Steamboatswere novel luxuries in those days; but the West of Scotland was in the van of such improvements, and Loch Diarmid had secured for itself one of the earliest of those little fussy agents of civilisation and trade. The steamboat fretted its silvery bosom daily, opening up the world to the hill folk, to whom, in former days, the means of descent to the ordinary level of humanity were difficult. The steamboat fussed its little way from point to point, touching at the little piers on each side of the Loch, and at less populous corners approached by boats, the universal means of communication throughout the district. The Lochhead was its terminus and starting-point, and the little party from the House were installed in the best places and received with that rustic Scotch courtesy which, though not deferential, is so cordial and friendly. Thus they went gliding along, alive to all the interests around them, when the steamer slackened its course opposite Brandon and waited for the ferry-boat. The ladies did not take much notice of the ferry-boat. Their attention was fully fixed on Ardnamore. It was a homely, old-fashioned, whitewashed house, standing high on the brae, with a steep green slope surrounded by trees, cleared in front of it, and the white walls nestling into the darker heather of the summit above. The gable window was in a projecting wing, and all the rest of the house was still closed, which made it more remarkable still to see a human figure there.
‘Can they have come home?’ said Miss Catherine.
‘Oh, no—never that,’ said Isabel; ‘perhaps it is only the housekeeper. She might be putting the house in order for the fine weather.’
‘Or they may have had sense enough to let it, if they cannot take the good of it,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘it is a good house. There are—let me see—five, six, nine bedrooms, if I mind rightly; two in that wing, and one on the ground-floor, and the rest at the back, looking out on the hill. And the drawing-room is a pretty room, painted in panels, and all the length of the house. Oh me—if Magdalene Diarmid could have lived tosee her only son wandering about the world as he is doing——’
‘But that is better than what went before,’ said Isabel. Her eyes had been fixed on the house, which already began to grow dim in the distance, as the steamer continued its course. And then she turned her head, with a little natural sigh, thinking of Ailie and all that had happened since the two prophets disappeared into the world. She turned round, thinking of nothing beyond that limited local circle, and, raising her calm eyes suddenly, all at once encountered another pair, which were gazing at her. She started so that it seemed to her the very vessel staggered and thrilled, and gave a low suppressed cry. For the moment ‘all that had happened,’ and even the child she held in her arms, grew into a mist round Isabel. The eyes she had so suddenly looked up into unawares, and which were gazing upon her with extraordinary intensity, were those of the man she had once loved. Stapylton, from whom she was, without knowing it, flying, stood within half a dozen paces of her, on the narrow deck.
Miss Catherine heard the cry, low as it was, and felt the start with which her companion made this discovery; and turning round, saw, with feelings indescribable, the man from whose very shadow she was escaping, standing by her, taking off his hat, and claiming recognition as an acquaintance. She grew pale, and then crimson, with consternation and excitement, and in that awful moment ran over all the possibilities in her mind. Should she land at the next landing-place, thus betraying her motives to Isabel, and proceed on their journey by some other route? Should she turn back and go home, now the dreaded meeting had been accomplished? Should she admit the claims of civility, or refuse to know him altogether? But Isabel was a free agent. She was not indifferent to the sight of him. Her start had been sufficiently evident to attract the attention of any bystander. He must have seen it himself, so near as he was, and with all his attention fixed upon them. Therefore, if it were but to shield Isabel, Miss Catherine felt that civility was her only policy. It cost her an effort to bow her proud old head in answer to his salutation; but she did it, taking the conversation and all the burdens of politeness upon herself.
‘It is something quite unexpected seeing you,’ she said, ‘Mr. Stapylton; are you here on a visit, or have you come to stay?’
‘I am going away,’ he said, half-indicating with his hand a little pile of luggage. Miss Catherine ventured to take breath. If that were all, things might not turn out so badly; and she felt able to note his looks, and the changes that time had wrought in him. The first thingshe observed was, that he was intensely pale, and that he looked at Isabel, in her mourning-dress, with a trembling about the muscles of his mouth, and nervous movement of his hands, which betrayed some very strong feeling. Why should he be moved like that to see her, after abandoning her, leaving her to be wooed by the minister, showing no sign of recollection for all these years? And yet the indications of feeling about him were too marked to be unreal; and Miss Catherine, hard as she felt it her duty to be, could not but feel a certain womanish compassion for him in her heart.
‘You can have made but a short stay, since we have heard nothing of you,’ she said; ‘you were at Archie Smeaton’s, I suppose, over the hill.’
‘For some little time,’ he said, ‘and I heard from him,’ lowering his voice, with a glance at Isabel, who had betrayed her recollection of him only by a slight movement of her head—‘of many things which grieved me much.’
Was this the old flippant, arrogant, unsympathetic ‘English lad?’ He had grown much thinner Miss Catherine decided, looking at him. His voice was subdued; the very lines of his face refined and altered. His aspect, long ago, had been that of a somewhat surly, self-sufficient youth, careless of what anybody thought of him, ready to meet reproval half way; now everything seemed softened, toned down, and improved. Yes, improved. She could not deny it to herself.
‘Yes,’ she said, hastily, ‘there have been changes; but no doubt you would hear of the chief of them at the time they happened. We will not go over an old story. You have been in distress yourself, if I am to judge by your dress.’
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘my father is dead; but he lingered long after the time I left the Loch so hurriedly. I was kept in close attendance upon him for nearly a year. He had a tedious illness. But for that I should have returned sooner; and, I am sorry to say,’ he added, ‘my position is not quite so good as I had hoped.’
When he paused, inviting sympathy, Miss Catherine found herself obliged to show some sign of interest. Isabel had not spoken. She was busy with the baby, whispering to it, encouraging its play with old Marion, the maid, who had come to her other side, with a perfect understanding of the position, ‘to take off her attention.’ But yet Isabel had betrayed that his affairs were not indifferent to her. At this point she raised her brown eyes to him with a questioning look, much more significant than words. It asked, more plainly than her lips could have done, what it was, and all about it? Andthen the eyes sank confused—becoming conscious. All this pantomime Miss Catherine saw and noted with an ache in her heart.
‘I have been in America this last year, looking about,’ he said. ‘I am cut off, if not with a shilling, still with a very poor remnant of what I ought to have had. What with my mother and sisters, and all the rest—but I cannot expect you to be interested in this,’ he added, looking at her pointedly, and then at Isabel.
‘I am sorry you’ve been disappointed,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘I hope you have good prospects now.’
He shrugged his shoulders and then he stretched out his hand for one of the folding-stools which stood about the deck, and sat down in front of the little party, commanding it. ‘I am thinking of settling in America,’ he said.
