Hepburnamused Mrs. Charles very much, though that was not considered one of his capabilities in Comlie. He roused her gradually from her depressed state into general conversation. After he had delivered Marjory’s message, he stayed and talked, feeling a quite novel excitement and exhilaration in the fact of this social success, which was unprecedented in his experience. To be appreciated is doubly delightful to a man who is not used to much applause from his friends. Matilda was the first pretty woman who had “understood” him, who had permitted herself to be beguiled out of her private sorrows by his agreeable society. He was not the less faithful to Marjory, who had possessed all his thoughts as long as he could remember; but still it was pleasant to be able to comfort the afflicted, and to feel that his efforts for that end were successful. After a while, when the tears had been cleared away, when a gentle smile had stolen upon the fair countenance before him; when she had yielded to his fascination so far as to talk a little, and to listen eagerly, and to look up to him with those blue eyes, Hepburn could not but feel that Miss Heriot must have been deceived somehow, and that so gentle a creature must be easy “to get on with,” to those who would be good to her. For the first time inhis life, he felt that there was something to excuse in the idol of his youth. Not a fault, indeed, but a failure of comprehension; and Marjory had never failed before in any particular, so far as her adorer knew. Perhaps the reason was that this gentle little widow was a totally different kind of woman. Various things he had heard on this subject occurred to Hepburn’s mind to account for Marjory’s failure. Women, even the best and cleverest, did sometimes fail to understand each other, he believed, upon points which offered no difficulty to an impartial masculine intellect. This was not at all a disagreeable thought; it raised him vaguely into a pleasant atmosphere of superiority which elated him, and could not hurt anybody. He even seemed to himself to be fonder of Marjory from the sense of elevation over her. Yes, no doubt this was the explanation. Mrs. Charles had done or said something which a man probably would never have noticed, but which had affected the more delicate and sensitive, but less broad and liberal nature of the sweetest of women; and Marjory, on her side, as he knew by experience, uttered words now and then which were not destitute of the power to sting. Hepburn thought that to bring these two together again would be a very fine piece of work for the man who could accomplish it. A loving blue-eyed creature like this could not but cling to Marjory’s strength, and Marjory would derive beauty, too, from the fair being whom she supported. Yes, he thought, as he looked at her, Matilda was the kind of woman described in all the poets, the lovelyparasite, the climbing woodbine, a thing made up of tendrils, which would hang upon a man, and hold him fast with dependent arms. Marjory was not of that nature. To be sure, Marjory was the first of women; but there was a great deal to be said for the other, who was, no doubt, inferior, but yet had her charm. Hepburn felt that in the abstract it would be sweet to feel that some one was dependent upon him. Somehow the idea crept to his heart, and nestled there; but Marjory naturally would not have the same feelings. Marjory would be disposed rather to push away the tendrils. It was a different sort of thing altogether between the two women. Thus Hepburn felt a delicious superiority creep over him as he sat and talked. He received Mrs. Charles’s confidences about the servants after a time, and was deeply sorry. Fleming and the rest seemed to him a set of savages, taking advantage of this sweet young creature’s ignorance and innocence.
“Let me manage it for you,” he said, eagerly. “I am not very clever about servants myself, but I will speak to my housekeeper, who knows everybody. She will find you some one. Let me be of some use to you.”
“Oh, that will be so kind!” cried both the ladies. Johnnie Hepburn had never felt himself such a man during his whole life.
When Verna had thus arranged matters for her sister’s comfort, she herself withdrew to put the house once more in order, and to resume the helm of state. She shrugged her shoulders when she leftthe room, in which she left the new-comer quite happy, and Matilda in gentle good spirits.
“No wonder we think men fools,” she said to herself; “and no wonder men think us fools,” she added, philosophically, after a moment.
Thus it must have been decreed, she supposed, for the good of the species; and a blessed dispensation it was, if it could be confined to its present use of finding pleasant occupation for two incapables, and leaving those to work who could. But unfortunately Verna knew the process often went further than that. However, for the meantime she felt it necessary to be content with the advantages secured to her by the collapse of her sister’s authority, and the merciful and most providential provision of some one to flirt with, thus accorded to her at the moment of direst need. Verna employed her afternoon so well that she even came to terms with Mrs. Simpson, who acknowledged the difference of having to deal with a reasonable young lady, who knew what was due—It was a pleasant afternoon for Miss Bassett; for the first time she went over the house, and realized the character of the kingdom which had come into her hands by deputy. She visited all the linen-presses, all the store-rooms; she took a peep into the plate-closet; she went and inspected the old wardrobes, where lay many antique stores, old dresses, and piles of what Mrs. Simpson called “body-linen,” and lace which made her mouth water. “This must belong to Miss Heriot, I suppose,” she said, trying to recollect what was named in the will. Verna had never known what an oldhouse was till now. She found oak cabinets and pieces of furniture which she knew to be of value, heaped up in garrets and on the landings of the many-turning stairs. She found drawers upon drawers full ofchiffons, which she could appreciate still better; and in every out-of-the-way cupboard there was some piece of china, some curiosity such as Verna had vainly longed for all her life. They were there unseen, lurking in corners, not prized or thought of, and too many in number to be made visible; there was enough to decorate half-a-dozen houses; old brocade gowns which would cut up into the loveliest chair-covers, and old Dresden, which, if gathered together, would fill a room by itself. Oh! only to have half-a-dozen pieces of it in the house at Calcutta, or in any other house which Verna might call her own! She was perfectly honest, and would not have taken a penny from Tommy’s possessions for the world; but the china went to her heart.
