Itwas Saturday night, and in little more than an hour after Huntley’s return, Cosmo had joined the little family circle. Cosmo was five years older by this time, three-and-twenty years old, a man and not a boy; such at least was his own opinion—but his mother and he were not quite so cordial and united as they had been. Perhaps, indeed, it was only while her sons were young, that a spirit so hasty and arbitrary as that of the Mistress could keep in harmony with so many independent minds; but her youngest son had disappointed and grieved her. Cosmo had relinquished those studies which for a year or two flattered his mother with the hope of seeing her son a minister and pillar of the Church. The Mistress thought, with some bitterness, that his travels had permanently unsettled her boy; even his verses began to flag by this time, and it was only once in three or four months that Mrs. Livingstone received, with any thing like satisfaction, her copy of theAuld Reekie Magazine. She did not know what he was to be, or how he was to live; atpresent he held “a situation"—of which his mother was bitterly contemptuous—in the office of Mr. Todhunter, and exercised the caprices of his more fastidious taste in a partial editorship of the little magazine, which had already lost its first breath of popularity. And though he came out from Edinburgh dutifully every Saturday to spend the day of rest with his mother, that exacting and impatient household ruler was very far from being satisfied. She received him with a certain angry, displeased affectionateness, and even in the presence of her newly-arrived son, kept a jealous watch upon the looks and words of Cosmo. Huntley could not help watching the scene with some wonder and curiosity. Sitting in that well-remembered room, which the two candles on the table lighted imperfectly, with the soft night air blowing in through the open window in the corner, from which the Mistress had been used to watch the kitchen door, and at which now her son sat looking out upon the old castle and the calm sky above it, where the stars blossomed out one by one—Huntley watched his mother, placing, from mere use and wont, her work-basket on the table, and seating herself to the work which she was much too impatient to make any progress with—launching now and then a satirical and utterly incomprehensible remark at the Frenchman, who yawned openly, and repented his contempt for the Norlaw Arms—sometimes asking hasty questions of Cosmo, which he answered not without a little kindred impatience—often rising to seek something or lay something by, and pausing as she passed by Huntley’s chair to linger over him with a half expressed, yet inexpressible tenderness. There was change, yet there was no change in the Mistress. She had a tangible reason for some of the old impatience which was natural to her character, but that was all.
At length the evening came to an end. Huntley’s uncomfortable companion sauntered out to smoke his cigar, and coming back again was conducted up stairs to his room, with a rather imperative politeness. Then the Mistress, coming back, stood at the door of the dining-parlor, looking in upon her sons. The shadows melted from her face, and her heart swelled, as she looked at them. Pride, joy, tenderness contended with her, and got the better for a moment.
“God send you be as well in your hearts as you are to look upon, laddies!” she said, hurriedly; and then came into sit down at the table and call them nearer for their first precious family hour of mutual confidence and reunion.
“Seven years, Huntley? I canna think it’s seven years—though they’ve been long enough and slow enough, every one; but we’ve thriven at Norlaw,” said the Mistress, proudly. “There’s guid honest siller at the bank, and better than siller in the byre, and no’ a mortal man to call this house his debtor, Huntley Livingstone! which is a change from the time you gaed away.”
“Thanks to your cares and labors, mother,” said Huntley.
“Thanks to no such thing. Am I a hired servant that ye say such words to me? but thanks to Him that gives the increase,” said the Mistress; “though we’re no’ like to show our gratitude as I once thought,” and she threw a quick side-glance at Cosmo; “but Huntley, my man, have ye naething to tell of yourself?”
“Much more to ask than to tell,” said Huntley, growing red and anxious, but making an effort to control himself, “for you know all of the little that has happened to me already, mother. Thankless years enough they have been. To think of working hard so long and gaining nothing, and to make all that I have at last by what looks like a mere chance!”
“So long! What does the laddie call long?—many a man works a lifetime,” said the Mistress, “and even then never gets the chance; and it’s only the like of you at your time of life that’s aye looking for something to happen. For them that’s out of their youth, life’s far canniest when naething happens—though it is hard to tell how that can be either where there’s bairns. There’s been little out of the way here since this callant, Cosmo, gaed out on his travels, and brought his French lady and a’ her family hame. Me’mar’s in new hands now, Huntley; and you’ll have to gang to see them, no doubt, and they’ll make plenty wark about you. It’s their fashion. I’m no much heeding about their ways mysel’, but Cosmo has little else in his head, night or day.”
Cosmo blushed in answer to this sudden assault; but the blush was angry and painful, and his brother eagerly interposed to cover it.
“The ladies that took Melmar from us!—let us hear about them, mother,” said Huntley.
The Mistress turned round suddenly to the door to make sure it was closed.
“Take my word for it,” she said, solemnly, and with emphasis, “yon’s the man, that’s married upon Marie.”
“Who?” cried Cosmo, starting to his feet, with eager interest.
The Mistress eyed him severely for a moment.
“When you’re done making antics, Cosmo Livingstone, I’ll say my say,” said his offended mother—“you may be fond enough of French folk, without copying their very fashion. I would have mair pride if it was me.”
With an exclamation of impatience, which was not merely impatience, but covered deeply wounded feelings, Cosmo once more resumed the seat which he thrust hastily from the table. His mother glanced at him once more. If she had a favorite among her children, it was this her youngest son, yet she had a perverse momentary satisfaction in perceiving how much annoyed he was.
“You’s the man!” said the Mistress, with a certain triumphant contempt in her voice; “just the very same dirty Frenchman that Huntley brought to the house this day. I’m no mista’en. He’s wanting his wife, and he’ll find her, and I wish her muckle joy of her bonnie bargain. That’s just the ill-doing vagabond of a husband that’s run away from Marie!”
“Mother,” said Cosmo, eagerly, “you know quite well how little friendship I have for Marie—”
When he had got so far he stopped suddenly. His suggestion to the contrary was almost enough to make his mother inform the stranger at once of the near neighborhood of his wife, and Cosmo paused only in time.
“The mair shame to you,” said the Mistress, indignantly, “she’s a suffering woman, ill and neglected; and I warn you baith I’m no’ gaun to send this blackguard to Melmar to fright the little life there is out of a puir dying creature. He shall find out his wife for his ain hand; he shanna be indebted to me.”
