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Title: May; vol. I

Author: Mrs. Oliphant

Release date: June 17, 2021 [eBook #65631]

Language: English

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                              VOL. 1323.

                         MAY BY MRS. OLIPHANT

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                                VOL. I.

                     LEIPZIG: BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.

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                              COLLECTION

                                  OF

                            BRITISH AUTHORS

                          TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

                              VOL. 1323.

                         MAY BY MRS. OLIPHANT.

                            IN TWO VOLUMES.

                                VOL. I


                                “_Maggio_
                        _Non ha paraggio._”
                             ITALIAN PROVERB.




                                 MAY.

                                  BY

                            MRS. OLIPHANT,

                               AUTHOR OF
                      “THE MINISTER’S WIFE,” ETC.

                         _COPYRIGHT EDITION._

                            IN TWO VOLUMES.

                                VOL. I.

                                LEIPZIG
                          BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

                                 1873.

                _The Right of Translation is reserved._




                                  TO

                        THE HONOURABLE CAPTAIN

                                  AND

       MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL AND ANCIENT GOLF CLUB OF ST. ANDREWS

     (Especially to those among that noble Company whom the Author
                       ventures to call Friends)

                               THIS BOOK

                                  IS

               REVERENTIALLY, AND ADMIRINGLY INSCRIBED.




                                 MAY.




CHAPTER I.


The house of Hay-Heriot had been established at Pitcomlie for more
centuries than could easily be reckoned. It was neither very rich nor
very great, but it was well connected, and had held itself sturdily
above the waves of fate like one of the rocks along its wild coast line,
often threatened by rising tides, but never submerged. There had never
been any great personages in the family to raise it above its natural
level, but neither had there been any distinguished profligates or
spendthrifts to pull it down. Most of the lairds had been respectable,
and those who were not had never been more than moderately wicked,
keeping clear of ruinous vices. The history of the house had been very
monotonous, without ups or downs to speak of. In the vicissitudes of the
rebellions they had kept clear, being too far south to be seriously
compromised; and though a younger son was out in the ’45, that did not
affect either the character or the circumstances of the family. In
short, this was the Hay-Heriot way of sowing its wild oats. Its younger
sons were its safety-valve; all that was eccentric in the race ran into
those stray branches, leaving the elder son always steady and
respectable, a most wise arrangement of nature.

Thus the house itself derived even profit and glory from the adventurous
irregularity of its younger members, while its stability was uninjured.
Indian curiosities of all kinds, warlike trophies, and the splendid
fruit of those pilferings which are not supposed to be picking and
stealing when they are the accompaniments of war, decorated the old
mansion on every side. A curiously decorated scimitar, which had been
taken from Tippoo Saib, hung over the mantelpiece in the library along
with a French sabre from Waterloo, and the shield of a Red Indian
barbarically gay with beads and fringes. These were all contributions
from the heroic ne’er-do-weels who linked the staidest of households to
the tumult and commotion of distant worlds. Sometimes the ne’er-do-weels
would cost the head of the house some money, but on the whole the
balance was kept tolerably even, and the younger Hay-Heriots
conscientiously forbore from leaving orphan children, or other
incumbrances, to burden the old house--a considerateness quite unlike
the habit of younger sons, which was applauded and envied by many
families in the country who had no such exemption.

The present family differed, however, in many respects from the
traditions of the race. Thomas Hay-Heriot of Pitcomlie was indeed all
that his ancestors had been, an excellent country gentleman, homely in
his manners and thrifty in his habits, but hospitable, charitable, and
not ungenerous--a man of blameless life and high character. His brother
Charles, however, who, according to all the family rules ought to have
been a scapegrace, was not so in the smallest degree, but, on the
contrary, as respectable as his elder brother; a man who had never been
further than Paris in his life, a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh; a
man of method and order, who had done exactly the same thing at the same
hour every day for thirty years, and who was as good as a clock to his
servants and neighbours. This is not in general an attractive
description of a man, but there was a great deal to be said in Uncle
Charles’ favour, as the reader who has patience to follow out this
history will learn.

The fact that he was Uncle Charles will at once reveal one important
part of his life. He had never married, he had always been more or less
a member of his brother’s household, and now, when age began to creep
upon both, lived almost continually in the home of his youth. It was he
who sat in the triangular corner of a settee by the fire with a
newspaper in his hand, which he was not reading, in the Pitcomlie
drawing-room, on a bright March day not very many years ago, in the half
hour which preceded luncheon in that orderly house. We are aware that we
ought to have afforded a glimpse of Pitcomlie House, before thus
dragging the reader head and shoulders into its domestic centre--but
after all it is the interior which is the most important, and this is
how it looked.

A long room with three large windows opening upon a lawn, beyond which
surged and swelled an often angry and boisterous sea. The fireplace was
opposite the central window, and the room had been handsomely furnished
forty years before, and bore that air of continuance and use which in
itself gives a charm to all human habitations.

It had, however, as all such rooms have, various points of contact with
the immediate present, in the shape of low chintz-covered easy-chairs
and other modern vanities. Uncle Charles’ chimney-corner was formed by
placing an arm across the long settee fitted to the wall, thus leaving
him a roomy triangular seat at the end, where his lean limbs got all the
benefit of the warmth. He was a man of nearly sixty, with scanty fair
hair, scarcely touched with grey, a forehead which wrinkled up in folds
or smoothed itself miraculously out according to his moods as he talked,
and a pair of light yellowish grey eyes with scanty eyelashes, also
light in colour, over which he puckered his brows continually, being
shortsighted. He was one of the thinnest of men, as light and agile as
many a boy, and sat with his long legs crossed in the acutest of angles.

His brother stood with his back to the fire, older by two years, and
heavier by at least six stone. He was dressed in grey morning clothes,
with boots and leather gaiters, and an atmosphere of the fields and free
air about him. Indeed, he had just come in from his home-farm, which he
managed very carefully, and by which he proudly declared he had never
lost a penny. There was no one else in the room. The walls were painted
gray-green and hung with family portraits. The round table at the east
end--for in this part of Scotland everything is spoken of
geographically--was laden with books; and in the west end the room
blossomed out into a deeply recessed bay window, half veiled with lace
curtains, within which stood one easy-chair and small table. This
recess, and indeed the air of the place generally, betrayed the
habitation of a woman, and one whose tastes and “ways” were very
influential--but no woman was present. The aspect of the room was south
and west, so that the sharp east wind then blowing outside did not
affect so much as might have been feared the temperature within. An east
wind in Fife is not always the grey and withering misery it is in other
places; under some peculiar modifications of the atmosphere it makes the
sea blue and the sky clear, and such was the effect on this particular
morning. This it may be imagined was an effect most deeply to be desired
at Pitcomlie, which so far, at least, as the drawing-room was concerned,
was like a ship at sea, seeing little besides the water; but as the
Hay-Heriots had all been, so to speak, born and bred in an east wind,
they were more indifferent than most people to its penetrating power.

“I have another letter from Tom,” said Mr. Heriot, sighing and raising
his arms with his coat tails under them.

“Always wanting something?” said Uncle Charles, with a shrug.

“Well, when all’s done and said, he is the first to be considered,”
said the laird, with a faint glimmer as of incipient resentment. “It is
to him that everything must come; he must carry on the name like his
fathers before him. Being a younger son yourself, Charlie, you have your
prejudices, as is but natural. Your word is always for the others--never
for Tom.”

Uncle Charles gave another shrug of his lean shoulders. “Tom cares
little for my good word,” he said, “and has little need of it. You’re
quite capable of spoiling your son yourself, so far as I can see,
without me to help. The girls are my thought; young men can shift for
themselves, and it was always the way of our family to let them; but the
girls, Thomas--there’s two of them. There’s my niece Marjory, as fine a
young woman as any in the county--”

“Oh, ay, May; she’s the first in your thoughts. But girls are neither
here nor there,” said Mr. Heriot, “they have their pickle money, more or
less, and there’s an end of them. What’s Marjory to do with money? What
can she do at her age--”

“Marry, I suppose, like the rest,” said Uncle Charles.

“Marry!” said the father. “I don’t see any necessity for my part; she’s
a great deal better as she is, with you and me.”

“That may be or mayn’t be,” said Uncle Charles; “but at least you are
not the man to say so; you married twice yourself.”

“And a great deal I have made by it,” said Mr. Heriot, with a mixture of
complaint and discontent. “My first wife was an excellent creature, an
excellent creature, as you know; but she was taken away from me just
when I and the bairns wanted her most. Providence is very queer in some
things. Just when May was a growing girl, and Tom at the age when a
woman is of use, their mother was taken away. It is not for us to
complain, but it’s a strange way of acting, a very strange way of
acting. I could not take the responsibility of guiding my hinds in such
a manner. Well, and then I married poor Jeanie, hoping she would keep
everything in order, and set the house to rights--and what does she do
but slip away too, poor thing, leaving me with a helpless bit baby on my
hands? A great deal I have made by it that you should quote my example.
What would Marjory do to marry? She is far better as she is, mistress
and more of this house, petted as no husband would ever pet her, getting
her own way in everything. Bless my soul, man, what would you like for
her more?”

“Well, a house of her own,” said Uncle Charles, no way daunted, “and a
good man. I have not your experience, Thomas, but I suppose that’s the
best for a woman. She is more of your way of thinking than mine, but
it’s our duty to think for her, you know. We’re old now, and Tom’s
extravagant--and she’s not precisely growing younger herself.”

“Toots, she’s young enough,” said the laird; and then he began to walk
up and down the room, still with his coat-tails under his arms. “To
tell the truth,” he said, “Marjory’s marriage would be the worst thing
that could happen for us. I would not stand in her way if it was for her
good. When there’s a family of daughters, of course it becomes of
consequence; what else can they do, poor things? but Marjory is in a
very different position. Poor little Milly is not ten, and what would
you and I do, left in a house like this, with a bit creature of ten
years old? Her sister is her natural guardian; and what can be more
natural than that May should take care of her father’s house and keep
everything going? What can a woman want more? A house of her own! isn’t
this house her own? and as nice a house as any in Fife; and as for a
man--if she knew as much about men as I do, Charlie, or you either for
that matter--”

Uncle Charles gave a half-stifled, chuckling laugh. The humour of this
remonstrance overcame his graver sense; and that Marjory’s marriage
would have been as great a drawback--perhaps a greater misfortune--to
himself than even to her father there could be no doubt.

“I don’t say but what that’s an indisputable argument,” he replied; “she
might get a bonny bargain, and repent it all her days. But there’s the
luncheon bell, and where is she? I don’t think I ever knew her to be
late before.”

“Are you not going to wait?” said the laird.

Mr. Charles had hoisted himself up at the sound of the bell; he had
folded his newspaper and laid it down upon his seat. He had picked up
his shortsighted spectacles, which lay as they always did, when he was
reading, on the edge of the wainscot, which was high and served him as a
stand; and he had lifted the poker to administer, as he invariably did
at this hour, a farewell poke to the fire before leaving it. He turned
round upon his brother, looking at him over his shoulder with the poker
in his hand.

“Wait!” he said. It was altogether a new idea. Marjory was punctuality
itself, trained to it from her earliest years, and time was inexorable
at Pitcomlie, waiting for no man or woman either.

“Wait?” he repeated, laying down the poker. “Thomas, my man, you’re not
well.”

“Bah!” said the laird, taking up the poker which his brother had
dropped, and applying such a blow to the coal as sent blazing sparks all
over the hearth-rug. It was exactly what might have been expected, but
his brother stood helplessly and looked at him, feeling that chaos
itself had come, until the smell of the burning wool startled them both.
Mr. Heriot stooped down, which did not agree with him, to pick up the
smouldering sparks with his hands, out of which the morsels of fire
tumbled again, sprinkling little pin-points of destruction all over the
Turkey rug. Mr. Charles ran and opened the window, which let in a steady
strong blast from the Firth, enough to wither up the very soul of any
man not to the manner born. “Bless my soul!” they both said, between the
fire and the cold, in confusion and discouragement. It was entirely
Marjory’s fault. Why was not Marjory at home? What did she mean by
staying out at an hour when she was so much wanted? Mr. Heriot spoke
quite sharply when old Fleming, the butler, came to answer the bell.
“Where is Miss Marjory?” he said. “Come and pick up these cinders, and
don’t stand and stare at me. Where is Miss Marjory, I ask you? What do
you mean by ringing the bell when she’s not here?”

“Lord bless us, Sir,” said old Fleming, gazing at his master with a
consternation beyond words. “What for should I no ring the bell? I’ve
rung it night and morning, midday and dinner-time, in a’ times and
seasons, even when there was death in the house; and what for should we
hold our peace now?”

“Confound you!” said the laird; and then he recollected himself, and put
on that peculiar politeness which is with some men a symptom of wrath.
“Be so good as to leave the room at once, and bring me word if Miss
Marjory has come in,” he said.

Mr. Charles by this time had closed the window, subdued by his brother’s
unusual fractiousness. “Tom’s letter must have been more trying than
ordinary,” he said to himself, and then in the curious pause that
followed he looked at his watch. A quarter to two o’clock! In the memory
of man it had not been known that the Pitcomlie household should be
later than half-past one, in sitting down to its luncheon. Mr. Charles
did not know what to do with himself. In his scheme of existence this
half hour, and no other, was filled with lunch. He had other duties for
all the other half hours, and every one of them must be pushed out of
its proper place by May’s singular error. This fretted him more than he
could say. He walked about the room with his hands in his pockets and in
much bewilderment of soul. “If you will not come, I will go by myself,”
he said at length to his brother, “I can’t afford to lose all my
afternoon. May must have stayed in Comlie with old Aunt Jean for lunch.”

“Lose your afternoon!” said Mr. Heriot. “Bless my soul, what’s your
afternoon, an idle man! If it had been me that had complained”--

“There’s Scotch collops,” said old Fleming, suddenly appearing at the
door, “and chicken with cucumber. They’ll both spoil if they’re no
eaten; and Miss Marjory’s not to be seen, no even from the towerhead
where I sent little James to look. You’ll do her little good waiting, if
I may make so bold to say so, and the good meat will be spoiled.”

“I told you so,” said Mr. Charles, who profited by this interruption to
march briskly past Fleming and hasten to the dining-room. Mr. Heriot
followed him with a less satisfied air; and the two gentlemen placed
themselves at table, and being hungry eat a hearty meal and said no more
about Marjory. Her absence indeed was nothing to be anxious about, and
the chicken and cucumber was very good, as were also the Scotch collops,
a dish for which Mrs. Simpson, the cook, was famous. Mrs. Simpson,
indeed, was famous for a great many things; she was partly the creation
and partly the instructress of Mr. Charles Hay-Heriot himself, to whom
she had been solemnly bequeathed by one of his old friends in
Edinburgh, who had bragged of her greatly in his life-time, and had
meant to survive her, and publish her lore in a book. But it was she who
had survived instead, and Mr. Charles was of opinion that he himself had
immensely improved her. She was supposed to be the last depositary of
many old Scotch recipes, the only person who knew how to send up Friar’s
chicken, and a howtowdie with drappit eggs. The Scotch collops were
brown and fragrant, sending a delicious flavour through all the house,
and the little momentary annoyance of the past half hour sank into
insignificance before them. The two gentlemen made a hearty meal, both
of them having had fresh air enough to make it acceptable, and talked of
other things. With Fleming behind his master’s chair, even Tom’s letter
became no matter for discussion, and though the table with its two
vacant places looked somewhat dreary, there was no further remark made
on that subject. “They are dining with old Aunt Jean,” Mr. Charles said
to himself; and as for his brother he was a little ashamed of the fuss
he had made. That fuss had not been, as he very well knew, for Marjory’s
absence, but because Tom’s letter was such a one as irritates a parent;
and Mr. Charles’ readiness to side against Tom in all domestic
controversies irritated the father still further, who did not choose
that any one but himself should blame his heir. Indeed one of Mr.
Heriot’s chief grievances against his eldest son was this way he had of
laying himself open to animadversion. He felt it was against the
dignity of all eldest sons and heads of houses that this should be
possible. The Charlies of life, the younger sons, the girls, were open
to reasonable discussion; but when the heir thus exposed himself, all
family discipline and subordination was in danger. It was almost as bad
as if he himself, Thomas Hay-Heriot of Pitcomlie, had been openly
criticised by his family. And Tom was a young man who continually laid
himself open to animadversion. Even Fleming had been known to have his
fling at him, and the only one of Marjory’s revolutionary qualities
which really annoyed her father, was her want of proper respect for her
brother’s position. He had been the eldest son himself, and had always
been treated with the highest consideration; and the head of the house
entertained very strongly this _esprit de corps_. He made no further
allusion therefore to the subject which really engrossed all his
thoughts.




CHAPTER II.


While her father and uncle were thus fuming over her absence, Marjory
Hay-Heriot, with her little sister, had been making her way quietly
about the little town of Comlie, whither they had ridden down in the
morning, tempted by the sunshine, after some days of rainy weather.
Comlie was a little old clean and quaint place, an old-fashioned Fife
borough, devoted to fishing in its lower parts, but possessing such a
High Street as not one of all its sister-towns possessed. This High
Street had a wide causeway, clean and straight, and a broad footpath
into which many old-fashioned large houses stepped forward with their
white gables, in a true picturesque old Scotch way, telling of better
times and characteristics more decided than our own. A quaint little
semi-metropolitan air was about this silent street, through which the
broad sunshine fell with few shadows to obstruct it. A little town-hall
with a quaint ancient steeple stood in the middle of the street, with
one square unglazed window protected by iron rails, the window of the
town Bridewell, raised just above the heads of the passers-by, and
looking as like the little town prison of an Italian mountain village as
two similar things could look in places so unlike. At the west end was
an old inn, a little hostel which, no doubt, was doing a good trade in
the days when queens and courts were at Falkland Palace, and archbishops
reigned in St. Andrews. The houses on the south side of the street with
their projecting gables, whitewashed and many-windowed, looked out upon
the sea to the back, over the fringe of fisher cottages which lay lower,
close to the beach. At the east end of the town stood the church, an old
church cobbled into mediocrity, but still displaying to instructed eyes
the lines of its original structure, and tempting archæologists with
hopes of restoration. It was surrounded by a churchyard full of
monuments of the sixteenth century, with skulls and cross-bones and urns
and puffing cherubs. It is astonishing how many dead people belonging to
that century could afford to leave behind them those cumbrous masses of
stone. The Manse, a solid, and in its way, spacious square stone house,
stood at a little distance overlooking the sea; and outside the church
gates, where the broad street had widened into a kind of triangular
_place_, there were several “genteel” houses--one decorated with iron
gates and trees in front, but the rest old, of characteristic Fife
architecture, each with its white gable. The sea is the background to
everything in this country, and to-day it was blue, a keen and chill,
but brilliant tone of colour, throwing up the whitewashed houses and
light grey stone with a brightness almost worthy of Italy; though no
Italian wind, unless, indeed, a Tramontana fresh from the snowy hills,
ever penetrated human bones like that steady blast from the east, which
came natural to the people of Comlie.

Marjory had left her horse and little Milly her tiny pony at John
Horsburgh’s inn, and they were now going up and down the silent street
in the sunshine about their various businesses, holding up their
riding-skirts, the little girl keeping very close by her sister’s side
like a little shadow, and communicating with the outer world almost
exclusively by means of a large pair of limpid blue eyes, clear as
heaven, and wide open, which said almost all that Milly had to say, and
learned a great deal more than Milly ever betrayed. Wherever Marjory
went, this little shade went with her, sometimes holding by her dress,
always treading in her very footsteps, a creature with no independent
existence of her own, any more than if she had been part of Marjory’s
gown, or an ornament she wore. As for Marjory herself, she went along
the street of Comlie with the free yet measured step of a princess,
aware that every eye in the place (there were not many visible), was
turned to her; but so used to that homage that it gave her only a fine
backing of moral strength and support, and made her neither vain nor
proud. Vain! why should Marjory Hay-Heriot be vain? She knew her
position exactly and accepted it, and was aware of all its duties, and
considered it natural. She was like a princess in Comlie; she would have
told you so simply without more ado, as calm in the consciousness as any
young grand-duchess in her hereditary dominions. She had been going over
her kingdom that morning, and had found a great many things to do.

At this moment when, if the reader pleases, we shall join ourselves
like little Milly to her train, she was coming up from “the shore” as it
was called, the fisher-region, where she had been paying a sorrowful
visit. One of the boats had gone down in the last gale, a too frequent
accident, and a young widow with a three months old baby, a poor young
creature who not two years before had left Pitcomlie House to marry her
Jamie, was sitting rocking herself and her child in the first stupor of
grief, and replying by monosyllables to all the kindly attempts to
console her.

“Oh ay, Miss Marjory,” “I ken that,” “Yes, Mem, its a’true,” poor Jean
had said, with the weary assent which means so little. Marjory came back
to the High Street with a grave face, and her own mind full of the
dreariness of that inevitable assent. What could any woman answer more
to the kind voices that bid her bear her trial and have patience, and
remember that it is God’s will? “Its a’ true.” May was not of a
melancholy mind; but that pitiful assent to everything she had said went
to her heart. She walked on with her light step that did no more than
_effleurer_ the ground, stopping sometimes to nod and smile to some
woman at her door.

“All well to-day, Mary?”

“Oh, ay, Miss Marjory, just about our ordinary, nae mair to complain o’
than maist puir folk; if thae weary cauld winds would bide away that gie
us a’ our death.”

“This is the first east wind we’ve had for a fortnight,” said Marjory.
“I think we have very little reason to complain.”

“Ye see I’m frae the south,” said the woman; “and my man has a hoast
that drives ye wild to hear; and when we havena the east wind in Comlie
we have the rain, and the bairns canna gang to the school, and there’s
naething but dirt and wet, and misery and quarrelling. It’s a weary
world, as our grannie says. Whatever the Almighty sends, there’s aye
something folk would like better.”

“But perhaps that might be the folk’s fault, and not the Almighty’s,”
suggested Marjory.

“Maybe; I’m no saying,” answered Mary Baxter, cautiously. “I hope’s a’
weel at Pitcomlie, and good news o’ the young gentlemen. They tell me
Mr. Charles’s wife out in India yonder, has another son. Bless us! and I
mind himself so well, a curly-headed laddie! It would have been mair
like the thing if Mr. Tammas would settle down, and bring hame some
bonnie young leddy and gie Mr. Heriot childhers’ childher, as it’s in
the Bible. But there’s nae word o’ that that I can hear?”

“No, there is no word of that. I hope Nancy is doing well in her new
place,” said Miss Heriot, changing the subject with the same unconscious
artifice which had prompted her humble interlocutor to carry the war
into the enemy’s country by introducing Charles’s marriage and Tom’s
bacherlorhood. These two subjects were not pleasing to the house of
Heriot; for Tom, the heir, unfortunately, showed no inclination to marry
at all, and Charlie in India had become a husband and a father much too
soon, contrary to all traditions. Marjory passed on when she had been
satisfied on the subject of Nancy, but was stopped a few steps further
on by a bareheaded girl in a pretty pink short-gown, the costume of the
country, who ran after her with her fair locks falling loose in the
wind.

“Eh, Miss Marjory, would you come in and speak to my mither?” cried this
new applicant. This was Jenny Patterson, who lived up a stair just
behind the Tolbooth, and a little out of Miss Heriot’s way. How Jenny
admired the young lady as she gathered up her heavy cloth skirts, and
with a smile and a nod went on to the well-known door! If Jenny had ever
heard of goddesses, just so would she have impersonified a feminine
divinity; that mixture of splendid superiority and familiar kindness
being of all things the most captivating to the unsophisticated soul.
Jenny’s brother, who was a watchmaker in Dundee, and held very advanced
political opinions, considered her devotion servile, but blushed to feel
that he himself shared it whenever he was brought under the same
influence. “But it’s no the leddy, it’s the woman I think of,” Radical
Jock explained to himself--an explanation as false as most such
explanations are.

“Jenny says you want me, Mrs. Patterson,” said Marjory, sitting down on
the chair which Jenny carefully dusted and placed in front of the fire.
It was a small room, with but a little space between the bed and the
fire, and with one window veiled by an immense geranium stretched upon a
fan-like frame, which was the pride of its mistress’s heart, consumed
half the air and light in the little place, and curiously enough
condescended to grow with splendid luxuriance. Jenny’s mother was an
invalid, but a good needlewoman, who got through a great deal of
“white-seam” in her chair by the fire, and lived, she, her daughter, and
her geranium on the earnings thus acquired, supplemented by help from
her sons. Jenny stood by smiling and open-mouthed, twisting up the hair
which invariably came down when she flew out into the street on any
errand; and little Milly, familiar to the place, actually took the
independent step of going to the window, and chirruping to the canary
which hung above that geranium forest, and was the best singer in all
Comlie, not even excepting the Minister’s bullfinch, a strange and
foreign bird.

“Dinna think I’m wanting anything from you, Miss Marjory. The worst o’
puir folk is that they’re aye wanting. Na, na, it was only for a sight
o’ your face, which does a poor body good, and to read ye my Willie’s
letter. Jenny, ye taupie, bring me Willie’s letter. I can maistly say it
off by heart, but Miss Heriot will like to see it, and I might forget
something. Eh, I’m a happy woman! The captain o’ the ‘William and
Mary’s’ dead out yonder (pointing her thumb over her shoulder, which was
the way or indicating distance in Comlie), and Willie’s to bring the
boat home. It’s as good as a ship to him; for ance a captain aye a
captain, and his owners are no the men to put him back in a mate’s
place.”

“I am very glad to hear of Willie’s promotion,” said Marjory; “was the
captain a Comlie man?”

“Eh, you’ll think me awfu’ hard-hearted,” said Mrs. Patterson, struck
with compunction, and pausing with her large horn spectacles in her
hand; “but you canna suppose I would have spoke as free and been as
thankfu’ if he had been a Comlie man. Na, na, if another house in the
town had been mourning I would have held my peace. I’ve had trouble
enough myself to have mair feeling; but he’s no frae Comlie nor
nearhand. He’s a Dundee man, and I ken naething about him. His name was
Brown, like mony mair, and he’s no even married that I ever heard tell
of, and it’s to be hoped he’s in a better place.”

With this the new captain’s mother dismissed the old one, and put on her
big spectacles. “It’s dated Riga, the fourteenth February, for that’s
the port where they were bound. ‘My dear mother, I hope you and Jenny’s
in good health as this leaves me. Many and many a time I think of you
and the cosy little room, and the flower, and the canary-bird--’ Bless
the laddie,” said Mrs. Patterson, stopping abruptly, “he had aye the
kindest heart!”

The reader probably, however, will not be so much interested in this
letter as Marjory was, who listened and made her comments with thorough
sympathy, feeling quite relieved, as was Willie’s mother, by the fact
that the dead captain was not a Comlie man. Dundee was large and vague,
and far away, and was able enough to mourn her own dead. But as they
went down the stairs after their visit was over, Marjory said to her
little sister, “We shall be too late for luncheon at home; are you
hungry, dear? I think we might go and dine with Aunt Jean.”

“I am a little hungry,” Milly confessed, not without a blush.

“Then run and tell Betty we are coming, and I will go on to the Manse;
you can come after me or stay at Aunt Jean’s, as you like.”

“Walk slow, May, and I will make up to you,” cried little Milly, who ran
off instantly like a gleam of sunshine, her long fair hair fluttering in
the breeze, anxious to be absent as short a time as possible from her
sister’s side. Marjory went on slowly making her royal progress through
her dominions, casting a smile now and then through the low windows on
the ground floor, stopping to nod and say a passing word to some one on
an outside stair. The doctor, setting out in his gig on some distant
visit, jumped down and crossed the street to speak to her, to ask for
Mr. Heriot and Mr. Charles, and tell her how his patients were, of many
of whom she had a secondary charge, if not as consulting physician, yet
with a responsibility almost as great. “James Tod, poor lad, would be
the better of some books,” the doctor said, “and you’re a better
deceiver than I am, Miss Heriot; you might persuade old Mrs. Little that
your father has some rare wine in his cellar, wine she could not get to
buy.”

“You pay me a charming compliment,” said Marjory. “Could you not cheat
her yourself with all your powers?”

“She laughed in my face,” said the doctor, who was young, and not very
rich, “and asked me how I could get finer wines than other folk? She
was sure I might spend my siller better. And poor little Agnes dying
before my eyes!”

“Will she die?”

“Don’t ask me,” said the too tender-hearted doctor, springing into his
gig again. He was too sensitive to be a doctor, his wife said. As the
gig drove away, some one else came up taking off his hat with profound
respect. This was young Mr. Hepburn who lived in the house with the iron
gates, and was the only unemployed person in Comlie. He was a young man
tolerably well off, and more than tolerably good-looking, who had been
brought up in a desultory way, was more accomplished than any other
individual within twenty miles, did not in the least know what to do
with himself, and was treated by Marjory with mingled kindness and
condescension, as a clever schoolboy is sometimes treated by a young
lady. For his part, Hepburn admired Marjory as he had never admired
anyone else in his life. He was three or four years her junior, and he
thought he was in love with, nay, adored her. The sight of her he said
was as sunshine in the dreary silent place; and he had said this so
often that it had come to Marjory’s ears. It was not very original, and
she had thought it impertinent, and treated him with more lofty
condescension than ever.

“Oh, Mr. Hepburn,” she said holding out her hand to him; “I did not know
you were here. Some one told me you had gone abroad. I should have asked
you to come to us sometimes at Pitcomlie, and bring your music, had I
known. Not that we are very lively--”

“Pitcomlie is a great deal better than lively,” said the young man. “I
am not of such a frivolous mind as to be always looking for amusement.
You know, Miss Heriot, how glad I am always to be there.”

“But amusement is a very good thing,” said Marjory. “Indeed, it is bad
for young people to be without it. When Milly is a little older, I
intend to make papa give balls and be very lively. I have always thought
it a most essential part of training. I hope you go on with your music,
and practice as much as you used to do?”

“I don’t practice at all in the ordinary sense of the word,” said young
Hepburn, with an annoyance he could not conceal. Marjory had Scotch
prejudices and many old-fashioned notions, and it was her conviction
that a man with an immortal soul who “practised” three or four hours a
day was a phenomenon to be looked on with something like contempt. Girls
did it, poor things! not being able to help themselves--but a man! This
young woman, though she thought herself enlightened, was a tissue of
prejudices, and we do not in the least defend her old world ways of
thinking. She sang very sweetly herself, with a voice which was very
flexible and true, but only moderately cultivated; and she thought of
music as a pleasant thing to fill up stray corners, but not as an
inspiration or occupation of life. And when she kindly asked Mr. Hepburn
to come and _bring his music_, what she meant was undoubtedly contempt.

“I don’t mean to use any word I ought not to use,” said Marjory, with
her gracious smile, “but I hope you keep it up, that and your drawing.
It is good to have such resources when one has only a quiet life to look
forward to. Of course a gentleman has many ways of occupying himself;
but I am so sorry my education has been neglected. When I am dull, there
is scarcely anything I can do but read.”

“I should not think you were ever dull,” said Hepburn, with adoring
looks.

“Not very often, just now; but some time probably I shall be, and then I
shall envy you your resources. Will you dine with us at Pitcomlie
to-morrow, Mr. Hepburn? I fear we shall be quite alone; but if you will
take the trouble to come--and bring your--”

“I will come with the greatest pleasure,” said the young man,
precipitately, drowning that last objectionable request. He would take
no music, he vowed, for any inducement which might be offered him. His
right hand would make an effort to forget its cunning. He would give
himself up to riding and shooting, and trudge about the ploughed fields
in leather gaiters, like her father, and make a boor of himself, by way
of proving to her that he was not a schoolboy nor a dilettante. This he
vowed to himself as she went on smiling, and little Milly passed him
like a gleam of light, rushing after her sister. How unlike these two
were to anything else far or near! Marjory, with her little sister, was
like a deep-hearted rose, not full blown, yet perfect--one of those
roses which you can look down into, as into a lovely nest of colour and
fragrance--with a tiny little bud just showing the pink on the same
stem. Young Hepburn had a great deal of superficial poetry about him,
and this was the image which came into his mind. Not full blown--keeping
the form of a bud, deep, many-folded, odorous as the very soul of
Summer. That was the similitude which best expressed Marjory Heriot to
his mind.