And then she put on her hat and went round the house outside. She took a very comprehensive view, taking her double eyeglass, which she kept for important moments, and studying the building thoroughly from every point of view. Women are deeply conservative, it is common to say; but at the same time there is no such iconoclast as an ignorant young woman longing for perfection, and secure in her own opinion. Verna thought the old house a most unnecessary adjunct to the new. The only useful part of it was the tower occupied by Mr. Charles, which would no doubt accommodatea visitor if the house was very much crowded—but then if a new wing was built there would be a great deal more accommodation. Verna built the wing in her imagination, drawing it along the further side of the lime avenue, and planting long windows open to the ground in the new drawing-room, which would be much “snugger,” she thought, than the old drawing-room which opened upon the cliff. She made a nice room for herself in the warmest corner facing to the south, for she was cold by right of being Indian, and liked to bask in the sun. How delightful was this sense of being supreme, this feeling of power, this capacity for doing as she liked! It seemed to her that she had fairly subdued Matilda, and that nothing would tempt that incapable person, after her failure, to meddle any more with the affairs which she had so mismanaged; besides Verna meant to make her sister very comfortable; she liked people to be comfortable. She had no inclination to oppress, or to be unkind. She meant to do more for Matilda than she would have done for herself, indulging her to the top of her bent, and putting up with all her weaknesses. Even to the length of providing somebody to flirt with, of taking her to gaieties which they had both dreamt of as girls, and had read about in books, without ever having it in their power to taste their sweetness, Verna was willing to humour her sister; and so long as she would consent to be quiet and enjoy herself, asked nothing more from Matty. That she should enjoy herself was necessary, as this was the only expedient Verna knew to keep her contented. Finally she sat down on the steps of the sundial, where Marjory had sat so often, and turned over all her plans in her mind with a satisfaction which it would be difficult to describe in words. Nineteen years must elapse before Tommy should be of age. Nineteen years! a lifetime; and during that time there seemed no reason why she should not be virtual mistress of the place. To be sure such a thing was possible as that she should marry; but Verna knew herself well enough to feel that she could trust herself, and would do nothing contrary to her own interests. If some one should by chance turn up with an estate and house equal to Pitcomlie, who had sense enough to see what an admirable mistress she would make for it, why then, indeed, marriage might be attractive, and an improvement upon present circumstances; but without an inducement of this kind, Verna felt herself to be safe. What happy visions floated through her brain as she sat on the steps of the sundial, and looked at the house which was to be her kingdom! What a thing it is to come suddenly from poverty and obscurity into wealth, and ease, and honour, and glory! Mr. Bassett out in Calcutta was not badly off, but he had brought up his daughters very economically, and he had not concealed his desire to get rid of them as soon as possible. Verna had thwarted and provoked her father by not marrying. He had sworn it was her fault, though she knew it was not her fault. Surely he could not wish nor expect her to marry a subaltern in a line regiment, which was all the Fates had sent in her way? Butstill he had been dissatisfied, warmly asserting that the business of girls who came to India was to marry—well, if they could, but anyhow to marry—a view of the case which disgusted his daughter; and there were complications about a second half-caste family of young Bassetts which made her very glad to escape from her father’s paternal care. After all the storms that had surrounded her existence, and all the shabbiness of her beginning, and fear of future shabbiness in store, it may be imagined what it was to Verna when her ship suddenly sailed into this bay of plenty. She disliked cold winds generally, but the cold wind to-day, though it blew from the east, did not affect her as she sat on the base of the sundial and contemplated her empire. Not without a struggle had that empire been attained. She had almost despaired when she saw how her sister in the strength of her folly, had put to flight the Heriots, and emptied the house; but still she had been patient and bided her time, and that time had come at last.
Short-sighted young woman! She did not perceive, till she had put up her eyeglass, that Johnnie Hepburn was leading Mrs. Charles out from the open window to take the air upon the cliff. When she did see it, she congratulated herself only on having found some one to amuse Matty—for she had no eyeglass to remedy that short-sightedness so far as the future is concerned, which is common to the human race.
Quite late in the same afternoon, when it was dark, and Miss Jean’s house was pervaded withfragrant odours of dinner, young Hepburn came in much out of breath, having walked very fast from Pitcomlie to fulfil his commission. He brought Marjory the books she had sent him for, with an excess of apologies for his delay, which, had she cared much about it, would certainly have enlightened her. He had been detained in the most remarkable ways, kept back by one thing after another. And he had found Mrs. Charles very poorly, and her sister quite anxious about her. “I am afraid she is very delicate,” he said, sitting in the dark in Miss Jean’s drawing-room, where, as the family were nearly ready for dinner, the candles had not yet been lighted. There was a glow of ruddy firelight just where Miss Jean herself was sitting, but all the rest were in shadow. And from somewhere in the room there came a “humph!” which confused the young man; however, it could not be Marjory who uttered that exclamation.
“I am sorry if she is ill,” said Marjory immediately after; and then there was a pause, which Hepburn felt embarrassing. He wanted very much to say something which would be mediating and conciliatory, but the atmosphere certainly was against him; it was repelling and chilly. Women certainly do not understand women, he said in his heart; both so charming! what a thing that it is impossible to bring them together! and then he cleared his voice and tried again.
“I am afraid she is not accustomed to our kind of life,” he said. “India is so different. Old Fleming has left, and the housekeeper is leaving,and they don’t know what to do. I promised to speak to Miss Jean—”
“Speak to anybody else, Johnnie, my man, before me!” said Miss Jean, peremptorily; “I’ve seen the young leddy, and I was not struck with her. She’s bonnie enough, I allow, to please a silly lad; but she’s not of the kind for me.”
This was a very offensive speech to the amiable peacemaker. In the first place, of itself, that “Johnnie” made an end of him from the beginning. Of all names to apply to an aspiring young man intending to assume an elevated position, and feeling himself a person of influence, it is, perhaps, the cruellest title. Marjory smiled in spite of herself, protected by the darkness; and Mr. Charles—for he it was who made up the party, repeated that “humph!” which had broken in so disagreeably before.
“Don’t sit in the corner and hum, hum, like that!” said Miss Jean promptly; “if you have a cold, Charlie, go to your bed, and be taken care of; but I cannot bide a hoasting man. We’re all in a hum, hum sort of way, Johnnie Hepburn. Go away quick and change your clothes, and come back to your dinner; we’ll be more amiable then; but come quick, for the fish will spoil; and Jess’s temper is none of the best. Lord preserve us all!” said Miss Jean, turning upon her companions with her hand uplifted, when he was gone. “That woman’s turned the laddie’s head, the first time he’s seen her! Now that’s the old-fashioned way that used to be in my day; and I respect the lad!”
“You ought to respect the lady,” said Marjory. She was amused; but yet not altogether amused. Johnnie Hepburn, for whom in himself she had a sort of elderly sisterly regard, had been her slave since ever she could remember. He had teased Marjory, and been very troublesome to her on many occasions; but he had worshipped her at all times, never thinking of any other woman. Miss Heriot was very much inclined to laugh at his championship of Mrs. Charles; but her amusement was mingled with a surprise which, perhaps, was not altogether agreeable. She had seldom been more startled; and when he came back to dinner, and the lamplight showed his youthful countenance considerably flushed with haste, or emotion of some kind, the wonder grew. The half-pique of which she was conscious, and which amused her too in its way, made Marjory somewhat satirical. “So you found Mrs. Charles very nice?” she said, when they were at table, looking up with a twinkle of laughter, which had been long absent from them, in her eyes.
“Nice?” said Hepburn, with hesitation. “Well, I do not know if that is the word I would use. It is touching to see a woman in her circumstances, so young and so——. She is very delicate, I think.”
“She is very pretty, I think!” Marjory said, laughing.
Hepburn could not tell how it was that the laugh sounded so much less pleasant to him than ordinary. Was she laughing at him? She had doneso before now, and he had only worshipped her the more. But now he had just come from the spectacle of grief, borne in a becoming manner, and it seemed almost wrong of Marjory to be able to laugh; it disturbed his ideal. He took care to say as little as possible about Mrs. Charles for the rest of the evening, but still he did manage to intimate that he thought Marjory had not, perhaps, quite understood that delicate spirit. And Marjory replied that it was quite possible, but laughed again. Bell, the maid, was rather of Mr. Hepburn’s opinion—that Marjory’s capacity for laughter showed itself too soon.
“If it had been but the auld gentleman, indeed!” said Bell; “but three deaths, one after anither!” and Jess in the kitchen shook her head also, and said Miss Marjory had aye thought too little of appearances. They all kept a very close watch upon her, to make sure that she mourned enough, and not too much. Resignation is an excellent thing, and always to be encouraged; but resignation never was known to do more than smile.