“It is like yourself, mother, to determine so,” said Cosmo, gratefully. “Though, if she had the choice, I daresay she would decide otherwise, and perhaps Madame Roche too. You say I am always thinking of them, but certainly Iwould not trust to their wisdom—neither Madame Roche nor Marie.”
“But really—have some pity upon my curiosity—who is Marie, mother?” cried Huntley, “and who is her husband, and what is it about altogether? I know nothing of Pierrot, and I don’t believe much good of him; but how doyouknow?”
“Marie is the French lady’s eldest daughter—madame would have married her upon you, Huntley, my man, if she had been free,” said the Mistress, “and I woudna say but she’s keeping the little one in her hand for you to make up for your loss, as she says. But Marie, she settled for hersel’ lang before our Cosmo took news of their land to them; and it just shows what kind of folk they were when she took up with the like of this lad. I’ve little skill in Frenchmen, that’s true; if he’s not a common person, and a blackguard to the boot, I’m very sair deceived in my e’en; but whatever else he is, he’s her man, and that I’m just as sure of as mortal person can be. But she’s a poor suffering thing that will never be well in this world, and I’ll no’ send a wandering vagabond to startle her out of her life.”
“What do you say, madame,” screamed a voice at the door; “you know my wife—you know her—Madame Pierrot?—and you will keep her husband from her? What! you would take my Marie?—you would marry her to your son because she is rich? but I heard you—oh, I heard you! I go to fly to my dear wife.”
The Mistress rose, holding back Huntley, who was advancing indignantly:—
“Fly away, Mounseer,” said Mrs. Livingstone, “you’ll find little but closed doors this night; and dinna stand there swearing and screaming at me; you may gang just when you please, and welcome; but we’ll have none of your passions here; be quiet, Huntley—he’s no’ a person to touch with clean fingers—are you hearing me man? Gang up to your bed, if you please this moment. I give you a night’s shelter because you came with my son; or if you’ll no’ go up the stairs go forth out of my doors, and dinna say another word to me—do you hear?”
Pierrot stood at the door, muttering French curses as fast as he could utter them; but he did hear notwithstanding. After a little parley with Huntley, he went upstairs, three steps at a time, and locked himself into his chamber.
“He’s just as wise,” said the Mistress, “but it’s no’ very safe sleeping with such a villain in the house;” which was so far true that, excited and restless, she herself did not sleep, but lay broad awake all night thinking of Huntley and Cosmo—- thinking of all the old grief and all the new vexations which Mary of Melmar had brought to her own life.
Forthese five years had not been so peaceful as their predecessors—the face of this home country was much changed to some of the old dwellers here. Dr. Logan, old and well-beloved, was in his quiet grave, and Katie and her orphans, far out of the knowledge of the parish which once had taken so entire an interest in them, were succeeded by a new minister’s new wife, who had no children yet to gladden the manse so long accustomed to young voices; and the great excitement of the revolution at Melmar had scarcely yet subsided in this quiet place;—least of all, had it subsided with the Mistress, who, spite of a lurking fondness for little Desirée, could not help finding in the presence of Mary of Melmar a perpetual vexation. Their French habits, their language, their sentiments and effusiveness—the peevish invalid condition of Marie, and even the sweet temper of Madame Roche, aggravated with a perennial agitation, the hasty spirit of Mrs. Livingstone. She could not help hearing every thing that everybody said of them, could not help watching with a rather unamiable interest the failings and shortcomings of the family of women who had dispossessed her son. And then her other son—her Cosmo, of whom she had been so proud—could see nothing that did not fascinate and attract him in this little French household. So, at least, his mother thought. She could have borne an honest falling in love, and “put up with” the object of it, but she could not tolerate the idea of her son paying tendercourt to another mother, or of sharing with any one the divided honors of her maternal place. This fancy was gall and bitterness to the Mistress, and had an unconscious influence upon almost every thing she did or said, especially on those two days in every week which Cosmo spent at Norlaw.
“It’s but little share his mother has in his coming,” she said to herself, bitterly; and even Marget found the temper of the Mistress rather trying upon the Sundays and Mondays; while between Cosmo and herself there rose a cloud of mutual offense and exasperation, which had no cause in reality, but seemed almost beyond the reach of either explanation or peace-making now.
The Sabbath morning rose bright and calm over Norlaw. When Huntley woke, the birds were singing in that special, sacred, sweetest festival of theirs, which is held when most of us are sleeping, and seems somehow all the tenderer for being to themselves and God; and when Huntley rose to look out, his heart sang like the birds. There stood the Strength of Norlaw, all aglist with early morning dews and sunshine, wall-flowers tufting its old walls, sweet wild-roses looking out, like adventurous children, from the vacant windows, and the green turf mantling up upon its feet. There ran Tyne, a glimmer of silver among the grass and the trees. Yonder stretched forth the lovely country-side, with all its wealthy undulations, concealing the hidden house of Melmar among its woods. And to the south, the mystic Eildons, pale with the ecstacy of the night, stood silent under the morning light, which hung no purple shadows on their shoulders. Huntley gazed out of his window till his eyes filled. He was too young to know, like his mother, that it was best when nothing happened; and this event of his return recalled to him all the events of his life. He thought of his father, and that solemn midnight burial of his among the ruins; he thought of his own wanderings, his hope and loss of wealth, his present modest expectations; and then a brighter light and a more wistful gaze came to Huntley’s face. He, too, was no longer to be content with home and mother; but a sober tenderness subdued the young man’s ardor when he thought of Katie Logan among her children.
Seven years! It was a long trial for an unpledged love. Had no other thoughts come into her good heart in the meantime? or, indeed, did she ever think of Huntley savein her elder-sisterly kindness as she thought of everybody? When this oft-discussed question returned to him, Huntley could no longer remain quiet at his window. He hastily finished his toilette and went down stairs, smiling to himself as he unbolted and unlocked the familiar door—those very same bolts and locks which had so often yielded to his restless fingers in those days when Huntley was never still. Now, by this time, he had learned to keep himself quiet occasionally; but the old times flashed back upon him strangely, full of smiles and tears, in the unfastening of that door.