And she, laughing softly at him, wondering to herself what God could
mean by making such men, deciding within herself that he would have made
a nice sort of girl, pleasant and rather loveable, went on to the Manse,
which indeed had been her destination all along.




CHAPTER III.


The minister of Comlie was an old man who had held that appointment for
a great many years. In many respects he was like a traditional Scotch
minister, but in others he did not come up to that ideal. He had
baptized the entire body of his parishioners, and married a great many
of them, but he was not the genial, kindly old soul who is ordinarily
conceived of as filling that position. When he walked through the town
the children did not run after him, nor seek sweetmeats in his pockets.
Any boy or girl in Comlie who had entertained that fond delusion would
have been fixed to the earth by the Doctor’s frown, and repented, all
his or her life after, the profane thought and word. Dr. Murray was a
man addicted to literature, full of Biblical criticism, great in
exegesis--a man who had been Moderator of the Assembly, and thus reached
the highest honour of which the incumbent of a Scottish parish is
capable. After this a great calm in respect to distinctions and worldly
advantages had been visible in him--he had contemned them gently with a
benevolent superiority. His spirit had been, as indeed it ought to have
been, in a professional point of view, rather that of Solomon than of
Alexander; no new world to conquer had occupied his thoughts, but only a
sense of that completion and fulness which must always be more or less
sad. The thing that hath been is that which shall be, he said. He had
everything the world could give him, and now there was no more to wish
for. But this sense of having attained the highest honour that earth
could afford, if somewhat depressing, had also a great deal of
satisfaction in it. No doubt his career was over, and all its splendour
and majesties were among the things that had been; but yet he had the
profound and tranquillizing conviction that he had not lived in vain.
Not in any way had he lived in vain. He had written the article on
Hyssop in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and he had had a large share in
the Popular Commentary on the Bible, which was considered the very best
authority upon Eastern customs and geography, and the local
peculiarities which throw light upon the sacred text. His name was one
of those which had been connected from the very first with the
“Christian Herald,” and it was he who wrote all the articles, signed
Alpha, in that well-conducted magazine. Therefore it will be at once
perceived that his life had been well worth living, that he was not in
any respect an unsuccessful man, and that the evening of his days might
well breathe forth a certain gentle satisfaction. Comlie was very proud
of the doctor, and even Fife was proud of him. When he heard that
Marjory was in the drawing-room, he laid down the book he was reading
and put a marker in it, and after five minutes or so had elapsed--for it
did not suit his dignity to make any hasty movements--he left his
library to see the young lady whom he felt a great interest in, as he
always said. “She has too much imagination and a hasty mind that runs
away with her sometimes; but she has fine instincts,” he would say. The
Manse stood on a knoll, and the drawing-room faced the sea. It was an
old-fashioned room, with small windows set in the deep walls, and
furniture which was somewhat dark and solemn. “You’ll stay and take a
bit of dinner with us, May, now you’re here,” Mrs. Murray was saying as
the doctor came in. “It’s no often we get a sight of you, and there’s
nobody the Minister likes so well to see. Milly, my dear, take off your
hat, and tell Margaret, the table-maid, to get out some of the
apple-puffs you’re aye so fond of. Marjory likes them too.”

“But, dear Mrs. Murray, we are going to Aunt Jean,” said Marjory. “I
will come back another day. Now the weather is mending, I shall be often
in Comlie. We are all very well, Doctor, thank you, but wondering not to
see you. Uncle Charles has some great argument, which, he says, he keeps
in his pocket ready for you. I don’t know what it is about. I thought
perhaps you would come up quietly to dinner to-morrow, and then you
could have it out?”

“We’ll do that, my dear,” said Mrs. Murray briskly; but the doctor was
more formal in his ways.

“Mr. Charles is no contemptible antagonist,” he said; “it will be our
old question about mortifications. I know I am on the unpopular side,
but a man who has convictions must make up his mind to that sometimes.
Did you say to-morrow? I do not remember what engagements I have, but if
Mrs. Murray says so----”

“Hoots, doctor, you’ve no engagements,” said lively little Mrs. Murray;
“you forget you’re at home in Comlie, and no in Edinburgh, where, to my
tribulation, we go out to our dinner every night. You may laugh, but
it’s no laughing matter, May, my dear, and a destruction to my best
gown--no to say to all my habits. You may wear point lace when it’s
dirty, but point lace is too good for a poor Minister’s wife, and my
suit of Mechlin is as black as if I had swept the chimney in it; and as
for working a stocking, or doing any rational thing after one of their
late dinners! But we’ll come to you, my dear.”

“I am afraid we are going to have a storm,” said the doctor; “the wind
is blowing strong up the Firth, and I doubt we’ll have a dirty night.
Nothing will teach these fishers to be careful when they’re getting what
they think a good haul. I have a great mind, when I see the glass
falling and the wind rising, to send old Tammas to ring the church bells
and warn their boats.”

“And why not do it?” said Marjory, with a slight start which was
peculiar to her when she heard anything that roused her interest. “There
could not be a better use for church bells. Do it, doctor! If the men
knew, it might save some of these poor fellows. Poor Jamie Horsburgh,
for instance; I saw Jean to-day, and it almost broke my heart.”

“Her that was laundry-maid at Pitcomlie?” said Mrs. Murray. “Ah, poor
thing! and what she is to do to gain her bread with that bit infant of
hers? But I do not advise you, doctor, to set any newfangled plan agoing
for ringing the bells. Nobody would pay any attention. They would say:
‘What does the minister know about the weather? Let him bide at his
books, and leave the winds to us.’ That’s what they would say. And if
you take my opinion, I cannot but think they would have justice on their
side.”

“I will not risk it, my dear,” said the doctor; “they are a pig-headed
race, like all the partially educated. I wish there was a higher
standard of education in our schools. Reading and writing are very well,
but a little attention to the common phenomena of the elements would be
a great matter--as I said to Mr. Tom the last time he was here--”

“Speaking of your brother Tom,” said Mrs. Murray briskly; “what is this
I hear about Charlie? A second boy, and him not above two years and
a-half married! My certy, but they’re losing no time; and I hope both
doing well?”

“Oh yes,” said Marjory, with a shade of indifference stealing over her
face; “people always do well in those circumstances, don’t they? Fancy
our Charlie with a family of children about him! I think it spoils a
young man. It makes them grand-fatherly--not to say grandmotherly--and
knowing about domestic matters. Charlie, of all people in the world!
but it cannot be helped, or put a stop to, I suppose?”

“Whisht, my dear, whisht; that’s a strange thing for a woman to say.”

“Is it?” said Marjory, with a sudden blush. “What I meant was that the
thought of Charlie turned into an old wife--Charlie knowing all about
nurseries, and what to give a baby when it has a cold--is so very queer.
I don’t like it; Charlie was always my pet brother. Poor fellow! and he
so far away!”

“I have no doubt he’s very happy--as he ought to be with a nice wife and
two bonnie bairns,” said Mrs. Murray, a little annoyed at Marjory’s
anti-matrimonial views; but this remark passed unnoticed in the doctor’s
question about what she was reading, which changed the character of the
conversation. Mrs. Murray was not booky, as she herself said; she was
too old for anything but novels; and though she had great enjoyment of
these on a wet afternoon, by the fireside, or when the doctor was busy
with his sermon, she did not say much about them, and kept them in the
background with a certain sense of weakness. Marjory, on the contrary,
discussed her reading with some eagerness, while the old lady and little
Milly cooed and whispered to each other in the background; the child’s
fair hair pressed lovingly against the net border--white and softly
plaited--of Mrs. Murray’s cap. And so long was the discussion carried on
that Marjory at last sprang up suddenly and held out her hand in alarm
to take leave, when the bell rang for the early dinner, which reminded
her how time was passing.

“Aunt Jean will be waiting for us,” she cried, with a compunction which
was quickened by the well-known tradition of punctuality which
distinguished the Hay-Heriots.

“Well, well, my dear, it will do her no harm for once,” said Mrs.
Murray, going to the door with the visitors, and opening it for them
with her own hands. She came out to the step to see them on their way,
while her husband stood behind. “Be sure you don’t sit too long with
Miss Jean--for there’s a storm coming up, as the doctor says; and come
soon back again,” said the old lady, smiling and waving her hand, while
her cap-strings wantoned in front of her in the rising wind. “That
lassie has strange notions,” she said, as she came in and shut the door.
“I wish I saw her with a good man and bairns of her own.”

“She’s a fine girl,” said the doctor, turning along the passage to his
dressing-room, to wash his hands before dinner. These words did not at
all resemble in sense the other expression of applause, “a fine
woman”--which they resemble in sound. Dr. Murray did not mean to imply
that he found May “fine” in physical development--_belle femme_, as the
French say, with a similar signification. He meant that she was
delightful, charming, the best specimen he knew of everything a young
woman should be.

We are obliged to confess, however, that it was with a somewhat
undignified precipitation that the two sisters crossed the wide street
to the dwelling-place of their old aunt. Miss Jean Hay-Heriot was
grand-aunt to the younger generation. Her father, the Laird of
Pitcomlie, was grandfather of the present Laird: but as she had been the
youngest of her family, she was scarcely ten years older than her
nephew. She had lived in this gabled house for five and forty years,
since the time when, still a young woman, she had given up the world in
disgust, after five or six years of wandering in places where lone
ladies resort to--Bath, and Cheltenham, and Harrowgate--for in those
days it had not become the custom to go abroad. Five and forty years!
What a waste of time to look back upon, and what a monotonous,
unfeatured expanse, May thought, who sometimes pondered over her old
aunt’s fate as one chapter among many of the phenomena of feminine
existence. But to Miss Jean this waste of years was not so unfeatured as
to her young relative. There seemed no reason why she should not go on
for ever in the same active yet tranquil way. From her window in the
gable she superintended all that Comlie did, every stranger who came
into it (they were not many), all the mild visiting that took place
among the higher classes, and the family movements of the lower,
quarrels, flirtations, marriages, catastrophes of all kinds. She was
seated in this same window, when Marjory, a little flushed with haste,
hurriedly gathering up her riding-habit, and finding it much in the way,
became visible running over from the Manse, Milly close behind, with her
long hair streaming. Miss Jean quietly smiled to herself, and prepared
for tempest. It roused her up sometimes, and gave her a pleasant
exhilaration, to get an opportunity of setting “that girl of Thomas’s”
right.

“Quick, quick, Miss Marjory,” said Betty, at the door. The door was in
the gable, and opened into a square hall, which was underneath the
drawing-room. “Quick, like good bairns, and dinna keep your aunty
waiting. The broth’s ready to come up, and Jessie making a terrible fyke
in the kitchen--and Miss Jean’s no pleased.”

She threw open the door of a little bedroom at the end of the passage as
she spoke--it was thought convenient in that region to have sleeping
rooms on the ground-floor--and began instantly to take off Milly’s outer
jacket, which was worn over her long riding-skirt. May smoothed her own
hair with a trepidation which was quite unusual to her. It was bright
brown hair, not so blond as Milly’s, but still full of soft colour,
though not red, nor even golden. Her eyes were brown too, large and
serious, but capable of lighting up with searching golden gleams. She
was softly coloured in every way, with an evanescent bloom that came and
went, and the most changeable of faces. Sometimes strangers thought her
almost plain, when her upper lip fixed on her lower with the resolute
look she sometimes had, and her eyes looked straight before her full of
silent thought. But most people who knew Marjory held it impossible that
she could ever be plain. She smoothed her hair as best she could, in
her hurry, for those were the days when young ladies were expected to
have smooth and shining hair--and put her tall hat and her riding gloves
on the table, and pulled out her handkerchief from her bodice. “Am I
tidy, Betty; shall I do?” asked, with tremulous accents, the young woman
who half an hour before had felt herself princess of Comlie. All these
pleasant pretensions failed before the tribunal of Miss Jean.

“Oh, ay, Miss Marjory, you’ll do,” cried anxious Betty; and attended as
ever closely by her little sister, Marjory ran upstairs. Miss Jean sat
in the end window, her favourite seat of inspection--and all her
“borders,” which were of blonde, not so closely put together as those of
Mrs. Murray, were quivering round her old face. “So you’ve come at last,
Miss May,” she said. “It’s a great honour to my humble house, and folk
that are gratified with the visits of their betters must be content to
wait.”

“Oh, Aunt Jean, I am very sorry! We ought to have come here at once,
instead of going to the Manse--”

“Far be it from me to say what a young lady like you should do. I’m
nothing but an old-fashioned person myself. In my days the young were
brought up to obedience and consideration of other folks’ ways. But I’m
not a learned man like the doctor, nor a whillie-wha like the doctor’s
wife. I’m of the old Hay-Heriot stock, that always spoke their mind.
Betty, bring ben the broth--if our young ladies can sup broth. They
tell me my nephew Charlie has brought a grand cook to the house, far
above our old-fashioned Scots dishes.”

“Indeed, Aunt Jean, it is the old dishes she is famous for,” said May,
very conciliatory. “She says she knows nothing about kickshaws, and one
of the things I specially wanted was to ask you for the old family
receipt for shortbread, which you always promised me, and your
particular fish and sauce, which Uncle Charles says is the best he ever
tasted.”

“I suppose you think you can win me over with your nonsense about fish
and sauce,” said Miss Jean. “Set Charlie up with his cooks and his
newfangled ways! In my days a man ate what was set before him, and said
his grace, and was thankful. The mistress of a house, with all her
family to provide for, might be excused for giving her mind to it; but,
ugh! a man studying what he’s to put into his vile stomach! If there’s a
thing I cannot abide--Dinner’s ready! You need not tell me that; it’s
been ready any time this twenty minutes. You may say to Jess I’m truly
sorry for her, but it’s our young ladies’ way. Go first, bairn, and go
quick, for I’ll not wait another moment, if it was for the Queen
herself.”

Thus adjured, Milly ran downstairs, followed by her sister. The old lady
brought up the rear, with her big cane. She was a little old woman over
seventy, in a large cap with many ribbons and borders of broad blonde,
which waved about her withered face as she moved. It was a small face,
much shrivelled up, but lighted with two blazing sparks of light, deeply
sunk within the eaves and folds of her eyelids--eyes which could see
what happened a mile off, and burn through and through any unfortunate
who was subjected to their gaze. She wore a red China crape shawl, very
old, but once very richly embroidered and handsome, on her thin
shoulders, and her short footstep and the tap of her cane rang through
the house as she moved. Everybody within her range increased their
exertions, and moved with doubled activity when the tap of Miss Jean’s
cane became audible.

As for Milly, running on before, her aunt was to her as the exacting,
but, on the whole, benevolent fairy who appears in all the tales, who
scolded Cinderella, yet gave her the pumpkin coach, and who had drawers
upon drawers full of shreds and patches, strings of beads, bright bits
of silk, everything that was necessary for the dressing of dolls and
making of needlebooks. The pat-pat of the cane seemed part of the old
lady to Milly’s ear, and she was by no means sure that the cane was not
a third leg upon which Aunt Jean moved as ordinary mortals did on the
more usual complement. No one except Miss Jean said a word as they sat
down to table, and Betty, with a speed and noiselessness, which were
born at once of terror and of long practice, served the broth. Milly
said they were very good, and asked for a little more of them, without
any perception that she was ungrammatical, and as they were hot and
savoury Miss Jean mollified by degrees.

“There’s one good thing,” she said, “that you cannot spoil broth by
waiting. That and porridge should always be well boiled. I hope your
grand cook knows that among her other accomplishments. But, maybe Milly
is above porridge, though her father was brought up upon them, and his
father before him, and all the best Scots gentry from the days of Robert
Bruce.”

“I have a few porridge in a saucer every morning,” said Milly, proudly,
“and May gives me the rest of the cream after papa’s last cup of tea.”

“A few in a saucer!” Miss Jean retorted, with renewed vehemence. (N.B.
The Scotch reader does not need to be informed that porridge is plural
as well as broth.) “I hope, Marjory Hay-Heriot, that you may never have
to give a severe account of the way you’ve brought up that motherless
bairn.”

“Cream is not immoral, I hope, aunty?” said Marjory, with rising spirit.

“Immoral! Luxury’s immoral, indulgence is immoral, and they’re immoral
that say a word to the contrary,” cried the old lady. “Will you tell me
that to bring up a fellow-creature to self-indulgence is no a sinful
act? But I never understood the ways of this generation, nor do I want
to understand them. You’re all alike--all alike! from Tom’s horse-racing
to Milly’s saucer of parritch--it is the same thing over again. What you
please! and not what’s your duty, and the best thing for you in this
world and the next. Betty, the boiled beef is too plain for these young
ladies. Bring it to me, and put the chicken before Miss Marjory. A
queen may eat a bit of chicken, but the boiled beef’s aye good enough
for me.”

The fact was that the chicken had been added to the meal, expressly for
the benefit of Marjory and Milly.

“Bairns are brought up different to what they were in my time,” Miss
Jean had said to her cook, benevolently, an hour before. “That chucky’s
young and tender, and they’ll like it better than the beef.”

But all this kindness had been turned to gall by the unfortunate delay.
Milly took this as a simple necessity of nature--rustled a little in her
chair, and ate her chicken; but Marjory resented the ungracious
reception.

“I am sorry we have come to trouble you, aunt,” she said. “I would
rather not have anything, thank you; I’m not hungry. The wind is cold,
and it has given me a headache. If I might go and sit quiet in the
drawing-room, while you finish your dinner, I should get well again.”

“The thing for a headache is to eat a meal,” said Miss Jean, alarmed.
“Bring me the chicken, Betty, till I cut Miss Marjory a bit of the
breast. You cannot carve; that’s why you want to go away. In my day,
carving was part of a lady’s education--and cooking too, for that
matter. My own mother, as good a woman as ever stepped, took lessons
from Mrs. Glass in Edinburgh. I had not that advantage myself, but I
know how to divide a chicken. And, Betty, bring in the apple-tart.
We’ll all go up to the drawing-room by-and-bye, and before ye go ye
shall have a cup of tea.”

Thus the storm fell a little, but still continued to growl at intervals;
however, when the dinner was over, and May took her place in the square
gable, her headache--if she had one--had disappeared. Miss Jean’s
drawing-room was a curious room, stretching the whole width of the
house, and wider at the back than at the other end. The narrower part
was the gable. It had an end window looking out upon the street, and one
on the east side, from which you could see the line of reddish rocks
rounding off towards the point on which stood Pitcomlie; the white
mansion-house of the present day shining in the sunshine; the old house,
with its high, peaked roof and half-ruined tourelles standing up on the
top of the cliff hard by, and the sea breaking in a white line
underneath upon the rocks. Though she professed no sentiment, that
window which commanded Pitcomlie was dear to Miss Jean’s heart.

On the south side of the room was another window, looking straight out
upon the sea, from which you could see far off the dim lion couchant of
Arthur’s Seat, and sometimes a ghostly vision of the Calton Hill, with
its pillars, and all kinds of cloudy pageants and phantasmagoria of the
elements. It was a grand view, Miss Jean allowed; but she preferred the
gable window looking down upon the High Street of Comlie; and here, too,
Marjory betook herself instinctively. The Firth, with its splendours,
was at her command any day, but so was not this little centre of
humanity. That curiosity about her neighbours and their doings, which
was sharp and bitter in Miss Jean, had a warmer development in Marjory,
who was young, and thought well of humanity in general; but probably it
was the same sentiment. She placed herself on the old-fashioned
window-seat, and looked out while she answered all the old lady’s
questions.

Comlie High Street was very quiet, especially at this tranquil
after-dinner hour, when the little world rested after its meal. The
children had returned to the school, and such men as had any business to
do had gone back to it till the evening. Marjory watched young Hepburn
walking up and down slowly, something between a spy and a sentinel,
keeping watch, as she very well knew, for her own re-appearance. She
smiled with a certain gentle contempt as she watched him, moving slowly
across the unbroken light in the still street. What odd fancies boys
take into their heads! What good could it do him to wait for her?

When Hepburn disappeared, another figure became visible coming the other
way--a man with a clump of his own shadow about his feet, which
gradually disengaged itself as he “came east,” and stalked along by his
side in a portentous lengthened line. The changes of this shadow
diverted her as she sat talking to Aunt Jean. “Yes, there had been
another letter about Charlie’s second baby--a note from Mrs. Charles
herself--well, no, not a very nice letter--a consequential little
personage, I think, aunty; as proud of her baby as if it was any virtue
of hers.” And here Marjory gave a little laugh, not at Mrs. Charles, but
at the dark shadow of the man approaching, which lay along the causeway,
and moved so, as if it pushed itself along, lying on its side. After she
had laughed, Marjory, half ashamed of herself, looked at the man, and
saw he was one of the porters from the nearest railway station, and then
that he was approaching the house. She raised herself up with a little
thrill of--something--yes, surprise, and more than surprise--though
probably it was only some parcel for Aunt Jean arrived by the railway,
which was ten miles off. By the time he had reached the door, and had
knocked heavily with his hand, May was sure that it was a parcel for her
aunt, but nevertheless was aware of a little fluttering at her heart.

“Do you often get things by the railway, aunty?” she asked.

“Me get things by the railway? You forget I’m a lone old woman, and no
acquainted with all your new-fangled ways. Not me. When I want anything
not to be had in Comlie, which is not often, it comes in the boat to
Anstruther, as was always our way, and then by the road, or private hand
when there’s an opportunity. Railway! said she?--What’s a’ this,
Betty?--what’s a’ this? A letter? Give it to me, you taupie, and make no
fuss. Oh! for Miss Marjory! My certy! Miss Marjory’s in great request
when her letters come following her here.”

“Eh, Miss Jean! it’s what they call a telegraph--it’s come from the
railway at Kinnucher, wi’ a man and horse. Eh, I’m awfu’ feared it’s ill
news!”

A telegram is always alarming to those who are unfamiliar with such
startling messages; and even in these accustomed days there are few
women who open one without a tremor. But at the time of which we write,
they were unusual and inevitably meant something tragical. Betty stood
gaping with excitement and terror, looking on, and Miss Jean let her
knitting drop on her knee, and turned her sharp eyes towards her niece,
while little Milly, pressing close to her sister, interposed her blond
head almost between Marjory and the brief, fated letter. Somehow, as she
read it, she felt in the suddenness of the shock a conviction that she
had known it all along, mingled with a curious confused self-reproach
for the levity of her thoughts about that man’s shadow. She read it, and
her head seemed to buzz and shoot as if a hundred wheels had started
into motion, and then stood still. She looked round at her aunt, as if
across a sudden distance at once of time and of space; all the colour
fled from her cheeks, and her voice changed like her feelings. “Tom has
had a bad accident,” she said.

“God bless us! Marjory, you’re trying to break it to me quietly; the
boy’s dead.”

“No!” said Marjory, with a slight shiver. “A bad accident; read it,
aunty. And, Milly, run quick and get on your things.”

Miss Jean, sobered too in a moment, took the terrible missive, which, to
her ignorant eyes, looked something diabolical. It was from somebody in
England she made out, and was worded with what she felt to be cruel
conciseness. “Tom has had a bad accident; thrown from his horse;
symptoms dangerous. He wishes you to tell his father; and to come to him
at once.”

“It may be a lie,” said Miss Jean in a low voice, and trembling; “very
likely it’s a lie. There’s no beginning and no ending; and the man, if
it is a man, has not signed his name.”

“Oh, I know his, name; he is one of Tom’s friends. It is no lie!” said
Marjory. And then she added, trembling too: “Aunt Jean, don’t you feel,
like me, that you always knew this would be the end?”

“The end! Who’s speaking of the end?” cried Miss Jean impatiently; and
then, all at once, she fell crying and sobbing. “Oh, poor Thomas, poor
Thomas; that was so very proud of his boy! Who’s to tell him?”

“Will I run for the Minister?” said Betty, who had come back with
Marjory’s hat in her hand, the tears streaming down her cheeks, and all
the excitement of a great family event in her mind.

“The Minister is the right person to tell the father such ill news,”
said Miss Jean; “and it’s best to have him at hand, whatever happens.
Betty, you can run--”

Marjory put up her hand to stop the eager messenger. In spite of
herself, even at that moment of excitement, a vision of Dr. Murray
clearing his throat, and preparing his way by a little speech about the
vicissitudes of life gleamed before her. She could see him hemming and
taking out his handkerchief with a look as tragically important as if he
were the chief actor in the scene.

“No!” she said; “not the Minister; send down to John Horsburgh’s to get
out our horses, Betty. I will tell him myself.”

“You’re not equal to it, my poor bairn.”

“He will take it best from me; and it’s Tom’s wish,” said Marjory,
putting on her hat. She felt the tears rising to her eyes; but this was
not a moment to let them fall.

“I doubt if Thomas will take it as he ought to take it,” said Miss Jean;
“he’s a good man, but he’s always had his own way. Perhaps, as you say,
Marjory, it is best to keep it all in the family, for a man’s apt to say
what he should not say in a sudden trouble. And I’m sorry I was so ill
to you about keeping me waiting; what was ten minutes, here or there? Oh
May, my bonnie lamb! the eldest son!”

And with this Miss Jean, melted by the bad news into use of the pet name
which had scarcely passed her lips since Marjory was a child, gave her
niece a sudden embrace, by putting her thin hands on May’s two arms, and
touching her chin with her own withered cheek. Very seldom was she moved
to such an outburst of affection. The wave of her blonde borders across
Marjory’s face was the most passionate demonstration she was capable of;
but when her nieces had gone, Miss Jean sat down at the window which
looked to Pitcomlie, with a genuine ache in her old heart. “Eh, the
bonnie laddie he was!” she said to herself; “eh, the stout and strong
young man! There never was an heir cut off that I mind of in our family
before. But Thomas was aye foolish, very foolish; and many a time I’ve
told him what indulgence would come to. Lord help us all, both living
and dying! It’s aye a special blessing of Providence, whatever happens,
that Marjory’s a courageous creature; and that Charlie’s babies are both
sons.”

Thus the old woman comforted herself, who was near the ending of all
mortal vicissitude; and Pitcomlie lay fair and calm in the sun, greatly
indifferent who might come or go--one or another, what did it matter to
the old house, which had outlasted so many generations? what did it
matter to the calm world, which takes all individual sorrows so easily?
But to some atoms of humanity what a difference it made! How dark the
heavens had grown all at once, and how clouded the sun!

Marjory said not a word all the way home, as she rode with her little
sister by her side. How they had chattered as they came; and how Milly
had called “May! May!” a dozen times in a minute; the prelude of every
sentence. Milly kept as close to her sister now as she could, and
sometimes stroked her skirt with her little hand and the whip in it, in
token of silent sympathy. There was urgent need to reach home; but
Marjory did not go fast. It was no easy task she had before her. Her
father was fond of her she knew; perhaps more fond than of either of
his sons; but his heir, with all his extravagances, with all his folly
and wildness, had been his delight and pride. There are some women who
are saved from all the shocks and pains of life; everyone around them
instinctively standing forth to protect them, and shield off the blow;
but there are some, on the other hand, to whom it comes natural to
receive the sharpest and first thrusts of adversity, and blunt the spear
in their own bosoms before it penetrates any other. Marjory was one of
this class,--a class instantly recognized and put to use by the instinct
of humanity. It had seemed natural to Tom to put this duty upon her;
natural to Tom’s friend to communicate it to her, without any attempt at
breaking the news. And she herself accepted her office, simply, feeling
it natural too.




CHAPTER IV.


The house of Pitcomlie lay very still and quiet in the fitful sunshine,
when the daughters of the family reached its open door. The door stood
always open, unsuspicious, disclosing the way into its most private
corners to any comers. It had nothing to conceal. At this hour in the
afternoon, it was exceptionally still. The gentlemen were out, the
servants all absorbed into their own part of the house, and not a stir
nor sound announced the presence of a large household. The brightness of
the day was clouded, but yet held its own by moments, the sun coming out
now and then with double brilliancy from the edge of the clouds which
were driven over its face one by one. As Marjory and her little sister
rode up the avenue, one of those great masses of cloud had floated up,
and threw a heavy shadow over the house, and the blue broad sea beyond;
but as they alighted at the door, the sun burst forth again, blazing
upon the wide open doorway.

“Is my father at home, Rob?” asked Marjory of the groom who came to take
her horse.

“The laird’s out, ma’am, and so’s Mr. Charles. They’re baith away wast,”
said Rob, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

Marjory stood musing on the steps before she would go in; she did not
know whether to seek her father “away wast,” or to wait for him. How
still the house was, so unsuspecting, so serene and peaceful! It seemed
treacherous to go into it with a secret so deeply affecting its
existence in her hands. Somehow it seemed to Marjory’s excited fancy
that she was about to give a blow without warning, without preparation,
to some one whose smiling unalarmed countenance looked trustfully up at
her. It seemed a treachery even to know it, and above all to go on
knowing it, keeping the secret, into the old gentle family house that
feared nothing. When she went upstairs she changed her dress, and gave
her maid instructions to pack a few necessaries for her.

“My brother has met with an accident,” she said, as calmly as she could.

To say it even in this form relieved her mind. She did not feel such a
traitor to the kindly old house.

Mr. Heriot fortunately came back as soon as her preparations were made,
and now the worst part of her duty was to come. She ran down and met him
at the door.

“What made you so late, May?” he said, his face brightening
involuntarily at sight of her.

“I was detained,” she said; and came out and loitered in front of the
door, playing with the dogs, who always accompanied him. He was as
unsuspicious as his house. If he had been anxious in the morning, he had
thrown his anxieties off. He pointed out to his daughter the good points
of a pointer puppy, which, large-limbed and imbecile, came roving round
from the stables, scenting the arrival of the others.

“He’ll make a grand dog before September,” he said, “when he’s grown and
trained. Tom will be delighted with him.”

May interrupted him hastily, for she was choking with the news.

“Come round to the cliff, papa, there is a storm brewing,” she said.

Unsuspicious, he went with her. They took what Mr. Heriot called “a
turn” round the soft lawn which surrounded that side of the house. It
was too much exposed for flowers or even shrubs, but green and smooth as
velvet. The sea dashed with a muttering suppressed roar on the beach
beneath. It was of a steely blue, sometimes flashing in the gleams of
sunshine, sometimes leaden under the shadow. Towards the east, on the
very angle of the coast, stood the old mansion house, tall and narrow,
with its tourelles--all but one tower, which adjoined the present house,
was ruinous and roofless--but it was draped by branches which burst out
from the broken walls, and a wild luxuriance of ivy. The existing house
stood lower, and looked warm, and peaceful, and safe, like the present
under the protection of the past. Marjory and her father made their turn
round and round, she talking against time, not knowing how to introduce
her subject. At last, as they turned to come back, she pointed out to
him one of those sudden dramatic changes of the clouds.

“Look, papa, how quickly the lights change. It was in sunshine just now,
and how black everything is already! It makes one feel eerie. It is like
a cloud of misfortune enveloping the old house.”

She was foolishly in hopes that he would have taken up this metaphorical
strain, and thus given her an opening to say what she had to say.

“Nothing more natural, my dear,” said Mr. Heriot. “The clouds are
driving up from the mouth of the Firth. It’s an ill sign when they come
and go so fast. I hope those foolish fellows from Comlie shore will be
warned in time.”

“Oh, papa,” cried Marjory, seizing this opening. “It is dreadful to
think how seldom we are warned in time! How we go on to the very edge of
a precipice, and then--”

“Phoo!” said Mr. Heriot, “if a man does not keep a look-out before him,
it’s nobody’s fault but his own.”

Thus the door was shut upon her again. She looked at him with a kind of
despair, and put both her hands round his arm.

“Papa,” she said, “I think we have had a very tolerably happy
life--nothing very much to find fault with. Everything has gone on
comfortably. We have had no great troubles, no misfortunes to speak
of--”

“I don’t know what you call misfortunes,” said her father. “That affair
of the Western Bank was anything but pleasant.”

“It was only money, papa.”

“Only money! What would you have, I should like to know? _Only_ money!
May, my dear, to be a sensible girl as you are, you sometimes speak very
like a haverel. Loss of money is as great a misfortune as can befall a
family. It brings a hundred other things in its train--loss of
consideration, troubles of all kinds. Personal losses may hurt more for
the moment, but so far as the family is concerned--”

“Oh, don’t say so,” cried Marjory. “Papa, I am afraid there are things
that hurt a great deal more. I have heard--something about Tom--”

“What about Tom?” he said, turning upon her with an eagerness much
unlike his former calm.

