, so that the sound of the door closing upon Mr. Ogilvie and Mr. Moubray had scarcely died out of the echoes before she set forth. She walked very quickly and firmly so long as it was the highroad, where there were cottage lights shining here and there and an occasional passer-by, though she shrank from sight or speech of any; but when she came to the darker by-way over the hill, it was all Effie’s courage could do to keep her going.
There was light in the sky, the soft glimmer of stars, but it did not seem to get so far as the head of the brae, and still less down the other side, where it descended towards the water. Down below at the bottom of the ravine the water itself, indeed, was doubly clear; the sky reflected in it with a wildness and pale light which was of itself enough to frighten any one; but the descending path seemed to change and waver in the great darkness of the world around, so that sometimes it appeared to sink under Effie’s feet, receding and falling into an abyss immeasurable, which re-acted upon the gloom, and made the descent seem as steep as a precipice.
Her little figure, not distinguishable in the darkness, stumbling downwards, not seeing the stones and bushes that came in her way, seemed a hundred times as if about to fall down, down, into the depths, into that dark clearness, the cold gulf of the stream. Sometimes she slid downward a little, and then thought for a dizzy moment that all was over—sometimes stumbled and felt that she was going down headlong, always feeling herself alone, entirely alone, between the clear stars overhead and the line of keen light below.
Then there came the passage of the churchyard, which was full of solemnity. Effie saw the little huddled mass of the old chapel against the dim opening out of the valley in which the house of Allonby lay—and it looked to her like a crouching figure watching among the dead, like, perhaps, some shadow of Adam Fleming or his murdered Helen in the place where she fell.
As soon as she got on level ground the girl flew along, all throbbing and trembling with terror. Beyond lay the vague stretches of the park, and the house rising in the midst of the spectral river mists, soft and white, that filled it—the lights in the windows veiled and indistinct, the whole silent, like a house of shadows. Her heart failed although she went on, half flying, towards it, as to a refuge. Effie by this time had almost forgotten Fred. She had forgotten everything except the terrors of this unusual expedition, and the silence and solitude and all the weird influences that seemed to be about her. She felt as if she was outside of the world altogether, a little ghost wandering over the surface of the earth. There seemed to be no voice in her to call out for help against the darkness and the savage silence, through which she could not even hear the trickle of the stream: nothing but herown steps flying, and her own poor little bosom panting, throbbing, against the unresponsive background of the night.
Her footsteps too became inaudible as she got upon the turf and approached close to Allonby. All was silent there also; there seemed no sound at all as if any one was stirring, but only a dead house with faint spectral lights in the windows.
She stopped and took breath and came to herself, a little calmed by the neighbourhood of a human habitation in which there must be some inhabitants though she could not hear them. She came to herself more or less, and the pulsations of terror in her ears beat less overwhelmingly, so that she began to be able to think again, and ask herself what she should do. To go to the great door, to wake all the echoes by knocking, to be met by an unconcerned servant and ushered in as if she were an ordinary visitor, all agitated andworn by emotion as she was, was impossible.
It seemed more natural, everything being out of rule, to steal round the house till she found the window of the room in which the girls were sitting, and make her little summons to them without those impossible formalities, and be admitted so to their sole company. The lawn came close up under the windows, and Effie crept round one side of the house, finding all dark, with a feeling of discouragement as if she had been repulsed. One large and broad window a little in advance showed, however, against the darkness, and though she knew this could not be a sitting-room, she stole on unconscious of any curiosity or possibility of indiscretion, it being a matter of mere existence to find some one.
The curtains were drawn half over the window, yet not so much but that shecould see in. And the sight that met the girl’s astonished eyes was one so strange and incomprehensible that it affected her like a vision.
Mrs. Dirom was sitting in the middle of the room in a deep easy chair, with her head in her hands, to all appearance weeping bitterly, while a man muffled in a rough loose coat stood with his back to her, opening what seemed the door of a little cupboard in the wall close to the bed. Effie gazed terror-stricken, wondering was it a robber, who was it? Mrs. Dirom was making no resistance; she was only crying, her face buried in her hands.
The little door yielded at last, and showed to Effie dimly the shelves of a safe crowded with dark indistinct objects. Then Mrs. Dirom rose up, and taking some of these indistinct objects in her hands suddenly made visible a blaze ofdiamonds which she seemed to press upon the man.