Thinking certainly that at so early an hour he himself was the first person astir in Norlaw, Huntley was greatly amazed to find Cosmo—no longer choosing his boyish seat of meditation in the window of the old castle—wandering restlessly about the ruins. And Cosmo did not seem quite pleased to seehim; that was still more remarkable. The elder brother could not help seeing again, as in a picture, the delicate fair boy, with his long arms thrust out of the jacket which was too small for him, with his bursts of boyish vehemence and enthusiasm, his old chivalrous championship of the unknown Mary, his tenacious love for the hereditary Norlaw. Huntley had not seen the boy grow up into the man—he had not learned to moderate his protecting love for the youngest child into the steady brotherly affection which should now acknowledge the man as an equal. Cosmo was still “my father’s son,” the youngest, the dearest, the one to be shielded from trouble, in the fancy of the elder brother. Yet, there he stood, as tall as Huntley, his childish delicacy of complexion gone, his fair hair crisp and curled, his dark eyes stormy and full of personal emotions, his foot impatient and restless, the step of a man already burdened with cares of his own. And, reluctant to meet his brother, his closest friend, and once his natural guardian! Huntley thrust his arm into Cosmo’s, and drew him round the other side of the ruins.
“Do you really wish to avoid me?” said the elder brother, with a pang. “What is wrong, Cosmo?—can you not tellme?”
“Nothing is wrong, so far as I am aware,” said Cosmo, with some haughtiness. His first impulse seemed to be to draw away his arm from his brother’s, but, if it was so, he restrained himself, and, instead, walked on with a cold,averted face, which was almost more painful than any act to the frank spirit of Huntley.
“I will ask no more questions then,” said Huntley, with some impatience; “I ought to remember how long I have been gone, and how little you know of me. What is to be done about this Pierrot? So far as I can glean from what my mother says, he will be an unwelcome guest at Melmar. What ground has my mother for supposing him connected with Madame Roche? What sort of a person is Madame Roche? What have you all been doing with yourselves? I have a hundred questions to ask about everybody. Even Patie no one speaks of; if nothing is wrong you are all strangely changed since I went away.”
“I suppose theallmeans myself; I am changed since you went away,” said Cosmo, moodily.
“Yes, you are changed, Cosmo; I don’t understand it; however, never mind, you can tell the reason why when you know me better,” said Huntley, “but, in the meantime, how is Patie, and where? And what about this Madame Roche?”
“Madame Roche is very well,” said Cosmo, with assumed indifference, “her eldest daughter is married, and has long been deserted by her husband; but I don’t know his name—they never mention it. Madame Roche is ashamed of him; they were people of very good family, in spite of what my mother says—Roche de St. Martin—but I sent you word of all this long ago. It is little use repeating it now.”
“Why should Pierrot beherhusband, of all men in the world?” said Huntley; “but if he’s not wanted at Melmar, you had better send the ladies word of your suspicions, and put them on their guard.”
“I have been there this morning,” said Cosmo, slightly confused by his own admission.
“This morning? you certainly have not lost any time,” said Huntley, laughing. “Never mind, Cosmo, I said I should ask nothing you did not want to tell me; though why you should be so anxious to keep her husband away from the poor woman—How have they got on at Melmar? Have they many friends? Are they people to make friends? They seem at least to be people of astonishing importance in Norlaw.”
“My mother,” said Cosmo, angrily, “dislikes MadameRoche, and consequently every thing said and done at Melmar takes an evil aspect in her eyes.”
“My boy, that is not a tone in which to speak of my mother,” said Huntley, with gravity.
“I know it!” cried the younger brother, “but how can I help it? it is true they are my friends. I confess to that; why should they not be my friends? why should I reject kindness when I find it? As for Marie, she is a selfish, peevish invalid, I have no patience with her—but—Madame Roche—”
Cosmo made a full stop before he said Madame Roche, and pronounced that name at last so evidently as a substitute for some other name, that Huntley’s curiosity was roused; which curiosity, however, he thought it best to satisfy diplomatically, and by a round-about course.
“I must see her to-morrow,” he said; “but what of our old friend, Melmar, who loved us all so well? I should not like to rejoice in any man’s downfall, buthedeserved it, surely. What has become of them all?”
“He is a poor writer again,” said Cosmo, shortly, “and Joanna—it was Joanna who brought Desirée here.”
“Who is Desirée?” asked Huntley.
“I ought to say Miss Roche,” said Cosmo, blushing to his hair. “Joanna Huntley and she were great friends at school, and after the change she was very anxious that Joanna should stay.Sheis the youngest, and an awkward, strange girl—but, why I can not tell, she clings to her father, and is a governess or school-mistress now, I believe. Yes, things change strangely. They were together when I saw them first.”
“They—them! you are rather mysterious, Cosmo. What is the story?” asked his brother.
“Oh, nothing very remarkable; only Des—Miss Roche, you know, came to Melmar first of all as governess to Joanna, and it was while she was there that I found Madame Roche at St. Ouen. When I returned, my mother,” said Cosmo, with a softening in his voice, “brought Desirée to Norlaw, as you must have heard; and it was from our house that she went home.”
“And, except this unfortunate sick one, she is the only child?” said Huntley. “I understand it now.”
Cosmo gave him a hurried jealous glance, as if to askwhat it was he understood, but after that relapsed into uncomfortable silence. They went on for some time so, Cosmo with anger and impatience supposing his elder brother’s mind to be occupied with what he had just told him; and it was with amazement, relief, but almost contempt for Huntley’s extraordinary want of interest in matters so deeply interesting to himself, that Cosmo heard and answered the next question addressed to him.
“And Dr. Logan is dead,” said Huntley, with a quiet sorrow in his voice, which trembled too with another emotion. “I wonder where Katie and her bairns are now?”
“Not very far off; somewhere near Edinburgh. I think Lasswade. Mr. Cassilis’ mother lives there,” said Cosmo.
“Mr. Cassilis! I had forgotten him,” said Huntley, “but he does not live at Lasswade?”
“They say he would be glad enough to have Katie Logan in Edinburgh,” said Cosmo, indifferently; “they are cousins—I suppose they are likely to be married;—how do I know? Well, only by some one telling me, Huntley! I did not know you cared.”