And Marjory, I do not quite know why, wrote to Fanshawe that evening. She had meant to write to him some day or other; but it is possible that Johnnie Hepburn’s desertion (though she had never made any account of Johnnie Hepburn), quickened her proceedings. She wrote him a most matter-of-fact little note, filling one page only of a sheet of note paper—without a word in it that would bear two meanings, or, indeed, possessed any meaning at all to speak of.
“This will put a stop to any further nonsense,” she said to herself, as she wrote his address at his club—and she did this with much decision and promptitude. She was going with her uncle in a few days to St. Andrews; she was about cutting off all the threads that bound her to her old life. This was a bit of her old life, though it occupied the very last chapter. Fanshawe too, perhaps, might come back to Pitcomlie, and might think that she had not “understood” its new mistress. Marjory was about to begin a different kind of existence; she snapt this thread without, she thought, caring much about it; but it was better, certainly better, that it should come to an end.
Thehouse which Mr. Charles Heriot had taken in St. Andrews was one of the oldest in that old town. The rooms were somewhat low and the windows small, and its aspect outside was, perhaps, just a little prison-like and closed up. You entered by a little door in the wall, which seemed made for clandestine stealing out and in, for ladies veiled and muffled, and gallant gentlemen disguised in the cloaks of romance. This small and jealous entrance, however, admitted the visitor into an old court all bowery on one side with jasmine and roses, and affording on the other a pleasant peep of a velvet lawn and old-fashioned garden. The third side of the square was filled up by the old house itself, upon which the sculptured arms of an old Fife family shone, over the door. This door was approached by high outside steps, under the shade of which appeared a lower door, which showed a red-tiled passage traversing the house, and another gleam of light and garden greenness at the other end. The sitting-rooms of the house were thus raised to a considerable height, and looked out from their small and deep-set windows on the ruins of the Cathedral and the blue sea beyond. Never were ruins more complete in their sunny annihilation of the past than the ruins of St. Andrews. Theyhave a sort of typical character for the students of Scottish history. Here the noble, rich, and splendid Middle Ages, which have conferred upon other nations their finest monuments and recollections, lie buried, as it were, in utter effacement, not scorned any longer—on the contrary, reverently preserved and taken care of—but blotted out from all possibility of use, and even from all meaning. But yet there is one monument of the past which still stands fast and sure as ever, the old homely, inarticulate tower of St. Regulus, belonging to a past which has no voice, a dark world which leaves everything to the fancy, and which has stood there through all changes for centuries, appealing by very absence of suggestiveness to that profound imagination which lies at the bottom of the Scottish character. The graceful clustered piers, the lovely decorated windows, the lordly breadth and majesty of aisle and nave, are too suggestive for that reticent and deep-seated faculty; but against the mysterious simplicity of that tower, which discloses nothing, no sacrilegious hand has ever been raised. It stands there in primitive gravity, plainness, lack of grace, as it might have stood in those days when the “pure Culdee, was Albyn’s earliest priest of God;” flattering the mind of the nation with a subtle sense of its antiquity, consistency, unity in all ages. These reflections, however, are ours, and not those of Marjory Hay-Heriot, as she stood at the narrow window of her new dwelling-place, and looked out upon the same sea which washed her native headland. Her eye sought that first, as is natural to the eyes ofthose who have been born upon its margin. Over the old ruins she looked to the older, everlasting thing, which is never antiquated, but keeps its youth continually. She could hear the sea dashing over the pier, and see how it rose, marking with a white line of surf the sweep of the bay beyond. That was enough to satisfy Marjory, even though the intermediate foreground was filled up by ruins and graves. Nature is always consolatory; but Art not always, not even the pathetic art of antiquity and decay.
In this old house the diminished family settled down, not without some sense of comfort. Mr. Charles had his golf, and Milly all the fresh delights of the Links and the sands, the shops and the streets, all of which were sweet to her unsophisticated intelligence. She thought the shops very fine indeed, and liked nothing so much as to go with her sister to buy a ribbon or a handkerchief; and the Links, with the flutter of gay colours about, the red-coats scattered here and there among the groups of golfers, the dresses of the ladies in their sacred corner, or fluttering about the outskirts of the ground devoted to the graver game, dazzled little Milly as with the pageant of an endless theatre, the thing most glorious to her eyes of anything on earth. Far be it from me to attempt to describe the ancient and royal game of golf. How shall a feeble feminine hand attempt to depict its delights and triumphs? St. Andrews is the metropolis of this—let us not call it game, but science. Here its professionals congregate, and its amateurs are happy. Twice round the Links in a day is the whole duty of man; andone round maintains him in that decent condition of moral respectability, falling short of excellence, but above mediocrity, which is in some respects a more comfortable state than that of supreme excellence itself. Mr. Charles fell into this pleasant duty the very first day of his arrival. He was one of the oldest members of that club which has seated itself at the entrance of the Links, like a watchful mother, with bow-windows from which it contemplates benignantly all the out-going and in-coming groups, and tables at which matches are made up, and stories told of the prowess of Tom Morris and Bob Kirk, and how the General halved a game with the Captain, and how Mr. Innesmackie gave Dr. Boothby an odd a hole, and beat him. In these pieces of news everybody is as much, nay more, deeply interested than in all the affairs of the State. Mr. Charles went down to the club on the evening of his arrival. He was a little doubtful for the first half-hour whether, in his melancholy circumstances, after “three deaths in the family,” it would be decorous for him to play; but these scruples were soon overruled.
“If there was anything fast or dissipated about it,” said the Reverend Mr. Morrison, of St. Rule’s, a member of the family which had had its blood vitiated by the introduction of the whaling captain, “I could understand your hesitation; but I play my game every day of my life, without its ever interfering with my duties as a parish Minister; and your good brother, poor Pitcomlie, is the last man in the world that would have thought of such a thing. No,no, my dear Sir; play your game, and be thankful to Providence, that gives us such a wholesome and innocent amusement. It’s just one of our many privileges,” said piously the excellent divine.
“That’s true,” said Mr. Charles, still a little doubtfully, “but if it could be supposed for a moment to show any want, on my part, of respect——”
“Nonsense, nonsense, Heriot; nonsense, man,” said Major Borthwick (there is a great collection of heroes on half-pay at St. Andrews.) “We cannot turn ourselves into tombstones, however willing we may be. I had a foursome all settled for to-morrow with old Tom and another professional against General Maclasher and myself. The General is suddenly called to Edinburgh on some business about his son, who is going out to Bombay by the next mail, and the match will be spoilt. I was making up my mind to send round and tell Tom; but you’re just about as strong as the General, as good and no more. You’ll come in, in his place? You would not, I am sure, fail an old friend.”
“I would not like to do that, certainly,” said Mr. Charles, “if you are sure you can find nobody better?”
“Have I time?” said the valiant Major. “It’s ten o’clock, and by eleven to-morrow we ought to start—unless you would like me to stay up all night?”
