Marjory’sletter was brought to Fanshawe before he had left his room in the morning. This room was in the Albany, and though a most comfortable chamber, was not luxurious, nor of a character to have called forth the strictures of any reasonable Mentor. There were no opera-dancers on the walls. Fanshawe had long got over the period of artistic taste which delights in opera-dancers, if indeed he had ever gone through it. The few prints on his walls were good. To be sure there was a racehorse or two, but of these, of late days, he had the grace to be ashamed; and over his mantel-piece he had quite lately hung a print of one of Raphael’s Madonnas, in which he thought he saw a resemblance to Marjory. It was a fantastic resemblance, wholly existing in the imagination of the beholder; but such compliments of the heart have been paid before now even to plain women, and Marjory was not plain. It seemed to Fanshawe—to carry out the fantastical character of the idea—that it was only in his best moments that he saw this likeness. Sometimes he looked for it vainly, and called himself a fool to have entertained such a notion; but at other times it would shine out upon him, filling him with a kind of heavenly pleasure—that pleasure which glows in a man’s heart,and makes him feel his own nature exalted in a consciousness of the excellence of his love. Marjory’s little notes were very rare delights, and this all the more so for being utterly unexpected. He had written to her a long letter only two days before, and he had expected no reply. Was it possible that this could be the answer? The question was all the more interesting to him because he had delicately implied in his letter an inclination to visit St. Andrews. He had heard so much of that ancient borough; he had been quite excited by the account some of his friends had given him (he said) of the charms of the place; and London was empty, void, null, and unprofitable; he had never seen it so vacant, so uninteresting; he could not believe that he had ever found any pleasure in such a mental and moral desert. So he wrote, not without a certain eloquence. The centre of the world had shifted; it was no longer in London, but in St. Andrews; this, however, though he implied it, he did not say. And to receive so rapid an answer seemed to him a fortunate sign. He jumped out of bed in haste, and clothed himself, that he might read it with due respect. But soon the vague delight of anticipation on his face changed into something more serious. Marjory’s note was singularly different from the diffuse and much implying epistles which he was in the constant habit of addressing to her. In this there was not a word more than was absolutely necessary. It ran as follows:—
“I have made a discovery which is of the very deepest importance to us, and to the memory of my poor brother Tom, who was your friend. I have no right to ask your help, but I do, knowing you will not refuse me. Come to me, I beg of you, for Tom’s sake. I write in great haste to save the post. Oh, Mr. Fanshawe, come!“M. H. H.”
“I have made a discovery which is of the very deepest importance to us, and to the memory of my poor brother Tom, who was your friend. I have no right to ask your help, but I do, knowing you will not refuse me. Come to me, I beg of you, for Tom’s sake. I write in great haste to save the post. Oh, Mr. Fanshawe, come!
“M. H. H.”
Across this brief letter was written, very much blotted, a single line. “I have found——” He made out as much as this, but the last letters were so blotted that he could not decipher them. It looked like a name. Whom had she found? or what could have happened to excite her so? But he scarcely paused to ask himself these questions. He was too late for the day mail to Scotland—how he cursed himself for his indolence!—and had to wait the whole day through till the evening. At one time he thought of telegraphing to her; but there lingered a hope in Fanshawe’s mind that perhaps she had sent for him of her own impulse, and that “everybody” was not in the secret, a hope which he loved to cherish. He waited accordingly, most drearily, trying to get through the time as he best could, and finding it drag so that the day seemed to him as long as all the preceding year. He went from one club to another, by way of getting through the time; he went and made all sorts of ridiculous purchases; he looked at his watch about a million times; indeed, he kept dragging it in and out of his pocket, and watching the slow fluctuations of light in the afternoon, like a man possessed by one soleidea—which was a perpetual calculation how soon it would be nine o’clock.
Fanshawe arrived next day at St. Andrews, with a mist of excitement about him, through which he seemed to see but dimly the actual features of the place. He watched the long lines of the Links flying past the windows of the railway carriage, as he had seen all the intermediate plains and hills of the Scotch border and Midland counties since daybreak, with a strange sense that he himself was making no progress, but that they were rushing past and away from him. When he saw at last the group of spires which ended those long lines of grass, and stepped out upon ground which did not fly under his foot, it was as if he had dropped from the clouds into some mystic country which could not but bring him the uttermost weal or woe, yet was unknown to him as fairyland. He felt a tremour in his very frame as he stepped into that strange world, where it seemed impossible to him to conceive of the common accidents of every day, where there could be nothing, he felt, but great emotions, passions, excitement—events which he could not foresee, changes which he dared not anticipate. To fall into the ordinary stream of people arriving at a railway, calmed him down to some extent, and he set out to walk into the town without any self-betrayal. But he had not gone far before he saw a slight tall figure, clothed in black, detaching itself from the groups on the Links, and coming towards him with a step and bearing which he could not mistake. He stood still, restraining himself withdifficulty from the cry of joy that seemed ready to burst from his lips. They say that love is but an accident in a man’s life, while it is everything in a woman’s; but it would be nearer the truth to say that a man’s absorption in this dream cannot last, while a woman’s may. Nothing could be more absolute than Fanshawe’s absorption at this moment in thought of the woman thus approaching him. Adam, when he saw Eve, the only human companion for him, could not have been more entirely bound and limited to the one being. This man saw nothing else, heard nothing else, felt nothing else in heaven or earth. He had asked himself sometimes whether he was at all, what is called, in love with Marjory Hay-Heriot. He asked himself no questions now. He did not care for what she was going to tell him, for what her business was, for the discovery affecting her family, for his friend’s memory, or anything else. He felt, saw, heard nothing but her. He did not seem even to have strength enough in himself to go to meet her. The very sight of her had caught him as in a trance of rapture. He felt that he could have wept over the hand she held out to him, like a baby, and mumbled it like an idol-worshipper. That he did neither, but only grasped it, and gazed at her with eyes full of speechless joy, seemed to him the most wonderful power of self-control. But Marjory’s eagerness was of a very different kind. As always, one of the two was at a disadvantage. He thought first and only of her; she thought of a great many other things, and then finally of him. Common consent allotsthis state of feeling to the man, but common consent is often wrong. It depends upon which of the two, man or woman, is the most deeply in earnest. “L’un qui se laisse aimer” is not always of the masculine gender, as a great many people know.
Marjory came up to him with an eagerness and satisfaction which would have been—oh! how delightful—had there not been other causes for it. She held out her hand to him, and then took his arm as if he had been her—brother. Yes, a great deal too much as if he had been her brother; but let that pass; it was very pleasant all the same, and then she said,
“How good of you to come! but I knew you would come. I felt myself safe in appealing to you.”
She had thought then of appealing to some one else! This was not satisfactory; but Fanshawe was too happy at that moment to insist upon having everything his own way.
