After the meal, grandly entitled atable-d’hôte, to which our party sat down in friendly conjunction with a stranger pair, whom Mrs. Bellingham was very condescending to, and whom it was odd not to know intimately, as they did to each other all the honors of the family dinner, Jean retired to the most comfortable room, where Steward brought her writing things, and her books and knitting. “I will put up my feet a little,” she said, “but I advise the rest of you to go out for a walk. You should never lose a fine evening in the Highlands, Aubrey, for you never know what to-morrow may be. I know the place as well as I know my Bible. Go up to the bridge and look at the water-fall, for it is considered very fine; and there is a man, where the boats lie, who sells Scotch pearls; you can tell him to bring them up to show us after you come in again. But go out and take a walk first, and get the good of the fine evening. I will just put up my feet.”
“And, dearest Jean, as Aubrey is a kind of cousin—or perhaps it is a kind of nephew—to darling Margaret, don’t you think I may stay with you? for it would be very selfish of me, dear Effie, and dear Margaret, to leave dearest Aunt Jean alone.”
The younger people strayed out without waiting for the conclusion of the controversy which was thus opened between the ladies; for Mrs. Bellingham was quite able to dispense with her sister’s society, though kind Miss Grace, with many a whisper behind her back, declared that she did not at all mind, but that it would never do to leave dear Jean alone. They went out discussing their own curious relationships with a great deal of natural amusement; for there was no doubt that Effie at seventeen and a half was the unquestionable niece of Margaret, who had not yet arrived at her eighteenth birthday. “And as Miss Leslie is my aunt Grace, it is unquestionable that Miss Margaret Leslie must be my aunt Margaret, most venerable of titles,” said Aubrey, taking off his hat and making her a reverential bow. He protested that no Christian name could be added to the title of aunt which could produce so profound an impression of age and awe. Aunt Grace might sound skittish and youthful, and Aunt Jean be no more than matronly; but nothing less than a white-haired grandmother could do justice (they all allowed) to the name of Aunt Margaret. Effie, who was a great novel-reader, reckoned upon her fingers how many there were to be found in books.
Thus discussing, they went lightly along through the soft Highland evening all scented with the peat. The sky was still blue and clear, but in the village street it was almost dark, glimmers of the never-extinguished fires shining cheerfully from the cottage-windows, and the few passengers about looking at each other with puckered eyelids, “as an old tailor looks at the eye of his needle,” according to Dante. Some one contemplating them thus, with contracted pupils and projected head, attracted the notice of the girls as they went along, in a little pause after their laughter—some one with a fishing-basket over his shoulder—and came to a sudden pause before them.
“Randal Burnside!” Margaret cried, with a little start. And Randal made a very elaborate explanation as to how he had been under an old engagement to come here to fish, and how much surprised he was to see them arriving whom he had parted from only about ten days before.
“I could not believe my eyes,” he said.
Why should not he believe his eyes? Mrs. Bellingham, when told of this explanation, declared indignantly that she had herself told him of her intention to stay a few days at Killin.
“What should he be surprised at?” she asked; but this was a question to which nobody could reply.
He turned with them, as was natural, and they all continued their walk together. There were no lamps nor other worldly vulgarities in Killin; there was no railway even, in those days, invading the silence of the hills—nothing but the cottages, low, homely places, in pleasant tones of gray, and red, and brown, with soft blue pennons of the aromatic peat-reek floating over them, and clouds of white convolvulus threaded up and down their homely walls—and the big shadows of the hills forming the background, or, when you reached higher ground, the silver brightness of the loch. And how quiet it was! the distantroar of the wild water only heightening, as with a great abstract voice of nature, taking no note of humanity, the tranquillity and softened dimness of the village. The little group took in the stranger and increased itself, then unconsciously sundered and formed into two and two.
Was it not the merest accident that the two in advance were merry Effie and the gay Englishman, and the two behind Randal and Margaret? Nothing could have been more natural. But Margaret’s hesitating laughter was quenched henceforward. She was half ashamed of it, as not befitting her orphanhood and her black dress: and then she could not but think of the other evening, not so very long ago, when Randal’s appearance had startled her before: the time when he had not taken any notice, not even taken off his hat. Margaret had never got over the humiliation of that greeting withheld. He had seen her, for she had heard him say so: but then and there, she felt, Randal must have lost his respect for her— Randal, who had known her all her life. Even in the excitement of the moment this had given Margaret a wound; and she had not got over it, though that evening had so many recollections that were painful to her. Two or three times now in the soft gloom, as they walked along side by side, she raised her head and gave him a furtive, timid glance, with the words on her lips, “Why did you take no notice that night?” But though her mind was full of it, she had not the courage to ask the question. Effie and Aubrey went on before, their voices sounding softly through the night; but Randal did not say very much, and Margaret nothing at all. The spell of the momentary gayety was broken. A little moisture even stole into her eyes under cover of the night; and yet she was not unhappy, if only she could have had the courage to ask why it was that he “took no notice.” They went as far as the bridge and stood there, looking at the torrent as it foamed down, leaping and dashing in white clouds over the rocks.
Margaret had never seen such a scene; even the brawling cataracts of the Tummel and Garry, which had been her first experience of the kind, were not like this. In the midst of the wild commotion a knot of stately firs held themselves aloof, intrenched in a citadel of rock amidst all the rage of the torrents, the wild water raging on every side, but the tree-island, coldly proud, scarcely owning, by a quiver of its leaflets, the influence of so much passion roused. Randal said something to her as he stood by her, but she could not hear a syllable. She looked up at him and shook her head, and he smiled. Somehow he did not look (though it was so dark that she could scarcely see) as if he had lost his respect for her, after all.
“What a row,” said Aubrey, as they came away, “for such a cupful of water! If it had been Niagara, there might have been some excuse.”
“That is just like the Highlands,” said Randal, with that partial offence which always moves a Scotsman when it is suggested by any impertinent stranger that his country is not the equal in every respect of every other country under the sun. “It is not Niagara, and Ben Lawers is not Mont Blanc; but they impose upon us all the same.”
“Hush!” said Margaret; “don’t talk; one is enough.” What she said was not very intelligible, but, indeed, the one voicewasenough in the air. It seemed to her to declaim some great poem, some wild chant, like a sublime Ossian. The others went chattering on before, delighted with themselves and their jokes. And when the rush of the wild stream had sunk into a murmur, Margaret herself began again to wonder. “Why did he take no noticethatnight?”
Next day Randal joined them quite early. It was not a good day for fishing, he said. It was too bright. Besides, if they were only going to stay a day or two, he could make up for his idleness afterward. He had got a boat ready, and was bent on taking the ladies to Finlarig, and afterward upon the loch.
“Of course, we are going to Finlarig, Randal,” said Mrs. Bellingham. “Do you think I have never been here before? Good-morning, Duncan Macgregor. Have you any of your pearls to-day? Oh yes! I should like to look at them. The little ones are beautiful, but the big ones are too milky. I like the small size best. You can come up and see us after dinner to-night, and bring them with you. Duncan and I are old friends. Many a pearl I have got from him, and had them set afterward at Sanderson’s, in Princes Street. I invented the setting myself, and it was very much admired—just a gold thread twisted round them. Margaret, you don’t wear any rings. I must have one made for you. Duncan Macgregor had much better come with us, Randal. I have no confidence in gentlemen rowers. You will go off with the girls as soon as we get to Finlarig, and then where shall we be?”