“It may not perhaps be so bad as appears. He has had--an accident,” she
said, breathless and terrified.

To her surprise, the anxiety in her father’s face calmed down.

“An accident! is that all?” he said, with a long-drawn breath of relief.

“All! papa!”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Heriot, half-impatiently, “you think I’ve no
feeling. You are mistaken, May. But that boy, that brother of yours, has
been in worse scrapes--scrapes that no doctor could mend. However,
that’s not the question. How did you hear? and when did it happen? and
what is it? Arm, or leg, or collar-bone? I know how lads lame
themselves. Hunting is all very well in moderation, but these young men
pay dear for it. They think no more of breaking a limb than if it was
the branch of a rotten tree.”

“But, papa, I am afraid it is, perhaps, more serious than you think,”
faltered Marjory, half rendered hopeful by his ease, half frightened by
indifference.

“Never fear,” said Mr. Heriot; “women always think worse of such things
than they deserve. Tom’s not the lad to come to harm that way. It’s long
or the de’il dee at a dykeside.”

Then a moment of silence followed. She felt as if her tongue clove to
the roof of her mouth. She was bewildered by her father’s strange
levity. She strolled round the cliff slowly, as if she were in a dream,
not feeling sure for one dizzy moment whether her senses might not have
deceived her, whether the telegram might not be some mere delusion and
her father right. He was so confident and easy in his confidence--and
surely on these kind of subjects, at least, he must know better than she
did. But then, to be sure, it was not on her judgment the matter rested.
It was Tom’s friend who had communicated news which nobody’s opinion
could change; and already the lights were lengthening and the afternoon
passing away.

“Papa, you will not mind my going to him,” she said, hurriedly. “He
wishes it; he has sent for me. And I wish very much to go at once.”

“He has sent for you?”

“For all of us. He says, ‘Tell my father--’ I fear, I fear, he must be
very bad. Oh! my poor Tom, my poor Tom!”

“You are talking nonsense,” said her father, letting her hand drop from
his arm with a certain impatience. “Tom might have known better than to
make such an appeal to you. Where is he? And if he were so very bad how
could he have written? Phoo, phoo, May; this fuss and nonsense is not
like you.”

“It is not my doing,” she cried. “Oh! papa, look, the afternoon is
flying away, and we shall lose the train.”

He looked up at the sky as she did, and somehow this practical reference
seemed to alarm him more than all she had said. In the bright, slanting
sunshine which suddenly burst upon him at this moment, his face paled as
suddenly as if some evil breath had passed over it.

“The train! I did not think of that. You can order the carriage if you
like,” he said. “It is nonsense; but I will put some things into a bag,
if I must be foolish and go with you on a fool’s errand--”

“Your things are all ready, papa; I have seen to everything. If we do
not miss the train--”

“I will go round to the stables myself,” he said; and then he turned
upon her with a forced smile. “Mind, I think it a fool’s errand--a
fool’s errand; but to please you, May--”

Marjory stood motionless, as with a harsh little laugh he strode away
from her. She could not have borne any more; but when Uncle Charles came
suddenly round the corner of the old house, blown so suddenly round by
the wind, which seemed to sway his long legs and slight, stooping
figure, there burst from her, too, a little hysterical laugh, which
somehow seemed to relieve her as tears might have done.

“What a wind!” said Mr. Charles. “You may laugh, but a slim person has
hard ado to stand before it; and rising every moment, May. I should not
like to be on the Firth to-night.”

“I hope we shall get across,” said May, eagerly, “before it is quite
dark.”

“Get across?” said Uncle Charles, in consternation. “Who is going to
Edinburgh to-night?”

“Oh! Uncle Charles, my heart is breaking! Tom has had a terrible
accident. Perhaps he is dying. We must go to him at once. And papa will
not believe me; he will not understand how serious it is.”

“God bless me!” said Mr. Charles. He made a few sudden steps towards the
house, and then he came back. “My dear May, there’s you to think of.
What is it? I’ll go myself.”

“No, no, no,” she said. “It was me he sent for. Oh, uncle, quick! bid
them make haste with the carriage; we shall lose the train.”

When the carriage came round to the door ten minutes after, Mr. Charles
put aside the two travelling bags which had been placed inside, and took
his place opposite the father and daughter on the front seat.

“I’m coming too,” he said.

Mr. Heriot gave vent to another strange little laugh.

“We had better have Milly in, and Mrs. Simpson, and all the rest,” he
cried; but he made no further remark or objection. His ruddy, rural
countenance had paled somehow. It looked as Marjory had seen it after a
period of confinement in town (town meant Edinburgh more than London to
the Hay-Heriots, though sometimes they went to London too), when the
sun-burnt brownness had worn off. He leant back in his corner and did
not speak; he had not even asked where they were going. He seemed eager
to keep up his appearance of indifference; but his heart had failed him.
Mr. Charles, however, on the contrary, seemed to feel that all the
amusement of the party depended upon him. He kept up a perpetual stream
of talk, till the very sound of his voice made Marjory sick.

“We’ll find him drinking beer, like the man in Thackeray’s book,” said
Mr. Charles; “a ruffianly sort of hero in my way of thinking; but that’s
what you like, you young folk. We’ll find him drinking beer, I’m saying,
May, as well as ever he was. I think I can hear the great laugh he will
give when he sees the whole procession of us coming in.”

Mr. Heriot was nettled by his brother’s interference, yet not disposed
to depart from his own _rôle_ of indifference.

“It’s a fool’s errand,” he said; “but you may diminish the procession,
Charles, if you like. It will be no procession, if there is only May and
me.”

Mr. Charles made no reply to this; he continued his cheerful talk.

“It’s the penalty of all violent sports,” he said; “even your cricket
that such a fuss is made about. There’s no risks of that kind with golf,
now, for instance; and in my way of thinking, a far nobler game; but as
for horses and hounds, they’re simple destruction--in the first place to
a man’s living, and in the second to his bones.”

“You never were great across country,” said Mr. Heriot, satirically. “It
was never one of the sins you were inclined to commit. That must be
taken into account.”

“And the consequence is I never had a broken limb,” said Mr. Charles;
“no surgeon has ever been needed for me; whereas the rest of you have
spent, let us say three weeks in the year on an average, in your beds--”

With intervals, this kind of talk went on until the travellers had
reached the edge of the stormy Firth, which spread like some huge
boiling cauldron in black and white between them and the misty heights
of Edinburgh. It was late twilight failing into night; but as there was
a moon somewhere, the stormy landscape was held between light and dark
in a pale visibleness which had something unearthly in it. Arthur’s Seat
appeared through the mist like a giant, with huge sullen shoulders
turned upon them, and head averted. The boiling Firth was black and
covered with foam.

While Marjory sat wrapping her cloak close round her in the most
sheltered corner, her uncle, with the fierce wind catching at his slim
legs, came and leaned over her, and tried what he could, in gasps
between the gusts of the storm, to keep up his consolatory remarks.

“This is nothing, Marjory, my dear; nothing to what it used to be,” he
said in snatches, blown about, now by the wind, now by the lurches of
the steamer, “when we used to have to go, in a sailingboat, from
Kinghorn to Leith. This is nothing, nothing; I have seen the day--”

But here being driven first into her lap, and then forced to retreat
violently backwards, in obedience to the next wave, Mr. Charles for the
moment succumbed.

What a strange tragi-comedy it was! The boats from Comlie shore were out
in that merciless storm, and the poor fisher-wives at their windows, or
marching with bare feet on the sharp rocks, were looking out upon the
struggles of their “men” to reach the harbour, which that wild
suppressed light permitted them the additional misery of seeing. On the
other hand, far away in the peaceful inland depths of England, Tom
Heriot was lying tragically gay with fever; sometimes delirious,
shouting out all kinds of strange follies in the ear of his friend, who
was no better than himself. While yet between the two the wind made a
jest and plaything of Mr. Charles Heriot, seizing him by his legs and
tossing him about as in a rough game of ball, taking the words out of
his mouth, though they were words of wisdom, and dispersing his axioms
to the merciless waves. Even Marjory could not but laugh as she wrapped
herself closer in her cloak. She laughed, and then felt the sobs
struggle upward choking into her throat.

Then came the long night journey, silent, yet loud, with the perpetual
plunging and jarring of the railway, that strange, harsh, prosaic
jar--which yet, to those who listen to it all through an anxious night
as May did--is an awful sound. Ordinary wheels and hoofs make a very
different impression on the mind; but there is something in the
monotonous clang of a railway which sounds unearthly to an excited mind,
thus whirled through the darkness. How fast the colourless hedgerows,
the dark spectres of trees, the black stretches of country fly past,
with now and then a flitting phantasmagoria of lights from some town or
village; and yet how slow, how lingering, how dreary are the minutes
which tick themselves out one by one with a desperate persistence and
steadiness! In the faint and uncertain lamplight the face of her father
dozing uneasily in the corner opposite to her, seemed to Marjory so
blanched and worn, that she could scarcely keep herself from watching
him in alarm, to make sure that he was living and well. Uncle Charles
was at the other end of the carriage, shifting his long legs uneasily,
sometimes uttering a dismal groan as he awoke, with a twinge of cramp,
to which he was subject. He had filled the carriage with newspapers and
railway books, by way of amusing Marjory.

“I don’t pretend that I can read myself by this unsteady light,” he
said; “but you’re young, May, and they’ll keep you from thinking.”

Poor Marjory! it was her youth (she thought) which made her so capable
of thinking, and kept from her eyes the broken sleep which brought
momentary rest to her companions. Thus passed the lingering weary
night.




CHAPTER V.


After this long journey, to step out into the bright daylight of a March
morning--cold, but sunshiny; and into the unfamiliar clean little
streets of an English country-town, gave the most curious sensation to
the travellers. Marjory stepped out of the carriage like one in a dream.
The long sleepless night, the fatigue of the journey, the ache of
anxiety in her mind, seemed to wrap a kind of painful mist about her,
through which she saw vaguely the circumstances of the arrival, the
unknown figures moving about; the strange houses--some still shuttered
and closed up as for the night, while the cheerful stir of early morning
had begun with others. Was it possible that all these unknown people had
slept softly and soundly all that long night through; and knew of
nothing to pluck away their rest from them, or pull their life asunder?
The simplest things startled this little weary group as they hurried
along the quiet sunshiny street. A cheerful red and white
maid-of-all-work opening the windows, looking out with fresh vacant face
upon them as they passed, looked as if she must have something to tell
them. And so did the milkman clashing with his pails; and the early
errandboy stopping in the midst of his whistle to contemplate the two
tall old men--Mr. Heriot, with that strangely blanched hue struggling
through his brownness--Mr. Charles long and thin, and shaky with
fatigue.

“A clean little place; a clean little place!” the latter was saying
encouragingly to Marjory, as if there was some faint consolation to be
drawn from that fact. It was very unlike Comlie. Some of the houses were
old, with peaked gables and lattice windows, but the line of flat brick
buildings, such as the Scottish mind regards with disdain, with the
cleanest of curtains and shutters, and tidy ugly orderliness, filled up
the greater part of the street. The inn to which they were bound had a
projecting sign, upon which the sun shone--a white horse, which swung,
and pranced, and creaked in the morning air, over the low deep gateway
by which the house was approached. The travellers were met by a little
blear-eyed ostler, who peered at them anxiously from under the shelter
of his hand.

“For Mr. ’Eriot?” he said, putting up his disengaged hand to his
forehead, by way of salutation.

“How is he?” cried Marjory, a sudden sickness coming over her; the
sickness of suspense which is never so tremendous as when it is about to
be satisfied.

The little ostler shrugged his shoulders, and shook his ragged, shaggy
head.

“I don’t know as he’s worse nor better,” he said. “Much the same, they
tell me. He’s in the hands o’ them doctors, as is enough to kill twenty
men. That’s why I’ve come to meet ye, my lady and gentlemen. There’s a
bone-setter in this place as ’ud set him right in a jiffy; you take my
word. He’s a nice gentleman; he gave me ten bob jist for nothing at all.
You make ’em send for Job Turner, my lady. I know him. That’s your sort
for broken bones. What am I doing, master? Party for Mr. ’Eriot! nothin’
in the world but showing the lady the way.”

The ostler’s speech had been interrupted by the master of the hotel, who
came to the door bowing solemnly, endeavouring to combine the usual
smiling benignity with which he received new guests with the gravity
befitting the occasion.

“Walk in, gentlemen,” he said. “I think I may make bold to say that the
news is good, so far as it goes. We’ve spent a pretty comfortable night,
sir, on the whole--a pretty comfortable night. Perhaps the lady would
like to rest a bit afore breakfast. Mr. Fanshawe, Sir, as is with Mr.
’Eriot, made sure as you’d come. Your rooms are all ready, and I hope as
I’ll be able to make you and the lady as comfortable--as comfortable as
is to be expected under the circumstances.”

“Cheer up, May,” said Mr. Heriot. It was the first time he had spoken
since their arrival. “I told you it would turn out a trifle. You see the
boy’s better already. Cheer up,” said the old man, faltering, and
looking at her with glassy eyes. “We’ve had a fright, but, thank God,
it’s over. Cheer up, my bonny May!”

For Marjory, so far from cheering up, had sunk down on the first chair,
altogether overcome by the suspense and the information, and the sense
of still more sickening suspense until she should see with her own eyes
and judge how it was.

Tom Heriot had been far from passing, as the landlord said, a
comfortable night; but he had slept for some hours towards the morning,
and had awoke feeling, as he said, better, and in high spirits.

“After all I’ll cheat the doctors yet,” he had said to his friend. “I am
half sorry now you sent for May. It will frighten them all to death at
home. Odd as it may seem to you, the old boy’s fond of me in his way.
And, by Jove, Fanshawe, I’ll try if I can’t make a change somehow, and
be a comfort to him, and all that. Life’s a queer sort of business after
all,” said the prodigal, raising his shoulders from the pillows, and
supporting himself on his hands. “It isn’t the straightforward thing a
fellow thinks when he’s beginning. Have your swing, that’s all very
well--and God knows I’ve had mine, and done some things I can’t undo;
but when one goes in for having one’s swing, one expects to have a
steady time after, and settle to work and put all straight. Look here,
Fanshawe--if I had died, as I thought I should last night! By Jove, to
have nothing but your swing and end there, it isn’t much, is it, for a
man’s life?”

“No, it isn’t much,” said his friend; “but don’t get on thinking, Tom,
it’s bad for your back.”

“I don’t believe it’s my back,” said Tom; “it’s my legs or something.
I’m as light as a bird, all here.” And he struck himself some playful
blows across the chest. “When the doctor comes, you’ll see he’ll say
there’s a difference. Get me some breakfast, there’s a good fellow. I
wonder if they’ve come. You’ve heard me talk of May, Fanshawe? She’s not
the sort of girl every fellow likes, and I’ve thought she was hard on me
sometimes. Superior, you know--that sort of thing. Looking down, by
Jove, upon her brother.” And here Tom laughed loudly, with an exquisite
enjoyment of the joke. “But it would be pleasant to see her all the
same. Who is that at the door? What! My sister! By George, May, this is
being a thorough brick, and no mistake.”

“Oh, Tom, you are better!” cried Marjory, struck with a sudden weakness
of delight as she saw the colour in his face and his sparkling eyes.

“Almost well,” he said, cheerfully, while she stooped over him; “well
enough to be sorry I sent for you, and glad you’ve come. So you thought
your poor wicked old brother worth looking after? You’re a good girl,
May; you’re a dear girl. It’s a pleasure to see you. And you’re a
beauty, too, by Jove, that can stand the morning light.”

“Tom!” said Marjory, gently.

She was struck to the heart by the sight she saw. His countenance had
melted into soft lines like a child’s; the tears were standing in his
over-bright eyes. Who does not know that human sentiment which trembles
to see a sick man look too amiable, too angelical, too _good_? This
sudden dread came over Marjory. She stood gazing at him and at the
moisture in his eyes with a feeling that blanched all the morning
freshness out of her face.

“All right,” said Tom. “I won’t praise you to your face,--especially as
Fanshawe’s there; though he’s as good a fellow as ever was. I’ll tell
you after, all I owe to him. But who came with you, May? and how did you
persuade the two old boys to let you go? and how’s my father and little
Milly, and all the rest of them? Sit down here, where I can reach you.
Fanshawe, she wants a cup of tea or something.”

“I want to hear about you, Tom,” said Marjory, mastering, as well as she
could, the impression made upon her by her brother’s emotion, and by the
dark uncheering looks of Fanshawe, his previous nurse, who had shaken
hands with her, but who avoided her eye. “But first I must tell you, the
two old boys, as you call them, came with me. My father is here.”

“My father--here!” said the prodigal, once more raising his head from
the pillow. A crimson flush came over his face, and his eyes filled with
tears. “I told you they were fond of me at home,” he said, turning
faltering to his friend, “and by Jove, May--no, I won’t say that--By
God, as you’re both witnesses, I’ll turn over a new leaf, and be a
comfort to him from this day!”

By an impulse which she could scarcely define, Marjory turned from her
brother’s flushed and excited face to Fanshawe, who had retired to the
other side of the room, and whom she had seen joining his hands together
with a sudden movement of pain. When he caught her eye he shook his
head gently. Then she knew what was before them.

Mr. Heriot, however, suspected nothing; he came in, still with something
of the paleness which had come upon him when he first realized the news;
but in five minutes had recovered his colour, and composure, and was
himself.

“Your sister was anxious, my boy!” he said. “It is a woman’s fault; and,
for my part, I don’t blame them. Rather that than man’s indifference,
Tom. May would go through fire and water for anybody belonging to her.
It makes them troublesome to steady-going folks, now and then; but it’s
a good fault--a good fault.”

And Mr. Heriot, after a few minutes, cheerfully invited Mr. Fanshawe--to
whom he made many old-fashioned acknowledgments--to go downstairs with
him to breakfast, leaving Marjory with her brother.

“We’ll send her something upstairs,” he said; “I know she’ll like best
to be with Tom.”

“She should get a rest first,” said Mr. Charles, grumbling momentarily
in behalf of his favourite; but finally they all left the sick-room,
going down to breakfast in high spirits. Tom, by this time, somewhat
pale, lay back on his pillows, and looked admiringly and gratefully at
his sister. A certain calm of well-being seemed to have fallen over him,
which, in spite of herself, gave Marjory hope.

“And to think,” he said softly, “that last night--only last night, I had
given everything up, and never hoped to see one of you again. May, give
me your hand; you’re a good girl. It’s true what my father said: you
would go through fire and water. That’s the old Scotch way; not so much
for other people as women are now-a-days; but through fire and
water--through fire and water, for your own! If you had been here last
night I might have told you something--”

“Tell it to me now, Tom.”

“No; I don’t want you to think worse of me than you do. Please God, I
will live and mend, and take up all my tangled threads, as Aunt Jean
says. How is old Aunt Jean? Cankered body! but I suppose she would have
done it too--through fire and water. Do you know, May, there’s a great
deal of meaning, sometimes, in what these old boys say.”

“I wish you would not call them old boys, Tom.”

“Well, well--they are not young boys, are they? There is one thing tho’
about women--or, so I’ve always heard, at least. They say you’re hard on
other women. If you were called on now to help a woman that was not your
flesh and blood?--for the sake of those who were your flesh and blood--”

Marjory’s face was covered with a deep blush; there was but one idea
that could be connected with such a speech; she had to conquer a
momentary repugnance, an impulse of indignation and shame. But she did
conquer it.

“Tom!” she said anxiously; “I hope I could be faithful to my trust. Tell
me what it is?”

“Not I!” said Tom, laughing. “No, no, Miss May; I am not going to give
you the whiphand over me. I can trust myself best. I am getting well,
thank Heaven; and I’ll pick up my tangled threads. It is not a bad
phrase that, either. Lord, what a lot of tangled threads I seemed to be
leaving last night!”

What could Marjory say? She held his hand between hers and patted it
softly, and kissed it with her heart full. It was not like a sick man’s
hand, white and wasted. It was brown and muscular, and strong, capable
of crushing hers, had he wished; and yet lay somewhat passively embraced
by her slender fingers, as if--like the tide ebbing slowly from the
shore, the strength had begun to ebb away.

“However, it’s well to be warned,” said Tom. “And, after all, I have
done less harm than you would think; nobody’s enemy but my own--as
people say. There’s no sensation I ever felt so curious as that one--of
thinking you’re dying. What an awful fool you’ve been, you say to
yourself; and now it’s no good. Struggle as you like, you can’t mend it;
you must just lie still and take what’s coming. I say, May,” he added,
with a sudden start. “Say something and be cheery, or I’ll get into the
dumps again.”

“Here’s the doctor, Tom,” said Fanshawe at the door.

Marjory rose and left the room quickly; she could not bear to meet the
eye of that final authority, whose glance seems to convey life or death.
She went and stood by her brother’s friend outside on the landing. It
was an old-fashioned winding oak staircase; and looking down they could
see the movements of the house; the waiters carrying in dishes to the
room where the father and uncle were breakfasting; and sometimes, when
the door opened, could hear the roll of their vigorous Northern voices.
Marjory stood with her hand on the oak balustrade, and looked wistfully
into Fanshawe’s face.

“Do you mean,” she said, “that there is no hope?”

He made a little gesture of pain and shook his head; his eyes looked
hollow, as if with tears. It was watching that had done it, but the
effect was the same.

“Then he ought to know; he must know!” said Marjory.

“To what good, Miss Heriot? Do you think God takes a man unawares like
that, to exact everything from him the same as if he had had long
warning? I am not so good as you; but I think better of my Maker than
that.”

“Mr. Fanshawe, this is no time to argue,” said Marjory, shivering; “but
my poor Tom ought to know.”

“It would kill him in a moment,” said Fanshawe, “the shock would be too
great; he has few enough moments to live. Go and pray for him, Miss
Heriot; that’s better than telling him. You are far more likely to be
paid attention to up yonder than fellows like poor Tom or me.”

And all the while fresh dishes were being carried in from the kitchen,
and Mr. Heriot’s laugh, a large sound of ease and relief--the gaiety of
a man just delivered from deadly anxiety--rang like a certainty of
well-being all through the house. The breakfast was still going on when
the doctor went downstairs; his grave face startled Tom’s father.

“You find your patient better, doctor?” he said.

“I cannot say I do,” the doctor answered, somewhat solemnly. “Though his
strength has held out better than I thought.”

“But I assure you--the boy is looking as well as I ever saw him. His
colour is good, and his eyes bright; and no suffering to speak of.”

“The explanation of that is but too easy,” said the doctor. “I suppose
no one has told you the particulars. So long as there was pain there was
a little hope. It is a hard thing to say to a father, but I must say it.
Your son’s injury, Sir, is in the spine.”

“My God!”

Mr. Heriot stumbled up blindly from his chair; he put his hand out to
grope his way to the door, and with the other thrust away from him the
table at which he had been seated. The doctor rushed after and seized
him by the arm.

“If you go into his room with that face, you will kill him on the spot!”
he cried.

“And when will you--or nature, as you call it--kill him?” cried Mr.
Charles, coming forward in his turn. “Thomas, my man, Thomas! you’ve
still the others left.”

“He may last a few hours longer--not more,” said the doctor. “I shall
come back presently;” and he rushed away, glad to escape from such a
scene, and left those whom it most concerned to bear it as they could.

The two old brothers had taken each other by the hand. They stood
together as they had done when they were boys; but one had his face
hidden on the wall, against which he leant and heard the words of the
other vaguely through his anguish, as if they were uttered miles away.

“Thomas! think. He is not your only child! there are others well worthy
of your love. We must grieve--it’s God’s will; but for God’s sake dinna
despair!”

What mockery the words seemed; merest commonplaces, easy to say, but
hard, impossible to give an ear to. Despair? what else was there left
for the man who was about to see his son die?




CHAPTER VI.


He lingered the greater part of the day. Marjory took her place
permanently by his bedside, where Fanshawe had been seated when she
first appeared. She had allowed herself to be entreated to say nothing
to him; but a certain fixed awe and pain in her look communicated
themselves to Tom’s mind without a word said. He noticed this at first
with an uneasy laugh.

“Ah, I see you think badly of me, May. You think I am going, though I
deceive myself. Don’t deny it. If I was not so sure by my feelings that
you are wrong, you would make me think so too.”

“I am anxious,” she said. “You know what papa says, Tom, it is a woman’s
fault.”

“Ay, so he did,” said her brother; “he has sense enough for
half-a-dozen. I wish I had minded him more. May, you needn’t be so
frightened. If I am going, as you think--well, well! there would be
nothing to be so dismal about. It has to be one time or another. If it
were not for all those tangled threads, and things done that shouldn’t
have been done, and left undone that should have been done, like the
Prayer-book. I suppose it’s the common way. Good and bad would not say
it every Sunday, if it were not the common way.”

“It is the very commonest way of all, Tom.”

“I thought so. Then I’ll be forgiven, too, like the rest, if that’s all.
The old doctor at Comlie would be harder on a fellow than the
Prayer-book is. You’re great for the Kirk, May, and I suppose, as we’re
Scotch, you’re right; but if I were a religious fellow, which I’m not, I
would go in for the Prayer-book, mind you; it’s kinder; it asks fewer
questions. We have done what we ought not to have done; we have left
undone--If I had time just now, and felt up to it, I would like to tell
you something, May.”

“Tell me, Tom,” she said, eagerly. “We are quiet now; there’s nobody
here.”

“Presently,” he said; and then fell into a musing state, from which she
could not rouse him. Now and then he would brighten up, and call her
attention to a fly on the ceiling; to the pattern of the paper on the
walls; to an old picture over the mantel-piece; smiling and commenting
upon them.

“The walls should not be papered in a room where a man is to lie ill,”
he said. “If you knew what strange figures they turn into. There’s an
old witch in that corner with a red nose and a red cap; don’t you see
her? Last night she kept sailing about the room on a broomstick, or
something; and, by Jove! there is that unhappy fly astride on her red
nose!”

At this idea he laughed feebly, yet loudly. How that laugh echoed down
into May’s heart! He would not allow anything more serious to be spoken
of.

“I am too tired to be sensible,” he said. “Don’t disturb my fly, May.
He’s numb, poor fellow, after the Winter. I only hope if the witch takes
to riding about again, to-night, she won’t disturb him. I don’t see her
broomstick to-day. Trifling talk, eh? To be sure, it’s nonsense; but if
a man may not indulge in a little nonsense when he’s laid by the heels
like this, and has a nice sister smiling at him--”

Here the poor fellow put out his hand to her, which Marjory took within
her own, doing her best to keep up the smile which pleased him, though
there were few exertions of strength which would not have been easier to
her at the moment.

“I like nonsense,” she said, softly. “But, Tom, somebody will come in
presently and disturb us. Tell me, dear, first what you wanted to say.”

“Presently,” said Tom. “I have not quite made up my mind about it.
There’s time enough--time enough. Show Uncle Charles that print when he
comes up. I think it’s a good one. I thought of him as soon as I saw it.
What quiet steady-going lives now, these old fellows live! It’s strange
for a man to think of settling down into that sort of thing, you know,
but I suppose I shall come to it in time like the rest. Farming, like my
father, or prints, and books, and coins, and so forth. May, you women
have other kind of ideas; but fancy giving up youth, and stir, and
movement, and all that makes life pleasant--for that.”

“I suppose when one is old it is the quietness that makes life
pleasant,” said poor Marjory, aching to her very finger-points with a
sense that this life was ebbing away while they thus talked.

“By Jove, I don’t think it would ever make life pleasant to me,” said
Tom. And then with a curious consciousness, he looked up at her, half
defiant, half inquiring. “You think, I suppose,” he said, “that I will
never give myself the chance to try if I go on in this way. Never you
fear, May; I know when to pull up as well as you do. Fun first, sobriety
afterwards--never you fear. I may have had about my swing by this time.
Mind, I make no rash promises, but if I keep in the same mind when I get
better---- I suppose the old boy would give me a house somewhere, when I’m
married and settled. Married and settled!” he repeated, with a somewhat
wild laugh; and then stopped abruptly, and added, “that’s the worst of
it--there’s the rub.”

Marjory did not follow this lead; she had grown confused with misery,
feeling that she sinned against him, trying to think of something she
could say to him which should lead his mind to other thoughts. She saw
nothing but levity in what he said, and her own mind seemed paralysed.
She could have thrown herself upon him and begged him in so many words
to think that he was dying; but nothing less direct than this seemed
possible. She sat by him, holding his hand between hers, gazing
wistfully at him, but with her mind far from what he was saying,
labouring and struggling to think of something that would warn without
alarming him. He, for his part, looked at her somewhat wistfully too.
Certain words seemed on his very lips, which one syllable from her, had
she but comprehended, would have drawn forth; but, in the inscrutable
isolation of humanity, the two pair of eyes met, both overbrimming with
meaning, but with a meaning incommunicable. What a pitiful gaze it was
on both sides!

At last Marjory, feeling the silence insupportable, burst forth into a
few faltering words, from which she tried hard to keep all appearance of
strong emotion.

“Tom, we used to say our prayers in the nursery together when you were
ill, don’t you remember? ‘Pray God take away Tom’s fever,’ I used to
say. And this is so like old times. Tom--I don’t think I said my prayers
this morning--”

He put up his hand to stop her, and then his countenance changed and
melted, and some moisture came into his bright eyes. He gave a strange
little laugh.

“I was a better boy in those days than I am now.”

“You never made yourself out to be good,” said Marjory, with tears; “but
you were always good to me. Oh, God bless you, dear Tom! if we were only
to say, ‘Our Father’--after being up all night--don’t you think it would
do us good?”

“Say what you like, May.”

The words were common-place, but not the tone; and Marjory, with his
hand clasped tighter within hers, was kneeling down by the bed, when the
door opened, and their father came in. Mr. Heriot had grown ten years
older in that half hour. He came in with a miserable smile, put on at
the door as a woman might have put on a veil.

“Well, Tom, my man, and how are we getting on now?” he said, with an
attempt at hearty jocularity, most pitifully unlike his natural tone.

Tom looked from his father’s ghostly pretence at ease to his sister’s
face, as she knelt by the bed, with his hand pressed between hers, now
and then softly kissing it, and smiling at him with an effort which
became more and more painful. A change came over his own countenance.
With a sudden scared look, he thrust his other hand into his father’s,
and grasped him tight, like a frightened child.

“Don’t let me go!” he cried, with one momentary unspeakable pang.

Then swiftly as the mind moves at moments in which a whole life-time
seems concentrated, he recovered his mental balance. How few fail at
that grand crisis! He recovered himself with one of those strange
rallyings of mental courage which make all sorts of men die bravely with
fortitude and calm. The whole revolution of feeling--enlightenment,
despair, self-command--passed so quickly that only spectators equally
absorbed and concentrated could have followed them.

“Well!” he said, finally, “if it is to be so, we must bear it, father.
We must bear it as well as we can.”

Meanwhile Mr. Charles, not knowing what to do with himself, had examined
everything in the sitting-room downstairs, not because there was
anything to interest him, but because, while he suffered as much as the
others, he had not, like the others, a primary claim to be with the
chief sufferer of all.

“Best leave them alone, best leave them alone,” he had said to himself a
dozen times over. “They’re better alone with him--better alone.”

But his mind was full of _malaise_, anxiety, and pain. And after a while
he wandered out into the yard of the inn, where still there was a great
commotion, horses and dogs about, and a floating population of grooms.
Mr. Charles went and looked at one or two of the slim glossy hunters
which were being taken out for exercise, or which were being prepared to
depart, as the hunting season approached its end. He was a man of very
different tastes; yet he was country-born and country-bred, and knew the
points of a horse. Poor man, this new investigation chimed in strangely
with the very different thoughts in his mind. He looked at the animals
with an eye that could not help seeing, but an aching heart whose
attention was directed elsewhere. While he was thus standing in the
middle of the yard, vaguely examining everything around him, the
deformed old ostler came up to him once more.