“Who said I cared?” cried Huntley, with sudden passion. “How should any one know any thing about the matter—eh? I only asked, of course, from curiosity, because we know her so well—used to know her so well. Not you, who were a child, but we two elder ones. My brother Patie—I hear nothing of Patie. Where ishethen? You must surely know.”
“He is to come to meet you to-morrow,” said Cosmo, who was really grieved for his own carelessness. “Don’t let me vex you, Huntley. I am vexed myself, and troubled; but I never thought of that, and may be quite wrong, as I am often,” he added, with momentary humility, for Cosmo was deeply mortified by the sudden idea that he had been selfishly mindful of his own concerns, and indifferent to those of his brother. For the time, it filled him with self-reproach and penitence.
“Never mind; every thing comes right in time,” said Huntley; but this piece of philosophy was said mechanically—the first common-place which occurred to Huntley to vail the perturbation of his thoughts.
Just then some sounds from the house called their attention there. The Mistress herself stood at the open door ofNorlaw, contemplating the exit of the Frenchman, who stood before her, hat in hand, making satirical bows and thanking her for his night’s lodging. In the morning sunshine this personage looked dirtier and more disreputable than on the previous night. He had not been at all particular about his toilette, and curled up his moustache over his white teeth, the only thing white about him, with a most sinister sneer, while he addressed his hostess; while she, in the meantime, in her morning cap and heavy black gown, and clear, ruddy face, stood watching him, as perfect a contrast as could be conceived.
“I have the satisfaction of making my adieux, madame,” cried Pierrot; “receive the assurance of my distinguished regard. I shall bring my wife to thank you. I shall tell my wife what compliments you paid her, to free her from her unworthy spouse and bestow your son. She will thank you—I will thank you. Madame, from my heart I make you my adieux!”
“It’s Sabbath morning,” said the Mistress, quietly; “and if you find your wife—I dinna envy her, poor woman! you can tell her just whatever you please, and I’ll no’ cross you; though it’s weel to see you dinna ken, you puir, misguided heathen, that you’re in another kind of country frae your ain. You puir Pagan creature! do you think I would ware my Huntley on a woman that had been another man’s wife? or do you think that marriage can be brokenhere? but it’s no’ worth my while parleying with the like of you. Gang your ways and find your wife, and be good to her, if it’s in you. She’s maybe a silly woman that likes ye still, vagabone though ye be—she’s maybe near the end of her days, for onything you ken. Go away and get some kindness in your heart if ye can—and every single word I’ve said to you you can tell ower again to your wife.”
Which would have been rather hard, however, though the Mistress did not know it. The wanderer knew English better than a Frenchman often does, but his education had been neglected—he did not know Scotch—a fact which did not enter into the calculations of Mrs. Livingstone.
“Adieu, comrade!” cried Pierrot, waving his hand to Huntley; “when I see you again you shall behold a milor, a nobleman; be happy with your amiable parent. I go to my wife, who adores me. Adieu.”
“And it’s true,” said the Mistress, drawing a long breath as the strange guest disappeared on the road to Kirkbride. “Eh, sire, but this world’s a mystery! it’s just true, so far as I hear; she does adore him, and him baith a mountebank and a vagabone! it passes the like of me!”
And Cosmo, looking after him too, thought of Cameron. Could that be the husband for whom Marie had pined away her life?
Itwas Sabbath morning, but it was not a morning of rest; though it was Huntley’s first day at home, and though it did his heart good to see his mother, the young man’s heart was already astray and pre-occupied with his own thoughts; and Cosmo, full of subdued but unrecoverable excitement, which his mother’s jealous eye only too plainly perceived, covered the face of the Mistress with clouds. Yet a spectator might have supposed that breakfast-table a very centre of family love and harmony. The snow-white cloth, the basket of brown oat-cakes and white flour scones, of Marget’s most delicate manufacture, the great jug full of rich red June roses, which made a glory in the midst, and the mother at the head of her table, with those two sons in the bloom of their young manhood, on either side of her, and the dress of her widowhood throwing a certain, tender, pathetic suggestion into her joy and their love. It was a picture had it been a picture, which no one could have seen without a touching consciousness of one of the most touching sides of human life. A family which at its happiest must always recall and commemorate a perpetual lack and vacancy, and where all the affections were the deeper and tenderer for that sorrow which overshadowed them; the sons of their mother, and she was a widow! But, alas, for human pictures and ideals! The mother was restless and dissatisfied, feeling strange interests crowding in to the very hour which should be peculiarly her own; the young men were stirred with the personal and undisclosed troubles of their early life. They sat together at their early meal, speaking ofcommon matters, eating daily bread, united yet separate, the peace of the morning only vailing over a surface of commotion, and Sabbath in every thing around save in their hearts.
“It’s a strange minister—you’ll miss the old man, Huntley,” said the Mistress; “but you’ll write down your thanksgiving like a good bairn, and put an offering in the plate; put your name, say, ‘Huntley Livingstone returns thanks to God for his safe home-coming.’ There would have been nae need for that if Dr. Logan had been to the fore; he aye minded baith thanks and supplications; and I’ll never forget what petitions he made in his prayer the last Sabbath you were at hame. You’re early stirring, Cosmo—it’s no’ time yet for the kirk.”
“I am going to Melmar, mother,” said Cosmo, in a low voice.
The Mistress made no answer; a flush came over her face, and her brow contracted, but she only said, as if to herself:—
“It’s the Sabbath day.”
“I went there this morning, to warn them of this man’s arrival,” said Cosmo, with excitement, “saying whatyouthought. I did not see any of them; but Marie has one of her illnesses. They have no one to support them in any emergency. I must see that he does not break in upon them to-day.”
The Mistress still made no answer. After a little struggle with herself, she nodded hastily.
“If ye’re a’ done, I’ll rise from the table. I have things to do before kirk-time,” she said at length, pushing back her chair and turning away. She had nothing to say against Cosmo’s resolution, but she was deeply offended by it—deeply, unreasonably, and she knew it—but could not restrain the bitter emotion. To be absent from the kirk at all, save by some overpowering necessity, was an offense to all her strong Scottish prejudices—but it was an especial breach of family decorum, and all the acknowledged sentiment and punctilio of love, to be absent to-day.