“Could there be any question about that?” he said, smiling at her with that look of imbecile emotion which no woman can mistake. Marjory, however, was too deeply absorbed with her own private anxieties to pay much heed to his looks. She said nothing more that could give him an opening for the disclosure of any personal feeling; but rushed into her story at once, a proceeding which was flattering, yet unsatisfactory. It was with an effort that he brought himself to attend. Even though it was the voice which most interested him in the world which spoke, herself, her presence,the sensation of her vicinity, the glimpse of a new world about him—a world entirely identified with her, a new scene of which he knew nothing save through her, strange people passing who sent her greetings from over the way, smiles as she passed them—did so entirely occupy and bewilder the new-comer, that it cost him as serious an effort as he had ever made in his life to understand what Marjory was saying to him, or even to listen to what she said. She told him such a story as might have caught the ear of any man capable of listening, but yet somehow it did not catch Fanshawe’s. Her hand on his arm, her head bent forward, so much more eagerly than he had ever seen it before, even the fall of her dress, the very hanging sleeve that touched him, the veil that once fluttered across his face, all and every one of these things dissipated his mind. He had no intellect at all to speak of at that moment, and hers was in the liveliest action. By moments, a half comic sense of his incapacity to come up to her requirements seized upon him. He grew rueful and humble as he was compelled over and over again to ask for new explanations.
“Forgive me, I did not quite catch what you said. Will you tell me that again, Miss Heriot? I am stupid. I did not quite make out—”
After a great many of these interruptions, Marjory began to feel a little check upon her enthusiasm, and to grow chilled in her warm expectation of sympathy.
“I fear I am making too great a call upon you,” she said coldly, drawing back with a perceptible diminution of warmth; and there can be no doubt that for that moment the accusations against Fanshawe which she had opposed so warmly rushed back upon her mind all at once, though with a generous effort she thrust them away from her. The light failed all in a moment out of her eager upturned face, her head returned to its ordinary pose of quiet and proud decorum, something changed even in the touch with which her hand held his arm. Fanshawe woke up to this with sudden alarm. He roused himself in a moment from the haze and torpor of happiness in which he had not known what he was doing—or rather he leapt out of it suddenly, startled by the sense that his happiness, if he did not rouse himself, might slip out of his hands.
“You find me very stupid?” he said, “I am sure you must think so; but I have some excuses I cannot tell you of—and there is one that I can tell you; I have been travelling all night.”
“To be sure, I should have thought of that,” said Marjory, but she did not resume her former tone; and poor Fanshawe, knowing it was so different a reason which had made him dull of comprehension, had to accept the excuse which he had given for himself, of being weary, though he felt it the most miserable of excuses. He had to put up with it, though he felt that it gave her quite a false impression of him, and brought him low in her eyes, a thing which people are compelled to do often, yet which is always hard. They walked ontogether accordingly, Marjory, with a little impatient sigh of submission, giving up her great subject for the moment; and talked of the journey and its fatigues, and the time occupied, and what the traveller thought of the country he had passed through, &c., &c. He was perfectly able to understand whatever she said to him now; fully roused up, with his intellect restored to him, and all his senses. But she was courteously, gently silent, accepting what he chose to say to her—to the poor wretch’s infinite misery and confusion, need it be said?
Mr. Charles caught a glimpse of them from the window of the club. He was sitting quietly discussing a match; but when he saw this sudden apparition, he started up and went to the window.
“Bless me! that’s very like Fanshawe,” he said to himself; and after a long gaze, which assured him that it was Fanshawe, and no one else, he retired, much perplexed, to his chair, and henceforward left the most exciting game that had been played for years to be discussed by the other speakers. “It’s not that I have any objection to him personally,” Mr. Charles mused, not knowing what to make of it; and then he asked himself what it was he had heard of Fanshawe?—that he drank, or gambled, or something? What was it? Thus a lively scandal had crept up in Mr. Charles’s mind by means of the very simple and passive one promulgated by Mr. Seton. He was much troubled. If Marjory should really show a liking for one whose reputation was compromised in any such way, whatwas he, her uncle and guardian, to do? To be sure, she was old enough to judge for herself, which was a great relief to his mind; and the chances were very strong that she would prefer her own opinion to his, in any circumstances. But still Mr. Charles saw very stormy waters before him, on the supposition that Marjory liked Fanshawe, and that Fanshawe gambled or drank. He took his way home in an anxious state of mind, and found that his fears were so far justified. Mr. Fanshawe had sent his bag to the “Royal,” but he had walked across with Miss Heriot to dinner. He was very conciliatory, asking many questions about golf, and doing his very best to make himself agreeable. If he had not been such a faulty person, he would have been a great acquisition to the little party. But then, Mr. Charles asked himself, was it right to countenance the introduction into Marjory’s society of a man who gambled or drank? What would Miss Jean say? He felt himself so weak in this respect, that he instinctively resorted to her judgment, as the only standard he knew of. If it was on Marjory’s account (and what more likely?) that Fanshawe had come—and if Marjory liked him, what then was Mr. Charles to do? He had not (he said to himself) a father’s authority; he would not for the world make the girl unhappy; and yet how far would this be from marrying her well? “Confound marrying!” Mr. Charles said, with unusual emphasis, when he found himself left alone after dinner—the unexpected, and, so far as he knew, uninvited guest having left him “to join the ladies,” at a very early period. He had never married himself; and Marjory was very well off, and had everything her own way—far more, probably, than she would have with a husband. If she did anything to change this beatific state of affairs, the blame would be on her own head. Mr. Charles washed his hands of it for his part. But yet he could not wash his hands of Marjory, nor of Miss Jean and her requirements; and there never was old bachelor disposed to a quiet life, yet anxious to please everybody, whose mind was more painfully bewildered and held in suspense.
Fanshawe hastened to the drawing-room, more anxious to regain his lost ground than even to conciliate the uncle, though that, too, seemed to him very necessary. He found Marjory seated in her usual place in the deep, narrow window, with a background made up of pale sky, a gleam of deeper-coloured blue, which was the sea, and a pale shaft of the ruin between, as graceful and light as Gothic art could make it. Her profile was marked out against these deepening tones of blue, and the grey time-bleached canopy work of the old Cathedral enclosed it like the picture of a saint. This was how he felt it, being, as the reader perceives, in an excited and exalted condition of mind; for in reality, Marjory was neither like a Saint nor a Madonna, being too human, too modern a woman for any abstractions. But if men in love did not fancy such things, what would become of poetry? He drew a chair to her side, approaching as near as he dared venture, or rather as near as he could;for little Milly, her sister’s shadow, sat on her foot-stool with her golden locks in a glory round her, leaning upon Marjory’s lap, and dividing her from all new-comers.
“I am not so stupid as I seem,” said Fanshawe. “I have my wits about me now. Will you tell me all about it again?”
“Not all,” said Marjory, laying her hand upon little Milly’s head. Poor little Milly! She had been in the highest spirits about Fanshawe’s arrival; and the wretch felt her so dreadfully in his way! He restrained his impatience, however, as he best could, with a sigh which roused a certain sense of the humour of the situation in Marjory’s mind.
“I hope you have quite recovered from your fatigue,” she said.
“Do not be too hard upon me,” said poor Fanshawe. “It was not fatigue. My head was turned with being here, and seeing you again. But tell me, now? I have shaken myself up, and come back to ordinary life. We are still mortal; we have to tie white ties, and dine on fish and mutton, as if we were on common unenchanted soil, and not in Fife at all; therefore, I am capable now of listening and understanding. Tell me as much as you can.”