“You will have your devoted nephew, Aunt Jean. My aunts are the aim and object of my life. I never think of anything else, sleeping or waking. How can you talk of being left alone so long as you haveme?”
“I prefer Duncan Macgregor,” said Aunt Jean; “and as for your aunts, as you call them, you have only one. And I don’t want to see you pushed out of your place by that lad, Randal Burnside,” she added, in a whisper. “Just you keep your eyes upon him, Aubrey. I can’t think what business he has here.”
Mrs. Bellingham’s prophecy was so far fulfilled that the young men and the girls did somehow, as is their use and wont, manage to separate themselves from their elder companions, one of whom, at least, had every desire to further this separation. It was Randal who was the cicerone of the party, and who led them through the winding path to that secluded, sheltered palace of peace where the dead Campbells rest. They were not thinking much about the Campbells. Who, indeed, thinks of the silent occupants, be they Pharaohs, be they Highland caterans, of those still dwellings of the dead? The Campbells lie in lordly guardianship of their loch and their trees, with their clan within call, and their castle scarcely out of hearing, and all kinds of Highland bravery—honeysuckles and wild roses in the summer, barberries and rowans in the autumn, flaunting upon the half-ruined wall that surrounds their tomb.
The young people strayed that way—two of them full of talk and laughter, two of them quiet enough. Why it was that Effie and Aubrey felltogether it would be difficult (yet not very difficult) to say; but the reason why Margaret stayed her steps for those of Randal was easy enough. She wanted, constantly wanted, to ask him why he took no noticethatnight. For this reason she lingered while the others went on, looking at him now and then with a shy, eager look, which at once puzzled the young man, and filled his heart with a dangerous interest. She wanted to ask him something—what was it she wanted to ask him? Randal was on his guard, he felt. He had been warned effectually enough. Margaret was not for him. Even if he had wanted her (which he did not, he said to himself with a little indignation), was not he forestalled? Had not her heart been caught in its first flight? He might be sorry, but that did not matter much: the deed was done. And he was fully warned, completely forestalled, even if he had wished for anything else. But what was it she wanted to say? Probably, in the innocence of her heart, something aboutthatfellow, for whom, poor thing, she must fancy—she who knew nobody, because she loved him—that every one cared.
They came at last to a little sheltered glade close to the little river, with its golden brown water. There was a beautiful barberry growing in a corner, which Margaret had caught sight of. She wanted a branch of it to put in her hat, she said—until she remembered that her hat was covered with crape. But Randal was cutting the scarlet grapes before that evident incongruity had occurred to her. She sat alone upon a bit of the broken wall close by, among ferns and ivy, and watched him.
“Oh,” she said, “I am so sorry I have given you the trouble. I forgot that it was crape I was wearing. It is very strange that one should ever be able to forget.”
“But you are—by moments.”
“Yes; it shows how little one knows. I thought I would die.”
“But that could not be,” said Randal, kindly. “The world would come to an end very quickly if grief killed; but it does not, even the most terrible.”
“And you will think mine was not like that,” said Margaret. “But I do not forget him! oh, I do not forget him! only— I do not know how it is—my mind will not keep to one thing. I suppose,” she said, with a deep sigh, “it is because I have not very much mind at all.”
“Nay, you accuse yourself unjustly,” he said, with a half smile; “after the shock of a great event, a great trouble, there comes a time of quiet—”
“Oh!” she said, finding herself, by no doing of hers, brought to the point she desired, and turning to him with a sudden start, “Randal, I would like to tell you something. I thought I should have told them allthatnight when I came in, but I had not the courage.”
“What is it?” Randal threw a twig of his barberries into the stream and watched it carried along, tossing on the swift current. She was going to speak to him of her love, the poor child; and his heart revolted against such a confidence. He could not look at her. Girls receive the confidences of men with interest, but it is very seldom indeed that a young man plays the same part to a girl.
“When I came inthatnight you all thought my heart was breaking because I was going away, and I did not dare to say otherwise. But oh, Randal! it was notthat!”
“I understand.” He threw in another branch of the barberries and watched it intently, turning his head away from her. “It was another kind of parting that made you cry; you were thinking of—”
“Oh, I was thinking—how glad, how glad I would be just to get away, only to get away!”
“Margaret!” he turned round and looked at her quickly now. She was not embarrassed nor blushing, as if the words could bear some happier meaning, but quite pale and serious, looking at the water as he had been doing. Though he had known her all her life, he had of late given up calling her by her Christian name. It was the surprise that forced it from his lips.
“It sounds like wickedness,” she said, fervently. “I can see that, but I do not mean any ill. I could not help it; things had been so strange. How could I help trembling and crying? All had gone wrong, some way. And oh, I was glad, so glad to get away, to be free! But if I had said so you would all have thought me— I don’t know what you would have thought me. But it came into my head that perhaps you guessed my true meaning, and thought it was a lie I was telling, and had no more respect for me.”
“Respect for you! That is not the word I would have used, Margaret. I have always—liked you—taken an interest in you ever since you were a little baby. How could I lose what you call respect?”
“But you looked like it, Randal. Why did you pass me in the gloaming and never say a word, nor even nod your head, or take off your hat?”
“Margaret!” he cried, in great confusion, “I— I thought you did not want to be recognized. I—thought you would like to think I had not seen you— I thought—”
“How could I do that?” said Margaret, seriously; “for that could not have been true. I have wondered ever since if you thought me—a—a—bad girl, Randal? Oh! I think I have no heart! I can laugh, though papa has only been gone a month. I—almost—forget sometimes that I am so unhappy; but I am not a bad girl, Randal. You might always take off your hat to me. You need not think shame to speak to me—”
“Margaret, for Heaven’s sake! who could have imagined you would take it so? I thought you had some one with you whom you cared for more than any one else, and that you would rather I took no notice. I did not think I had any right to interfere between him and you.”
“No,” said Margaret, with a deep sigh, “I suppose nobody could do that;” and after a pause she resumed, half smiling—“But you should not look as if you thought shame of your friends, Randal; you should take off your hat, even when a girl is not very wise. I thought you had no respect for me after that night.”
Margaret pronounced the wordwiseas if it had been writtenwice, which the reader who is Scotch will be aware is a word with a quite distinct meaning of its own; a girl who is notwisemeans a girl who is wildly silly, without anysense—perhaps with not all her wits about her. What would Sir Ludovic have thought had he heard a speech so outrageously Scotch from his little Peggy? How he would have smiled, how he would have scolded! Randal remembered the old man’s amused reproofs; but his heart was too much troubled to permit him to smile. And the inference that lay in Margaret’s words was more than his intelligence could fathom. He was thrown into the wildest commotion of curiosity, anxiety, and wonder. Was it possible that there was no love, after all, between her and Rob Glen? or what did her joy in escaping, her sigh at the thought that no one could interfere, mean? He answered her at last in a strain quite confused and wide of the purpose, like a man in a dream.
“If I should ever be able to do anything for you, to be of any use to you, Margaret, will you send for me? will you let me know? Whatever it may be, and wherever I may be,” he cried, in his confusion, “if you ever tell me you want me, I will come to you if I am at the end of the world!”
She looked up at him with faint surprise, yet gratitude. “Yes, Randal,” she said; “now I know that you have not lost your respect for me. But how should I ever want anything?” she added, with a smile; “there is Jean always to take care of me, you know.”
