“North British Courant Office,“Edinburgh.“Dear Sir,“Hearing that you are the C. L. N. who have favored theNorth British Courantfrom time to time with poetical effusions which seem to show a good deal of talent, I write to ask whether you have ever done any thing in the way ofprose romance, or essays of a humorous character in the style of Sterne, or narrative poetry. I am just about to start (with a good staff of well-known contributors) a new monthly, to be called theAuld Reekie Magazine, a miscellany of general literature; and should be glad to receive and give my best consideration to any articles from your pen. The rates of remuneration I can scarcely speak decisively about until the success of this new undertaking is in some degree established; but this I may say—that they shall beliberalandsatisfactory, and I trust may be the means of inaugurating a new and better system of mutual support between publishers and authors—the accomplishment of which has long been a great object of my life.“Your obedient servant,“Peter Todhunter.”
“North British Courant Office,“Edinburgh.
“Dear Sir,
“Hearing that you are the C. L. N. who have favored theNorth British Courantfrom time to time with poetical effusions which seem to show a good deal of talent, I write to ask whether you have ever done any thing in the way ofprose romance, or essays of a humorous character in the style of Sterne, or narrative poetry. I am just about to start (with a good staff of well-known contributors) a new monthly, to be called theAuld Reekie Magazine, a miscellany of general literature; and should be glad to receive and give my best consideration to any articles from your pen. The rates of remuneration I can scarcely speak decisively about until the success of this new undertaking is in some degree established; but this I may say—that they shall beliberalandsatisfactory, and I trust may be the means of inaugurating a new and better system of mutual support between publishers and authors—the accomplishment of which has long been a great object of my life.
“Your obedient servant,“Peter Todhunter.”
“TheNorth British Courant!poetry! writing for a magazine!—what does it a’ mean?” cried the Mistress. “Do you mean to tell me you’re an author, Cosmo Livingstone?—and me never kent—a bairn like you!”
“Nothing but some—verses, mother,” said the boy, with a blush and a laugh, though he was not insensible to the importance of Mr. Todhunter’s communication. Cosmo’s vanity was not sufficiently rampant to say poems. “I did not send them with my name. I wanted to do something better before I showed them to you.”
“And here they’re wanting the callant for a magazine!” cried the Mistress. “Naething but a bairn—the youngest! a laddie that was never out of Norlaw till within six months time! And I warrant they ken what’s for their ain profit, and what kind of a lad they’re seeking after—and me this very night thinking him nae better than a bairn!”
And the Mistress laughed in the mood of exquisite pride at its highest point of gratification, and followed up her laugh by tears of the same. The boy was pleased, but his mother was intoxicated. TheNorth British Courantand theAuld Reekie Magazinewere glorious in her eyes as celestial messengers of fame, and she could not but follow the movements of her boy with the amazed observation of a sudden discovery. He who was “naething but a bairn” had already proved himself a genius, and Literature urgent called him to her aid. He might be a Scott—he might turn out aShakespeare. The Mistress looked at him with no limit to her wonder, and for the moment none in her faith.
“And just as good a laddie as he aye was,” she murmured to herself, stroking his hair fondly—“though mony a ane’s head would have been clean turned to see themsels in a printed paper—no’ to say in a book. Eh, bairn! and to think how little I kent, that am your mother, what God had put among my very bairns!”
“Mother, it may turn out poor enough, after all,” cried Cosmo, half ashamed—“I don’t know yet myself what I can do.”
“I daresay no’,” said the Mistress, proudly, “but you may take my word this decent man does, Cosmo, seeing his ain interest is concerned. Na, laddie,Iken, if you dinna, the ways of this world, and I wouldna say but they think they’ve got just a prize in my bairn. Eh! if the laddies were but here and kent!—and oh, Cosmo! whathewould have thought of it that’s gone!”
When the Mistress had dried her eyes, she managed to draw from the boy a gradual confession that theNorth British Courant, sundry numbers of it, were snugly hid in his own trunk up stairs, from which concealment they were brought forth with much shamefacedness by Cosmo, and read with the greatest triumph by his mother. The Mistress had no mind to go to rest that night—she staid up looking at him—wondering over him; and Cosmo confessed to some of his hitherto secret fancies—how he would like to go abroad to see new countries, and to hear strange tongues, and how he had longed to labor for himself.
“Whisht! laddie—I would have been angry but for this,” said the Mistress. “The like of you has nae call to work; but I canna say onything mair, Cosmo, now that Providence has taken it out of my hand. And I dinna wonder you would like to travel—the like of you canna be fed on common bread like common folk—and you’ll hae to see every thing if you’re to be an author. Na, laddie, no’ for the comfort of seeing you and hearing you would I put bars on your road. I aye thought I would live to be proud of my sons, but I didna ken I was to be overwhelmed in a moment, and you naething but a bairn!”
Theresult of this conversation was that Cosmo made a little private visit to Edinburgh to determine his own entrance into the republic of letters, and to see the enterprising projector of theAuld Reekie Magazinethrough whom this was to take place. The boy went modestly, half abashed by his good fortune and dawning dream of fame, yet full of a flush of youthful hope, sadly out of proportion to any possible pretensions of the new periodical. He saw it advertised in the newspaper which one of his fellow-passengers on the coach read on the way. He saw a little printed hand-bill with its illustrious name in the window of the first bookseller’s shop he looked into on his arrival in Edinburgh, and Cosmo marched over the North Bridge with his carpet-bag in his hand, with a swell of visionary glory. He could not help half wondering what the indifferent people round him would think, if they knew—and then could not but blush at himself for the fancy. Altogether the lad was in a tumult of delightful excitement, hope, and pleasure, such as perhaps only falls to the lot of boys who hope themselves poets, and think at eighteen that they are already appreciated and on the highway to fame.
As he ascended the stairs to Mrs. Purdie’s, he met Cameron coming down. There was a very warm greeting between them—a greeting which surprise startled into unusual affectionateness on the part of the Highlander. Cameron forgot his own business altogether to return with Cosmo, and needed very little persuasion to enter the little parlor, which no other lodger had turned up to occupy, and share the refreshment which the overjoyed landlady made haste to prepare for her young guest. This was so very unusual a yielding on Cameron’s part, that Cosmo almost forgot his own preoccupation in observing his friend, who altogether looked brightened and smoothed out, and younger than when they parted. The elder and soberer man, who knew a little more of life and the world than Cosmo, though very little more of literature, could not help a half-perceptible smile at the exuberance of Cosmo’s hopes. Not that Cameron despised theAuld Reekie Magazine; far fromthat, the Divinity student had all the reverence for literature common to those who know little about it, which reverence, alas! grows smaller and smaller in this too-knowing age. But at thirty years old people know better than at eighteen how the sublimest undertakings break down, and how sometimes even “the highest talent” can not float its venture. So the man found it hard not to smile at the boy’s shy triumph and undoubting hope, yet could not help but be proud, notwithstanding, with a tenderness almost feminine, of the unknown gifts of the lad, whose youth, he could not quite tell how, had found out the womanish corner of his own reserved heart, in which, as he said himself, only two or three could find room at any time.
“But you never told me of these poetical effusions, Cosmo,” said his friend, as he put up the bookseller’s note.
“Don’t laugh at Mr. Todhunter.Ionly call them verses,” said Cosmo, with that indescribable blending of vanity and humility which belongs to his age; “and I knew you would not care for them; they were not worth showing to you.”