He turned round to the light, as Effie, stooping, half kneeling on the wet grass, gazed in, in a kind of trance, scarcely knowing what she did. The coat in which he was muffled was large and rough, and a big muffler hung loosely round his neck, but to the great astonishment of the young spectator the face was that of Mr. Dirom himself. He seemed to laugh and put away the case in which the diamonds were blazing.
Then out of the further depths of the safe he brought a bundle of papers over which he nodded his head a great many times as if with satisfaction. At this moment something seemed to disturb them, some sound apparently in the house, for they both looked towards the door, and then the lamp was suddenly extinguished and Effie saw no more. It was a curiousscene—the diamonds lighting up the dim room, the woman in tears offering them to the man, he refusing, holding his little bundle of papers, the unusual dress, the air of excitement and emotion: and then sudden darkness, nothing visible any more; yet the certainty that these two people were there, without light, concealing themselves and their proceedings, whatever these might be.
Effie had looked on scarcely knowing why, unaware that she was prying into other people’s concerns, suddenly attracted by the gleam of light, by the comfort of feeling some one near. The putting out of the lamp threw her back into her panic, yet changed it. She shrank away from the window with a sudden fear of the house in which something strange, she knew not what, was going on. Her mind was too much confused to ask what it was, to make any representation to herself ofwhat she had seen; but the thought of these two peoplein the darkseemed to give a climax to all the nameless terrors of the night.
She went on by the side of the house, not knowing what to do, afraid now to ask admission, doubly afraid to turn back again, lost in confusion of mind and fatigue of body, which dimmed and drove out her original distress.
Now, however, she had come to the back regions in which the servants were stirring, and before she was aware a loud “Who’s that?” and the flash of a lantern upon her, brought her back to herself. It was the grooms coming back from the stable who thus interrupted her forlorn round.
“Who’s that?—it’s a woman—it’s a lassie! Lord bless us, it’s Miss Ogilvie!” they cried.
Effie had sufficient consciousness to meet their curious inspection with affected composure.
“I want to see Miss Dirom,” she said. “I lost my way in the dark; I couldn’t find the door. Can I see Miss Dirom?”
Her skirts were damp and clinging about her, her hair limp with the dews of the night, her whole appearance wild and strange: but the eyes of the grooms were not enlightened. They made no comments; one of them led her to the proper entrance, another sent the proper official to open to her, and presently she stood dazzled and tremulous in the room full of softened firelight and taperlight, warm and soft and luxurious, as if there was no trouble or mystery in the world, where Doris and Phyllis sat in their usual animated idleness talking to each other. One of them was lying at full length on a sofa, her arms about her head, her white cashmere dress falling in the much esteemed folds which that pretty material takes by nature; the other was seated on a stool before thefire, her elbows on her knees. The sound of their voices discoursing largely, softly, just as usual, was what Effie heard as the servant opened the door.
“Miss Ogilvie, did you say?—Effie!” They both gazed at her with different manifestations of dramatic surprise—without, for the moment, any other movement. Her appearance was astonishing at this hour, but nothing else seemed to disturb the placidity of these young women. Finally, Miss Phyllis rose from her stool in front of the fire.
“She has eyes like stars, and her hair is all twinkling with dew—quite a romantic figure. What a pity there is nobody to see it but Doris and me! You don’t mean to say you have come walking all this way?”
“Oh! what does it matter how I came?” cried Effie. “I came—because I could not stay away. There was nobody else thatwas so near me. I came to tell you—I am going to Fred.”
“To Fred!” they both cried, Phyllis with a little scream of surprise, Doris in a sort of inquiring tone, raising herself half from her sofa. They both stared at her strangely. They had no more notion why she should be going to Fred than the servant who had opened the door for her—most likely much less—for there were many things unknown to the young ladies which the servants knew.
“Fred will be very much flattered,” said Doris. “But why are you going? does he know? what is it for? is it for shopping? Have you made up your mind, all at once, that you want another dress?—I should say two or three, but that is neither here nor there. And what has put it so suddenly into your head? And where are you going to stay? Are you sureyour friends are in London at this time of the year——?”
“Oh!” cried Effie, restored out of her exhaustion and confusion in a moment by this extraordinary speech, “is that all you think? a dress, and shopping to do! when Fred is alone, when he is in trouble, when even your father has deserted him—and his money gone, and his heart sore! Oh, is that all you know? I am going to tell him that I will never forsake him whatever others may do—that I am come to stand by him—that I am come——”
She stopped, not because she had no more to say, but because she lost the control of her voice and could do nothing but sob—drawing her breath convulsively, like a child that has wept its passion out, yet has not recovered the spasmodic grip upon its throat.