Mrs. Bellinghamdid not stay long at Killin. How it came about could never be discovered; but wherever the party went, in whatsoever admirable order they set out, it was discovered on their return that Aubrey was somehow at the side, not of Margaret, but of Effie Leslie. His aunt took him severely to task when this dereliction from all the rules of duty had been made evident by the experience of several successive days. Aubrey did not deny or defy his aunt’s lawful authority. “It is all that fellow,” he said, “continually poking in before me, wherever we go, with his Margaret, Margaret! as if she belonged to him. I hate these men who have known a nice girl from the time she wasthathigh. They are always in the way.”
“And do you really allow yourself to be put off your plans so easily—you, Aubrey, a man of the world? If I were you, I would soon let Mr. Randal Burnside find his proper place. Let him take care of Effie. Effie would do for him very well. She is the second daughter, and they are not very rich, and her sister has made but a poorish sort of marriage. Effie might do worse than put up with Randal Burnside. It would be doing them all a good turn if you would be firm, Aubrey, and insist on doing what we all wish.”
“Surely,” said Aubrey, “nothing can be more easy. I hope I know as well as anybody how to keep a presuming fellow in his right place.” But, comforting as this assurance was, the very same thing happened the next day, and Mrs. Bellingham was not only angry, but disturbed by it. She called Aubrey into her room at quite a late hour, when she was sitting in all the sanctity of her dressing-gown. Perhaps their tempers were a little disturbed by the fact that they were both chilly—he with his walk by the side of the loch to finish a cigar, she in the before-mentioned dressing-gown, which, being but muslin, was a little too light for the latitude of Killin.
“The same thing over again, Aubrey,” she said; “always that little flirt of an Effie. I declare I never see you pay the slightest attention to Margaret; and when you know how much all your friends wish you to settle—”
“All right, Aunt Jean,” said Aubrey, with a tone of injury. “It is all those girls that will derange the most careful calculations. They are both of a height, they are both all black; it is only when you hear their voices that you can tell which is which: and if one will go off in one direction while you have settled all your plans for the other—”
“Ah, Aubrey, I am afraid it is just the old story,” said Mrs. Bellingham, shaking her head; “you like the wrong one the best.”
“That is a trifle,” said the dutiful nephew; “we were not born to follow our inclinations. The wrong always suits the best, that goes without saying; but I hope I am not quite a fool, and I was not born yesterday. Your Effie may be all very well to chatter with, but what should I do with her? I shouldnot chooseto starve for her sake, nor I don’t suppose she would for mine. It is Margaret for my money; or perhaps the other way would be more like the fact: it is her money for me. But what can a fellow do with the best intentions, if the other three make a point of thwarting him? The only thing to be done is this: send the little one home, and turn that other man about his business: when there are only two of us, we are bound to be civil to each other,” Aubrey said, with fine ease, turning over the bottles on his aunt’s toilet-table. Mrs. Bellingham was struck by the thorough-going honesty of this suggestion.
“Well, that sounds very fair, Aubrey,” she said. “I would not expect you to say more. And, to be sure, when a girl makes a dead set at you, it is very difficult for a young man to keep quite clear. We must not do anything violent, you know, and it makes me much more comfortable to hear you speak so sensibly. Randal Burnside, of course, will be left behind here, and Effie can go home from Stirling or Glasgow. And as we leave in two days, there will be no great harm done. But after that, my dear boy, I do hope you will not lose your time.”
“Trust me for that!” he said. “Do you really use such an antediluvian cosmetic as Kalydor, Aunt Jean—you whom I always believed to be in advance of the age?Crême de théis a great deal better. Without it I could never have made up my mind to face the rude winds of the North. Have a little of mine and try; I am sure you will never use the other again.”
“Oh, thank you, Aubrey; but I am very well satisfied with my own,” said Mrs. Bellingham, who did not choose that anything belonging to her should be called antediluvian. “It is more refreshing than anything when one has been a long time in the air. Then that is settled, and I shall not have to speak of it again, I hope. But if I were you—a university man and a club man— I would show that I was more than a match for Randal Burnside, who never was atanything but a Scotch college, and can’t belong to anything better than one of those places in Princes Street. I would not allow myself to be put out of my way by a provincial. I should be ashamed to give in like that, if I was such a young man as you.”
Aubrey shrugged his shoulders, and offered no further defence; and the remaining two days were passed happily enough, Margaret and Randal remaining upon terms of confidential intimacy, without any word on either side to make the situation more plain.Shefelt that she had committed her secret to his trust, and was partially supported in consequence in the bearing of it—and encouraged to forget it, which she did accordingly with a secret ease and relief beyond all words—while he, too, felt that something had been confided to him, something far more serious than she seemed to be aware of; and yet did not know what it was. Thus, while she was perfectly at her ease with him, Randal was not so happy. He could not ask her a question, could not even let her see that he remembered the half-involuntary confidence, yet felt the most eager desire to know fully what it was which had been confided to him. How could he help her, how could he be of use to her if he did not know? This pleasant fiction of being “of use,” and the eager prayer he had made to her to call him whenever and wherever she wanted him, was it not the natural protest of honest affection against the premature bond which had forestalled itself, which had no right to have come in the way of the real hero? He did not himself know that this was the origin of his anxiety about Margaret, his strong wish “to be of use.” How could he be of use? how interfere between the girl and her lover—he whose only possible standing-ground by Margaret’s side would be that of a lover too?
But Randal, though he was very clear-sighted in general, had but a confused vision of things relating to himself, and deluded himself with the idea that he might “be of use,” might help her, and do a great deal for her—if he only knew! And he did know that some kind of tie existed between her and Rob Glen, but no more. Whether it was wholly clandestine, as it appeared, whether “the fellow” had secured her to himself under any vow of secrecy, whether anybody belonging to her knew, or suspected, Randal could not tell. And the frankness with which she had admitted himself to some sort of participation in the mystery made it more confusing and bewildering still. He could not put any question to her on the subject, but shrank from the very thought of such an interrogation with a mixture of pain and shame, feeling his own delicacy wounded. That Margaret should have a secret at all was intolerable. He could not bear to be her confidant, to hear her acknowledge anything that marred the simple ideal of her maidenhood; and yet how was he “to be of use,” if he did not know?
She, for her part, was greatly relieved by the little snatch of conversation which had conveyed so much. He had not lost his respect for her. He did not “think shame” of her. This was very comforting to Margaret. She had made it all quite clear, she thought, how things had gone wrong, and how it was a relief more than a sorrow to leave her home; and now she could be quite at her ease with Randal, whoknew. Having thus spoken of it, too, made the burden of it very much lighter. The thing itself was over for the present; and it must be a long time, a very long time, before she would be forced to return to that matter. Perhaps, some time or other, she might be forced to return to it; but not for such a long, long time.
Thus all seemed easy for the moment, and Margaret thrust her foolishness behind her, and managed to forget. They had two more cheerful days. They took long walks into Glen Dochart, and went out on the loch in the evenings; and Effie sang, who had a pretty voice and had been taught; whereas Margaret had a pretty voice, but had not been taught, and was fired with great ambition. And Aubrey took upon him to make researches into the crockery-ware in the cottages, by way of looking for old china, of which, he assured them, he often “picked up” interesting “bits,” at next to no price at all, in the neighborhood of Bellingham Court. It did not answer, however, in Perthshire, and Randal and the two girls being Scotch, had to interfere to rescue him from Janet Campbell, at the post-office, who thought nothing less than that the man was mad, and intended to break her “pigs,” which is the genuine name of crockery in Scotland.