“No, no, certainly not; if it’s a real service to you,” said Mr. Charles; and thus he was “led into it,” as he said, to the relief of his conscience, andgreat satisfaction generally of his being. Shut out from his papers and collections at Pitcomlie, golf gave him new life, as indeed it seems to do to many personages whom the reader may see on that busy stretch of seaside grass, should he ever travel to St. Andrews. I dare not go further into details, neither dare I tell very much about the life of this lively sober place, which is the oldest metropolis of learning in Scotland as well as of golf. For did I enter into the subject fully, not the most scrupulous care to avoid personalities could save me from the reproach of being guilty of them. Did I place an “atomy” in the chair filled by a certain Jove-like presence, I should still be believed to be putting the Principal in a book; and did I turn the gallantest of ancient gentlemen into an Orson, I should still be supposed guilty of sketching the Lord of the Manor. Far from me be such impertinencies. If you wish to become acquainted with the St. Andrews of social life, dear reader, go there and see for yourself.
As for Marjory, she was not permitted to sit in loneliness by her deep window, looking out upon the little homely pier and great magnificent sea, over the foreground of the ruins. Lady Castlemount called on the first practicable day, and so did all the ladies with territorial designations in the neighbourhood, such as Mrs. Haigh, of Highbarns; Lady Walker, of Berbo; Mrs. Home, of Strath, and many more—not to speak of the learned matrons of the University, and all in St. Andrews’ town that was worthy of presenting itself to Miss Heriot, of Pitcomlie. Everybody came who was anybody; and if Marjory could have been persuaded, like her uncle, that the mild form of golf practised by ladies was necessary to her health and comfort, abundant means of availing herself of the advantage of the Ladies’ Links would have been presented to her. But Marjory was not inclined towards ‘the Ladies’ Links. She preferred the bold cliff at the old castle, the long sweep of the East Sands and the downs beyond. The East coast has never been, so far as we are aware, distinguished for beauty or picturesque qualities, but the bold line of those cliffs, bound at their feet by black ribs of half-visible reefs, iron corrugations of nature running far out, low and dangerous, into the sea—but bordered above high-water mark by the softest verdure of fine grass, mossy and velvety, mantling every height and hollow—has a homely yet wild and free beauty of its own, which, with all the endless varieties of colour upon the broad sea and broader heavens, makes up a scene worthy alike of painter and of poet. Here and there the rocks which line the dangerous coast rise into weird masses, like towers of defence. One of these, the Maiden’s Rock, has actually taken the form of a mediæval tower; further on is a more fantastic erection, where time and water have worn the living stone into a huge resemblance of a spindle. This quaint mass towers over a bay full of broken rocks, among and over which the German Ocean dashes its stormy surf by times—while at other times it kisses softly, with many a twinkle of light and sheen of reflection, the stern stone whichit has been undermining for ages, with apparently so little effect. The Spindle Rock was the favourite end of Marjory’s pilgrimage. The most sensitive organizations do not always fall sick after those great mental whirlwinds of grief and excitement which are the milestones of our lives. But there comes to them a moment when quiet and repose are necessary, when the mind lies still like a hushed child, refusing to think more or suffer more, opening itself to some certain fashion of natural sound and sight, and getting healing from that pause of all efforts or processes of its own. Marjory, unknowing, adopted this fashion of cure. She walked out to the Spindle (a long way) and would sit there alone day by day among the rocks, gazing half consciously over the broad level surface of the familiar sea, now and then crisped by soft winds, and overarched by the broad vault of sky, which softened down in endless variations of blues and greens, widening and fading to the horizon line, where sea and sky met in colourless brightness. The water lapped softly among the rocks, which here and there rose like pinnacles of some fantastic architecture over the brown uneven masses below. Among these rocks there were miniature oceans, crystal sea-pools lined with softest green sea-weed like a nest, where some cunning crab lived secure, or where those bloodless, boneless things, which are half animal and half plant, spread out their antennæ, pink, or creamy white, or silver green, upon the water. The shining of the sea, the ever-consolatory sound of its murmurous voice upon the rocks, the occasionalgliding past of a heavy fishing-boat with high brown sail, or the white butterfly wing of a rare pleasure-yacht, was enough to give occupation to the fatigued mind, which found healing in every hum of well-known sound, in every familiar motion of that native sea. Hush! said the soft long rustle of the water searching into every corner, rising and falling like the breath of some watcher. Hush! said the soft wind with a musical murmur about the lofty rocks; hush! said the dreamy whirr of insect life upon the grass beyond. The sun shone warm, and little flecks of white clouds floated across the sky with the wind as the scattered sails did below. Soft motion, sound, murmur of life filling the whole vast sphere—nothing that seemed like ending, dying, sorrow. Marjory, who loved the sea like one to the manner born, accepted this tranquil hush without remarking how fatal were its other voices, and opened herself to the sunshine and had her wounds slowly healed.
One day, however, going a little further than the Spindle, she found herself in front of a very homely thatched cottage, one of those odd little green-brown erections so extremely objectionable in a sanitary point of view, yet so satisfactory to the eye, which grow out of Scottish soil wherever improvement has not banished them, like the creation of nature. The walls were built of rough stone covered with the mosses of many years. The thatch was patched and ancient, bright bits of straw recently put in peeping out from the dark surface. The cottage consisted of a “but and a ben,” no more,that is a room on each side of the low and narrow doorway—with one small window in each, facing to the sea, and a rude bit of so-called garden, surrounded by a little rough wooden paling enclosing the door. This cottage lay in a hollow between two cliffs, and was sheltered from the wind on each side; the short rich grass, like a warm cloak thrown over the sunny nook, mantled up to the very walls; and the cottage had all the sunshine, and as little of the chill as was possible. Marjory had vaguely noticed a figure seated near the door for two or three days before she approached it, and a certain curiosity had risen in her mind—nay, a something more than curiosity, a sympathetic feeling, that the other unknown woman was like herself resting after some convulsion of nature, and seeking restoration from the calm, and the sunshine, and the salt sea. This feeling grew to a strength which surprised her, when she saw the same figure languidly seated on the same spot the second day; and on the third some natural affinity drew the two together.
The girl at the cottage-door was younger than Marjory—very young, with fair hair folded back from a pale little face, and knotted loosely behind, as used to be the custom years ago. A rusty black gown, with long close sleeves down to her slight wrists, made in the plainest fashion, threw out, into still further relief, the colourless face and locks, out of which illness seemed to have driven the tone of colour which had enlivened their paleness. There were little rings of pale gold upon her white temples,but the mass of her hair had lost its brightness. Her face was one of those pathetic faces which it is difficult to realize in the glow of happiness. Her eyes were grey, large, and lucid, with that liquid softened light which is like moonlight in a face. Her features were delicate and worn, the nostrils somewhat pinched with suffering, the very lips pale. Intense capacity for pain was in the face, and at the same time a quiet patience and power of suffering. She met the eye of the stranger who looked at her sympathetically, with a faint but friendly smile, and gave her the usual country salutation, “It’s a fine day,” with a softness of tone which touched Marjory, she could scarcely tell how. It was Marjory who made the first advance; but the response was to her look, rather than to anything she said. The girl did not rise and curtsey, as an English girl of similar condition would most likely have done to greet the lady. But in her gentle attempt at acquaintance, and the soft little evanescent smile, with which it was accompanied, there was an appeal which only a hard heart could have resisted; and Marjory had a rural lady’s habit of constant intercourse with her social inferiors.