Phyllis and Doris looked at her with eyes more and more astonished and critical. They spoke to each other, not to her. “She means it, do you know, Dor!”
“It is like a melodrama, Phyll—Goodness, look at her! If we should ever go on the stage——!”
Effie heard the murmur of their voices, and turned her eyes from one to another: but her head was light with the fumes of her own passion, which had suddenly flared so high; and though she looked from one to another, instinctively, she did not understand what they said.
“And did you come to tell us this, so late, and all alone, you poor little Effie? And how did you manage to get away? and how are you to get back?”
“Of course,” said Doris, “we must send her back. Don’t ask so many silly questions, Phyll.”
“I am not going back,” said Effie. “They would stop me if they knew. Oh, will you send me to the train? for it is very dark and very wet, and I’m frightened, it’s all so lonely. I never meant to trouble anybody. But your father will be goingtoo, and I would just sit in a corner and never say a word. Oh, will you ask him to let me go with him to the train?”
“What does she mean about papa? The train! there is no one going to the train. Do you mean to say that you—to-night—oh, you know you must be dreaming; nothing like this is possible, Effie! You must go home, child, and go to bed——”
“To bed! and let him think that I’ve forsaken him—to let him get up to-morrow morning and hear that Effie, because he is poor, has gone back from her word? Oh! no, no, I cannot do it. If you will not send me, I will just walk as I meant to do! I was frightened,” said Effie, with her piteous little sob. “And then if your father is going—But it does not matter after all, I will just walk as I meant to do: and if you don’t care, that was my mistake in coming—I will just say good-night.”
She turned away with a childlike dignity, yet with a tremor she could not subdue. She was not afraid to go out into the world, to carry the sacrifice of her young existence to the man who loved her, whom she would not forsake in his trouble: but she was frightened for the dark road, the loneliness of the night—she was frightened, but yet she was ready to do it. She turned away with a wave of her hand.
Both of the girls, however, were roused by this time. Doris rose from her sofa, and Phyllis seized Effie, half coaxingly, half violently, by the arm.
“Effie! goodness,” she cried, “just think for a moment. You musn’t do this—what could Fred do with you? He would be frightened out of his senses. You would put him in such a predicament. Whatwouldhe do?”
“And where would you go?” said Doris. “To his lodgings? Only fancy, a youngman’s lodgings in Half Moon Street, just the sort of place where they think the worst of everything. He would be at his wit’s end. He would think it very sweet of you, but just awfully silly. For what would he do with you? He could not keep you there. It would put him in the most awkward position. For Fred’s sake, if you really care for him, don’t, for heaven’s sake, do anything so extraordinary. Here is mother, she will tell you.”
“Mamma,” they both cried, as Mrs. Dirom came into the room, “Effie has got the strangest idea. I think she must be a little wrong in her head. She says she is going to Fred——”
“To Fred!” the mother exclaimed with a voice full of agitation. “Has anything happened to Fred——”
“Don’t make yourself anxious, it is only her nonsense. She has heard about the firm, I suppose. She thinks he is ruined,and all that, and she wants to go to him to stand by him—to show him that she will not forsake him. It’s pretty, but it’s preposterous,” said Doris, giving Effie a sudden kiss. “Tell her she will only make Fred uncomfortable. She will not listen to us.”
Mrs. Dirom had a look of heat and excitement which her children never remembered to have seen in her before, but which Effie understood who knew. Her eyes were red, her colour high, a flush across her cheek-bones: her lips trembled with a sort of nervous impatience.
“Oh,” she cried, “haven’t I enough to think of? Do I want to be bothered with such childish nonsense now? Going to Fred! What does she want with Fred? He has other things in his mind. Let her go home, that is the only thing to do——”
“So we have told her: but she says she wants to go to the train; and something about my father who is here, and will be going too.”
“Nothing of the sort,” cried Mrs. Dirom, sharply. She gave Effie a look of alarm, almost threatening, yet imploring—a look which asked her how much she knew, yet defied her to know anything.
“The poor little thing has got a fright,” she said, subduing her voice. “I am not angry with you, Effie; you mean it kindly, but it would never, never do. You must go home.”
Effie’s strength had ebbed out of her as she stood turning her bewildered head from one to another, hearing with a shock unspeakable that Fred—Fred whom she had been so anxious to succour!—would not want her, which made the strangest revolution in her troubled mind. But still mechanically she held to her point.
“I will not be any trouble. I will just sit in the corner and never say a word.Let me go to the train with Mr. Dirom. Let me go—with him. He is very kind, he will not mind.”