All these things amused them mightily, and filled up the days, which were not invariably fine, but checkered by showers and even storms—which latter amused the party as much as anything, since there was a perpetual necessity for consultations of all kinds, and for pilgrimages in twos and threes to the window, and to the door, to see if it was going to be fine. During all this time Mrs. Bellingham persistently labored to control fate, and to pair her young people according to her previous determination. That Randal and Effie should have taken to each other would have been a perfectly reasonable and suitable arrangement, and Jean felt that she could meet her brother and his wife with a pleasant sense of triumph, had she been the means under Providence of arranging so very suitable a match. He was a very pleasant young man, well educated, sufficiently well-born, with a little money and a good profession—what could a girl’s parents ask for more? But it is inconceivable how blind such creatures are, how little disposed to see what is best for them. With all the pains that she took to prevent it, the wrong two were always finding themselves in each other’s way.
And perhaps it helped this result that Miss Leslie, all unconsciously, and in the finest spirit of self-sacrifice, did everything she could to thwart her sister, and to throw the wrong person in the way. It went so to her heart to see Margaret smiling, as she talked to Randal, that she walked all the way home from the bridge by herself, though it was getting dark, and she was nervous to leave the two to themselves. “They will like their own company better than mine,” Miss Leslie said to herself. And when Jean asked sharply what had become of Aubrey, Grace quaked, but did not reply that she had seen him taking Effie down the river in the gleam of compunctious brightness, after the afternoon’s rain.
“Dear Jean,” she said, “you must not beanxious. I am sure he will be back directly, almost directly.”
“Anxious!” cried Mrs. Bellingham. It was hard upon so sensible a woman to have to deal with persons so entirely unreasonable. Then Randal let fall various intimations that he had a great fancy for seeing Loch Katrine again.
“The fishing here is not so good as I expected,” he said. “I think I shall go further west.”
“I would not do that if I were you,” Mrs. Bellingham said, with a very serious face. “I would not be so long away from your good father and mother. Of course you will be going somewhere to shoot after the 12th. So is Aubrey. Ladies have not much chance in comparison with the grouse. And, do you know, I thought them very muchfailed, both of them. They are getting old people, Randal. I am sure you are a good son, and would do anything you can to please them; and I could see that your good mother did not like you to come away for the fishing, though she would not say anything. As for Loch Katrine, I don’t think it all likely that we shall be able to make it out.”
Randal was at no loss to understand what this meant. He smiled to himself to think how mistaken she was, and how little it really mattered who went or stayed, so far as Margaret was concerned; but, after all, why should he follow Margaret? why should he run the risk of making himself hate Rob Glen, and wonder at his “luck” more than he did now? However, he said to himself, there ought not to be any danger of that. He did not think there was any danger. What danger could there be when there was a clear understanding that some one else was master of the field? But still, he could not suppose that the moment of fate, the tragical moment at which he could be of use to Margaret, was coming now. And why should he insist upon going where he was not wanted? So he yielded and sighed, and took his dismissal, though both the girls protested.
“Oh, why will you go and spoil the party?” cried Effie.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Bellingham, “I am afraid there will not be much more of the party, for your papa is going to meet us in Glasgow to take you home.”
This threw a cloud over poor little Effie, who went to her own room in tears. Was it over, then, this beautiful holiday? Margaret said good-bye to Randal with a cloudy look between smiles and tears.
“You will never pass me by again as if I was not good enough to be spoken to?” she said, with a little broken laugh; and he once more hurriedly adjured her “if she should ever want anything,” “if she should want a friend to stand by her.” Margaret smiled, and gave him her hand like a young princess. “But how can I ever want anybody,” she said, “when there is Jean?” which was not so satisfactory. He felt more lonely, more dismal, more altogether out of place than there was any reason for, when, finally, Mrs. Bellingham packed her little comforts into the carriage, and Miss Grace entreated everybody to take her place, and the travellers rolled away, waving their hands to him as he stood at the inn door.
It is always a dismal thing to stand at the door of an inn and see the greater part of the party who have been rambling, walking, talking, laughing, and crying together, drive away. Randal felt his heart sink in his breast. To be sure, Margaret Leslie was nothing to him, except a child whom he had known all his life. He stood there and fell a thinking, while the landlord nodded and winked to the waiter, and the maids behind pitied the poor young gentleman. How well he remembered the little motherless baby in her black ribbons, whom his mother had once placed in his astonished arms! He had told Margaret of it only yesterday; but he did not tell her what Mrs. Burnside said. “It will be time enough for you to marry, Randal, when she is old enough to be your wife,” the prudent mother had said. She would never be his wife now, nor anybody’s who could understand her who was worthy of her. To think of that creature falling to the lot of Rob Glen! The blood rushed to Randal’s face, and he clenched his hands unawares; then, coming to himself, seized his fishing-tackle, which had been of so little use, and hurried away.
And Margaret was very quiet all the day after, leaving Effie to respond to Aubrey’s witticisms from the box. It had come to be the habit that Effie should reply. Mrs. Bellingham was just as comfortably placed as usual, and had her eau-de-cologne, and her paper-knife, and plenty of shillings in her purse for the Highland tolls, and everything as she liked it; but she was not so amiable as in the earlier part of the journey. For one thing, there was not at all a satisfactory place for luncheon, and the wind was cold, and she had not the kind of large pin she liked to fasten her shawl.
“We are going to have a wet August,” she said. “When August is wet, the best thing to do is to get out of Scotland. It is bad enough anywhere, but it is abominable in the Highlands. There are the same sort of looking tourists you find in Chamouni, only poorer, and it is cold, which it is not in Switzerland; at least, it is not always cold in Switzerland. Your papa, Effie, is to meet us in Glasgow on Tuesday, and then I think we shall go South.”
Nobody said anything against this sentence. There are days when the wind is more keen than usual, when the rain is wetter, and the mud muddier. This was one of these days. It came down in torrents in the middle of the journey; and before the hood of the carriage could be got up a large piece of Mrs. Bellingham’s crape on the side next the wind had been soaked and ruined forever. This, her sister thought, was her own fault, in that she had incautiously thrown aside her water-proof; but she herself held it to be Effie’s, who had thrown a shawl over that water-proof, “carefully concealing it,” the aggrieved lady said. To have your crape ruined when you have just gone into mourning is a grievance enough to upset any lady’s temper, and it cannot be said that any of the party enjoyed the drive on this ill-fated day.
After this the pleasure of the expedition grew less and less. Sir Ludovic, who met the party in Glasgow, took an opportunity to take Margaret aside, and talked to her with a grave face.
“I hope you will see how wrong you are, Margaret,” he said, “about that lad. I have seen him, and he is as firm as a rock because of your encouragement. Do you think it is a right thingfor a young girl like you to give such a man encouragement, and dispose of yourself without the knowledge of one of your friends? I told him I would never give my consent; but he as good as said he did not care a pin for my consent; that he had got yours, and that was all he wanted. But there is one thing I must insist upon, Margaret, and that is that you will hold no clandestine intercourse with him. It would not be—delicate, and it would not be honorable. It is only to save you that I don’t tell Jean. Jean would be neither to hold nor to bind. I don’t know what Jean might not do; but unless you will promise me that there shall be no correspondence, it is my duty to tell Jean.”
“I don’t wish to have any correspondence,” said Margaret, drooping her head, with a burning blush. Oh, if they would but let her forget it all! But this was what they would not do.