This speech roused Marjory to a certain girlish levity, notwithstanding the seriousness of the situation.
“It is a new thing to hear Fife spoken of as if it could be enchanted soil,” she said, with a smile,which felt to Fanshawe like a stray ray of sunshine. And then her face grew graver, like that of the Virgin Mother in his picture. “All I have to say is—abouther,” she added, her voice sinking almost into a whisper; so low as to tantalize Milly, who was listening with all her ears.
“About whom?”
“You did not understand me? I feared so, Mr. Fanshawe, I know now what poor Tom meant when he was dying, when he thought he had told me. I have found Isabell!”
“Agnes, this gentleman was one of my brother’s friends; you may say everything to him that you have said to me.”
This Marjory said in her own drawing-room in St. Andrews, where she stood between Fanshawe and the homely stranger, who had attracted so much of her attention and curiosity before she knew why it was. The girl’s appearance was unchanged; she stood with a certain suppressed defiance still in her aspect, before the lady whom she had distrusted, and whom even now she felt disposed to approach with caution. She was Isabell’s sister, but she was not like Isabell. The refinement and grace of the other were altogether wanting to her; she was in perfect keeping with her homely dress, her rustic manners—even the air of half-irritated, half-distressed antagonism with which she looked at her novel companions. Agnes Jeffery was in no way superior to her condition, except in so far as she was superior to all conditions in the force of a vigorous and loyal nature; she looked from one to the other with doubtful eyes.
“You may ken the gentleman, Miss Heriot, but I don’t; I dinna feel justified in disclosin’ the affairs of my folk to every new person that may come in. It’s no our way; maybe when folk are more frank,and tell everything, it’s easier for them; but it’s no our way.”
“You trusted me,” said Marjory; “and this gentleman is as I am” (she did not think of the meaning that might be put upon her words—not at least till long afterwards, when they filled her with confusion; but Fanshawe did, being more interested in these words than in any revelation the stranger could make to him). “He saw my poor brother Tom die; he heard him—as I told you—make an effort to reveal all this to me; he has done everything for us, and he will help us now. You may tell him as you told me.”
“Is he anything to you?” said Agnes gravely, searching Marjory’s face with her eyes.
And that young woman, utterly disconcerted, caught another glance at the same moment—a look which was full of the most wistful entreaty, yet just touched with fun, and an involuntary sense of all that was laughable in the question. Fanshawe felt as if life and death were involved for him in the reply; and yet he could not quench that twinkle of mischievous consciousness, which poor Marjory felt, too, notwithstanding the gravity of all the surrounding circumstances, and the solemnity of the question. Her eyes fell before the double look fixed upon her; her face flushed deeply; she cleared her throat, and faltered in uttermost confusion. It required all his anxiety, supplemented by all his self-control, to keep down the laugh which almost mastered Fanshawe’s muscles and faculties. If he had laughed, woe betide him; for in moments of emotion, noone likes the idea of being laughed at; and Marjory’s temper was something less than angelic. She conquered herself with an effort, and answered at last steadily.
“Mr. Fanshawe is my friend,” she said; “he is the friend of the family; he is (this Marjory said proudly, remembering Seton’s report of him, remembering Mr. Charles, and bearing her testimony with a certain consciousness of doing something to set him right with the world), one of those men who will work and suffer, if need be, for their friends—as you have worked and suffered, Agnes. He will not weigh what is enough or too much to do. Of all my friends, and we have many, he was the only one whom I felt I could appeal to—who would pause at nothing. Is that enough for you? It ought to be; for it is what you have done yourself.”
Agnes looked at him with growing surprise, and at Marjory’s excitement, which reflected itself in Fanshawe’s astonished face. The girl divined, as Marjory herself did not, that he was bewildered, abashed, even humbled by this praise. He stole round to her side, and took her hand and kissed it humbly.
“What can I have done to make you say this?” he cried; “how have I deceived you? I did not mean it. I have done nothing to deserve this.”
The girl’s eyes were very sharp, enlightened by the habit of observing others. And she was not sympathetic enough to care for the natural emotion which she was clever enough to perceive. She saidwith that disregard for them, as soon as she was herself satisfied, which is common to the uncultivated mind:
“Miss Heriot, I’ll ask no more questions. If you’ll sit down, and let me speak, I’ll tell you all there is to tell. Maybe I would not have come had I known what you wanted; but I’ll tell you now.”
This brought the others to a very abrupt stop. Fanshawe withdrew, feeling himself somewhat snubbed, if truth must be told, and in a state of mind—in respect to this girl and her sister—very different from the attitude of enthusiastic devotion in which Marjory had depicted him. But he listened, nevertheless, feeling himself pledged to an interest which was more deep than he really felt. What was Tom Heriot to him? But Marjory was everything; therefore he made an effort, and threw all his attention into the new tale.
“I take it for granted,” said Agnes, with thatbrusquetone of suppressed excitement, sometimes scantly courteous, which often characterizes the Scotch peasant, “that you have told the gentleman all that my poor Bell told you; she did not do it with my will; but since it’s done, and she’s called in the help of others to right her, instead of her ain folk, I have no further call to resist. You have told the gentleman how they were married—”
“Married!” said Fanshawe, with a slight start.
“What did you think else?” said the girl, turning upon him with sudden defiance. “Did you think it was a light lass, of no account, that you were to hear of? for if sae, I’ll go away and troubleyou no further. It is clear that you have not been prepared to hear of my sister Bell.”
“Agnes, you must not be so hasty,” said Marjory, humbly. “Mr. Fanshawe—I told you—have you forgotten—last night—”
Fanshawe had not forgotten last night, and was not likely to forget it; but he had, it must be allowed, received the information given him with less seriousness than it deserved. He had to make the humblest and most abject apologies to both of the somewhat stern judges before whom he stood—Marjory, who was abashed by the dullness of her pupil, and Agnes who was all in arms. After this interruption, however, he was on his guard, and the narrative proceeded more smoothly. It was not of a very novel character. Tom Heriot had married Isabell Jeffrey, not entirely as the heir of Pitcomlie should have married its future mistress, but yet lawfully, according to the customs of the country, and to traditions fully accepted in the class to which she belonged. They had pledged themselves to each other as man and wife in the presence of the people in whose house they had met, a man whom Heriot had employed to take charge of his dogs while shooting in the district from which the sisters came, a mountain village in Perthshire. The marriage had been concealed, as such marriages generally are, until the last moment, when it had been necessary to avow it for the sake of poor Isabell’s character. But by that time Tom Heriot was dead, and could no longer be appealed to—and even the mother,utterly cast down by the shame of her favourite child, had refused to believe the unlikely story.