“I’m not a poetical man,” said Cameron, “but I might care foryourverses in spite of that; and now Cosmo, laddie, while you have been thinking of fame, what novel visitor should you suppose had come to me?”
“Who?—what?” cried Cosmo, with eager interest.
“What?” echoed Cameron, “either temptation or good fortune—it’s hard to say which—only I incline to the first. Satan’s an active chield, and thinks little of trouble; but I doubt if the other one would have taken the pains to climb my stair. I’ve had an offer of a tutorship, Cosmo—to go abroad for six months or so with a callant like yourself.”
“To go abroad!” Cosmo’s eyes lighted up with instant excitement, and he stretched his hand across the table to his friend, with a vehemence which Cameron did not understand, though he returned the grasp.
“An odd enough thing for me,” said the Highlandman, “but the man’s an eccentric man, and something has possessed him that his son would be in safe hands; as in safe hands he might be,” added the student in an undertone, “seeing I would be sorry to lead any lad into evil—but as forfithands, that’s to be seen, and I’m far from confident it would be right for me.”
“Go, and I’ll go with you,” said Cosmo, eagerly. “I’ve set my heart upon it for years.”
“More temptation!” said the Highlandman. “Carnal inclinations and pleasures of this world—and I’ve little time to lose. I can not afford a session—whisht! Comfort and ease to the flesh, and pleasure to the mind, are hard enough to fight with by themselves without help from you.”
It was almost the first time he had made the slightest allusion to his own hard life and prolonged struggle, and Cosmo was silent out of respect and partially in the belief that if Cameron’s mind had not been very near made up in favor of this new proposal, he would not have suffered himself to refer to it. The two friends sat up late together that night. Cosmo pouring out all his maze of half-formed plans and indistinct intentions into Cameron’s ears—his projects of authorship, his plan for a tragedy of which Wallace wight should be the hero; of a pastoral poem and narrative, something between Colin Clout and the Gentle Shepherd—and of essays and philosophies without end; while Cameron on his part smiled, as he could not but smile by right of his thirty years, yet somehow began to believe, like the Mistress, in the enthusiastic boy, with all that youthful flush and fervor in the face which his triumph and inspiration of hope made beautiful. The elder man could not give his own confidence so freely as Cosmo did, but he opened himself as far as it was his nature to do, in droppings of shy frankness—a little now and a little then—which were in reality the very highest compliment which such a man could pay to his companion. When they separated, Cameron, it is true, knew all about Cosmo, while Cosmo did not know all about Cameron; but the difference was not even so much a matter of temperament as of years, and the lad, without hearing many particulars, or having a great deal of actual confidence given to him, knew the man better at the end of this long evening than ever he had done before.
In the morning Cosmo got up full of pleasurable excitement, and set out early to call on Mr. Todhunter. TheNorth British Courantoffice was in one of the short streets which run between Princes Street and George Street, and in the back premises, a long way back, through a succession of rooms, Cosmo was ushered into the especial little den of the publisher. Mr. Todhunter was of a yellow complexion,with loose, thick lips, and wiry black hair. The lips were the most noticeable feature in his face, from the circumstance that when he spoke his mouth seemed uncomfortably full of moisture, which gave also a peculiar character to his voice. He was surrounded by a mass of papers, and had paste and scissors—those palladiums of the weekly press—by his side. If there was one thing more than another on which theNorth British Courantprided itself, it was on the admirable collection of other people’s opinions which everybody might find in its columns. Mr. Todhunter made no very great stand upon politics. What he prized was a reputation which he thought “literary,” and a skill almost amounting to genius for making what he called “excerpts.”
“Very glad to make your personal acquaintance, Mr. Livingstone,” said the projector of theAuld Reekie Magazine, “and still more to receive your assurances of support. I’ve set my heart on making this a real, impartial, literary enterprise, sir—no’ one of your close boroughs, as they say now-a-days, for a dozen or a score of favored contributors, but open to genius, sir—genius wherever it may be—rich or poor.”
Cosmo did not know precisely what to answer, so he filled in the pause with a little murmur of assent.
“Ye see the relations of every thing’s changing,” said Mr. Todhunter; “old arrangements will not do—wull not answer, sir, in an advancing age. I have always held high opinions as to the claims of literary men, myself—it’s against my nature to treat a man of genius like a shopkeeper; and my principle, in theAuld Reekie Magazine, is just this—first-rate talent to make the thing pay, and first-rate pay to secure the talent. That’s my rule, and I think it’s a very safe guide for a plain man like me.”
“And it’s sure to succeed,” said Cosmo, with enthusiasm.
“I think it wull, sir—upon my conscience, if you ask me, I think it wull,” said Mr. Todhunter; “and I have little doubt young talent will rally round theAuld Reekie Magazine. I’m aware it’s an experiment, but nothing shall ever make me give in to an ungenerous principle. Men of genius must be protected, sir; and how are they protected in your old-established periodicals? There’s one old fogy for this department, and another old fogy for that department; and as for a genial recognition of young talent, take my word for’t, there’s no such thing.”
“I know,” said Cosmo, “it is the hardest thing in the world to get in. Poor Chatterton, and Keats, and—”
“Just that,” said Mr. Todhunter. “It’s for the Keatses and the Chattertons of this day, sir, that I mean to interpose; and no lad of genius shall go to the grave with a pistol in his hand henceforward if I can help it. I admire your effusions very much, Mr. Livingstone—there’s real heart and talent in them, sir—in especial the one to Mary, which, I must say, gave me the impression of an older man.”
“I am pretty old in practice—I have been writing a great many years,” said Cosmo, with that delightful, ingenuous, single-minded, youthful vanity, which it did one’s heart good to see. Even Mr. Todhunter, over his paste and scissors, was somehow illumined by it, and looked up at the lad with the ghost of a smile upon his watery lips.
“And what do you mean to provide us for the opening of the feast?” said the bookseller, “which must be ready by the 15th, at the very latest, and be the very cream of your inspiration. It’s no small occasion, sir. Have you made up your mind what is to be yourdeboo?”
“It depends greatly upon what you think best,” said Cosmo, candid and impartial; “and as you know what articles you have secured already, I should be very glad of any hint from you.”
“A very sensible remark,” said Mr. Todhunter. “Well, I would say, a good narrative now, in fine, stirring, ballad verse—a narrative always pleases the public fancy—or a spirited dramatic sketch, or a historical tale, to be completed, say, in the next number. I should say, sir, any one of these would answer theAuld Reekie;—only be on your mettle. I consider there’s good stuff in you—real good stuff—but, at the same time, many prudent persons would tell me I was putting too much reliance on so young a man.”
“I will not disappoint you,” said Cosmo, with a little pride; “but, supposing this first beginning over, could it do any good to the magazine, do you think, to have a contributor—letters from abroad—I had some thoughts—I—I wished very much to know—”
“Were you thinking of going abroad?” said the bookseller, benignantly.
“I can scarcely saythink—but, there was an opportunity,”said Cosmo, with a blush; “that is, if it did not stand in the way of—”
“Auld Reekie?Certainly not—on the contrary, I know nothing I would like better,” said Mr. Todhunter. “Some fine Italian legends, now, or a few stories from the Rhine, with a pleasant introduction, and a little romantic incident, to show how you heard them—capital! but I must see you at my house before you go. And as for the remuneration, we can scarcely fix on that, perhaps, till the periodical’s launched—but ye know my principle, and I may say, sir, with confidence, no man was left in the lurch that put reliance upon me. I’m a plain man, as you see me, but I appreciate the claims of genius, and young talent shall not want its platform in this city of Edinburgh; or, if it does, it shall be no fault of mine.”