“Yes,” she said, “the weather is very fine for this time of the year. (It was June, but in Scotland it is difficult to calculate upon the weather so early in the summer). But I am afraid you are ill. Do you live always here?”
“Ay, mem, I’m not well,” said the girl. “They have brought me here for change. It pleases them; and I like to hear the sound of the sea—not thatit will do me any good. I am too far gone for that.”
“You must not think so,” said Marjory, with that instinctive denial of the plainest fact, which is human nature’s first idea in the presence of approaching death. “You are very young, and the sea always does good. Will you tell me what is the matter?”
The girl smiled again. “It’s nothing,” she said, “and everything—it’s a failing; some doctors say it’s decline—but it’s no decline, it’s just a failing. I’m thinking the chief thing is that I’m weary, weary of this life, and I would like to go—”
“But that is wrong,” said Marjory, shocked. “At your age it is unnatural. You ought to resist such a feeling.”
“What for?” said the girl, very gently. “They all say that; but I’ve gone over my Bible from end to end, and there is nothing against it. You’re no to think I would do myself harm, for that would be a sin and a shame to them that’s left behind. But Paul was wiser, far wiser than me, and he says, ‘that to depart is better.’”
“To be with Christ,” said Marjory, unconsciously correcting, and feeling somehow a certain consolation in the fact, that it was not Paul’s saintly longing, but only human weariness that spoke.
“I’m meaning that,” said the girl, gently; and then with a sadder tone, “and to make sure that they are safe and well that have gone before.”
These words brought Marjory to a pause. The upraised face beside her, with those lucid eyesturned to the sky, seemed to be penetrating that blue veil with an anxiety only tempered by weakness. Marjory looked at her till tears came into her own eyes.
“Don’t you think we may trust God far that?” she said. “You have lost—friends?”
“And you are in black, too,” said the girl, quickly, “and I’m sure you sit about the rocks, as if you had no heart. Oh, I’m ready to trust God! but if you heard how our folk speak! and if one was taken suddenly—no thinking, in the middle of his days—one that had never made any profession, nor showed any concern about his soul—would you say then, ‘Trust God?’ That’s the question I’m aye asking myself.”
“I lost a brother so,” cried Marjory, moved to open her heart, she could not tell why.
“Ah!” The girl looked at her fixedly for a moment, and pressed her thin hands together. The cry had burst from her lips like an outcry of fear and pain.
“And I do trust God,” Marjory resumed. “God saw all he meant, not only what he did. Were you never misunderstood? We are better in our hearts than we are in our deeds; but God never misunderstands.”
“That’s true,” said the girl, clasping her hands again, “that’s very true. Oh, if you but kent what misunderstanding there is in this world? and whiles them that are most fond of you; but as you say, mem, never with God; that’s a great comfort. Sometimes I think my heart will break—”
“I am a stranger to you,” said Marjory, “but I should like to help you if I could. Is it anything you could confide to me?”
The girl’s face, so calm in its sorrowfulness, grew agitated. She gave one anxious look into Marjory’s face. She cast her eyes around, watching if anyone was visible. “No to-day, no to-day!” she exclaimed. “A stranger—what could I say to a stranger? But I’m tired, tired, and the wind is cold. I must go into the house—to-day.”
She rose as if in terror, and stumbled in her weakness. “I will go away,” said Marjory, “do not let me drive you in-doors. I am going back to St. Andrews—”
Then the girl turned, holding out her two thin hands; a little hectic flush had come on either cheek. “I’m so weakly,” she said, with a pathetic smile; “no fit for anything; but, oh, you’ll come again?”
Theweather changed that evening, as was natural after three or four heavenly days. The East coast is not rainy like the West; but the soft continuous rain of the Western Highlands is scarcely so terrible as the westerly haar, which wraps everything up in white wool, and blots out sea and sky, and chokes the depressed wayfarer—not to speak of the penetrating chill which even in June goes down into the marrow of your bones, and makes the scrap of standing-ground, which is all that is left you in the misty world, as lonely as an alp, and as dull as a fen. Even the golfers at St. Andrews feel this miserable influence. When those bright links are reduced to so many dark sepia blots, when the sky can be expressed only by the same woeful colour, when the surf on the sands seems to send up a blinding woolly steam over the faint and limp yellow of the cliffs; when his very red coat hangs limp and damp upon the hero’s back, who goes out, notwithstanding the weather, and the best “driver” on the links cannot get his ball across the burn—then the very golfer is discouraged. But the population is accustomed to the infliction, and the matches still go on, and new fights are arranged in the club; and in the town, business and amusement proceed as usual, and the good people walk aboutthe streets, and pay each other visits to keep their hearts from sinking. It is scarcely possible, however, though your heart may be stout, and your chest sound, to walk out to the Spindle in an easterly haar; so that Marjory did not see the new acquaintance who had interested her so deeply for some days. She saw, however, a sight which interested her almost as much, though in a different way—the young woman who had visited Pitcomlie the evening before her father’s funeral, and whom she had afterwards met at the family grave. It was in the chief street of St. Andrews that this meeting took place—a broad and handsome street, lined with old houses at the lower end, and terminating at the upper in an old gateway, one of the few perfect relics of the past that remain among so many ruins. Marjory was walking with little Milly, as usual, by her side, pressing into her very steps—her golden hair asserting itself as a point of colour, even in the persistent greyness of the street and the mist of the atmosphere.
“May, May!” Milly was saying; “there is a lady bowing to you from the carriage-window yonder; there is a gentleman taking off his hat. Why don’t you pay any attention? If it was me, you would say it was not manners.”
“Come in and look for a book at Mrs. Fletcher’s,” said Marjory, by way of repelling this attack. Milly was already a prodigious novel-reader, and instantly caught at the bait. Her sister stood at the door of the shop, while the little girl ran in eager to survey the many antiquated volumes, and the few freshones which form the circulating library of a country town. Of the many passers-by who went ghost-like through the mist, a great many knew and saluted Miss Heriot, of Pitcomlie; but it was on one who did not salute her that Marjory’s attention was fixed. The dress was precisely the same as that of half the other women moving about the town, but yet the little brown hat and cotton gown suddenly grew individual and remarkable, as Marjory recognized the wearer. She was walking briskly along, with the air of one profoundly occupied, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. Suddenly she raised her head as she passed in front of the shop door where Marjory stood, and their eyes met. The young woman grew suddenly red; she gave Miss Heriot a quick, defiant look, and would have passed on without any recognition. Marjory was startled and excited, but she did not lose her presence of mind; she made a step out from the door. “Surely you know me,” she said quietly. The young woman paused, as if perforce, but held her ground.
“Yes, Miss Heriot, I know you very well; you’ve spoken to me twice before—when I was not wanting,” she added doggedly, “to speak to you.”