‘I have heard it is a very fine thing to do,’ Miss Catherine answered with alacrity, ‘for a young man.’
And then there was a pause—Isabel did not even look up this time; but her absorbed face as she arranged her child’s dress, the nervous twitch of her fingers, her apparent blank of inattention, told their own tale to the anxious observer at her elbow. Did he observe it too? He did not seem to look at Isabel, but—‘it cannot be for me he is coming so close, and staying so long,’ Miss Catherine said to herself.
‘I had thought of Scotland once,’ he said; ‘I have let my own place; no chance of keeping that up at present—and if I could hear of a good farm——’
‘Dear me, I would think that was a poor business for the like of you,’ said Miss Catherine: ‘farming makes no fortunes nowadays. For a young active man, with no encumbrance, I would say America was the thing.’
‘I suppose it is,’ he said, with a little sigh; and looked at Isabel with eyes that were almost wistful. She took no notice of him. She behaved in every respect as Miss Catherine would have had her behave, had she instructed her previously in the matter, holding up little Margaret to old Marion, taking share in the play, and when that was no longer necessary, giving her attention to her baby’s dress, keeping her eyes and hands and mind occupied. Just as she ought to have behaved, but yet, in the very perfection of this conduct, there was something which alarmed her guardian. The calmness was too elaborate, the composure too carefully put on; after the first start too, and anxious look of her appealing eyes.
But it was clear there was nothing more to be made of this. He pushed his seat away from them a little as if owning himself discomfited. ‘And you are going away?’ he said.
‘Only for a day or so—only—not for long I mean—to pay a visit,’ said Miss Catherine, feeling the warfare carried into her own country; and then there was another embarrassed pause. ‘You will excuse us, I am sure, Mr. Stapylton,’ she went on taking courage. ‘But you see Mrs. Lothian has scarcely gone at all into society—I mean has seen nobody since. And you will perceive that here in public, with all these folk about, and seeing any stranger for the first time——’
‘I understand,’ said Stapylton. The sound of the name,Mrs. Lothian, had given him evidently a painful thrill. He rose to his feet when he heard it, and grew once more quite pale. Mrs. Lothian! He took off his hat and withdrew with a delicacy of feeling for which she had not given him credit. Was it possible that she could have done Stapylton injustice after all?
And he kept apart as long as they remained together in the steamer. When they were landing at Maryburgh he did indeed approach for an instant to make himself of use to them, but without a word or look, so far as she was aware, which a saint could have censured. She did not hear, it is true, the five words which somehow dropped into Isabel’s ear when she found herself standing dizzy and agitated on the pier, ‘I shall see you again;’ that was all. But Miss Catherine did not hear them, or perhaps she would have been less softened in respect to Stapylton, and less satisfied that he was finally got rid of, and to be seen no more.
Isabel was a perplexity to her friend for all the rest of the journey. Instead of the cheerful stir there had been about her when she started, she had fallen back upon herself. Her eyes looked heavy, asourdexcitement seemed to hang about her, which her anxious companion could not explain. It was not the natural thrill of recollection which might have moved a young woman under such circumstances, she thought, but a certain suppressed painful tumult of mind to which Miss Catherine had no clue. But for one thing, she was more absorbed than ever, if that were possible, in her baby. She scarcely spoke, except to little Margaret, to whom she pointed out everything, as if the child could understand her, fidgeting about her dress, fastening and unfastening the wraps round her, inventing a hundred little occupations to fix her attention to her child. She would not allow Marion, who had been looking forward to the delight of assuming the management of the baby, to touch her, but left Miss Catherine at once on their arrival to put little Margaret to bed. ‘Marion will do that; the bairn knows her,’ said Miss Catherine, but Isabel only shook her head. ‘No, I cannot part with mybaby,’ she said, and went away burying herself with the child in her own room, where, after a long interval, she was found hugging it in her arms, having as yet made no progress in its toilette. Then Miss Catherine began to get alarmed.
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘the tea is waiting. I came to look at her in her bed, the darling! You’re thinking of the time we were here before, Isabel; but you must not give way to your feelings, and such a treasure in your arms. You must think of the bairn.’
‘And so I do think of her,’ cried Isabel, straining the child so passionately to her breast that little Margaret, unused to such violence, began to whimper with fright, and put out her baby arms to Miss Catherine. Then Isabel’s excitement broke forth in weeping. She almost thrust the child into Miss Catherine’s arms, and covered her face with her hands. ‘Sheturns from me too,’ she cried, with floods of sudden burning tears. And little Margaret, half for sympathy, out of an infant’s strange forlorn consciousness of something unusual in the air, cried too, and the scene altogether became so painful that Miss Catherine lost heart.
‘I cannot understand you, Isabel,’ she said. ‘There are no memories here to make you heart-broken like this, and nobody is turning from you that I know of. I have come away with you myself, though I’ve plenty to do at home. And there is not one of your friends but would make a sacrifice to see you happy. What is the matter? You have always been happy with your baby. Why should you change now?’
‘I have not changed.’ said Isabel, under her breath.
‘I hope not, my dear,’ said Miss Catherine, giving back the child into her arms. ‘I suppose it is coming out into the world for the first time, and seeing—strangers; and coming to a new place. I would not wonder, for my part; but you have ay been so good, and so reasonable and patient—sinceshecame.’
‘And so I shall be,’ said Isabel, hastily drying her eyes; ‘as long as she is well, oh, what can harm me? I want nothing but my lamb.’ And then she began, with a thousand caresses, to undress the little weary creature, kissing its round limbs and dimples with a kind of passion. Miss Catherine sat looking on somewhat grimly, not understanding this outbreak of feeling more than the other, but unable in any way to connect either Isabel’s tears or her demonstrations of maternal adoration with that unlucky encounter in the boat. She did not understand, and she could not sympathise, but sat looking on with that grim air of observation and criticism which winds an excited mind up to almost delirium. Isabelfinished her task under those severe, yet kindly eyes, growing more and more agitated and nervous. She was in the state so common to women, when tears are the only practicable utterance. Tears, meaningless words in Margaret’s ear, who could soothe but not understand, and such quietness as she might have had in her own house, would have composed her after the shock she had received; but Miss Catherine’s steady presence, restraining the tears and compelling a certain amount of external self-control, prolonged the inward pain, and the evening passed like a painful dream.
‘It cannot be the recollections of the place,’ said Miss Catherine to her maid, when Isabel had escaped to her room, ‘for I cannot recollect that the poor minister was ever here; and it cannot be any fright about the bairn. There’s neither measles nor whooping-cough that we know of in this place.’