With a murmured applause of this sentiment, and in a renewed tumult of pleasure, Cosmo left his new friend, and went home lingering over the delightful thought of Italian legends and stories of the Rhine, told in the very scenes of the same. The idea intoxicated him almost out of remembrance of Mary of Melmar, and if the boy’s head was not turned, it seemed in a very fair way of being so, for the sentiments of Mr. Todhunter—a publisher!—a practical man!—one who knew the real value of authorship! filled the lad with a vague glory in his new craft. A London newspaper proprietor, who spoke like the possessor of theNorth British Courant, would have been, the chances are, a conscious humbug, and perhaps so might an Edinburgh bookseller of the present time, who expressed the same sentiments. Mr. Todhunter, however, was not a humbug. He was like one of those dabblers in science who come at some simple mechanical principle by chance, and in all the flush of their discovery, claim as original and their own what was well known a hundred years since. He was perfectly honest in the rude yet simple vanity with which he patronized “young talent,” and in his vulgar, homely fashion, felt that he had quite seized upon a new idea in hisAuld Reekie Magazine—an idea too original and notable to yield precedence even to theEdinburgh Review.
Thepace of events began to quicken with Cosmo. When he encountered his fellow-lodger in the evening, he found that Cameron had been permitting his temptation to gain more and more ground upon him. The Highlander, humbly born and cottage bred as he was, and till very recently bounded by the straitest prospects as to the future, had still a deep reserve of imaginative feeling, far away down where no one could get at it—under the deposit left by the slow toil and vulgar privations of many years. Unconsciously to himself, the presence and society of Cosmo Livingstone had recalled his own boyhood to the laboring man, in the midst of that sweat of his brow in which he ate his scanty bread in the Edinburgh garret. Where was there ever boyhood which had not visions of adventure and dreams of strange countries? All that last winter, through which his boy companion stole into his heart, recollections used to come suddenly upon the uncommunicating Highlander of hours and fancies in his own life, which he supposed he had long ago forgotten—hours among his own hills, herding sheep, when he lay looking up at the skies, and entranced by the heroic lore with which he was most familiar, thinking of David’s well at Bethlehem, and the wine-press where Gideon thrashed his wheat, and the desert waters where Moses led his people, and of all the glorious unknown world beside, through which his path must lie to the Holy Land. Want, and labor, and the steady, desperate aim, with which he pushed through every obstacle towards the one goal of his ambition, had obscured these visions in his mind, but Cosmo’s fresh boyhood woke them by degrees, and the unusual and unexpected proposal lately made to him, had thrilled the cooled blood in Cameron’s veins as he did not suppose it could be thrilled. Ease, luxury (to him), and gratification in the meantime, with a reserve fund great enough to carry him through a session without any extra labor. Why did he hesitate? He hesitated simply because it might put off for six months—possibly for a year—the accomplishment of his own studies and the gaining of that end, which was not a certain living, however humble, butmerely a license to preach, and his chance with a hundred others of a presentation to some poor rural parish, or a call from some chapel of ease. But he did hesitate long and painfully. He feared, in his austere self-judgment, to prefer his own pleasure to the work of God, and it was only when his boy-favorite came back again and threw all his fervid youthful influence into the scale, that Nature triumphed with Cameron, and that he began to permit himself to remember that, toilworn as he was, he was still young, and that the six months’ holiday might, after all, be well expended. The very morning after Cosmo’s arrival, after lying awake thinking of it half the night, he had gone to the father of his would-be-pupil to explain the condition on which he would accept the charge, which was, that Cosmo might be permitted to join the little party. Cameron’s patron was a Highlander, like himself—obstinate, one-sided, and imperious. He did not refuse the application. He only issued instant orders that Cosmo should be presented to him without delay, that he might judge of his fitness as a traveling companion—and Cameron left him, pledged, if his decision should be favorable, to accept the office.
The next day was a great day in Edinburgh—an almost universal holiday, full of flags, processions, and all manner of political rejoicings—the Reform Jubilee. Cosmo plunged into the midst of it with all the zeal of a young politician and all the zest of a school-boy, and was whirled about by the crowd through all its moods and phases, through the heat, and the dust, and the sunshine, through the shouts and groans, the applauses and the denunciations, to his heart’s content. He came in breathless somewhere about midday, as he supposed, though in reality it was late in the afternoon, to snatch a hurried morsel of the dinner which Mrs. Purdie had vainly endeavored to keep warm for him, and to leave a message for Cameron to be ready for him in the evening, to go out and see the illumination. When Cosmo reappeared again, flushed, tired, excited, yet perfectly ready to begin once more, it was already darkening towards night. Cameron was ready, and the boy was not to be persuaded to lose the night and “the fun,” which already began to look rather like mischief. The two companions, so unlike each other, made haste to the Calton Hill, where a great many people had already preceded them. Oh, dwellers onthe plains! oh, cockney citizens!—spite of your gas stars and your transparencies—your royal initials and festoons of lamps, don’t suppose that you know any thing about an illumination; you should have seen the lines of light stealing from slope to slope along the rugged glory of that antique Edinburgh—the irregular gleams descending into the valley, the golden threads, here and there broken, that intersected the regular lines of the new town. Yonder tall houses, seven stories high, where every man is a Reformer, and where the lights come out in every window, star by star, in a flicker and glow, as if the very weakness of those humble candles gave them the animation and humanness of a breathing triumph—swelling higher towards the dark Castle, over whose unlighted head the little moon looks down, a serene spectator of all this human flutter and commotion—undulating down in rugged breaks towards lowly Holyrood, sometimes only a thin line visible beneath the roof—sometimes a whole house aglow. The people went and came, in excited groups, upon the fragrant grass of the Calton Hill; sometimes turning to the other side of the landscape, to see the more sparely lighted streets of gentility, or the independent little sparkle which stout little Leith in the distance threw out upon the Firth—but always returning with unfailing fascination to this scene of magic—the old town shining with its lamps and jewels, like a city in a dream.
But it was not destined to be a perfectly calm summer evening’s spectacle. The hum of the full streets grew riotous even to the spectators on the hill. Voices rose above the hum, louder than peaceful voices ever rise. The triumph was a popular triumph, and like every other such, had its attendant mob of mischief. Shouts of rising clamor and a noise of rushing footsteps ran through the busy streets—then came a sharp rattle and peal like a discharge of musketry. What was it? The crowd on the hill poured down the descent, in fright, in excitement, in precaution—some into the mischief, some eager to escape out of it. “It’s the sodgers,” “it’s the police,” “it’s the Tories,” shouted the chorus of the crowd—one suggestion after another raising the fury of some and the terror of others; again a rattling, dropping, continued report—one after another, with rushes of the crowd between, and perpetual changes of locality in the sound, which at last indicated its nature beyondmistake. It was no interference of authority—no firing of “the sodgers.” It was a sound less tragic, yet full of mischief—the crash of unilluminated windows, the bloodless yet violent revenge of the excited mob.
