“I knew it would be so. Why are you so restless, so impatient—why do you not be calm and wait like me? Mamma has set her heart upon what she says. She will not yield if you pray to her forever. She loves me, she loves you; it would make her happy; but, alas, poor mamma! She has set her thoughts upon the other, and will not change. Why do you vex her, you, me, every one? Be silent, and all will be well.“For I am not in haste, Monsieur Cosmo, if you are. I am able to wait—me! I know you went away in great anger, and did not come to church, and were cross all day, and your mother will think I am to blame. But if youwillbe impatient, am I to blame? I tell you to wait, as I shall, to be good and silent, and see what will happen; but you do not regard me.“Farewell, then, for a week. I write to you because I can not help it this time, but I will not write again. Be content, then, restless boy;au revoir!“Desirée.”
“I knew it would be so. Why are you so restless, so impatient—why do you not be calm and wait like me? Mamma has set her heart upon what she says. She will not yield if you pray to her forever. She loves me, she loves you; it would make her happy; but, alas, poor mamma! She has set her thoughts upon the other, and will not change. Why do you vex her, you, me, every one? Be silent, and all will be well.
“For I am not in haste, Monsieur Cosmo, if you are. I am able to wait—me! I know you went away in great anger, and did not come to church, and were cross all day, and your mother will think I am to blame. But if youwillbe impatient, am I to blame? I tell you to wait, as I shall, to be good and silent, and see what will happen; but you do not regard me.
“Farewell, then, for a week. I write to you because I can not help it this time, but I will not write again. Be content, then, restless boy;au revoir!
“Desirée.”
Cosmo turned it round and round, and over and over, but nothing more was to be made of it. Desirée had not contemplated the serious discontent of her lover. She thought he would understand and be satisfied with her playful letter, and required nothing more serious. Perhaps, had she thought he required something more serious, the capricious little Frenchwoman would have closed her heart and refused it. But, however that may be, it is certain that Cosmo was by no means so much pleased as he expected to be when he saw the note first, and prepared himself to leave home with feelings scarcely at all ameliorated, shaking hands abruptly with Huntley, and having a very cold parting with his mother. He carried a discontented heart away with him, and left discontent and vexation behind, and so trudged into Kirkbride, and drove away to Edinburgh on the top of the coach, troubled with the people behind and the things before him, and in the most unamiable humor in the world.
“Well, Huntley, and what’s your opinion of our grand new neighbors?” said the Mistress. They were returning together on that same Monday from a formal call at Melmar; perhaps the first time on which the Mistress’s visit to Madame Roche had been made with any pleasure. Mrs. Livingstone came proudly through the Melmar grounds, leaning upon Huntley’s arm. She had gone to exhibit her son; half consciously to exult over her richer neighbor, who had no sons, and to see with her own eyes how Huntley was pleased with his new friends.
“I think,” said Huntley, warmly, “that it is no wonder people raved about Mary of Melmar. She is beautiful now.”
“So she is,” said the Mistress, rather shortly. “I canna say I am ony great judge mysel’. She’s taen good care of her looks—oh ay, I dinna doubt she is.”
“But her daughters don’t seem to inherit it,” added Huntley.
“Ay, lad—would ye say no’?—no’ the little one?” said the Mistress, looking up jealously in his face. She was the very reverse of a matchmaker, but perhaps it is true that women instinctively occupy themselves with this interesting subject. The Mistress had not forgotten Katie Logan, but in the depths of her heart she thought it just possible that Huntley might cast a favorable eye upon Desirée.
“No, not the little one,” said Huntley, laughing; “though I like her best of the two; and was it that invalid whom you supposed the wife of Pierrot? Impossible!—any thing so fragile and delicate would never have married such a fellow.”
“She’s delicate, no doubt,” said the Mistress, “but to be weakly in body is no’ to be tender in the mind. Eh, what’s that among the trees?—black and ill favored, and a muckle cloak about him—it’s just the villain’s sel’!”
“Hush, he sees us,” said Huntley; “let us meet him and hear if he is going to Melmar. It seems unbelievable that so gentle an invalid should be his wife.”
The Mistress only said “Humph!” She was sorry for Marie, but not very favorable to her—though at sight of theFrenchman all her sympathies were immediately enlisted on behalf of his devoted wife. Pierrot would have avoided them if he could, but as that was impossible, he came forward with a swaggering air, throwing his cloak loose, and exhibiting a morning toilette worthy of an ambitious tailor or a gentleman’s gentleman. He took off his hat with elaborate politeness, and made the Mistress a very fine bow, finer than any thing which she had seen in these parts for many a day.
“Let me trust you found Madame Pierrot, my charming wife, well and visible,” said the adventurer, with a second ironical obeisance, “and my gracious lady, her mamma, and pretty Desirée? I go to make myself known to them, and receive their embraces. I am excited, overjoyed—can you wonder? I have not seen my wife for ten years.”
“And might have suffered that trial still, if it had not been for the siller,” said the Mistress; “eh, man, to think of a woman in her senses taking up with the like of you!”
Fortunately the Mistress’s idiomatic expressions, which might not have been over agreeable had they been understood, were not quite comprehensible to Monsieur Pierrot. He only knew that they meant offense, and smiled and showed his white teeth in admiration of the malice which he only guessed at.
“I go to my castle, my chateau, my fortune,” he said; “where I shall have pleasure in repaying your hospitality. I shall be a good host. I shall make myself popular. Pierrot of Melmar will be known everywhere—it is not often that your dull coteries are refreshed by the coming of a gentleman from my country. But I am too impatient to linger longer than politeness demands. I have the honor to bid you very good morning. I go to my Marie.”
Saying which, he swaggered past with his cloak hanging over his shoulders—a romantic piece of drapery which was more picturesque than comfortable on this summer day. The Mistress paused to look after him, clasping with rather an urgent pressure her son’s arm, and with an impulse of impatient pity moving her heart.
“I could never bear a stranger nigh inmytroubles,” she cried, at last, “but yon woman’s no’ like me. She’s used to lean upon other folk. What can she do, with that poor failing creature at one side of her and this villain at theother? Huntley, my man! she’s nae friend of mine, but she’s a lone woman, and you’re her kinsman. Go back and give her your countenance to send the vagabone away!”
“Mother, I am a stranger,” cried Huntley, with surprise and embarrassment; “what could I do for her? how could I venture indeed to intrude myself into their private affairs? Cosmo might have done it who knows them well, but I—I can not see a chance of serving them, perhaps quite the reverse. If you are right, this man belongs to the family, and blood is thicker than water. No, no; of course I will do what you wish, if you wish it; but I do not think it is an office for me.”
And the Mistress, whose heart had been moved with compassion for the other widow who had no son, and who had suggested voluntarily that Huntley should help her, could not help feeling pleased nor being ashamed of her pleasure, when he declined the office. He, at least, was not “carried away” by the fascinations of Mary of Melmar. She took a secret pleasure in his disobedience. It soothed the feelings which Cosmo’s divided love had aggrieved.
“Weel, maybe it’s wisest; they ken best themselves how their ain hearts are moved—and a strange person’s a great hindrance in trouble.Icouldna thole it mysel’,” said the Mistress; “I canna help them, it’s plain enough—so we’ll do little good thinking upon it. But, Huntley, my man, what’s your first beginning to be, now that you are hame?”
At this question, Huntley looked his mother full in the face, with a startled, anxious glance, and grew crimson, but said not a word; to which the Mistress replied by a look, also somewhat startled, and almost for the moment resentful. She did not save him from his embarrassment by introducing then the subject nearest to his heart. She knew, and could not doubt what it was, but she kept silent, watching him keenly, and waiting for his first words. Madame Roche would have thrown herself into his arms and wept with an effusion of tenderness and sympathy, but this was the Mistress, who was long out of practice of love-matters, and who felt her sons more deeply dear to her own heart than ever lover was in the world. So it was with a little faltering that Huntley spoke.
