There is something in the pang of self-pity in a young mind which is more poignant, and yet more sweet, than any other sorrow. There is nothing so ready to bring the tears that give relief. They would talk about her, all the kind poor people; not the ladies and the gentlemen, perhaps, who went to the English chapel, and of whom Jean was so fond, but a great many people in the high town and the “laigh toun” whom Margaret knew intimately, and the family in the Manse, Dr. Burnside and his wife and Randal. Randal had been kind too. How he had run for the doctor that day, though it was of no use! and how many things he had done after, not stopping, Margaret thought, to talk to her, but always doing what was most wanted! Ah!—this thought brought her to the other end of the circle again with a spring. It was always herself, Margaret remembered, that Rob had thought of, always her first. She began to go over all the course of events as the carriage rolled on, too quickly now, to Earl’s-hall. Had she forgotten, she asked herself, that time when he came to her father’s aid on the church-yard path—how careful he had been of the old man—and how much trouble he had taken to please him afterward? Thinking of her own troubles, she had forgotten half that Rob had done. How kind he had been! and Sir Ludovic had liked him—he had got to be fond of him; surely hehad been fond of him! He had allowed her to be with Rob, drawing, talking, as much as she pleased. He had never said “You must give up Rob Glen.” Perhaps, indeed,thatwas what her father meant. What did it matter about being what people called a gentleman? Sir Claude was all that; but except when he sent a servant to ask how Sir Ludovic was, what had he ever done, though Grace said he was so kind? The great people had all been the same. They had sent a servant; they had sent their carriages to the funeral. But Rob had held up her father when he stumbled, and had come to talk to him and amuse him, and had made a picture of him which was more to Margaret than all the National Gallery. Oh, that was what it was to be kind! The carriage heaving horribly as it turned into the rut inside the gate, stopped Margaret in the full current of these thoughts. But they were a great support to her in the prospect that lay before her, the farewell scene that she knew she would have to go through, when he would be so sorry, and she would not know what to say.
The Leslies, like so many kind people, dined earlier than usual on Sundays. They dined at five, to the great discomfort of the party who had lunched with Sir Claude, and who arrived just in time for this second meal. Mr. Aubrey Bellingham thought it was done in deference to the national desire to be uncomfortable on Sunday, and submitted with a shrug of his shoulders; but Mrs. Bellingham, having more right to express an opinion, did so frankly, and with much indignation. She said:
“I know it’s Mary’s way in Edinburgh; and there may be excuses where there is a young family, and servants have to be considered. Of course they are not rich, and servants insist on being considered when they know they have you in their power; but at Earl’s-hall, and when we are here! I think it is very unnecessary. Last Sunday we were not thinking of dinner, and I am sure I cannot tell you when we had it; but just when people are recovering their spirits, and when a cheerful meal is your best restorative! It may be very good of Mary to consider her servants, but I must say she might just as well, for once in a way, have considered you and me.”
“But, dearest Jean! dear Mary is the most unselfish! She does not mind any inconvenience—”
“Oh, inconvenience! don’t speak to me—shelikesit!” cried Mrs. Jean, indignant. “She is just the kind of woman that relishes a tea-dinner, and all that sort of thing; and if she can make out that she saves sixpence, what a thing that is! And Ludovic just lets her do what she likes. She is getting him into all her huggermugger ways. If a woman has not more self-respect, she ought, at least, to have some respect for her husband. But everything is made to give in to the children and the servants, in that house. I could have put up with it, not that I ever like it, in Edinburgh, for there one knows what one has to expect. But here, where Bell and John were so used to my father—and whenweare in the house, and without even asking my opinion, and the excellent luncheon we have just had! she might have thought of Aubrey, who is not accustomed to any nonsense of consideration for servants; but I always said, though she is a good enough wife to Ludovic, that she was a woman of no perception,” Mrs. Bellingham said.
After this little storm, the untimely dinner was marred by some sulkiness on Jean’s part, as was perhaps natural. And though Aubrey made himself very agreeable, with the most noble and Christian forgiveness of injuries, devoting himself to little Effie, whom he regaled with historiettes of a less piquant description than those of hisdébut, yet there was a general irritability about the simple meal which, it must be allowed, often attends that well-meant expedient for the keeping of Sunday. The company dispersed early, flocking off to their rooms, where Mrs. Bellingham, with her feet up, instructed her maid as to her packing, and once more turned over the packet of lace which had fallen to her share. Margaret, when she had seen the rest of the party go away, fled too, to escape another interview with her brother, who looked, she thought, as if meditating a renewal of his remonstrances, and, having watched her opportunity, stole softly down-stairs. Even Bell was still busy after the dinner. Her chair stood in the court outside the door, but she had not yet come out to enjoy her favorite seat. And Bell’s heart was so heavy that her work went but slowly. She had no thought of anything but Miss Margaret, who to-morrow was to be taken away.
Margaret stole out like one who had learned that she was guilty. Never before had she emerged so stealthily from the shadow of the old house. She did not go the usual way, to run the risk of being seen, but crept round by the garden-wall, as she had done sometimes when returning, when Rob was with her. There was a feeble attempt at a sunset, though the sun had not shone all day, and consequently had no right to his usual pomps, but in the west there was a redness breaking through the gray, which brightened the face of the country, and changed the character of the landscape. Under the trees it fell like lamps of rich gold, escaping here and there through broken openings in the clouds, and warming the wood with gleams of color which had looked so dark and wind-scathed in the morning. Margaret went softly, threading through the colonnades of the great fir trunks, and sat down on the little mossy knoll under the silver-fir. She placed herself so that she could not be seen from the house, but yet could spy through the branches the approach of any danger from that side.
It was the first time she had been first at the place of meeting, and her heart beat as she sat and waited. She, who had shrunk from the prospect of this meeting, she became alarmed now lest he should not come, and longed for him with a kind of sick anxiety. Oh that he would come, that she might get it over! She did not know what it was to be, but instinctively felt that there must be something painful in this last meeting. The last! She would not be sorry to have met, perhaps, when she was away and had no longer any chance of seeing him. She would understand better what he meant, and what she herself meant; and there is something which subdues the pride in thus waiting for one who does not come. She did not seem so sure that it was he who cared, that it was he only who would break his heart, as she sat there alone;and she had almost lost herself in fancies more bitter than any she had yet known—in dreamy realization of her loneliness and a sense that no one, perhaps, would care much when she went away. Who did care? Not Ludovic, who wished her to do well, but would not have suffered much had Margaret died with her father; nor his wife, who was very kind, but had so many girls of her own; nor Effie, though she would cry and think she was sorry. Nobody would care; and Jean and Grace would often find her a trouble; and nobody in the world belonged to Margaret, cared for her above everything else, was happy when she was happy, and grieved when she was sorry;—nobody—except, perhaps, him alone.
“Margaret!” A low eager voice that seemed the very essence of subdued delight, trembling with satisfaction and happiness, and he suddenly made a spring to her side from under the trees, through which he had been threading his way to the place of meeting. He threw himself on his knees by her, and seized and kissed her hands a hundred times. “You here before me! waiting forme! To think I should have lost a moment of the little time I may have you! I shall never forgive myself; but I thought it was too early for you, even now.”
“Oh, I have not been waiting long,” she said. “It was because we dined so early; and then they were all—tired.”
“Except my Margaret. God bless my Margaret, that came out and took the trouble to wait for me! How often I have sat here and watched for the sweep of your dress at the corner of the house, for the least sign of you! And to think thatyoushould have been first to-night, and waiting—”
“Why should not I wait,” she said, “as well as you? And to-morrow I am going away.”