“Beg your pardon, Sir, but do you know if they’ve sent for the
bone-setter, Sir, as I spoke to you and the lady about? T’other old
gentleman won’t listen to me, not on no consideration. He’s awful cut
up, he is; and I ask you, Sir, as a gentleman and a scholar, is this a
time to be standing on p’s and q’s, and thinking what’s most genteel and
that? Job Turner ain’t genteel, but he’ll save Mr. ’Eriot’s life, soon
as look at ’im. Do’ee have him, now; do’ee have ’im;” cried the old man,
with tears in the strange little blear eyes which shone out of his face
from among the dark puckers of his cheeks and brow like diamonds. “Them
brutes would have had the breath out o’ me years and years since, if it
hadn’t a-been for Job. Every bone in my body, Sir, he’s put to rights,
and joined together sometime. Now, do’ee have him; do’ee now, my
gentleman! he’ll mend Mr. ’Eriot like he mended me. Men is alike, just
as ’osses is alike; they’ve the same bones, and flesh and blood. Nature
makes no account o’ one being a gentleman and one in the stables. Oh,
Lord bless you, Sir, do’ee have him, or you’ll never forgive yourself.
You all know Job Turner, mates; speak up for him, for God’s sake, and
let the gentleman hear what he is.”

“He’s a rare ’un for bones!” cried one of the grooms.

“He’ll work your joint back into its socket, like as it was a strayed
babby!” cried another.

“Ain’t he now; don’t he now, boys!” cried the old ostler; “speak up for
him, for God’s sake; it’s for young Mr. ’Eriot, as always was the
pleasantest gentleman I ever see in a ’unting field, or out on’t; he
gave me ten bob just for nothing at all, the last blessed morning as
ever he rode out o’ this yere yard. Lord bless you, Sir, we’ll have him
up and well in a week if you won’t mind his not being genteel, and send
for Job.”

“Hold your nonsense!” said another man, interfering. “Job ain’t the Lord
to kill and make alive. The young gentleman’s broken his back; send you
for the clergyman, or some one as’ll give him good advice, Sir. They
ain’t fit to die at a moment’s notice, no more nor the likes of us. Send
for the clergyman, Sir, if you’ll take my advice.”

Mr. Charles stood and looked from one to the other with a certain weary
bewilderment; he felt as if the family misfortune, which had thus fallen
upon the Hay-Heriots, out of all precedent, a thing that never had
happened before, had made him a mark at which every kind of arrow might
be shot. He shook his head as he went away, pursued by the old ostler’s
entreaties.

“One thing is certain, that these bone-setting bodies learn a great deal
about the human frame,” he said to himself; “not scientific information,
but something that’s like inspiration sometimes. It might be too late;
or it might be nonsense altogether. Perhaps he could do nothing for poor
Tom, perhaps--should I go back and speak to Thomas, and try? But what’s
the good of disturbing the poor fellow for nothing? It could not come to
anything; you may mend legs and arms, but you cannot mend the spine. God
bless us all; this is what it comes to, to give a lad his own way, and
let him take his swing! And it will kill his father. Never was it known
yet, in all the records, that a Hay-Heriot died like this--the heir
without an heir; leaving it all to go in the second line. If I could
but know whether this Job what-do-you-call-him would be of any use! It
would worry Thomas to ask him; but what of that if it saved the lad? My
mind’s in a terrible swither, whether to try or not. Job! Job! It’s an
uncanny kind of name. Oh, my bonnie May, if I could but have five
minutes speech of you to say ay or no! And there’s no time, if anything
can be done. I think I’ll risk it. God help us! He knows; but we do not;
it can do no harm. Hey! hi! hem! you crooked old body! That’s uncivil;
he’ll pay no attention. I want the other man, a bit little withered up,
crooked--Hi! my good man; come here and tell me where your Job--what do
you call him--is to be found. I don’t know if he can do anything; but if
you’ll show me where he lives, I’ll try.”

“Lord bless you, Sir, I knew as you were a reasonable gentleman,” said
the ostler, limping up. “It’s but a poor place, but what o’ that? and
master and groom we’re all much the same. Leastways, so far as bones go,
as is the foundation like. This way, Sir; it ain’t above ten minutes
from here--if Job’s in; which he ain’t always, at this time of the day.
Gentlefolks thinks little of him; but poor folks think much; and he’s
out and about over all the country, wherever there is a leg out, or a
bone broken. It is a chance if we find ’im; but a man can but do his
best, when all’s said; and it ain’t not more than ten, or say fifteen
minutes walk.”

“Quick, man, quick!” said Mr. Charles; but the road to Job’s house was
through the back streets of the little town, which were swarming with
children, and full of wandering provision merchants selling vegetables
and earthenware, and a great many other descriptions of merchandize; for
it was Saturday, and market-day. To the stranger, with his sick heart
and his brain buzzing with pain and suspense, the twistings and turnings
of the narrow lanes, the streets they had to cross, the passages they
threaded through, the corners they turned seemed endless. What a fool’s
errand it was, after all, he thought! and then something seemed to call
him, which sounded now like Marjory’s appealing voice--now like poor
Tom’s cry of pain. What was he doing here, astray, in a strange place?
seeking out some unknown quack; leaving his own people perhaps to bear
“the worst that could happen,” without such support as he could give? He
suddenly turned round, while his guide was enlarging upon Job’s gifts,
and upon the unlikelihood of finding him--an argument which was not
intended to discourage Mr. Charles, but only to enhance Job’s
importance--

“Go yourself and find him!” he said; “I’m going back! I’m going back! I
may be wanted. Bring the man, and I’ll pay him--and you too.” And with
these words Mr. Charles darted across the street, with a vain but
confident endeavour to re-traverse the way he had come. He fell over the
children; he was all but run down by the wheelbarrows; and as was
natural, he lost his way. And words could not tell the painful confusion
of his mind as he wound in and out, round and round in a circle, never
seeming to approach a step nearer; growing every moment more wretched,
more anxious, more confused; figuring to himself what might be passing
in the sick-room; how he might be wanted; and how “the worst” might have
happened, while he was about this wild goose chase. When he got back at
last to the door of the hotel, the old ostler had reached it before him,
and stood waiting in the yard with a villainous companion, who pulled
his forelock to the confused and tremulous gentleman, and announced
himself as Job Turner.

“You mayn’t think he’s much to look at, Sir,” whispered the ostler,
under shelter of his hand; “but if you knowed all, as I know--the cures
he’s done; the bones he’s set; the folk as he’s brought up from the
grave--”

Mr. Charles waved his hand--he was too breathless to speak--and hurried
upstairs. A dead calm seemed to have fallen on the house. A frightened
woman-servant met him on the stairs, creeping down on tiptoe. It seemed
to be years that he had been wandering about the streets, absent from
his post. Then the doctor met him, and pointed silently to the closed
door, shaking his head. Trembling, conscience-stricken, weary and sick
with his suspense, Mr. Charles crept into the sick-room. All was quiet
and silent there, except some gasps for breath. Mr. Heriot stood at one
side of the bed, Marjory at the other. Fanshawe, Tom’s friend, was at
the foot, leaning against the bed, and hiding his face with his hand.
Mr. Charles trembled too much to be of use to any one; he stood behind
them all, wiping his forehead, trying to see with his hot and dazzled
eyes.

Nothing to be done, and nothing to be said! It had come to that. Tom was
out of hearing, though they had so much to say to him. And he, too, had
much to say, but had left it all unsaid. Who can tell the anguish of
such a moment for those who are called upon to survive? To stand by
helpless, impotent; willing to do everything, capable of
nothing--nothing but to look on. Humanity has no agony so great.

At the very last, poor Tom came out of his death-struggle, as by a
miracle, and looked at his watchers.

“I told you, May,” he said, faintly. “I told you!” These were his last
words. He seemed to die repeating them in a whisper, which grew fainter
and fainter: “I told her--told her; I told--thank God!”

Oh! for what, poor deceived soul? They looked at each other with a
thrill of terror which overcame even their grief. What did he thank God
for as he crossed the threshold of the other life?




CHAPTER VII.


The Manse of Comlie had one window, which looked upon the
churchyard--only one, as Mrs. Murray congratulated herself--and that in
a room which was never used but where on occasional moments now and then
the old lady would go and sit by herself, not rejecting for her own part
the pensive associations which she deprecated for others. On the day of
poor Tom Heriot’s funeral, there were two old faces at this window. One
was that of Miss Jean Heriot, in new “blacks,” as she called her
mourning; whose interest in the melancholy ceremony had overcome even
that strong sense of decorum with which a Scottish woman of her age
would, under other circumstances, have shut herself up on the day of a
funeral “in the family.”

In Scotland, in former days, the attendance of a woman at a funeral was
unknown; and it was partly because it was understood that Marjory was to
be present, that her old grand-aunt stole across in the early morning,
before any one was about, in order to witness, with a mixture of grief,
interest, and disapproval, the innovations in the simple ceremonial with
which the heir of Pitcomlie was conducted to his last resting-place.

“I don’t know what we are coming to,” said Miss Jean. “You may like
these new-fangled ways, Mrs. Murray; but for my part, I would just as
soon take to the Prayer-book for good and a’, and be done with
compromises; or even the mass-book, for that matter. When you once begin
to pray over a grave, how long do you think it’ll be before you pray for
the dead?”

“It will never be in the doctor’s time, that I can answer for,” said the
Minister’s wife, with firmness. “For my part, if it’s an innovation, it
pleases me. Oh! to hear the thud of the earth, and no’ a word said! It
is bad enough--bad enough, even when it’s done like baptism, in the name
of the Father, and the Son.”

“If you had not been there, you would not have heard,” interrupted Miss
Jean. “I hate to see women trailing after a funeral; it’s no their
place.”

“I was not there, and yet I heard,” said Mrs. Murray; “there are things
you hear with your heart, though you’re far away. And why should not
women go to the grave with those that belong to them? It is us that
takes care of them to their last breath. Why should not May come with
the rest to lay her brother in his grave? after standing by him, poor
lad, till his end.”

“It would fit her best to stay at home,” said Aunt Jean; “women are
always best at home, especially when they’re young. Thomas has brought
up that girl his own way, not my way. I would have trained her very
different. When I was Marjory’s age I never dared lift up my face to my
mother. What she said should be, it was--no contradiction; no setting up
to know better than your elders; whereas it’s my devout opinion that
girl thinks herself wiser than the likes of you or me.”

“And so she is in some things,” said Mrs. Murray; “far wiser than me, at
least, Miss Jean. I’ve seen her pose the doctor himself, which is not
saying little. And here they are, coming down by the east knoll. Oh!
what a black, black procession! And to think it’s Tom Heriot! waes me!
waes me!--him that should have been bidding us all to his bridal instead
of this cruel grave-side!”

Miss Jean said nothing for the moment. She put her aged head close to
the window, and followed with an intent gaze of her bright old eyes the
dark line that wound down into the churchyard from the higher ground
above. What strange sense of the wonder of it may have passed through
her mind, who can tell? She was old; her generation was over; not one of
those who had been with her in her youth was with her now. Alone, a
spectator of the works and ways that were not as her ways and works, she
had been keenly looking on and criticising the younger world around for
many a day. She had seen the boy born whose remains were now carried
before her; she had almost seen his father born. Yet she was here, still
a keen spectator, looking on while that young representative of the race
was laid among their ancestors.

She said nothing; her sharp eyes glittered as she gazed; she folded her
thin hands, all wrinkled and yellow, like old ivory, on the top of her
cane, and nothing escaped her keen observation. She took in the new--or
what she fancied new--fashion of Marjory’s dress, as well as the
enormous train of county friends, old family connections, tenants, and
neighbours, who had come to do honour to the Heriots. This gave her a
thrill of pleasure in the chillness of her old age, which felt no very
strenuous emotion. She counted them upon her withered fingers as they
passed down into the grassy churchyard, and ranged themselves against
the grey old lichened wall which surrounded it on that side, set close
with the grotesque monuments of the last two centuries.

“I see scarce anybody wanting,” she said, with a certain subdued
exultation; “scarce anybody on this side of Fife but the Sinclairs, and
they’re away. Thomas does not please me in many of his ways; but I’ll
say this for him, that he has kept up the credit of the house, and all
the old family friends.”

Mrs. Murray was crying quietly, with her eyes fixed upon the central
group, where stood Mr. Heriot himself, with drooping head, his tall
figure showing among all the other tall men who surrounded him with a
certain majesty of weakness which went to the heart of this looker-on.
His daughter seemed to be leaning on his arm, but by the way in which
she clung to him, moving as he moved, Mrs. Murray divined that in
reality it was Marjory who supported her father.

It was a bright day, perfectly serene and calm; the sun shining, a
gentle little breeze caressing the waving grass, and breathing softly
over the mourners. There had been rain in the morning, so that
everything was dewy and moist. It was what country people call “a
growing day;” a day on which you could almost see the new buds opening
out, and hear the new blades of the grass escape out of their sheaths; a
day of life and overbrimming vitality; the kind of day in which it is
hardest to think of dying or of death.

“Eh, waes me, waes me!” said the old lady, who knew what loss was, with
the tears running down her soft old cheeks, as the coffin was lowered
into the grave.

Then rose that strangely solemn sound--one voice rising in the open air
in the daylight, amidst the hush of a crowd, a sound not to be mistaken
for any other, and which chills the very soul of the chance hearer,
while it so often gives a momentary consolation to the mourner. Mrs.
Murray bowed down her old head, weeping at the sound of her husband’s
prayer, which was too far off to be heard. But Miss Jean kept gazing,
her bright little eyes shining out of her head, her cap pressed closely
against the window.

“New-fangled ways--new-fangled ways!” she was saying to herself. “What
the better is the poor body for all that praying? The lad’s soul is
beyond the power of prayer. He’s in his Maker’s hand. He was but an ill
young lad, and I’m glad for your sake that the doctor has nothing to say
about things that can never be known till all’s known. I cannot abide
these changes. I approved Marjory when she threw in her lot with the old
Kirk, though brought up otherwise; but I do not approve of changing auld
forms and ways to make them like anither ritual. No, no; that’s not a
thing I can approve. But half Fife is there,” she added, with a
long-drawn breath of satisfaction, “I am thankful to think that the
family is not letten down, whatever happens. There’s Lord Largo himself,
or I’m sore mistaken, and all the family from Magusmoor. It shows great
respect--great respect. Thomas Heriot may be proud; there’s men there
that would not have come so far for King or Commons. I’m thankful myself
to see that real old friendship aye lasts. Marjory being there is the
only eyesore to me. She should have stayed at home. Women should bide at
home. It would have set her better to have learned a lesson to her young
sister how life’s uncertain and death’s sure.”

“Poor bairn! she will learn that soon enough.”

Miss Jean made no reply. She leant her chin upon her cane, and kept
looking out, the slight tremulous movement of her head communicating a
certain vibration to all the outline of her figure and black drapery.
Her mind was intent upon the different groups standing about against the
grey churchyard wall, bareheaded under the sun. One by one she
recognised them, with her keen eyes. She had known them and their
fathers and grandfathers before them, every one. The central group of
all was perhaps that which the old woman noted least. She had been
grieved for “the family” chiefly because Tom was the heir, and the
property must now go to the second son, a thing which was unknown in the
Heriot traditions. But her grief was short and soon exhausted, as
perhaps every strong sentiment is at her age. She no longer thought of
Tom, nor of his desolate father, for whom at first she had been very
sorry. What she was principally concerned with, was to see that all was
done as it ought to be done, and that nowhere was there any failure of
“respect.” And on this point she had been fully satisfied, so that the
effect upon her mind, as she sat at the Manse window, was rather one of
deep and sombre gratification than of grief.

“Thomas Heriot may be proud,” she repeated to herself, and she was
sincerely unconscious of any incongruity in the thought.

“There’s a man there I never saw before,” she added, after a pause,
“standing closer to my nephew Thomas Heriot and that old fool, Charlie,
than a stranger should be. If he was a chief mourner he could not be
nearer. If any of them had any sense they would see that was my Lord
Largo’s place. After the near friends comes the highest rank. I wonder
what Thomas can be thinking of; and I would like to know who is yon
man.”

“It is Mr. Fanshawe, poor Tom’s friend,” said Mrs. Murray, with a
half-restrained sob, “that nursed him when he had the accident, and sent
for them, and has been the kindest friend. It was him that brought Mr.
Heriot down, heart-broken as he was. Marjory could never have done it
without him, as I hear. Mrs. Simpson was over,” added the old lady,
apologetically, afraid of seeming to know better than “a relation,” “to
settle about some of the servants’ mourning, and it was from her I
heard.”

“Marjory could never have done it!” said Miss Jean, with some scorn. “If
Marjory is at the bottom of everything, she should learn better than to
make difficulties. When a woman sets up for being helpless, she can aye
get help; but when she sets up for being the mainspring of everything,
she has to give up such pretences. Marjory could not have done without
him--He’s come to help Marjory, has he? I know what that means. For once
in their lives the Heriots are going to show a little judgment and marry
Marjory. In that way ye can understand yon stranger being so near.”

“Oh, Miss Jean, God forgive you!” said Mrs. Murray. “Why should you
judge the worst? It is nothing of the sort.”

“I’ll keep my opinion, and you’ll keep yours,” said Miss Jean, grimly.
“Am I blaming them? The girls that have been born Heriots have never had
anything done for them. Every thing for the lads; for the lasses they
took their chance. If a good man came, good and well; if it was but an
indifferent man, they did what they liked--took him or not according to
their fancy; as may be well seen, for all the daughters have married
badly, everyone, except those that did not marry at all. Na, na, I’m not
blaming them. There’s even myself; if my father and my brother had taken
an interest--if they had put themselves out of their way--I might have
had bairns and grandbairns of my own, and held up my head as high as
any. But I was left a motherless thing to do what I liked, to refuse
good offers, and act like a fool, and throw away my prospects before I
knew what they meant. If Thomas Heriot is taking more thought for his
girrl, it’s no’ from me that he’ll have any blame.”

“Poor man!” said the Minister’s wife, “this is not a moment to expect
him to take much thought.”

“It’s a moment when it’s very important to do all he can for Marjory,”
said Miss Jean tartly. “There’s Tom gone, poor lad, that was not steady
enough to marry; and if anything was to happen to Thomas, I ask you what
would become of that girrl? A girrl always brought up to be mistress and
mair? The property goes to young Chairles, and he’s married to a strange
woman that nobody knows; and what would become of Marjory? She’ll rule
the roost no more as she’s done all her life; she’ll drop into Mr.
Heriot of Pitcomlie’s sister, and _I_ know what that means.”

“She has been Mr. Heriot of Pitcomlie’s daughter all her life, and
desired no better,” said Mrs. Murray.

“Oh, ay, but that’s very different. She’ll want for nothing,” said Miss
Jean, reflectively, “she’ll have plenty to live on. She’ll have her own
little money and old Charlie’s money, and mine when I go; but she’ll be
of no more consequence in the countryside--no more consequence than----
me,” said the old lady. “No’ so much, for you’re all feared for me. It
will be a terrible downcome for Marjory. No, no, if her father thinks of
marrying her to Tom’s friend, or anybody’s friend, that can give her a
good house over her head and a position, it’s not from me that he’ll get
any blame.”

“Oh, Miss Jean, it’s little such thoughts are in any of their heads,”
said Mrs. Murray. “Mr. Heriot’s heart’s broken; he thinks neither of
marrying nor giving in marriage. Eh, poor man! poor man! he’s turning
away now, leaving the grave, leaving his first-born out there in the
rain and the snow, and the hot sun and winter wind. I’ve done it myself.
I know what it is. God help him! He’s thinking neither of marrying nor
of Marjory. He’s thinking but of him that’s gone.”

“He should do his duty to the living whoever’s gone,” said Miss Jean,
watching with her sharp old eyes. “And Thomas Heriot’s sore failed,” she
added to herself, eagerly looking out as the melancholy procession
turned to the gate close by the Manse where the carriages were waiting.
“He is sore failed. I should not be surprised if he was not long for
this world; and then what will that girrl do?”




CHAPTER VIII.


Edward Fanshawe, the individual whose appearance at Tom Heriot’s funeral
had excited Miss Jean’s curiosity so strongly, was, perhaps, about the
last man in England to whom Mr. Heriot of Pitcomlie, or any other
father, would have confided his daughter’s happiness. Almost all that
could be said in his favour was negative. There was no harm in him. He
had never been involved in any discreditable transaction; he had wronged
nobody; he had not even bored his friends. A certain fine instinct,
indeed, in this respect, possessed the man; he had no high moral
qualities, no principles to speak of, no plan of life nor rule of
action; but he was never a bore. He perceived, with the quickness of
lightning, the moment when his friends had had enough of him. Perhaps
that moment arrived simultaneously with the moment in which he felt that
he had enough of them; anyhow, he chose it with the most admirable
exactitude. It was the one great quality of his character; he was like
the sun in Hood’s poem, which “never came an hour too soon,” and he
never stayed a moment too late.

Mr. Fanshawe was always agreeable, sympathetic, ready to interest
himself in what interested those about him; he was a gentleman of the
best blood and connections--cousin to Lord Strangeways, once removed,
and allied by the mother’s side to the Duchess of Dimsdale, whose name
is a sufficient guarantee, we trust, for any man’s gentility. He had
just the amount of family and of money which is best adapted to
demoralize a man, and turn him away from the natural and wholesome
channels of use. And at the same time he had no land, no local
habitation to keep up, no duties to do. What he had was in money, which
a careful father had so locked up that the poor fellow could not even
ruin himself by spending everything, and thus give himself the chance of
a new start. He could only forestall his income, which he did
continually, with more or less painful consequences to himself, and no
great harm to anybody else; for he was weak-minded enough to have a
prejudice in favour of paying his debts, though he seldom did it until
considerably after date. He was not a fool, any more than he was a
rogue; he was the very best, gentlest, most amiable, kind, and harmless
of good-for-nothings; but a good-for-nothing he was. He had no vices,
not even that of active selfishness, which, in such a man, might have
been the first step to virtue. He was a little over thirty, but felt as
if he had never been any younger, and never would be any older. He was
not appalled by the thought of all the openings in life which he had
thrown aside; or of the men who had passed him on the way, or of the
advantages he had let slip. The past did not upbraid him, neither did
the future alarm him. He never thought of asking himself what was to
become of him when his active manhood began to droop. “To-morrow shall
be as to-day,” he said to himself; or rather he did not say it, for he
never went so far as to have any talk with himself on the subject.

Fanshawe had rooms in London, where he appeared generally for a portion
of the season. He had been in the habit of meeting Tom Heriot in
Leicestershire for the hunting, just as he was in the habit of meeting
certain other kinds of men, periodically, in other places. By means of
thus dividing his year, and keeping to the regular routine of change, of
which men without any duties make a kind of fantastic duty for
themselves, his acquaintance was simply unlimited. He knew all kinds of
people, and most of the people whom he knew, he knew intimately. This
was how Tom Heriot and he had become friends--friends by accident as it
were, by the mere fact of meeting year after year in the same place,
doing the same thing at the same moment. They had been intimates, but no
more friends than this implies, at the moment when Tom, by Fanshawe’s
side, was struck by the stroke of that grim unsuspected Death which
hovers about the hunting-field. It was Fanshawe who helped to lift him,
to disengage him from his fallen horse, and carry him to the bed which
turned out to be his death-bed. And the two nights of watching which
followed made Fanshawe something like Tom Heriot’s brother, made him the
benefactor of Tom Heriot’s family, the object of their warmest
gratitude, and connected for ever with poor Tom’s name and memory.
Nothing could be more real than this connexion, and yet nothing could
be more accidental or arbitrary.

The position was quite false, for he knew in reality but little of Tom;
and yet it was perfectly natural and true, for he had been to Tom in his
hour of need all that a brother could have been; and to Tom’s father and
sister this stranger was no more a stranger; he was a son, a brother,
“Tom’s dearest friend.” And it seemed only natural to both parties that
Fanshawe should accompany the mournful _cortége_ to Pitcomlie--and that
he who had watched Tom so tenderly should help to lay him in his grave,
should support his fellow-watchers, and do what he could to console his
friend’s family.

This had seemed perfectly natural to Fanshawe, who was ever sympathetic
and ready to help. Besides, Scotland was not to him an unknown place. He
had gone to the North often enough, to shooting boxes and castles among
the moors. Scotland meant game and deer-stalking, mountains and lochs,
and vigorous exercise, according to his understanding. Of course he was
well enough aware that April is not the moment for such delights. He
must have known too that no delights were possible in the circumstances,
and that his goodnature was about to plunge him into a new kind of
experience, and not a cheerful one. But yet if he ever paused to think
where he was going, he was of opinion that he knew perfectly what the
manner of living was. And it may be supposed that to such a man it was
strange and somewhat overpowering to find himself at the end of a few
days stranded as it were on the quietest coast, in the midst of the
most tranquil rural life, in a sorrowful house where there were no
visitors, no amusements, nothing going on, nothing to see.

The sombre excitement of the arrival, and of the funeral, had for the
first moment cast a veil over the gravest aspect of this seclusion. Half
of Fife, as Miss Jean truly said, had shown their “respect” to the heir
of Pitcomlie, and this fact had kept the stranger from perceiving the
dead calm that awaited him. It was on the Sunday afternoon that he first
discovered what it was that he had fallen into. He had gone decorously
to the parish church in the morning, with that amount of information
respecting its simple forms and ceremonies which the moors and the
grouse have communicated to the well-meaning and inquisitive English
sportsman. And though we will not say that Mr. Fanshawe’s mind was not
visited by a momentary surprise that no part of the service was in
Gaelic, he yet got through that part of the day well enough; and then he
returned with the family to luncheon, a meal which was eaten almost in
silence and at which he first fully realised the state of affairs.

The first Sunday is a painful moment for people in fresh grief. Mr.
Heriot sat at the foot of his table, sombre, incapable of speech, with
his head bent upon his breast, answering mechanically, but sometimes
with flashes of painful irritation, when he was addressed. Marjory from
time to time attempted to talk; but the tears would come into her eyes
in the midst of a sentence, her lip would quiver, and the words die
away. Little Milly, with her hair more golden-bright than ever over her
black frock, sat with great eyes opened upon the visitor, ready to cry
every time that Marjory’s voice faltered; and Uncle Charles, who sat
beside the child, was checked by some irritable word from his brother
whenever he began to speak. Thus Mr. Fanshawe found himself sadly out of
place in the family sitting-room downstairs.

He went up into his room after lunch, and took down all the books out of
the shelves, and looked at them one after another; then he made an
excursion round the room, and looked at all the pictures. There were
some prints of well known pictures which he knew as well as his A B C,
and there were some childish portraits of the Heriots, one of poor Tom,
which he could recognise, and of another boy, and of a round-faced girl
with curls, who, no doubt, was Marjory. This was very mild fare; he sat
down at the window afterwards, with a copy of Milton, which was the
liveliest reading he could find, and read a few lines of Comus, and
looked out upon the sea. Soon the monotonous chant of the waves
attracted him, and he made his way through the silence and the sunshine
downstairs, meeting no one, hearing no sound, feeling as if the house
itself was dead or enchanted.

The weather was very fine, as warm as it often is in Scotland in June,
though it was still only April. The Firth was blue as the sky above it,
but of a deepened and darker tone; the rich brown cliffs stood out in
strong relief with every inequality defined against that dazzling
background. In the distance the opposite coast glimmered in the hazy
brightness, marking itself by the white creamy edge of surf upon the
rocks; and looming to the westward through a haze of mingled smoke and
sunshine, stood Arthur’s Seat, like a muffled sentinel watching over the
half-apparent towers and roofs of Edinburgh. The scene was fine enough
to have attracted even a less susceptible gazer; and Fanshawe, though he
was a good-for-nothing, had an eye for beauty. He sat down upon the
cliff beyond the old house of Pitcomlie, half-way down, where the
sea-side turf was all broken with bits of projecting rock. The salt
spray dashed upon the red rocks underneath--whitest white and bluest
blue, and russet brown of the richest tone, put in with all nature’s
indifference to crudity of colour, made up the foreground; and the
distant line of the opposite coast, the vague shadow of Tantallon, the
Bass rock, lying like a great pebble on the water, the great hill in the
distance, with its ridges glimmering through the smoke of the unseen
town, lent many a suggestion, human fulness of imagery, mystery and
depth to the landscape.

Fanshawe was fully capable of appreciating the beauty of the scene; but
when he had taken in all its beauty, another thought crept upon him
which was very natural. The broad estuary before him was all but
deserted; only a few distant ships nearer Leith broke the blue as it
shaded off into the distance. The Comlie boats were all safe in harbour,
the fishermen taking their Sabbath ease; one or two white sails were
dropping down the western coast, disappearing round St. Abb’s Head into
the grey-blue horizon; but nothing was visible nearer, except the high
white cliffs of the May, the lighthouse island, which he had already
watched from his window. Nothing to do! nothing that could even suggest
a passing hope of amusement. After a while he looked upon the scene with
dismay; it was as blank to him as a beautiful face in stone. Then he
climbed to the top of the cliff, and looked out across the rich flat
homely country. These well-laboured fields were a thousand times better
for Mr. Heriot’s rent-roll than if they had been picturesquely
intersected by green lanes and waving hedgerows; but they were blank,
blank to the soul of the strange visitor who found himself stranded in
this noiseless place. Not a sound seemed to exist in that quiet country,
except the murmur of the sea. Mr. Fanshawe said to himself spitefully
that it was Scotch Sabbatarianism which prevented the very birds from
singing, which chased away all rural sights and sounds, which swept the
boats from the sea, and which demanded one monotonous level of
dulness--dulness dead as death. And then this horrible question occurred
to him: Was he sure it would be any better to-morrow? He was not at all
sure; he conjured up before him other scenes of rural life which he had
known; stray visits to his relatives, which he had paid at long
intervals, when he had found the decorations of the church the only
amusement and a school-feast the only dissipation; and here, in grim
Scotland, there were not even these simple elements of pleasure. Mr.
Fanshawe’s heart died within him as he gazed over that rich,
well-ploughed country-side.

If it should occur to anyone that this mood was very inappropriate to
the really sympathetic nature of one who had watched over Tom Heriot’s
sick-bed, and had grieved over, and fully felt the frightful blow which
his death had given to the family so near at hand, we can but say in
reply that even to the most sympathetic the impression produced by death
is the one that is effaced most rapidly. Already Fanshawe had felt, with
that impatience which is natural to humanity, that enough had been given
to Tom. He could not and would not have expressed the sentiment in
words; but it was a natural sentiment. Mr. Heriot’s heart-broken
despondency, which was partly veiled and partly heightened by the
irritability of grief, overawed the young man; but already he had begun
to feel it hard upon him that Marjory, for instance, should refuse to be
comforted. He himself felt healed of his momentary wound; and why did
not she begin at least to allow herself to be healed also?

It seemed to Fanshawe, as it seems to all except the chief sufferers in
every such bereavement, that it is churlish and almost fictitious to
“give way”--and that the natural thing is to get better of your grief as
you do of a headache, or, at least, not to annoy and worry other people,
by letting them see that it is continually there. He had felt it very
much at the time, but he had got over it; and it seemed natural to him
that others should get over it also. And when he met Mr. Charles and
Milly coming very solemnly hand in hand round the corner of the old
house, their gravity seemed almost a personal affront to him.

“The child is but a child,” he said to himself; “and the old fellow is
only his uncle. Much my uncle would care if I were to die! Really this
is making too great a fuss,” and a certain air of disapproval came into
the look with which he met them. “Going to take a walk?” he said.

“We were going down to the foot of the cliff,” said Mr. Charles. “This
little thing is pale, and wants the air; will you come too? It is not
very high, but the cliff is bold, and I am fond of the place. No
scenery, you know, no scenery,” said Mr. Charles, waving his hand
towards the rocks with an air of protecting pride. “A poor thing, Sir,
but mine own,” was the sentiment with which he gazed at the brown
headland, the angle of the coast upon which his paternal house was
placed; “but to us who were born here, it has a beauty of its own.”

“It has a great deal of beauty,” said Fanshawe; “but of a desolate kind.
To look out upon a sea without even a boat--”

“There are plenty of boats sometimes,” said Mr. Charles, somewhat
hastily; “you would not have the fishers out on the Sunday, unless when
there’s some special necessity?--a great haul of herring, or such
like--good food that should not be wasted, might excuse it; but without
that there’s no reason. There are plenty of ships in Leith Harbour, and
lying beyond Inchkeith as you would see when we crossed the Firth--”

As these words were said, Mr. Charles suddenly recollected how he had
crossed the Firth last, a mourner bringing poor Tom to his burial; and
he added hastily, “We were not thinking much of what we saw at such a
sorrowful time; but still the ships were there.”