“It is seven years since I went away, and she was only a girl then—only a girl, though like a mother. I wonderwhat change they have made upon Katie Logan, these seven years?”
“She’s a good lassie,” said the Mistress; “eh, Huntley, I’m ower proud!—I think naebody like my sons; but she’s a very good lassie. I havena a word to say against her, no’ me! I canna take strangers easy into my heart, but Katie Logan’s above blame. You ken best yoursel’ what you’ve said to one another, her and you—but I canna blame ye thinking upon her—na,” said the Mistress, clearing her throat, “I am thankful to the Almighty for putting such a good bairn into your thoughts. I’m a hard woman in my ain heart, Huntley. I’ll just say it out once for a’. You’ve a’ been so precious to me, that at the first dinnle I canna bide to think that nane of you soon will belong to your mother. That’s a’—for you see I never had a daughter of my ain.”
The Mistress ended this speech, which was a long speech for her, with great abruptness, and put up her hand hurriedly to wipe something from her eye. She could be angry with Cosmo, who confided nothing to her, but her loving, impatient heart could not stand against the frankness of his brother. She made her confession hurriedly, and with a certain obstinate determination—hastily wiped the unwilling tear out of the corner of her eye, and the next moment lifted her head with all her inalienable spirit, ready, if the smallest advantage was taken of her confession, to gird on her armor on the moment, and resist all concessions to the death.
But Huntley was wise. “We have said nothing to each other,” he answered quickly, “but I would fain see Katie first of all.”
This was about the sum of the whole matter—neither mother nor son cared to add much to this simple understanding. Katie had been absent from Kirkbride between four and five years, and during all that time the Mistress had only seen her once, and not a syllable of correspondence had passed between her and Huntley. It might be that she had long ago forgotten Huntley; it might be that Katie never cared for him, save with that calm regard of friendship which Huntley did not desire from her. It was true that the Mistress remembered Katie’s eyes and Katie’s face on that night, long ago, when a certain subtle consciousness of the one love which was in the hearts ofboth, gave the minister’s daughter a sudden entrance into the regard of Huntley’s mother. But the Mistress did not tell Huntley of that night. “It’s no for me to do,” said the Mistress to herself, when she had reached home, with a momentary quiver of her proud lip. “Na, if she minds upon my Huntley still—and wha could forget him?—I’ve nae right to take the words out of Katie’s mouth; and he’ll be all the happier, my puir laddie, to hear it from hersel’.”
It was a magnanimous thought; and somehow this self-denial and abnegation—this reluctant willingness to relinquish now at last that first place in her son’s heart, which had been so precious to the Mistress, shed an insensible brightness that day over Norlaw. One could not have told whence it came; yet it brightened over the house, a secret sunshine, and Huntley and his mother were closer friends than, perhaps, they had ever been before. If Cosmo could but have found this secret out!
Inthe meantime, Cosmo, angry with himself and everybody else, went into Edinburgh to his weekly labor. It was such lovely summer weather, that even Edinburgh, being a town, was less agreeable than it is easy to suppose that fairest of cities; for though the green hill heights were always there to refresh everybody’s eyes, clouds of dust blew up and down the hilly streets of the new town, which had even still less acquaintance then than now with the benevolent sprinkling of the water-carts. If one could choose the easiest season for one’s troubles, one would not choose June, when all the world is gay, and when Nature looks most pitiless to sad hearts. Sad hearts! Let every one who reads forgive a natural selfishness—it is the writer of this story, who has nothing to do with its events, who yet can not choose but make her sorrowful outcry against the sunshine, sweet sunshine, smiling out of the heart of heaven! which makes the soul of the sorrowful sick within them. It is not the young hero in the agitation of his young troubles—warmdiscontents and contests of life—the struggles of the morning. Yet Cosmo was vexed and aggravated by the light, and heat, and brightness of the fair listless day, which did not seem made for working in. He could not take his seat at Mr. Todhunter’s writing-table, laden with scraps of cut-up newspapers, with bundles of “copy,” black from the fingers of the printers, and heaps of proof sheets. He could not sit down to read through silly romances, or prune the injudicious exuberance of young contributors. Unfortunately, the contributors to theAuld Reekie Magazinewere almost all young; it had not turned out such an astounding “start” as theEdinburgh Review; it had fallen into the hands of young men at college, who, indisputably, in that period of their development, however great they may become eventually, are not apt to distinguish themselves in literature; and Cosmo, who had just outgrown the happy complacence of that period, was proportionately intolerant of its mistakes and arrogances, and complained (within himself) of his uncongenial vocation and unfortunate fate. He was not fit to be editor of theAuld Reekie. He was not able for the labor dire and weary woe of revising the papers which were printed, and glancing over those which were not—in short, he was totally dissatisfied with himself, his position and his prospects, very probably, but for his love-dream, Cosmo would have launched himself upon the bigger sea in London, another forlorn journeyman of literature, half conscious that literature was not the profession to which he was born; but the thought of Desirée held him back like a chain of gold. He could see her every week while he remained here, and beyond that office of Mr. Todhunter’s in which perseverance and assiduity, and those other sober virtues which are not too interesting generally to young men, might some time make him a partner, Cosmo could not for his life have told any one what he would do.
After he had endured his work as long as he could in this quiet little den, which Mr. Todhunter shared with him, and where that gentleman was busy, as usual, with paste and scissors, Cosmo at last tossed an unreadable story into the waste-paper basket, and starting up, got his hat. His companion only glanced up at him with an indignant reproof.
“What! tired? Are they soawfulbad?” said Mr. Todhunter; but this model of a bookseller said no more whenhis young deputy sallied out with a nod and a shrug of his shoulders. The proprietor of theAuld Reekie Magazinewas one of those rare and delightful persons—Heaven bless their simple souls!—who have an inalienable reverence for “genius,” and believe in its moods and vagaries with the devoutness of a saint.
“Of course I would exact common hours from a common young man,” said Mr. Todhunter, “but a lad of genius is another matter. When he’s in the vein, he’ll get through with his work like a giant. I’ve seen him write four papers with his own hand after the twenty-third of the month, and the magazine as sharp to its time, notwithstanding, as if he had been a year preparing. He’s not a common lad, my sub-editor;"—and Cosmo quite took credit with his employer on the score of his fits of varying energy and his irregular hours.
Cosmo, however, sauntered away through the bright and busy streets without giving himself so much credit. The young man was thoroughly uncomfortable, self-displeased, and aggravated. He knew well enough that it was not the impatience of genius, but only a restless and disturbed mind, which made his work intolerable on that long summer afternoon. He was thinking of Desirée, who would not bear thinking of, and whom he supposed himself to have bitterly and proudly relinquished—of Madame Roche, with her ridiculous fancy in respect to Huntley—and of Huntley himself, who it was just possible might accept it, and take Desirée’s reluctant hand. It seemed to Cosmo the strangest, miserable perversion of everybody’s happiness; and he could not help concluding upon all this wrong and foolishness coming to pass, with all the misanthropical certainty of disappointed youth. Cosmo even remembered to think of Katie Logan, by way of exaggerating his own discontent—Katie, who quite possibly had been faithful to Huntley’s memory all these seven long years.