“Keep us a’ patient!” cried Marget, in an indignant undertone, when Mrs. Livingstone was out of hearing; for Marget, on one pretense or other, kept going and coming into the dining-parlor the whole morning, to rejoice her eyes with the sight of Huntley. “Some women come intothis world for nae good reason but to make trouble. To speak to the Mistress about an emergency! Whaever supported her inhertroubles but the Almighty himsel’ and her ain stout heart? I dinna wonder it’s hard to bear! Some gang through the fire for their ain hand, and no’ a mortal nigh them—some maun have a haill houseful to bear them up. Weel, weel, I’m no’ saying any thing against it—it’s kind o’ you, Mr. Cosmo—but you should think, laddie, before you speak.”
“Sheis not like my mother,” said Cosmo, somewhat sullenly.
“Like your mother!” cried Marget, with the utmost contempt. “She would smile a hantle mair, and ca’ ye mair dears in a day thanmyMistress in a twelvemonth; but wouldshehave fought and struggled through her life for a thankless man and thankless bairns—I trow no! Like your mother! She was bonnie when she was young, and she’s maybe, bonnie now, for onything I ken; but she never was wordy to tie the shoe upon the foot of the Mistress of Norlaw!”
“Be silent!” cried Cosmo, angrily; and before Marget’s indignation at this reproof could find itself words, the young man had hurried out from the room and from the house, boiling with resentment and a sense of injury. He saw exactly the other side of the question—his mother’s jealous temper, and hard-heartedness and dislike to the gentle and tender Madame Roche—but he could not see how hard it was, after all, for the honest, faithful heart, which grudged no pain nor hardship for its own, to find their love beguiled away again and again—or even to suppose it was beguiled—by one who had never done any thing to deserve such affection.
And Cosmo hurried on through the narrow paths to Melmar, his heart a-flame with a young man’s resentment, and impatience, and love. He scarcely could tell what it was which excited him so entirely. Not, certainly, the vagabond Pierrot, or any fears for Marie; not even the displeasure of his mother. He would not acknowledge to himself the eager, jealous fears which hurried him through those flowery bye-ways where the blossoms of the hawthorn had fallen in showers like summer snow, and the wild roses were rich in the hedgerows. Huntley!—why did he fear Huntley?What was the impulse of unfraternal impatience which made him turn with indignant offense from every thought of his brother? Had he put it into words, he would have despised himself; but he only rushed on in silence through the silent Sabbath fields and bye-ways to the house of Madame Roche.
It is early, early yet, and there is still no church bell ringing through the silence of the skies to rouse the farms and cottages. The whole bright summer world was as silent as a dream—the corn growing, the flowers opening, the sun shining, without a whisper to tell that dutiful Nature carried on her pious work through all the day of rest. The Tyne ran softly beneath his banks, the Kelpie rushed foaming white down its little ravine, and all the cool burns from among the trees dropped down into Tyne with a sound like silver bells. Something white shone upon the path on the very spot where Desirée once lay, proud and desolate, in the chill of the winter night, brooding over false friendship and pretended love. Desirée now is sitting on the same stone, musing once more in her maiden meditation. The universal human trouble broods even on these thoughts—not heavily—only like the shadow that flits along the trees of Tyne—a something ruffling the white woman’s forehead, which is more serious than the girl’s was, and disquieting the depths of those eyes which Cosmo Livingstone had called stars. Stars do not mist themselves with tender dew about the perversities of human kind as these eyes do; yet let nobody suppose that these sweet drops, lingering bright within the young eyelids, should be called tears.
Tears! words have so many meanings in this world! it is all the same syllable that describes the child’s passion, the honey-dew of youth, and that heavy rain of grief which is able sometimes to blot out both the earth and the skies.
So, after a fashion, there are tears in Desirée’s eyes, and a great many intermingled thoughts floating in her mind—thoughts troubled by a little indignation, some fear, and a good deal of that fanciful exaggeration which is in all youthful trials. She thinks she is very sad just now as she sits half in the shade and half in the sunshine, leaning her head upon her hand, while the playful wind occasionally sprinkles over her those snowy drops of spray from the Kelpie which shine on her hair; but the truth is that nothing just nowcould make Desirée sad, save sudden trouble, change, or danger falling upon one person—that one person is he who devours the way with eager, flying steps, and who, still more disturbed than she is, still knows no trouble in the presence of Desirée; and that is Cosmo Livingstone.
No; there is no love-tale to tell but that which has been told already; all those preliminaries are over; the Kelpie saw them pledge their faith to each other, while there still were but a sprinkling of spring leaves on those trees of June. Desirée; the name that caught the boy’s fancy when hewasa boy, and she unknown to him—the heroine of his dreams ever since then, the distressed princess to whom his chivalry had brought fortune—how could the young romance end otherwise? but why, while all was so natural and suitable, did the young betrothed meet here?
“I must tell your mother! I must speak to her to-day! I owe it both to myself and Huntley,” cried Cosmo. “I can not go away again with this jealous terror of my brother in my heart; I dare not, Desirée! I must speak to her to-day.”
“Terror? and jealous? Ah, then, you do not trust me,” said Desirée, with a smile. Her heart beat quicker, but she was not anxious; she held up her hand to the wind till it was all gemmed with the spray of the waterfall, and then shook it over the head of Cosmo, as he half sat, half knelt by her side. He, however, was too much excited to be amused; he seized upon the wet hand and held it fast in his own.
“I did not think it possible,” said Cosmo. “Huntley, whom I supposed I could have died for, my kind brother! but it makes me frantic when I think what your mother has said—what sheintends. Heaven! if he himself should think ofyou!”
“Go, you are rude,” said Desirée; “if I am so good as you say, he must think of me; but amInothing then,” she cried, suddenly springing up, and stamping her little firm foot, half in sport, half in anger; “how do you dare speak of me so? Do you think mamma can give me away like a ring, or a jewel? Do you think it will be different to me whether he thinks or does not think of Desirée? You make me angry, Monsieur Cosmo; if that is all you come to tell me, go away!”
“What can I tell you else?” cried Cosmo. “I must andwill be satisfied. I can not go on with this hanging over me. Do you remember what you told me, Desirée, that Madame Roche meant to offer you—you! to my brother? and you expect me to have patience! No, I am going to her now.”