“Mamma, do you hear what she says? She has said it again and again. Can papa be here and none of us know?”
“Nothing of the sort,” cried Mrs. Dirom once more. Her tone was angry, but it was full of alarm. She turned her back on the others and looked at Effie with eyes that were full of anguish, of secrecy and confidence, warning her, entreating her, yet defying.
“How should he be here when he has so much to do elsewhere?” she cried. “The child has got that, with the other nonsense, into her head.” Then with a sudden change of tone, “I will take her to my room to be quiet, and you can order the brougham to take her home.”
“Shewas sent home in the brougham, that disturbed all our sleep just dashing along the road at the dead of night. They were in a terrible state before that. The minister, too, was here, looking like a ghost to hear if we knew anything; and how could we say we knew anything, seeing she had parted from here in the afternoon not over well pleased with Beenie and me. And Mrs. Ogilvie—she is not a woman I am fond of, and how far I think she’s to blame, I would just rather not say—but I will say this, that I was sorry for her that night. She came, too, with a shawl over her head, just out of herself.She had got the old man off to his bed, never letting on that Effie was out of the house; and she was in a terror for him waking, and the girl not there.”
“No fear of him waking; he is just an old doited person,” said Miss Beenie, with indignation.
“Not so old as either you or me. But let alone till I’ve told my story. And then, Ronald, my man, you’ve heard what’s followed. Not only a failure, but worse and worse; and the father fled the country. They say he had the assurance to come down here to get some papers that were laid up in his wife’s jewel press, and that Effie saw him. But he got clean away; and it’s a fraudulent bankruptcy—or if there’s anything worse than a fraudulent bankruptcy, it’s that. Oh, yes, there has been a great deal of agitation, and it is perhaps just as well that you were out of the way. I cannot tell whether I feel forthe family or not. There is no look about them as if they thought shame. They’re just about the same as ever, at kirk and at market, with their horses and carriages. They tell me it takes a long time to wind up an establishment like that—and why should they not take the good of their carriages and their horses as long as they have them? But I’m perhaps a very old-fashioned woman. I would not have kept them, not a day. I would never have ridden the one nor driven about in the other, with my father a hunted swindler, and my family’s honour all gone to ruin—never, never! I would rather have died.”
“Sarah, that is just what you will do, if you work yourself up like this. Will ye not remember what the doctor says?”
“Oh, go away with your doctors. I’m an old-fashioned woman, but I’m a woman of strong feelings; I just cannot endure it! and to think that Effie, my poor littleEffie, will still throw in her lot with them, and will not be persuaded against it!”
“Why should she be persuaded against it?” said Ronald Sutherland, with a very grave face. “Nobody can believe that the money would make any difference to her: and I suppose the man was not to blame.”
“The man—was nothing one way or another. He got the advantage of the money, and he was too poor a creature ever to ask how it was made. But it’s not that; the thing is that her heart was never in it—never! She was driven—no, not driven—if she had been driven she would have resisted. She was just pushed into it, just persuaded to listen, and then made to see there was no escape. Didn’t I tell you that, Beenie, before there was word of all this, before Ronald came home? The little thing: had no heart for it. She just got white like a ghost whenthere was any talk about marriage. She would hear of nothing, neither the trou-so, as they call it now, nor any of the nonsense that girls take a natural pleasure in. But now her little soul is just on fire. She will stick to him—she will not forsake him. And here am I in my bed, not able to take her by her shoulders and to tell her the man’s not worthy of it, and that she’ll rue it just once, and that will be her life long!”
“Oh!” cried Miss Beenie, wringing her hands, “what is the use of a woman being in her bed if she is to go on like that? You will just bring on another attack, and where will we all be then? The doctor, he says——”
“You are greatly taken up with what the doctor says: that’s one thing of being in my bed,” said Miss Dempster, with a laugh, “that I cannot see the doctor and his ways—his dram—that he would cometo the window and take off, with a nod up at you and me.”
“Oh, Sarah, nothing of the kind. It was no dram, in the first place, but just a small drop of sherry with his quinine——”
“That’s very like, that’s very like,” said Miss Dempster, with a satirical laugh, “the good, honest, innocent man! I wonder it was not tea, just put in a wine glass for the sake of appearances. Are you sure, Beenie, it was not tea?”
“Oh, Sarah! the doctor, he has just been your diversion. But if you would be persuaded what a regard he has for you—ay, and respect too—and says that was always his feeling, even when he knew you were gibing and laughing at him.”