He was thus pondering on, with quick impatient step, when he caught a glimpse of some one at a distance whose appearance roused him. The figure disappeared down the Canongate, which Cosmo was crossing, and the young man hastened to follow, though this famous old street is by no means a savory promenade on a hot summer afternoon. He pushed down, notwithstanding, along the dusty burningpavement, amid evil smells and evil sounds, and passengers not the most agreeable. Women on the outside stairs, with dirty babies in their arms, loud in gossip, and unlovely in apparel—ragged groups at the high windows, where noble ladies once looked out upon the noble highway, but where now some poor housemother’s washing, thrust out upon a stick, dallied with the smoky air, and was dried and soiled at the same moment—hopeless, ill-favored lads and girls, the saddest feature of all, throwing coarse jokes at each other, and, indeed, all the usual symptoms of the most degraded class of town population, which is much alike everywhere. Cosmo threaded his way among them with disgust, remembering how he had once done so before with Cameron, whom he was now pursuing, and at a time when his own anticipations, as well as his friend’s, pointed to the sacred profession in which the Highlandman now toiled. That day, and that conversation, rose vividly before Cosmo. It sickened his sensitive heart to realize the work in which Cameron was employed; but when his mind returned to himself, who had no profession, and to whose eyes no steady aim or purpose presented itself anywhere, Cosmo felt no pleasure in the contrast. This was not the sphere in which a romantic imagination could follow the footsteps of the evangelist. Yet, what an overpowering difference between those steps and the wanderings of this disturbed trifler with his own fortune and youth.
But Cameron still did not reappear. Somewhat reluctantly Cosmo entered after him at the narrow door, with some forgotten noble’s sculptured shield upon its keystone, and went up the stair where his friend had gone. It was a winding stair, dark, close, and dirty, but lighted in the middle of each flight by a rounded window, through which—an extraordinary contrast—the blue sky, the June sunshine, and a far-off glimpse of hills and sea, glanced in upon the passenger with a splendor only heightened by the dark and narrow frame through which the picture shone. Cosmo paused by one of these windows with an involuntary fascination. Just above him, on the dusky landing, were two doors of rooms, tenanted each by poverty and labor, and many children, miserable versions of home, in which the imagination could take no pleasure. In his fastidious distaste for the painful and unlovely realities, the young manpaused by the window;—all the wealth of nature glowing in that golden sunshine—how strange thatitshould make its willing entrance here!
He was arrested by a voice he knew—subdued, but not soft by nature, and sounding audibly enough down the stairs.
“Idon’t know if he can do them harm—very likely no’—I only tell you I heard somebody speak of him, and that he was going to Melmar. Perhaps you don’t care about the family at Melmar? I am sure, neither do I; but, if you like, you can tell Cosmo Livingstone. It’s nothing to me!”
“I’ll tell him,” said Cameron. “Who was the man? Do you know?”
“He was French; and I’m sure a vagabond—I am sure a vagabond!” cried the other. “I don’t know ifyoucan mind me, but Cosmo will—I’m Joanna Huntley. I care for none of them but Desirée. Her mother and her sister may take care of themselves. But we were great friends, and I like her; though I need not like her unless I please,” added Joanna, angrily; “it’s no’ for her sake, but because I canna help it. There—just tell Cosmo Livingstone! Perhaps it’s nothing, but he might as well know.”
“I’ll tell him,” said Cameron, once more.
Then there came a sound of a step upon the stair—not a light step, but a prompt and active one—and Joanna herself, grown very tall, tolerably trim, rather shabby, and with hair of undiminished redness, came rapidly down the narrow side of the spiral stair, with her hand upon its rib of stone. She started and stopped when she had reached almost as far as Cosmo’s window—made as though she would pass him for the first moment, but finally drew up with considerable hauteur, a step or two above him. Joanna could not help a little offense at her father’s conqueror, though she applauded him in her heart.
“I’ve been in London,” said Joanna, abruptly, entering upon her statement without any preface. “I saw a man there who was inquiring about Melmar—at least about the eldest daughter, for he did not know the house—and Oswald directed him every step of the way. I’ll no’ say he was right and I’ll no’ say he was wrong, but I tellyou; the man was a rascal, that’s all I know about him—and you can do what you like now.”
“But stop, Miss Huntley; did you seek Cameron out to tell him?” said Cosmo, with gratitude and kindness.
“IamMiss Huntley now,” said Joanna, with an odd smile. “Patricia’s married to an officer, and away, and Oswald’s in London. My brother has great friends there. Did I seek Mr. Cameron out? No. I was here on my own business, and met him. I might have sought you out, but not him, that scarcely knows them. But it was not worth while seeking you out either,” added Joanna, with a slight toss of her head. “Very likely the man is a friend of theirs—they were but small people, I suppose, before they came to Melmar. Very likely they’ll be glad to see him. But Oswald was so particular telling him where they were, and the man had such an ill look,” added Joanna, slowly, after a pause, “that I can not think but that he wanted to do them an ill turn.”
“Thank you for warning them. He had come yesterday, and I fear he will do Marie a very ill turn,” said Cosmo; “but nobody has any right to interfere—he is a—a relation. But may I tell Desirée—I mean Miss Roche—any thing of yourself? I know she often speaks, and still oftener thinks, of you.”
“She has nothing to do with us that I know of,” said Joanna, sharply; “good day to you; that was all I had to say,” and she rushed past him, passing perilously down the narrow edge of the stair. But when she had descended a few steps, Joanna’s honest heart smote her. She turned back, looking up to him with eyes which looked so straightforward and sincere, in spite of their irascible sparkle, that Joanna’s plain face became almost pretty under their light. “I am sure I need not quarrel with you,” she said with a little burst of her natural frankness, “nor with Desirée either. It was not her fault—but I was very fond of Desirée. Tell her I teach in a school now, and am very happy—they even say I’m clever,” continued the girl, with a laugh, “which I never was at Melmar; and mamma is stronger, and we’re all as well as we can be. You need not laugh, Cosmo Livingstone, it’s true!” cried Joanna, with sudden vehemence, growing offended once more; “papa may have done wrong whiles, but he’s very good to us; and no one shall dare throw a stone at him while I’m living. You can tell Desirée.”
“I will tell Desirée you were very fond of her—she will like that best,” said Cosmo.
Whereupon the vail, which had been hanging about her bonnet, suddenly dropped over Joanna’s face; it is to be supposed from the suppressed and momentary sound that followed, that, partly in anger, partly in sorrow, partly in old friendship and tenderness, she broke down for the instant, and cried—but all that could clearly be known was, that she put out her hand most unexpectedly, shook Cosmo’s hand, and immediately started down the stair with great haste and agitation. Cosmo could not try to detain or follow her; he knew very well that no such proceeding would have found favor in the eyes of Joanna; and Cameron at that moment came in sight from the upper floor.
Cosmo never could tell by what sudden impulse it was that he begged his old friend to return with him to his lodgings and dine; he had no previous intention of doing so—but the idea seized him so strongly, that he urged, and almost forced the half reluctant Highlandman into compliance. Perhaps the listless loveliness of the day affected Cameron, in a less degree, somewhat as it affected his more imaginative companion—for, at length, after consulting his note-book, he put his strong arm within Cosmo’s, and went with him. Cameron, like everybody else, had changed in these five years. He was now what is called a licentiate in the Church of Scotland—authorized to preach, but not to administer the sacraments, an office corresponding somewhat with the deacon’s orders of the English Church. And like other people, too, Cameron had not got his ideal fortune. The poor student had no patronage, and the Gaelic-speaking parish among his own hills, to which his fancy had once aspired, was still as distant as ever from the humble evangelist. Perhaps Cameron did not even wish it now—perhaps he had never forgotten that hard lesson which he learned in St. Ouen—perhaps had never so entirely recovered that throwing away of his heart, as to be able to content himself among the solitudes of the hills. But, at least, he had not reached to this desired end—and was now working hard among the wynds and closes of old Edinburgh, preaching in a public room in that sad quarter, and doing all that Christian man could do to awaken its inhabitants to a better life.
“It is good, right, best! I confess it!” cried Cosmo, in a suddenaccésof natural feeling, “but how can you do it,Cameron?—how is it possible to visit, to interest, to woo, such miserable groups as these? Look at them!” exclaimed the young man. “Mean, coarse, brutal, degraded, luxuriating in their own wretchedness, knowing nothing better—unable to comprehend a single refined idea, a single great thought. Love your neighbor—lovethem?—is it in the power of man?”