“To-morrow!” he cried, in a voice of despair. “How am I to endure it? how am I to go on without you? I am afraid to think of it, my darling. Margaret! Margaret! what are you going to say to me to give me strength to get through to-morrow, and all the days after it, till we meet again?”
Now it has come! said Margaret to herself; and she felt with astonishment that the emergency seemed to give her possession of her faculties.
“I do not know,” she said, steadily, “what you want me to do or say. I shall be very sorry to go away and to—part from you. But what can I do? My sisters have the right to do what they think proper with me; and I think I ought, too, to go and see my own house. I would like to take Bell or somebody, but they will not let me. And now that Ludovic is here and his family, it is natural that I should go away.”
“Yes; but first say something to comfort me, Margaret. I did not suppose you could stay here forever: but tell me you love me, and will be faithful to me. Tell me when I may come after you?”
“Come after me?” she exclaimed, with a certain dismay.
“Did you not think I would come after you? Did you think I could stay in one country while you were in another— I, who have had the happiness of seeing you every day? But it is better this should end, though it is like to break my heart, for we should have lost time, and been content just with seeing each other; and now, Margaret, my darling, we must settle something. Tell me what I may do? To wait till you are of age is a lifetime. If I come to England after you in about three months, when you are in your own house, will you receive me and tell your sisters what I am to you? Margaret! you are not frightened, darling? You did not think I would let my love go away and carry my heart with her without settling something? You could not have been so cruel!”
“I do not want to be cruel,” she said; “but oh! wouldn’t it do to wait—to wait a little? It is only three years; I am very near eighteen. I shall be eighteen in November; and three years go so quickly. Why do you look at me like that? I am not unkind. It is only that I think; it is only that—oh! I am sure that would be the best!”
“Three years!” he said; “you might as well bid me wait thirty years. How can I be sure you will not forgetmelong before three years are out? What! live without knowing anything of you—without seeing you, for three centuries—it would be all the same. Tell me to go out into St. Andrew’s Bay in a storm, and be cast away on the rocks—tell me to drown myself in the Eden—as you please, Margaret! I think it is in me to do it if you bid me; but wait for three years and never see you—never know what you are thinking, never hear the sound of your voice? I had rather go and hang myself at once!” cried Rob. He was walking up and down under the shadow of the trees. He was very much excited. After coming so far, after holding her in his hand, as he thought, was he going to lose her at the last?
“I did not mean that”—she stood leaning against the fir, very much troubled—“what can I do? Oh, what am I to do?”
“You must not ask me to be content without you,” he said, “for I cannot— I cannot. It is not possible for me to give you up and live without you now. If you had sent me away at the very first, perhaps— But after all that has passed, Margaret, after feeling that you were mine, to ask me to go away and give you up—now!”
“I did not say give me up; I said—”
“You said three years, darling—three lifetimes; you could not mean anything so dreadful! You would not kill me, would you? It is like taking my heart out of my breast. What good would there be in the world for me? What could I do? What would I be fit for? Margaret, Margaret! you could not have the heart to treat me so!”
“What can I do?” she said, trembling. “Ludovic has found out about you, and he asked me to give you up. I did not mean to tell you, but I cannot help it. He says they will never, never consent. And what amIto do? How can I fight with them? I said I would not give you up. I said it would break your heart.”
“And so it would, my darling!” he cried, coming to her side, putting his arm round her; “and, oh, my Margaret, yours too!”
Margaret made no reply to this. She withdrew the least little step—but how could she hurt his feelings?
“That was why I said three years,” she said;“three years is not so very long. Poor Jeanie in the house, did you ever see Jeanie? She is—very fond of some one; and she has not heard of him at all or seen him, for two years. It would pass very fast. You would become a great painter—and then; but Jeanie does not know if she will ever see him again; and his name is Rob, too, like you.”
“What has Jeanie to do with it?” he cried, with a look of dismay. Then he caught her arm and drew her away. “There is some one coming from the house; let us not wait here, but come down the other side of the wood. I must not be interrupted now. I have a great deal more to say to you, Margaret, my Margaret, this last night before we part.”
Robhad a great deal to say, but it was chiefly repetition of what he had said before. He drew her arm within his, and they wandered down by the edge of the wood and into the fields. That last little accidental outbreak of sunshine was over, and all once more was grayness and monotones. There was nobody about; the evening was not tempting enough to bring out walkers. In the kirktown people were out “about the doors,” sitting on the kirk steps, keeping up a confused little hum of conversation, quieter than usual as suited the Sabbath night; and the people who had gardens strolled about them in domestic stillness, and commented upon the coming apples; but it was not the fashion in Stratheden to take walks on Sunday evening. The fields were very silent and still; and so absorbed were the two in their conversation that they wandered far out of the woods of Earl’s-hall, and were skirting the fields about the farm before they were aware. Rob’s plan was to go to London, to make what progress he could with his drawing, to study and work, and achieve success; the last went without saying. Margaret was as certain of it as that the sun would rise to-morrow. But she was not equally certain of the other part of the programme, which was that he should go to the Grange—her house where she was to live—and be produced there as her betrothed husband, and introduced to her sisters.
This prospect alarmed her more than she could say. She did not want him to come to the Grange. She did not know what to say about writing to him. The idea brought a hot blush to her face. Margaret was not quite sure that she could write a letter that she would like Rob Glen to see. He was very clever, and she did not think she could write a very pretty letter. In short, she was unpractical and unmanageable to the last degree, and Rob had some excuse for being impatient. She had no idea what could be done, except that she might perhaps come to Earl’s-hall and see him there, and that three years was not so very long. He lost himself in arguments, in eloquent appeals to her; and she had nothing very eloquent to say in return. After a while she was silenced, and made very little answer at all, but walked along by his side demurely, with her thick gauze veil drooping over her face, and heard all he had to say, saying yes now and then, and sometimes no. Her position was very simple; and though he proved to her that it was untenable by a hundred arguments, and showed her that some other plan was necessary, he did not drive Margaret out of it.
What could she do? she asked, wringing her hands. Ludovic was against them, and Jean would be much more against them. She dared not let Jean know. Even her brother himself had said that Jean must not know. And, to tell the truth, Rob himself was of the opinion that it would be better to keep this secret from Mrs. Bellingham; but yet he thought he might at least be allowed to visit at the Grange, as an old friend, if nothing more. They got through a series of by-ways into the field path, where their first meeting had been, and Rob was trying, for the hundredth time, to obtain some promise of intercourse from Margaret, when suddenly some one coming behind them laid a hand upon a shoulder of each. Rob gave a violent start and turned round, while Margaret, with a little cry, shrank back into the shadow of the hedge-row.
“My certy!” said the intruder; “this is a fine occupation, Rob, my man, for a Sabbath nicht!” And then she, too, gave a cry of surprise, more pretended than real, but in which there was a little genuine fright. “Eh, bless me, it’s Miss Margret, and so far from hame!” she cried.
“Mother! what areyoudoing here?” cried Rob. But as for Margaret she was relieved. She had thought nothing less for the moment than that Jean was upon her, or, at the very least, Bell coming out to seek and bring her back. Mrs. Glen was not a person of whom she stood in any fear, and she would not tell or interfere to let Jean know, for Rob’s sake. So that Margaret turned round from the hedge-row with a relieved soul, and said,
“Oh, is it you, Mrs. Glen?” with a new sense of ease in her tone.