“Is Mr. Heriot fond of yachting?” said Fanshawe, taking no notice of
this dolorous conclusion. “A yacht would be a resource.”

“The boys had once a boat,” said Mr. Charles. “You must pardon us for
our uncheerful ways. There is not a thing about but what is connected
with his memory. They had a boat when they were quite young, before
Charlie went to India. I am not fond of the sea myself; it’s a very
precarious pleasure; and to run the risk of your life for an hour’s sail
seems a want of sense and a waste of strength.”

“Shouldn’t you like to go to the May, Milly?” said Fanshawe, pointing to
the white cliffs of the island, which seemed on this clear day to be but
a few fathoms off the shore. A sparkle of pleasure came into Milly’s
little face; her big blue eyes lighted up; the corners of her mouth,
which had seemed permanently depressed, rose like the corners of an
unbent bow.

“Oh!” she began; and then paused and looked at her uncle, and became
melancholy once more.

Milly was like Fanshawe, she had had enough of the family grief; but she
was too dutiful to break its bond.

“The May is not so near as it seems,” said Mr. Charles. “It’s very
dangerous in some tides; the landing is bad. Our fishers themselves are
far from fond of the May. And, altogether, our coast is not a coast for
pleasure-sailing. There are accidents enough among those who cannot help
themselves, poor fellows! Many a tragedy I have known on Comlie Shore.”

“But if there is no yachting,” said Fanshawe, with momentary
forgetfulness of his good-breeding, “how do you get through the time--at
least in Summer--if you spend it here?”

Mr. Charles looked at him with suppressed offence. A man who found
Pitcomlie dull was to the Heriots the concentration of impertinence and
bad taste. Little Milly looked up, too, with her wondering eyes. Milly
did not know what to make of this man, who was not quite in harmony, she
felt, with the surroundings, yet who made suggestions which were very
delightful, and who had the melancholy and splendid distinction of being
“poor Tom’s friend.” She was afraid he was going to be scolded, and was
sympathetic; yet how could Uncle Charles scold a grown up gentleman, who
was Tom’s friend? Thus orderly age and dutiful childhood looked
surprised at one who was beyond all the bonds familiar to them, and
whose time and whose life seemed of so little importance to himself.

“My time seldom hangs heavy on my hands,” said Mr. Charles. “If you live
to my age, you will learn that time is short--far too short for what a
man has to do. I am sixty, and the days run through my hands like
sea-sand. Many and many is the thing I have to put aside for want of
time; and most likely I’ll die with heaps of odds and ends left
incomplete.”

“I don’t see any reason,” said Fanshawe, in his levity; “at sixty it
appears to me you have much more certainty of life before you than at
half the age. A man who lives till sixty may surely live to a hundred if
he pleases. By that time all the dangers must be over.”

“And I suppose,” said Mr. Charles, not quite pleased to hear his sixty
years treated so lightly, “you hope to do as much yourself.”

“I don’t know,” said the young man, laughing and shrugging his
shoulders. “Seriously, do you think it’s worth the while? I am more than
half way, and it has not been so delightful. No; a short life and a
merry one must be the best.”

“That was poor Tom’s idea,” said Mr. Charles, with the look of a man who
is improving the occasion.

His own feeling was that no sermon could have pointed a sharper moral.
At the sound of Tom’s name, little Milly began to cry; not that she knew
very much of Tom, but the vague pain and sorrow which filled the house
had made his name the emblem of everything that was melancholy and
grievous to her. Milly’s tears gave the last aggravation to Fanshawe’s
impatience.

“Poor Tom!” he cried; “he had a merry life. Better thirty years of that
than a long, dull blank, with nothing particular in it. He thought so,
and so should I. I don’t like--forgive me for saying so--to think of
poor Heriot as a warning. On the whole, I should not object to the same
sort of end. Better that than to drink the cup to the dregs--”

“As I am doing, you mean,” said Mr. Charles.

“No, indeed--far from that. As I should do, if such were to be my fate.
It depends, I suppose, upon the groove one gets into,” said Fanshawe,
with a short, uneasy laugh.

And then he began to talk hurriedly to Milly about the chances of a
voyage to the May.

“I do not understand that young man,” said Mr. Charles, privately, to
Marjory. “May, my dear, you must try your hand. There is good about him.
If there had not been good about him, he would never have done what he
did for Tom. But he thinks Pitcomlie dull, and he thinks a long life
undesirable. I should like to understand the lad; and as we all have
cause to be grateful to him, I wish you would try your hand.”

“If you wish it, uncle,” said Marjory.

This was in the silence of the evening, when she sat by the window,
looking out at the flush of sunset which still dyed all the western sky,
and lit up the Firth with crimson and gold. Milly stood close by her,
with an arm round her neck. The child had said her hymn, and discharged
all her Sunday duties. She was vaguely sad, because the others were
sad--yet satisfied in that she had fulfilled all personal requirements;
and over Marjory, too, a sense of quiet had stolen. The dead were in
their graves and at rest; the living remained, with work, and tears, and
dying all before them. She talked softly to Uncle Charles as the sunset
lights faded, feeling an indescribable quiet come over her mind as the
twilight came over the earth. Only Mr. Heriot sat alone in the library,
with his head bent on his breast, doing nothing, reading nothing;
thinking over the same thoughts for hours together. The old father felt
that he had come to an end; but for the others it was not so: the pause
in their lives was over, and existence had begun again.




CHAPTER IX.


Next morning life began as usual for the saddened household. Breakfast,
which had once been so lively a meal, passed over in comparative
silence. Mr. Charles, indeed, did what he could to talk to the stranger,
making conversation about the news and the newspapers, with a vague hope
of enlivening the party.

“I daresay, as an Englishman, you don’t know much about Scotch affairs,
Mr. Fanshawe,” he said. “If we were an ill-conditioned people like the
Irish now, we might lead Parliament a pretty dance; but as we find it
more to our advantage to keep quiet and mind our own business, nobody
puts themselves out of the way.”

“And then you are very well off, which Ireland is not,” said Fanshawe,
who had Irish blood in his veins.

“I am not so sure about that. We have our grievances like other folk.
Our affairs are thrust to the wall for every kind of nonsense. Who cares
to come when it’s a Scotch night, or when Scotch affairs are to be
discussed? A handful of Scotch members--”

“It is like everything else,” said Mr. Heriot, breaking in harshly;
“even, if you come to that, who are our Scotch members? In the very
next county one of our best men was turned out the other day, to make
room for some English radical or other. They hire our houses, they shoot
our moors, they clear the fish out of our rivers, they treat us like a
hunting-ground. Our old habits are destroyed, our old families dying
out--”

“Not so bad as that, not so bad as that,” said Mr. Charles, soothingly.
“You see, Mr. Fanshawe, we’re proud, and we think a retired English
tradesman, though an excellent man--a most excellent man, perhaps better
than half the Lairds about--is out of his proper place in our old
castles. But still they bring money into the country, no doubt about
that, and it’s good for trade and all the rest of it. By the way, I see
there’s been a great match at St. Andrews--did you notice, Thomas?--with
Tom Morris in it. We must take you to St. Andrews, Mr. Fanshawe, to see
golf. You cannot say you know Scotland unless you know golf. Bless my
life, what a long time it is since I have been there--not once all last
season. What did you say, Thomas?--that is a most unusual thing for me.”

“I said nothing,” said Mr. Heriot. “Go to your golf, whatever happens,
Charlie. Golf over your best friend’s grave, if you like. What does it
matter? He would never feel it, you may be sure.”

Poor Mr. Charles and his attempts at conversation were thus cut short
wheresoever he turned his steps.

“I mean no disrespect,” he said, with a certain humility, looking
anxiously at his brother, who sat throned in the irritability of his
sorrow, strangely pale through the brownness of his country colour, or
rather grey--with a veil over his countenance such as had never been
seen on it before. His heavy eyebrows were curved over the eyes, which
shone out fiery and red from under them, red with sleeplessness, and
nervous irritation, and unshed tears.

“It is nothing to me,” he said, in a high-pitched unsteady voice,
“nothing to me! Let them amuse themselves that can. I am glad of it. Has
Charlie been written to yet--that is all I want to know.”

“I wrote on Friday, papa.”

“Ah! Before the funeral,” said Mr. Heriot, “to let him know what had
happened. But I mean more than that. I mean that he should be written
to, to come home. I want him home. Why should he stay out there now,
risking his health and his children’s lives? Write again, and say I want
him home.”

“Yes, papa,” said Marjory, gently. “I said so then. I gave him all your
messages. I said to come at once, as soon as Mrs. Charles could
travel--”

“Confound Mrs. Charles! What do I care for Mrs. Charles?” cried the old
man. And then he paused, and turned with a curious attempt at a smile to
Fanshawe. “You’ll think I am a hotheaded old Turk, but you see how I am
baffled by my family. I give a simple message, and it’s lost in a
hundred paraphrases. Mrs. Charles may come when she pleases. I want
Charlie. Do you hear, May? Write again this very day, and say I want
him home.”

“Yes, papa, immediately, as soon as breakfast is over.”

“I knew there would be something to wait for,” said Mr. Heriot, rising
up, impatiently. He was consumed by his grief as by a fire. The presence
of any other individual, even those most dear to him, the sound of
conversation, seemed to rouse into a kind of fury the smouldering heat
in his soul. And when they dropped into silence he was still more
impatient. “I fear I am a hindrance to conversation,” he said, pushing
away his chair from the table after a painful pause. “I’ll _levo
l’incomodo_, as the Italians say. If anyone wants me, I’m in the
library. And mind that Charlie is written to without more delay.”

So saying, he went out hastily, with a heavy step, which yet sounded
uncertain upon the floor, as if it might stumble over anything. He waved
his hand to Fanshawe, with a forced smile, as he disappeared. He met his
darling Milly at the door--she whom he had never passed without a
caress, and brushed by, taking no notice of her. Then he came back, and
looked into the room sternly.

“See that there’s no mistake about Charlie,” he repeated.

Marjory made an ineffectual effort to restrain the tears which fell
suddenly, in great drops, upon her sleeve. She, too, turned anxious
apologetic looks upon the stranger.

“He never was like this before,” she said. “Oh, don’t think he is rude
or unkind, Mr. Fanshawe. There never was anyone so good or so tender;
but his heart is broken. He can think of nothing but poor Tom.”

“And you’ll write to Charlie?” said Mr. Charles. “I don’t wonder at him
being anxious. If you’ll think what India is, and what the life is--a
life made up of accidents, and fevers, and everything that’s deadly. The
lad might be bitten by some venomous creature; some ill beast might fall
foul of him; or he might catch the jungle fever, which they tell me is
most dangerous--”

“But all this might have happened to him for years past, I suppose,”
said Fanshawe; “unless he went to India very recently. These dangers are
not new.”

“He was not the heir then!” said Mr. Charles very simply; and he too
rose from the table. “Would you like to come and see my room, Mr.
Fanshawe? There is not much to show, but I have some prints that are not
just what you will see every day, and a curiosity or two; while Marjory
writes her letters.” And as he left the room he too looked back to say:
“You’ll write at once, May; you’ll be very urgent? It will be good for
us all to have Charlie at home.”

“Oh, May!” cried little Milly, who did not remember her second brother;
“why are they so anxious for Charlie to come home?”

“Who is anxious, Milly, besides papa and Uncle Charles?”

“Oh, the whole house!” said Milly. “Mrs. Simpson asks me every time she
sees me; and old Fleming. ‘Mr. Charlie must come home now!’ they say.
May, will you tell me why?”

“To fill Tom’s place!” said Marjory, with an outburst of sudden tears.
“Oh, my little Milly, that is what we do even when we love best. My
father is breaking his heart for Tom; yet he wants Charlie to fill Tom’s
place.”

“Nobody could ever fill _your_ place, May,” cried Milly; “I would never
let them; dinna cry. I could cry too, for papa never minds me, never
looks at me; and oh, he’s so strange; the house is so strange! but May,
so long as there is you--”

The little girl’s arms clinging round her neck were a comfort to
Marjory. Little Milly was wounded too; she had received that first
lesson of her own unimportance, which is hard even for a child; she was
half indignant, half angry even with “poor Tom,” though she cried at the
sound of his name--and very sore about Charlie, whom everybody wished
for.

“They have May, and what do they want more?” this faithful little maiden
said to herself. “When Tom was living we never saw him; and nobody ever
thought of Charlie. Why do they make such a fuss now? when they have
May!”

Fanshawe went with Mr. Charles to his room. After the scene of the
morning he felt sadly out of place, an intruder into the family life. It
seemed to him that he ought to go away; and only the day before he had
felt the tediousness of the existence so much that any excuse for going
away would have seemed a godsend; but yet, at the same time, he felt
that he did not want to go. Why, he could not have told; he seemed to
have been caught in the web of this family’s life, to be waiting for
some _dénouement_ or for some new turn in the story. He had known
nothing of them two weeks before; yet now he was a member of the
household, a spectator of the father’s misery, of the effort of the
family to right itself after this terrible blow. They seemed all to be
playing their parts before him, while he was the judge chance had
appointed to decide how they all fulfilled their _rôle_. With this
curious sensation in his mind he went over Mr. Charles’s treasures--his
prints, his cabinets of coins, his little collection of old jewellery,
which he had ranged in boxes under glass covers. “Here is a necklace
that I sometimes lend to May,” the old man said, pointing out a delicate
circlet in fine enamel, and the lightest fairy goldsmith’s work. “It was
brought to her great grandmother, Leddy Pitcomlie, from Rome, in the
beginning of last century, and is said to have belonged to a line of
great Italian beauties, whom I need not name. They’re all written out on
the case. I can recollect seeing it on the old Leddy’s withered neck.”

“Then you had a title in the family in those days?”

“No, no; no title! Leddy is the feminine of Laird, in old Scots--not
Lady, mind, which has another meaning. This is a ring that belonged to
Robert Hay in the end of the fifteenth century. We bear the yoke still
in our arms, you see. Robert Hay, of the Erroll family, married the
heiress of Pitcomlie--who was Marjory, like our Marjory downstairs. It’s
a romance in its way. I have put together some of the facts in the shape
of a kind of family history; but whether it will ever see the light of
day--”

“Then you are an author, as well as an antiquary?” said Fanshawe; “and
an art collector; and all sorts of learned things besides. What an
impudent wretch I was to speak of dulness here!”

Mr. Charles blushed, and waved his hand in gentle deprecation.

“No more of an author than I am of an antiquary,” he said; “a bit
smattering here and there, that’s all the knowledge I possess. As for my
bits of family notes, I doubt if they would interest any but the family
and connections. We have never had any notabilities among us; good,
honest, ordinary folk; some soldiers that have done well in their day,
but never very remarkable; and some clever women--that’s been our
speciality. You may see it in Marjory at the present moment. Clever
women--I don’t mean authoresses, or that kind of cattle, but real
capable mothers of families, that could guide their house and rule their
children. We’ve been great for that. Here are some miniatures that,
perhaps, will interest you; some very good, some bad enough, but all the
same character, the same character running through them. There is one
you would say was done for May, and it’s her great-aunt I don’t know how
many times removed.”

Thus the old man chattered, leading the stranger from one corner to
another of his domain. Mr. Charles’s rooms were in the habitable corner
of the old house of Pitcomlie, which was connected with the new house by
a long corridor, a windy passage, with the garden on one side and the
cliff on the other. One wing of the old building had been preserved in
sufficient repair, and Mr. Charles’s study occupied the round of the old
tourelle, as well as part of the ancient front of the house. It was a
large, cheerful room, with many windows, which he had fitted up
according to his taste, and his taste was good. His writing-table stood
in the round of the little tower commanding views up and down the Firth.
All the wonderful panorama on which Fanshawe had gazed with so much
interest from the cliffs, unfolded itself round the old windows which
were set in the half-circle of the tower. Between these windows Mr.
Charles had placed frames of crimson velvet, set with miniatures, with
rare old prints, and with small but exquisite scraps of sketches. Only a
trained eye, indeed, could have divined the amount of modest wealth
contained upon these; delightful faces, lovely little scraps of scenery,
gems which nothing could replace, though to the ignorant they seemed
simple enough.

Fanshawe felt himself grow smaller and smaller as he looked. After all,
this was not the dull and level blank of existence he had supposed. This
homely old man, with his Scotch accent, changed under his eyes; he
became something a great deal more lofty and elevated than Mr. Charles.
In his compunction and shame, the young man went as far too high in his
second estimate as he had been too low in his first. As for Mr. Charles,
this change gave him a simple satisfaction which it was delightful to
behold.

“You see, after all, there are some things worth looking at in
Pitcomlie,” he said. “It is not such a humdrum house, after all, though
it stands in a county so little interesting as comfortable Fife.”

“Nothing could have made it a humdrum house,” said the penitent. He was
not thinking of Mr. Charles’s pictures: he was thinking of--something
else.

Just then an unexpected summons came to the door.

“Miss Heriot’s compliments, and would the gentleman step over to the
north room?” the maid said, who waited, curtseying, to show the way.

Mr. Charles’s countenance clouded over.

“That’s poor Tom’s room,” he said. “I’ll go with the gentleman
myself--and yet, no; on second thoughts I’ll not go. You two may have
something to consult about, that I should not meddle with; or Marjory
may think there is something. Go, as she has sent for you, Mr. Fanshawe;
you can come back to me another time.”

With a curious little thrill of interest, Fanshawe went, threading the
turret staircase down from Mr. Charles’s rooms, and the windy passages,
wondering what she could want with him. Marjory received him in a room
of a very different description. It was in the back of the house,
looking across the gardens to the level line of the ploughed land, and
the low hills on the horizon. It was a long, narrow room, with a door
opening from each end; and its decorations were of a kind as different
from Mr. Charles’s study as was its form. On the walls hung two crossed
swords, some old guns carefully arranged according to their antiquity, a
collection of whips, fishing-rods, clubs for playing golf--worn out
traces of a boyhood not yet so very long departed. In one corner was a
bookcase, full of old classics, thumbed and worn, the school-books of
the two boys whose progress in polite letters Pitcomlie had once been so
proud of. The pictures on the walls were of the most heterogeneous
character; languishing French “Etudes” in chalk, were mingled with
sporting subjects, heads of dogs, portraits of sleek race-horses led by
sleeker grooms, and one staring view of Pitcomlie, painted in
water-colours, with very lively greens and blues, and signed “Ch.
Hay-Heriot,” in bold boyish characters.

No contrast could have been greater than this mass of incongruous
elements, seen after the careful collection of Mr. Charles; and yet
this, too, was not without its attraction. It looked like the chaos of a
boy’s mind, a hopeless yet innocent confusion; all sorts of discordant
things connected together by the sweet atmosphere of youth and
possibility, out of which all harmonies might come. In the midst of this
schoolboy chamber sat Marjory. She had a writing-case placed before her
on a table, the key of which she held in her hand. Fanshawe recognised
it at once. It was one which Tom had used constantly, which he had
carried about with him everywhere. Tom’s sister looked up at him with a
wistful and anxious glance.

“Mr. Fanshawe,” she said, “this has been brought to me to open. My
father cannot bear to look at anything, and I--I feel as if we had no
right to search into his secrets. It seems dishonourable, when he cannot
defend himself--when he is in our power.”

Fanshawe went round to Marjory’s side, and took into his own the hand
which, half unconsciously, she held out, appealing to him, and touched
the fingers with his lips. Her eyes were full of tears, and the look she
turned to him, asking for counsel and sympathy, went to his very heart.
A slight colour came to her face at this answer to her appeal; but
Marjory was not vain, and took it in no other light than as an impulse
of sympathy.

“Must I do it?” she asked.

“Is there any reason why? is it necessary? must _you_ do it?” he asked.
“Miss Heriot, your brother was but a man like others. There may be
things he would not have had you see.”

Once more Marjory blushed; but this time more hotly. She drooped her
head not to look at him.

“That is what I thought,” she said, very low. Then after a pause, she
looked up suddenly in his face. “Mr. Fanshawe, you were his friend; you
heard what he said about something to tell me. He thanked God at the
last that he had told me, though he had not, you are aware. Do you know
what it was?”

“No.” It was a relief unspeakable to him to be able to say this. “I know
none of his secrets--if he had any. So far as I am aware, he was
irreproachable. I knew nothing of him which you might not have known.”

“Thanks!” she said, with a smile, once more holding out her hand. How
grateful she was to him for knowing nothing! “Do you think, if I keep it
by me, to refer to in case of need--do you think that would do?”

“Or your uncle might do it,” said Fanshawe.

To his astonishment, she shrank from this suggestion.

“Uncle Charles is very good and kind; but he would be hard upon poor
Tom--he was always hard upon him. I must do it, if it has to be done.
Must it be done? I am so unwilling to do it, that I cannot trust my own
judgment. Oh! why cannot our little treasures, our secrets, our
mysteries, be buried with us in our graves?”

“He may have left a will--instructions--something that concerns others,”
said Fanshawe, hesitating.

Miss Heriot was not perfect, or an angelical woman. She almost turned
her back upon him as she answered coldly,

“Thanks; you seem to think it necessary. I will not trouble you further,
Mr. Fanshawe. I am much obliged to you for your advice.”

“What else could I say?” poor Fanshawe asked himself, as he retired.
“What the deuce have I done? She talks as if it was my fault. I did not
kill Tom Heriot, nor lock up his secrets in his despatch box. I hope,
though, she won’t find anything to shock her. What do the people here
mean by leaving all this to her? They give her everything to do. By
Jove! if it was me she would find the difference. I should be her slave.
She should do just what she liked, and so would I. I wonder if she’d
like it? I mean not me, but the kind of thing--to be served instead of
serving, to be kept from trouble instead of being bothered by everybody.
Just for the fun of the thing I should like to know.”

At this stage of his thoughts, Mr. Fanshawe being outside on the
platform before the house, lighted his cigar; and then he strolled down
the cliff to the rocks, where he wandered about till the hour of
luncheon.

“I suppose it’s best as it is,” he said to himself, as he clambered up
again at the sound of the bell. Such a sentiment is perhaps less
contented, less satisfactory than it looks. “I suppose it’s best as it
is!” Certainly there was a certain ruefulness in the countenance with
which it was said.




CHAPTER X.


Mr. Heriot did not come to luncheon. A tray carefully piled with
everything that old Fleming could think of to tempt his master’s
appetite was carried to him in the library; but before the rest of the
party had left the table, Fleming came back disconsolate, bearing his
tray untouched.

“In case ye shouldna believe me, I’ve brought it back, Miss Marjory,” he
said, with an injured air, approaching the young mistress of the house.
“Look at it with your ain e’en, and maybe then ye’ll believe me. No a
thing tasted, no more nor he did yesterday, and me sent away for an auld
bletherin’ scoondrel. An auld bletherin’ scoondrel! Man and boy I’ve
been in the house o’ Pitcomlie forty years, and it’s the first time such
a name was ever applied to me.”

“Fleming, you must not mind,” said Marjory. “My father did not mean it.
It was his grief that spoke, and not he.”

“Nae doubt ye ken better than me, Miss Marjory; the bairns we’ve brought
up on our knees are aye wiser than us old folk; but he means _that_, I
suppose?” said old Fleming, holding up his tray triumphantly. “And what
kind of a meaning is that for the father of a family? No to take his
good food that’s been prepared wi’ a’ the care and pains of a clean and
Christian woman, that sud have been accepted wi’ a grace and eaten with
thanksgiving. When I mind the luncheons the Laird used to eat, the good
dinners he made, the fine nat’rel appetite!” cried Fleming, almost with
tears in his eyes, holding up his tray as an eloquent witness of his
case, “and now to be sent away with a flea in my lug for a bletherin’
scoondrel,--because I was fain to see him eat a morsel of wholesome
meat!”

“Go away to your pantry, Sir, and say no more about it,” said Mr.
Charles, authoritatively. “Miss Marjory has plenty to put up with,
without your nonsense. Your father, my dear, has been in the house for
days together. He has not so much as taken a walk, he that was always
afoot. That’s the reason why he cannot eat; for my part, I am not
surprised. He’ll be better, I hope, when Charlie comes back.”

“I would get the doctor,” said Fleming, with stout self-assertion. “Mr.
Charlie may be kept back by ill winds, or many a thing beside. I would
have the doctor if it was me.”

Fanshawe looked at this scene with mingled amusement and surprise; but
though Mr. Charles stood up in defence of his niece, neither of them
thought it strange that the old butler should have his word to say. The
old man even emitted extraordinary murmurs, which were almost like
groans, as he continued his attendance at table.

“I’ve seen death in the house afore. I’ve seen plenty of sore trouble;
but I never saw the Laird as he is now. Waes me! waes me!” said
Fleming; and the conversation, such as it was, was interrupted by this
monologue.

They all went into the drawing-room together, glad to escape from it.
Mr. Charles took his three-cornered seat by the fire, and his newspaper,
which he had left lying upon it. Marjory seated herself at the
writing-table in the bow-window. They had their natural occupations, the
things they did habitually every day; but as for Fanshawe, he had no
occupation to turn to. He turned over all the books on the tables, and
then he went and stood at the window. The weather had changed since
yesterday, which was much too bright to last. It was a true Spring day
on the East coast, with a white mist closing in over land and sea, and a
chill wind blowing. Was he to spend that whole long afternoon gazing at
the tumbling, leaden waves, and the choking white vapour that lay heavy
like a coverlet over them, and clung to the edges of the cliff like a
fringe of woolly whiteness, and shut out both earth and sky?

Just then Mr. Heriot put in his head, and asked sharply,

“Have you written to Charlie?”

“Yes, papa,” said Marjory, with a little start; and a minute after,
Fanshawe, at the window, saw the old man go out, with his head upon his
breast, to the misty cliff that lay before the windows.

He stood still there for some moments, with his tall figure relieved
against the forlorn blackness of the waves and the woolly mist, his
white hair and the skirts of his coat blowing in the wind; and then he
took the rocky path down the side of the cliff, which led to the beach.
It seemed to be natural that he should choose such a day to go abroad
in, a hopeless day, when the sun and the light were obscured, when the
wind searched to the marrow of the bones, and the mist crept into the
throat, and the sea moaned and complained among its rocks.

Fanshawe stood and watched him as long as he could see him. The very air
and water seemed to sigh “Waes me!” like the old serving-man who loved
the house.

“Mr. Fanshawe,” said Marjory, from the recess, “is there anything to be
done for you? We are dull, and we cannot help it. None of us are good
for anything. I should like to ask you to walk with us; but it is an
easterly haar, and that is bad on our coast; and riding would be still
worse; and it is too late, even if the weather were not so bad, to go to
St. Andrews, as Uncle Charles proposed--”

“Never mind me,” said Fanshawe, with some shame. “You must think me a
man of few resources, and so, I fear, I am. I am good for nothing. I
have got out of the way of reading. It is a horrible confession, but it
is true. The only thing that suggests itself to me on such a day is, if
not to walk, yet to talk.”

“Let us talk, then,” said Marjory, closing the blotting-book in which
she had been writing her letters.

She said it, he thought, with a sort of half contempt, as if this
insignificant occupation of talk was a kind of idleness, and beneath
her ordinary activity; and then, as was natural after such a conclusion
had been come to, a dead silence supervened. Mr. Fanshawe broke it with
a laugh.

“I fear you despise talking,” he said; “and conversation is a thing
which cannot be done of _malice prepense_. May we have some music
instead? There is music enough there in your case to last a life-time,
much less an afternoon.”

“Music!” said Marjory, somewhat startled. “To be sure,” she added, with
a smile, “music is not merry-making, as our poor folk fancy. It does not
need to be the voice of mirth; and now you suggest it, there are few
things that would express one’s feelings so well--the forlorn, confused,
oppressed--” She paused, with tears rising, which got into her throat
and her eyes, and stifled her words. “But I must not, Mr. Fanshawe. It
would shock everybody. My poor father would think me mad, and I cannot
tell what the servants would say. It would seem to them the very height
of heartlessness.”

“No, no,” said Mr. Charles, from his corner; “no, May, my dear; no
music. I could not put up with that.”

Fanshawe turned away, dismayed. He felt himself the most profane,
secular, troublesome intruder. Poor Tom’s shadow seemed to stop up all
the ordinary currents of life, and create a fictitious existence, full
of impossible laws of its own for the mourners. Little Milly sat in a
corner, reading--not her favourite stories, or the fairy tales which had
been her constant companions, but a good book about a little boy who
died in the odour of sanctity. She was reading it with the corners of
her mouth turned down, and every soft, wavy line about her stilled into
angles and gravity.

Fanshawe went and sat down by her, and began to talk of that voyage,
which he had once proposed, to the Isle of May. He led the child so far
out of herself, that at the end of five minutes she laughed, a sound
which frightened her to death, and which made both her uncle and her
sister raise their eyes, as if something dreadful had happened. May said
nothing, and her eyes, tearful though they were, smiled at the little
creature; but Mr. Charles said in a voice which was harsh for him:--

“You forget that this is a house of mourning.”

Poor Milly cried a little by way of expiating that weakness of nature,
and relapsed into her good book; but Fanshawe could not cry, and had no
good book to retire into. He yawned visibly, as he lay back in his low
chair and contemplated his companions. He was a good-for-nothing; he had
no letters to write, no studies to carry on. When he was not amused or
occupied, he yawned. What else was there to do?

There is nothing which more piques a woman than this frank and
unblushing _ennui_, when it makes itself visible within reach of her.
Marjory felt half-insulted, half-stimulated to exertion.

“Is there nothing we can show Mr. Fanshawe?” she said, in a tone of
semi-irritation. “I fear our pictures are only family-portraits, and we
possess nothing that is curious. Uncle Charles has all the rarities in
the house, and those you have seen already. Should you like to go over
the old hall--the ruinous part? There is not much to see.”

“I should like it very much,” said Fanshawe.

He did not care two straws about the old ruined Manor-house; but the
thought of a _tête-à-tête_ with May was pleasant to him, partly because
of the vague attraction which a handsome young woman has for a young
man, and partly because he was curious about her individually. She was a
new species to him; he had not made her out, and the study was an
agreeable kind of study. With a slight flush of impatience on her face,
she had risen to lead the way; and he, secretly delighted, but perfectly
demure and serious, was following, when all his satisfaction was
suddenly turned into discomfiture. The door opened, and, with a tone of
solemnity, Fleming entered and announced,

“Doctor and Mistress Murray.”

When he had solemnly pronounced the names, giving full weight to every
syllable, the old servant ranged himself by the wall, to see the effect
of his announcement; he watched complacently while the visitors entered
after him in panoply of woe, with looks wrought up to the requisite
pitch of sympathetic solemnity. It was, as Fleming said afterwards, as
good as a sermon to see the Doctor. He had come to condole, and he was
fully prepared to do so. Resignation and submission--that comfortable
resignation which can support with so much dignity the losses of
others--was in every fold of his dress, in the lines of his composed
countenance, decently sad, but not gloomy, as became a man who sorrowed
not without hope. To old Fleming, the Minister’s aspect was a thorough
enjoyment. It was the sort of thing which was befitting to a house of
mourning; not the hot grief which refused to be comforted, and abjured
food and carnal consolation, like that passion of sorrow which possessed
his master; but a legitimate and subdued sentiment, which fulfilled all
proprieties, and was an example to all beholders.

Mrs. Murray was not so satisfactory. She came in crying softly, and took
Marjory into her arms, who--thus caught on the very verge of going out,
and making an effort after amusement, was confused, as if she had been
doing something amiss.

“My poor Marjory! my poor bairn!” said Mrs. Murray; while May, though
the tears started from her eyes, felt as if she must cry out in
self-accusation, and confess that for that moment she had not been
thinking of Tom.

Then they all sat down in a circle, of which Dr. Murray was the centre.
Mr. Charles had shuffled hastily out of his fireside corner, and had
come forward to shake hands, with a certain solemn _empressement_, which
was the proper way in which members of the family should receive such a
visit. Fanshawe stole away behind backs, and sat down again by little
Milly; but Milly, with a dreadful recollection of that laugh, avoided
him, and fixed her eyes upon the Minister--for what would happen if,
under sore press of temptation, she was to make such a terrible mistake
again?

“And how is your father, Miss Marjory?” said the Doctor; “far from well,
I fear? He had a shaken look yesterday at church that grieved my heart
to see. No doubt it is a great affliction, a very sore stroke from the
Almighty; but we must remember that it is the Almighty, and that it is
not our place to repine.”