“If you will give me your promise to that”—he said; and in his pleasure at what seemed to him his little sister’s dutifulness, Sir Ludovic took her hand into his and gave a fatherly kiss on her forehead; all which his sisters contemplated with wondering eyes.
“Dear Ludovic, how kind you are to darling Margaret!” cried Miss Grace, running to him and bestowing a kiss of her own by way of thanks.
“I see no need for all this kissing,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “what is the meaning of it? I hope, Ludovic, you are not encouraging Margaret to make you her confessor, and to have secrets and mysteries from Grace and me, who are her natural guardians and her best friends!”
Itwas on a bright day in the end of August that Margaret Leslie arrived at the Grange, which was her own house, her mother’s birthplace, and her future home. They had been rather more than a month on the way, and had last come from Mrs. Bellingham’s house, which was in the neighborhood of Bellingham Court—not the great house of her district, but very near and closely related to that reigning mansion. Mrs. Bellingham had not been without grievances in her life. Indeed, had one of two events happened which she had every reason to expect would happen, her present position would have been different and much more satisfactory. Had her husband lived only a year longer, she would have been Lady Bellingham of the Court, the foremost lady in the county; and had she been the mother of a son, that son would have been Sir Somebody, and his mother would still have been—during his inevitably long minority at least—the mistress of the great house. But these two natural events did not happen. Jean was the mother of neither son nor daughter, and her husband, the eldest son—old Sir Anthony’s heir—had cheated her effectually out of all share in the splendors of the house—which splendors, indeed, had been much more attractive than himself—by dying most spitefully a year before his father. If it had been a year after, she would not have minded so much. But as it was, there was nothing for it but to retire to the Dower House, and to see her next sister-in-law, with whom she had not been on very affectionate terms, become Lady Bellingham, and enter into possession of everything. It may be supposed that this was no slight trial; but Jean, every one allowed, had behaved like a heroine. In the moment of deep and real affliction which followed old Sir Anthony’s death, she had taken the situation under review, and considered it very deeply. The first suggestion naturally had been that she should return home, or at least settle in the neighborhood of her father’s house. But Jean reflected that her father was not only old but poor, that his house was very limited in accommodation, and that when her present gloom and crape were over, there was neither amusement nor occupation to be had at Earl’s-hall, such as might oil the wheels of life and enable everything to go smoothly. Fife was not lively, nor was Earl’s-hall attractive; whereas in the neighborhood of the Court, though it would be hard to see another woman reigning there, there was always likely to be something going on, and the family was of the first consequence in the district, not shabby and worn-out like the poor Leslies. Having come to this decision, Mrs. Bellingham had taken her measures accordingly. She had thrown off at once the natural air of grievance which everybody had excused in her after such disappointments. Instead of troubling the new Lady Bellingham in her arrangements, she had thrown herself heartily into the work, and aided her in every way in her power. “I don’t mean to say that it is not a disappointment,” she said; “I hoped, of course— I don’t deny it—to be mistress here myself. I have worked for it: through all Sir Anthony’s illness, I am sure, I never was less attentive to him because I knew I should be turned out as soon as he was released from his sufferings.”
“No, I am sure you never were,” said the new Sir Anthony, warmly.
“And I should have liked to be my lady, I don’t deny it. If my poor Aubrey had lived, I should have enjoyed the position quite as much as you I hope will enjoy it, my dear.”
“Oh, enjoy it! think of the responsibility!” cried the new Lady Bellingham.
“I should not have minded the responsibility; but Providence has settled otherwise—you have it, and I have not. But don’t think I am going to be disagreeable on that account. I will move into the Dower House as soon as you please, and I will do everything I can to help you in settling down. I know how to struggle for my rights when it is necessary,” Mrs. Bellingham had said, not without a warning glance at Sir Anthony, “but, thank Heaven, I also know how to submit.”
In this spirit she had begun her life, and with the same noble meaning had lived many years a kind of secondary star in the Bellingham firmament, shining independently, but never in opposition. A close connection with the Court made the Dower House important, and she kept up that connection. She was always serviceable, giving as well as receiving, maintaining her own position, even while she magnified it by that of the great house; and, in short, nothing, all her friends allowed, could be more perfect than her behavior, which was everything a sister’s ought to be, and everything that could be desired in an aunt. The Dower House was a pretty house,and Mrs. Bellingham’s jointure was sufficient to permit her a comfortable little carriage, a nice little establishment, with the means of giving excellent dinners when she chose, and enjoying life in a dignified and most comfortable way. On the other hand, she dined very often at the Court, and had the use of their superfluous luxuries, and a share in everything that was going on, which increased at once her comfort and her consequence. This was the position in which she stood to her relations and neighbors. She felt now that she was about to repay them a hundred-fold for all the little advantages they had thrown in her way by providing for Aubrey, who was her husband’s godson, and the least successful member of the family. Aubrey was very accomplished, very charming, very idle. He could not be got to do anything, except make himself agreeable, and he had never even done that to any purpose. When Mrs. Bellingham heard that her father was dying, her first thought was of this. But she was a woman who could keep her own counsel. She sent Aubrey a check, and directions for his route: she threw facilities in his way, of which he did not, perhaps, quite make the use she expected; but still things had mended in the latter part of their journey, and Margaret and he had been very good friends when they parted, and all was well in train in pursuit of this purpose. Mrs. Bellingham carried her young sister to the Dower House, and showed her the greatness of the Court. It was vacant for the moment, but its imposing size and splendor filled Margaret with admiration.
“All this would have been mine, Margaret, if my poor dear Aubrey had lived. You may think what a grief it was to me to lose him,” said Jean, with a sigh. “And that is why I take such deep interest in Aubrey, who was his godson, you know. This is Aubrey’s home.”
“Dearest Jean! how much more we ought to think of her, and try to please her, darling Margaret,” said Miss Leslie; “when we see how much she has lost.”
And when they had gone over all the empty stately rooms, and looked at all the portraits—docile Margaret receiving the tale of family grandeur with unquestioning assent—and had made acquaintance with the lesser world of the Dower House, its paddock, its gardens, its conservatory, all the little comforts and elegancies which were so dear to the sisters, it was time to set out for the Grange, that Margaret might see her own house. It had been settled that Mrs. Bellingham and Miss Leslie should go there with her to take possession of it, and to see what changes would require to be made, to fit it for occupation—and that they were to remain with her there as long as the fine weather lasted, going back to the Dower House for winter and Christmas. The Grange lay in another county, and was some distance from the house of the Bellingham’s, with which it communicated only by a very circuitous route. In old days, when the ladies would have been obliged to post, it would have taken days instead of hours to get to it, and yet it would have proved a nearer way. They had to go to the nearest town and then take a train going north, in order to find at the junction a train going south, in which they could proceed to the end of their journey. And what between the changes, and the waiting here and there, this journey occupied most part of the day. It was dark when they drove from the little town where the railway ended, through a succession of dim roads and lanes and under overshadowing trees that made the twilight dimness greater, to the Grange: which presented no recognizable feature, but was merely a large shadow in the gloom surrounded by shadows less solid—ghosts of waving trees and high hedge-rows. There was a woman visible at the little lodge, who came out and opened the gate and courtesied to the strangers, leaving her cottage door open and showing a cheerful glow of fire-light, and a tiny little girl of three or four years old, standing against the light and gazing at the carriage; but this was the only gleam of cheerfulness that dwelt in Margaret’s mind. The child’s face was scarcely visible, but its little sturdy figure against the fire-light, with two small feet well apart, and the most wondering curiosity in its entire pose, made the forlorn little mistress of the place smile as she went through those gates which led to her home. After this there was a long avenue to drive through, with great trees overshadowing the carriage, and tossing their branches about in the night wind. It had been a very hot day, and the breeze which had sprung up was very grateful, but the moaning it made in the branches was very melancholy, and affected poor Margaret’s imagination. “How the windsoughs,” she said, with full use of the dreary guttural. She was sitting in the front seat of the cab as it jolted along amidst all those waving shadows, and Margaret felt very sad, she did not know why. She had been curious about her sister’s house, and interested, and had liked the novelty and perpetual change; but she did not feel any curiosity, nothing but sadness, in coming to this place, which was her own, though there was nobody here to welcome her. How the wind soughed! no other word could express so well the wild moan and wailing, which is an exaggeration by nature of the sound which the French call tears in the voice. It went to Margaret’s heart: the tears came into her voice, too, and filled her eyes in the darkness. All was melancholy in this home-coming to nothing but darkness and the unknown—the wind tossing about the branches and complaining to the night, the sound of water somewhere, complaining too, with a feeble tinkle—the sky invisible, except in a speck here and there, just light enough to show how the branches were tossing overhead. The young traveller drooped her head in her corner, and felt her courage and her heart fail.