“Deed and it is just me, my bonnie young lady. I hear you are going away, Miss Margret, and many a sore heart you will leave in the country-side. You’re so near the farm, you must come in and I will make you a cup of tea in a moment. It’s real gray and dull, and there’s a feel in the air like rain. Come your ways to the farm, Miss Margret, my bonnie dear; and after that Rob will take you home.”
Margaret made no resistance to this proposal. She had been walking for some time, and she was tired, and even the idea of the tea was welcome. She went in after Mrs. Glen with some misgivings as to the length of her absence, but a sense of relief on that point too; for it had always been a good excuse to Bell, and even to her father, that she had accepted the civility of one of their humbler neighbors. “It pleases them; and so long as they are decent folk they will never but be awfu’ keen to take care of Miss Margret: and she knows none but decent folk,” Bell had said. The cup of tea in the farm-parlor would be as good a reason for Margaret’s absence as Sir Claude’s luncheon-table was for her sisters’. To be sure, in former days there had been no son at Mrs. Glen’s to make such visits dangerous. She went in with a sense of unexpected relief and sat down, very glad to find herself at rest in the parlor, where a little fire was burning. To be sure, Rob would walk home with her and renew his entreaties; but he could not, shethought, continue them in his mother’s presence, and the relief was great.
“Mony a time have you come in here to get your tea, Miss Margret. I’ve seen Rob come ben carrying ye in his arms. I mind one time you were greeting for tiredness, a poor wee missie, and your shoe lost in the burn; that lad was aye your slave, Miss Margret, from the time you were no bigger than the table.”
“Oh, I remember,” said Margaret; “I thought Bell would scold me, and I did not know how I was to go home without my shoe.”
“You went home in that lad’s arms, my bonnie dear, for all he stands there so blate, looking at ye as if you were an angel; he wasna aye sae blate. You went home in his arms, and gave him a good kiss, and thought no shame. But you were only six then, and now you’re eighteen. Oh ay, my dear, I can tell your age to a day. You were born the same week as my youngest that died, a cauld November, and that sent your bonnie young mother to her grave. It was an awfu’ draughty house, and no a place for a delicate young woman, that auld house at Earl’s-hall. Fine, I mind; and Rob there he’s five years older. From the time you could toddle he aye thought you the chief wonder o’ the world.”
“Mother, you that know so much you had better know all,” said Rob. “I think her the chief wonder of the world still.”
“You need not tell me that, my bonnie man; as if I could not see it in your een!” Margaret stirred uneasily while this conversation went on over her head. She had never thought of having this engagement told to anybody, of being talked about to anybody. She got up with a little gasp, feeling as if there was not air enough to breathe. If they would not surround her so, close her up, all these people; oh, if they would only let her alone! She tried to turn away to escape before Rob should have said any more—but, before she clearly understood what was passing, found herself suddenly in the arms of Mrs. Glen.
“Oh, my pretty miss! my bonnie young lady! is this all true that I hear?” Rob’s mother cried, with effusive surprise and delight. “Did I ever think, when I rose out of my bed this morning, that I was to hear such wonderful news afore the night? Eh, Miss Margret, my dear, I wish ye much joy, and I think ye’ll have it, for he’s a good lad; and you, ye smiling loon, I need not wish you joy, for you’re just leaping out of yourself with happiness and content.”
“And I think I have good reason,” cried Rob, coming up in his turn and receiving her out of his mother’s embrace. Oh, how horribly out of place Margaret felt between them! Never in her life had she felt the dignity of being Margaret Leslie, old Sir Ludovic’s daughter, as she did at that moment. Her cheeks burned crimson; she shrank into herself, to escape from the embracing arms. What had she to do here? How had she strayed so far from home? It was all she could do not to break forth into passionate tears of disgust and repugnance. Oh, Margaret thought, if she could but get away! if she could but run home all the way and never stop! if she could but beg Jean to leave Earl’s-hall instantly that very night! But she could not do any of these things. She had to stand still, with eyes cast down and crimson cheeks, hearing them talk of her. It was to them she seemed to belong now; and how could she get away?
“Now give us your advice, mother,” said Rob, “we cannot tell what to do. The Leslies are prejudiced, as may easily be supposed, especially the old ladies (oh that Jean and Grace had but heard themselves called old ladies!), and Margaret wants me to wait the three years till she comes of age. She wants me to trust to chances of seeing her and hearing of her—not even to have any regular correspondence. I would cut off my right hand to please her, but how am I to live without seeing her, mother? We had been talking and consulting, and wandering on, a little farther and a little farther, till we did not know where we were going. But now that we are here, give us your advice. Will you be for me, I wonder, or on Margaret’s side?”
He had called her Margaret often before, and she was quite used to it; why did it suddenly become so offensive and insupportable now?
“You see,” said Mrs. Glen, “there is a great deal to be said on both sides.” Mrs. Glen was very much excited, her eyes gleaming, her heart beating. It seemed to her that she had the fate of these two young people in her hands, and might now clinch the matter and establish her son’s good-fortune if Providence would but inspire her with the right thing to say. “There is this for our bonnie Miss Margret, that she would be all her lane to bear the opposition o’ thae ladies, and hard it would be for a delicate young thing no used to struggle for herself; and there’s that for you, Rob, that nae doubt it would be a terrible trial to worship the ground she treads on as you do, and never to see her for three lang years. Now let me think a moment, bairns, while this dear lassie takes her cup of tea.”
Margaret could not refuse the cup of tea. How could she assert herself and withdraw from them, and let them know that she was not to be taken possession of and called a dear lassie by Mrs. Glen? Her heart was in revolt; but she was far too shy, far too polite to make a visible resistance. She drew back into the room as far as she could out of the fitful gleams of the fire-light, and she shrank from Rob’s arm, which was on the back of her chair; but still she took the tea and sat still, bearing with all they said and did. It was the last time; but oh, what trouble she had got into without meaning it! Suddenly it had come to be salvation and deliverance to Margaret that she was going away.
“Now, bairns,” said Mrs. Glen, “listen to me. I think I have found what you want. The grand thing is that you should be faithful to each other, and mind upon each other. It’s no being parted that does harm. Three years will flee away like three days, and you will be young, young, ower young to be married at the end; and you would do more than that, Rob Glen, for your bonnie Margaret; weel I ken that. So here is just what you must do. You must give each other a bit writing, saying that ye’ll marry at the end of three years—you to her, Rob, and her to you. And then you will be out of all doubt, and troth-plight, the one to the other, before God and man.”
“Mother!” cried Rob, starting up from where he had been bending over Margaret, with a wild glow of mingled rage, terror, and hope in his eyes. The suggestion gave him a shock. Hedid not know anything about the law on that point, nor whether there was more validity in such a promise than in any other love-pledge. But he was struck with sudden alarm at the idea of doing something which might afterward be brought against him, and a certain generosity and honor not extinguished in his mind made him realize Margaret’s helpless condition between his mother and himself, and her ignorance and her youth; while at the same time, to secure her, to make certain of her, gave him a tug of temptation, a wild sensation of delight. “No, no,” he cried, hoarsely, “I could not make her do it;” then paused, and looked at her with the eager wildness of passion in his eyes.
But Margaret was perfectly calm. No passion was woke in her—scarcely any understanding of what this meant. A bit writing? Oh yes, what would that matter, so long as she could get away?
“It is getting dark,” she said; “they will not know where I am; they will be wondering. Will I do it now, whatever you want me to do, and go home?”