The sound—the swell—the clamor—the tramp of feet—the shouts—the reiterated volleys, now here, now there, in constant change and progress, the silent flicker and glow of the now neglected lights, the hasty new ones thrust into exposed windows, telling their story of sudden alarm and reluctance, and above all the pale, serene sky, against which the bold outline of Arthur’s Seat stood out as clear as in the daylight, and the calm, unimpassioned shining of the little moon, catching the windows of the Castle and church beneath with a glimmer of silver, made altogether a scene of the most singular excitement and impressiveness. But Cosmo Livingstone had forgotten that he was a poet—he was only a boy—a desperate, red-hot Radical—a friend of the people. Despite all Cameron’s efforts, the boy dragged him into the crowd, and hurried him along to the scene of action. The rioters by this time were spreading everywhere, out of the greater streets into the calm of the highest respectability, where not one window in a dozen was lighted, and where many had closed their shutters in defiance—far to the west in the moonlight, where the illuminations of the old town were invisible, and where wealth and conservatism dwelt together. Breathless, yet dragging his grave companion after him, Cosmo rushed along one of the dimmest and stateliest of these streets. The lad leaped back again into the heart of a momentary fancy, which was already old and forgotten, though it had been extremely interesting a month ago. He cried “Desirée!” to himself, as he rushed in the wake of the rioters through Moray Place. He did not know which was the house, yet followed vaguely with an instinct of defense and protection. In one of the houses some women appeared, timidly putting forward candles in the highest line of windows; perhaps out of exasperation at this cowardice, perhaps from mere accident, some one among the crowd discharged a volley of stones against one of the lower range. There was a moment’s pause, and it remained doubtful whether this lead was to be followed, when suddenly the door of the house was thrown open, and a girl appeared upon the threshold, distinctly visible againstthe strong light from the hall. Though Cosmo sprang forward with a bound, he could not hear what she said, but she rushed down on the broad step, and made a vehement address to the rioters, with lively motions of her hands, and a voice that pierced through their rough voices like a note of music. This lasted only a moment; in another the door had closed behind her with a loud echo, and all was dark again. Where was she? Cosmo pushed through the crowd in violent excitement, thrusting them away on every side with double strength. Yes, there she stood upon the step, indignant, vehement, with her little white hands clasped together, and her eyes flashing, from the rioters before her to the closed door behind.
“You English!—you are cowards!” cried the violent little heroine; “you do not fight like men, with balls and swords—you throw pebbles, like children—you wound women—and when one dares to go to speak to the madmen, she is shut out into the crowd!”
“We’re no’ English, missie, and naebody meant to hurt you; chap at the door for her, yin o’ you lads—and let the poor thing alone—she’s a very good spirit of her ain. I’m saying, open the door,” cried one of the rioters, changing his soothing tone to a loud demand, as he shook the closed door violently. By this time Cosmo was by the little Frenchwoman’s side.
“I know her,” cried Cosmo, “they’ll open when you’re past—pass on—it’s a school—a housefull of women—do you mean to say you would break a lady’s windows that has nothing to do with it?—pass on!—is that sense, or honor, or courage? is that a credit to the Bill, or to the country? I’ll take care of the young lady. Do you not see they think you robbers, or worse? They’ll not open till you pass on.”
“He’s in the right of it there—what are ye a’ waiting for?” cried some one in advance. The throng moved on, leaving a single group about the door, but this little incident was enough to damp them. Moray Place escaped with much less sacrifice of glass and temper than might have been looked for—while poor little Desirée, subsiding out of her passion, leaned against the pillar of the inhospitable door, crying bitterly, and sobbing little exclamations of despair in her own tongue, which soundedsweet to Cosmo’s ear, though he did not know what they were.
“Mademoiselle Desirée, don’t be afraid,” cried the boy, blushing in the dark. “I saw you once with Joanna Huntley—I’m a friend. Nobody will meddle with you. When they see these fellows gone, they’ll open the door.”
“And I despise them!” cried Desirée, suddenly suspending her crying; “they will shut me out in the crowd for fear of themselves. I despise them! and see here!”
A stone had struck her on the temple; it was no great wound, but Desirée was shocked and excited, and in a heroic mood.
“And they will leave me here,” cried the little Frenchwoman, pathetically, with renewed tears; “though it is my mother’s country, and I meant to love it, they shut me out among strangers, and no one cares. Ah, they would not do so in France! there they do not throw stones at women—they kill men!”
Cosmo was horrified by the blow, and deeply impressed by the heroics. The boy blushed with the utmost shame for his townsmen and co-politicians. He thought the girl a little Joan of Arc affronted by a mob.
“But it was accident; and every man would be overpowered with shame,” cried Cosmo, while meanwhile Cameron, who had followed him, knocked soberly and without speaking, at the door.
After a little interval, the door was opened by the mistress of the school, a lady of grave age and still graver looks; a couple of women-servants in the hall were defending themselves eagerly.
“I was up stairs, and never heard a word of it, mum,” said one. “Eh, it wasna me!” cried another; “the French Miss flew out upon the steps, and the door just clashed behind her; it was naebody’s blame but her ain.”
In the midst of these self-exculpatory addresses, the mistress of the house held the door open.
“Come in, Mademoiselle Desirée,” she said gravely.
The excited little Frenchwoman was not disposed to yield so quietly.
“Madame, I have been wounded, I have been shut out, I have been left alone in the crowd!” cried Desirée; “I demand of you to do me justice—see, I bleed! One of thevauriensstruck me through the window with a stone, and the door has been closed upon me. I have stood before all the crowd alone!”
“I am sorry for it, my dear,” said the lady, coldly; “come in—you ought never to have gone to the door, or exposed yourself; young ladies do not do so in this country. Pray come in, Mademoiselle Desirée. I am sorry you are hurt—and, gentlemen, we are much obliged to you—good night.”
For the girl, half-reluctantly, half-indignantly, had obeyed her superior, and the door was calmly closed in the faces of Cosmo and Cameron, who stood together on the steps. Cosmo was highly incensed and wrathful. He could have had the heart to plunge into that cold, proper, lighted hall, to snatch the little heroine forth, and carry her off like a knight of romance.
“Do you hear how that woman speaks to her?” he cried, indignantly.
Cameron grasped his arm and drew him away.
“She’s French!” said the elder man, laconically, and without any enthusiasm; “and not to anger you, Cosmo, the lady is perfectly right.”
Cosmowent home that evening much excited by his night’s adventures. Mrs. Payne, of Moray Place, was an ogre in the boy’s eyes, the Giantess Despair, holding bewitched princesses in vile durance and subjection—and Desirée, with the red mark upon her pretty forehead, with her little white hands clasped together, and her black eyes sparkling, was nothing less than a heroine. Cosmo could not forget the pretty attitude, the face glowing with resentment and girlish boldness; nor the cold gravity of the voice which bade her enter, and the unsympathetic disapproval in the lady’s face. He could not rest for thinking of it when he got home. In his new feeling of importance and influence as a person privileged to address the public, his first idea was to call upon Mrs. Payne in the morning, by wayof protector to Desirée, to explain how the whole matter occurred; but on further thoughts Cosmo resolved to write a very grave and serious letter on the subject, vindicating the girl, and pointing out, in a benevolent way, the danger of repressing her high spirit harshly.