Cameron looked round upon them, too; though with a different glance.
“Cosmo,” said the Highlandman, with that deep voice of his, to which additional years and personal experience had given a sweeter tone than of old, “do you forget that you once before asked me that same question? Love is ill to bind, and hard to draw. I love few in this world, and will to the end; but first among them is One whose love kens no caprice like to ours. I tell you again, laddie, what I tell them forever. CanIcomprehend it?—it’s just the mystery of mysteries—Heloves them all. I have room in my goodwill, if not in my heart, for them thatyoulove, Cosmo; and what should I have for them that He loved, and loved to the death? That is the secret. My boy, I would rather than gear and lands that you found it out for yourself.”
“I can understand it, at least,” said Cosmo, grasping his friend’s hand; “but I blush for myself when I look at your work and at mine. They are different, Cameron.”
“A lad may leave the plow in mid-furrow for a flower on the brae or a fish in the water,” said Cameron, with a smile; “but a man returns to the work he’s put his hand to. Come back, my boy, to your first beginning—there’s time.”
And Cosmo was almost persuaded, as they went on discussing and remonstrating to the young man’s lodging, where other thoughts and other purposes were waiting for them both.
Foron Cosmo’s table lay a letter, newly arrived, and markedimmediate. Cosmo felt himself forewarned by the sudden tremor which moved him, as he sprang forward to take it up, that it was from Madame Roche. Perhaps some strange instinct suggested the same to Cameron, for he withdrew immediately from his friend’s side, and went away to Cosmo’s book-shelf in the corner without a word. Then, perhaps, for the first time, any unconcerned spectator looking on might have perceived that Cameron looked weary, and that, besides the dust upon his boots and black coat, the lines in his face were deeper drawn than his years and strength warranted, and told of a forlorn fatigue somewhere which no one tried to comfort. But he did not say any thing—he only stood quietly before the book-shelf, looking over Cosmo’s books.
Cosmo, on the contrary, his face flushed with excitement and expectation, and his heart beating high, opened the letter. As he ran over it, in his haste and anxiety, the flush faded from his face. Then he read it seriously a second time—then he looked at his friend.
“Cameron!” said Cosmo.
But it seemed that Cameron did not hear him till he was called a second time, when he looked round slowly; and, seeing Cosmo holding towards him the letter which he had just read so eagerly, looked at it with a strange confusion, anxiety, and embarrassment, half-lifting his hand to take it, and saying “Eh?” with a surprised and reluctant inquiry.
“It concerns you as well as me. Look at it, Cameron,” said the young man.
It was from Madame Roche; and this is what Cameron read:—
“Cosmo—my son, my friend! come back and help us! Pierrot—he of whom you warned us—has come; and I, in my folly—in my madness, could not deny to Marie to see him. You will ask me why? Alas! he is her husband, andshe loves him! I thought, in my blindness, it might make her well; but we have known her illness so long, we have forgotten how great it is; and the shock has killed her—ah, me! unhappy mother!—has stricken my child! She was very joyful, the poor soul!—she was too happy!—and he who is so little deserving of it! But it has been more than she could bear, and she is dying! Come!—sustain us, comfort us, Cosmo, my friend! We are but women alone, and we have no one who will be so tender to us as you! It was but Monday when he came, and already she is dying!“I have another thing to say. My poor Marie spoke to me this morning. I could not tell my child how ill, how very ill she was—I, her mother! but she has learned from our sad looks, or, perhaps, alas, from the wretch, Pierrot, that she is in danger. She spoke to me this morning. She said, ‘Mamma, will no one speak to me of heaven? Alas, I know not heaven. How shall I know the way? Send for the Englishman—the Scottishman—the traveler who came with Cosmo to our old house. I remember how he spoke—he spoke of God as one might who loved Him. None but he ever spoke so to me. Send mother—if he loves God he will come.’ Alas, my friend! could I say to her on her sick bed, ‘My child, this good Monsieur Cameron lovedyou. I can not break his heart over again, and ask him to come.’ No! I could not say it. I can but write to you, Cosmo. Speak to this good Cameron—this man who loves God. Ah, my friend, can you not think how I feel now that I am ignorant, that I am a sinner—that I, who am her mother, have never taught my Marie? Tell it to your friend—tell him what she has said—she knows not, my poor child, what thoughts might once have been in his heart. Let him come, for the love of God.”
“Cosmo—my son, my friend! come back and help us! Pierrot—he of whom you warned us—has come; and I, in my folly—in my madness, could not deny to Marie to see him. You will ask me why? Alas! he is her husband, andshe loves him! I thought, in my blindness, it might make her well; but we have known her illness so long, we have forgotten how great it is; and the shock has killed her—ah, me! unhappy mother!—has stricken my child! She was very joyful, the poor soul!—she was too happy!—and he who is so little deserving of it! But it has been more than she could bear, and she is dying! Come!—sustain us, comfort us, Cosmo, my friend! We are but women alone, and we have no one who will be so tender to us as you! It was but Monday when he came, and already she is dying!
“I have another thing to say. My poor Marie spoke to me this morning. I could not tell my child how ill, how very ill she was—I, her mother! but she has learned from our sad looks, or, perhaps, alas, from the wretch, Pierrot, that she is in danger. She spoke to me this morning. She said, ‘Mamma, will no one speak to me of heaven? Alas, I know not heaven. How shall I know the way? Send for the Englishman—the Scottishman—the traveler who came with Cosmo to our old house. I remember how he spoke—he spoke of God as one might who loved Him. None but he ever spoke so to me. Send mother—if he loves God he will come.’ Alas, my friend! could I say to her on her sick bed, ‘My child, this good Monsieur Cameron lovedyou. I can not break his heart over again, and ask him to come.’ No! I could not say it. I can but write to you, Cosmo. Speak to this good Cameron—this man who loves God. Ah, my friend, can you not think how I feel now that I am ignorant, that I am a sinner—that I, who am her mother, have never taught my Marie? Tell it to your friend—tell him what she has said—she knows not, my poor child, what thoughts might once have been in his heart. Let him come, for the love of God.”
Cosmo scarcely ventured to look at his friend while he read this letter; and as for Cameron himself, he raised it in his hands so as to shade his face, and held it so with strong yet trembling fingers, that nobody might see the storm of passionate emotions there. Never before in his life, save once, had the vehement and fiery nature of the Highlandman been subject to so violent a trial, and even that once was not like this. A great sob rose in his throat—his whole passionate heart, which had been strained then in desperateself-preservation, melted now in a flood of sudden grief and tenderness, ineffable and beyond description. Marie, upon whom he had wasted his heart and love—Marie, whose weakness had filled him with a man’s impulse of protection, sustenance, and comfort—Marie! Now at last should it be his, in solemnwise, to carry out that love-dream—to bring her in his arms to the feet of the Lord whom he loved—to show the fainting spirit where to find those wings of a dove, by which she might fly away and be at rest. Great over-brimming tears, big as an ocean of lighter drops, made his eyes blind, but did not fall. He sat gazing at the conclusion of the letter long after he had read it, not reading it over again like Cosmo—once had been enough to fix the words beyond possibility of forgetting upon Cameron’s heart—but only looking at it with his full eyes, seeing the name, “Mary Roche de St. Martin,” glimmering and trembling on the page, now partially visible, now altogether lost. When Cosmo ventured at last to glance at his friend, he was still sitting in the same position, leaning both his elbows upon the table, and holding up the letter in his hands to screen his face. Cosmo was aware of something strangely touching in the forced, strained, spasmodic attitude, but he could not see the big silent sob that heaved in his friend’s strong heart, nor the tears that almost brimmed over but did not fall out of Cameron’s eyes.