Marjory had some difficulty in keeping her temper, for this persistent resistance was provoking, to say the least. She said with some haste: “There can be very little reason why I should insist upon speaking to you.”
“I ken none, Miss Heriot.”
“Well!” said Marjory, with an impatient sigh, “neither do I. You know, I am sure, a great deal more than I do. But remember—you may be sorry some day for having refused to tell me what you wanted at my father’s house; and by that time it may be too late.”
She turned away, disturbed vaguely, as she had always been, by the appearance of this strange woman; but her withdrawal seemed to affect the other more than her questions had done. Before Marjory had re-entered the shop, the stranger spoke in a hesitating tone: “Miss Heriot, I am meaning no harm to you; there is, may be, something that I may come and tell you—that concerns you and yours, as well as me and mine; but I canna do it now. I thought you were artful and proud, but now I think you’re true. Maybe there is nothing in it; if there is, I will tell you the first. But I will say nothing till I hear the truth.”
“What truth? Then tell me your name, at least!” cried Marjory, her heart beginning to beat loud with wonder and excitement.
“No, Miss Heriot, I’ll no tell you my name.”
“Do you know you are very rude, very uncivil?” cried Marjory, stepping back with a flush on her face.
“Maybe!” said the other, recovering her self-possession, which had been momentarily impaired. “I’m no a good judge what’s civil and what is uncivil; but I’ll no tell you my name—nor anything about me; unless it is true.”
And with these words the stranger walked away,not pausing to hear what Marjory had to say. This meeting had a painful effect upon her. She pondered over it for the next few nights and days, wondering, with a bewildered sense that her wonder was vain, what it could mean. If what was true? or what did it, what could it matter to the Heriots whether something known to this girl was true or not? She tried to scorn it, as some vulgar bugbear, probably concerning something quite unimportant; but she could not succeed. What was it? she kept saying to herself. She could not mention it to her uncle; she could not confide anything so serious to little Milly. What could it be? And the more a mystery of this kind, however petty, is kept to its original possessor, the more it vexes the mind, and becomes a daily annoyance. If Fanshawe had but been there! Him she could have consulted; with him she could have talked it over, and wondered aloud, and received strength from the wonderings of another. Probably between them, they might have come to some reasonable conclusion, to some explanation of the mystery. She was almost half-tempted to write to him, as the only person who knew about Isabell’s letter, the only one who could understand what she meant. Almost, but not quite; a hundred reasons of womanly reluctance, shyness, disinclination to avow her dependence on the opinion of another, came in to prevent the imprudence; but yet it was something strange in Marjory’s history, something new in her mind, that such an idea should have arisen in her. She quenched it with a certain shame.
And oddly enough, one of these days, Mr. Charles brought home a friend with him to dinner, who knew Fanshawe. I do not pretend to disclose exactly the sentiments which moved Mr. Charles. Miss Jean’s advice had never quite gone out of his mind. He was of the kind of man to whom an injunction, of whatever character, carries weight, and who feels that when a charge of any sort is laid upon him, whether accepted or not, it becomes a duty, and must be fulfilled. His good sense and his feeling of propriety struggled vainly against the prejudice of doing what he had been told. Instinctively, he looked about the links for men who were worthy of being introduced to Marjory. He made a little mental cross against the names of those who were specially endowed by any of the gifts of Providence, who were handsome, or wealthy, or well-spoken of. “Would So-and-So please her, I wonder?” the old man said to himself, with a comical terror of the older woman, who had given him this commission; and with a faltering heart he had obeyed her behest, and under the most transparent pretence of accidentalness, had already taken home with him two or three of the best men he could find. On such occasions, Mr. Charles did his best to look perfectly innocent and at his ease. He made in private many and voluble apologies to Marjory.
“I sometimes feel the want of a little conversation, my dear. Not but what I am perfectly happy in you, that are a far better talker than most folk. But a little change, you know; and it is good for you, too, Marjory. You may think not, and evenyou may not care for it at the moment; but depend upon it, it is good for you. It’s a break upon the monotony. It prevents you from falling out of the way of society. And I know you are too good a housekeeper, May, ever to be taken unawares in respect of the dinner.”
“You mean you are too particular about good eating to make it possible,” said Marjory, smiling. “But, Uncle Charles, of course you must see your friends when you please. You do not require to make excuses to me.”
“It is not that, not quite that, my dear,” said Mr. Charles, perplexed, not knowing how to avow that he would gladly have done without those friends; and the same little epilogue had been performed several times without the least apparent effect produced either upon Marjory or the eligible persons thus brought to see her. Marjory, perhaps, was somewhat disposed to retreat into her mourning on these occasions. She was perfectly civil and friendly to her uncle’s friends; but she kept them in that category, and never allowed them to become her own; and as Miss Jean had made the express condition that Mr. Charles was to interfere only so far as the first step was concerned, the poor man was still more confused and perplexed by the utter failure of his expedient. He had no head for such delicate negotiations; he never asked the same person a second time, nor took any steps to promote intimacy. That was not in his instructions. However, for once he did succeed in rousing Marjory to energy at last. The guest who knew Fanshawe was a Scotch squire,who had been a friend of Tom’s, and whom Marjory, too, had known in former days. There were reasons for inviting him of a perfectly feasible character, and which required no apologies from Mr. Charles.
“I’ve brought Walter Seton to see you; we’ll give him some dinner,” he said, as he knocked at the door of Marjory’s dressing-room, without thinking it necessary to apologize; and Marjory was more open, more friendly than usual to the old friend. It was not till after dinner that the conversation took place which moved her out of her friendly calm. Milly had come in, as the fashion of the house was, and taken her place by her sister’s side. It had been the old fashion in the days when Milly was the light of her father’s eyes. The little girl’s chair was drawn as close to Marjory’s as the conditions of chairs would permit. She stole her hand into her sister’s under the table. Milly, indeed, had no independent being when Marjory was by. She was a bloom growing on the stem of the elder flower.
“I hear you had Fanshawe at Pitcomlie,” said Mr. Seton, with complacent calmness, and without a suspicion that he was about to make himself intensely disagreeable. “Is he any steadier than he was, I wonder? You had him for some time at Pitcomlie? Somebody told me he was on a long visit.”
“Ah, yes. We had him for a week or two. Is he not steady, then?” asked Mr. Charles.
Marjory had pricked up her ears, and so did little Milly, to whom Fanshawe was an example of everything admirable in man.
“Well,” said the other, shrugging his shoulders, “I know nothing bad of him; but he’s a sad unsettled fellow; amiable, and all that, but, I fear, a good-for-nothing—a ne’er-do-well, as we say in Scotland. It is odd how many agreeable men belong to that species. For he’s a nice fellow, a pleasant fellow. Didn’t you think so, Miss Heriot? All ladies do.”
“He was good for a great deal when he was at Pitcomlie,” said Marjory, feeling her cheek flush in spite of herself. “A kinder friend never appeared in a melancholy house.”
“He was all that—all that,” said Mr. Charles, hastily.