“Margaret,” said Jean’s voice out of the darkness, from the other side of the carriage, “you must learn to remember now that you are not a Scotch country girl in Fife, but an English young lady with a character to keep up—a landed proprietor. Don’t talk that vulgar Scotch. If you use such language here nobody will understand you; and they will think you a girl without any education, which would be most painful for all your relatives, and a slur upon poor papa’s memory. Therefore remember, no Scotch.”
This altogether completed Margaret’s downfall. The gloom, the sobbing wind, the contrast between this home-coming and all that is ordinarily implied in the word, were enough in themselves to overwhelm so young a creature, still so short a way removed from the first grief of her life; but the reproof was of a kind which madethe contrast still more poignant. Nothing in all his intercourse with his favorite child had been so tender or so characteristic as Sir Ludovic’s soft, laughing animadversions upon that very point—“My little Peggy, you must not be so Scotch!” How often had he said it, his face lighted up with tenderest laughter, his reproof more sweet than other people’s praise. But how different it sounded when Jean said it! Something came climbing into Margaret’s throat and choked her. When the carriage stopped with a jar and a crash, as it did at that moment at the scarcely discernible door, she could not wait for its opening, or till the coachman should scramble from his perch, but flung the carriage door open, and jumped out, eager for movement of any kind; her forehead throbbing with pain over her eyebrows, the sob in her throat, and a sudden gush of salt-water, hot and bitter, blinding her eyes. What could be more unlucky than to alight thus before the closed door and not be able to see it for tears? It opened, however, while Margaret began to help Steward, who had groped her way from the box, to get out the innumerable small articles with which the cab was crowded. The country girl, who appeared at the door with a candle protected by a long glass shade in her hand, did not imagine for a moment that the slim creature not so big as herself, with the armful of cloaks and shawls, was her mistress. She addressed herself to the ladies in the carriage, as was natural.
“If you please, ma’am,” she said, making a courtesy, “Miss Parker have gone to bed with a bad headache; but please there’s tea in the parlor, and all your rooms is ready.”
Margaret, however, scarcely saw the dark wainscoted room into which she followed her sisters, hearing their voices and exclamations as in a dream. It only seemed to Margaret to look very dark, very cold, with its gleams of reflections. Her little white-panelled room at home was far more cheerful than this dark place. She heard them say it was lovely! perfect! in such good keeping! without paying any attention. It was not in keeping with Margaret. In all her life she had never felt such a poor little melancholy stranger, such a desolate childish atom in an unknown world, as during this first hour in the house which belonged to her, the place where she was absolute mistress.
Finding that there was nothing to be made of her, that she would neither eat the plentiful fare on the table, nor admire the china in the great open cupboards, nor make herself amiable in any way, Mrs. Bellingham gave her a cup of warm tea and sent her to bed; where Steward, with a little pity, deferring her mistress’s unpacking, benevolently followed to help her to undress. They had put her into a large, low, many-latticed room, with that mixture in it of venerable mansion and homely cottage which is the dream of such rural houses; but in the darkness made visible by two poor candles, even that was little more cheerful than the dark parlor with its wainscot. At Earl’s-hall, even in August, there might have been a little friendly fire to make a stranger at home; but in “the South—!” How many a pang of cold have we all supported in much warmer latitudes than England, for very shame because of “the South!”
Naturally, however, Margaret could not sleep, though she was glad to be alone. She kept her candle lighted, to bear her company with something of a child’s dread of the darkness, and lay thinking with eyes preternaturally awake, now that the tears had been all wept out. She thought of everything—of Earl’s-hall, and the rhythm of the pines which were not like that rainy melancholysough, and of those moments in the wood when she had gone out with her eyes just so hot with tears unshed, and just such a fiery throbbing of pain in her forehead, and choking in her throat. And oh, how kindhehad been! he had not thought of himself, but only of comforting her. How he had drawn her to him, made her lean upon him, taken off the weight of her sorrow. How hard-hearted she had been to poor Rob, never thinking of him all these days, glad to escape from the thought of him. And he had been so kind! A great compunction came into her mind. How much he had been mingled in the twist of her life at that time which of all other times had been the most momentous in it! and how was it possible that when that crisis was over her very fancy should have so fled from him, her thoughts thrust him away? Poor Rob! and he had been so kind! Margaret begged his pardon in her heart with great self-reproach, but it did not occur to her to make him any amends. She had no desire to call him back to her, to see him again, to write to him. Oh no! she drew her breath hard, with a sudden panic: why should she write to him? It was not necessary. She could not write at all a nice letter such as would be a pleasure to any one. But the thought seemed to catch her very breath, her heart began to thump again, and her brow to burn and throb.
“Are you asleep, dear Margaret?” said Grace, coming in. “I just ran up-stairs for a moment to see. Dearest Jean is going over the rooms, to see what sort of rooms they are—not that we can see very much at night; and, of course, darling Margaret, I should like much better, and so would dear Jean, to wait till you were with us yourself; and if you would like me to stay with you, I would much rather stay. I shouldn’t at all mind giving it up. So far as one can see, it is the dearest old place, so old-fashioned! and such china, and old armor in the hall!—real armor, just as delightful as what you see in Wardour Street. Dear Jean is so pleased. Now do go to sleep, darling Margaret, go to sleep. The wainscot parlor is the dearest old room, just like a picture. I am to go out and join dear Jean on the stairs when I hear her coming up. She is talking to Steward about unpacking, for dear Jean is very particular about her unpacking. Are you asleep, darling?—not yet? but you must really go to sleep, and be quite fresh for to-morrow. That is right, shut your eyes, and I will shade the candle; or perhaps it would be better to have a night-light; I think I must try to get you a night-light. There is dear Jean coming up the stairs. She enjoys anything like this. That is her voice coming up. You can always hear dear Jean’s voice, walking about a house. At the Dower House, when I am in my room, I always hear her at night starting to see that all the doors and windows are safe. She begins with the scullery and goes everywhere. Dear Jean is energetic to a fault. She does not mind what trouble she takes. Now you areasleep, darling Margaret, quite fast: hush—hush!” said Miss Grace, patting her shoulder softly. It was not a very sensible proceeding, but it soothed Margaret. She turned round her cheek, still wet with tears, with a soft laugh, which was half derision and half pleasure.