Presently the Highlandman folded up the letter with care and elaboration, seemed to hesitate a moment whether he would keep it, and finally gave it over with some abruptness to Cosmo. “Relics are not for me,” he said, hastily. “Now, when you are ready, let us go.”
“Go?—to Melmar!” said Cosmo, faltering a little.
“Where else?” asked Cameron, sternly—“is that a summons to say no to?Iam going without delay. We can get there to-night.”
“The coach will not leave for an hour—take some refreshment first,” said Cosmo; “you have been at work all day—you will be faint before we get there.”
Cameron turned towards him with a strange smile:—
“I will not faint before we get there,” he said slowly, and then rose up and lifted his hat. “You can meet me at the coach, Cosmo, in an hour—I shall be quite ready; but in the first place I must go home; make haste, my boy;Iwill go, whether you are there or not.”
Cosmo gazed after him with something like awe; it was rather beyond romance, this strange errand—and Cameron, in spite of the fervid Highland heart within him did not look a very fit subject for romance; but somehow Cosmo could not think what personal hopes of his own might be involved in this relenting of Madame Roche—could not think even of Desirée, whose name was not once mentioned in the letter, could think of nothing but Cameron, called of all men in the world tothatbedside to tell the dying Marie where to find her Lord.
They left Edinburgh accordingly within the hour. Cameron had entirely recovered his usual composure, but scarcely spoke during the whole journey, in which time Cosmo had leisure to return to his own fortune, with all its perplexities. Even Marie’s illness was not likely to form reason enough in the eyes of the Mistress for his abrupt and unexpected return, and he could hardly himself see what good his presence could do Madame Roche, with dangerous illness, perhaps death, and a disagreeable son-in-law in her house. Take him at his worst, Pierrot, who was Marie’s husband, had a more natural place there than Cosmo, who was only Desirée’s lover—a lover rejected by Madame Roche; and Desirée herself had not intimated by word or sign any desire for his presence. The whole aspect of things did not conduce to make Cosmo comfortable. It seemed almost a necessity to go to Melmar, instantly, instead of going to Norlaw; but what would the Mistress think of so strange a proceeding? And Huntley and Patie now, it was to be presumed, were both at home. What a strange, disturbing influence had come among the brothers! Cosmo began to contemplate his own position with a certain despair; he knew well enough by this time the unreasoning sentiment of Madame Roche; he knew very well that though she relieved herself in her trouble by writing to him, and made a solemn appeal for his services, that it by no means followed when this emergency was past, that she would confirm his sonship by giving him her daughter, or relinquish her past idea for the sake of the hopes she might have excited; and in the second place Cosmo could not tell for his life what use he was likely to be to Madame Roche, or how he could sustain her in her trouble—while the idea of being so near home without going there, and without the knowledge of his mother, aggravatedall his other difficulties. He went on, however, with resignation, got down with the calmness of despair and bewilderment at Kirkbride, walked silently towards Melmar, guiding Cameron along the silent leafy ways, and yielding himself, whatever that might be, to his fate.
Andthere stood the house of Melmar, resting among its trees, in the soft sweet darkness of the June night.
Perhaps Cameron’s heart failed him as he came so near—at least Cosmo reached the house first. The foliage was so thick around that the darkness seemed double in this circle round the house. You could only see the colorless, dark woods, stretching back into the night, and the gleam of blue sky over head, and the lighted windows in the house itself—lights which suggested no happy household meeting, but were astray among different windows in the upper story, telling their own silent tale of illness and anxiety. Cosmo, standing before the door which he knew so well, could only tell that Tyne was near by the low, sweet tinkle of the water among the sighing leaves, and was aware of all the summer flush of roses covering that side of the house by nothing save the fragrance. He stood there gazing up for a moment at one light which moved about from window to window with a strange restlessness, and at another which burned steadily in Marie’s bed-chamber. He knew it to be Marie’s chamber by instinct. A watch-light, a death-light, a low, motionless flame, so sadly different from the wavering and brightening of that other, which some anxious watcher carried about. Cosmo’s heart grew sad within him as he thought of this great solemn death which was coming on Marie. Poor Marie, with her invalid irritability, her little feverish weakness, her ill-bestowed love! To think that one so tender and wayward, from whom even reason and sober thought were not to be expected, should, notwithstanding, go forth alone like every other soul to stand by herself before her God, and that love and pity could no longer help her, let them strain and struggle as theywould! The thought made Cosmo’s heart ache, he could not tell why.
Madame Roche met them at the door. She was not violently affected as Cosmo feared—she only kept wiping from her eyes the tears which perpetually returned to fill them, as he had seen his own mother do in her trouble—and perhaps it is the common weeping of age which has no longer hasty floods of youthful tears to spend upon any thing. She gave a cry of joy when she saw Cameron.
“Ah, my friend, it is kind—God will reward you!” said Madame Roche, “and you must come to her—there is little time—my child is dying.”
Cameron did not answer a word—he only threw down his hat and followed her, restraining his step with a painful start when he heard it ring against the pavement. Cosmo followed, not knowing what else to do, to the door of the sick room. He did not enter, but as the door opened he saw who and what was there. And strange to her son sounded the voice which came out of that sad apartment—the voice of the Mistress reading with her strong Scottish accent and old fashioned intonation, so different from the silvery lady’s voice of Madame Roche, and the sweet tones of Desirée. Spread out before her was the big Bible, the family book of old Huntley of Melmar, and she was seated close by the bedside of the sufferer, who lay pallid and wasted, with her thin hands crossed upon the coverlet, and her whole soul in an agony oflisteningnot to be described. Close by the Mistress, Desirée was kneeling watching her sister. This scene, which he saw only in a momentary glance before the door was closed, overpowered Cosmo. He threw himself down upon a window-seat in the long corridor which led to this room, and covered his face with his hands. The sudden and unexpected appearance of his mother brought the young man’s excitement to a climax. How unjust, unkind, ungenerous now seemed his own fears!
Madame Roche was one of those women who fear to meet any great emergency alone. In the first shock of dismay with which she heard that Marie’s life was fast hastening to its end, she wrote to Cosmo; and before it was time for Cosmo to arrive—while indeed it was impossible that he could even have received her letter—the poor mother, with an instinct of her dependent nature, which she was not awareof and could not subdue, hastened to send for the Mistress to help her to bear that intolerable agony in which flesh and heart faint and fail—the anguish of beholding the dying of her child. The Mistress, who under similar circumstances would have closed her doors against all the world, came, gravely and soberly to the call of this undeniable sorrow. In face of that all the bitterness died out of her honest heart. Madame Roche had already lost many children. “And I have all mine—God forgive me—I ken nothing ofthatgrief,” cried Mrs. Livingstone, with a sob of mingled thankfulness and terror. It was not her vocation to minister at sick-beds, or support the weak; yet she went without hesitation, though leaving Huntley to do both. And even before Madame Roche sent for her, Desirée, who understood her character, had run over by herself early in the morning, when, after watching all night, she was supposed asleep, to tell the Mistress that her mother had written to Cosmo. So there was neither cause nor intention of offense between the sad family at Melmar and that of Norlaw. When she came to Marie’s sick-bed, the Mistress found that poor sufferer pathetically imploring some one to tell her of the unknown world to which she was fast approaching—while Madame Roche, passionately reproaching herself for leaving her daughter uninstructed, mingled with her self-accusations, vague words about heaven and descriptions of its blessedness which fell dull upon the longing ears of the anxious invalid. The harps and the white robes, the gates of pearl and the streets of gold were nothing to Marie—what are they to any one who does not see there the only presence which makes heaven a reality? The Mistress had no words to add to the poor mother’s anxious eager repetition of all the disjointed words, describing heaven, which abode in her memory—but instead, went softly down stairs and returned with the big Bible, the old, well remembered book, which never failed to produce a certain awe in Madame Roche—and this was how it happened that Cosmo found his mother reading to Marie.