‘And neither was there at home,’ said Marion. ‘Oh, mem, it’s no for me to be the judge—but it’s like flying in the very face of Providence and tempting God.’
‘I was not asking your advice on the subject,’ said Miss Catherine, sharply. She was not, indeed, in the way of asking anyone’s advice. But anger towards her old maid was impossible, and the next moment she had again begun to discuss the troublesome matter, talking not so much with Marion as aloud with herself.
‘It’s near a year now,’ she said; ‘poor thing! it would have been hard for her to have been at that quiet Glebe with nothing to take off her thoughts the very time it happened. The change will make it pass easier; the measles and the rest was but an excuse to get her away.’
‘And do you think, mem, she was that fond of the minister?’ said Marion, with respectful scepticism.
‘She was his wife, woman.’ said her mistress, indignantly; what would you have more?’
‘But, ah, far more like his daughter,’ said Marion. ‘Nae doubt it was an awfu’ end; but when it’s no just heart’s love—— Do ye think there could be onything in the meeting with yon young English lad to-day?’
‘What do you mean by anything?’ said Miss Catherine, sharply.
‘Eh, I wasna setting up my ain puir judgment; but I thought you looked a wee anxious yourself. And as for Mrs. Lothian, poor lassie, she was shaking like an aspen leaf——’
‘Marion, I request you’ll speak no more such nonsense to me,’ said Miss Catherine, with indignation. ‘What is he to her, think ye?—a stranger that has not been seen in the parish for three or four years?’
‘And that’s true, Miss Catherine,’ said Marion, with acough expressive of much doubt and general uncertainty. Her mistress lost her temper, and immediately fell upon Marion, not on this subject, but on some other totally unconnected with it; but the experienced handmaiden was in little doubt as to the real occasion of her wrath. ‘As if I didna ken the Captain’s Isabel cared more for that lad’s little finger than for the minister and a’ he could do for her!’ she said to herself, as she retired to her rest.
Thevisit to the Bridge of Allan was anything but a successful expedition on the whole. Little Margaret took cold, and had a trifling illness, which filled her three slaves with trembling terror; and Isabel was so much disposed, with unconscious superstition, to regard this as ‘a judgment’ on her own distracted thoughts and wavering mind, that she was not a pleasant companion to Miss Catherine, who, on the other hand, blamed herself for her over-confidence in her own opinion, for exposing the child to bodily risk and the mother to temptation. Marion made no small amount of critical observations to herself behind their backs, thinking the child’s illness also ‘a judgment.’ ‘Them that flees from the Lord, the Lord’s hand will find them out,’ said Marion to herself. And the little party was not a happy one. They remained until after the anniversary of Mr. Lothian’s murder, of which Miss Catherine was rather disposed to make a solemnity. Poor Isabel, with her heart still trembling for her child, and still suffering from the sharp assault of the new life which had taken her at unawares, found it difficult enough to force back her thoughts into the channel of the past, and feel all the grief, the heavy weight of recollection that was expected of her.
After the anniversary was over they went home. It was on a brilliant June day—a warm, languid, breathless afternoon, when the steamer once more carried them up Loch Diarmid. Miss Catherine herself looked round her with an anxious air when she first stepped on board, involuntarily feeling thathemight be there again way-laying them. Isabel did not look for him, but an excitement which she could not conquer took possession of her. It seemed to herself that she was coming home to wait for him, and that, sooner or later, he must come to the place he knew so well to disturb her life. The Lady of the Manor recognised group after group, and speculated with Marion, as there was no satisfaction to be got from Isabel, upon their different errands. ‘There’s JohnCampbell has been settling his son in Glasgow,’ she said. ‘I hope it will not turn the lad’s head. They’re a very pushing family. But I can’t tell what the smith’s wife should have to do so often in Maryburgh, wasting her time and spending her siller. Marion, is that Archibald Smeaton I see there at the other end of the boat? Go and ask him if the queys are all sold, and what price they brought; and here!—listen—ye can ask him,’ said Miss Catherine, aside into Marion’s ear, ‘if yon Englishman is still about the Loch.’
While Marion went upon this commission there was a momentary pause in Miss Catherine’s talk—partly because Isabel was unresponsive, and partly because she was anxious as to the answer which might be returned to the last question. But her eyes were not the less busy scanning the shores of the Loch with that strange interest which a local notability takes in every symptom of change that may have become visible in his or her absence. She gave a sudden exclamation at one point as they went on, and seized upon Isabel’s arm, forcibly calling her attention.
‘Look at Ardnamore!’ cried Miss Catherine, with a gasp of surprise. Isabel started and lifted her eyes. The house was all open to the rays of the setting sun, the very door was standing wide open, and every appearance of inhabitation was about the place. But what was most wonderful of all was the apparition of a white figure fully revealed in the intense light, standing on the green clearing of the lawn. The trees were all so thick around, and the yellow, slanting sunset shone so full upon the green slope and the one figure on it, that it was difficult to pass it without notice. All the windows were lit up with a glow as of illumination; the green trees were almost reddened by the rays; the white walls of the house blazed with intensity of tone; and the one woman stood in the midst of it all, looking out with a certain wistful, lingering patience in her attitude. Perhaps imagination only conferred upon this white figure, which was too distant to be seen, the qualities of expectation and patience. But the whole scene struck the travellers with a shock of surprise.
‘And no one ever told me a word about it,’ Miss Catherine said, with indignation. ‘Can he have had the sense to let the house—or can they have come back? but then who was that?’
‘It was Ailie,’ said Isabel.
‘It was no such thing,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Ailie, indeed! My dear, you are thinking of something else, and you have not looked at her. That is the figure of a gentlewoman. They must have woke up to theirinterests at last, and let the house. An English family, I would not wonder. But even an Englishwoman can have no need to put on a moonstruck look like that.’
‘You are speaking of my wife,’ said someone at Miss Catherine’s ear.
Like most people who live among their inferiors, she had a way of expressing her sentiments without any constraint of her voice or concealment of her opinion. She was a person of importance, and she was very well aware of the fact; consequently she started, and turned round, not well pleased, to ask the intruder what he meant by thrusting himself into private conversation; but was struck dumb, and all the strength taken out of her for the moment, to find Mr. John himself standing by her side. Isabel was roused and startled too. It was, indeed, her little cry of recognition which persuaded Miss Catherine that the apparition was real and undeniable.
‘John Diarmid!’ she cried, with a voice half choked with wonder and curiosity; and then made a dead pause, looking at him with a surprise too great for speech.
‘You must beware how you speak of my wife,’ he said. ‘Yes, we have come home. I have brought her home—and she is no longer Ailie, but my wife. If you would be a friend to either of us, you might show an example to others, and not lead the way to trouble.’