“No doubt, no doubt; that is true,” said Mr. Charles, acquiescing
solemnly.

It was a thing incumbent on him in his representative position as the
only man of the house.

“I don’t think my father means to repine,” said Marjory. “His heart is
just broken; he never thought of it--never expected such a thing as that
he should live, and poor Tom be taken away!”

“And the heir, too,” said the Doctor. “The ways of the Lord are very
inscrutable. Just those lives that seem to us most valuable are taken.
When I look round upon the world,” added Dr. Murray, “and see how many
people are struck just in the way that was most unexpected, most
unlikely! But he has other children left, and you must do what you can
to keep him from brooding. My dear Miss Marjory, a great deal is in your
hands.”

“I can do so little,” said Marjory, with tears. “My poor father! his
heart is broken. There does not seem anything that we can do.”

“You must tell him to be resigned,” said Dr. Murray. “I am very sorry
that he is out. I should have been glad if I had been able to speak a
word of comfort to my old friend and respected heritor. You must remind
him how much we have all to bear. Not one of us is without his cross.
Sometimes it falls heavier on one than on another. It is his turn
to-day, and it may be ours to-morrow; but none of us escape. The only
one thing certain is that there must have been need of it. This
mysterious and terrible dispensation has not been sent without some good
end.”

“No doubt, no doubt; it must be for a good purpose,” said Mr. Charles.

“I cannot say how sorry I am that Mr. Heriot is not in,” continued the
Doctor. “I might have timed my visit differently. I had not thought it
likely that he would be well enough to go out.”

“He has gone down to the rocks,” said Marjory, feeling that her father
was put on his defence. “It is not a day to tempt any one. I think the
moaning of the sea soothes him. He cannot bear conversation; we are none
of us capable of much--”

“My poor child! as if anything was to be expected,” said kind Mrs.
Murray, drawing her aside. “I would not even have had the Doctor come so
soon. I thought I might have come myself first, to give you a kiss, my
dear. Oh! May, I know what it is! Tell your father my heart just bleeds
for him. I’m glad he’s out to take the air, though it’s a dreary, dreary
day; but, perhaps, in grief like his, a dreary day is the best. When
it’s bright, Nature seems to have no heart. The Doctor thought it was
his duty to come, though it’s so soon. And, my dear, tell me, has any
change been thought of? what are you going to do?”

“We have sent for Charlie; that is all. What other change is there
possible? I hope perhaps my father may take some comfort when Charlie
comes home.”

“Now that is just what I said,” said Mrs. Murray, growing a little more
cheerful on this argument. “Doctor, I told you they would send for
Charlie. He should be home now with his bairns, to bring them up in
their own country; and India’s a weary place for children. You can never
be happy about them. I am looking for my Mary’s two eldest, poor things!
It will break their mother’s heart to part with them; but what can she
do? Oh, yes, my dear; it will be a great happiness to me; but I cannot
expect you to take any interest in that, and you in such trouble. Miss
Jean is coming to-morrow to pay you her visit, May. I will say nothing
to her about Charles; she will like best to hear that from you herself.”

“It is quite the right thing to do,” said the Doctor; “and we may be
thankful that your brother Charles has always been very steady, and a
married man, and all that. He will be a great comfort to you all, and a
help to his father about the estate. Your father has got a great shake,
Miss Marjory, and I doubt if he will ever be as strong to go about as he
has been. Charles’s arrival is the very best thing that could happen.
Always a steady lad, and able to take his part in the management of the
property. He will be a comfort to you all.”

It was on Marjory’s lips to say that she wanted no comfort, and that the
substitution of one brother for another gave her, on the contrary, an
additional pang; but she restrained herself, and acquiesced silently,
while Mr. Charles answered,

“Oh, no doubt, no doubt. Charlie will be a comfort when he comes.”

And then Marjory was once more folded in Mrs. Murray’s kind arms, and
the doctor, with concentrated woe in his face, laid his hand upon her
shoulder, and exhorted her to be resigned, as he took his leave. As the
door opened, Fleming’s voice was heard exhorting another visitor to
enter.

“Come in, sir, come this way,” said Fleming.

And Fanshawe, who stood in the recess of the bow-window, watching the
whole proceedings, saw a young man enter shyly and with reluctance,
whose appearance somehow entirely changed the placid feelings with which
he had watched the Minister and the Minister’s wife. The new-comer came
up to Marjory with eager, though hesitating, steps; he took her hand and
held it, bowing over it so deeply that the spectator asked himself, in
scorn, whether the fellow meant to kiss it. He had kissed that same hand
himself in respect and sympathy not very long before; but the
presumption of the stranger struck him as something inexcusable.

The visitor was a slim young man, with large dark eyes, and that
“interesting” look which women are said to admire, and which men regard
with savage scorn. Fanshawe was not handsome himself; his eyes were of
no particular colour, and he was more muscular than interesting.
Therefore his scorn was intensified. Instinctive dislike and enmity
filled his mind, when he saw young Hepburn’s head bent so low over
Marjory’s hand.

“I thought I might come to ask,” said Hepburn, hurriedly. “I did not
hope to see you. I came in only because Fleming insisted, without any
wish to thrust myself--Miss Heriot, you will be good and kind, as you
always are. You got my note?”

She did not sit down, but received her visitor standing, which was a
kind of satisfaction to the looker-on.

“Yes. I got your note. It is very kind, very friendly of you--”

“Oh, hush! don’t say so. Kind of me! But if you will make use of
me--anyhow, Miss Heriot! only that I may feel I am doing something. Let
me run errands, write letters--anything. What is the use of my life but
for your service?” said the young man, in his emotion and excitement.

Fanshawe, fortunately, did not hear these last words.

“Thanks,” said Marjory, with a cold yet gentle graciousness. The word
sounded to the one as if it had come out of the snows of the Arctic
region; but to the other, the distant spectator, it sounded warm and
sweet. “We do not require any help, Mr. Hepburn. All that we wished has
been done. Everybody has been very kind. How can I thank you? We have
felt the kindness of our friends to the bottom of our hearts.”

“How can you speak of kindness? There are some who would give
anything in the world to take a single burden from you. You will
think of me, then--as the greatest favour, Miss Heriot--if there is
anything--anything you think me worthy to do? That is all. I will not
say another word except that my whole heart is with you in your grief. I
can think of nothing else.”

“Nay,” said Marjory, drawing back a step like a queen, as she gave him
her hand again. “You are too kind to say so.”

“Confound these old friends!” Fanshawe said to himself, thinking this
double hand-shaking a quite undue and unnecessary familiarity, while
poor young Hepburn withdrew, feeling as if she had spoken to him from
the top of a mountain--from some chill and impassable distance. “My own
fault for intruding so soon,” he said to himself, sadly, as he went
away.

Thus the brief interview made a totally different impression upon two
persons present. Hepburn had not noticed Fanshawe, had scarcely seen,
indeed, that there was any one in the room but Marjory herself.

“Is that Johnnie Hepburn?” said Uncle Charles, as he went away. “What a
nice-looking young fellow the boy has grown.”

“He looks like a Johnnie,” said Fanshawe, with a laugh.

It was unpardonably impertinent, he felt, the next moment; but his
feelings demanded some relief.

“He is very good and very kind,” said Marjory, majestically, casting a
look upon him which avenged poor Johnnie. Fanshawe grew meek as a child
in a moment, and begged pardon as humbly as Milly herself could have
done.

“And now we can go to the old house,” he said, going after her with
intense satisfaction, as she went to the door.

“Not now; I am too tired. I cannot do more to-day,” said Marjory; and he
heard the sound of a low sob as she escaped, little Milly rushing after
her.

“It is all that fellow’s fault,” was Fanshawe’s comment, as he went back
to his bow-window, and sat down and looked out disconsolately upon the
leaden sea and the white choking mist. What was it to him whose fault it
was? But Marjory Heriot was the only thing he had to interest him, and
he took a great interest in all that affected her--for the moment at
least.




CHAPTER XI.


Marjory, I am sorry to say, thought nothing at all of the interest she
had excited; she was not so much as conscious of it; and she did not
even think of Fanshawe, who was rather an embarrassment than a comfort
to the household. She had been sinking into a certain calm, close as she
still was to the great misfortune which had befallen her family; but
time travels very quickly at such moments, and it already seemed ages to
her since she entered poor Tom’s sick-chamber, and since she saw him
die. She had been quieted by the calm of the silent Sunday after the
funeral; but her visitors had driven all her quiet away. When the
Minister had bidden her to be resigned, she had felt a wild impatience
fill her mind; she hastened to her own room, dismissing Milly, and then
threw herself upon her sofa, and wept as a child weeps. It was sorrow,
but it was not such sorrow as Marjory was capable of feeling. Her
brother had been dear to her; but he was not all in all to her.
Impatience, a painful sense of the narrowness of human sympathy, and the
imperfection of human good sense, mingled, in this little outburst, with
natural grief, and that painful pity with which, wherever no deep
religious sense of gain comes in, the death of a young man cut off in
his prime must be regarded.

Marjory’s mind was not one of those which are apt to speculate upon the
possibilities of damnation; but on the other hand, it was impossible to
think of poor Tom as an evangelical conqueror, a saint-like personage in
robes of white and crown of glory. He could not have reached that
height, poor fellow! and therefore the ache of pity with which his
sister thought of his early severance from all he had cared for, was
very sore and painful. The human comparison seemed to add an edge of
sharper pain to grief. His companions lived and flourished--and he was
gone. They had their easy mornings, their gay evenings, their sports and
amusements, and enjoyed them all with light hearts. In the papers that
very day, had been an announcement of the marriage of one of them--and
Tom was dead!

Marjory’s heart contracted with a pang of pain, as though some gigantic
hand had crushed it. She thought it was grief, but it was something more
than simple grief. Under the sway of this feeling she went to the table
upon which his desk had been placed, and seated herself once more before
it. The last time she had done so--that time when she had ineffectually
questioned Fanshawe--she had felt herself shrink from the painful task,
and had not really made any investigation into poor Tom’s secrets. Now
she opened the desk with her eyes full of tears for him, with that
painful contraction at her heart.

There is nothing in the world so sad as thus to open some human
creature’s most cherished repositories, when the poor soul is gone, and
can guard his foolishness no more. How trivial half the things are! a
fourth part of them, at least, thrown there in that light-hearted
inadvertence which death makes to appear like a solemn intention,
puzzling the survivors with its want of meaning. Why did he keep this or
that? an unimportant invitation, a letter about nothing at all, an empty
envelope, a memorandum about a race, a receipt for physic for a horse.
What a curious mixture of awe and astonishment was in her as she
gathered them together! They were good for nothing but the waste-basket;
and yet the fact that Tom had treasured them gave the worthless scraps
an interest. She cleared away a mass of these remains of his life. There
is a little hill near Rome which is made, they say, of fragments of
crockery, and such other valueless relics of an ended existence; but ah
me! when one remembers what sacred spot lies there under the cypress, in
the shadow of Testaccio, how solemn and sacred does that mound of
classic rubbish become to us! Something of the same effect was wrought
upon Marjory by the sight of poor Tom’s rubbish, now that death had made
it mysterious. She tried hard to get some meaning out of it, and failing
in that, put it aside in a pile, with a certainty that it must be her
perceptions which were in fault. Was there nothing to be found but these
miserable débris, that had so little signification? There were bills
besides, and letters about bills; letters which Marjory knew would be
very little welcome to her father. How was she to tell him of them? Tom,
poor fellow, had become as a god, as an angel to his father, since his
life ended; and to plunge him back again into the old atmosphere of debt
and promises to pay--how miserable it would be! She made these too up
into a parcel by themselves with a sense of humiliation. Was this all
that was left of Tom? His bills; and those frivolous scraps that meant
nothing--that had no human value, that threw no light upon his
existence. Was it worth while for a man to have been born, to have lived
and died, for nothing better than that? Marjory felt that even ill-doing
would have been better than no doing at all; and grew scornful almost of
her own fears. She had felt as if she were about to thrust herself into
Tom’s secrets--and lo! Tom had no secrets at all.

These thoughts were in her mind, filling her with a kind of angry shame,
when she picked up, out of a corner, a letter, badly folded and badly
written; but put away, it was evident, with some care. It had no
envelope or address. The paper was very finely glazed and gilt-edged;
but it was folded awry, and the handwriting was quite unformed. “No
doubt a letter from his groom,” Marjory said to herself, with a painful
sense of the unsatisfactory character of Tom’s correspondences; but when
she had read the first few lines, her countenance changed. She
paused--she looked at the signature. A momentary look of haughty
displeasure and disgust crossed her face, and she let the letter drop,
as if with the intention of tossing it from her; but on second thoughts
she changed her mind. She lifted it once more gingerly, as if it were
something which might stain the white fingers in which she held it, and
with a deep and painful blush began again to read. I do not think there
was anything in the letter to call that blush to Marjory’s cheek; but
she had the same prejudices as other women, and was deeply susceptible
to everything that felt like shame. The writing was not absolutely
coarse--it was like the writing of a child, unformed and uncertain,
written upon ruled lines, which had been partially rubbed out; but the
sentiments were not those of a child. This was what, with a proud sense
of humiliation, keen disgust and indignation, Marjory read--all her
natural prejudices starting into warmest life.

     “I cannot write to you in the way you tell me--I would think shame.
     Oh, Sir, you must not expect much from a poor lass that never has
     learned anything, till I tried to do it, to please you. There is
     nothing I would not do to please you. Ye’ve been very kind to me,
     Mr. Heriot, like a good man. And, eh! I hope I’ll make a good wife,
     if I could but learn quicker, no to be a shame to you. Sorry, sorry
     I am that I did not take more advantage of the schule as I might
     have done--for, oh! Mr. Heriot, them that say ‘your face is your
     fortune,’ say little that is pleasant to hear. When I think whiles
     that it’s but for my face ye fancied me; and that, maybe, if any
     accident happened--if I lost my colour, or my teeth, or what not,
     ye would think of me nae mair! Oh, Sir, dinna be like that! If
     _you_ were blind and cripplit, and pock-markit, like old John in
     the clachan, I would but think the more of you. And you that are a
     gentleman, Mr. Heriot, and know everything, you should not be less
     than poor me; for although I am little to set store by, and no a
     scholar, nor instructed, I’m better than my face, which is just a
     bit of painted flesh, as the Minister says. If I thought you cared
     for me, and no just _it_--oh, but I would be happy! I have a great
     deal to say, but I cannot tell how to say it. I am feared for
     making you think me more ignorant than ever. My heart’s full, full;
     but I think shame to say all that’s in it; you know, Sir, better
     than I can tell you. When will you come back? oh! when will ye come
     back? I’m weary of wishing and wishing. My sister Agnes will not go
     to her place, thinking ye might not like it. John Ogilvy, my first
     cousin, the son of Uncle John, that is the smith, is away to the
     College to learn to be a Minister. I do not mind anything else you
     would like to hear; but that I’m wearying, wearying sore, and aye,
     the longer the time is, the mair wearying to see my” (here there
     were a great many erasures--one word written over another till it
     was impossible to make out what they had been--until it finished in
     the clearly written words) “my Mr. Heriot again.

     “Your ain and your very ain, oh dear, dear Sir,

                                                             “ISABELL.”

Marjory read this innocent and natural letter with a buzzing of excited
pulses in her ears, and a blaze of hot colour in her face. The mere fact
that it was a letter from a woman moved her (naturally) as no other kind
of secret could have done. Indeed what other kind of secret would have
been worth considering in comparison? She drew a long breath when she
had read it. Her face was scarlet, as if the shame (if shame there was)
had been her own. And it was hardly possible for her, at least for the
first moment, to realise that there might be no shame in it. To have
felt so, would have been such a triumph over prejudice and over natural
feeling as Marjory was not equal to. The bad writing, the bad spelling,
the peasant dialect, struck her more strongly than the sentiments did.
They seemed to imply vice--vice which to a young and pure-minded woman
is the same as crime--nay, is the worst kind of crime. There was then,
after all, a mystery in Tom’s life, and here it was; a vulgar degrading
mystery--the kind of horror which people say is so common in the lives
of young men, a suggestion which Marjory loathed as every woman ought to
loath it. It filled her with disgust of Tom and of all men.

She threw the paper out of her hand with a cry of indignant wrath, and
then slowly, reluctantly, took it up again, unable to resist the
fascination. The second time a different impression was made upon her
mind. “I’ll make a good wife”--what did that mean? Marjory pondered over
it with excitement, which was not calmed down by this new discovery.
Had he really meant--was it possible he could have intended to make the
writer of this letter his wife? His sister thrilled all over with an
indignant movement of horror, Yes, I do not know how to excuse it--but
Marjory, who had been blazing hot with shame at the idea of a
disreputable connection on her brother’s part, felt a shiver of horror
go over her at the thought that there might be no shame in it, that his
mind might be honourable and his love pure, that he might have intended
this woman, this peasant, this Isabell, to be her sister and his wife.
Her eyes fixed on those words with a painful stare. “Good heavens, his
wife!” and under her breath, in her throat, Marjory murmured, “Thank
God!” Thank God for what? that Tom was dead? that he had not lived to
carry that intention out? was this what she meant? She stopped short in
absolute dismay, when her reason perceived to what length instinct and
impulse had carried her.

She hid her burning face in her hands. She fell a-weeping; tears more
poignant and real than any she had yet shed for Tom. Her mind turned
against itself, lost in that misery of moral confusion which makes the
problem of life so doubly bitter. She dared not say to herself that the
least honourable explanation was the least terrible; but her thoughts
went on in spite of her, against her will, shaping before her a picture
of what might have been. This peasant woman in Pitcomlie, mistress of
everything, the successor of all the Heriot ladies, filling her own
mother’s place, Marjory’s sister, Milly’s guardian placed on the same
level with them, almost superior to them--good heavens! She disowned the
thoughts that thus struggled in her. She tried to drive them from her
mind, to ignore them, to introduce other feelings in their place, and
cried, and hid her face and could not. God had stepped in and preserved
the house from this degradation; He had saved them perhaps at the last
moment. And things being as they were, and poor Tom doomed anyhow, God
be thanked, might not she say it? deep down where nobody could hear, in
the depths of her heart.

Marjory was breathless after this battle with her thoughts; she dragged
herself out of it she scarcely knew how, frightened to think what she
had been thinking, scared as a man is who has travelled in the dark,
when morning shows him the precipices he has passed--or like a drowning
man who has been struggling with the angry waves, she crept forth upon
dry land, and lay there exhausted, trying not to think, hearing the
great searollers break beneath, too low to harm her. It seemed to her
that she had passed through a terrible conflict, and it made her heart
sick to think that this perhaps was the secret which Tom had intended to
tell her. Perhaps he had meant to commend the girl to her care, to claim
her affection and sympathy; and for the moment she felt fiercely glad
that he had not done so, that she was bound by no sort of visible or
invisible tie to this unknown Isabell. Yes, she was glad he had not
lived to tell that secret, glad he had been stopped from disgracing the
family. It hardly seemed to her, for the moment, that the exemption of
the house from so great a shame and injury by Tom’s death, was too great
a thing to have been done by Providence for the sake of the Heriots. She
seemed no longer sorry, no longer a mourner, but glad and comforted to
think that God had stepped in and stopped it, perhaps, at the last
moment when there was no time to lose.

But it was with an agitated heart, and a countenance out of which she
could not altogether banish her excitement, that she went down stairs,
when old Fleming rang that inevitable bell for dinner. Dinner! with what
weary disgust Marjory thought of it, and of the compulsory meeting with
all the party, the solemn sitting down to table, the politenesses to Mr.
Fanshawe, the efforts she would have to make to interpose herself
between her father’s irritable grief and her uncle Charles’s amiable but
sometimes untimely wisdom. She changed one black gown for another
rapidly, and smoothed her brown hair, which (strangely she felt) kept
its bright colour notwithstanding her mourning. What a farce, she
thought to herself, (being bitter and sore) that mourning was? It had
just as many troublesome accessories as the gayest dress, nay, almost
more; for the most heart-broken of women in the deepest of affliction
has got to take care of her crape, that dear and odious addition to all
mourning garments. From this it is not to be supposed that Marjory was
impatient of her crape. She would not have cheated poor Tom out of a
single fold, she would have enveloped herself in it from head to foot
rather than fail in any prejudice of respect. But her heart was sore and
her mind excited. Nothing seemed to her to be true. Tom had deceived
her, leading her to suppose that some matter worthy of her ears was to
be revealed to her; and lo! it was but this vulgar, poor, conventional,
common sort of secret; and even she herself was a deceiver, for did she
not pretend to mourn for Tom even now, when she had begun to feel that
perhaps his death was expedient? All in the house gave themselves out to
be mourning for poor Tom; yet Uncle Charles had recovered his interest
in everything that was going on, and little Milly in the afternoon had
laughed--Mr. Fanshawe, who was Tom’s friend, and ought to have been more
faithful to the poor fellow’s memory, having inveigled the child into
it. Thus the party would meet, she said to herself, all longing to
escape from this gloom, and talk and think like others, but dared not
for Falsehood’s sake; and she herself, the falsest of all, even saw good
in the calamity, and gave thanks for it. What treachery, what
untruthfulness was in all this! The only one who was utterly true in his
grief, was the one who would have most chiefly suffered by Tom’s further
life if he had carried his fancy out--the heartbroken father to whom
Marjory, to-morrow, no later, would have to carry Tom’s bills, the bills
about which, alas! poor Tom had not told the truth. What a confused
tangle of falsehood, and pain, and unreality it was!

And Mr. Fanshawe spent a most dreary evening. Marjory had receded, he
thought, from all her incipient civilities. She paid scarcely any
attention to him, and evaded his skilful reference to the old house, and
the visit to it which was to be made to-morrow. If to-morrow was not
better than to-day, he felt that he must be driven from Pitcomlie. He
could not bear it any longer; and yet there were certain fascinations
which held him against his will, even in the midst of this monotony of
woe.




CHAPTER XII.


When Marjory went upstairs for the night, she made a strenuous endeavour
to get Tom’s papers in order for her father, and to ignore the one paper
which had opened a door, as it were, in her brother’s life, and of which
nobody knew but herself. She went on working till long past midnight,
always with a consciousness of that letter in the corner, which was like
the presence of some one in the room with her, of which she was not
supposed to be aware. She tried to forget it, but she could not forget.
While she collected the bills and tied them together, her mind went on
with a perpetual stream of questions--Who was this girl? Where had Tom
met her? Had she really hoped to be Mrs. Heriot of Pitcomlie? and a
hundred other mental inquiries to which, of course, there could come no
answer. In her mind, she went over all the countryside, searching into
every cottage in order to find out, if possible, who “Isabell” was. It
is a common name enough in Fife--a score of Isabells presented
themselves to her fancy, but she could not realize any one of them as
the writer of that letter. And Tom had spent but little time at home. If
it had not been so Scotch even, Marjory’s curiosity would have been less
excited; but it seemed certain that she must know who it was who wrote
in that familiar dialect. While her eye noted the dates of those very
different documents which she was collecting--while she made out her
list of them, and slowly added up the figures--though that was a mental
process somewhat difficult, and not very rapid--her whole soul was
absorbed in this other current of thought. She was even capable of
feeling grieved and miserable about the effect the bills would have upon
her father, while in imagination she was passing from door to door, from
cottage to cottage, searching for this Isabell. Was she wondering,
perhaps, what had become of her lover, poor foolish thing! perhaps after
all, Marjory allowed, with difficulty, she might be truly fond of him,
might love him even, after her fashion--might be suffering such tortures
as she was capable of, wondering at his silence, wearying--was not that
the word in the letter? wearying, wearying! for him who was to come no
more. Was Tom’s sister, even for a moment, half sorry for the girl? If
she was, Marjory scorned the sentiment as a weakness of nature. Then, in
its musing, her mind returned to its first view of the matter. Was it
certain, after all, that Tom had so far forgotten himself and his family
as to woo Isabell for his wife, as the letter implied? might not this be
a mere pretence. It seemed to Marjory that her brother was more likely
to have sinned vulgarly by that system of false promises which women
suppose men to make so lightly, than that he should have seriously
intended to introduce such a mistress to the old house. Which would be
worst? There could not be a purer-minded woman than she who pondered,
with an aching heart and burning cheeks, this odious question. Was it
possible there could be a question on the matter? Marjory hated herself
for hesitating--yet there was something to be said on both sides;--that
he should have meant well and honourably would be better for Tom--but
for the race, the house--

The ingenuous reader will be disgusted with Marjory, as Marjory was with
herself; but notwithstanding, the fact remains which we are obliged to
record. She got rid of the dilemma with an impatient sigh, disowning it,
refusing to answer her own question; and plunged into her additions,
which were not much less painful. Oh! to carry that woeful list to Tom’s
father! to be obliged to set in order the record of poor Tom’s
prevarications (what a hard word _lies_ is--yet sometimes the right one)
and extravagances, and the unhappy meanness which must always mingle
with extravagance--how it made her heart ache! She sat through half the
night preparing that miserable list, and thinking of the other matter
which was equally miserable in whatever light it was contemplated. It
was two o’clock in the morning, when with her head and her heart alike
throbbing with pain, she rose and went to her window and looked out upon
the night. It was very dark; she could hear the monotonous rising and
falling of the sea, sometimes like a long drawn sob, sometimes sharp
like a cry, as it beat and splashed upon the rocks. “The moaning of the
homeless sea.” How many people listening to it all over the world put
their own weariness, and sadness, and discouragement into that great
and ceaseless voice! Between the black sky and the black water, both
cheerless and dismal, Marjory felt as if she stood alone, with no one to
help her. The world was asleep--all human sympathy was closed up in
unconsciousness. Was that other poor soul, that foolish creature, that
Isabell, waking somewhere too, and wondering, wearying in her ignorance?
Just then a revolving light, far off, sent a sudden steady, yet
momentary, flash across the dark water. It was as well known to her as
her own name--yet somehow at that moment it was unexpected, and flashed
across the waves to her like a word of consolation. At the same moment,
Marjory saw what she had not seen before, a figure standing out upon the
cliff, turned with its back to the sea as if gazing up at the house. It
seemed to her, for the moment, like a ghostly visitor, and gave her a
little thrill of terror. Then she turned away with a nervous laugh. The
red sparkle of the cigar, and something in the outline of the figure,
revealed Fanshawe to her. She dropped her blind, and went in with a
little comfort--a sense of society and security; probably had it been
the old gardener, she would have felt that sensation of comfort just as
warmly. But no; had it been the gardener, Marjory would have wanted, in
the first place, to know what he did there; with Mr. Fanshawe, she asked
no questions. It was as if some one had held out a friendly hand to her
through the chilliness and dullness that wrapped the world.

It may seem to many people very strange that Marjory should have had so
disagreeable a task to do, and not her father, or uncle, or even their
solicitor. I cannot explain it further than by saying that this was the
custom among the Hay-Heriots. It is so in some houses; the women of some
families, as I believe I have already said, are always thrust forward to
receive any domestic blow, and transmit it, blunted by its first
penetration into the softness of their bosoms. Marjory saw nothing
remarkable in this, nor did she even complain of it. Had her mother been
living, they would both have received the thrust and taken the edge off,
before it reached the father; but as it was, the eldest daughter of the
house, heiress of its traditions if of little else, took up her
inheritance without shrinking. Had it been out-of-door business, the
solicitor would have been employed no doubt; but so far as domestic
troubles went the wives and daughters at Pitcomlie were the attorneys of
the head of the house and bore the brunt first, preparing the burden for
him that he might put it on in the easiest way.

“Have you sorted the papers?” Mr. Heriot asked in his harsh voice next
morning at breakfast. He never looked at any one now till he had been
irritated into attention. His voice had altogether changed. There was a
line of redness and heat under his eyes, leaving the rest of his face
pallid though still brown--and this redness seemed to be reflected in
the eyes themselves, which were bloodshot and heavy. The droop of his
head, the inward look he had, the air of absorption, the passionate
inclination to find fault when he spoke at all, altered his aspect so
entirely that his friends of six months ago would scarcely have known
the man. He never looked even at his daughters. He spoke to Marjory with
his eyes fixed upon his coffee, which he swallowed in great gulps. Mr.
Charles had insisted upon talking to him of the visits they had received
the day before, which perhaps had something to do with the suppressed
passion which showed itself in his tone.

“Not quite,” said Marjory, faltering, “nearly, papa--perhaps
to-morrow--”

“To-morrow!” he said, “who can say anything about to-morrow? are you or
I so sure of seeing it that we should put off our duty? You are a silly
thing like the rest. What is to hinder you to give a day to your work
like the most part of your fellow-creatures? They go out to their day’s
darg, be it storm or fine, with a sore heart or a light one. But the
like of you must be kept from every fashious thing.”

“I submit it to you, Thomas, whether that’s quite fair upon Marjory,”
said Mr. Charles, “we’re all in sore trouble--sore trouble, and you
worst of all, poor man! but as the Minister says--”

“Confound the Minister!” said Mr. Heriot, “am I to be insulted in my own
house by an auld fool, with his cut and dry phrases? I know my duty as
well as he does. Marjory, go to your work, and see you do it, and let me
have the papers, not later than to-night.”

“I shall be ready,” said Marjory softly, as her father left the table.
She was ready then, to tell the truth; it was but her reluctance to
give him another blow that held her back. She was sorry for him to the
bottom of her heart; had she been rich enough to satisfy those claims
without carrying them to him, her path would have been easy enough. But
she was poor--the eldest daughter, the trusted of everybody, was the
only person in the house who had nothing. Her mother had been poor, so
that Marjory had no fortune by that side; and Mr. Heriot’s sons had been
expensive and cost him a great deal of money. Marjory would have
something when he died, but so long as he lived she had her small
allowance, and nothing more. Little Milly was in a much better position;
she would have an independent fortune before she had nearly attained
Marjory’s age. But Marjory in her mature womanhood, twenty-five, had
nothing but fifty pounds a year for her dress; sometimes she felt it was
hard, and this was one of these times. It was by way of escaping from
herself that she turned to Fanshawe, who was a very close though silent
observer of all that went on. She raised her eyes to him, and addressed
him frankly with a look of confidence and friendliness which she had
never shown to him before.

“You were very late last night,” she said, “I saw you upon the cliff.”

“Then that was your window,” he said, surprised into an admission, “I
thought so--I had been walking up and down watching it. It looked like
the protecting--light of the house.”

He had been on the eve of saying “angel,” but stopped in time.

“Not much of a protection,” said Marjory, still frank as she had never
been before, “it was you who gave me that feeling. I had been working
late and I was tired, and the very sight of you was friendly--you and
the lighthouse together. You both shone out at the same time; though by
the way, now I think of it, it was much too late for you to be out.”

“How did you know it was Mr. Fanshawe?” said Mr. Charles, “in the dark
_tous les chats sont gris_; and it was very dark last night.”

“I knew him by his cigar,” said Marjory with a little laugh; not that
she had any inclination to laugh, but that she had turned her back with
a wild resolution upon the subjects that occupied her, determined at
least for the moment to get rid of them. “It was improper, and he ought
not to have been there smoking at two o’clock in the morning; but the
sight of some one was a comfort to me.”

“That is a strange way of convincing me of impropriety,” said Fanshawe,
delighted, “of course I shall go on doing it all the days of my life.
The scene was very wild, as wild as any I ever saw. How black the Firth
was, and the sky, and how the surf boiled upon the rocks! It looked like
Norway or Canada, rather than this sober well-to-do Fife.”

“That is all climate, nothing but climate,” said Mr. Charles, “the
thermometer has varied fifteen degrees since Sunday--fifteen degrees!
it ‘is just astonishing. Of course anyone could see with half an eye
that Sunday was too fine to last. Are you going to work, Marjory, my
dear, as your father said?”

“I am going out first for a breath of air,” she answered. She was almost
gay in her eagerness to escape from herself, and to stave off the
painful moment which was coming. She took Milly’s hand and ran round to
the drawing-room where the windows opened upon the cliff. She went out
into the morning sunshine, which fell full upon her uncovered head; the
wind blew her hair about, waking in it gleams of richer colour which the
sun found out. Nobody knew that it was a kind of desperation which
roused Marjory. Her uncle looked at her puzzled and half disapproving,
and shook his head. He thought it was a doubtful example she was setting
before the servants, so soon after--and Fleming, who looked on very
seriously, was of that opinion too.