As soon as he was alone, he set about carrying out this idea in an epistle worthy the pages of theAuld Reekie Magazine, and written with a solemn authority which would have become an adviser of eighty instead of eighteen. He wrote it out in his best hand, put it up carefully, and resolved to leave it himself in the morning, lest the post (letters were dear in those days) might miscarry with so important a document. But Cosmo, who was much worn out, slept late in the morning, so late that Cameron came into his room, and saw the letter before he was up. It excited the curiosity of the Highlander, and Cosmo, somewhat shyly, admitted him to the privilege of reading it. It proved too much, however, for the gravity of his friend; and, vexed and ashamed at last, though by no means convinced the lad tore it in bits, and threw it into the fire-place. Cameron kept him occupied all day, breaking out, nevertheless, into secret chuckles of amusement now and then, which it was very difficult to find a due occasion for; and Cosmo was not even left to himself long enough to pass the door of the house in Moray Place, or to ask after the “wound” of his little heroine. He did the only thing which remained possible to him, he made the incident into a copy of verses, which he sent to theNorth British Courant, and which duly appeared in that enlightened newspaper—though whether it ever reached the eyes of Desirée, or touched the conscience of the schoolmistress by those allusions which, though delicately vailed, were still, Cosmo flattered himself, perfectly unmistakable by the chief actors in the scene, the boy could not tell.
These days of holiday flew, however, as holidays will fly. Cameron’s Highland patron had Cosmo introduced to him, and consented that his son should travel in the company of the son of “Mrs. Livingstone, of Norlaw,” and the lad went home, full of plans for his journey, to which the Mistress as yet had given only a very vague and general consent, and of which she scarcely still understood the necessity. When Cosmo came home, he had the mid-chamber allotted to himas a study, and went to work with devotion. The difficulty was rather how to choose between the narrative in ballad verse, the spirited dramatic sketch, and the historical tale, than how to execute them, for Cosmo had that facility of language, and even of idea, which many very youthful people, with a “literary turn,” (they were very much less common in those days) often possess, to the half-amusement, half-admiration of their seniors and their own intense confusion in maturer days. Literature was not then what it is now, the common resource of most well-educated young men, who do not know what else to do with themselves. It was still a rare glory in that rural district where the mantle of Sir Walter lay only over the great novelist’s grave, and had descended upon nobody’s shoulders; and as Cosmo went on with his venture, the Mistress, glowing with mother-pride and ambition, hearing the little bits of the “sketch"—eighteen is always dramatical—which seemed, to her loving ears, melodious, and noble, and life-like, almost above comparison, became perfectly willing to consent to any thing which was likely to perfect this gift of magic. “Though I canna weel see what better they could have,” she said to herself, as she went down from Cosmo’s study, wiping her eyes. Cosmo’s muse had sprung, fully equipped, like Minerva, into a glorious existence—at least, so his mother, and so, too, if he had permitted himself to know his own sentiments—perhaps also Cosmo thought.
The arrangement was concluded, at last, on the completion of Cosmo’s article. Cameron and his young pupil were to start in August; and the Mistress herself went into Edinburgh to buy her boy-author the handiest of portmanteaus, and every thing else which her limited experience thought needful for him; the whole country-side heard of his intended travels, and was stirred with wonder and no small amount of derision. The farmers’ wives wondered what the world was coming to, and their husbands shook their heads over the folly of the widow, who would ruin her son for work all his days. The news was soon carried to Melmar, where Mr. Huntley by no means liked to hear it, where Patricia turned up her little nose with disgust, and where Joanna wished loudly that she was going too, and announced her determination to intrust Cosmo with a letter to Oswald. Even in the manse, the intelligence created a little ferment. Dr.Logan connected it vaguely—he could not quite tell how—with the “Bill,” which the excellent minister feared would revolutionize every thing throughout the country, and confound all the ranks and degrees of social life; and shook his head over the idea of Cosmo Livingstone, who had only been one session at college, and was but eighteen, writing in a magazine.
“Depend upon it, Katie, my dear, it’s an unnatural state of things,” said the Doctor, whose literature was the literature of the previous century, and who thought Cosmo’s pretensions unsafe for the stability of the country.
And sensible Katie, though she smiled, felt still a little doubtful herself, and, in her secret heart, thought of Huntley gone away to labor at the other end of the world, while his boy-brother tasted the sweets of luxury and idleness in an indulgence so unusual to his station.
“Poor Huntley!” said Katie to herself, with a gentle recollection of that last scene in the manse parlor, when she mended her children’s stockings and smiled at the young emigrant, as he wondered what changes there might be there when he came back. Katie put up her hand very softly to her eyes, and stood a long time in the garden looking down the brae into the village—perhaps only looking at little Colin, who was visible amid some cottage boys on the green bank of Tyne—perhaps thinking of Cosmo, who was going “to the Continent,"—perhaps traveling still further in her thoughts, over a big solitary sea; but Katie said “nothing to nobody,” and was as blythe and busy in the manse parlor when the minister rejoined her, as though she had not entered with a little sigh.
All this time Cosmo never said a word to his mother of Mary of Melmar; but he leaped up into the old window of the castle every evening to dream his dream, and a hundred times, in fancy, saw a visionary figure, pale, and lovely, and tender, coming home with him to claim her own. He, too, looked over the woods of Melmar as his brother had done, but with feelings very different—for no impulse of acquisition quickened in the breast of Cosmo. He thought of them as the burden of a romance, the chorus of a ballad—the inheritance to which the long lost Mary must return; and while the Mistress stocked his new portmanteau, and made ready his traveling wardrobe, the lad was hunting everywherewith ungrateful pertinacity for scraps of information to guide him in this search which his mother had not the most distant idea was the real motive of his journey. If she had known it, scarcely even the discovery of her husband’s longing after his lost love could have affected the Mistress with more overpowering bitterness and disgust. Marget shut the door when Cosmo came to question her on the subject, and made a vehement address to him under her breath.
“Seek her, if you please,” said Marget, in a violent whisper; “but if your mother ever kens this—sending out her son into the world with a’ this pride and pains forhersake—I’d rather the auld castle fell on our heads, Cosmo Livingstone, and crushed every ane of us under a different stane!”
“Hush, Marget! my mother is not unjust,” said Cosmo, with some displeasure.
“She’s no’ unjust; but she’ll no’ be second to a stranger woman that has been the vexation of her life,” said Marget, “spier where you like, laddie. Ye dinna ken, the like of you, how things sink into folks’ hearts, and bide for years. I ken naething about Mary of Melmar—neither her married name nor naught else—spier where ye like, but dinna spier at me.”
But it did not make very much matter where Cosmo made inquiry. Never was disappearance more entire and complete than that of Mary of Melmar. He gathered various vague descriptions of her, not quite so poetical in sentiment as Jaacob’s, but quite as confusing. She was “a great toast among a’ the lads, and the bonniest woman in the country-side"—she was “as sweet as a May morning"—she was “neither big nor little, but just the best woman’s size"—she was, in short, every thing that was pretty, indefinite, and perplexing. And with no clue but this, Cosmo set out, on a windy August morning, on his travels, to improve his mind, and write for theAuld Reekie Magazine, as his mother thought—and to seek for the lost heir of the Huntleys, as he himself and the Laird of Melmar knew.
“Oh, papa,” cried Joanna Huntley, bursting into Melmar’s study like a whirlwind, “they’re ill-using Desirée! they shut her out at the door among a crowd, and they threw stones at her, and she might have been killed but for Cosmo Livingstone. I’ll no’ stand it! I’ll rather go and take up a school and work for her mysel’.”
“What’s all this?” said Melmar, looking up in amazement from his newspaper; “another freak about this Frenchwoman—what is she to you?”
“She’s my friend,” said Joanna, “I never had a friend before, and I never want to have another. You never saw anybody like her in all your life; Melmar’s no’ good enough for her, if she could get it for her very own—but I think she would come here for me.”
“That would be kind,” said Mr. Huntley, taking a somewhat noisy pinch of snuff; “but if that’s all you have to tell me, it’ll keep. Go away and bother your mother; I’m busy to-day.”