“I am fast asleep; now run, Grace, run, or Jean will scold you.”
“Oh, it is not that I am afraid! but really, really if you are going to sleep, and don’t want me to stay— I will stay in a moment if you would like it, darling Margaret; but perhaps I should only keep you from sleeping, and dear Jean—”
“Where has she run to now?” they could hear Jean’s voice saying at a distance, and Miss Grace gave her young sister a hasty kiss and hurried away. Margaret lay still and listened for a long time while Jean’s voice perambulated the house, going everywhere. It gave a new sort of brisk activity to the dark and cold place. Up and down and about the passages went the high-pitched tones, commenting on everything. It was seldom that Margaret could make out what they said. But the sound made a cheer and comfort, a sense of society and protection. By-and-by she got drowsy with those cheerful echoes in her ears, and dropped at last into the deep sleep of youth, with a sense of this peaceful patrolling all about her, the darkness lighted by gleams of the candles they carried, and by Jean’s voice.
And in the morning what a flood of sunshine filled the room! lavish, extravagant sunshine pouring in, as if it had nothing else to do; which indeed was pretty nearly the case, as all the harvest was housed about the Grange, and there was not much, except light matters of fruit, for that magnificent sun to do, nothing but to ripen the peaches on the walls and the apples on the trees, and wake for a joke, with a blaze and illumination which might have done for a king, a little bit of a slim girl in the low-roofed chamber with its many windows. Margaret woke all in a moment, as you wake with a start when some one stands and looks at you fixedly, penetrating the strongest bond of drowsiness. She sprang up, her mind already full of excitement as she recollected where she was: in the Grange, in her own house! a curious thrill of pleasure, and wonder, and eager curiosity came over her. She got up and dressed hastily in her eagerness to see her surroundings.
From her windows she looked out upon nothing but trees, a walled garden on one side, a little park on the other, a glimpse of a small stream with a little wooden bridge over it, and trees, and more trees as far as the eye could go. Her eye went as far as eye could go in that unconscious appeal for something to rest upon which is instinctively made by all who are accustomed to hills; but there was no blue line upon the horizon, no undulation to relieve her. The only inequality was in the trees, which were some lower and some more lofty—in tufts of rich foliage everywhere, shading the landscape like a delicate drawing. Though it would not be September till next day, yet there were already traces here and there that autumn had tinted the woods with that “fiery finger.” It was nothing more than a touch; but it brightened the picture. How different from the parched elms and oaks all bare with the wind, and the dark unchanging firs in the Earl’s-hall woods!
The house was still asleep when she stole down-stairs, half afraid of herself, down the oak staircase, with its heavy balustrade. She was the only thing waking in the silent house, which still was so full of living, waking sunshine. She seemed to herself to be the last survivor—the only inhabitant. Timorously she stole down, finding shutters at all the windows, bolts at all the doors. At Earl’s-hall who ever dreamed of a bolt or a bar! The door was “snecked” when John thought of it, but often enough was left on the latch, so that any one might have come in; but very different were the precautions here. She stole about on tiptoe, peeping here and there, feeling herself an intruder, totally unable to believe that all this was hers; and very much frightened by the noise she made, undid the heavy fastenings and opened the great door, which creaked and clanged as if calling for help against some invader.
The dew was still sparkling on the flowers when she issued forth into the fresh air of the morning, doubly refreshed with last night’s showers. The birds were singing, nations and tribes of them, in every tree. They made such a din round her as she stepped out that she could scarcely hear herself thinking. Instinctively Margaret ran down to the little brook, which she called (to herself) the burn. And there, looking back, she stood entranced with a novel delight. She had never before seen anything like it. A great old rambling simple-minded English house, of old brick with a bloom on it, and touches of lichen, golden and gray: covered with verdure, nothing new or petty; the very honeysuckles grown into huge trees, forests of the simplest white clematis, the traveller’s joy, with its wild wreaths and sweet clusters of flowers, roses in their second bloom mounting up to the old chimneys, which had retreated into great bushes of ivy; and everywhere through a hundred folds and wreaths of green—everywhere the mellow redness of the old house itself peeping through. Margaret clasped her hands in delight. The landscape was nothing but trees, and had little interest for her; but the house! It was itself like a great flower, all warm and strong. And this was hers! She could not believe it. She stood rapt, and gazed at the perfect place—a mass of flowers and leafage, and bloomy old walls. It was a poem in homely red and brown, an autumnal sonnet. And this was hers! She could not believe it—it was too beautiful to be true.
Afterthis there ensued a moment of great quiet and pleasant domestic life. Miss Parker, who was the house-keeper, was a very legitimate member of the class which nobody had then thought of calling Lady-help, but which flourished in the shadow and protection of a family as Poor Relation. She was a distant cousin of Margaret’s mother, who, having no money and no talents of any serviceable sort, had been kindly provided for in this very natural domestic office; and the good woman took a great deal of interest in Margaret, and would not have at all disliked to inspire her with rebellion, and persuade her to make a stand for “her own place” in her own house. That the other family, the other side of the house, should be regnant at the Grange, making Margaret appear like the daughter rather than the mistress, offended her in every point; but as she was not a wicked woman, and Margaret not a rebellious girl, these little intentions of malice came to nothing, and Jean commenced an unquestioned and on the whole beneficent sway with little resistance. As for Margaret herself, the novelty of everything filled her life with fresh springs of enjoyment, and gave her a genuine new beginning, not counter to the natural, nor in any way antagonistic, but yet genuinely novel, fresh, and unconnected with any painful or disturbing recollection.
The soft unlikeness of the leafy English landscape round, to all she had been used to, was not more marked than the other differences of her life. When she went along the rural road the little girls courtesied to her, and so did the women at the cottage-doors; they stood obsequious in their own houses, when she went to see them, as if she had been the Queen; not like the cottagers about Earl’s-hall, to whom she was only Miss Margaret, who courtesied to nobody, and who were more likely to offer the little girl “a piece” or a “drink of milk” than to take the surreptitious shillings which Margaret at the Grange was so delighted to find herself able to give. “But they will be affronted!” she said, in horror, when this liberality was first suggested to her; such a difference was there between Fife and “the South.” Then, within reach, there lay a beautiful little church, in which there were monuments and memorial marbles without number to the Sedleys, the family of her mother, the owners of the Grange, and where an anxious new incumbent had established daily service, to which he was very anxious the Leslies at the Grange should come by way of setting a good example. To this admirable man, who thought that within the four seas there was no salvation except in the Anglican Communion, Margaret unguardedly avowed, knowing no harm in it, that she had been brought up in the Church of Scotland, and was not very familiar with the prayer-book. Oh, what daggers Jean looked at her, poor Margaret not knowing why! Mrs. Bellingham made haste to explain.
“My father was old-fashioned, Mr. St. John, and never would give up the old kirk. I think he thought it was right to go, to countenance the common people. I always say it is a disgrace, that it is they who have the parish churches in Scotland, just the set of people who are dissenters here; but I assure you all the gentry go to the English Church.”