“There was nobody but me, nobody but me,” said Agnes, warming with her tale, “that kent my poor Bell would never lie. My mother; my mother is a decent woman, of a decent honest family. Lightheadedness or shame never was heard of in her kith or kin; all douce, steady folk, constant at the kirk, and mair thought of than the very Minister himsel’. It made her wild. From no believing at first that anything was wrang—which was natural—for wha could believe it? she went off in a mad way to no believing Bell. I can excuse her, for my part. If I had not trusted Bell from the very first, I would have killed her with my hands. John Macgregor and his wife had gone away, nobody kent where. There was no a creature to stand by her to say it was true. Oh, Miss Heriot! you’ve heard Bell’s story, but no mine. You can never ken the days that passed, and the weary nights—her in a way to want a’ the comfort that kindness could give her, and lifting up her white face a’ the time without support or help, to say to them that would na believe her, ‘The bairn is my man’s lawful bairn, and I’m his wife.’ Oh, I’m no heeding,” cried Agnes, “though there’s a man here! I’m no one to speak o’ such things before a gentleman. But to see her in her trouble, aye crying out in her pains, ‘I’ve naething to think shame of, mother, there’s naething to think shame of!’ I’m hard,” said Agnes, stopping suddenly, “but no so hard as to withstand that.”
“You were always her support and comfort,” said Marjory, taking her hand, and with tears in her eyes.
“Was anything else possible? I kent our Bell, ay, better than my mother. She was aye delicate. She never could stand what I could stand. She would aye read her book when she had a moment—no like me that am just a country lass—and oh, so bonnie! When gentlemen came by, they would make errands for a drink of water, or to warm their feet, or to light a cigar, or the like of that, just for the sake of a good look at her. Mr. Heriot was a pleasant gentleman. He had aye a good excuse. He would have this question and that to ask my mother, as if it was her he was wanting. The Lord forgive him,” cried Agnes, “if he meant to deceive! for he is dead and gone, and canna be punished—and I wouldna wish him to be damned for ever and ever, though he would weel deserve it, richly deserve it—if he wanted to deceive!”
Notwithstanding all her interest and all her sympathy, this was hard for Marjory’s proud spirit. She moved uneasily in her chair, she grew hot and flushed, her brow contracted, her foot beat upon the carpet.
“He did not mean to deceive,” she cried, impatiently. “I know he did not. He thought he had told me. Such a thing was not possible—”
“I hope so,” said Agnes, composing herself. “But he kept Bell without a written word, not so much as a ‘wife’ in his letters, nor signing himself her husband—no a single word. They had goodreason to think she was deceived. And the little bairn was no sooner born—ye havena seen him, Miss Heriot; he’s like your bonnie little sister with the gold hair—than a friend saw in the papers that Mr. Heriot was dead in England. Oh, that terrible time! Sickness is ill, and grief’s warse, and shame the warst of a’; but a’ three at once upon one bit delicate head, a’ three! and neither consolation nor support, neither pity nor fellow-feeling! Ye may think I’m whiles no very civil nor respectful to them that’s above me. I canna help it; my heart’s bitter at you a’—bitter! bitter!—at them that lead the poor and simple astray, and leave them to bear the wyte—them that go away and enjoy themselves, and live—or even that go and die—and leave other folk behind to pay the price. It’s them I hate.”
“But the people who could have proved all this?” said Fanshawe. “Surely you speak too strongly. If there are people who can prove it, why blame Mr. Heriot? He was snatched away from this life; he had not time for anything. But if it rests on the testimony of witnesses—”
Agnes turned round to look at him, with the colour gradually rising over her face. The look of defiance was still there, but over it, as it were, like another surface, was a flutter of painful hesitation and humility—humility which was compulsory, and all the harder on that account. She looked at him with a dilation of the eyes expressive of such mental strain and painful exertion, as he had scarcely ever been conscious of witnessing before,and with a thrill in her voice, answered him steadily, looking him all the time in the face.
“It rests on my sister’s word, Sir, which is as the word of an angel out of heaven; for we’ve nae testimony—nae testimony! It rests upon Isabell’s word.”
Fanshawe’s countenance changed. He could not help it; he was not used to conceal his sentiments; but almost before he was capable of realizing this new and strange avowal, the girl had started to her feet.
“I am going home, Miss Heriot!” she cried. “You meant nae harm, but ye’ve given me another stroke—and we’ve borne enough from you and yours—”
“Agnes,” cried Marjory, arresting her. “You cannot go away from me; whatever happens, we must work this out together. What has any one done?”
“Look at him!” cried the girl, with pale indignation. “Oh, this is what I kent would happen if I was made to leave my ain way—to go among gentles, and make them believe, and summer and winter every word! He thinks it’s a lie. What does he care for our Isabell and her bairn? He cares for you; and he thinks that what I’m telling you is a lie!”
Fanshawe did not contradict her. He looked at Marjory gravely, with a certain anxiety in his glance. He thought, as was natural enough, and as men so often think in respect to a woman’s judgment, that she had been led away by her feelings. He made her a little warning sign with his head.
“If, as you tell me, her own mother did not believe this story, is it wonderful that I should hesitate?” he said. “I do not think it is a lie; but I fear she may have been deceived.”
“By Tom?” said Marjory. She was almost as indignant as the other. “If Isabell has been deceived, then Tom—my brother, has been a—— What can I say? Is there a word bad enough—vile enough?”
He was cowed between these two young women. He dared not say, as he might have said elsewhere, that men do not form the same harsh judgment of such deceptions. He made a gesture of deprecation, holding up his hands in entreaty.
“You are too hard upon me”, he said. “I did not mean to blame either side; but if this is so, why cannot these people—the witnesses—be produced?”
“Let me speak to him, Miss Heriot,” said Agnes. “Maybe the gentleman thinks it’s a’ my invention from beginning to end? and it’s me that must speak. I’ve been to seek them, Sir, a’ over Scotland, from one end to another. I’ve been directed here, and I’ve been directed there. I’ve gone after them night and day. I’ve written letters to them. I’ve sought out their friends. The little infant is three months auld, and all that time I’ve been on the road. I had left my place for Isabell’s sake; she didna tell me why, but since I’ve found it was for him, that it might not be said he had a near friendin service. All the little siller I had, I’ve spent seeking them; and, oh, I canna find them, I canna find them!” cried the girl, suddenly breaking down, and bursting into passionate weeping. “I’ve prayed the Lord on my knees, and He’ll no send them; and I cannot find them; and my bonnie Bell will die before I can clear her name!”
Her voice had risen loud and shrill in the height of her emotion, and now she sat down and covered her face, struggling with her sobs. It was not in Fanshawe’s heart to remain insensible to this outburst. He sat looking at her with a guilty face, as if he were the author of her distress.
“Can I do anything?” he said. “Is there any way of helping her to find them if they are to be found?”
But there was not in his tone the enthusiasm for the search which Marjory had expected to move him. The very sound of his voice chilled instead of invigorating her. While Agnes slowly recovered her composure, Marjory informed him in detail of the inquiries which had been made. These were very primitive, unskilful inquiries. The girl knowing of few means of procuring information except the simple one of going to ask for it, had wasted a great deal of time and much labour on a comparatively narrow round. She had indeed written to various people whom she believed to be Macgregor’s relations to ask information about him, but the idea that he and his wife might be reluctant witnesses, or adverse altogether to the establishment of the truth, had made her distrustful of letters.