When Cameron entered the room, the Mistress, who had not paused, continued steadily with the reading of her gospel. He, for his part, did not interrupt her—he went to the other side of the bed and sat down there, looking at the white face which he had never seen since he saw it in St.Ouen, scarcely less pale, yet bright enough to appear to his deluded fancy a star which might light his life. That was not an hour or place to think of those vain human dreams. Sure as the evening was sinking into midnight, this troubled shadow of existence was gliding on toward the unspeakable perfection of the other life. A little while, and words would no more vail the face of things to this uninstructed soul—a little while—but as he sat by Marie’s death-bed the whole scene swam and glimmered before Cameron’s eyes—“A little while and ye shall not see me—and again a little while and ye shall see me.” Oh these ineffable, pathetic, heart breaking words! They wandered out and in through Cameron’s mind in an agony of consolation and of tears. He heard the impatient anxious mother stop the reading—he felt her finger tap upon his arm urging him to speak—he saw Marie turn her tender, dying eyes toward him—he tried to say something but his voice failed him—and when at last he found utterance, with a tearless sob, which it was impossible to restrain, the words which burst from his lips with a vehement outcry, which sounded loud though it was nearer a whisper, were only these:—“Jesus! Jesus! our Lord!”
Only these!—only that everlasting open secret of God’s grace by which He brings heaven and earth together! The gentle, blue eyes, which were no longer peevish, brightened with a wistful hope. There was comfort in the very name; and then this man—who labored for the wretched—whom himself could not force his human heart to love, because his Master loved them—this man, whom poor Marie never suspected to have loved her inherselfish weakness with the lavish love of a prodigal, who throws away all—this man stood up by the bedside with his gospel. He himself did not know what he said—perhaps neither did she, who was too far upon her way to think of words—but the others stood round with awe to hear. Heaven? No, it was not heaven he was speaking of—there was no time for those celestial glories, which are but a secondary blessing; and Cameron had not a thought in his heart save for this dying creature and his Lord.
Was it darker out of doors under the skies? No; there was a soft young moon silvering over the dark outline of the trees, and throwing down a pale glory over this house of Melmar, on the roof, which glimmered like a silver shield;and, in the hush, the tinkling voice of Tyne and the breath of the roses, and a sweet white arrow of moonlight, came in, all mingled and together, into the chamber of death. Yet, somehow, it is darker—darker. This pale figure, which is still Marie, feels it so, but does not wonder—does not ask—is, indeed, sinking into so deep a quiet, that it does not trouble her with any fears.
“I go to sleep,” she says faintly, with the sweetest smile that ever shone upon Marie’s lips, “I am so well. Do not cry, mamma; when I wake, I shall be better. I go to sleep.”
And so she would, and thus have reached heaven unawares, but for the careless foot which pushed the door open, and the excited figure which came recklessly in. At sight of him, Cameron instantly left the bedside—instantly without a word, quitted the room—and began to walk up and down the corridor, where Cosmo stood waiting. Pierrot began immediately to address his wife:—His wife!—his life!—his angel! was it by her orders that strangers came to the house, that his commands were disobeyed, that he himself was kept from her side? He begged his adored one to shake off her illness, to have a brave spirit, to get up and rouse herself for his sake.
“What, my Marie! it is but courage!” cried her husband. “A man does not die who will not die! Up, my child! Courage! I will forsake you no more—you have your adored husband—you will live for him. We shall be happy as the day. Your hand, my angel! Have courage, and rise up, and live for your Emile’s sake!”
And all the peace that had been upon it fled from Marie’s face. The troubled eagerness of her life came back to her. “Yes Emile!” she whispered, with breathless lips, and made the last dying effort to rise up at his bidding and follow him. Madame Roche threw herself between, with cries of real and terrified agony; and the Mistress, almost glad to exchange her choking sympathy for the violent, sudden passion which now came upon her, went round the bed with the silence and speed of a ghost, seized his arm with a grip of imperative fury not to be resisted, and, before he was aware, had thrust him before her to the door. When she had drawn it close behind her, she shook him like a child with both her hands. “You devil!” cried the Mistress,transported out of all decorum of speech by a passion of indignation which the scene almost warranted. “You dirty, miserable hound! how daur you come there? If you do not begone to your own place this instant—Cosmo, here! She’s gone, the poor bairn. He has nae mair right in this house, if he ever had ony—take him away.”
But while this violent scene disturbed the death calm of the house, it did not disturb Marie. She had seen for herself by that time, better than any one could have told her, what robes they wore and what harps they played in the other world.
Thatsame night, while they watched their dead at Melmar, the young moon shone kindly into the open parlor window of a pretty cottage, where some anxiety, but no sorrow was. This little house stood upon a high bank of the river Esk, just after that pretty stream had passed through the pretty village of Lasswade. The front of the house was on the summit of the height, and only one story high, while the rapid slope behind procured for it the advantage of two stories at the back. It was a perfectly simple little cottage, rich in flowers, but nothing else, furnished with old, well-preserved furniture, as dainty, as bright, and as comfortable as you could imagine, and looking all the better for having already answered the wants of two or three generations. The window was open, and here, too, came in the tinkle of running water, and the odor of roses, along with the moonlight. Candles stood on the table, but they had not been lighted; and two ladies sat by the window, enjoying the cool breeze, the sweet light, the “holy time” of evening—or, perhaps, not aware of enjoying anything, busy with their own troubles and their own thoughts.
“I doubt if I should advise,” said the elder of the two, “but though I’m an old maid myself, I am not prejudiced either one way or another, my dear. I’ve lived too long, Katie, to say this or that manner of life’s the happiest; it does not matter much whether you are married or not married,happiness lies aye in yourself. It’s common to think a single woman very lone and dreary when she comes to be old; but I’m not afraid for you. Somebody else will have bairns for you, Katie, if you do not have them for yourself. Solitude is not in your cup, my dear—I’m prophet enough to read that.”
Her companion made no answer; and in the little pause which ensued, the Esk, and the roses, and the moonlight came in as a sweet unconscious chorus, but a chorus full of whispers which struck deeper than those quiet words of quiet age.
“But on the other side,” continued the old lady, “Charlie is as good a fellow as ever lived—the best son, the kindest heart! I would not trust myself praising him any more than praising you, my dear. You are both a comfort and a credit to us all, and maybe that is why we should like to make the two of you one. We’re no’ so very romantic, Katie, in our family—that is to say,” continued the speaker, with sudden animation, “the women of us—for if Charlie, or any lad belonging to the house, was to offer himself without his whole heart and love, he had better never show his face to me.”
“But, auntie,” said the younger lady, with a smile, “would it be right to take a whole heart and love, and only have kindness to give in exchange?”
“Women are different, my dear,” said Katie Logan’s maiden aunt; “I will confess I do not like myself to hear young girls speaking about love—I would never advise amanto marry without it—nay, the very thought makes me angry; but—perhaps you’ll think it no compliment to us, Katie—women are different; I have no fears of a good woman liking her husband, no’ even if she was married against her will, as sometimes happens. I would advise you not to be timid, so far as that is concerned. Charlie’s very fond of you, and he’s a good lad. To be married is natural at your age, to have a house of your own, and your own place in this world; and then there are the bairns. Colin will soon be off your hands, but the other three are young. Do you think it would not be best for them if you married afriend?”
Katie did not reply; but perhaps it was this last argument which moved her to a long low sigh of unwelcomeconviction. The old lady’s emphaticfriendwas Scotch for a relative. Would it indeed be better for them that Katie’s husband should be her cousin?