“You know perfectly well that mamma’s no’ up,” said Joanna, “and if she was up, what’s the use of botheringher? Now, papa, I’ll tell you—I often think you’re a very, very ill man—and Patricia says you have a secret, and I know what keeps Oswald year after year away—but I’ll forgive you every thing if you’ll send for Desirée here.”
“You little monkey!” cried Melmar, swinging his arm through the air with a menaced blow. It did not fall on Joanna’s cheek, however, and perhaps was not meant to fall—which was all the better for the peace of the household—though feelings of honor or delicacy were not so transcendentally high in Melmar as to have made a parental chastisement a deadly affront to the young lady, even had it been inflicted. “You little brat!” repeated the incensed papa, growing red in the face, “how dare you come to me with such a speech—how dare you bother me with a couple of fools like Oswald and Patricia?—begone this moment, or I’ll—”“No, you will not, papa,” interrupted Joanna. “Oswald’s no’ a fool—and I’m no’ a monkey nor a brat, nor little either—and if any thing was to happen I would never forsake you, whatever you had done—but I like Desirée better than ever I liked any one—and she knows every thing—and she could teach me better than all the masters and mistresses in Edinburgh—and if you don’t send for her here to be my governess, I may go to school, but I’ll never learn a single thing again!”
Melmar was perfectly accustomed to be bullied by his youngest child; he had no ideal of feminine excellence to be shocked by Joanna’s rudeness, and in general rather enjoyed it, and took a certain pleasure in the disrespectful straightforwardness of the girl, who in reality was the only member of his family who had any love for him. His momentary passion soon evaporated—he laughed and shook his closed hand at her, no longer threateningly.
“If you like to grow up a dunce, Joan,” he said, with a chuckle, “what the deevil matter is’t to me?”
“Oh, yes, but it is, though,” said Joanna. “I know better—you like people to come to Melmar as well as Patricia does—and Patricia never can be very good for any thing. She canna draw, though she pretends—and she canna play, and she canna sing, and I could even dance better myself. It’s aye like lessons to see her and hear her—and nobody cares to come to see mamma—it’s no’ her fault, for she’s always in bed or on the sofa; but ifIlike to learn—do you hear, papa?—and I would like if Desirée was here—Iknow what Melmar might be!”
It was rather odd to look at Joanna, with her long, angular, girl’s figure, her red hair, and her bearing which promised nothing so little as the furthest off approach to elegance, and to listen to the confidence and boldness of this self-assertion—even her father laughed—but, perhaps because he was her father, did not fully perceive the grotesque contrast between her appearance and her words; on the contrary, Melmar was considerably impressed with these last, and put faith in them, a great deal more faith than he had ever put in Patricia’s prettiness and gentility, cultivated as these had been in the refined atmosphere of the Clapham school.
“You are a vain little blockhead, Joan,” said Mr. Huntley, “which I scarcely looked for—but it’s in the nature ofwoman. When Aunt Jean leaves you her fortune, we’ll see what a grand figure you’ll make in the country. A French governess, forsooth! the bairn’s crazy. I’ll get her to teachme.”
“She could teach you a great many things, papa,” said Joanna, with gravity, “so you need not laugh. I’m going to write to her this moment, and say she’s to come here—and you’re to write to Mrs. Payne and tell her what you’ll give, and how she’s to come, and every thing. Desirée is not pleased with Mrs. Payne.”
“What a pity!” said Melmar, laughing; “and possibly, Joan—you ought to consider—Desirée might not be pleased with me.”
“You are kind whiles—when you like, papa,” said Joanna, taking this possibility into serious consideration, and fixing her sharp black eyes upon her father, with half an entreaty, half a defiance.
Somehow this appeal, which he did not expect, was quite a stroke of victory, and silenced Melmar. He laughed once more in his loud and not very mirthful fashion, and the end of the odd colloquy was, that Joanna conquered, and that, to the utter amazement of mother, sister, and Aunt Jean, the approaching advent of a French governess for Joanna became a recognized event in the house. Patricia spent one good long summer afternoon crying over it.
“No one ever thought of getting a governess for me!” sobbed Patricia, through a deluge of spiteful tears.
And Aunt Jean put up her spectacles from her eyes, and listened to the news which Joanna shouted into her ear, and shook her head.
“If she’s a Papist it’s a tempting of Providence,” said Aunt Jean, “and they’re a’ Papists, if they’re no’ infidels. She may be nice enough and bonnie enough, but I canna approve of it, Joan. I never had any broo of foreigners a’ my days. Deseery? fhat ca’ you her name? I like names to be Christian-like, for my part. Did ever ye hear that, or the like o’ that, in the Scriptures? Na, Joan, it’s very far from likely she should please me.”
“Her name isDesirée, and it means desired; it’s like a Bible name for that,” cried Joanna. “My name means nothing at all that ever I heard of—it’s just a copy of a boy’s—and I would not have copied a man if anybody had asked me.”
“What’s that the bairn says?” said Aunt Jean. “I like old-fashioned plain names, for my part, but that’s to be looked for in an old woman; but I can tell you, Joan, I’m never easy in my mind about French folk—and never can tell fha they may turn out to be; and ’deed in this house, it’s no canny; and I never have ony comfort in my mind about your brother Oswald, kenning faur he was.”
“Why is it not canny in this house, Aunt Jean?” asked Joanna.
“Eh, fhat’s that?” said the old woman, who heard perfectly, “fhat’s no canny? just the Pope o’ Rome, Joan, and a’ his devilries; and they’re as fu’ o’ wiles, every ane, as if ilka bairn was bred up a priest. Oh, fie, na! you ma ca’ her desired, if you like, but she’s no’ desired by me.”
“Desired!” cried Patricia; “a little creature of a governess, that is sure always to be scheming and trying to be taken notice of, and making herself as good as we are. It’s just a great shame! it’s nothing else! no one everthoughtof a governess for me. But it’s strange how I always get slighted, whatever happens. I don’t think any one in the world cares for me!”
“Fhat’s Patricia greeting about?” said Aunt Jean, “eh, bairns! if I were as young as you I would save up a’ my tears for real troubles. You’ve never kent but good fortune a’ your days, but that’s no’ to say ill fortune can never come. Whisht then, ye silly thing! I can see you, though I canna hear you. Fhat’s she greeting for, Joan? eh! speak louder, I canna hear.”
“Because Desirée is coming,” shouted Joan.
“Aweel, aweel, maybe I’m little better mysel’,” said the old woman. “I’m just a prejudiced auld wife, I like my ain country best—but’s no malice and envie with me; fhat ails Patricia at her for a stranger she doesna ken? She’s keen enough about strangers when they come in her ain way. You’re a wild lassie, Joan, you’re no’ just fhat I would like to see you—but there’s nae malice inyou, so far as I ken.”
“Oh, Auntie Jean,” cried Joanna, with enthusiasm, “wait till you see what I shall be when Desirée comes!”