“How could I tell that they would not get out o’ my way, if I sent them word I was coming?” she said. “How was I to ken that they werena enemies? And even if they were friends, they mightna like to take that trouble, or their maisters mightna like it. Few folk like to take trouble; and when you just send them a letter—Na, na, I went mysel. I would never trust to that.”
In short, poor Agnes had distrusted everybody. She had distrusted Miss Heriot up to the last moment. She distrusted her still, notwithstanding Isabell’s better instinct. She looked at the two together at the present moment with a watchful eye, not half sure that they were not plotting something against, rather than in favour of her search. When she heard them speak of the loss of time, her heart swelled within her. She who had done everything so carefully, so warily, letting nobody know, treating everybody as enemies, making so many subtle, simple schemes to entrap the missing witnesses, was it possible that, after all, she had been letting the precious moments slip out of her hand, the last days of her sister’s life? Agnes was glad to go away, leaving the last and only possible traces of the missing Macgregors in Marjory’s hands, to go out to the silence of the long seaside walk, and to cast her troubled mind abroad to seek out new means of working. She knelt down under the shadow of the Maiden’s Rock, in a crevice of that natural tower, and poured out all her passionate heart in an impassioned prayer. “Oh, bring them to me—bring them!” she prayed, demanding amiracle with pathetic earnestness. There are circumstances in which it is more painful to receive help than to be kept without it. Agnes, poor girl, endured the aid which had fallen upon her with a proud agony of submission, feeling that her heart was torn asunder by the necessity. She had so set her heart upon doing it all herself; she had taken pleasure in her hardships and wanderings, her long walks up and down, and the painful inquiries that never came to anything. And oh, if all this had been but a loss of time! She tried to contradict the thought, though a consciousness that it was true would keep creeping chill upon her. But oh, if the Lord would but step in and direct her, and make her find them now! If He would but prove that the race was not to the swift nor the battle to the strong! If He, the last resort, the final resource in everything, would but bring them to her—put them, as it were, in her hand! Agnes opened her eyes, and clambered down from the rocks, her heart aching with the hope that she might yet meet with strangers on the way, and find that her prayer had been answered. But there was no one to be seen on the long stretch of seaside path, not a soul anywhere. And thus in her humiliation she went slowly home, feeling as if this work, the work that might save Isabell’s life, was taken out of her hands.
Thetwo who were left behind were not much more comfortable than Agnes. Marjory, for her part, could not but feel somewhat humiliated too. She had appealed to Fanshawe in the fervour and exultation of her heart, just after she had been roused by the blame she had heard of him, into, perhaps, an unjustifiable adoption of his cause. When he had been blamed, she had asserted his good qualities so indignantly, that faith in what she had herself said had moved her to put him to the test, with a generous and proud confidence. He might be good for nothing, so far as himself was concerned; but he was good for everything to his friends. And lo! at the very first touch, he had been found wanting. He had taken twenty-four hours even to understand the story; and now, when he understood it, he displayed no desire to take up the cause of the injured, no readiness of belief in her, no wish to exert himself in her service. She could not but see that to secure her own society, to be near her and associated with her, Fanshawe would interest himself in almost anything; but that was a very different matter from the generous interest she had expected, and the active help she had desired. She had thoughtnothing less than that he would go off instantly, scarcely asking a moment to breathe and repose himself, in search of the missing witnesses; and lo! he never suggested the possibility of looking for them at all; he did not even seem to consider himself involved in any way in the matter—as, indeed, he was not, Marjory proudly confessed to herself. She was disappointed, mortified, cut down in her own estimation; though why she should have been so, simply because he had failed her, it is difficult to say. Marjory did not utter her disappointment in words, but she adopted a still more effectual way of showing it. She ascended into regions of lofty politeness which froze the very soul of the visitor within him. She addressed him as she might have done a potentate who had paid to an inferior power the unexpected honour of a visit. She carefully banished all allusion to the business, which yesterday had occupied and excited her so much, from her conversation—and turned that upon trivial subjects, upon the passing events which figured in the newspapers, upon St. Andrews, and the ruins, and golf. Poor Fanshawe was utterly and dismally crushed by this treatment. For an hour after Agnes’s hasty departure, when it had been put in force, he held out under it as best he could, pretending to wish to hear about the Cathedral, and the Castle, and the old town of St. Rule. It was when she suggested a visit to the antiquities after lunch, in company with Dr. Smith, who knew so well how to explain them, that his fortitude failed. He went up to her side with something like timidity.
“It was not for the ruins,” he said, half reproachfully, half timidly, “that I came.”
“Well, perhaps not,” said Marjory; “but when you are in a place where there are interesting ruins, you are bound to visit them, don’t you think?”
Fanshawe made no direct reply; but slightly encouraged by her tone, drew a chair near her.
“And it was not for golf I came.”
“I suppose not, seeing you do not know anything about it. Nothing but utter ignorance,” said Marjory, beguiled to a smile in spite of herself, “could have excused the extraordinary questions you put to my uncle last night.”
“Were they extraordinary questions?” he said, still more encouraged. “No, I did not come for the golf, nor for the sea, nor for St. Andrews, nor for society. I came, because you sent for me; an inducement which would have taken me to the end of the world.”
“Pray don’t remind me how presumptuous I have been, and foolish,” said Marjory, reddening, “to send for you, without considering whether you would agree with me about the importance of the cause.”
“Miss Heriot, I agree with enthusiasm that I am at your service, always and everywhere.”
“Pray, pray, Mr. Fanshawe! don’t make me feel more ridiculous than I do already. Let us talk of other things.”
“Why should not we talk of the one that interests you most—of that you sent for me about?”
“Because, simply, it does not interest you,” said Marjory, looking at him with a smile—that steady,forcibly kept-up smile of incipient quarrel which is so far from agreeable to encounter.
Poor Fanshawe was in despair. He ought to have been pleased, on the contrary, had he had his wits about him; for such quarrels never arise between indifferent persons. He started up from his chair, and made a rapid course round the room, and seized upon the brief notes of address and reference which Agnes had left.
“I will go away, then, and execute your commission,” he said, in an altered voice; “since that is all you wanted me for. It is too good for me, I allow, that you should employ me at all, and for that I am grateful. But I think you are a little hard upon me,” he went on. “You make no allowance for the feeling I have in seeing you drawn into such a connection; placed in the position of sister to a girl who—and brought into constant contact with this sister. I have that to get over before I can approach the subject dispassionately. You do not know what sort of people such women are.”
“Do you?”
“God forgive me, Miss Heriot—I have been as other men!” he said, reddening like a girl. “No, by Heaven! I don’t know, except by report and common acceptation; not much—”
“I do,” said Marjory, calmly; “I know these two women, and I know the class from which they spring; but that is not the question. I have formed my opinion strongly on the subject. I do not ask you to make it yours.”
“It is mine, with all my heart—anything you believe,” said Fanshawe, very wretched, and yet once more with that glimmering of fun which spoilt the pathos of so many a fine situation. Marjory, at this moment, was not inclined to see any humour in it. She went on severely, and with a tremendous courtesy which shrivelled him up.