‘Trouble—what trouble?’ said Miss Catherine; ‘and why should I be a friend to you, John Diarmid, or set anybody an example to do you pleasure?’
‘Why should you be a foe?’ he said.
And then they both paused, and looked at each other. Mr. John’s appearance had changed. It was nearly three years since he had left Loch Diarmid with his wife; and the wild look of passion and excitement which had marked the prophet had died out of his face. But his appearance was more strange to homekeeping eyes than it had been even when his face was lighted up with that glance which was half-insanity. He had acquired the foreign air which in those days was given by a beard; and his dress, too, was foreign; and there was about him that indescribable look which is not English, which has come to be conventionally identified with the conspirator and revolutionary. He had a great cloak on his arm—a Spanish cloak capable of being thrown around him after a fashion not impossible in those days, though now identified with, at the least, a Byronic hero. His dark face, so much as could be seen of it in the forest of dark hair and darker beard, was more like that of an Italian than a Scotchman; his aspect was that of a man full of weighty cares and responsibilities. Thewild inspiration of his supposed mission had gone from him; but it was not only that he had lost that: something also there was, which the keen-sighted spectators perceived without understanding, which he had acquired. He looked at Miss Catherine without flinching, but with no excitement, meeting her eye calmly, and repeating what he had already said.
‘Why should you be a foe? I am none to you. You might be a protection to my wife. Am I to understand that my sins have been such that you will not forget what is past, and give your countenance to her? It might be a comfort to her,’ he said with a suppressed sigh.
‘I cannot see what other protection your wife wants, John Diarmid, when you are here.’
‘But I am not likely to be here,’ he said, quietly. ‘I have many things on my hands. I am here to-day, and gone to-morrow. Poor thing! she is alone; her own friends are unlike her now. You saw her standing there——’
‘You have made a lady of her,’ said Miss Catherine, with a half-congratulation, half-reproach.
‘I have made her——’ he said, and paused. ‘No, I have made her nothing; nought of it is my doing. It is another than I that must bear the blame.’
‘Then there is blame to be borne?’ said Miss Catherine. ‘John Diarmid, I know nothing about your history since you’ve been away; but if you’ve been unkind to that poor lass, after making her marry you——’
‘My kinswoman,’ he said, with a faint touch of scorn not distinct enough to be called a sneer, ‘what I have done to her is of little consequence. It is God Who has been unkind to her. Don’t start as if I spoke blasphemy.Shecan see but one way of working——’
‘Then I suppose,’ said Miss Catherine, vehemently, ‘you’ve given up the trade of prophet for yourself? I thought as much—and left her, poor weak thing! to bear the burden. And what is your way of working now?’
‘You have no right to speak to me so,’ said Mr. John. ‘I have given up no trade; but I see it is by nations and peoples, and not by single men, that the reformation of the world is to be accomplished. Why should I explain my views to you? You would not understand me. What I wish is that you would protect her as a woman and my kinswoman might, when I am not here to do it.’
‘And why should you not be here to do your duty yourself, John Diarmid?’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Youhave done her all the honour a man can do a woman, and it’s your place to stand by her now.’
‘Honour!’ he said, and uttered an impatient, weary sigh. ‘It might have been better for her had she never come to such honour.’ Isabel, who had been listening eagerly, though she had not spoken, heard the exclamation which was muttered between his teeth, and in her hasty heart rebelling against Miss Catherine’s coldness, felt it was time for her to interfere.
‘Mr. John,’ she said, ‘I am not just Isabel, as when you knew me—but Mrs. Lothian. I will go to Ailie, and—take care of her, as much as I can, while you are away.’
Miss Catherine turned and looked upon her with almost as much consternation as if it had been Baby Margaret who spoke. And as for Mr. John, the strangest change came over his face. His large fiery eyes, in which excitement still lurked, though it was unlike the excitement of old, softened over with a glimmer as of tears. He went up to her, close to her, as if it would have given him pleasure to lay his hand on her head, or her shoulder—‘Is the child yours?’ he said. ‘Tell me its name.’
‘Margaret,’ said Isabel, under her breath.
‘I thought it was Margaret; God bless her!’ he said, with something between a sigh and a moan; and then waved his hand and left them hurriedly, going to the other side of the boat, and turning his face to the opposite shore. Thus he left them as abruptly as he had come to them, leaving Isabel’s offer of service totally unanswered. To him as well as to Miss Catherine it was as if a child had spoken; and Isabel’s voice was like her sister’s, and the deeper expression which had come into her face made the fundamental resemblance of the two faces more striking. It was to John Diarmid as if his dead love herself had risen up to offer her protection to the woman who was his wife.
‘So, Isabel, you’ve taken Ailie underyourprotection? You are a married woman, no doubt,’ said Miss Catherine, with emphatic scorn; ‘but you’ll not find it an easy task to introduce Mrs. Diarmid of Ardnamore in the county, you may take my word.’
‘Was I thinking of the county?’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, Miss Catherine, how can you be so kind and so cruel? I was thinking of her heart breaking, and her comfort lost——’
‘Her comfort lost?’ cried Miss Catherine. ‘The comforts of Janet Macfarlane’s cottage were you thinking of? I am not so high-flown. It is plenty, I hope, for Ailie to have gained her purpose, and got herself madelawful mistress of Ardnamore, without exacting protection, which means introductions, from either you or me.’
‘Oh! you cannot think that was her purpose,’ cried Isabel, fully roused; but by this time the pier was reached, and Jean Campbell’s anxious face was visible, looking out for the travellers, and all the familiar landscape opened before them.
She was very subdued and pensive when she re-entered her own home—the home which now was her only shelter upon earth—her first, and, as she thought, her last dwelling-place. Not positively sorrowful, but softly and full of musings and melancholy thoughts. When the child was put to bed she went and sat by the window, and watched the lingering night out, through the long, long twilight, and sweet wavering darkness lit with stars.
‘You’re sitting in the dark,’ said Jean Campbell, coming in. ‘Eh, Isabel, my dear, I canna bide to see ye sitting that idle, with nae light. You’re thinking, and that makes sorrow. I thought you were tired with your journey and in your bed, which would be a better place.’
‘No, it is not sorrow,’ said Isabel, softly; ‘it is the long day and the bonnie night. It is not dark yet, and I was doing nothing. Do you think she is looking well, now you’ve seen her? and you’ve noticed how she has grown?’
‘I saw the difference before you were out of the boat,’ said Jean. Bless her—the bonnie lamb! She’s like a rose, and so she has ay been since the day she came into this world. If ever there was a bairn that brought a blessing——’
‘You did not tell me when you wrote,’ said Isabel, hastily, ‘that Mr. John and Ailie had come to Ardnamore.’