As for Fanshawe he followed her with delight. “Now is the time for the
old house,” he said, as he went after the two pretty figures, the young
woman and the child, to the edge of the rocks. The sea was blue and the
morning bright, the whole world renovated by the new day; and mourning
cannot last for ever any more than night. Fanshawe felt disposed to push
old Fleming over the rocks when he came brushing past with evident
satisfaction to interrupt this moment of ease, with a trayful of
letters. But who is there in this nineteenth century bold enough to
obstruct the passage of the post? He had to stand humbly by, and accept
his own share, which Fleming handed to him, he thought with a certain
triumph, and which consisted of three bills, a note from a livery-stable
keeper informing him that his only horse had met with an accident, and
an invitation to join a party who were setting out from Cowes on a
yachting expedition that day. He got through this satisfactory and
pleasant correspondence at a rapid rate, and then he sauntered to the
edge of the cliff to wait till Marjory had satisfied herself with her
letters. No doubt this would be a much longer process--no doubt she had
a hundred dearest friends, who wrote about a thousand ridiculous
nothings, and filled up her time and distracted her attention. She had
seated herself on the mossy stone steps of the old sun-dial, which stood
on that velvet green, undecorated lawn. She had her back turned to him,
so that he could look at her at his ease. He thought what a pretty
picture it would make; the grey house behind her, with trees appearing
beyond that on the land side, and here nothing but the green, green
turf, without any flowers, ending in the brown rock of the cliff which
descended sheer down, a dangerous precipice to the sea. Milly’s golden
hair, all blown about, was the central point in the picture; while
Marjory with her head drooped over her letters sat on the steps of the
old dial, with the wind lightly fluttering her black ribbons, and the
golden lights in her brown hair shining out in the sun.

The next moment she uttered a low cry, throwing up her hands. Fanshawe
rushed forward. Mr. Charles had gone away to his rooms; Milly had
strayed back into the drawing-room; he and she were alone; he rushed up
to her--

“Are you ill? What has happened, Miss Heriot?”

“I do not think I am ill. I do not think I can be dreaming. I am sick
with fright,” cried Marjory. “Oh, Mr. Fanshawe, for God’s sake read
that, and tell me what you think!”

He took the letter out of her hand. An Indian letter, on thin paper,
written with faint ink. For the moment he could not make out the meaning
of her terror. This is what he read:--

            “Dear Marjory,

     “You will be surprised to learn that we are on our way home, though
     I am sure I am anything but able to travel, nor the poor baby
     neither, who is a very wee, feeble thing, and not at all well
     suited with an Ayah. The reason is, Charlie has had the fever
     again. He would not let me tell you, but I may now, as he is too
     ill to know what I am writing. This is the third attack, and the
     doctor at the station, who is a very odd sort of man, coddling up
     all the men, and never caring for the ladies, has taken a fright;
     and, what is worse, has given Charlie a fright--and applied for
     furlough, without even consulting me, though we cannot afford it,
     and your father has always so opposed his coming home. You need not
     think it is my fault, for I am no more fit to travel than to fly,
     and probably will die on the way, and never trouble you. And if
     both of us die, as seems more than likely, I hope you will be kind
     to the children, or at least to Tommy, for baby, I feel, will go
     with me, if I go. I am sure if the doctor would but leave poor
     Charlie quiet he would get better, as he has done before; but he
     has to be lifted into a litter, and carried all the way to
     Calcutta; and how I am to be expected to look after
     everything--him, and the luggage, and the children--is more than I
     know. What with baby’s nurse not agreeing with him, and Charlie’s
     being so ill, and not a soul to give me any assistance, I get no
     rest night nor day; and when I recollect that it is only six weeks
     since I was confined, I cannot think how anybody has the heart to
     ask me to do it. However, the doctor has to be obeyed, though I
     hate him, and we have got leave, and the agents are to lend us the
     money (for we never have a penny). You need not write, for we hope
     to catch the steamer at Calcutta, and should be in England in the
     end of April. But don’t be surprised if Tommy comes alone; for even
     if Charlie gets a little better, I do not think I can bear the
     journey, and baby is sure to go along with me. Good-bye; if we
     reach England alive, I will send you word from Southampton; but I
     don’t expect it, for how we are ever to get through the journey--I
     as weak as water, and my poor baby only six weeks old, and Charlie
     in a litter--is more than I can say.

                                             “Your affectionate sister,

                                                              “MATILDA.

     “P.S.--Be kind to Tommy, if he is the only one that reaches home.”

“What do you think?” cried Marjory, raising her face to him.

She had forgotten it was Fanshawe. He was the first human creature at
hand--the only one to whom she could turn in her distress.

“It is a silly letter; making the worst of everything. It is not, I am
sure it cannot be, so bad as she says.”

“She does not make the worst of Charlie’s illness,” said Marjory. “Oh,
my poor Charlie! She says next to nothing about him. It is not _her_ I
am thinking of. My brother--my poor brother, must be dying! Oh God! and
what shall we do?”

“She does not say so,” said Fanshawe, kneeling down beside her. “Dear
Miss Heriot, don’t be too easily alarmed. You are weak with the sorrow
you have had already. You think everything must end badly--”

“I know it,” she said, with a moan; “I know it! We have had nothing
happen to us for so long--so long. And it is all coming together now!”




CHAPTER XIII.


The letter of Mrs. Charles aroused a great consternation in the house of
Pitcomlie; they did not venture to tell Mr. Heriot of it. Fanshawe went
and called Mr. Charles out of his room in the tower, and they all
gathered in the bow-window in the drawing-room, and read it sentence by
sentence, and talked it over. Marjory was the only one who took no
comfort by this meeting. Mr. Charles was very much cast down for the
first moment, but it did not last. “She’s a very silly woman, a very
silly woman,” he said over and over. “I’m not meaning to vex you, May;
but nothing except a woman could be so silly and so heartless; she is
thinking only of herself. However, on the other hand, if Charlie had
been so bad as you think, she would have been frightened. There’s
something in a book I once read about having that fever thrice; the
third time is the--God bless me! I cannot remember what my book said.”

The fact was, Mr. Charles remembered only too well, and was appalled; he
was struck dumb for the moment in his voluble consolations. When he
spoke again, he was a great deal less assured in his tone. “Depend upon
it,” he said, “she is making the worst of everything. I suppose it is
her way. She’s evidently a silly woman, a very silly woman, and I would
say a very selfish one. But she would not run on like that about herself
and the baby, if Charlie was as ill as you think.”

“Charlie might be very ill, and she might not know it,” said Marjory,
“they might not tell her--they might think it would be too much for her
in her circumstances. Her baby not six weeks old, and her husband coming
home to--”

“To get better, my dear,” said Uncle Charles cheerily. “You may be sure
to get better. He is young, and has everything in his favour. The very
sea-breezes would stir him up. I do not think I would take any notice,
my love, to your father. It would only worry him. It will be time enough
when you get word from Southampton; and how that will cheer him! Poor
Thomas--poor man! I begin to think now that there’s some hope for your
father, May.”

“But what will there be if Charlie--”

“Toots, nonsense, Charlie! Charlie will come home quite well, you’ll
see,” said Mr. Charles. “But as for you, you’re looking like a ghost.
I’ll go and order the horses, and we’ll take Mr. Fanshawe out and show
him the country. We are all dying for a breath of air.”

“I could not go, I cannot go,” said Marjory. “Mr. Fanshawe will forgive
me, that I cannot think of anything but one thing. Oh, Uncle Charles!
have we done anything to bring such misery on the house?”

“My dear,” said Mr. Charles, “the rain and the sun come on the just and
on the unjust, as the Scriptures say. We are not justified in forming
any rash judgment on ourselves.”

“And we have been happy so long!” said Marjory with tears. It seemed a
kind of reason for all the misery that was coming now.

“Happy, humph! I would not say--there is many a thing that looks like
happiness when you are in great trouble, that was little to brag of when
it was here. But in the meantime, I’m going back to my papers,” said Mr.
Charles, “Mr. Fanshawe, my man, come you with me, you’ll perhaps find
something to divert you. She’s better left to herself--far better left
to herself,” he added in an undertone. “Women-folk are not like us,
she’ll take a cry and she’ll be better. To be sure,” said Mr. Charles,
as he led the way to his tower, looking back upon his reluctant
follower, “there’s ill men and good men in all the degrees; but I cannot
think of a difference so great among us as between that girl, my niece,
May, and the like of the selfish creature that wrote that letter. Not a
word, not a thought of poor Charlie, as fine a lad as ever stepped--but
all her bit miserable bantling of a baby, and her weary self.”

“I suppose, Sir, when a woman has a child she thinks of nothing else,”
said Fanshawe, “or so at least people say.”

“Then the Lord preserve my niece, May, from ever having children!” said
Mr. Charles, striding up the steps of his tower with his long legs, and
with hot but holy indignation in his tone. Luckily the echoing of the
spiral staircase drowned the laugh with which his companion listened.
Fanshawe laughed only from his lips, for to tell the truth the
suggestion annoyed him. He seemed immediately to see Marjory with a
child in her arms, lavishing fondness upon it, while some idiot of a
husband looked complacently on. Sometimes men love to weave such
associations about women, sometimes on the contrary they are revolted by
the notion; and the latter was Fanshawe’s case. He had not gone so far
as even to dream of the possibility of marrying Marjory, or anyone else
himself--and of course she would marry, some fool, some Johnnie
something or other who never could, never would satisfy that woman’s
mind. She would do it out of mere kindness, to please him, or to please
somebody else, some old grandmother or uncle, or ancient bore of one
kind or another, and drop into a mere child-producing, baby-worshipping
dowdy; she would be compelled to take to babies, the husband being a
fool and unworthy of her. Fanshawe listened to Mr. Charles’s lecture on
the history of the Fife families with languor after this, making now and
then an impertinent observation which startled the sage.

He asked “What did it matter?” when his companion enlarged upon that
doubtful point in the pedigree of the Morrisons, where it was rumoured,
a captain from the whale-fishing had come and married the heiress and
injured the blood. “Matter!” said Mr. Charles with true indignation, “it
matters just this, Sir, that the auld house of the Morrisons deriving
from Sir Adam of that name, that was drowned in the ship that brought
over the Maid of Norway, would be turned into mere nobodies--nobodies,
Sir; with a harpoon and a fishing-net for their cognizance--”

“But even a harpoon and a fishing-net, after a century--” Fanshawe
began.

“Century, Sir; what’s about a century?” said Mr. Charles.

But Fanshawe did not carry on the quarrel. He was too much occupied in
considering the original question with which he had started, and how
confoundedly Johnnie something or other would crow over the rest of
mankind if such a woman was so silly as to marry him--a question
embodying, as he felt, more human interest than any difficulty that
could arise in regard to the captain of the whaling-ship.

Marjory did not do as her uncle prophesied. This last piece of news had
dried up all tears from her eyes. She wandered about the upper part of
the house, now pausing in that room where Fanshawe had been once called
to her, and which still bore the name of “the boys’ room,” and now
returning to her own. She even took a napkin and dusted carefully poor
Charlie’s share of the books, and his golfing-clubs, and some small
statuettes belonging to him; she put some flowers in a little vase under
his portrait, and then withdrew them quickly, and threw them out of her
window, some chance thought of resemblance to the decking of a grave
having struck her fancy. She was sick and restless, unable to keep
still, longing for news--further news--fearing to allow herself to
think.

After some time, when she had made up the packet of Tom’s papers for her
father, she took the letter which had so much disturbed her yesterday
from the desk, and placed it in a little letter-case with the one she
had received that day. Why she did this she could not have explained.
She went wandering in her listlessness and suspense all over the house,
finding here and there some trifle to rectify, which gave her a
momentary occupation, and, what was more wonderful, finding at every
turn some reminiscence of her brother Charlie, which a few hours ago she
would not have noted. He had been out of the house for many years, and
never till to-day had she been aware how much there was of him still in
the old home, which somehow seemed to Marjory to-day like a mother
preserving traces of all her children. An old fishing-rod of his hung in
the hall; a bird which he had shot, and which for some boyish fancy had
been stuffed and preserved, stood looking at her with its little beady
eyes from the corner of the staircase. She had forgotten all about it
till to-day.

At last Marjory, in the sickness of her heart, went to the old Tower, to
her uncle’s room. There she could talk a little at least, which might be
a relief. Mr. Fanshawe had long before left that refuge of learning and
leisure, and Mr. Charles, who was compiling a family history, sat among
his papers with his spectacles on his nose, collecting facts and
arranging pedigrees, as calmly as though there were no present
anxieties to disturb his mind, or future to thrill it into terror.

“Well, May, my dear!” he said, cheerily, looking up at her over the top
of his spectacles; and then relapsed into his work. It is impossible to
estimate the advantage which that work was to Mr. Charles Hay-Heriot. It
kept him occupied, it kept him happy, it gave him “a duty” which he was
bent on performing and a “responsibility” which he was proud to feel. He
would search for days together to prove the accuracy of a date--happy
days, during which he felt himself as important as Herodotus. Friends
all over the country would stop him when they met, and would write him
letters when they were apart, to ask how “his work” was progressing. He
had come now to a very important part of that work. He had collected all
the materials for his fifth chapter, which began the Reformation period,
and he had now begun the work of composition, putting these materials
together, which was a very interesting and solemn operation. He had not
said anything about this _Opus_ to Fanshawe the first time he had
invited him to his room; but to-day, in the confidence of increasing
friendship, he had told him, and the little flutter of pleasurable
importance with which he had taken the stranger into his confidence hung
about him still.

“Well, May, my dear,” he said, after a long pause, “you have come to see
how I am getting on?”

“I am looking at you, Uncle Charles,” said Marjory, dreamily. How far
off he seemed from her in that placid, gentle old age, with the
occupation that pleased him as its games please a child! Could his blood
boil any more, or his heart throb any more as hers was throbbing? She
sighed unconsciously as she spoke. It seemed to her that Fanshawe, who
was a stranger, yet who was in full tide of life, and knew what it meant
to be cast about by varying tumults of feeling, would understand her
better than her calm old uncle--“though he was a stranger,” Marjory, in
her unconsciousness, said to herself.

“Well, my dear, I hope it’s no uninstructive,” said Mr. Charles, with a
gentle laugh. “I do not set up for genius; but so far as work
goes--honest work--”

There was a pause again, but that was not an unusual circumstance.
Marjory was a frequent visitor in the tower, and sometimes the two, who
were fond of each other, would sit together for hours pursuing their own
occupations, with a pleasant sense of companionship but without any
talk. His niece’s presence did not disturb the old man; he went on quite
peacefully, taking it for granted that she, too, was occupied in her
way. Nor did he lay down his pen, or look up at her face until she broke
the silence by the sudden question,

“Now you have had time to consider it, what do you think about Charlie,
Uncle Charles?”

“Toots, my dear!” said Uncle Charles. He put down his pen, as we have
said, and stretched his hand to her across the table. “You are getting
silly--like other women, my bonnie May.”

“But what do you _think_, Uncle Charles?”

“I can think no more than I did before, for I have no more information,”
said Mr. Charles, pushing back his chair, and crossing his long legs;
“and thinking will do no good--no good, my dear, if we were to think
till we died of it. You just make yourself unhappy indulging anxiety. We
must wait till we hear.”

“But what do you think of the letter, Uncle Charles?”

“The letter--oh, that’s something tangible. It’s a very heartless
letter, a very silly letter; but you heard beforehand that she was a
silly thing. So far as I can see, there is very little in it about
Charlie; and as for her weakness and her baby’s, that’s not so very
important. No fear of them; and as for you and me, May, whatever
happened to Mrs. Charles, we could get over _that_.”

“I wish her no harm,” said Marjory hastily.

“Certainly, no harm,” said Mr. Charles; “but oh, my dear, what a woman
to be mistress of Pitcomlie! what a creature to come after my mother!
and your mother, May--though she, poor thing, reigned but a short time
in the old house. This one will be a new kind of lady among the Heriots.
We’ve been fortunate in our wives, as I’ve often told you. I am just
giving a description of how Leddy Pitcomlie, under the Regent Mary of
Guise, held the old house against the French. She was one of the first
converts of the Reformation. We were terrible Whigs in those days; she
was a daughter of--”

“Yes,” said Marjory vaguely. “That is something new to think of--Matilda
in Pitcomlie. Uncle, we never knew--you never heard--that Pitcomlie
might have had another kind of mistress?”

Mr. Charles raised himself with eager interest. This was entirely in his
way, and moved his curiosity to the utmost.

“Another kind of mistress? There was your stepmother, of course--a nice
kind of creature; but she did not live. A wife that does not live is a
misfortunate thing in a family; it deranges the records, and takes away
the unity; but is it of her you are thinking? What other mistress, May,
if it were not yourself?”

“This is what I found in Tom’s desk,” said Marjory, turning pale and
then red with emotion and excitement. She had not meant to show it--and
yet it was so hard to keep from showing it--to shut up the secret in her
own breast. She drew out her letter-case slowly, and took from it the
uneven paper, with its uncouth writing, so unlike Matilda’s smooth and
ladylike letter. Some accidental sound in the room, some creaking of the
furniture, or rustling of the papers which the wind from the open window
rustled on the table, almost arrested her, and made her look up with
startled awe-stricken eyes, as if some unseen messenger had come to stop
her. At length she put it into her uncle’s hand. He had followed all her
movements with surprise, and now he had to fumble for his spectacles, to
put them on, to uncross his legs, and draw his chair close to the
table. All these little preliminaries had to be gone through, for to Mr.
Charles a letter was a document; it was valuable material to be put away
for after-use. He read a few lines, and then he gave a startled look at
Marjory. “My dear,” he said, with indignation, folding it up again;
“such a thing as this should never have fallen into your hands; it’s
disgraceful! it’s----. My dear, your father goes too far--putting the
charge of Tom’s things on you. He was not a reprobate, but he was not an
example. Forget it, May, forget it; such a thing should never have been
shown to you.”

“But Uncle Charles! you see what she says--‘I’ll make a good wife.’”

“Nonsense, nonsense, my dear,” said the old man, with a flush on his
face; “the sort of thing that lads say to beguile these silly fools. I
am not defending men, nor is it a subject to be named between you and
me; but if you but knew how these silly idiots court their destruction!
not another word more. My dear May, my bonny May! to think that the like
of this should have been seen by you!”

“Uncle, it is not a fool’s letter; it is not a wicked letter--”

“Whisht, whisht, my bonnie woman! as if the like of you could judge; not
another word. I will burn it for poor Tom’s sake. He has answered his
account with his Maker, and why should we keep evidence against him for
those that come after us--”

“Give it me back again,” said Marjory, feeling her property invaded; “I
cannot have it burned, uncle. Perhaps this was the something he wanted
to tell me; give it me back. Oh,” she said, suddenly forced by the
opposition to a great effort of nature; “it is very different from this
other letter; very different! _She_ would not have written of my Charlie
as his wife does. Give it me, Uncle; I must keep it. It is Tom’s legacy
to me.”

“May, May! trouble and suspense are turning your head.”

“My head is not turned,” she said; “give me back my letter, Uncle; I
thought you would help me. Whatever she was, wherever she is, she was
not like _that_.”

Mr. Charles allowed her to draw it out of his hand; he shook his head
and reproved her gently.

“My dear, you are excited; you do not know what you are saying. Put it
away, put it away, if you will have it; but do not speak of an unhappy
girrl in the same breath with Charlie’s wife. That must never be; and
such a thing should never, never have come into your hands.”

Marjory hurried away almost angry, with her letters in her hand. She
could ask counsel from no one else; and here she had failed; she rushed
back to her room with them, very sad at heart; she, to make herself the
champion of the unknown girl, whose very existence had seemed to her no
later than yesterday, such a sin and shame!




CHAPTER XIV.


It would be vain to attempt to trace the manner in which this revulsion
of feeling came about. Marjory had gone through the whole gamut of
emotions in respect to the letter which she had found in Tom’s desk.
First shame, indignation, and the hardest sentence with which women can
damn a woman. Then a wavering of the balance, a protestation of justice
against the hasty verdict which might have no foundation. Then a sense
of escape and gratitude that no harm had come of it; and last of all, a
tremulous feeling of pity, perhaps the first Christian sentiment of the
whole, but the only one of which Marjory was ashamed. The thing,
however, which all at once had made this pity into sudden sympathy was
the letter of Mrs. Charles--a woman about whom there could be no
controversy. Charlie’s equal--Charlie’s most lawful wife, under all the
regulations and safeguards that law and religion could give. When she
placed the one letter by the other, Marjory’s heart swelled with a
sudden indignant vindication of the poor unknown girl who had loved her
brother. All at once Isabell became a distinct individual, almost a
friend. A sudden protest against all her own suspicions arose in her
mind; she acquitted the girl of everything as she had accused her of
everything. The process of thought was easy enough--its very suddenness
was natural. She went to the quietness of her room in which she had
first read Isabell’s letter with such a tempest of shame and
humiliation, with very different feelings, contrasting Matilda’s letter
with this other one, and asking herself, with a vehemence of indignation
which surprised her, which of them was the least womanly--which the more
true and real. Her emotion, however, though she was not aware of it, was
not all founded upon this contrast. In point of fact, it afforded a
certain outlet to her excitement, and solaced her in the misery of her
suspense. She locked up the letters in her jewel case, with a fantastic
sense of their importance; she turned the little silver key upon them,
as if she had been imprisoning two potent spirits. Some day or other,
the prisoners would be liberated, and come forth, each to fight her own
battle. Marjory was sane enough still to smile at her own fantastic
force of imagination as this thought crossed her mind--to smile at it
momentarily, as a kind of tribute to her reason; but without any real
sense of ridicule. How her interest had shifted since yesterday, since
this morning! Poor Tom’s papers lying there, carefully made up, seemed
to her a year old at least, something done with and over. But Charlie,
Charlie! was he being carried home to them over the sea, breathing in
health and restoration from every breeze, coming to his natural place,
the only son, the heir, the future head of the house? Or was
he?--Marjory clasped her hands tightly together with a low cry of pain.
Of all miseries on earth, I think suspense is the hardest to bear. To
think that something may be happening that very moment, while you are
far off, and for good or for evil can do nothing. To think that
something may have happened--that the dread calm of certainty may have
followed the excitement of a terrible event to the others who know; and
to be unable to go out to meet the news you long for--to have nothing to
do but to wait for it. There is no more common misery in the experience,
at least, of women; and there is none more hard to bear.

Marjory passed that dreary, restless afternoon in hourly expectation of
a call from her father, but Mr. Heriot did not call her. He took no
notice of the subject which he had spoken of so angrily at breakfast,
when they met at dinner. When that meal was almost over, old Fleming
carried to her, with voluble explanations, another letter.

“Mistress Williamson has sent up to say that by some accident this was
putten in to the Carslogie bag,” said Fleming. “It’s an Indian letter,
and it’s come back with a man and horse, being markit ‘Immediate,’ as
you’ll see, Miss Marjory. Mistress Williamson, poor body, is terrible
vexed; and being an Indian letter, and markit ‘Immediate’----”

“Thank you; that will do, Fleming,” said Marjory, seizing it.

Oh, if she could but have rushed from the table to make herself mistress
of this second message! Her heart sank down, down to the very depths.
All hope seemed to die in her; yet she threw her handkerchief over it,
and tried to control herself. There had been a pause, as there so often
was now at that cheerless table; and Mr. Charles, who was not very quick
of hearing, had put his hand to his ear, and asked, “What is it?” which
called his brother’s attention to the occurrence. Mr. Heriot, who had
been very silent, turned to his daughter with the angry tone which he
now always employed when he spoke to her.

“Why don’t you read your letter? There are no strangers here but Mr.
Fanshawe, and he, I suppose, does not stand on ceremony. From India, did
that blockhead say?”

“Ay, Sir; that was what the blockhead said,” answered Fleming, who was
behind his chair. “I’m no minding what you call me. It was a bletterin’
scoondrel yesterday, and it may be a good fellow the morn. I hope I know
how to do my duty, whatever happens; if you’ll but eat some dinner,” the
old man added, dropping his voice with an inflection which was almost
tender.

This little interruption directed Mr. Heriot’s thoughts from Marjory’s
letter. He bade Fleming begone for an old rogue, and emptied the dish he
offered. Something had softened the heart-broken father in his passion
of grief; or else the high-pressure, the immediate violence of his
feelings, was wearing out. It was only after some minutes that, still
harsh and sharp in his tone to her, though softened to others, he looked
down the table to Marjory, and asked quickly,

“Was your letter from Charlie? Does he say when he’s coming? What is it
about?”

“It is a letter from Matilda’s sister,” said Marjory, in a voice
tremulous with suppressed feeling. “We do not know her, papa--a Miss
Bassett. She tells me she was to join them at Calcutta, to come home
with them, and something about hoping to make my acquaintance. That is
all.”

“That is not much,” said Mr. Heriot; “but to know he is on the way is
something. If I but see my boy back--Fleming, there’s that claret with
the yellow seal--”

“Is Charlie--?” began Mr. Charles.

He was going to say was Charlie better. To him, as to all the others, it
seemed so long since this morning, when the news of Charlie’s illness
came, that the arrival of further news did not seem impossible. The same
strange feeling of the long duration of these few sorrowful days dulled
Mr. Heriot’s mind to the recollection that it was a very short time
since Charlie had been called home, and that no reply to that call could
have come so soon. He accepted Marjory’s explanation without any more
questions, while Mr. Charles stopped, trembling, in his question,
appalled by the look which she had given him. Mr. Heriot took no notice;
a little gleam of happier feeling seemed to wake in him. He entered into
a little dispute with Fleming, as to how much was left of the yellow
seal. And when Marjory left the room soon after, he even stopped her,
with some return of gentleness, to give her directions about Charlie’s
rooms.

“If you are thinking what rooms to give them, May,” he said, hastily,
“put them in the west wing. It will be warmest for the bairns.”

It was the first time he had called her by her name since the funeral.
Poor Marjory hurried away, choking, afraid to trust herself to speak,
assenting only with a movement of her head.

“Oh, papa’s better! don’t you think he’s better? He kissed me, May,”
cried little Milly, as they went hand in hand along the passage which
led to the drawing-room.

Marjory made no answer. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to think it
all over. She placed herself in the corner of a sofa which commanded the
great bow-window, and from which she could see so much of the pale grey
blue sky and wistful half-twilight atmosphere. A nervous thrill was upon
her. She had heard nothing; and yet was not this letter confirmation of
her worst fears?

The lamp burnt steadily and clear upon the table; the firelight
flickered from the fireplace. A comfortable interior, warm, and safe,
and calm, full of homely luxury, but so strangely connected with the
outside world by that uncovered window, and the pale sky that looked in.
It was symbolical, Marjory thought. What might be going on beneath that
chilly heaven, beneath the great pale vault which roofed the sea, where,
dead or living, Charlie was? Her heart ached with the burden of that
suspense. How hard it was to bear it, and say nothing--and to let her
father take fallacious comfort, only to be the more deeply overthrown!

She had been only a few minutes here when some one followed hastily from
the dining-room. She thought it was her uncle, and turned to him,
holding out her hand. But the hand was taken with a warmth of sympathy,
which Uncle Charles would scarcely have shown.

“Pardon me,” said Fanshawe; “I was so anxious. I came to ask what your
news really is. You don’t think me impertinent? I wanted so much to
know.”

This sudden touch of sympathy moved Marjory, as the unexpected always
does. It was so much warmer, and more ready than Uncle Charles’ slow
effort to follow her quicker feelings; his search for spectacles, both
physical and mental; his reproofs of needless anxiety. She was overcome
for the moment, and gave way to sudden tears, which relieved her.
“Thanks,” she said, with a half sob; “there is nothing in it; at least I
think there is nothing in it; read it and tell me what you think.”

He had to go to the lamp, which was on the centre table, where Milly,
confused and wondering to find herself without any share in her sister’s
thoughts, had seated herself in forlorn virtue “to read her book.” Many
a look Milly threw at Marjory upon the distant sofa in the dark, looking
at that window where the shutters were not shut, nor the curtains drawn,
and which frightened the child with eerie suggestions of some one who
might be looking in upon her. She looked up at Mr. Fanshawe, too, as he
stood over her, unconscious of her existence, reading that letter. What
was it about? and why should he know about it, while Milly did not
know? She read a sentence in her book between each of these glances, and
was divided in her mind between the intent of this present drama, which
she did not understand, and that of the story of the poor little boy,
who died because he was good. The story itself made the child’s heart
ache, and the other strange mystery confused her. Fanshawe read the
letter anxiously, as if he had something to do with it; he thought he
had for the moment. Marjory’s confidence in him, her appeal to him that
morning, the subtle effect of feeling himself a member, even
temporarily, of this household, and becoming penetrated with its
atmosphere, all wrought in him. He had no intention of appearing more
interested than he was; he was quite honest in the warmth and depth of
his sympathetic feelings. And this was a letter of a very different
character from the other; it was very short, and quite unemotional.

            “Dear Miss Heriot,

     “I hear from my sister that she is going home with her husband and
     the children; and I hear from others that he is very ill. I have
     made up my mind, with my father’s consent, to go with Matty, who, I
     need not tell you, is very unfit for any such responsibility. I
     have heard of you from poor Charles, and I think you may perhaps be
     glad to know that there is some one of some sense with them,
     whatever happens. I hope you will kindly allow me to go to you for
     a few days, to see them safely settled; but anyhow, I shall be
     with them, to take care of them to the best of my power.

                    “Believe me, dear Miss Heriot,

                           “Sincerely yours,

                           “INVERNA BASSET.”



“What a strange name, and what a strange little letter!” said Fanshawe,
drawing a chair in front of Marjory’s sofa, and seating himself there;
“but there is nothing in this, Miss Heriot, to alarm you--more--”

Marjory had felt her heart lighten--until he came to that last word,
which he said with hesitation, after a pause. For the moment it had
appeared to her that the stranger’s eye, cooler than her own, had seen
something re-assuring in the letter; but all the more for this momentary
relief did her heart sink. “More!” she echoed, with a forlorn voice. “I
could not be more alarmed than I am. I am almost more than alarmed. I
am--.”

“Hush,” he said softly, putting out his hand to touch hers, with a
momentary soothing, caressing touch. “Hush! don’t say anything to make
your terrors worse. You are very anxious; and it is natural. But think,
he is young; he will have two anxious nurses. He will have quiet and the
sea-air, and the knowledge that he is coming home. After all, everything
is in his favour. I do not ask you not to be anxious; but try to think
of the good as well as the evil.”

“The evil is so much more likely than the good,” said Marjory. “He is
weakened with fever; one of his nurses will be taken up with herself
and her baby; the other is almost a stranger to him. Then the sea-air
will be neutralized by the close cabin, the wearisome confinement; and
he does not even know that his father will be glad to see him. Had he
come home sick a month ago, only a month ago, he would not have been
very welcome, perhaps. All this has to be considered, and poor Charlie
knows it. Mr. Fanshawe, I do not mean to blame my poor father--”

“I know,” said Fanshawe, still with the same soothing tone and gesture.
“You must not think me so dull and stupid. I am not much of a fellow--I
am not worthy of your confidence; but at least I am capable of
understanding. I see all that is passing--”

Marjory was half touched, half repelled; touched by his humility and by
his sympathy; but so sensitive was her condition, almost turned from him
by that position of spectator, that very faculty of seeing everything,
of which he made a plea for her favour. She drew back from him slightly,
without explaining to herself why.

“Yes,” she said; “but you must remember that a stranger sees more,
sometimes, than there is to see; and less, less a great deal than he
thinks. My father has always been a most kind father to all of us. At
this present moment our loss has absorbed him in one thought; but he has
always considered all our interests, and a month ago Charlie’s return
would have meant a great loss to Charlie, which my father, with his
sense of justice to the rest of us, would not have felt himself
justified in making up.”

Marjory gave forth this piece of special pleading with a calm air of
abstract justice, which moved Fanshawe at once to a smile and a tear. He
dared not for his life have shown his inclination to the first; and,
indeed, he was sufficiently _attendri_ by his position to make the other
more natural.

“I know, I know,” he said, hastily; and then added, “Nevertheless, I
think you may put some confidence in the writer of this letter. Who is
she--do you know her? It seems as if she would not talk, but do.”