Aftera little time Desirée came to Melmar. She had been placed in charge of Mrs. Payne by an English lady, who had brought her from her home in France with the intention of making a nursery governess of the little girl, but who, finding her either insufficiently trained or not tractable enough, had transferred her, with the consent of her mother, to the Edinburgh boarding-school as half pupil, half teacher. When Melmar’s proposal came, Desirée, still indignant at her present ruler, accepted it eagerly, declared herself quite competent to act independently, and would not hear of anybody being consulted upon the matter. She herself, the little heroine said, with some state, would inform her mother, and she made her journey accordingly half in spite of Mrs. Payne, who, however, was by no means ill pleased to transfer so difficult a charge into other hands. Desirée arrived alone on an August afternoon, by the coach, in Kirkbride. The homely little Scotch village, so unlike any thing she had seen before, yet so pretty, dwelling on the banks of its little brown stream, pleased the girl’s fanciful imagination mightily. Two or three people—among them the servant from Melmar who had come to meet her—stood indolently in the sultry sunshine about the Norlaw Arms. In the shadow of the corner, bowed Jaacob’s weird figure toiled in the glow of the smithy. One or two women were at the door of the cottage which contained the widow’s mangle, and the opposite bank lay fair beneath the light, with that white gable of the manse beaming down among its trees like a smile. The wayward, excitable little Frenchwoman had a tender little heart beneath all her vivacity and caprices. Somehow her eyes sought instinctively that white house on the brae, and instinctively the little girl thought of her mother and sister. Ah, yes, this surely, and not Edinburgh, was her mother’s country! She had never seen it before, yet it seemed familiar to her; they could be at home here. And thoughts of acquiring that same white house, and bringing her mother to it in triumph, entered the wild little imagination. Women make fortunes in France now and then; she did not know any better, and she was a child. She vowed to herself tobuy the white house on the brae and bring mamma there.
Melmar pleased Desirée, but not so much; she thought it a great deal too square and like a prison; and Patricia did not please her at all, as she was not very slow to intimate.
“Mademoiselle does not love me, Joanna,” she said to her pupil as they wandered about the banks of Tyne together, “to see every thing,” as Joanna said before they began their lessons; “and I never can love any one who does not love me.”
“Patricia does not love anybody,” cried Joanna, “unless maybe herself, and not herself either—right; but never mind, Desirée,Ilove you, and by-and-by so will Aunt Jean; and oh! if Oswald would only come home!”
“I hope he will not while I am here,” said Desirée, with a little frown; “see! how pretty the sun streams among the trees; but I do not like Melmar so well as that white house at the village; I should like to live there.”
“At the manse?” cried Joanna.
“What is the manse? it is not a great house; would they sell it?” said Desirée.
“Sell it!” Joanna laughed aloud in the contempt of superior knowledge; “but it’s only because you don’t know; they could as well sell the church as the manse.”
“I don’t want the church, however—it’s ugly,” said Desirée; “but if I had money I should buy that white house, and bring mamma and Maria there.”
“Eh, Desirée! your mamma is English—I heard you say so,” cried Joanna.
“Eh bien!did I ever tell you otherwise?” said the little Frenchwoman, impatiently; “she would love that white house on the hill.”
“Didsheteach you to speak English?” asked Joanna, “because everybody says you speak so well for a Frenchwoman—and I think so myself; and papa said you looked quite English to him, and he thought he knew some one like you, and you were not like a foreigner at all.”
The pretty little shoulders gave an immediate shrug, which demonstrated their nationality with emphasis.
“Every one must think what every one pleases,” said Desirée. “Who, then, lives in that white house? I remembermamma once spoke of such a house, with a white gable and a great tree. Mamma loves rivers and trees. I think, when she was a child, she must have been here.”
“Why?” asked Joanna, opening her eyes wide.
“I know not why,” said Desirée, still with a little impatience, as she glanced hurriedly round with a sudden look of half-confused consideration; “but either some one has told me of this place, or I have been here in a dream.”
It was the loveliest dell of Tyne. The banks rose so high on either side, and were so richly dotted with trees, that it was only here and there, through breaks in the foliage, that you could catch a momentary glimpse of the brown river, foaming over a chance rock, or sparkling under some dropping line of sunshine which reached it, by sweet caprice and artifice of nature, through an avenue of divided branches. The path where the two girls stood together was at a considerable height above the stream; and close by them, in a miniature ravine, thickly fringed with shrubs, poured down a tiny, dazzling waterfall, white as foam against the background of dark soil and rocks, the special feature of the scene. Desirée stood looking at it with her little French hands clasped together, and the chiming of the water woke strange fancies in her mind. Had she seen it somewhere, in fairy-land or in dreams?—or had she heard of it in that time which was as good as either—when she was a child? She stood quite silent, saying nothing to Joanna, who soon grew weary of this pause, complimentary as it might be. Desirée was confused and did not know what to make of it. She said no more of the white house, and not much more of her own friends, and kept wondering to herself as she went back, answering Joanna’s questions and talking of their future lessons, what strange sentiment of recollection could have moved her in sight of that waterfall. It was very hard to make it out.
And no doubt it was because Desirée’s mother was English that Aunt Jane could not keep up her prejudice against the foreigner, but gradually lapsed to Joanna’s opinion, and day by day fell in love with the little stranger. She was not a very, very good girl—she was rather the reverse, if truth must be told. She had no small amount of pretty little French affectations, and when she was naughty fell back upon her own language, especially with Patricia, whoseClapham French was not much different from the French of Stratford-atte-Bowe, and who began with vigor and reality to entertain, not a feeble prejudice but a hearty dislike, to the invader. Neither did she do what good governesses are so like to do, at least in novels—she did not take the place of her negligent daughters with the invalid Mrs. Huntley, nor remodel the disorderly household. Sometimes, indeed, out of pure hatred to things ugly, Desirée put a sofa-cover straight, or spread down a corner of the crumb-cloth; but she did not captivate the servants, and charm the young ladies into good order and good behavior; she exercised no very astonishing influence in that way over even Joanna. She was by no means a model young lady in herself, and had no special authority, so far as she was aware of. She taught her pupil, who was one half bigger than herself, to speak French very tolerably, and to practice a certain time every day. She took charge of Joanna’s big hands, and twisted, and coaxed, and pinched them into a less clumsy thump, upon the trembling keys of the piano. She mollified her companion’s manners even unconsciously, and suggested improvements in the red hair and brown merino frock; but having done this, Desirée was not aware of having any special charge of the general morals and well-being of the family; she was rather a critic of the same, indeed, but she was not a Mentor nor a reformer. She obeyed what rules there were in the sloven house—she shrugged her little French shoulders at the discomforts and quarrels. She sometimes pouted, or curled her little disdainful upper lip; but she took nobody’s part save Joanna’s, whom she always defended manfully. It was not a particularly brilliant or entertaining life for Desirée. Melmar himself, with his grizzled red hair, and heated face; Mrs. Huntley, who sometimes never left her room all day, and who, when she did, lay on a sofa; Patricia, who was spiteful, and did her utmost to shut out both Joanna and Desirée when any visitors came to break the tedium—were not remarkably delightful companions; and as the winter closed in, and there were long evenings, and less pleasure out of doors—winter, when all the fires looked half choked, and would not burn, and when a perennial fog seemed to lie over Melmar, did not increase the comforts of the house. Yet it happened that Desirée was by no means unhappy; perhaps at sixteen it is hard to be really unhappy,even when one feels one ought, unless one has some very positive reason for it. Joanna and she sat together at the scrambling breakfast, which Patricia was always too late for; then they went to the music lesson, which tried Joanna’s patience grievously, but which Desirée managed to get some fun out of, and endured with great philosophy. Then they read together, and the unfortunate Joanna inked her fingers over her French exercise. In the afternoon they walked—save when Joanna was compelled to accompany her sister “in the carriage,” a state ceremonial in which the little governess was never privileged to share; and after their return from their walk, Desirée taught her pupil all manner of fine needleworks, in which she was herself more than usually learned, and which branch of knowledge was highly prized by Aunt Jean, and even by Mrs. Huntley. Such was the course of study pursued by Joanna under the charge of her little governess of sixteen.