Jean had given a perceptible start at the beginning of the sentence, as if she feared to be questioned; but recovered herself as soon as she heard these names. ‘I scarcely kent myself,’ she said; ‘I wouldna believe it till I saw Ailie at the kirk. Eh, she’s changed. Me that minds what she was——’
‘Does she look—as if she were happy?’ said Isabel, feeling her own voice flutter like a sigh through the dark.
‘She looks—like a spirit; no like a woman,’ said Jean; ‘ye should have seen the folk how struck they all were. Some thought she would be giving herself airs noo she’s come home to her ain, and some thought she wouldbe currying favour to make folk forget, and some——’
‘Oh, never mind what they thought,’ said Isabel, ‘tell me about herself.’
‘Eh, Isabel, you would have been struck! She was as white as a woman cut out of stane, and a’ dressed in white, which was awfu’ strange to see. She went no to the Ardnamore pew, but to her auld seat, and knelt down at the very prayers when a’body else was standing. But the strangest of all was the look in her e’en. You would have thought she had never seen one that was there in all her life before.’
‘But oh,’ cried Isabel, the tears coming to her eyes, ‘it was not pride.’
‘No, it wasna pride,’ said Jean; ‘there was some that said it was, but no one that looked at her close like me. I dinna like to say what I thought myself. There’s been mad folk in the Ardnamore family for many a generation; but then Ailie’s no one of the Ardnamore family except by her marriage, and that wouldna affect her; but——’
‘I am going to see her to-morrow,’ said Isabel.
‘I wouldna if I were you,’ said Jean. ‘Oh, Isabel, my bonnie woman! I canna bide to see you have any troke with such folk. And there’s strangers about the parish I’m no fond of. I heard yesterday of a man that spoke to young Mrs. Diarmid of Ardgartan, and gave her an awfu’ fright, and—unless Miss Catherine would take you in her carriage. And you in your deep crape! You canna go and pay visits so early. It wouldna be like you to show so little respect——’
‘You have some reason more than this,’ said Isabel, growing pale in the darkness, and faltering as she spoke, for her heart began to beat and took away her voice.
‘Me! what reason could I have?—but just your good, my lamb!’ said Jean, with nervous volubility; ‘but I’m no for you mixing yourself up with such folk; and I’m no for you walking about the country-side your lane. There’s a heap of Irish about, ay coming with thae weary steamers. You’re no to blame me, Isabel, if I am awfu’ anxious, more anxious in your condition than if you were a bairn of my own——’
‘But I see you have another reason,’ said Isabel; ‘am I such a bairn or such a fool that you will not tell me? But I am going to see Ailie to-morrow, whatever happens; if you like you can come with me yourself.’
‘Na, it’s no my place, as if I were Mrs. Lothian’s equal,’ said Jean, standing irresolute by the table, tracing a pattern on the carpet with her foot. Little Margaret woke at the moment, which was a godsend to her. She had to be patted, and rocked, and sung to, ere she would go to sleep again. Jean escaped undercover of this interposition; but her face was full of care when she brought in the candles, flashing the light in Baby Margaret’s eyes, who immediately opened those dark orbs wide, and made herself very broad awake, and had to be played with for ever so long before she would consent to sleep again. And Isabel was tired, and not to be disturbed with agitating news, and ‘put off her night’s rest.’ Besides, what good would it do to tell her? But Jean’s heart was heavy with thoughts of what might be coming, when she bade her stepdaughter good night.
Thenext day Isabel was too much occupied with her project of visiting Ailie at Ardnamore to be open to any argument or dissuasion. She put aside her stepmother’s attempts to move her, with soft obstinacy. ‘She was never a friend of yours that you should be so keen about her now,’ said Jean.
‘She was more to me than you think,’ said Isabel; and her stepmother’s amazement was great.
‘She was liker Margret than you; but far, far different from Margret,’ Jean resumed, after a pause; ‘and you but a gay heedless lassie, no thinking of such things.’
‘But I tell you she was more to me than you thought,’ said Isabel.
This was all that Jean could extract from her; and it gave rise to many marvels in the good woman’s mind and serious anxiety, which she could not express. ‘Eh, if Ailie had anything to do with that English lad,’ was the thought that passed through her mind; ‘eh, if she should be in league with him now!’ But she could not surmount her hesitation about mentioning Stapylton’s name.
Isabel had to leave her child behind, which was a novel thing to her, and very strange it felt to walk away alone through the village and down the other side of the Loch towards the steep lane that led to Ardnamore. When she got to the gate, it was the height of the warm languorous afternoon, and the air and the weariness had soothed her, and brought a languorous feeling into her heart. She was not excited about Ailie, poor girl! Isabel, in her own heart, had made out a story for Ailie, setting her down as a neglected, melancholy wife, with a strange past behind her and a mysterious future before, no doubt; and yet not so much lifted beyond the range of ordinary humanity as she had been in the old days.She expected to be shown into the old-fashioned drawing-room, with its bright windows looking out on the Loch, and to be joined by the mistress of the house, when she had waited a while, and to see Ailie’s attempt to look contented, and to bear herself like the other ladies. As she approached the house, the garden and everything around looked so everyday and ordinary, that all that was extraordinary in Ailie’s story gradually died out of her visitor’s mind. She would be awkward, perhaps, in her new position; she might not even know how to receive Isabel’s visit; but, still, no doubt three years of absence and travel had improved her. And Isabel felt more and more as if she were paying an ordinary visit, when the maid, who was just like other maids, let her into the house, which was precisely like other houses. The deerskin mats at the door, the antlers in the hall, the hats and plaids hanging about, each took something from her interest. She began to forget Ailie, and think only of Mrs. Diarmid of Ardnamore.
The drawing-room was a large, light room, rather low in the roof, furnished with old-fashioned spindle-legged furniture, gilt and painted, and covered with white covers, to preserve the fading damask below. Isabel went in with a little gentle curiosity, seeing no one. She moved a few steps into the room, her eye catching the Indian inlaid work of a set of writing things upon a table, but not perceiving in the whiteness of the room a white figure seated just within the curtains at the bay window, half hidden in the recess. Even when she did perceive her, Isabel stood uncertain, hesitating whether to go forward or to wait quietly apart till Ailie should make her appearance. For surely this was not Ailie—it must be some visitor, some caller—— But a strange sense of recognition stole over her after the first start. She stood in her intense blackness and gazed at the unknown being whose appearance was such a contrast to her own; and then there came at last a faint sound of a voice: ‘Is it you, Isabel?’