“Margaret, my love!” he cried, “I thought you were frightened; I thought you were shrinking from me; and here is your sweet consent more ready than even mine!”
“Oh, it is not that,” she said, a little alarmed by the praise and by the demonstrations that accompanied it. “But it is getting dark, and it is late; and oh, I am so anxious to get home.”
Rob wrung his hands. “She doesn’t understand what we mean, mother; I can’t take advantage of her. She thinks of nothing but to get home.”
“You gomerel!” said his mother, between her teeth; and then she turned a smiling face upon Margaret. “Just that, my bonnie miss,” she said; “a woman’s heart’s aye ready to save sorrow to them that’s fond of her. It’s time you were home, my sweet lady. Just you write it down to make him easy in his mind, and then he will take you back to Earl’s-hall.”
“Must I write it myself?” Margaret said; and it came across her with a wave of blushing that she did not write at all nicely—not so well as she ought. “And what am I to say? I don’t know what to say.” Then she gave another glance at the window, which showed the night drawing near, the darkness increasing every moment, with that noiseless, breathless pleasure which the night seems to take in getting dark when we are far from home. She got up with a sudden, hasty impulse. “Oh, if you please, Mrs. Glen, if you will be as quick as ever you can! for I must run all the way.”
“That will I, my darlin’ lady,” said the delighted mother. It was she who had the whole doing of it, and the pride of having suggested it. Rob stood by, quite pale, his eyes blazing with excitement, his mind half paralyzed with trouble and terror, hope to have, reluctance to take, fear of something unmanly, something dishonorable, intensified by the eagerness of expectation, with which he looked for what was to come. He stood “like a stock stane,” his mother said afterward, his lips parted, his eyes staring, in her way as she rushed to the desk at the other side of the room to find what was wanted. “You eedeeot!” she said, as she pushed him aside, in an angry undertone. Had he not the sense even to help in what was all for his own advantage? Margaret pulled off her black glove and took the pen in her hand. She knew she would write it very badly, very unevenly—not even in a straight line; but if she had to do it before she could run home, it was better to get it over.
“Oh, but I never wrote anything before,” she said; “Mrs. Glen, what must I say?”
“Nor me. I never wrote the like of that before,” cried Mrs. Glen; “and there’s Rob even—too happy to help us.” She had meant to use another word to describe his spasm of irresolution and apprehension, but remembered in time that he must not be contemned in Margaret’s eyes. “It will be just this, my bonnie dear: ‘I, Margaret Leslie, give my word before God and man, to marry Robert Glen as soon as I come of age. So help me God. Amen.’”
“Don’t put that,” cried Rob, making a hasty step toward her. “Don’t let her put that.” But then he turned away in such passion and transport of shame, satisfaction, horror, and disgust as no words could tell, and covered his face with his hands.
“Not that last,” said Margaret, stumbling, in her eagerness, over the words, and glad to leave out whatever she could. “Oh, it is very badly-written. I never could write well. Mrs. Glen, will that do?”
“And now your bonnie name here,” said the originator of the scheme, scarcely able to restrain her triumph. And as Margaret, with a trembling hand, crossed the last t, and put a blot for a dot over the i, in her distracted signature, she received a resounding kiss upon her cheek which was as the report of a pistol to her. She gave a little cry of terror, and threw down the pen, and turned away. “Oh, good-bye!” she cried, “good-bye. I must not stay another moment. I must run all the way.”
Rob did not say a word—he hurried after her, with long strides, keeping up with her as she flew along, in her fright, by the hedge-row. “Oh, they must have missed me by this time. They will be wondering where I have been,” she said, breathless. Rob set his teeth in the dark. Never in his life had he been so humiliated. Though she had pledged herself to him, she was not thinking of him; and in all the experiences of his life he had never yet known this supreme mortification. He had been loved where he had wooed. The other girls whom Rob had addressed had forgotten everything for him. He half hated her, though he loved her, and felt a fierce eagerness to have her—to make her his altogether—to snatch her from the great people who looked down upon him—to make himself master of her fate. But this furious kind of love was only the excitement of the moment. At the bottom of his heart he was fond of Margaret (as he had been of other Margarets before). He could not bear the idea of losing her, of parting from her like this, in wild haste, without any of the lingering caresses of parting.
“Is this how you are going away from me, Margaret,” he cried, “flying—as if you were glad to part, not sorry, when we don’t know when we may meet again?”
“Oh, it is not that I am glad; it is only that they will wonder—they will not know where I have been.”
“Will you ever be as breathless running tome as you are to run away from me?” he cried. “Stop, Margaret! one moment before we come near the gate, and say good-bye.”
She yielded with panting breath. That sacred kiss of parting—which, to do him justice, he gave with all the fervor that became the occasion, giving, as he felt, his very heart with it—how glad she was to escape from it, and run on!
“Oh no! I will not forget— I could not forget!” she cried.
Who was this, once more in the lovers’ way? A dark figure, who, they could see, by the movement of his head, turned to look at them, but; went on without taking any notice. Margaret, anxious as she was, recognized Randal Burnside, and wondered that he did not notice her, then was glad to think that he could not know her. Rob had other thoughts. “Again found out—and by the same fellow!” he said to himself, and gnashed his teeth. Randal was going over to Earl’s-hall, a familiar visitor, while he, the betrothed husband of the daughter of Earl’s-hall, had to skulk about the house in the dark, and take leave of his love under cover of the night. Not without bitter humiliations was this hour of his triumph.
“We must wait till he is out of sight,” he said, hoarsely, holding her back. It was like holding an eager greyhound in the leash. “Oh, Margaret,” he said, and despite and vexation filled his heart, “you are not thinking of me at all—and here we have to part! You were not in such a hurry when you used to cry upon my shoulder, and take a little comfort from my love!”
This, and the necessity of keeping back till Randal had passed, touched the girl’s heart.
“It is not my fault that I am in such a hurry,” she said. “Oh, you were kind—kind—kinder than any one. I will never forget it, Rob.”
“It was not kindness,” he said, “it was love.”
“Yes, Rob.” She put her soft cheek to his with compunction in her heart. She had been so eager to get away, and yet how kind he had been—kinder than any one! Thus there came a little comfort for him after all.
But just then, with a sudden flutter, as of a bird roused from the branches, some one came out through the gate, which Randal had not closed behind him—a figure of a woman indistinguishable against the dimness of the twilight, with a little thrill and tremor about her, which somehow made itself felt though she could not be seen.
“Is that you, Miss Margret? Bell sent me to look for you,” she said, with the same thrill and quiver in her voice.
Rob Glen started violently. It was a new shock to him, and he had already met with many shocks to his nerves that night. Her name came to his lips with a cry; but he had sufficient sense of the position to stop himself. Jeanie! was it possible, in the malice of fate, that this was the Jeanie of whom Margaret had told him? He grasped her in his arms for a moment with vehemence, partly because of that sudden startling interruption, and, with one quickly breathed farewell on her cheek, turned and went away.
“Oh, Jeanie, yes, it is me. I am very, very sorry. I did not want to be so late. Have they found out that I was away? have they been looking for me?” cried Margaret. It was not, perhaps, in the nature of things that Jeanie should be unmoved in her reply.
“You’re no looking after the gentleman,” she said. “He’s gone and left you, feared for me; and you’ve given him no good-bye. You needna be feared for me, Miss Margret. Cry him back, and bid him farewell, as a lass should to her lad. I’m nae traitor. You needna be feared that Jeanie will betray ye. It’s no in my heart.”