“A person that has the sense to have a real illness will always command a doctor’s respect. If I recover, things will just fall into their old way; but make your mind easy, Beenie, I will not recover, and thedoctor will have a respect for me all his days.”
“Oh, Sarah!” cried Miss Beenie, weeping. “Ronald, I wish you would speak to her. You have a great influence with my sister, and you might tell her—— You are just risking your life, and what good can that do?”
“I am not risking my life; my life’s all measured, and reeling out. But I would like to see that bit little Effie come to a better understanding before I die. Ye will be a better doctor for her than me, Ronald. Tell her from me she is a silly thing. Tell her yon is not the right man for her, and that I bid her with my dying breath not to be led away with a vain conceit, and do what will spoil her life and break her heart. He’s not worthy of it—no man is worthy of it. You may say that to her, Ronald, as if it was the last thing I had to say.”
“No,” said Ronald. His face had not at all relaxed. It was fixed with the set seriousness of a man to whom the subject is far too important for mirth or change of feature. “No,” he said, “I will tell Effie nothing of the kind. I would rather she should do what was right than gain an advantage for myself.”
“Right, there is no question about right!” cried the old lady. “He’s not worthy of it. You’ll see even that he’ll not desire it. He’ll not understand it. That’s just my conviction. How should his father’s son understand a point of honour like that? a man that is just nobody, a parvenoo, a creature that money has made, and that the want of it will unmake. That’s not a man at all for a point of honour. You need say nothing from yourself; though you are an old friend, and have a right to show her all the risks, and what she is doing; but if you don’t tell her whatI’m saying I will just—I will just—haunt you, you creature without spirit, you lad without a backbone intil ye, you——”
But here Miss Beenie succeeded in drawing Ronald from the room.
“Why will ye listen to her?” cried the young sister; “ye will just help her to her own destruction. When I’m telling you the doctor says—oh, no, I’m pinning my faith to no doctor; but it’s just as clear as daylight, and it stands to reason—she will have another attack if she goes on like yon——”
The fearful rush she made at him, the clutch upon his arm, his yielding to the impulse which he could not resist, none of these things moved Ronald. His countenance was as set and serious as ever, the humour of the situation did not touch him. He neither smiled nor made any response. Downstairs with Miss Beenie, out of sight of the invalid who was soviolent in the expression of her feelings, he retained the same self-absorbed look.
“If she thinks it right,” he said, “I am not the one to put any difficulty before her. The thing for me to do is just to go away—”
“Don’t go away and leave us, Ronald, when no mortal can tell what an hour or a day may bring forth; and Sarah always so fond of you, and you such a near connection, the nearest we have in this countryside——”
“What should happen in a day or an hour, and of what service can I be?” he asked. “Of course, if I can be of any use——” but he shook his head. Ronald, like most people, had his mind fixed upon his own affairs.
“Oh, have ye no eyes?” cried Miss Beenie, “have none of ye any eyes? You are thinking of a young creature that has all her life before her, and time to set things right if they should go wrong;but nobody has a thought for my sister, that has been the friend of every one of you, that has never missed giving you a good advice, or putting you in the way you should go. And now here is she just slipping away on her last journey, and none of you paying attention! not one, not one!” she cried, wringing her hands, “nor giving a thought of pity to me that will just be left alone in the world.”
Miss Beenie, who had come out to the door with the departing visitor, threw herself down on the bench outside, her habitual seat in happier days, and burst into subdued weeping.
“I darena even cry when she can see me. It’s a relief to get leave to cry,” she said, “for, oh, cannot ye see, not one of ye, that she’s fading away like the morning mist and like the summer flowers?”
The morning mist and the summer flowers were not images very like MissDempster, who lay like an old tree, rather than any delicate and fragile thing; but Dr. Jardine, coming briskly up on his daily visit, was not susceptible to appropriateness of metaphor. He came up to Miss Beenie and patted her on the shoulder with a homely familiarity which a few months ago would have seemed presumption to the ladies of Rosebank.
“Maybe no,” he said, “maybe no, who can tell? And even if it was so, why should you be alone? I see no occasion—— Come up, and we’ll see how she is to-day.”
Ronald Sutherland, left alone, walked down the slope very solemnly, with his face as rigid as ever. Miss Dempster was his old and good friend, but, alas, he thought nothing of Miss Dempster.
“If she thinks it right, it must be so,” he was saying to himself. “If she thinks it’s right, am I the one to put any difficulty in the way?”