“Unless,” said her aunt, rising up to light the candles, yet pausing to give effect to this last precaution; “unless, my dear, there should be a single thought of any other man resting in your mind. If there is, Katie, think no more of Charlie Cassilis. I’m willing you should marry him first and grow fond of him after; but, my dear, stop and think—do you like any other person better than him?”
“Maybe I do, auntie,” said the low voice, softly; and Katie shook her head thoughtfully in the darkness, with a half melancholy, half pleased motion; “maybe I do.”
“Then, for pity’s sake, not another word!” cried the old lady; and that kindest of aunts rustled out of the pretty parlor, taking one of the candlesticks in her hand, with a commotion and haste which showed that Katie’s quiet half confession had by no means pleased her, in spite of her avowed impartiality. Lucifer, son of the morning, had not fallen at that time into such degrading familiarity with housekeepers and housemaids as has chanced now to that unhappy spirit. Matches were none in all the village of Lasswade, nor throughout the kingdom, save slender slips of wood anointed with brimstone, and bearing the emphatic name ofspunkin all the regions north of the Tweed. So Katie’s respectable aunt, who was kind to her servants, rustled along the passage to the kitchen to light the candle, and on the way there and the way back recovered her temper—which was all the better for Katie; and by-and-bye the quiet maiden household shut itself up and went to sleep.
And perhaps when Katie knelt by her bedside that night to say her prayers—by the white bed where little Isabel slept the deep sleep which all the children sleep, thank Heaven, when we are awake with our troubles—a little weariness of heart made a sigh among her prayers. She was not romantic—the women of her family were otherwise disposed, as good Auntie Isabel said, who had not a single selfish impulse in her composition; and Katie was grieved to disappoint Cousin Charlie, and perhaps feared, as women always do, with an unconscious vanity, for the consequences of his disappointment; was she right to damage his happiness, to refuse a supporter for herself, a protector for herchildren, all for the sake of Huntley, who might perhaps have forgotten her years ago? Katie could not answer her own question, but she did what was the wisest course under the circumstances—laid her head resolutely down, on her pillow and fell asleep, leaving time and the hour to solve the question for her, and only sure of one thing—that her impulse was right.
But the question returned to her when she opened her eyes, in the morning, in those first waking moments, when, as Béranger says, all our cares awake before us, assault afresh, and, as if the first time, the soul which has escaped them in the night. Was she right? All through her early morning duties this oft-repeated question beset the mind of Katie; and it needs only to see what these duties were, to acknowledge how pertinacious it was. The cottage belonged to Aunt Isabel, who had received gladly her orphan nieces and nephews after the death of Dr. Logan. Aunt Isabel’s spare income was just enough for herself and her maid, who, heretofore, had been sole occupants of the pretty little house, and Katie and her orphans managed to live upon theirs, which was also a very small income, but marvelously taken care of—and pleasantly backed by the gooseberry-bushes and vegetable beds of the cottage garden, which riches their mistress made common property. On Katie’s advent, Aunt Isabel retired from the severe duties of housekeeping in her own person. It was Katie who made the tea and cut the bread and butter, and washed with her own hands the delicate cups and saucers which Aunt Isabel would not trust to a servant. Then the elder sister had to see that the boys were ready, with all their books strapped on their shoulder, and their midday “piece” in their pocket, for school. Then Isabel’s daintier toilet had to be superintended; and if Katie had a weakness, it was to see her sister prettily dressed, and “in the fashion"—and that little maiden sent forth fair and neat to the ladies’ seminary which illustrated the healthful village of Lasswade; and then Katie went to the kitchen, to determine what should be had for dinner, and sometimes to lend her own delicate skill to the making of a pudding or the crimping of a frill. When all was done, there was an unfailing supply of needlework to keep her hands employed. On this particular morning, Aunt Isabel meditated a call upon MissHogg, in Lasswade, and Katie had been so much persecuted by that question which some malicious imp kept always addressing to her, that she felt heated and out of breath in the pretty parlor. So she took up her work, put her thread and scissors in her pocket, and went out to the garden to sit on a low garden seat, with the grass under her feet, and the trees over her, and sweet Esk singing close at hand, thinking it might be easier to pursue her occupation there.
Perhaps that was a mistake. It is not easy to sew, nor to read, nor even to think, out of doors on a June morning, with a sweet river drowsing by, and the leaves, and the roses, and the birds, and the breeze making among them that delightful babble of sound and motion which people call the quiet of the country. Still Katiedidwork; she was making shirts for Colin, who had just gone into Edinburgh to Cousin Charlie’s office;—stitching wristbands! and in spite of the sunshine and her perplexed thoughts, Katie’s button-holes were worth going ten miles to see.
But was she right? Search through all the three kingdoms and you could not have found a better fellow than Cousin Charlie, who was very fond of Katie Logan, and had been for years. The elder sister liked him heartily, knew that he would be kind to her orphans, believed him every thing that was good in man; but while she reasoned with herself, the color wavered upon her cheek, and somewhere in heart a voice, which might have been the Esk river, so closely its whisper ran with her thoughts, kept saying, “Dinna forget me, Katie!” till, by dint of persistence, all the other meditations yielded, and this, with a triumphant shout, kept the field. Oh, Huntley Livingstone! who had, just as like as no’, forgotten Katie—was she right?
He could not have come at a better time—he came quite unannounced, unintroduced, so suddenly that Katie made an outcry almost of terror—one moment, nobody with her but the Esk, and the roses, and her own thoughts—not a shadow on the grass, not a step on the road. The next moment, Huntley, standing there between her and the sky, between her and home, shutting out every thing but himself, who had to be first attended to. If she had only seen him a moment sooner, she might have received him quite calmly, with the old smile of the elder-sister; but because of thestart, Katie getting up, dropping her work, and holding out her hands, looked about as agitated, as glad, as tearful, as out of herself, as even Huntley was.
“I have come home—to Norlaw—to remain,” said Huntley, when he began to know what he was saying, which was not just the first moment; “and you are not an old Katie in a cap, as you threatened to be; but first I’ve come to say out what I dared not say in the manse parlor—and you know what that is. Katie, if you have forgotten me—Heaven knows I never will blame you!—it’s seven weary years since then—if you have forgotten me, Katie, tell me I am not to speak!”
Katie had two or three impulses for the moment—to tell the truth, she was quite happy, rejoiced to be justified in the unsolicited affection she had given, and entirely contented in standing by this sudden Œdipus, who was to resolve all her doubts. Being so, she could almost have run away from the embarrassment and gravity of the moment, and made a little natural sport of the solemnity of the lover, who stood before her as if his life depended on it. Perhaps it was the only coquettish thought which Katie Logan ever was guilty of. But she conquered it—she looked up at him with her old smile.
“Speak, Huntley!” she said; and having said so much, there was not, to tell the truth, a great deal more necessary. Huntley spoke, you may be sure, and Katie listened; and the very roses on the cottage wall were not less troubled about Cousin Charlie for the next hour than she was. And when Aunt Isabel returned, and Katie went in with a blush, holding Huntley’s arm, to introduce him simply as “Huntley Livingstone,” with a tone and a look which needed no interpretation, there was no longer a doubt in Katie’s mind as to whether she was right.
But she did not think it needful to tell Huntley what question she was considering when his sudden appearance startled her out of all her perplexities; and it is very likely that in that, at least, Katie was perfectly right.
A verysadly different scene; no young hopes blossoming towards perfection—no young lives beginning—no joy—has called together this company, or makes this room bright; a dark house, shrouded still in its closed curtains and shutters, a wan light in the apartment, a breathless air of death throughout the place. Outside, the tawdry Frenchman, with a long crape hatband, knotted up in funeral bows, as is the custom in Scotland, walking up and down smoking his cigar, angry at finding himself excluded, yet tired of the brief decorum into which even he has been awed, and much disposed to amuse himself with any kitchenmaid whom he may chance to see as he peers about their quarters, keeping at the back of the house. But the maids are horrified and defiant, and the affair is rather dull, after all, for Monsieur Pierrot.