Mr. St. John, though he was a little appalled by that generalization, and did not like to learn that “the common people” were dissenters, or that any church but the Anglican could be called “old,” yet nevertheless was not so shocked as he might have been, thinking, good man, that the common people in Fife probably spoke Gaelic, and that this was the reason why they had their service separate from the gentry. He began immediately to talk to Margaret about the beauty and pathos of Celtic music, which bewildered her extremely, for naturally Margaret Leslie, who had scarcely ever been out of the East Neuk till her father’s death, had never heard a word of Gaelic in her life.
And now at last Bell’s fondest desires were carried out. The little town which was near, and which the lessening limits of this history forbid us to touch upon, was a cathedral town full of music and with many educational advantages; for there were numerous schools in the neighborhood, and masters came from town to supply the demand two or three times a week. Margaret began to play upon the “piany,” as Bell had always longed to have her do, and to speak French. We cannot assert that she made very much progress in the former accomplishment with her untrained fingers and brief patience; but she had a pretty voice and learned to sing, which is perhaps a rarer gift, though it cannot be denied that she abused this privilege and went about the house and the garden, and even the park, singing at the top of her voice, till her sisters were provoked into expostulation. “What is the use of teaching you,” Jean cried, “when you go singing, singing—skirling they would call it in Fife—straining all your high notes? When I was a girl like you, I was never allowed to open my mouth except for practising, and when there was an occasion for it. It is all gone now, but I assure you when I was twenty I was considered to have a very pretty voice. I wish yours may ever be as good. It will not be so long if you go straining it in this way. Do you think the birds want to hear you singing?” cried Mrs. Bellingham, with scorn.
“Oh, dearest Jean! but dear Margaret has much more of a voice than we ever had. We used to sing duets—”
“Yes, Grace had a little chirp of a second—just what you will come to, Margaret,” said Mrs. Bellingham, “if you go on as you are doing, straining all your high tones.”
As for the French, they found fault with her pronunciation, which was natural enough; but perhaps it was not so natural that Mrs. Bellingham should find fault with the irreproachable accent of Monsieur Dubois, a Parisian,pur sang, who had taught princesses in his day. “No, Margaret, my dear; you may go on with him, for any kind of French is better than none, when you are so far behind with your education. But I am sure he is taking all these good people in with his fine certificates and testimonials. His French cannot be good,for I don’t understand a word he says!” Thus the autumn went on: the trees about the Grange got aglow, and began to blaze with glorious colors, and Margaret with her crape getting shabby (crape gets shabby so soon, heaven be praised!) ran about the house, the park, the country roads, and the village, scolded, petted, taken care of, watched over, teased and worried, and made much of, as she had never been before. She had been the child at Earl’s-hall, whose innocent faults everybody had smiled at, whose innocent virtues had met the same fate, who was indeed the spring of everybody’s happiness, the most cherished, the most beloved—but yet, so to speak, of no importance at all. Here it was different; here everything hinged on Margaret. Jean, though she was a despot, insisted loudly on the fact that she was but a despot-regent, and Margaret’s name was put to everything, and Margaret’s supremacy upheld, though Margaret herself was scolded.
What difference it might have made in this State of affairs, had little Margaret, Sir Ludovic’s orphan child, been dependent upon her sisters, as, but for that mother of hers of whom Margaret knew nothing, she well might have been, it would be impossible to say. They would have done her “every justice;” they would have taught her to sing and scolded her for singing; they would have called in Monsieur Dubois, and then declared his French could not be good; all these things would have happened all the same, and they would have meddled with and dictated to, and teased, and tried, their little sister. But whether the process would have been as bearable as it was under the present circumstances, who can tell? The dependent might have felt that insupportable which tempted the heiress into laughter, and disclosed a fund of mirth within which she did not know she possessed.
One thing, however, Jean would not have done had Margaret been penniless, which she did for Margaret as the young lady of the Grange. She certainly would not have invited Aubrey, after his return from Scotland, to come and see the new horse that had been bought for Margaret, and to superintend her instructions in that kind. The girl had ridden at home, cantering about the country, all unattended, on a gray pony, in a gray garment, which bore but a faint resemblance to the pretty habit in which she was now clothed; but she had never mounted anything like the prancing steed which was now to be called hers. The sisters were a great deal too careful of her to allow this fiery steed to be mounted until after Margaret and the horse had received all kinds of preparation for the conjunction; but when the ladies came out to superintend the start, and watched while Aubrey, newly arrived, put the slim light creature upon her horse, Jean and Grace felt a movement of pride in her, which made the more emotional sister cry, and swelled Mrs. Bellingham’s bosom with triumph. “Take care of her,” she said to her nephew with a meaning glance, “for you will not find many like her.”
“I will take care,” said Aubrey, returning the look. This Mrs. Bellingham would not have done had Margaret been only her little sister without any fortune, instead of the young lady of the Grange.
It was a very pleasant ride, and it was so different from all her former exercises of the kind that it became one of those points in Margaret’s life which tell like milestones when one looks back. She did not talk very much after the first delighted outbreak of pleasure; but in her heart went back to the stage of the gray pony, and with a startled sense of the change in everything round her, contemplated herself. What change had passed upon her? Was it only that she was a little taller, a little older, transplanted into new surroundings, separated altogether by death and distance from the group of old people who had been all her world? Not altogether that: there were other changes too important to be fully fathomed during a ride through the green lanes, and under the falling leaves. She rode along, hearing vaguely what Aubrey said to her, making only what response was necessary, wondering over this being who was, yet was not, herself. She had forgotten all about herself so far as that was possible in the novelty of this new chapter of her career. She had lived only from day to day, from moment to moment, not asking herself what she was doing, how she was changing; and lo she was changed. She found it out all in a moment. It bewildered and turned her head, and made her so giddy, that her companion thought she had taken a panic and was going to fall. He started and put out his hand to hold her.
“Oh, it is nothing,” Margaret said; “it is over now; it was all so strange.”
“What was strange? You are ill, you are giddy, you have got nervous.”
“Yes, I am giddy; but neither ill nor nervous. I am giddy to think—oh, how strange it is! Do you remember, Mr. Aubrey, when we were in the Highlands in August?”
“Nearly three months ago. Indeed, I remember very well. Do you think it is likely I should forget?”
“Oh, I don’t suppose it was much to you,” said Margaret, with an abstraction of tone which prevented him, though very willing, from accepting this as provocative of something like flirtation. “It was myself that I was thinking of, and it made me giddy. Since that time I am quite different. Since then I have grown up.”
“I don’t see very much difference,” said Aubrey, contemplating her with those pleased looks of unspoken admiration which he knew did not in general afford an ungrateful mode of homage.
“Oh! perhaps I have not grown much taller; but this is more than tallness. Do you remember Earl’s-hall, Mr. Aubrey? It is not really, is it, so very far away?”
“I should not say so—about fifteen or sixteen hours’ journey, if the railway went straight, without that horrid interval of the Firth.”
“Oh, that was not what I was meaning!” said Margaret, turning her head away a little coldly. And though he went on talking, she did not pay much attention. She came home with dreamy eyes, and suffered him to lift her off her horse, and went straight up to her room, leaving him. They had not ridden quite so far as they intended, and the ladies had not got home from their drive.
As Margaret went up-stairs, carrying her train over her arm, she met Miss Parker, her poor relation, on the stairs, who gave a jump at the sight of her, and uttered a cry.
“Oh, my dear, I thought you were a ghost!” she said.
“Why should I be a ghost? I don’t feel like a ghost. Come in and tell me,” said Margaret, opening the door of her room. Miss Parker had palpitations, and this was quite enough to bring one of them on.