“That is exactly what I should have expected to hear,” said Seton. “You have hit off his character in a word. Ready to do anything for anybody; always serviceable; good for other people’s concerns, but letting his own, you know, go to the dogs. When I said good-for-nothing, I ought to have said good for everybody but himself.”
“That’s a fatal kind of amiability,” said Mr. Charles, falling into this depreciatory estimate with a readiness which disgusted the two feminine partizans, to whom it was impossible to see their friend assailed without striking a blow in his defence. “I have known many men like that, nobody’s enemy but their own—”
“I think you would speak a little more warmly, Uncle Charles,” said Marjory, with a burst of which she was herself ashamed, “if you remembered all that Mr. Fanshawe did for us. Amiability does notmake a man do what he did. Have you forgotten poor Tom’s bedside? and all his kindness to my father, and after—I beg your pardon; it is bad taste to introduce our private matters. But, Mr. Seton, I should be a wretch if I allowed anyone to speak disparagingly of Mr. Fanshawe without telling what I know.”
“Yes, yes; I quite understand,” said Seton, with a suppressed smile. “Ladies always give him that character. He is the most serviceable fellow. But I speak of his own concerns; he is a very unsatisfactory man to have anything to do with in business, for example. He is as ignorant as a woman—begging your pardon again, Miss Heriot. He is a nice fellow, but thoroughly unsatisfactory; as unsettled as a man can be; a complete rover, here to-day and gone to-morrow. I like him very much myself. I don’t know any pleasanter companion; but that’s his character. Socially, of course, it doesn’t matter; but it’s a great pity for himself.”
“No doubt about that,” said Mr. Charles; “a great pity. What are his means, now? That would be a kind of a way of judging.”
“I do not see that we are the people who ought to judge him,” said Marjory, rising from the table; while little Milly, with all her golden locks on end, holding by her sister’s dress, and turning looks of fire and flame upon the calumniator, rose too, in a flush of childish fury.
“Oh! how I would have liked to have done something to him!” cried Milly, as soon as they had got to the safe shelter of the drawing-room. “If Ihad been a man, I would have fought him, May! Our Mr. Fanshawe, that is good for everything! I hope Uncle Charles will never, never as long as I live, bring that man here again!”
“I hope so, too, Milly,” said Marjory, breathing quick in her suppressed excitement; and she seated herself at the deep window overlooking the Cathedral ruins and the sea beyond, with her arm round her little sister. Milly’s hair spread over their black dresses like sprinkled gold; Milly’s little heart beat against the bosom in which another heart was beating still more warmly; with indignation—only with indignation, and generous resistance to wrong.
It was the longest day of the year. What lingering silvery light, what soft tints of pale celestial colour, what opal radiance of enchanted hours that are neither day nor night, is involved in that description! I do not know what these evenings may be in the region of the midnight sun; but they cannot possess such mystic, poetic light as do the long Summer nights in Scotland, too poetic for any weird glory of unnatural shining. The young woman and the child sat enshrined in this visionary radiance long after Milly ought (I allow) to have been in bed. Mr. Seton had an engagement at the Club, and did not, fortunately, return to the drawing-room. His presence would not have been appreciated there.
Itwas according to all the rules of that condition into which Marjory was gliding unawares that next morning she should receive another letter from Fanshawe, which, however, was not the second nor the third. The incident had lost all its novelty, and become common enough in her experience. And there could be little doubt that these letters conveyed to her, with all the subtle difference which exists between a man’s self-accusations and the censures of another man, very much the same tale which had been told by the visitor of last night. Fanshawe allowed in so many words that he was good-for-nothing; he told her in covert language, but still plain enough, that he had been roused by meeting her into thoughts of, and dreams after, better things. But he did not tell her what better thing he was doing, what attempt he was making to attain a career worthy of a man. And probably had she been able to see him as he was at that moment, dropped back into all his old habits, occupied with his old busy round of idleness, and keeping up just enough of his nobler discontent as found utterance in his letters to her, Marjory would have felt with a pang that Seton was right and she herself wrong. She had a vague uneasy feeling to this effect, even while she read the unintentionally deceptive and skilful sentences by which he appealed to her sympathy, and by which he secured that sympathy, notwithstanding the sense of something unreal which floated vaguely over the surface as it were, stopping her in the full course of interest and belief. She said to herself uneasily, why does he not do something? or why, if he cannot do anything, should he lament over it? Had he been silent, Marjory would not have thought upon the subject; but Fanshawe, who knew no other means by which to recommend himself to her, unconsciously followed Mr. Seton’s lead. He abased himself, hoping to be exalted. He mourned over his uselessness, expecting her to receive these lamentations as virtue. And Marjory indeed, though she faintly perceived a certain hollowness in the lamentations, did accept them as such. She took a rapid survey of the position, and asked herself, if it was all true, wherein he was inferior to other men? Seton, who had accused him, how was he better? He had an estate to look after, which gave him a certain anchor, and object in life; “and I have no doubt he manages it very badly,” Marjory said to herself, with a certain spitefulness. And her uncle, for example, who had given up Fanshawe’s cause, and had shaken his head over the idea that he was nobody’s enemy but his own, of what practical use was his life that he should shake his head at another man? Marjory grew hot upon this subject in her private thoughts. The Pitcomlie papers, the portfolios of prints, and the golf at St. Andrews! Did these serious occupations give one man a rightto erect himself in superiority as fulfilling all the duties of life over another? Marjory walked down to the Links in her fervour, and watched all the men going out for their game. Some of them were hardworking men taking their relaxation; but a great many of them were gentlemen living at home at ease, and considering, as we have before said, that two rounds of the Links was the whole duty of man. A meritorious individual who had won his game before luncheon, came sailing up to her with satisfaction beaming from every wrinkle. He had no sense of being a useless member of society; but probably he would shake his head at Fanshawe, who played no golf, and who could be, when occasion served, the truest, most self-denying of friends. Nobody’s enemy but his own! And whose enemies, then, were the busy groups on the Links? extremely busy—at what? Such were Marjory’s bitter feminine thoughts—thoughts which probably would never have crossed her mind had they not been provoked by injudicious criticism.
“I have not time to speak to you, May,” said Mr. Charles, waving his hand to her. “I am engaged for a foursome; and if I am late for dinner you must not be surprised, for I am very busy to-day.”
“Oh, very busy, I see,” cried Marjory, “and most usefully employed, uncle.”
“Yes, my dear, there is nothing in the world so good for the health,” he said, hurrying off with his long legs, and a countenance of the utmost importance and seriousness. And it was he who hadsaid of Fanshawe that he was nobody’s enemy but his own!