“I could not, of course, ask you, whose experience in every way is much greater than mine, to adopt my opinion; and nothing but a momentary hallucination, which I hope you will be so very kind as to excuse, could have made me think of transferring to you my work. I beg your pardon for it. It is the absurd way in which we are accustomed to have things done for us—the difficulty a woman finds in moving anywhere without a host of explanations. But pray forgive me; feeling as I do, it is my business to complete poor Agnes’s work, and clear up the matter, whatever it may cost me. Of course, there is no reason in the world why I should not do it myself.”
“You reject my assistance, then!” said Fanshawe, ruefully. “You take it out of my hands? Miss Heriot, is that fair?”
“I do nothing of the kind,” she said; “it is a very important question to me; but not, as stands to reason, with you. You had never heard of the Heriots six months ago, Mr. Fanshawe. It is the most absurd thing in the world to suppose that their interests could be of supreme importance to you.”
And she held out her hand once more with that steady smile of polite offence and mortification, for the papers which he still held. He stood for a moment irresolute, looking at her; then he drew out his watch.
“Yes,” he said; “I see I have just half an hour to catch the next train. I am off, Miss Heriot. The notes are vague enough, but still possible. ‘Suspected to have gone into service as a porter at one of the hotels in one of the Channel Islands; but may have gone to Australia or New Zealand.’ That was a puzzler, I allow, for our friend, who did her journeys on foot. You shall hear from the nearest of these places as soon as possible; and in the meantime, I may as well, I think, send advertisements to all the papers for John Macgregor—that is worth trying.”
“But, Mr. Fanshawe, I must not—I cannot—accept such a sacrifice.”
“You will say good-bye to me,” he said, holding her hand; “and think of me—say once a day, will you, Miss Heriot? Let me see, the best time would be in the afternoon, when one is apt to get low. Think of me then—say from four to half-past four,” he said, with once more that gleam of fun in his eye. “And I hope I shall not have to go to Australia.” Then he made a momentary pause, and looked at her wistfully again. “Will you come to meet me?” he said. “When I come back?”
“Mr. Fanshawe! I beg, I entreat!”
“But you must promise,” he said, with a short laugh. “Good-bye; till we meet again.”
What was till they met again? the kiss on her hand? This question, the imbecility of which can only be explained by her extreme agitation, wasthe only thing that fluttered through Marjory’s mind in that hasty moment, which was over like a dream. She ran to the window and threw it open, and gazed after him. He was gone, actually gone—upon his errand—which might lead him heaven knows where; no doubt she had sent for him with this very purpose; but though she had felt the most sensible mortification when he appeared unwilling to undertake it, yet, nevertheless, his sudden departure quite stupefied Marjory. It put Isabell and Agnes, and their whole story, completely out of her head. She sat down at the open window and watched him as long as he was in sight, and it was with difficulty that she restrained herself from going after him in the strange state of excitement into which his sudden departure threw her. All this was without any action of her mind at all—a sudden whirl of involuntary feeling, nothing more.
But it is impossible to describe the consternation of Mr. Charles when he heard of the departure of their visitor. This was when he returned to luncheon, which he did at the cost of some personal inconvenience—for he had to return to the Links for a match at three o’clock. It was sheer benevolence that brought him, and fear least Marjory should feel herself uncomfortable—thus receiving a stranger, “and no man in the house.” The announcement, however, took him entirely by surprise. “Mr. Fanshawe away!” he said; “bless me, Marjory, what has taken him away? What did the man come for, if he was to go away so soon? I was just saying to myself to-day, if he was the same as he was at Pitcomlie, we might have a difficulty in getting rid of him; and here I find he’s off! Maybe, my dear, it was your fault?”
She was annoyed with herself for blushing; but she answered calmly enough: “I do not think so, uncle; he took me very much by surprise.”
“Well, my dear,” said Uncle Charles, “you must manage your own affairs, and no doubt you’ll do it well; but you must mind that though he’s a very pleasant person, and was very serviceable, we’ve heard but a poor account of Mr. Fanshawe. I cannot say I recollect, just at this moment, what it was I heard—”
“Whatever it was,” said Marjory, with some heat, “I do not believe it, Uncle Charles.”
“Well, well!” said Mr. Charles once more, in a tone of soothing; “I do not bid you believe all you hear, my dear; still it should not be altogether neglected; that’s not wise; in short, far from wise. To tell the truth, if he is not away in a pet about something I know nothing of, I’m not sorry, for my part, to be alone to-day. I am vexed by some news I have from good Dr. Murray. I will have to go over there.”
“Has anything gone wrong?”
“These young women,” said Mr. Charles, shaking his head; “I doubted it from the appearance of them. These young women are behaving themselves very strangely, my dear; they are turning everything upside down. From what I hear, they are meditating meddling with the house; pulling something down, or putting something up, I cannottell which; but it’s a thing that must not be allowed—nay—so far as I’m aware—guardians have no such power. I mean to speak to Mungo Barmaster this afternoon, and see what he says. But the end of it will be, that I shall have to go over myself,” said Mr. Charles, as if there was in that suggestion something very terrible and decisive. He knitted his gentle brows, and repeated once more, with a wavering swing upon his long legs, “I will have to go over myself.”
Here another impulse seized upon Marjory, which she obeyed suddenly in her excitement, by way of relieving her own highly wrought feelings.
“Uncle Charles,” she said, “there is something on my mind which I would like to tell you. I do not know what you may think of it, whether it may trouble you or please you; but anyhow, it is not a thing we can be indifferent to. I once showed you a letter I had found among poor Tom’s papers.”
“Among Tom’s papers! Ay! do you say so? I’ve no recollection—”
“Yes, uncle; think! you must remember. It was from a woman.”
Mr. Charles roused himself at once.
“A thing that should never have come under your eyes! I said so at the time. Try to forget it, May. Some women I have seen have a morbid sort of curiosity about such persons; but not you, my dear. Try to put it out of your mind.”
“You mistake, uncle,” said Marjory, gently. “I thought you were mistaken at the time. It is more important than you think, I have seen her—”
“You!” cried Mr. Charles, stammering with sudden anger. “You! Now this beats all! If your brother was coarse enough to think of such a thing, you, Marjory, a delicate young woman, you should have had more feeling.”
The implied blame brought the colour warmly to Marjory’s cheeks.
“Hush! Uncle Charles. I knew at the time you were mistaken.”
“Which is likely to know best, you or I?” said Mr. Charles, with not unnatural exasperation. “May, I am not your father, and I have no real authority; but still you obeyed me when you were a little bairn, and I am your nearest friend. There must be no more of this, no more of this! A young woman has no right to compromise herself.”
“Wait, uncle, till you hear me; it is more important than you think. I met her by chance, not knowing who she was. She is very ill—dying. She did not know me any more than I knew her; but I have come to know her story. Hush! wait, Uncle Charles—She was Tom’s wife; and she has—a son—”
Mr. Charles turned pale; his lower lip dropped in his surprise, as if he had been struck by sudden illness. He shook so that that pencil he held between his fingers dropped.