‘Oh, is it you, Ailie?’ she cried, and went up to her with something of her old impetuous manner. Yes, it was Ailie, and yet as unlike Ailie as fancy could have imagined. She was sitting against the wall with no appearance of any occupation—her listless hands lying in her lap. She was dressed in dead white, not light muslin, but opaque white stuff, loosely made, or else hanging loosely upon her worn figure. Her face was almost as white as her gown, her blue eyes were dilated and wandering, her fair hair, which once had so much pale gold in it, had lost its lustre. She was like marble, but yet she was not like death. Something of movement, a thrill of wavering agitation and life, was about her, although she sat as still as if, like the Lady in ‘Comus,’ she had been bound by enchantment into her chair.
‘I did not see you when I came in,’ said Isabel. ‘I only heard of it yesterday; and so you’ve come home?’
‘Aye—I’ve come home.’
‘And you’ve seen your own people again after all,’ said Isabel, trying to adopt a tone of congratulation.
‘Aye—I’ve seen my own folk.’
‘And I am very glad you are back,’ said Isabel, ‘home is the best. But I never heard till yesterday, when I came back too. How glad they would all be! And I hope you were glad too—I hope you were pleased yourself?’
Ailie made no answer. She turned her head half away, and gazed again over the Loch. A little almost imperceptible nod of her head was the only indication she gave of having heard. And Isabel began to grow nervous in spite of herself.
‘Will you not speak to me, Ailie? are you not pleased to see me? I thought you would be pleased—and I would not lose a day. And you must have heard,’ said Isabel, a little affronted as well as amazed at the indifference shown her, and instinctively producing her highest claim to consideration, ‘what dreadful trouble I have had since you went away.’
The word seemed to catch Ailie’s ear without any that followed or preceded it. ‘Trouble!’ she said vaguely, ‘what can your trouble be in comparison with mine?’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ cried Isabel, with violent youthful compunction, ‘you know I have heard nothing. Oh, Ailie, don’t sit there and look so sad—tell me about it—was it your child?’
Ailie turned upon her her great wandering, dilated eyes: ‘My child?’
‘I did not know,’ said Isabel, almost crying, ‘I thought you might have lost—a child—when you said your trouble was worse than mine.’
‘My trouble is worse than any trouble on earth,’ said Ailie; ‘and oh to come back here to look on the same place night and day as I knew in my dreams. I think my heart will burst—it’s broken long, long ago,’ she added, turning away from Isabel, with a sudden pathos in her voice. It seemed a confession of unhappiness so open and undisguised, that Isabel was driven to her wits’ end, not knowing what to do or say.
‘Oh, Ailie!’ she said—‘oh, Ailie, you should not say that now—I told you, you should not marry him——’
‘Marry him!’ said Ailie, with a faint wonder stealingover her face. ‘We are meaning different things, you and me. Aye—I thought I was wedded to the Lord; I thought He was sending me forth to do His will. Oh, woman! what is your bairn or your man to that? And it was not that I deceived myself,’ she continued, rising into vehemence; ‘I never deceived myself. There was His promise, clear as the sun in the skies. Could I no see all the wonders of the latter days? I saw them in myself; I spoke in power; I rose up off my bed that might have been my dying bed—and a’ to be betrayed, and casten down, and deceived!’
‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, wringing her hands, ‘what are you speaking of—what do you mean?’
For the moment Ailie made no answer. She never turned her head to one side or the other—but gazed before her into the air, seeing nothing. ‘Your Margret was right,’ she said, after a pause. ‘It’s sweetest to die—oh, it’s fine to die. Christ died, Isabel. We say it’s for us you know, and so it is for us, but He had to do it. Nae miracle saved Him; that’s what your Margret said.’
‘But He saved you,’ said Isabel, in her awe, under her breath.
At these words Ailie burst into a few sudden, violent tears—a momentary paroxysm which she seemed totally incapable of controlling. ‘Whiles I think it was some devil,’ she said.
‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, ‘this is not you that is speaking—not you that was always so good!’
‘That is another thing,’ said Ailie, without any apparent sense of reproof, ‘whiles that is what I think; that it’s no me, but some ill spirit in me. And though I think I’m sitting here, I may be with your Margret in Heaven, throwing my gold crown before His feet. Oh, if it was but that! Sometimes at night the Lord sends such thoughts like dew—if it is the Lord. But then comes the awfu’ morning, Isabel Diarmid, and I open my eyes, and my heart cries out—He has broken His word.’
‘Ailie! Ailie!’
‘Oh, dinna speak! He has broken His word. I gave up all for it—all! I thought first I was to serve Him my own way, a single lass. But, Isabel, you mind? I wouldna maintain my way in the face of His word. I gave up all! And he wiled me out to the world with false hopes. And He’s broken His own word. He’s done nought—nought—nought, that He said!’
‘Are ye speaking of Mr. John?’ said Isabel, driven to her wits’ end. ‘Oh, Ailie, is it him you mean?’
‘I mean the Lord,’ said Ailie, folding her hands together, and pressing them to her breast.
And then there was a pause. Isabel, to whom this sounded like blasphemy, drew a step or two apart, full of agitation and alarm. But Ailie was not excited. She did not even change her attitude, but sat still with her eyes vaguely fixed on the world without, and the Loch which lay so bright in the sunshine. She gazed, but she saw nothing—her mind’s eye was turned inward; and to the young creature full of life, and all its movements, who stood by her, this abstracted woman was a marvel past all comprehension. Was she unhappy in her home? was it in the want of love that had frozen her? was it grief or loss, or some bereavement of which Isabel knew nothing? She broke the silence at last with timid inquiries, which sounded like a prayer.
‘But, Ailie,’ she asked, faltering at every word, ‘you have had no grief—in your life? You have still your husband? There has been no—death—nor—trouble? You’ve been—happy?—as much as folk are in this world?’
‘Happy!’ It did not sound like an answer, but only like an echo of the other voice, and another pause followed. ‘It was God’s will I sought and nothing else,’ she said at last. ‘Was it me to think of marrying or giving in marriage? It was my meat and my drink to do His will. Oh, Isabel Diarmid! it’s your man and your bairn you think of—but no me. What I was thinking on was a world lying in darkness—a’ bonnie and bright outside—likethat—and a’ miserable and perishing within—and He promised He would mend it a’. Go forth and preach, He said, and I’ll come again and the holy angels, and bring in a new Heaven and a new earth. And there was the word in my ain mouth for a testimony. What was I that I should speak in power if it hadna been Him that did it?—and now all my hope is gone. The Lord Himself has broken His word. What do I care if the earth should tumble to pieces this moment! The minister is but dead, Isabel, and you’ll find him in Heaven; but I’m disappointed in my God,’ cried Ailie, suddenly hiding her face in her hands; ‘and Him I’ll never find again, neither in Heaven nor earth.’