Little Milly was golfing too, at the Ladies’ Links, whither some youthful companions had beguiled her from her constant clinging to her sister’s side. “But I’ll come with you directly, May, if you want me,” cried youthful Milly, ready to throw down her club at a moment’s notice. What a pretty sight it was!—groups of pretty girls (the girls are all pretty in St. Andrews) in the picturesque dresses of the period, looped up at every available corner, with bright flying ribbons, bright-coloured petticoats, a patch-work of brilliant colours—and such quantities of bright locks ruffled by the breeze, as might have set up a hair-market on the spot—were scattered in knots of two or three over the smooth slippery velvet of the grass. Across the burn on the other side, were the darker groups of the men, relieved by, here and there, a red coat. Yellow heaps of sand, upturned by the sea, which was little seen but much heard, and great rough whin-bushes scattered about the “bent,” or rougher edge of the Links, with a background of blue hills, and enough trees to swear by on one side—and on the other St. Andrews, on its headland, the sun shining full upon it, upon its grey towers and white houses, and the stretch of sea which filled in the landscape. The prettiest scene! Marjory was half softened by it, yet turned away with a certain scorn that did not belong to her nature. These were the people who found Fanshawe a good-for-nothing, nobody’s enemy but his own!
She made a long course to the Spindle after this, and I avow that it was a long walk for a young lady alone; but then she was in a condition in which our own thoughts are our best companions; and she liked the soft silence, the long meditative walk, the murmur of the sea. The day was fine, and shone with that pathetic brightness which a Scotch summer day so often has after a storm—as if Nature made anxious amends to her children for those frequent interruptions which she could not prevent. The sea was full, washing up to the very foot of the grey fantastic rock. Little blue wavelets, fairy curls of foam, crept about it, as if trying to soften the silent giant. They came up in little child-like rushes, as of glee irrepressible, to the very edge of the mossy grass; and Marjory had not been long there before she perceived the girl in, whom she had been so much interested, wrapped in a shawl, and seated in her former place before the door of the cottage. An old woman, with the old “mutch,” bound with a black ribbon, which has almost fallen out of use in Scotland, stood in the doorway. She had just placed a pillow to support the sick girl, and was looking at her wistfully, with an evident love, which had seriousness, and even severity, in it. Marjory went up to her with some eagerness. She was welcomed with a smile from the girl, who rose faltering in her pleasure. “Eh! but I’m glad to see you!” she cried; then dropped into her chair, too weak to stand. She seemed to Marjory to look even feebler than on the previous day.
“Good day!” said Marjory, addressing the oldwoman at the door; “I am afraid she is very weak; has the storm harmed her? and will you let me ask if she has the wine and strengthening food she requires? I beg your pardon if I am taking a liberty.”
Scotch cottagers are not always to be depended on in such particulars. Marjory knew that she might be speaking to some one as proud as a grand-duchess, though arrayed in an ancient mutch.
“I thank ye kindly, mem,” said the old woman, “we need nothing; but it was a kind thought. Na, she’s wanting for nothing, nothing; except an easy conscience, and the comfort of them that tell the truth.”
“Poor child,” said Marjory; “I am sure she tells the truth.”
“And that I do!” said the girl. “Oh, leddy, you said God never misunderstood; bless you for that; but whiles the best in this world do, and the kindest—Oh, mother, dinna speak. This lady’s heart speaks for me; she does not blame me. Tell her nothing but what I tell her. And if you would be real good and kind, mother dear, let me speak to her in peace.”
“I’ll do that!” said the mother, with a movement of anger; but in another moment she called Marjory aside with a sudden gesture, and whispered to her. “This lass,” she said, solemnly, “God help her; she’ll never be better; she’s my youngest, and she dying before my very ein. But she’s dying with something on her conscience; she tells me one story, and this horrible world believes another. She’s taken a great fancy to you. Oh, my bonnieleddy, take pity upon a poor family that’s heart-broken; bid her no go down to the grave with a lie in her right hand. I’ll forgive all the meesery and the shame if she’ll tell the truth.”
Tears were glittering in the woman’s eyes; tears which did not fall, but moistened the eyelids with a painful dew—though the eyes were red, as if they had wept much.
“If I were in your place I would believe her,” said Marjory. “Did she ever tell you lies before?”
“Never, never! never till now!” cried the mother; and two tears fell on the apron which she raised to her eyes hastily; but she added: “She never had any occasion; she never did a thing to be ashamed of—my poor, poor bairn!—till now.”
“I would believe her now,” said Marjory, who thus suddenly found herself involved in a family tragedy. The girl was looking uneasily towards her; the mother shook her head.
“Oh, if I could!” she said; “but go to her, go to her, my bonny leddy; and if you would speak a word!”
Marjory seated herself on the grass by the invalid’s feet; she was beginning to say something about the storm, and the interruption of her walks, but the sick girl was too much interested in subjects more important. She looked down upon the young lady with a sickening anxiety in her pathetic eyes. “Did she say anything?—anything to make ye leave me—anything to turn your heart?” she said, wistfully taking hold of Marjory’s dress.
“Nothing!” said Marjory. “She said you had something on your conscience. My poor girl, Ibelieve all you said to me; but if you could relieve your mother by telling her anything you have not told her?”
“Oh! no, no!” cried the girl; “there is nothing I have not told her. It is all true—as true as the Holy Gospel. I would bear shame if I deserved it. I would na’ shrink from my just recompense. I’m bearing it now, and falsely, and it’s killing me; but the truth, and that alone, I will say.”
Marjory looked up at her with a strong and yearning pity, which she herself scarcely understood. It seemed to her that she would like to take the matter in hand, and clear the truthfulness of this delicate ailing creature, who looked so shadowy and worn, and pale. Whatever her fault might be, it appeared hard to pursue her to the edge of the grave with reproaches, as her mother seemed doing. She was young enough to be forgiven, Marjory thought, almost whatever she had done; young enough to be pardoned for maintaining some fiction of self-defence, whatever it might be. So young—and yet so near, it seemed, to those gates of death which shut upon everything, making an end of all pretences. “Poor child!” Marjory said, unconsciously, as she looked at her. The sight of such a creature dropping slowly, visibly into the grave at her age, was enough to move a heart of stone, without any addition to the sadness of the sight.
“I am twenty,” said the girl; “you think me younger than I am; and I’ve lived a long life, though I am not auld. I have had sad changes, hope and fear, and then a bit blink that was bright, bright,and then darkness, darkness, wherever the eye could see. It is hard enough to bear that when your own folk stand by you; but when they are turned against ye—and dinna believe ye—”
“Does no one stand by you?” asked Marjory.
“My sister,” said the girl. “She’s good, good, better than anyone I ever knew. She has given up her place to be near me. She puts her trust in me—which is a great strength when you have to face doubt. Oh, if I could be sure I would live till it’s all cleared up! But it would be hard, hard, to die before—though I can do that too—if the Lord will—But oh, seeing it’s the triumph o’ truth and right I’m wanting—seeing it’s no for mysel’, for I must die sooner or later—do you no think He’s sure to grant it before I die?”
“I do not know what it is,” said Marjory; and then feeling as if what she said was unkind and cold, she added quickly, “I hope you will live long, and see better days. You are so young—”
The girl shook her head. She held up her thin hand, interrupting the words. “I have no wish for length of days,” she said. “Many a time I’ve wondered how it was that long life was made so much of in the very Bible itsel’. But that was in the old days, before our Lord’s time, when folks knew little about it, or where they were going to. I mind, aye, a verse of a poem that runs in my head,