“What—what?” he said. “Nonsense! it’s raving, it’s madness! I’ll not credit a word of it; it’s some story made up. May, May, tell me it all over again; what does this mean?”
“It means,” said Marjory, with sudden composure, which came to her she could not tell how, “that unless we take care to clear it all up, and prove the truth or falsehood of this story, there will be a disputed succession in our family to be fought out; perhaps when we are no longer living; but, one day or other, it will certainly be fought out.”
“Bless me! bless me!” said Mr. Charles, walking about the room in great agitation. “What is this? what is this? A disputed succession, a wife and a child—did you say a child, or a son? And, God bless me! if it’s true, what kind of a woman must she be that he never dared acknowledge her? He knew how his father wanted him to marry—and a son! Did you say a son? This is the most astonishing piece of news, Marjory,” Mr. Charles added, coming up to her, “if it can be relied upon, that I ever heard in all my life.”
“I thought it would startle you; but you do not think now I could have helped taking an interest, Uncle Charles? When I heard of the child——”
“God bless us!” said the pious philosopher again. He was too much excited to remain still. He walked up and down the room, repeating broken sentences to himself. “But the mother must be come of very indifferent folk; she must have little to recommend her; she must be some girl that has known how to take care of herself. And then the story may not be true; you must take into account, May, that it’s very likely it may not be true.”
“That is exactly what I think we must find out—without sparing either money or trouble, Uncle Charles.”
“Lord preserve us!” said the old man; “and in that case the other little bairn would have nothing to do with it? and these young women—Marjory, my dear, I see the hand of Providence in this. Does she give full particulars? has she proof? I would not say a word, nor interfere one way or another, without strong and clear evidence. Has she proof?”
“Yes,” said Marjory, out of the fulness of her heart. She had no need herself of any proof of Isabell’s story. Her face was guarantee of that; and she had a second visionary confidence, as strong or stronger than her trust in Isabell—which was that Fanshawe would find all that was wanted. Thus she took upon herself to answer, as it were, for both of these persons, in her warm affirmation, rather than for the abstract truth. As a matter of fact, the evidence, she knew, was not forthcoming; but Marjory believed inher, and she believed also inhim.
“And these young women at Pitcomlie;” said Mr. Charles, with a gleam of momentary triumph. He was ashamed, however, of his emotion almost before he had expressed it. “That is, my dear,” he said, “if there is any truth in the story; which is a thing I scarcely believe.”
Theconfidence which Marjory thus injudiciously, and on the impulse of the moment, shared with her uncle, was premature and indiscreet. No doubt it is hard to shut up a discovery of importance in one’s own bosom, and for a woman accustomed to all the continual intercourse and confidence of domestic life, to carry on a series of secret operations, is almost impossible; but the relief afforded was not so great as she had hoped. Mr. Charles could think of nothing else. He questioned and cross-questioned—who was Isabell? what were her people? where did they come from? how did Marjory know that they were respectable or trustworthy? how had she made acquaintance with them? To these questions she could give but scanty answers. Mr. Charles groaned when he heard of the irregular marriage. He shook his head till it ached with the movement.
“In all our records,” he said, in piteous tones, “I do not believe, May, that such a scandal has ever happened before. We’ve had none but virtuous women, my dear, none but good women, and clever women, May. It has always been our strong point. God bless us! and all to end in two fools like these young women at Pitcomlie, and a—— I humbly beg your pardon, my dear.”
“Uncle, this girl, who is dying, is like a saint.”
Once more Mr. Charles shook his head.
“I never heard yet of a saint that made an irregular marriage,” he said, “and as for her dying, my dear, if she’s really the heir’s mother, far the best thing she can do will be to die. A woman like that would be a dreadful sort of apparition at Pitcomlie. Whatever her people are, they cannot be in a position that would do the infant any credit. Lord preserve us! am I speaking of my own family?” cried Mr. Charles, feeling the wound go to his heart. “One a fool, and the other a—— Poor fellows, they’ve gone to their account—but there must have been some imperfection in those two lads, my dear, though they were your brothers; there must have been some imperfection. They say the wife a man chooses is the best revelation of his own character. You need not be angry, my dear; I am saying nothing against the poor boys.”
“Let us say nothing at all about it, uncle, till we know.”
“That’s easy said, that’s easy said, my dear. You may be able to put it out of your mind, but I cannot. The whole future of the family! Perhaps I had better see the girl, May, and examine her myself?”
“Uncle, she is ill.”
“I’ll do her no harm, my dear,” said Uncle Charles; and he resumed the subject in the morning, to Marjory’s dread. He had been brought up to the law, and he had some faith, as was natural, in his own knowledge. “If I once hear her story,I will see at once what is to be made of it,” he said; and as he had been further stimulated by another letter about the proceedings, or intended proceedings of Miss Bassett, the old man was much in earnest. It was the agent of the Bank in Pitcomlie who had sent him this information, and Mr. Charles had come down to breakfast with his hair standing on end, at all the audacities that were contemplated. “I know no precedent—no precedent,” he said, with his forehead puckered into a hundred lines. “They say women are conservatives; but I never heard of rebels like them, when they take that lawless turn. A man would think twice before he would meddle with an old-established house; he would think that the past might have its rights, no to speak of the future.”
“I don’t think folly is of either sex,” said Marjory, who was not fond of hearing her own side assailed; “though Verna is not a fool——”
“Verna!” cried Mr. Charles, in his indignation, “she is out of the question, May. I might stand something from your brother’s wife. She’s a foolish creature, but she’s not without good points—at all events she’s pretty, which is aye something; and she is poor Charlie’s widow; but the other young woman! Do you know, my dear, it’s my duty to see this girl, and hear her story myself?”
All that Marjory could do was to effect a compromise—to go herself and prepare poor Isabell, putting off Mr. Charles’s visit for another day. Mr. Charles accordingly went out, though late, and hung about the Club all the morning, talking with everylounger who came in his way (and their name was legion). He told nothing, he was quite convinced; and yet, oddly enough, a vague impression that some story about the House of Pitcomlie—some romance in real life, such as now and then fills every county with lively interest and delight—was about to be made known to the world—came into existence. There were various versions of it instantly created by the conversationalists of the Golf Club.
“I don’t know what’s afloat among the Heriots,” said Mr. Morrison, of St. Rule’s; “auld Charlie is going about like a clucking hen; he has some mystery under his wing, that’s sure. Either it’s some new claimant turned up from Australia, like the one they’re making so great a fuss about in London, or——”
“I don’t see how that can be,” said Major Vee or Captain Eff. “All the Heriots and all their comings and goings are too well known in Fife, and besides, there never was one that disappeared, or did anything he oughtn’t to have done.”
“They’re a fearfully respectable family,” said another golfer, with a great emphasis on the adjective; “but Tom Heriot was thrown away upon them. He was not of that mould. If anything’s gone wrong, or there’s a chance of revelations, I back Tom to be the hero. He was never one of your cut and dry men, foredoomed to be a Laird, and do his duty.”