“Then it is all over,” cried Desirée, “all these sunny days—all these dreams! She will say no, no. She will say it must not be—she will forbid me meeting you; but if you do not care, why should I?” exclaimed the little Frenchwoman, rapidly. “Nay, you must do what you will—you must be satisfied. Why should you care for whatIsay? and as for me I shall be alone.”
So Desirée dropped again upon her stone seat, and put her face down into her hands, and shed a few tears; and Cosmo, half beside himself, drew away the hands from her face, and remonstrated, pleaded, urged his claim.
“Why should not you acknowledge me?” said the young lover. “Desirée, long before I ventured to speak it you knew where my heart was—and now I have your own word and promise. Your mother will not deny you. Come with me, and say to Madame Roche—”
“What?” said Madame Roche’s daughter, glancing up at him as he paused.
But Cosmo was in earnest now:—
“What is in your heart!” he said breathlessly. “You turn away from me, and I can not look into it. What is in your heart, whether it is joy, or destruction, I care not,” cried the young man suddenly, “I must know my fate.”
Desirée raised her head and looked at him with some surprise and a quick flush of anger:—
“What have I done that you dare doubt me?” she cried, clapping her hands together with natural petulance. “You are impatient—you are angry—you are jealous—but does all that change me?”
“Then come with me to Madame Roche,” said the pertinacious lover.
Desirée had the greatest mind in the world to make a quarrel and leave him. She was not much averse now and then to a quarrel with Cosmo, for she was a most faulty and imperfect little heroine, as has been already confessed in these pages; but in good time another caprice seized her, and she changed her mind.
“Marie is ill,” she said softly, in a tone which melted Cosmo; “let us not go now to trouble poor mamma.”
“Marie! I came this morning to warn her, or rather to warn Madame Roche,” said Cosmo, recalled to the ostensible cause of his visit. “A Frenchman, called Pierrot, came home with Huntley—”
But before he could finish his sentence, Desirée started up with a scream at the name, and seizing his arm, in her French impatience overwhelmed him with terrified questions:—
“Pierrot? quick! speak! where is he? does he seek Marie? is he here? quick, quick, quick, tell me where he is! he must never come to poor Marie! he must not find us—tell me, Cosmo! do you hear?”
“He spent last night at Norlaw—he seeks his wife,” said Cosmo, when she was out of breath; at which word Desirée sprang up the path with excited haste:—
“I go to tell mamma,” she said, beckoning Cosmo to follow, and in a few minutes more disappeared breathless within the open door of Melmar, leaving him still behind.
Madame Rochesat by herself in the drawing-room of Melmar—the same beautiful old lady who used to sit working behind the flowers and white curtains of the little second floor window in St. Ouen. The room itself was changed from the fine disorderly room in which Mrs. Huntley had indulged her invalid tastes, and Patricia read her poetry-books. There was no longer a loose crumb-cloth to trip unwary feet, nor rumpled chintz covers to conceal the glory of the damask; and there was a wilderness of gilding, mirrors, cornices, chairs, and picture-frames, which changed the sober aspect of Melmar, and threw a somewhat fanciful and foreign character upon the grave Scotch apartment, looking out through its three windows upon the solemn evergreens and homely grass-plot, which had undergone no change. One of the windows was open, andthatwas garlanded round, like a cottage window, with a luxurianceof honey suckle and roses, which the “former family” would have supposed totally unsuited to the “best room in the house.” It was before this open window, with the sweet morning breeze waving the white curtains over her, and the roses leaning in in little crowds, that Madame Roche sat. She was reading—at least she had a book in her hand, among the leaves of which the sweet air rustled playfully; it was a pious, pretty book of meditations, which suited both the time and the reader, and she sat sometimes looking into it, sometime suffering her eyes and mind to stray, with a sweet pensive gravity on her fair old face, and tender, subdued thoughts in her heart. Madame Roche was not profound in any thing; perhaps there was not very much depth in those pious thoughts, or even in the sadness which just overshadowed them. Perhaps she had even a far-off consciousness that Cosmo Livingstone saw a very touching little picture, when he saw the mother by the window reading the Sabbath book in that Sabbath calm, and saying prayers in her heart for poor Marie. But do not blame Madame Roche—she still did say the prayers, and out of an honest heart.
When Desirée flew into the room, flushed and out of breath, and threw herself upon her mother so suddenly, that Madame Roche’s composure was quite overthrown:—
“Mamma, mamma!” cried Desirée, in what was almost a scream, though it was under her breath, “listen—Pierrot is here; he has found us out.”
“What, child? Pierrot? It is impossible!” cried Madame Roche.
“Things that are impossible are always true!” exclaimed the breathless Desirée; “he is here—Cosmo has seen him; he has come to seek Marie.”
“Cosmo? ishehere?” said Madame Roche, rising. The old lady had become quite agitated, and her voice trembled. The book had fallen out of the hands which she clasped tightly together, in her fright and astonishment. “But he is mistaken, Desirée; he does not know Pierrot.”
When Cosmo, however, came forward to tell his own story, Madame Roche became still more disturbed and troubled:—
“To come now!” she exclaimed to herself with another expressive French pressure of her hands—“to come now! Had he come in St. Ouen, when we were poor, I could haveborne it; but now, perceive you what will happen, Desirée? He will place himself here, and squander our goods and make us despised. He will call my poor Marie by his mean name—she, a Roche de St. Martin! and she will be glad to have it so. Alas, my poor deluded child!”
“Still though he is so near, he has not found you yet; and if he does find you, the house is yours, you can refuse him admission; let me remain, in case you should want me,” said Cosmo eagerly; “I have been your representative ere now.”
Madame Roche was walking softly about the room, preserving through all her trouble, even now when she had been five years in this great house, the old habit of restraining her voice and step, which had been necessary when Marie lay in the little back chamber at St. Ouen, within constant hearing of her mother. She stopped for an instant to smile upon her young advocate and supporter, as a queen might smile upon a partisan whose zeal was more than his wisdom; and then went on hurriedly addressing her daughter.
“For Marie, poor soul, would be crazed with joy. Ah, my Desirée! who can tell me what to do? For my own pleasure, my own comfort, a selfish mother, must I sacrifice my child?”