This tragical outcry was so bitter and full of anguish, that Isabel stopped short in the protestations that rose to her lips. And yet the very thought of thus reproaching God made her tremble, as if it must bring down fire from Heaven. ‘Oh, Ailie,’ she faltered, ‘it is not for me to teach you; but oh, I dare not stand and hear you judging God!’
A low moan came from Ailie’s breast. She shook her head sadly. Her great eyes turned to Isabel’s for a moment with the anguish of a dumb creature in pain.She was far beyond tears. ‘There’s nae power nor voice in me now,’ she said, ‘to teach or to speak. He’s taken His gifts away, as well as the hope. I canna burst out and cry, “Oh, why tarry the wheels of His chariot?” It’s all gone—all gone! spirit, and power, and life, and hope!’
Isabel was too much bewildered and overwhelmed to reply. ‘Oh, Ailie, have you no child?’ she cried, at last finding no other words that would come.
She had but asked the question, when the door opened, and Mr. John came suddenly in. When he saw Isabel he paused, and the same softened look which had come over his face in the steamer at the sight of her again gleamed over it.
‘You have come to see her?’ he said, and looked from the young widow in her deep mourning to his marble-white wife in her snowy cold dress with the strangest look of comparison. It seemed to the man as if the fate that might have been his and that which was really his thus stood together in visible contact. Isabel had grown more and more like her sister without knowing it. And now when her heart was so touched with sorrow, and wonder, and compassion, and all the depths of her nature moving in her eyes, it might have been Margaret herself who stood there, looking with infinite pity, striving vainly to understand the woman who was John Diarmid’s wife.
‘She is changed,’ he said, following with his eyes Isabel’s anxious look—‘sadly changed. It is because she will look at things only in one way. We were mistaken, I think. The world itself is changed, though so few can see it. It is not by converting a single soul here and there, but by moving nations that God’s work is to be done. Ailie, I am going away.’
‘Going: where to?’ she said, with a momentary glance into his face; ‘to take the sword like them that shall perish by the sword? That’s no His command. I’m a poor creature—a miserable creature—He’s cast me off, and broken His word to me; but I’ll no forsake Him. No; there’s no word of power put into my mouth to speak to you, John Diarmid, not any word of power, but them that take the sword shall perish by the sword. He said it with His own lips.’
‘Amen!’ said Mr. John; ‘it matters little. What is life to you or me that I should care to preserve it? As long as there is a race oppressed, so long is God’s word hindered in this world. I must go to my work—the time of patience and quiet is past.’
‘Oh, Mr. John!’ cried Isabel, ‘you will never go and leave her alone like this?’
He turned to her with once more that softened look. ‘Perhaps I would not,’ he said, ‘if I could do her good. But no, Isabel. We have wrenched ourselves out of the common soil, she and I, and we cannot take root again. I must go to do what’s left me to do. We were fools, and took God at His word, without thinking that the paths must be made straight and the rough places smooth. I must go and work as I can—and she—will die.’
He said this so low that Isabel hoped she alone heard it; and she could not restrain a cry of wonder, and horror, and protestation.
‘Aye!’ said Ailie from her window, ‘I will die, if I can. Oh, how easy it will be now, and sweet! When I think how I vexed Margret—and now she’s in the secret, and knows all; and I’m fighting with my own heart, and cast off by my God. John Diarmid, maybe I’ll be gone before you come back.’
‘I would not hinder you, Ailie!’ he said, going up to her with sudden emotion and taking her listless white hands into his. ‘No, though you will reproach me before God, I would not keep you back—now when things have come so far, that is best.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s best. All’s gone from me—all’s gone! I’m of no use but to die. They say when the seed dies in the ground—— Oh, John Diarmid! if you’ll grant it was a lying spirit, and no a word from the Lord, I think I could die content.’
He did not make any answer, but stood before her holding her hands, gazing down with a certain anguish upon the white face from which all the tints of life had altogether died away.
‘Here’s Isabel,’ she went on, now for the first time rousing from her blank contemplation of the world around, and fixing her eyes on his face, ‘hersister. It is as if it were Margret come herself, out of Heaven, out of her grave, to hear you. John Diarmid, it was never love for me, I know. Will you tell me again beforeher; was it the word of the Lord you brought me yon night, and no just the madness in your heart?’
Still he made her no answer, but stood and held her shadowy hand and gazed down into her face.
‘He said I was to wed him, Isabel, for it was the word of the Lord,’ cried Ailie, rising into excitement. ‘If he’ll answer me this I want no more on earth. If it was but his madness, and no the word of the Spirit, then I could lie down at my Lord’s feet and say we’ve sinned. Oh, can you no see the difference? Say we’ve sinned, it’s easy, easy! But say thou hast tempted me and made me fall; it’s bitterer than death.’
Isabel, with the tears streaming down her cheek, drew near at this passionate appeal. She did not understand what it meant, nor what she was called upon to do. But her mediation was asked for, and she answered the call by instinct. She laid her hand upon Mr. John’s arm and looked up with beseeching eyes in his face. ‘Oh, if you can ease her mind!’ cried Isabel, not knowing what she asked.
‘Would you have me say I had spoken a lie in the Lord’s name?’ he cried, and let his wife’s hands fall, turning away from them with the old fiery glow blazing up in his eyes.
Then at once, and as by a spell, Ailie fell into the stillness and apathy from which she had been momentarily roused. Her husband turned away and went to another window to read his letters, leaving her relapsed into her old attitude, her hands again crossed in her lap, her eyes gazing out upon the bright, unvarying landscape. Isabel stood by her almost as motionless as she, looking at her with an anxiety which seemed to deprive her of all power of speech. What could she say? What was there in Heaven or earth that could comfort this forlorn creature? How hopeless she looked, abstracted from all the life that surrounded her! Mr. John returned to them before Isabel could find a word to say. He went forward to his wife and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
‘Farewell, Ailie,’ he said; ‘if I should, as you say, perish by the sword, this will be the end of all between us—and, perhaps, it would be best for you.’