“He was a simple ne’er-do-weel,” said Mr. Seton, “like his friend Fanshawe, whom I saw in the townthe other day, by the bye. They were an excellent pair. And there’s a sympathy among that sort of people. Miss Heriot, who is as proud as Lucifer, and looks down upon most people, was hanging upon that fellow’s arm. If it’s some peccadillo of Tom’s, no doubt Fanshawe was in it.”
“I don’t see what Miss Heriot could have to do with any peccadillo of Tom’s,” said another speaker. “Whatever you may say against women, toleration of their brother’s peccadillos is not one of their faults. But Mrs. Charles, I hear, is making a bonny business at Pitcomlie, pulling down the house to build some fine castle or other. That’s enough, I should say, to account for old Charlie’s troubles. He’s like a hen on a hot girdle, fluttering about everywhere. God be praised, he’s engaged for a foursome at three o’clock with old Adam of St. Edgar’s, and the two Wolffs. A bonny time they will have of it. I saw him lose a putt yesterday that an infant might have played. And talk of putting——”
Here the speaker went off into golf, and left the Heriots. Mr. Charles, however, fulfilled the prophecy in every respect. He produced the most unchristian temper in the partner of his game, and gave his opponents an opportunity for gibes innumerable. Up to this present date a description of the worse putt ever made on the Links, as perpetrated on that unhappy day by Mr. Charles Hay-Heriot of the Pitcomlie family, is told for the edification of beginners. The reader, who knows the reason why, will not blame Mr. Charles. He could not, as heacknowledged, get all these complications out of his head. His placid soul was torn by so many unforeseen calamities. The existing state of affairs was bad enough, and the personal contentions which lay before him, the struggle with “these young women,” in which Mr. Charles felt it quite possible that he might be worsted, would, had there been nothing else, have been enough to embitter his peaceful days. The other question, however, came into it with a painful excitement. It did not obliterate the first, as it ought reasonably to have done, since, if the second story was true, Mrs. Charles could have no authority or place at Pitcomlie. Some minds have a faculty for getting all the annoyance possible out of their surroundings, just as some others get all the sweetness possible. Mr. Charles hugged both to his bosom. He groaned over the possibility of having to insert a name never heard of before, and the record of an irregular marriage into the genealogical papers of the Heriots, which had not known such profanation from the time of the Jameses. Talk of the whaling captain, indeed, who had vitiated the blood of the Morrisons! perhaps it was a judgment upon Mr. Charles for his remarks on that flaw; for this was a thousand times worse than any whaling captain. And yet while he groaned over the prospective humiliation, he afflicted his soul at the same time with thoughts of how he was to manage Mrs. Charles and her impertinent sister, who took so much upon her, and yet was not so much as related to the Heriots. The one misery was incompatible withthe other; but yet he took the good, or rather the evil, of them both.
The existence of this doubting, questioning, perplexed, and perplexing companion by her side was no addition to Marjory’s comfort. She postponed her visit to the cottage for motives which she scarcely ventured to define—foremost among which was a vague reluctance to meet Agnes again, and to discuss with her the work which she had taken out of her hands. In every such enterprise there comes a moment of discouragement, of painful difficulty, of disgust even, with circumstances which at first filled the mind only with pity and fellow-feeling. Marjory felt that she would gladly have turned her back on the matter altogether; she would fain have forgotten all about it from the day when she first saw the patient face of the sick girl at the cottage door. What had she to do with it? Such an intruder is usually rejected, or at least held at arm’s length by “the family.” Amésallianceis seldom acknowledged or insisted upon by the sister of the man who has made it. Sometimes it occurred to her that it was even unmaidenly on her part to have interfered in the matter; after all, such a marriage was, she said to herself, no marriage at all—unblessed by religion, unhonoured by publicity, a secret expedient to make guilt less guilty—was not that all that could be said for it? and yet what a difference this poor formula made! Without it the girl was a lost creature, covered with shame; with it she was surrounded by the sanctity of a woman wronged, almost a martyr; and yet it was nothing, nothing! a mere expedient to make guilt lessguilty. This was only one of a hundred ways in which Marjory contemplated the subject; and hers was a woman’s view of the matter altogether, though not less forcible on that account. The sting of these thoughts was that they had never occurred to her before. She had committed herself in many ways—to Isabell; and still more, to Fanshawe; she had filled the girl with false hopes, and, perhaps, still falser hopes had been raised in the man’s mind by her appeal to him. She had sent him out against his will, against his own idea of what was needful—and now she repented! This is the danger of possessing an impulsive temperament. Such disgust and discouragement seldom come until the world has been set on fire by the hasty spirit. Marjory felt (for the moment) that she would gladly have turned her back upon it all now; she would have liked to go away to the end of the world, and get out of sight and hearing of everybody who could remind her of this chapter of her existence. So she thought; and the fact that she could not have taken three steps in her flight before compunction and a revival of all her anxious interest would have seized her, dragging her back again, had really nothing to do with the question. She kept away from the cottage, fearing any intercourse with the sisters, whose cause, for the moment, she felt herself to have abandoned. And it was not until she was roused from this curious discouragement, by the sight of an advertisement in the second column of the “Times,” calling upon John Macgregor to disclose himself, that she was roused to something ofher former feeling. This took her by surprise; to her consciousness all progress had been arrested, and everything stayed by the change in her mind; she had done nothing, and she had concluded that nothing was being done. But the sight of the advertisement roused her; she saw that she had set forces in action that could not be stopped, and whatever her own languor might be, she had no longer any right to keep still. As soon as she had realized this, her disgust evaporated like the dew on the grass, and good sense and judgment regained the upper hand. John Macgregor might still be in Scotland, notwithstanding Agnes’s failure, and in that case, the “Times” was a very unlikely vehicle of communication with him. She bestirred herself instantly, with a glow at her heart, which, after all, was not immediately caused either by devotion to her brother’s memory or regard for Isabell. Who was it that had called Fanshawe good-for-nothing? Marjory laughed softly by herself at the ludicrous inappropriateness of the word—good-for-nothing! She had heard his voice as it were in the dark, calling out to her, telling her he was at work, encouraging her to go on. Marjory filled all the Scotch papers with advertisements during the next week; she demanded John Macgregor from all the winds; but still she did not go to the cottage. Now that she had fairly re-commenced work, it seemed to her that she must wait until she had something to tell.
One day, however, a sudden thought came to her of Isabell’s dying condition, and of the possibleconsequences of suspense, unbroken by any ray of hope. She set out towards the Spindle on a dreary afternoon, when the clouds hung low, and the sea was black with rising wind. It was the heaviest time of the day—that hour when life runs lowest—when Fanshawe had bidden her think of him. The few vessels visible were struggling between two dark leaden lines of sky and sea; nothing was cheerful or encouraging in the external surroundings. The waves came in with a threatening rush round the Spindle; the wind sighed with a sound of rain; and though she had not expected Isabell to be outside on such a day, yet a sense of unreasonable disappointment arose in Marjory’s mind at the absence of the well-known figure from the cottage-door. The door was closed, and no one was visible about. In all the earth and air there seemed no living thing, except in the few ships—big and little, which struggled across the horizon.