“Mamma,” cried Desirée, with breathless vehemence, “I love Marie—I would give my life for her; but if Pierrot comes to Melmar, I will go. It is true—I remember him—I will not live with Pierrot in one house.”
Madame Roche clasped her hands once more, and cast up her eyes with a gesture of despair. “What can I do—what am I to do? I am a woman alone—I have no one to advise me,” she cried, pacing softly about the room, with her clasped hands and eyes full of trouble. Cosmo’s heart was quite moved with her distress.
“Let me remain with you to-day,” said Cosmo, “and if he comes, permit me to see him. You can trustme. If you authorize me to deny him admission, he certainly shall not enter here.”
“Ah, my friend!” cried Madame Roche. “Ah, my child! what can I say to you? Marie loves him.”
“And he has made her miserable,” cried Desirée, with passion. “But, because she loves him, you will let him come here to make us all wretched. I knew it would be so.She loves him—it is enough! He will make her frantic—he will break her heart—he will insult you, me, every one! But Marie loves him! and so, though he is misery, he must come. I knew it would be so; but I will not stay to see it all—I can not! I will never stand by and watch while he kills Marie. Mamma! mamma! will you be so cruel? But I can not speak—I am angry—wretched! I will go to Marie and nurse her, and be calm; but if Pierrot comes, Desirée will stay no longer. For you know it is true!”
And so speaking Desirée went, lingering and turning back to deliver herself always of a new exclamation, to the door, out of which she disappeared at last, still protesting her determination with violence and passion. Madame Roche stood still, looking after her. There was great distress in the mother’s face, but it did not take that lofty form of pain which her child’s half-defiance might have produced. She was not wounded by what Desirée said. She turned round sighing to where Cosmo stood, not perfectly satisfied, it must be confessed, with the bearing of his betrothed.
“Poor child! she feels it!” said Madame Roche, “and, indeed, it is true, and she is right; but what must I do, my friend? Marie loves him. To see him once more might restore Marie.”
“Mademoiselle Desirée says he will break her heart,” said Cosmo, feeling himself bound to defend the lady of his love, even though he did not quite approve of her.
“Do not say mademoiselle. She is of this country; she is not a stranger,” said Madame Roche with her bright, usual smile; “and hewillbreak her heart if he is not changed; do I not know it? But then—ah, my friend, you are young and impatient, and so is Desirée. Would you not rather have your wish and your love, though it killed you to have it, than to live year after year in a blank peacefulness? It is thus with Marie; she lives, but her life does not make her glad. She loves him—she longs for him; and shall I know how her heart pines, and be able to give her joy, yet keep silence, as though I knew nothing? It might be most wise; but I am not wise—I am but her mother—what must I do?”
“You will not give her a momentary pleasure, at the risk of more serious suffering,” said Cosmo, with great gravity.
But the tears came to Madame Roche’s eyes. She sank into a chair, and covered her face with her hand. “It would be joy!—can I deny her joy? for she loves him,” faltered Marie’s mother. As he looked at her with impatient, yet tender eyes, the young man forgave Desirée for her impatience. How was it possible to deal calmly with the impracticable sentiment and “feelings” of Madame Roche?
“I came to speak to you of myself,” said Cosmo. “I can not speak of myself in the midst of this trouble; but I beg you to think better of it. If he is all that you say, do not admit him here.”
“Of yourself?” said Madame Roche, removing her hand from her face, and stretching out to him that tender white hand which was still as soft and fair as if it had been young instead of old. “My child, I am not so selfish as to forget you who have been so good to us. Tell me what it is about yourself?”
And as she smiled and bent towards him, Cosmo’s heart beat high, half with hope half with shame, for he felt guilty when he remembered that neither himself nor Desirée had confessed their secret betrothal to Desirée’s mother. In spite of himself, he could not help feeling a shadow of blame thrown upon Desirée, and the thought wounded him. He was full of the unreasonable, romantic love of youth. He could not bear, by the merest instinctive secret action of his mind, to acknowledge a defect in her.
“You say, ‘Marie loves him’—that is reason enough for a great sacrifice from you,” cried Cosmo, growing out of breath with anxiety and agitation; “and Desirée—and I,—what will you say to us? Oh, madame, you are kind, you are very kind. Be more than my friend, and give Desirée to me!”
“Desirée!"—Madame Roche rose up, supporting herself by her chair—“Desirée! but she knows she is destined otherwise—youknow—Desirée!” cried Madame Roche, clasping her pretty hands in despair. “She is dedicated—she is under a vow—she has to do justice! My friend Cosmo—my son—my young deliverer!—do not—do not ask this! It breaks my heart to say no to you; but I can never, never give you Desirée!”
“Why?” said Cosmo, almost sternly. “You talk oflove—will you deny its claim? Desirée does not say no. I ask you again, give her to me! My love will never wound her nor break her heart. I do not want the half of your estate, and neither does my brother! Give me Desirée—I can work for her, and she would be content to share my fortune. Sheiscontent—I have her own word for it. I demand it of you for true love’s sake, madame—you, who speak of love! Give her to me!”
“Alas!” cried Madame Roche, wringing her hands—“alas! my child! I speak of love because Marie is his wife; but a young girl is different! She must obey her destiny! You are young—you will forget it. A year hence, you will smile when you think of your passion. No—my friend Cosmo, hear me! No, no, you must not have Desirée—I will give you any thing else in this world that you wish, if I can procure it, but Desirée is destined otherwise. No, no, I can not change—you can not have Desirée!”
And on this point the tender and soft Madame Roche was inexorable—no intreaty, no remonstrance, no argument could move her! She stood her ground with a gentle iteration which drove Cosmo wild. No, no, no; any thing but Desirée. She was grieved for him—ready to take him into her arms and weep over him—but perfectly impenetrable in her tender and tearful obstinacy. And when, at last, Cosmo rushed from the house, half mad with love, disappointment, and mortification, forgetting all about Pierrot and everybody else save the Desirée who was never to be his, Madame Roche sat down, wiping her eyes and full of grief, but without the faintest idea of relinquishing the plans by which her daughter was to compensate Huntley Livingstone for the loss of Melmar.