“Oh, but he’s gone, Jeanie,” said Margaret, with a ring of relief in her voice. “And oh, I’m glad to be at home! They made me stay when I wanted to be back. Oh, how dark it is! Give me your hand, Jeanie, for I cannot see where you are among the trees.”
Jeanie held out her hand in silence and reluctantly, and Margaret, groping, found it, and took hold of it.
“You are all trembling,” she said.
“And if I am all trembling, it’s easy enough to ken why. Standing out in the dark among the black trees, and thinking of them that’s gone to their rest, and waiting for one that was not wanting me. Eh, it’s no so long since you had other things in your head, Miss Margret—your old papa, that was as kind as ever father was. But nobody thinks muckle about old Sir Ludovic now.”
“Oh, Jeanie! I think upon him night and day!” cried Margaret; and what with the reproach, and what with her weariness and the past excitement, she fell into sudden tears.
“Is that you, my bonnie lamb?” said another voice; and Bell came out of the gloom, where she, too, had been on the watch. “It’s cold and it’s dreary, and you’re worn to death,” she said. “Oh, Miss Margret, where have you been, my bonnie doo, wandering about the house, and greeting till your bit heart is sair? Weel, I ken your heart is sair, and mine too. What will we do without you, John and me? You are just the light of our eyes, as you were to the auld maister, auld Sir Ludovic, that was a guid maister to him and to me. Eh, to think this should be the last night, after sae many years!”
“But, Bell,” said Margaret, calmed by this sense of lawful protection and the shadow of home, “it is not the last night for you?”
“Ay, my bonnie pet, it’s that or little else. When you’re gane, Miss Margret, a’ will be gane. And my lady’s a good woman; but I couldna put up with her, and she couldna put up with me. We’re no fit for ither service, neither me nor John—na, no even in your house, my bonnie lamb, for I know that’s what you’re gaun to say. Nae new house nor new ways for John and me. We’re to flit into a bit cot o’ our ain, and there we’ll bide till the Lord calls, and we gang east to the kirk-yard. God bless ye, my bonnie bairn. Run up the stairs; nobody kens you were away; for weel I divined,” said Bell, with an earnestness that filled Margaret’s soul with the sense of guilt—“weel I divined that ye would have little heart for company this sorrowful night.”
WhenMargaret stole into the long room, where the family were assembled that evening, she heard a little discussion going on about herself. Ludovic had risen up, and was standing with an uneasy look upon his face, preparing to go in search of her, while Jean was asking who had seen Margaret last. Randal Burnside had come in only a few minutes before, and was still standing with his hat in his hand; and he it was who was explaining when Margaret entered.
“I saw her with Bell as I came in,” he said (which was so far true that he lingered till Bell had met her). “I fear she has been making some sad pilgrimages about the house. Has she ever left Earl’s-hall before?”
“Never—not for a single day,” said kind Lady Leslie; and there, was a little pause of commiseration. “Poor Margaret!” they all said, in their various tones.
They were seated at one end of the long room, two lamps making a partial illumination about them, while the surrounding space lay in gloom. The books on the walls shone dimly in the ineffectual light, the dim sky glimmered darkly through the windows, opening this little in-door world to the world without. Mrs. Bellingham had got her feet up on a second chair, for there were no sofas in the long room. Sunday was a tiring day, and Lady Leslie had yawned several times, and would have liked had it been bedtime. She was a woman of very good principles, and she did not like to think of worldly affairs on Sundays; but it was very hard, at the same time, to get them out of her head. As for Miss Leslie, she had got a volume of sacred poetry, which had many beautiful pieces. She remembered to have said some of them to her dear papa on the Sunday evenings of old, between thirty and forty years ago, and though it was a long time since, she had been crying a little to herself over the thought. Effie was, perhaps, the only thoroughly awake member of the family; for it had just been intimated to her that her aunt Jean, after all, had invited her to go to the Highlands to be Margaret’s companion, and her heart was beating high with pleasure. Aubrey had whispered to her his satisfaction too. “Thank Heaven you are coming,” he said; “we shall not be so very funereal after all.” It was while she was still full of smiles from this whisper, and while Randal stood with his hat in his hand, giving that little explanation about Margaret, that Margaret herself stole in, with a little involuntary swing of the door of the West Chamber, through which she came, which made them all start. Margaret was very pale and worn out, with dark lines under her eyes; and she came at an opportune time, when they were all sorry for her. Instead of scolding, Lady Leslie came up and kissed her.
“My dear,” she said, “we all know how hard it must be for you to-night;” and when the ready tears brimmed up to the girl’s heavy eyes, the good woman nearly cried too. Her heart yearned over the motherless creature thus going away from all she had ever known.
This kiss, and the little murmur of sympathy, and the kind looks they all cast upon her, had the strangest effect upon Margaret. She gave a little startled cry, and looked round upon them with a momentary impulse of desperation. It had never occurred to her that she was deceiving any one before. But now, coming in worn with excitement and trouble of so different a kind, all at once there burst upon Margaret a sense of the wickedness, the guiltiness, the falsehood she was practising. She had never thought of it before. But now when she gave that startled look round, crying “Oh!” with a pang of compunction and wondering self-accusation, the whole enormity of it rushed on her mind. She felt that she ought to have stood up in the midst of the group in the centre of the room, even “before the gentlemen,” and have owned the truth. “I am not innocent as you think me, it is not poor papa I am crying for. I was not so much as thinking of papa,” was what she ought to have said. But there was only one individual present who had the least understanding of her, or even guessed what the start and the exclamation could mean. When she opened those great eyes wide in her sudden horror of what she was doing, Lady Leslie, a little frightened lest grief should be taking the wilder form of passion, unknown to the placid mind, in this poor little uneducated, undisciplined girl, did all she could to soothe her with gentle words. “We are all a little dull to-night,” she said. “My dear, I am sure the best thing you can do is to go to bed.”
“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Bellingham, “we are all going to bed. Though it is not a day when one is supposed to do very much, yet there is no day in the week more tiring than Sunday. We always keep early hours on Sunday. By all means, Margaret, go to your room and get a good rest before to-morrow. You have been making a figure of yourself, crying, and you are not fit to be seen; though, indeed, we might all have been crying if we had not felt that it would never do to give way. When you think,” said Jean, sitting back majestically, with her feet upon the second chair, “of all that has happened since we came here, and that nobody can tell whether we will ever meet under this old roof again!”
“Let us hope that Margaret will come back often; and I am sure she will always find her brother’s house a home,” said Lady Leslie, still holding her hand and patting her shoulder kindly. All these words came into her mind in a confusion which prevented her from realizing what they meant. She saw Jean shake her head, and demand sadly how that could be, if Ludovic were to sell the house, as he had just been saying? But even this extraordinary suggestion did not wake Margaret’s preoccupied mind. They all said “Hush!” looking at her. It was supposed among them that the only one who would really suffer by the sale of Earl’s-hall was Margaret, and that to hear of the idea would be more than she could bear. But in her confused condition she took no notice of anything. She did not seem to care for Earl’s-hall, or for the family trouble, or for anything in the world except this strange thing which absorbed her, and which none of them knew. The lamps and the circle of faces were like a phantasmagoria before her eyes, a wreath of white sparks in the darkness, all pale, all indistinct against the dim background. Randal only became a little more real to her by dint of what seemed to her the reproachful look he gave her. She thought it was a reproachful look. He had seen her out-of-doors, though he had not taken any notice of her. She remembered now that he had not even showed her the civility of taking off his hat.
“He has no respect for me any more,” Margaret said to herself; and this thought went deep, with a pang, to her very heart.