The company are all assembled in the drawing-room, as they have returned from the funeral. The minister, the doctor, a lawyer from Melrose, Cameron, and the three brothers Livingstone. Madame Roche, her black gown covered with crape, and every thing about her of the deepest sable, save her cap; the white ribbons of which are crape ribbons too, sits, with her handkerchief in her hand, in an easy chair. The Mistress is there, too, rather wondering and disapproving, giving her chief attention to Desirée, who sits behind her mother quietly crying, and supposing this solemn assembly is some necessary formality which must be gone through.
“Is it to read the will?” asks the minister, who suggests that her husband had better be present; but no, there is no will—for poor Marie had nothing and could leave nothing. When they have been all seated for a few minutes, Madame Roche herself rises from her chair. Though the tears are in her eyes, and grief in her face, she is still the beautiful old lady whom Cosmo Livingstone loved to watch from his window in St. Ouen. Time himself, the universal conqueror, can never take from Mary of Melmar that gift which surrounded her with love in her youth, and which has lighted all her troubled life like a fairy lamp. The sweet soft cheekwhere even wrinkles are lovely, the beautiful old eyes which even in their tears can not choose but smile, the footstep so light, yet so firm, which still might ring “like siller bells,” though its way is heavy. Every one was looking at her, and as they looked, every one acknowledged the unchanging fascination of this beautiful face.
“Gentlemen,” said Madame Roche with a little tremor in her voice, “I would speak to you all—I would do my justice before the world; you have heard what I was in my youth. Mary Huntley of Melmar, my father’s heiress. I was disobedient—I went away from him—I knew he disowned me, and knew no more than an infant that he relented in his heart when he died. I was poor all my life—my Marie, my dear child!” and here Madame Roche paused to sob aloud, and Desirée laid her head upon the knee of the Mistress and clutched at her dress in silent self-control; “it was then she married this man—married him to break her heart—yet still loved him to the last. Ah, my friends, I was thus a widow with my sick child in my husband’s town. My Jean was dead, and she was forsaken—and my Desirée was gone from me to serve strangers—it was then that one came to my house like an angel from heaven. Cosmo, my friend, do you blush that I should name your name?
“And what a tale he told me!” cried poor Madame Roche, whose tears now filled her eyes, and whose lips quivered so that she had to pause from moment to moment; “I, who thought me a lonely woman, whom no one cared for;—my father had thought upon me—my kinsman, Patrick Livingstone, had sought me to give me back my lands—my young hero was seeking me then; and his brother, yes, Huntley, his noble brother, was ready to renounce his right—and all for the widow and her children. I weep, ah, my friends, you weep!—was it not noble? was it not above praise? When I heard it I made a vow—I said in my heart I should repay this excellent Huntley. I had planned it in my mind—I said in my thoughts, my Marie, my blessed child, must have half of this great fortune. She is married, she can not make compensation—but the rest is for Desirée, and Desirée shall give it back to Huntley Livingstone.”
Every one of her auditors by this time gazed upon Madame Roche. Desirée, sitting behind her, lifted her face from the lap of the Mistress; she was perfectly pale,and her eyes were heavy with crying. She sat leaning forward, holding the Mistress’s gown with one hand, with sudden dismay and terror in her white face. Just opposite her Cameron sat, clenching his hand. Whathewas thinking no one could say—but as Madame Roche spoke of Marie he still clenched his hand. Then came the strangers, surprised and sympathetic, Patrick Livingstone among them. Then Huntley, much startled and wondering, and Cosmo, with a face which reflected Desirée’s, dismayed and full of anxiety, and the attitude of a man about to spring up to defy, or denounce, or contradict the speaker. The Mistress behind sat upright in her chair, with a face like a psalm of battle and triumph, her nostril dilating, her eyes shining. For the first time in her life, the Mistress’s heart warmed to Mary of Melmar. She alone wanted no explanation of this speech—she alone showed no surprise or alarm—it was but a just and fit acknowledgment—a glory due to the sons of Norlaw.
“But, alas,” cried Madame Roche; “God has looked upon it, and it has not been enough. He has broken my heart and made my way clear; pity me, my friends, my Marie is in heaven and her mother here! And now there is but one heir. My Desirée is my only child—there is none to share her inheritance. Huntley Livingstone, come to me! I have thought and I have dreamed of the time when I should give you my child—but, alas! did I think it should be only when Marie was in her grave? Huntley Livingstone! you gave up your right to me, and I restore it to you. I give you my child, and Melmar is for Desirée. There is no one to share it with you, my daughter and my son!”
Huntley had risen and approached to Madame Roche, though with reluctance, when she called him. Now she held his hand in one of hers, and stretched out the other for that of Desirée—while Huntley, confounded, confused, and amazed beyond expression, had not yet recovered himself sufficiently to speak. Before he could speak Cosmo had sprung to the side of Desirée, who stood holding back and meeting her mother’s appeal with a look of dumb defiance and exasperation, which might be very wrong, but was certainly very natural. Every one rose. But for the grief of the principal actors, and the painful embarrassment of all,the scene might almost have been ludicrous. Cosmo, who had grasped at Desirée’s hand, did not obtain it any more than her mother. The girl stood up, but kept her hold of the Mistress’s gown, as if for protection.
“No, no, no, no!” said Desirée, in a low, hurried, ashamed voice; “mother, no—no—no! I will not do it! Mamma, will you shame me? Oh, pity us! Is it thus we are to weep for Marie?”
“My child, it is justice,” cried Madame Roche, through her tears; “give him your hand—it is that Huntley may have his own.”
“But there is some strange mistake here,” said Huntley, whose brow burned with a painful flush; “Melmar was never mine, nor had I any real right to it. Years ago I have even forgotten that it once was possible. Be silent for a moment, Cosmo, I beg of you, and you, Mademoiselle Desirée, do not fear. Madame Roche, I thank you for your generous meaning, but it is an entire mistake in every way—let me explain it privately. Let us be alone first;—nay, nay, let me speak, then! I am my father’s heir, and our house is older than Melmar; and nothing in the world, were it the hand of a queen, could tempt me to call myself any thing but Livingstone of Norlaw!”
The Mistress had been standing up, like everybody else, an excited spectator. When Huntley said these words she sat down suddenly, with a glow and flush of triumph not to be described—the name of her husband and her son ringing in her ears like a burst of music; and then, for the first time, Desirée relinquished her hold, and held out her hand to Huntley, while Cosmo grasped his other hand and wrung it in both his with a violent pressure. The three did not think for that moment of Madame Roche, who had been looking in Huntley’s face all the time he spoke to her, and who, when he ended, dropped his hand silently and sank into her chair. She was leaning back now, with her white handkerchief over her face—and the hand that held it trembled. Poor Madame Roche! this was all her long thought of scheme had come to—she could only cover her face and forget the pang of failure in the bigger pang of grief—she did not say another word; she comprehended—for she was not slow of understanding—that Huntley’s little effusion of family pride was but a rapid and generous expedient to savehim from a direct rejection of Desirée. And poor Madame Roche’s heart grew sick with the quick discouragement of grief. She closed her eyes, and heavier tears came from them than even those she had shed for Marie. She had tried her best to make them happy, she had failed; and now they for whose sake alone she had made all this exertion neglected and forgot her. It was too much for Madame Roche.
“Mamma, listen,” whispered Desirée, soothingly. “Ah, mamma, you might force mine—I should always obey you—but you can not force Huntley’s heart—he does not care forme; bah, that is nothing!—but thereisone whom he cares for—one whom he has come home for—Katie, whom they all love! Mamma, you were right! he is noble, he is generous; but what is Melmar to Huntley? He has come back for Katie and his own home.”