WhenCosmo rushed forth from Melmar with his heart a-flame, and made his way out through the trees to the unsheltered and dusty highway, the sound of the Sabbath bells was just beginning to fall through the soft summer air, sobright with the sunshine of the morning. Somehow, the sound seemed to recall him, in a moment, to the sober home life out of which he had rushed into this feverish episode and crisis of his own existence. His heart was angry, and sore, and wounded. To think of the usual familiar routine of life disgusted him—his impulse was to fly out of everybody’s reach, and separate himself from a world where everybody was ready to sacrifice the happiness of others to the merest freak or crochet of his own. But the far off tinkle of the Kirkbride bell, though it was no wonder of harmony, dropped into Cosmo’s ear and heart like the voice of an angel. Just then, his mother, proudly leaning upon Huntley’s arm, was going up the bank of Tyne to thank God for her son’s return. Just then, Desirée, who had left Melmar before him, was walking softly, in her white summer robes, to the Sabbath service, little doubting to see Cosmo there; and out of all the country round, the rural families, in little groups, were coming up every path, all tending toward the same place. Cosmo sprang impatiently over a stile, and made his way through a corn field, where the rustling green corn on either side of the path, just bursting from the blade, was almost as tall as himself. He did not care to meet the church goers, who would not have been slow to remark upon his heated and uneasy looks, or even upon the novel circumstance of his being here instead of at “the kirk.” This same fact of itself communicated an additional discomfort to Cosmo. He felt in his conscience, which was young and tender, the unsabbatical and agitating manner in which he had spent the Sabbath morning, and the bell seemed ringing reproaches into his ear as he hastened through the rustling corn. Perhaps not half a dozen times before in his life, save during the time of his travels, had Cosmo voluntarily occupied the Sabbath morning with uses of his own. He had dreamed through its sacred hours many a time, for he was “in love”, and a poet; but his dreams had gone on to the cadence of the new minister’s sermon, and taken a sweeter echo out of the rural psalms and thanksgivings; and he felt as a Scottish youth of religious training was like to feel under such circumstances—his want of success and present unhappiness increased by the consciousness that he was using the weekly rest for his own purposes, thinking his own thoughts, doing his own business, and filling, with all thehuman agitation of fears and hopes, selfish and individual, the holy quiet of the Sabbath day.
And when Cosmo reached Norlaw, which was solitary and quiet like a house deserted, and when the little girl who helped Marget in the dairy rose from her seat at the clean table in the kitchen, where, with her Bible open before her, she was seeking out “proofs” for her “questions,” to let him in, not without a wondering air of disapproval, the feeling grew even stronger. He threw himself into his mother’s easy-chair, in the dining-parlor, feeling the silence grow upon him like a fascination. Even the Mistress’s work-basket was put out of the way, and there was no open book here to be ruffled by the soft air from the open window. Upon the table was the big Bible, the great jug full of red roses, and that volume ofHervey’s Meditations, which the Mistress had certainly not been reading—and the deep, unbroken Sabbath stillness brooded over him as if it were something positive and actual, and not a mere absence of sound. And as he thought of it, the French household at Melmar, with its fancies, its agitations, its romantic plans and troubles of feeling, looked more and more to Cosmo discordant and inharmonious with the time; and he himself jarred like a chord out of tune upon this calm of the house and the Sabbath; jarred strangely, possessed as he was by an irritated and injured self-consciousness—that bitter sensation of wrong and disappointment, which somehow seemed to separate Cosmo from every thing innocent and peaceful in the world.
For why was it always so—always a perennial conspiracy, some hard, arbitrary will laying its bar upon the course of nature? Cosmo’s heart was sore within him with something more than a vexed contemplation of the anomaly, with an immediate, pursuing, hard mortification of his own. He was bitterly impatient of Madame Roche in this new and strange phase of her character, and strangely perplexed how to meet it. For Cosmo had a poetic jealousy of the honor and spirit of his best beloved. He felt that he could not bear it, if Desirée for his sake defied her mother—he could not tolerate the idea that she was like to do so, yet longed, and feared, and doubted, full of the most contradictory and unreasonable feelings, and sure only of being grieved and displeased whatever might happen. So he felt as he sat by himself, with his eyes vacantly fixed upon the red roses andthe big Bible, wondering, impatient, anxious beyond measure, to know what Desirée would do.
But that whole silent day passed over him unenlightened; he got through the inevitable meals he could scarcely tell how—replied or did not reply to his mother’s remarks, which he scarcely noticed were spokenat, and not to him, wandered out in the afternoon to Tyneside and the Kelpie, without finding any one there—and finally, with a pang of almost unbearable rebellion, submitted to the night and sleep which he could not avoid. To-morrow he had to return to Edinburgh, to go away, leaving his brother in possession of the field—his brother, to whom Madame Roche meant togiveDesirée, in compensation for his lost fortune. Cosmo had forgotten all about Katie Logan by this time; it was not difficult, for he knew scarcely any thing; and with a young lover’s natural pride and vanity, could not doubt that any man in the world would be but too eager to contend with him for such a prize as Desirée Roche.
And to-morrow he had to go away!—to return to Mr. Todhunter’s office, to read all the trashy stories, all the lamentable criticisms, all the correspondence, making small things great, which belonged to theAuld Reekie Magazine. Cosmo had not hitherto during his life been under much compulsion of themust, and accordingly found it all the harder to consent to it now. And he was growing very weary of his occupation besides. He had got a stage beyond his youthful facility of rhyme, and was, to say the truth, a little ashamed now of his verses, and of those flowery prose papers, which the Mistress still read with delight. He began to suspect that literature, after all, was not his vocation, and at this moment would rather have carried a laborer’s hod; or followed the plow, than gone to that merchandise of words which awaited him in Edinburgh. So he rose, sullen and discontented, ready to quarrel with any or every one who thwarted him, and feeling toward Huntley rather more like an enemy than like a brother.
And Cosmo had but just risen from the early breakfast table when a note was put into his hand. Marget brought it to him, with rather an ostentation of showing what she brought, and Cosmo had to read it under the eyes of his mother and Huntley, neither of whom could help casting many glances at the young man’s disturbed face. It was thefirst letter he had ever received from Desirée—no wonder that he hurried out when he had glanced at it, and did not hear that the Mistress called him back; for it was a very tantalizing, unsatisfactory communication. This is what Desirée said:—