Bell was waiting for her in her room, where already her boxes were packed, and most of her preparations made; and poor Margaret, her mind all confused with a sense that what was supposed to occupy and engross her was scarcely in her thoughts at all, gave herself up into the old woman’s hard yet tender hands, as passive as a child, with all the ease that perfect confidence gives. She was not afraid of Bell, nor did she feel the guilt of keeping from her that uncomfortable secret which was no happiness to her, poor child, and which she would so gladly have pushed aside from her own mind had it been possible. “Eh, I wonder if onybody will over take the pride in it that I have done,” Bell said, taking down her young mistress’s hair, and letting it fall in long, soft undulation of silky brown over her hands. She turned her head away while she brushed, that no tear might drop upon it. “Na, naebody will take the same pride in it as me: for I’ve been a’ ye’ve had to bring ye up from a bairn, my bonnie, bonnie darlin’: and nae ither woman can ever be that. It’s like taking the heart out o’ my breast to see you turn your back on Earl’s-hall.”
The same words had been said to her not very long before, and in a way which ought to have touched her more deeply. Margaret trembled a little with the recollection. “But I will come back again, Bell, and see you,” she said, with a far more ready response. She pulled down the old woman’s arms about her neck, and clung to her. “Oh, I will come back!” she cried; “Bell, there will never be anybody in the world like you.”
“You maunna say that, my bonnie lamb. Many, many there are in the world better worth thinking upon than the like o’ me. I am no sae selfish a creature as that; but you’ll keep a corner for your old Bell, Miss Margret, ay, and auld John too. He’s just speechless with greetin’: but he canna yield to shed a tear—and a temper like the auld enemy himsel’. But it’s no temper, it’s his heart that’s breaking. You’ll no forget the auld man? and whiles ye’ll write us a word to say you’re well and happy, and getting up your heart?”
“How will I ever get up my heart,” cried Margaret, “in a strange place, with nobody, nobody—not one that cares for me?”
“Whisht, whisht, my darling! You’ll find plenty that will care for you—maybe ower many, my bonnie doo—for you’ll be a rich lady and have a grand house, far finer than puir Earl’s-ha’. And oh, Miss Margret, above a’ take you great care wha you set your heart on. There’s some that are fair to see and little good at the heart, and a young creature is easy deceived. You mustna go by looks, and you mustna let your heart be tangled with the first that comes. Eh, if Sir Ludovic had but lived a little longer, and gotten you a good man afore he slippit away!”
Margaret was silenced, and could not say a word. If he had knownthis, what would he have thought of it? Would he have handed his little Peggy over to the first that came? Would he have chosen for her, and made this confusing harassing bondage into something legitimate and holy? Margaret received the thought of that possibility with a gasp, not of wishing, but of terror. It seemed to her as if she had escaped something from which there could have been no escape.
“But that’s far from your thoughts as yet,” said Bell, “and it’s no me that will trouble your bonnie head with the like o’ that before the time; and the ladies will take great care— I’m no feared but what they will take great care. They will keep poor lads away, and poor lads are aye the maist danger. Here I’m just doing what I said I wouldna do! But eh, we’re silly folk; we canna see how the bairns are to be guided that gang from us: as if God would bide in Fife as well as the like o’ me: as if he wasna aye there to hand my darlin’ by the hand!”
Bell paused to dry her eyes, and to twist in a knot for the night the long locks of the pretty hair in which nobody again would ever take so much pride.
“And, Miss Margret,” she said, “you’ll no let some light-headed thing of a maid tear thae bonnie locks out o’ your head with her curlings and frizzings? Sir Ludovic couldna endure them. He would aye have it like silk, shining in the sun. He never could bide to see it neglected. The ladies even, though they’re no so young as they once were, did you ever see such heads? But yours is as God made it, and as bonnie as a flower. And you’ll aye mind your duty, my bonnie darlin’, and your prayers, and remember your Creator in the days o’ your youth. And dinna think ower muckle about your dresses, nor about lads. That will come in its time. I’m just beginning again, though I said I wouldna do it! But oh, to think it’s the last night, and I’ll never put you to your bed again, nor gie you good advice, nor keep you from the cauld, nor take it upon me to find fault with my bonnie young lady! I canna tell what will be the use of me mair when my bonnie bird flies away.”
“Oh, Bell, I will come back; I will come back!”
“Ay, you’ll come back, my darlin’ bairn; but if you come a hundred times, and a hundred to that, you’ll never be the same, Miss Margret. The Lord bless you, my bonnie lamb—but you’ll never be the same.”
Whether this was a very good preparation for the long night’s rest which Mrs. Bellingham thought necessary for travellers, may perhaps be doubted. But Margaret soon cried herself to sleep when Bell withdrew. She was too much exhausted with excitement to be further excited, and this gentle chapter of domestic life, the return of the faces and voices, and looks and feelings familiar to her, gave some comfort to the girl’s overworn brain. They interfered between her and that strange scene in the farm-house. They formed a new event, a something which had happened since, to soften to her the trouble and commotion of that strange interruption of her life. She slept, and woke in the morning with a sense of relief which at first she could scarcely account for. What was it of comfort and amelioration that had happened to her? Was it all a dream that her father was dead, that her youthful existence was closed? No, itwas that she was going away. Margaret shuddered and trembled with wonder to think that it was possible this could be a relief to her. But yet it was so. She could not doubt it, she could not deny it to herself. When she ought to have been broken-hearted, she was glad. To go away, to escape from all that was so secret and so strange was so much a comfort to her, that she had almost forgotten that she was leaving home at the same time, going out upon a strange and unrealized existence, leaving the friends of her infancy, the house she was born in, all the familiar circumstances of her life, and her father’s grave, where he had been laid so lately.
Margaret felt vaguely with her mind that all these farewells ought to have broken her heart, and she shed a few tears because Bell did so, because old John, speechless and lowering like a thunder-cloud, turned his back upon her and could not say good-bye. John had tossed her trunks on to the cart with the rest with absolute violence, as if he would have liked to break them to pieces; his face was dark with woe which wore the semblance of wrath. He turned his back upon her when she went to shake hands with him, and Margaret turned from the door of the old gray house with tears dropping like rain, but oh! for her hard heart! with an unreasonable, unfeeling sensation of relief, glad to get away from Earl’s-hall and Rob Glen, and all that might follow. They thought it was perhaps the society of Effie which had “made it so much easier” for her; and Mrs. Bellingham congratulated herself on her own discrimination in having thus pleased Ludovic and consoled Margaret.
Dr. Burnside and his wife, who came to the railway to see the party off, applauded her tenderly, and bade God bless her for a brave girl who was bearing her burden as a Christian ought. Did Randal know better what it was that supported her, and made even the sight of the grave, high up upon the mound, a possible thing to bear? Did he know why it was that she went away almost eagerly, glad to be free? She gave him a wistful, inquiring look, as he stood by himself a little apart, looking at the group with serious eyes. Randal was the last to divine what her real feelings were, but how could Margaret tell this? He thought she was calmed and stilled by the consciousness of a new bond formed, and a new love that was her own, and was grieved for her, feeling all the vexations she must encounter before this love could be acknowledged, and doubting in his heart whether Rob Glen, he who could press his suit at such a moment and keep his secret, was a lover worth acknowledging. But Randal had no right to interfere. He looked at her with pity in his eyes, and thought he understood, and was very sorry, while she, looking at him wistfully, wondered, did not he know?