“A Frenchgoverness!—she is not French, though she might be born in France. Anybody might be born in France,” said Patricia, with some scorn; “but her mother was Scotch—no, not English, Joanna, I know better—just some Scotchwoman from the country; I should not wonder if she was a little impostor, after all.”
“You had better take care,” cried Joanna, “I’m easier affronted than Desirée; you had better not say much more to me.”
“It is true though,” said Patricia, with triumph; “she took quite a fancy to Kirkbride, when she came first, and was sure she had heard of the Kelpie waterfall.Iexpect it will turn out some poor family from this quarter that have gone to France and changed their name. Joanna may be as foolish about her as she likes, butIknow she never was a true Frenchwoman by her look. I have seen French people many a time in England.”
“Yet you always look as if you would like to eat Desirée when she speaks to you in French,” said Joanna, with aspice of malice; “if you knew French people, you should like the language.”
“Low people don’t pronounce as ladies do,” said Patricia. “Perhaps she was not even born in France, for all she says—and I amquitesure her mother was some country girl from near Kirkbride.”
“What is that you say?” said Melmar, who was present, and whose attention had at last been caught by the discussion.
“I say Joanna’s French governess is not French, papa. Her mother was a Scotchwoman and came from this country,” cried Patricia, eagerly. “I think she belongs to some poor family who have gone abroad and changed their name—perhaps her father was a poacher, or something, and had to run away.”
“And that is all because Desirée thinks she must have heard her mamma speak of the Kelpie waterfall,” said Joanna; “because she thought she knew it as soon as she saw it—that is all!—did you ever hear the like, papa?”
Melmar’s face grew redder, as was its wont when he was at all disturbed. He laid down his paper.
“She thought she knew the Kelpie, did she?—hum! and her mother is a Scotchwoman—for that matter, so is yours. What is to be made of that, eh, Patricia?”
“Inever denied where I belonged to,” said Patricia, reddening with querulous anger; “and I did not speak to you, papa, so you need not take the trouble to answer. But her motherwasScotch—and I do not believe she is a proper Frenchwoman at all. I never did think so; and as for a governess, Joanna could learn as much from mamma’s maid.”
Joanna burst out immediately into a loud defense, and denunciation of her sister. Melmar took no notice what, ever of their quarrel, but he still grew redder in the face, twisted about his newspaper, got up and walked to the window, and displayed a general uneasiness. He was perfectly indifferent as to the tone and bearing of his daughters, but he was not indifferent to what they said in this quarrel, which was all about Desirée. Presently, however, both the voices ceased with some abruptness. Melmar looked round with curiosity. Desirée herself had entered the room, and what his presence had not even checked, her presence put anend to. Desirée wore a brown merino frock, like Joanna, with a little band and buckle round the waist, and sleeves which were puffed out at the shoulders, and plain at the wrists, according to the fashion of the time. It had no ornament whatever except a narrow binding of velvet at the neck and sleeves, and was not so long as to hide the handsome little feet, which were not in velvet slippers, but in stout little shoes of patent leather, more suitable a great deal for Melmar, and the place she held there. The said little feet came in lightly, yet not noiselessly, and both the sisters turned with an immediate acknowledgment of the stranger’s entrance. Patricia’s delicate pink cheeks were flushed with anger, and Joanna looked eager and defiant, but quarrels were so very common between them that Desirée took no notice of this one. She came to a table near which Melmar was standing, and opened a drawer in it to get Joanna’s needlework.
“You promised to have—oh, such an impossible piece, done to-day!” said Desirée, “and look, you naughty Joanna!—look here.”
She shook out a delicate piece of embroidery as she spoke, with a merry laugh. It was a highly-instructive bit of work, done in a regular succession of the most delicate perfection and the utmost bungling, to wit, Desirée’s own performance and the performance of her pupil. As the little governess clapped her hands over it, Joanna drew near and put her arms round the waist of her young teacher, overtopping her by all her own red head and half her big shoulders.
“I’ll never do it like you, Desirée,” said the girl, half in real affection, half with the benevolent purpose of aggravating her sister. “I’ll never do any thing so well as you, if I live to be as old as Aunt Jean.”
“Ah, then, you will need no governess,” said Desirée, “and if you did it as well as I, now, you should not want me, Joanna. I shall leave it for you there—and now it is time to come for one little half hour to the music. Will mademoiselle do us the honor to come and listen? It shall be only one little half hour.”
“No, thank you! I don’t care to hear girls at their lessons—and Joanna’s time is always so bad,” said the fretfulPatricia. “Oh, I can’t help having an ear! I can hear only too well, thank you, where I am.”
Desirée made a very slight smiling curtsey to her opponent, and pressed Joanna’s arm lightly with her fingers to keep down the retort which trembled on that young lady’s lips. Then they went away together to the little supplementary musical lesson. Melmar had never turned round, nor taken the slightest notice, but he observed, notwithstanding, not only all that was done, but all that was looked and said, and it struck him, perhaps for the first time, that the English of Desirée was perfectly familiar and harmonious English, and that she never either paused for a word nor translated the idiom of one tongue into the speech of another. Uneasy suspicions began to play about his mind: he could scarcely say what he feared, yet he feared something. The little governess was French undeniably and emphatically—and yet she was not French, either, yet bore an unexplainable something of familiarity and home-likeness which had won for her the heart of Aunt Jean, and had startled himself unawares from her first introduction to Melmar. He stood at the window, looking out upon the blank, winterly landscape, the leafless trees in the distance, the damp grass and evergreens near the door, as the cheerful notes of Joanna’s music came stealing through the cold passages. The music was not in bad time, and it was in good taste, for Joanna was ambitious, and Desirée, though not an extraordinary musician herself, kept her pupil to this study with the most tenacious perseverance. As Melmar listened, vague thoughts, almost of fear, stole over him. He had been a lawyer, and a lawyer of a low class, smart in schemes and trickeries. He was ready to suspect everybody of cunning and the mean cleverness of deceit. Perhaps this was a little spy whom he fostered in his house. Perhaps her presence in the Edinburgh school was a trick to attract Joanna, and her presence here a successful plot to undermine and find out himself. His face grew redder still as he “put things together;” and by the time the music ceased, Melmar had concocted and found out (it is so easy to find out what one has concocted one’s own self,) a very pretty little conspiracy. Hehadfound it out, he was persuaded, and it should go no further—trust him for that!
Accordingly, when his daughter and her governess returned,Melmar paid them a compliment upon their music, and was disposed to be friendly, as it appeared. Finally, after he had exhausted such subjects of chat as occurred to him, he got up, looking at Desirée, who was now busy with her embroidery.
“I rather think, mademoiselle, you have been more than three months here,” said Melmar, “and I have been inconsiderate and ungallant enough to forget the time. I’ll speak with you about that in my study, if you’ll favor me by coming there. I never speak of business but in my own room—eh, Joan? You got your thrashings there when you were young enough. Where does mademoiselle give you them now?”
“Don’t be foolish, papa,” said Joanna, jerking her head aside as he pinched her ear. “What do you want of Desirée? if it’s for Patricia, and you’re going to teaze her, I’ll not let her go, whatever you say.”
“And it is not quite three months, yet,” said Desirée, looking up with a smile. “Monsieur is too kind, but it still wants a week of the time.”