‘Farewell,’ she said, dreamily; ‘farewell!’ It seemed at first as if she was about to let him go without even a look. But at last a little stir of life moved her. ‘We’ve been no blessing to each other,’ she said; ‘neither you to me, nor I to you. And my heart’s dead and the Spirit gone from me; but you were never an ill man to me, John Diarmid. It’s right Isabel should know. The will o’ the Lord—if it was the will o’ the Lord—hasna been blessed to you or to me. But you were never ill to me; you would have been good to me if——’
‘If——’ said Mr. John. ‘We will enter into that subject no more. But farewell, Ailie. I think we will never meet in this world again.’ Then he turned to Isabel and took both her hands into his. ‘I do not care for my life,’ he said, ‘no more than she does. It is for God’s service to do what He likes with. But so long as she lives will you be good to her? Neither for her sake nor mine, but for——’
‘O, hush!’ cried Isabel, ‘there should be no other name spoken of here. Why should you go away? Ailie,you are his wife, tell him to stay. And you are not old that you should part. Oh, Mr. John, look at me! Is it well to be alone in the world at my age, and at her age? Stay and take care of her yourself. She is your wife. Ailie, take his hand and make him stay!’
She stood impetuous between the two, holding a hand of each, trying, with her young energy, to draw the sombre, passionate, disappointed man and the abstracted, visionary wife to each other.
‘God will not bless you if you part,’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, look at me that am a widow! What would I give to have my good man to be my help and protection? Ailie, speak to him, and he will stay.’
Mr. John was the first to free himself from her hand.
‘I cannot stay,’ he said, ‘not even if she wanted me as much as now she wants to be free of me. I have my use in the world, though not the use I once thought. Farewell! the chances are I will never see Loch Diarmid again.’
‘Is he gone?’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, Ailie, look out after him, or kiss your hand to him. Oh, give him one look before he goes, as if you were a living woman, and no made of stone!’
And in her horror she rushed herself into the recess of the window, and waved her hand to him as he went away. Mr. John turned round before the door of his father’s house, which he was leaving, as he believed for ever. A strange smile came over his face. The woman whom in his madness he had compelled to marry him was there like a white vision, making no sign. But the other tearful face, full of emotion, was turned towards him; and Isabel, who had almost hated him for half her life, waved her hand in the compunction of her mind. ‘My Margaret!’ he said, softly to himself; and thus turned and disappeared out of the quiet world in which he was unfit to live.
‘He is gone! Oh, Ailie, he is gone!’ said Isabel, coming back from the window with a sob.
‘Aye, he’s gone!’ said Ailie; ‘and you are more moved than his wife. I know what you would say, Isabel, but it’s useless—useless! What is man to me? All that I ever was, all that I wanted, was to be the handmaid of the Lord.’
‘But you are married tohim!’ cried Isabel; ‘you are his wife; you should go with him, or he should stay with you. Oh, Ailie, if it is not too late——!’
‘There’s nae marrying, nor giving in marriage in Heaven,’ said Ailie. ‘If there is a Heaven—if it’s no just a delusion like the rest. But what can I do? I’m willing to come to an end, and be done with all mannerof life, if that’s the Lord’s will. Asking and praying and wishing for one thing more than another has gone clean out of my heart.’
‘And you have not a thought for him, the moment he has said farewell to you—not a tear. Oh, Ailie!’ cried Isabel, in her impetuosity, ‘are you made of stone?’
‘My heart’s dead,’ she said; and then relapsed into silence, which the hasty, eager creature beside her could not break.
To leave her thus in her apathy seemed impossible to Isabel, and it was equally impossible to stay and devote herself to Ailie’s solace, for Ailie did not seem susceptible of any solace. She was lost in her own thoughts. Before Isabel’s heart had ceased to throb with agitation and excitement, Ailie had settled back into the profoundest stillness, saying nothing to her visitor, taking no notice even of her presence. And there was nothing left for it but to leave her to herself—to the silence she preferred.
Isabel had just made up her mind to do this when the door opened again, this time with more sound and commotion, and Ailie’s mother entered the room. She came forward briskly, bringing the ordinary out-of-door life into the mysterious atmosphere, though a certain appearance of anxiety about her eyes betrayed that even Janet was disturbed by a state of affairs so much different from her hopes.
‘Eh, Mrs. Lothian, I’m glad to see you,’ she said, ‘but will you no sit down? My daughter is so taken up about parting with Ardnamore that she’s no as thoughtful as she should be. Ailie, my dear, I hope you’ve thanked Mrs. Lothian for coming to see you. It’s a real attention, and her no in the way of visiting; but you were ay friends. Will you no sit down?’
‘I am going away,’ said Isabel, with a little dignity. ‘I have been here a long time. If there is anything I can do for Ailie, or anything Miss Catherine can do, if you will let us know——’
‘Miss Catherine, no doubt, will come and see her,’ said Janet; ‘she’s her ain relation. Na, there’s nothing anybody can do. She’s in her ain house, and a pleasant house it is. But Mrs. Diarmid will ay be glad to see her friends. You see she’s taken up just at this moment with her husband going away,’ said the dauntless old woman, confronting Isabel bravely, with a look which defied criticism. Isabel, however, had been too much moved by the interview to have any regard for appearances. She turned round upon the watchful mother as soon as the door of the room closed upon them.
‘Oh, tell me,’ she said, ‘has she been long like this?Is she always like this? Is there nothing that can be done?’
‘Like what, Mistress Lothian?’ said the old woman, looking direct into Isabel’s eyes.
And then there was a dead pause. Janet’s forehead had a contraction in it which only anxiety could have made so distinctly visible among the native wrinkles. The ruddy old cheek was blanched out of its usual wholesome wintry colour; but she stood by the door of the room in which her daughter sat, like a sentinel, and defied the world.
‘I mean—oh, how can you ask me?—who can see her, and not feel their hearts break?’ cried Isabel. ‘Will it always be like this?’
‘I dinna take your meaning,’ said Janet, grimly. ‘Ardnamore’s away on business, and Mrs. Diarmid is, maybe, no so cheerful as she might be. And I wouldna say but she’s a wee tired with her journey. I think ye never were abroad? It’s more fashious than just going to London. And when ye’ve been travelling like that, day and night, ye want rest.’
Isabel’s innocent mind was confused by this view of the matter. ‘Then, do you think, after all, that she’s not unhappy?’ she asked.
‘Unhappy!’ cried the old woman, ‘and her a good man, and a comfortable house, and well thought on, and everything that heart could desire!’
She had raised her voice, and the words seemed to ring through the mysterious, silent house. Isabel, who was too inexperienced to avoid yielding a bewildered assent to any strenuous assertion, was so moved by this that she went away wondering, asking herself whether she could be mistaken. But as soon as the door had closed upon her poor Janet’s strength broke down. She threw her apron over her head, and leaned against the wall, silent yet convulsed by a momentary struggle. ‘But I’ll never let on to the world,’ the old woman said to herself, as she came out from under that veil with a fiery sparkle in her worn, old eyes. Poor Ailie had at least one defender ready to stand by her to the death.