Thus Margaret went away from her home and her childhood, and from those bonds which she had bound upon herself without understanding them, and which still, without understanding, she was afraid of and uneasy under. Sir Ludovic and his wife left Earl’s-hall at the same time to join their children in Edinburgh, and there to make other calculations of all they could, and all they could not, do. Perhaps when they were at a distance, the problem would seem less difficult. Earl’s-hall was left silent and solitary, standing up gray against the light, the old windows wide open, the chambers all empty, nobody stirring but Jeanie, who was putting all things into the order and rigidness of death. Bell, for her part, sat down-stairs in her vaulted room, with her apron thrown over her head; and John had gone out, though it was still morning, “to look at the pitawties,” with a lowering brow, but eyes that saw nothing through the mist of unwilling tears.
That very night Rob Glen came back to his seat under the silver fir, and gazed at the vacant house with eager and restless eyes. He was not serene, like his mother, but unhappy and dissatisfied, and with a great doubt as to the efficacy of all that had been done. Margaret had mortified him to the heart, even in giving him her promise. He was a man who had been loved; and to be thus accepted with reluctance gave a stab to his pride which it was hard to bear. And perhaps it was this sentiment which brought him, angry and impatient and mortified, back to the neighborhood of the house from which his new love had just gone away, but where, he could not but recollect, his old love still was. Jeanie had gone about her work all day with that arrow in her heart. She had known very well what was coming, had watched it even as it came, and sadly contemplated the transference to her young mistress of all that had been so dear to herself. She had followed the course of the story almost as distinctly as if she had been present at all their interviews; seeing something, for her turret had glimpses of the wood, and guessing more, for did not Jeanie know? But yet to see them together had been for the moment more than Jeanie could bear. It had seemed an insult to her that Rob should come, leading her successor, to the very house in which she was; and her more charitable certainty that he did not know of her presence there had gone out of her mind in the sharpness of the shock. And when her work was over, Jeanie too went out, with a natural impulse of misery, to the same spot where she had seen them together. “No fear that he’ll come here the night,” Jeanie said to herself, bitterly; and lo! before the thought had been more than formed in her mind, Rob was by her side. She gave a cry, and sprang from him in anger; but Rob was not the man to let a girl fly from him over whom he had ancient rights of wooing. His countenance was downcast enough before. He put into it a look of contrition and melancholy patience now.
“Jeanie,” he said, “will you say nothing, not a word of forgiveness, to an old friend?”
“What can the like of me say that could be pleasant?” said Jeanie; “you’re far ower grand a gentleman, Maister Glen, to have anything to say to the like of me.”
“You know very well that you are doing me a great deal of injustice,” he said, sadly; “but I will not defend myself. If I had but known that you were here—but I did not know.”
“I never heard that you took much trouble to ask,” said Jeanie; “and wherefore should you? You were aye far above me. There was a time when I was silly, and thought little of that; but I ken better now.”
“I don’t know that I am above anybody;there are many people that are above me,” he said, with a sigh, and a look of dreary vacancy beyond her, which deeply provoked yet interested the girl in spite of herself.
“Ay,” she said, “you will feel for other folk now; you will ken what it means now. But I’ve naething to say to you, Maister Glen, and I’m wishing ye nae harm. A’s lang ended that ever was between you and me.”
“Are you sure of that, Jeanie?” he said.
It was not in Rob’s nature to let any one escape from him upon whom he had ever had a hold.
“Ay, I’m sure of it,” she cried; “and you are but a leer and a deceiver if you dare speak to me in that voice, after what I’ve seen with my ain een—after the way I’ve seen ye with Miss Margret! Oh, she’s ower good for you, ower innocent for one that hasna a true heart! Last night, no further gane, I saw you here with my bonnie young lady; and now, if I would let you, that’s how you would speak to me.”
“Jeanie,” he said, “it’s all just that you are saying; but how do you know how I was led to it? You could not see that. She came out, in her trouble, to cry here, and I was here when she came. Could I see her cry and not try to comfort her? I don’t pretend to be strong, to be able to resist temptation. I should have thought of you, but you were not here; I did not know where you were. And she, poor child, was in great need of some one to rest upon, some one to console her. That was how it came about. You know me. I did not forget you; but she was there, and in want of some one to be a comfort to her. I am confessing to you like a Catholic to his priest; for all that you say there is nothing between us now.”
“Oh!” she cried, “speak to me no more, Rob Glen. I canna tell what’s ill and what’s well, when you talk and talk, with that voice that would wile a bird from the tree.”
“Why do you find such fault with my voice?” he said, coming a little nearer. “It may be as you say, Jeanie, that all is ended; but, at least, your good heart will do me justice. You were away, and here was a poor young creature in sore trouble. Say I’ve been foolish, say my life has gone away from me into another’s hands; but do not say that I forgot my Jeanie; that I never did—that I will never do.”
“Oh, dinna speak to me!” cried the girl—“dinna speak to me! I’m neither your Jeanie, nor I will not give an ear to anything you can say.”
“Then I will wait till you change your mind,” he said; and as she turned hastily toward the house, Rob went with her, gentle as a woman, respectful, with a sort of deprecation and melancholy softness. Perhaps she was right, he would allow, with a soft tone of sorrow. Life might be changed, the die was cast; but still it was not in Rob’s nature to let any one drop. He talked to her with a tone of studious gentleness and quiet. “At least we may be friends,” he said.
Theparty of travellers went to Perth, and from thence wandered among the hills and woods, and by the wild and lonely glens, to which that gate of the Highlands gives an entrance. It was all new to Margaret. In all her life she had seen nothing more imposing than the lion crest of Arthur’s Seat, as seen across the stately breadth of the Firth, the low twin heads of the Lomonds, or, in the far distance among the mists, the long withdrawing line of the Grampians. When she saw these misty hills nearer, when she watched the clouds at play upon them, and counted the flying shadows, and shared the instantaneous brightening of the sun-glints, what wonder that Margaret felt her heart rise in her breast notwithstanding all the trouble there. She had not thought it possible that the world could be so lovely. The weather was fine, with now and then a rainy day, and the days were still long, though midsummer was past.
Mrs. Bellingham and Miss Leslie were good travellers. Given two comfortable places in a carriage, and weather at all tolerable, and they were ready to drive anywhere, and to go on from morning to night. A bag fitted, with all manner of conveniences, a novel, a piece of knitting, and plenty of shawls, was all they demanded. Even when it rained they could make themselves very comfortable in the hotels, finding out who everybody was—and did not object even to walking within limits. And they knew about everything: which were the best routes, and how much the carriages ought to cost in which they preferred travelling; for it did not suit these ladies to go in coaches or other public vehicles along with the raskal multitude—and indeed, as it was still only July, the raskal multitude had as yet scarcely started on its peregrinations. As soon as they felt that their crape was safe under the shelter of large water-proofs they were happy. Mrs. Bellingham took the best seat with undaunted composure; but Miss Leslie thought it necessary to go through a good many processes of explanation or apology before she placed herself by her sister’s side.
“Oh no! I cannot think of always taking that place: really, Margaret, you must have it to-day. You can see the view so much better. Dearest Jean, do make dear Margaret take my place. She sat all yesterday with her back to the horses; and I don’t mind, not in the very least. I would much rather sit with my back to the horses. I never have been used to monopolize the best place.”
“Hold your tongue, Grace, and get in,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “I suppose you mean that I do—and I think, at my age, it is my place to have the best seat. You are only wasting our time, now that we really have a fine day. Now this is very comfortable. It is the kind of thing I always enjoy: a decent carriage, and horses that are not bad— I have seen better, but we might have a great deal worse—and two nice girls opposite, and a gentleman at hand whatever happens, and as lovely a drive before us as heart could desire. We will stop for lunch at Kenmore, Aubrey; do you know Kenmore? It is close to Taymouth, which is as beautiful a place as any you could see. It always reminds me of Windsor Castle, except that it lies low,and Windsor is on a hill. We go by the side of Loch Tay, which is a beautiful loch, Margaret; not so picturesque as some you will see farther west, but beautiful for all that. Now, Grace, the girls have settled themselves, and Aubrey is on the box. Are we to wait for you all day? You always keep us waiting when every one is ready to start.”
“It is only because I wanted some one to have this seat,” said Miss Grace, anxiously. “I have been this way before, and the dear girls have not; or Aubrey, perhaps, dear Aubrey would rather be here than on the box? It would be much more amusing for you all, dear Jean, than to have me. Oh!” said the trembling lady, as her more energetic sister dragged her in with a grip of her arm, and the door was closed upon her. She kept asking Margaret and Effie all the day to change places with her, and kept the party in a fidget; “for, you see, I have been this way before,” she said. It was a bright day, and Loch Tay lay before them, a sheet of light, between pale and golden, its fringe of trees wet with past rain, and big Ben Lawers rising huge into the blue air.
Margaret felt that she had to make an effort to retain the sadness that she had kept round her like a mantle. How could she laugh? how could she let them talk, and chime in with irrestrainable reply and remark, when only such a little while ago—not yet a month ago?—she said to herself. But when things had come so far as this, it was not to be supposed that the little veil of natural sentiment could keep her eyes always drooping. Her face began to glow again, to change from white to red, and back into that delicate paleness which was habitual to her. The clouds and the mists cleared away from her brown eyes. The scent of the young birches, the plash of the water on the shore, the soft shower of rain-drops now and then shaken out over their heads by some mischievous breeze as they passed; the atmosphere so heavenly clear, the sun so gay and friendly, beguiled her out of her trouble.
In grief, as in sickness, there is a moment when the burden is sensibly lightened, the bonds relax for the first time. This moment came to Margaret now. She was terrified to feel how light her heart was, and what an involuntary glow of exhilaration had come over her. Nothing had happened to make her glad. She was only rising again, in spite of herself, into the beauty of the common day, into the light and brightness of her youth. And indeed, but for the sense that she ought not to be happy, Margaret might well have felt the well-being of the moment enough for her. The fresh air, and the pleasant progress, and all the beautiful sights around her, were brightened by Effie’s bright countenance, full of smiles and delight, and by the other companion on the box, who leaned over them to shower down a flood of comments upon everything—comments which were generally amusing enough, and often witty to Margaret’s simple ears. And even the self-contented comfort of Jean, sitting well back in her corner, with her eau-de-cologne, her purse, her little paper-knife, her novel lest the drive should get dull, and Miss Grace’s anxious regret to have the best side, and desire that some one would “change seats with her,” were full of fun, full of amusement to the inexperienced girl. Nature betrayed her into laughter now and then, into smiles between times.
It was only a month yet, not quite a month, since old Sir Ludovic died; but was it Margaret’s fault that she was only eighteen? These four weeks had lasted the length of generations. Now they were creeping into their natural length again, into mornings and evenings, soft and swift as the passage of the clouds. And the country was so fresh and sweet, and all the world so amusing in its varied humors. Her heart came back again into renewed life, with a little thrill and tremor of unconscious yet half-guilty pleasure. She could not be churlish enough to close herself up against all the seductions of nature and gentle persuasions of her youth.
Killin was one of the places where the party had arranged to stay, or, rather, where Mrs. Bellingham had arranged to stay. To have one person with a decided will and taste, and all the rest obedient in natural subjection or good-humored ease, is the grand necessity for such an expedition. Mrs. Bellingham fulfilled all these requirements. She knew what she herself liked, and was very well disposed to make other people accept that, as the standard of beauty. And luckily Jean had been on Loch Tay before, and had arbitrarily decided, like a despot of intelligence, that on Loch Tay Killin was the place to stay. She sat up in her carriage with a pleased importance as they drove in through the homely cottages, thatched, and tiled, and mossy, through the genial odor of peat in the blue air, past the swift flowing of the brown golden stream which winds its way into the loch round that island where the dead Campbells have their mansion as lordly as Taymouth, and how much more safe and sweet. Jean sat up in her place with a pleased relaxation of her countenance as the carriage drove round to the inn-door where Steward, her maid, who had gone by the coach with all the boxes of the party, stood in attendance behind the smiling landlord, but heading the homely waiters and chamber-maids. Steward knew her place. To be mistress of a Highland inn would not at all have displeased her; but she knew very well that she was of a different and higher order of being from those smiling Highland maids with their doubtful English, and the anxious waiter who had so many parties to look after, and lost his wits now and then when the coach was crowded. A party taking so many rooms, and not illiberal in their way, though Mrs. Bellingham looked sharply after the bills, gave importance to everybody connected with them.
“You got my letter, Mr. MacGillivray?” said Mrs. Bellingham.
“Ay, my leddy; oh, ay, my leddy; and I hope ye’ll find everything to your satisfaction,” said the landlord, opening the door with anxious obsequiousness, as if Jean had been the Queen herself, Miss Leslie could not but remark. It was a pleasant moment. The sun was declining westward; the roar of the waterfall above the bridge came fitfully upon the air; the rush of the nearer stream sounded clear and close at hand; the cottage children ran in picturesque little russet groups to gaze at the new-comers. On the other hand, Ben Lawers, clumsy but grand, heaved upward against the sky and cut its arch in two. The trees filled in all the crevices about, and in the distance Glen Dochart glimmered far away, opening up between the hills a golden path into the west.
“Make haste, children,” said Mrs. Bellingham, “for we will have to dine at thetable-d’hôte; and that I know by experience waits for nobody, and a very funny business it is. But it’s a great pity we’re a month too early, and you’ll get no grouse.”
“That is a mistake indeed,” said Aubrey; “but, after all, we are only a fortnight too early, and the time may come when we shall have better luck.”
“And oh, darling Margaret,” said Miss Leslie, “I have had such a beautiful view! I am so sorry, I cannot tell you how sorry, I am that neither you nor dear Effie would take my seat!”
It had been a most successful day, with no clang or bustle of railways, but only the horses’ measured trot; the roll of the wheels; the flash of the sunshiny loch; the honest Highland sunshine, sweet as heavenly light can be, but never scorching, only kindly warming, cheering, smiling, upon the wayfarer. And now it was very pleasant to see the friendly people at their doors: the Highland maids, happy to please you, with their kind voices and looks of friendly interest; the waiter, bothered to death, poor man, but anxious, too, that you should eat and show an appetite. Nowhere else is there such homely interest in the chance guest. Perhaps the bill is a trifle high: is it a trifle high? Not any higher than in England, though perhaps just a little more than in the big, inhuman Swiss caravansary where all the Cockney world is crowding. There are caravansaries in the Highlands too, but not at Killin. There, still, the maids smile kindly, and cannot bide that you should not be happy; and the waiter (though drawn three ways at the same moment) is troubled if you do not “enjoy your dinner.” And the peat smoke rises in aromatic wreaths into the clear blue air, and the river flows golden in the sunshine, but above the bridge tumbles in foaming cataracts; and broad and large, with a homely magnificence, the loch spreads out its waters under the sun or moon.