“Charlie speaks of her as the strong-minded sister,” said Marjory. “He
has mentioned her two or three times. Their father is a Civil servant in
Calcutta, and she keeps his house. They have no mother. She takes care
of everything, I have always heard. Charlie laughs at her, but I think
he likes her. She does everything. Perhaps that is why the other sister
is so helpless--I mean; Mr. Fanshawe, you hear everything as if you were
one of the family. I have never seen Charlie’s wife; most likely my idea
of her is wrong. You will forget it; you will not think of it again.”

“I hope I shall be worthy of your confidence,” said Fanshawe. “I think I
almost am. It seems to me that I must be another man since I knew you. I
have never thought much of anything; but now if thinking would do any
good--”

“I don’t believe it does,” said Marjory, with a smile. It was very faint
and momentary, but yet it was a smile. “The less one thinks and the
more one can do, that is the best.”

“But you do not approve of simple want of thought,” he said, cunningly
drawing her into those superficial metaphysics which take such a large
place in serious flirtations. He was not consciously thinking of
flirtation, but he thought he had a right to take advantage of his
opportunities. Marjory, however, divined without perceiving, the trap.

“Had my father left the dining-room, Mr. Fanshawe? He looked better
to-night. I see you are surprised at old Fleming’s freedom, and how he
talks. He is an old servant; he has seen us all come into the world. We
could not speak to him as to an ordinary servant. Ah! here is Uncle
Charles at last!”

This exclamation was not agreeable to her present companion. He repeated
the “At last!” to himself with a sense of failure which was very
irritating. Surely he was as good as Uncle Charles, at least.




CHAPTER XV.


Some days passed on in a noiseless calm of suspense; suspense which
dwelt chiefly in Marjory’s mind, and did not hang heavily upon anyone
else. Mr. Charles, with the placidity of his age and character, settled
the question beforehand with sanguine confidence.

“Depend upon it, my dear, we’ll have him home all right and well,” he
said; “quite well. There is nothing like a sea-voyage for fever; it’s
self-evident. That little woman, that sister-in-law, will take good care
of him. What an energetic bit creature it must be! Why do I say bit
creature? She may be as tall as you are? No, no, that’s impossible. It
was a small creature that wrote that letter; a little woman, probably no
so young as she once was, but a kind of capable being, that will make
him do as she pleases. You may be sure she has a will of her own. She
will guide him like a boy at school, which will be the best thing for
him. Depend upon it, my dear, she’ll bring him to us safe and sound.”

Marjory did not depend upon it, but she kept silence, and the slow days
crept on. Fanshawe lingered, he could scarcely have told why. No one
asked him to stay. He was accepted by all as part of the family, with a
quiet composure which is sometimes more grateful to a man than
protestations of cordiality; but that was not his reason for remaining
at Pitcomlie. He stayed--because he said to himself he wanted to see it
out. It was a chapter of family history into which he had been thrust
unwittingly, and he must see what would be the end of it--if the other
brother would come back, and poor Tom’s place be filled up--or if--

It had the excitement of a drama to him; and Marjory’s face, day after
day, varying as the weather varied, brightening into hope sometimes
under the influence of the sunshine, falling blank and pale into
despondency with every cloud, interested him as nothing had ever
interested him before. This passion of suspense which possessed her
whole soul, purified and elevated her beauty somehow. It made her
features finer, the outline of her face more perfect, and gave a hundred
pathetic meanings to her eyes. For she was not selfishly absorbed nor
dead to other things. Through the veil of that preoccupation which
wrapped her about like a mist, nature would struggle forth now and then,
coming to the surface, as it were, with smiles and outbreaks of lighter
feeling or of independent thought. Anxious as she was, she was too true
and natural to be always thinking even of her brother. And Marjory could
not be monotonous even in her gloom. She changed from one phase to
another, so that the spectator seemed to grow in knowledge of humanity,
and wondered to himself how one emotion could put on so many semblances.

And she was relieved on her father’s account, though disturbed on
Charlie’s. Mr. Heriot had never again asked for Tom’s papers. He had
relaxed a little in his passionate misery. Sometimes, instead of
snarling at his family, he would soften and throw himself upon their
sympathy. He would take Milly with him when he went out to walk, holding
her hand tenderly, supporting himself by her, as it seemed.

“Papa never speaks to me, May,” Milly said, who was half-frightened,
half-flattered by being thus chosen for her father’s companion. “He
never says anything but ‘My bonnie bairn!’ And sometimes, ‘May will be
kind to her--May will be kind to her.’ That is all he ever says.”

“You must try and get him to talk, my dear,” said Uncle Charles. “Make
remarks, if it was only upon the sea and the rocks, or the
fishing-boats, and the way they hang about in-shore. If he but said,
‘Hoots! hold your tongue, Milly,’ it would be something gained.”

“Oh, Uncle Charles, what remarks can I make,” said Milly, “and me so
little? Only when he says May will be kind to me, I greet--I mean I cry;
and then he pats me on the head. As if I ever expected any other thing
of May!”

“My little darling!” Marjory said, holding her close, “as if there was
anybody, but a monster, that would not be kind to you.”

Another time it would be Fleming who would be the expositor.

“Mr. Charlie should hurry hame,” the old servant said, shaking his
head. “I’m no a man of many words; but, Miss Marjory, he should hurry
hame.”

“I hope he is coming, Fleming, as fast as winds and waves can bring
him.”

“Lord! what’s the good of that telegraph?” said Fleming. “If a body
could travel by’t, when they’re sair wanted, it would be worth
having--instead o’ thae blackguard messages that plunge a hail house in
trouble without a why or a wherefore. Ay, he should hurry hame.”

“Why do you say so?” asked Marjory, more anxious than the others.

“Because--humph!” said Fleming, pausing, and looking round upon them.
“Miss Marjory, a’ the world’s no young like you, and heedless. I have my
reasons. You ken nothing about it--nothing about it. Eh, but I hope
he’ll hurry hame!”

“He thinks my father is growing weaker,” said Marjory to Fanshawe, as
they continued their walk round that bit of velvet turf which crowned
the cliff, “and I think so too.”

“Not more than he has been always--that is since I came,” said Fanshawe.

“Yes, more. And he has grown so gentle too--so gentle. Think of his
saying I would be kind to Milly--making a merit of it! It goes to my
heart.”

“He was very cross this morning,” said Fanshawe, off his guard.

“Cross! I am sorry I trouble you with such subjects,” Marjory replied at
once, with intense dignity. “Of course family details are always
unimportant to strangers. Have you heard of a boat that will do for
yachting? We do so little boating on the Firth, for ornament; it is all
for very use.”

“You would not have me make myself useful to the world in a fishing
coble?” said Fanshawe, ruefully, making a hundred apologies with his
looks.

And then Marjory would laugh both at herself and him, and there would
gather a dangerous blob of moisture in either eye.

Thus it will be seen this moment of waiting was not a solitary moment.
It had come to be habitual with them to take that “turn” two or three
times round the lawn, after breakfast, and again in the twilight after
dinner, when the evenings were mild. It had been Mr. Heriot’s custom
always. His “turn” was part of the comfort of his meal. He had given it
up, but somehow the others had resumed the habit. Mr. Charles would go
once round with Milly before he disappeared to his tower, and then Milly
would steal into her favourite corner by the open window, and the other
two, sometimes not quite amicably, sometimes indifferently, sometimes
with absent talk of all that might be coming, strayed round and round
the mossy turf again. Insensibly to herself Marjory had come to look
forward to that “turn.”

Fanshawe was a stranger; he offended her sometimes, sometimes he was in
the way. She said to herself that she would be glad if he were gone, and
wondered why he stayed. Yet there were things which he could understand
better than Uncle Charles understood them. Whether he provoked her, or
felt for her, somehow there was always an understanding beneath all. He
was near her own age; he could enter into her feelings. Marjory did not
often go so far as to discuss this question with herself, yet, without
knowing it, she would say a great deal to the stranger as they took that
turn round the lawn.

It was one morning after breakfast that the end of this long suspense
came. They were on the cliff as usual, and as usual Mr. Charles and
Milly had gone in. The letters were late that day. How is it that they
are always late when they bring important news? Fanshawe by her side
recognised Miss Bassett’s writing on an English letter the moment that
Marjory took it from the tray. He had seen the writing but once before,
and he knew it. So did she. She trembled so that the other letters were
scattered all about on the turf, where they lay, no one caring for them.
Once more Marjory sat down on the mossy step of the sun-dial. She looked
up at him pitifully as she tore open the envelope. He, scarcely less
excited, leant over her. He was a stranger, and yet he read the letter
over her shoulder, as if he had been her brother, feeling in that moment
as her brother might have felt.

“I did not telegraph. I thought this would bring you the news soon
enough. I am starting to come to you with poor Matty and her fatherless
boys.”

Marjory turned and raised her eyes to the anxious face leaning over her.

“Is that how you read it?” she asked, making a pitiful appeal. “I--I
cannot see. Her fatherless boys. Charlie! Oh, my God! I cannot see any
more.”

The letter dropped from her hand. She put down her head upon her lap.
She did not sob, or faint, but held herself fast, as it were, crushing
herself in her own arms. Poor Marjory! The man by her side dared not put
his arm round her to support her, and there was no one else to do so.
While he stood by her, with his heart full of pity, not knowing what to
say or do, she made a sudden movement, and lifted the letter, thrusting
it into his hand.

“Read it to me,” she said, “read it--every word.”

He sat down beside her upon the steps of the sun-dial. No thought of
anything beyond the deepest and tenderest sympathy was in his mind. It
was his impulse to draw her close to him, to shelter her as much as his
arm could, to make himself her prop and support; and this for love, yet
not for love--as her brother might have done it, not her lover. But he
dared not make this instinctive demonstration of tender pity and
fellow-feeling. He sat by her, and read the letter, while she listened
with her head bent down upon her knees, and her face covered with her
hands. In the cheerful morning sunshine, within shelter of the old house
which was so deeply concerned, he read as follows, his voice sounding
solemnly and awe-stricken, like a funeral service, but so low as to be
audible only to her ear.

     “I did not telegraph; I thought this would reach you soon enough. I
     am starting to come to you with poor Matty, and her fatherless
     boys. I wish I knew how to tell you that it might be easier than
     the plain facts; but I do not know what else to say. Your brother
     died at sea soon after we left. I had got to be very fond of him. I
     will tell you all he said when I come. And I hope you will try to
     look over Matty’s little faults--for he was very fond of her to the
     last.

     “We shall arrive soon after you receive this. I am very, very
     sorry. I do not know what more to say.

                                                               “VERNA.”

There was a long pause. She did not move or speak; she had to get over
her grief as best she could, at once--to gulp it down, and think of the
future, and how to tell her father he had no son. It was a hard effort,
and this was the only moment she dared take to herself. As for Fanshawe,
he sat beside her very sadly, looking at her, wondering if he ought to
say anything--trying to think of something to say. What could he say?
not anything about resignation; nor that it was better for Charlie. How
did he know whether or not it was better for Charlie? He felt sad
himself to the bottom of his heart, as if it was he who had lost a
brother. Tears had come to his eyes, which did not feel like tears of
sympathy. Then he touched her shoulder, her dress, softly with the ends
of his fingers--so lightly that it might have been the dropping of a
leaf; it was all he dared to do. Marjory started all at once at this
touch--light though it was.

“Yes,” she said; “it is true; there is no time to sit and think. I must
give orders about their rooms--and--my father must know.”

“Miss Heriot, my heart aches for you. Tell me, what can I do?”

“Yes,” said Marjory; “I know it; you are as kind as--a brother. Oh me!
oh me!--but stop me, please; I must not cry. The first thing is--my
father must know. Mr. Fanshawe, will you go and see where he is?--if he
is in the library? It is cowardly; but I seem to want a moment first; a
moment--all to myself--before I tell him. Will you see if he is there?”

“Let me take you in first. Yes, yes, I will go.”

“Never mind me; do not think of me,” said Marjory, nervously twining and
untwining her hands. “And tell my uncle, please--and Fleming. Tell them;
all except papa. God help him! it will kill him. It is I who must tell
papa.”

She looked so wild and woe-begone that he hesitated a moment; but she
waved her hand to him almost with impatience. He looked back before he
went into the house, and saw her sitting where he had left her--gazing
into the vacant air before her, shedding no tears, twisting her fingers
together; half crazed with the weight of trouble, which was more than
she could bear.

Fanshawe went softly into the house; he felt, but more strongly, as
Marjory herself had felt when she went into Pitcomlie with the news of
Tom’s illness. This secret, which was in his keeping, made him almost a
traitor; he stole through the drawing-room, along the silent
passage--nothing but sunshine seemed in the house--soft sunshine of the
Spring, and fresh air, a little chilled by the sea, full of invigoration
and sweet life. He knocked softly at the library-door, feeling his
heart beat, as if in his very look the poor father must read the secret.
There was no answer; he knocked again; how still it was! Just as a
traveller might have gone into an enchanted palace, seeing signs of life
about, careful order and guardianship, but no living thing; just so had
he come in. The rooms were empty, swept and garnished; there was not a
sound to be heard but the steady ticking of the great old clock, which
stood in the hall, and the throbs of his own heart; and still no answer
to the knock. Persuaded that Mr. Heriot must have gone out, Fanshawe
opened the door softly to peep in, and make certain before he returned
to Marjory. To his surprise, the first thing he saw was that Mr. Heriot
was in his usual place, in his usual chair, calmly seated at his writing
table, paying no attention. The opening of the door, and Fanshawe’s
suppressed exclamation, “I did not know you were here, Sir,” disturbed
him apparently as little as the knocking had done. Fanshawe had no
message to give; he had forgotten even to make up any pretext for his
visit; he said hastily, now feeling half ashamed of himself: “There is a
book here I want to consult, if you will permit me,” and without waiting
for an answer, he went hastily to the shelf, where stood a number of
tall county histories--books which Mr. Heriot prized. Turning his back
on the old man at his table, he hastily selected one of these books. “I
fear I disturb you, Sir,” he said, in the easiest tone he could assume;
“but in the first place, I thought you had gone out; and in the second
place, I knew my business would not occupy a moment. I will put it
safely back.”

Somehow, it seemed to Fanshawe that a tone of levity had crept into his
own voice; he spoke jauntily, as a man who is playing a part is so apt
to do, and the light-minded tone came out all the more distinctly
because this speech, like the others, received no answer. No answer; how
still the room was! the fire burning brightly, but noiselessly, the
sunshine coming in through the great window, nothing stirring, nothing
breathing. Mr. Heriot had not moved; he had never even raised his head
to look at his visitor; through all the fretfulness of his temper to the
others he had never been but polite and friendly to Tom’s friend; and
this strange rudeness struck the intruder all the more.

It seemed to Fanshawe as if a cold air began to blow fitfully in his
face; and still Mr. Heriot did not move; he had not even raised his head
to look at his visitor. Fanshawe stood still in the middle of the room
hesitating; and then a curious moral impression, conveyed by the
stillness, or by a subtle something more than the stillness, crept over
him, he could not tell how; an icy chill went through him. It was cold
he supposed, though why it should be cold in that warm room, with the
fire burning and the sun shining, he could not tell. He approached a
step nearer to the master of the house. “Mr. Heriot!” he said.

No answer still; not a word, not a movement. Was he asleep? Fanshawe
drew nearer still with a shuddering curiosity. The old man’s elbows
were leaning on the table; one hand was extended flat out, every finger
at its full length. The other held by a book which was supported on a
reading-stand. His eyes were fixed upon this book with a heavy, dull
stare, his chin dropped a little. Had he fainted? Fanshawe drew closer
and closer with a certain fascination. The long, listless hand upon the
table lay grey and motionless, like something dead. Good God! was it
death? But how could it be death? He had not heard the news. There was
no reason why he should die in that tranquil brightness, everything so
still around him, no murmur in the air of what was coming. It was
impossible. In his certainty of this, Fanshawe touched the motionless
hand. He withdrew instantly, with a hoarse and broken scream; the
unexpected touch unmanned him. He called aloud for Marjory in his awe
and terror--yes, terror, though he was a brave man. Marjory was seated,
hopeless, in the sunshine, trying to subdue her own misery, trying to
think how she could tell her father. But her father had stolen
peacefully away, out of reach of that miserable news. He had gone out of
hearing; nothing that could be said to him would move him more for ever.

Fanshawe stood in an agony of momentary uncertainty behind the chair.
What should he do? It seemed to him terrible to leave this ice-figure
propped up here, without human watcher near. He called for Fleming with
a paralysed sense of helplessness, without even the hope of being heard;
and it seemed to him that the moments which passed were years. At
length he was relieved in the strangest way. The door opened softly, and
some one came in. He thought at the first glance it was one of the
women-servants.

“Call Fleming to me; call Fleming, quick!” he cried.

The new-comer took no notice. She made no immediate reply. A small
figure dressed in black, with curls clustering about her head, and a
sweet but gently-complacent smile. She advanced towards the table
smiling, making a sweeping curtsey. She did not look at Fanshawe, but at
the figure in the chair, which to her was not awful. It was terrible to
see this smooth little woman, in all the confidence of one who knew
herself sure to please, with her conventional salutation, her company
smile, coming calmly up, knowing nothing. She addressed herself to him
who sat there with deaf ears, not seeing her.

“I do not know Fleming; I am Verna,” she said.




CHAPTER XVI.


It would be hopeless to describe the condition of Pitcomlie during the
rest of that terrible day. In the hall was the young widow with her
children, an important English nurse, and the Ayah with the baby--the
children crying, the Ayah moaning, and Mrs. Charles wondering why no one
came to receive her; while in the library the scene was occurring which
we have described. Marjory was still seated on the steps of the
sun-dial. She had not heard anything; or rather some dim perceptions
that something had happened had penetrated her stupor without rousing
her to think what it was. Her whole mind was absorbed with one thought.
She had not even time to grieve. She had to tell her father. Of all that
had ever fallen upon her in her life, this was the hardest to do. She
allowed herself this interval of calm, because she was awaiting the
return of her messenger. It was a pretext, she felt; but she took
advantage of the pretext with such eagerness! and, perhaps, after all,
he had gone out; perhaps she might have another moment of
respite--perhaps--

Then she became vaguely aware of some commotion in the house. Milly was
the first to rush out upon her.

“Oh! May, there’s such funny folk in the hall; a black woman! with a
white thing over her head--and little babies. Come, come and see;
they’re all asking for you; everybody wants you. Come, come and see.”

“Babies!” said Marjory; and then, in spite of herself, burst into sudden
tears.

The thought made her heart sick. It seemed impossible to rise up and
welcome them, to receive these strangers in this first hour of trouble.
Then Fleming, looking very pale, hurried across the lawn. The old man
was heart-broken, but he could not be otherwise than acrid.

“This is a fine time to sit here and divert yoursel’, Miss Marjory,” he
said, “when the house is full of strange folk, and no a soul knows what
to do first. They’ve come; and mair than that--you’ll know soon enough,
soon enough; but Lordsake!” cried the old man, putting Milly aside
almost roughly, “send that bairn away.”

Marjory rose up, dragging herself painfully back into the busy world
which awaits all the living, whosoever may be gone or dead. Then Mr.
Charles was seen hurrying through the open window.

“What is this, May? What is all this I hear?” he cried. The news had
been told to him by the servants, without any preparation, thrown at him
in a lump as servants are fond of doing, and he was stunned by the
succession of events. It seemed to him impossible to believe in their
reality till he had come to her, who was the centre of the family life.
Little Milly crying out of sympathy, knowing nothing, clung to her
sister’s dress--and Mr. Charles eager and anxious with his long lean
person all in tremulous motion, put his hand on the sun-dial to steady
himself, and with agitated and white lips asked again, “What is it,
May?” And at the other side of the house there suddenly appeared
Fanshawe, supporting a lady on his arm. Marjory’s bewildered mind fixed
upon this. It was the only thing she did not understand. He placed the
stranger on a seat and hurried across the lawn. “Give the lady a glass
of wine,” he cried peremptorily to Fleming, and then took Marjory’s hand
and drew it within his arm.

“Come in-doors,” he said briefly, almost sternly, “they all fly to you,
and it is you who ought to be considered most. Come in-doors.”

“No,” she said, “no, I must do it first; if they have come I must do
that first; he must hear it from me.”

“Come in,” said Fanshawe peremptorily; but before he could lead her
away, the stranger, whom he had brought to the air, came forward to
Marjory.

“I am better now,” she said. “I never fainted in my life before. It was
such a shock. I know you are Miss Heriot, dear, and I know what you must
be feeling. Don’t mind us; I can look after everything, I know how to
make myself at home. Oh, poor thing, poor thing! father and brother in
one day!”

“What does she mean?” said Marjory.

“My dear May, my dear May!” cried Mr. Charles. “Lord bless us! she does
not know! Come in, come in, as Mr. Fanshawe says.”

“Father and brother in one day? then my father is dead,” said Marjory.
She put both her hands on Fanshawe’s arm, holding herself up. “Did you
tell him? did he hear?”

“He had died in his chair, quite calmly, before the news came.”

“You are sure--quite sure, he did not know?”

“Quite sure.”

“Then thank God!” said Marjory. “Oh, I am glad. Don’t say anything to
me--I am glad. Milly, Milly, don’t cry, go and say your prayers. I can’t
think of Charlie just now, I am so glad for papa.”

“Oh, my dear! she has gone mad with grief,” said Mr. Charles. “May, my
bonnie May, cry, break your heart, anything would be better than this.”

“I am not mad, I am glad. Thank God!” repeated Marjory. She suffered
them to take her in, with a calm which frightened them all. Thus the
chief actors, in all the excitement of a terrible crisis, went their way
off the scene like a tragic procession, carrying with them their
atmosphere of pain and trouble; and like the change in a theatre,
another set of sentiments, another group of persons, came uppermost.

Miss Bassett was left in possession of the lawn. She had received a
shock, but she felt better already, and she was a curious little
personage. She watched them go in, making her own observations,
especially in respect to Fanshawe, whose presence struck her feminine
eye at once. Who was he? engaged to Miss Heriot, she concluded; it was
the most natural explanation. Then she went across the lawn to the edge
of the cliff and looked over; then made a turn or two up and down,
putting up an eye-glass to her eye, inspecting the house. The house was
very satisfactory; it had an air of old establishment, wealth, and
comfort that pleased her.

“Only I would clear away all these old ruins,” she said, turning her
glass upon the tall old Manor-house of Pitcomlie, and Mr. Charles’s
tower, “and throw out a new wing,” she added, putting her head a little
on one side, “with a nice sheltered flower-garden and conservatories.”
This notion pleased her still more. “What a different place it would
look,” she continued musing, “if I had it in my hands; I would clear
away all the old rubbish, I would make a handsome entrance with a
portico and steps. I would soon make an end of all those little
old-fashioned windows, and have plate-glass everywhere. Dear me, dear
me, what a pity poor Charlie was not the eldest son!”

From this it will be apparent that the newcomer was not aware of what
had happened in the family upon which she had arrived so suddenly. When
she had examined the house quite at her leisure, she bethought herself
of the helpless party she had left in the hall, and made her way to them
round the front, finding the way by instinct with a cleverness which
never forsook her. “I wonder what they will do with Matty,” she said to
herself. “I wonder what the new Mr. Heriot is like. I have seen his
photograph, but I don’t recollect. I wonder if he is married. If he is
not married, Matty’s little boy will be the heir-apparent, or
heir-presumptive, is it? and they will make much of him. Fancy grown
people like Matty and myself being tacked on to little Tommy to give us
importance! If he was not Charlie’s brother Matty might marry him. As
for me, that does not seem my line; at least I have never done it yet,
after being in India and all. It is droll how people differ. Matty is a
fool and as selfish as a little cat; but she is the marrying one. Never
mind, I shall do as well for myself. How awful that old man looked, to
be sure--I shall dream of him all my life; but don’t let’s think of
that. Oh, you poor dear Charlie, how nice it would have been if you had
lived, and if you had been the eldest son!”

Fresh from this reverie she met at the door Mrs. Simpson, the
housekeeper, who had just cleared the frightened and excited servants
out of the hall, and was closing the shutters with her own hands, and
crying softly between whiles with many a murmured exclamation. Miss
Bassett was very conciliatory, almost respectful to the old servants.

“Can you tell me, please, where I shall find my sister and the
children?” she said. “What a dreadful day for us to come, the day of
your poor dear master’s death! I am so sorry to give you so much more
trouble on such a day.”

“Oh mem, never name the trouble,” said Mrs. Simpson, “if anything could
be a comfort it would be the sight of thae dear bairns, that he didna
live to see, poor man. Eh, it’s an awfu’ lesson to the rest of us, to
be taken like that without a moment’s preparation, reading a common
book, that could be of no use to his soul. Eh Sirs! In an ordinary way
I’m no feared for death. It’s what must come to us all; but death like
that--”

“I am sure though,” said Miss Bassett confidently, “by the look of his
face that he was a good man. There was a believing look about him. I
feel sure all is well with him, and if it is a loss to us, you know it
is a gain to him.”

“Eh, what a pious good young lady,” said Mrs. Simpson to herself; “we
maun aye hope so,” she said aloud, but with much less certainty. She was
a Seceder, and not quite certain of her master’s salvation. “He didna
take his troubles may be so well as he might have done. They say it’s a
sure sign of the children of light when they’re resigned, whatever God
sends; but oh, it’s no for us to judge,” said Mrs. Simpson, putting her
apron to her eyes. “I hope you’re better, mem. It was a sore trial for a
young lady, going in like that to the presence of death. I’ll show you
upstairs where the other lady is, and if you’ll just ring there’s a maid
will see to everything. Meals and hours will be all wrong the day in
this mourning house; but you’re a considerate young lady and ye’ll look
over it--for to-day.”

“Oh, don’t trouble about us,” said the newcomer, giving Mrs. Simpson one
of her sweetest smiles, “I like you so much for being grieved for your
master. Never think of us--” Miss Bassett was very popular among the
servants wherever she went. She gave a little nod and smile to a
housemaid she met on the stairs. She was very conciliatory. The youngest
son’s wife’s sister has little reason to think herself an important
personage in any house; and as she went up the great staircase through
the long noiseless carpeted corridor which led to the west wing, her
respect for the house rose higher. She noted that the carpet was Turkey
carpet, that every corner was covered, no matting, no boards visible,
nothing that showed the least desire for economy. She was not used to
any English house except the very thrifty one in which Matilda and she
had received their education, and these details of luxury were very
pleasant to her. She sighed as she went into the pretty room where her
sister and the children were already established. It was the largest
room in the wing, the end room with two large windows looking over the
peaceful sunshiny country, and one in the side which had a peep of the
sea. There were large wardrobes, a great marble dressing-table, a
succession of mirrors, a magnificent canopied bed, and more Turkey
carpets, feeling like moss beneath the feet. The handsome room, however,
was already made into a disorderly nursery. Matilda had thrown her hat
down on the writing-table, where it lay among the pens and ink, covered
over in its turn by the children’s hats and pelisses. She had thrown
herself on the sofa, where she lay, tired and dishevelled, making
ineffectual remonstrances with Tommy, who was belabouring the floor with
an ivory-backed brush which he had found on the dressing-table. Baby
was sprawling on the lap of the dark Ayah, who sat squatted on the floor
near her mistress’s feet, and the English maid was unpacking all the
boxes at once, finding all sorts of heterogeneous things in the
different packages.

“Bother that black thing,” she said indignantly as Miss Bassett entered,
“here’s baby’s short things all bundled up in mistress’s best shawl.
There ain’t a thing where I can lay my hand on it, and all the place in
a litter already.”

Miss Bassett did her best to remedy the muddle. She seized the brush out
of Tommy’s hand, and put him spell-bound in the corner. She pulled off
her sister’s shawl, which hung half over the arm of the sofa. She ranged
the hats upon the bed and cleared the writing-table.

“Matty! for heaven’s sake,” she said, “we have come to a nice tidy
place, and they seem disposed to treat you handsomely. This must be one
of the best rooms, don’t make a pigsty of it the very first day.”

“I like that,” said Matilda languidly; she was a pretty, listless, fair
young woman, with light hair, without any colour in it, and blue eyes,
which were somewhat cold and steely. “Where have you been to, Verna? You
went and left us all by ourselves, to get on as we could; and but for
that nice fat woman who brought us upstairs, I do not know what we
should have done. Of course, the children must be made comfortable. She
said we were to have all the rooms in this end. When you can get them
cleared away, and things put straight, I think I shall go to bed and
have a good sleep.”

“Then you don’t want to know anything about the family?” said her
sister.

“The family! oh, I suppose Marjory will come to see me by-and-by. I
don’t want her till I have had a sleep, and I told the fat woman so. I
shall cry when she comes, I know; and it tires me out to cry. I want a
sleep first. I suppose you have seen them all; you always see everybody
first. Are they nice? do they look good-natured? do you think they mean
us to stay here, or what am I to do? Who is knocking at the door? Oh, I
know; it is the fat woman with the tea.”

“Hush, for heaven’s sake!” said Verna; “do think for a moment;
everything depends on how you behave. Elvin, don’t let anyone in just
yet. Matty, listen; old Mr. Heriot--your father-in-law--Charlie’s
father, died this morning. The house is all in confusion.”

“Died this morning!” Matilda’s lip began to quiver, her eyes filled
suddenly with tears, her face acquired all at once the pitiful look of a
child’s face in sudden trouble. “Oh,” she said, “must some one be always
dying wherever we go? It is dreadful. I cannot bear to be in a house
where there is some one dead. I never was so in my life. Verna, take the
baby; take us away, take us away!”

“I will kill you!” cried her sister passionately, turning on her,
clenching her little fist in Matilda’s face. “You fool! hold your
ridiculous tongue when the servants come in; cry as much as you please;
you can do that. It will make them think you can feel, though you have a
heart as hard--Cry! if you can’t do anything else. Thank you very much,”
she said, turning round suddenly and changing her tone in the twinkling
of an eye. It was Mrs. Simpson herself who had entered, attended by a
maid with a tray. The housekeeper was deeply in want of some
counteracting excitement, and she knew that the two babies on the floor
were the only representatives of the house, though their mother did not.
She came in with a jug of cream in her hand, very solemn and tearful,
ready to weep at a moment’s notice, yet eager to explain, and tell the
sad story--full of natural womanly interest about the children, as well
as anxiety touching the little heir and his mother. In short, the
housekeeper was like most other people--she had good, maternal motives,
and she had an alloy of interested ones. Had the young widow been a poor
woman, Mrs. Simpson’s kindness would have been more disinterested; but
in the present circumstances, it was impossible not to recollect that
the young woman crying on the sofa, who looked so innocent and childish
in her sorrow, might be the future mistress of the house, and have
everything in her hand.

“Oh, mem!” said Mrs. Simpson; “what is there we wadna do--every one in
the house--for poor Mr. Chairlie’s lady, and thae two bonnie bairns! Oh,
Mistress Chairles! dinna break your heart like that! there’s plenty
cause; but think on your two bonnie lads that will live to be a credit
to everyone belonging to them, and a’ the hope now that we have in this
distressed house. Oh, get her to take some tea; get her to lie down and
rest! So young and so bonnie, and her man taken from her, and a
home-coming like this!”

“My sister is very tired,” said Verna; “indeed, as you say, it is a very
sad home-coming. She cannot thank you to-day, you kind woman; but
to-morrow I hope she will be better. We have had a terrible journey. And
she feels it so much,” added the quick-witted creature, seeing Mrs.
Simpson’s eye linger upon Matilda’s coloured gown, “having no mourning
to come in; no widow’s cap. You must tell me afterwards whether there is
a dress-maker here whom we can have. What did you say, dear? will you
try some tea? Cry! you fool!” she whispered fiercely, turning aside to
her sister, “and don’t speak.”

“But, Verna--a cap!” Once more Matilda put on that piteous look; her
lips quivered; large tears rolled down her cheek; she put her hand up to
her pretty light hair.

“Yes, that is the first thing,” said the wiser sister. “Will you please
send for the dress-maker? Perhaps we can get her a cap in the village.
That is all she thinks of; she would not like to see dear Miss Heriot
without her cap.”

“Miss Marjory is not in a state to see anybody,” said the housekeeper,
shaking her head; “she’s taking her trouble hard--hard. She’s no
resigned, as she ought to be. And this is the little heir? Eh, my bonnie
man! but I’m glad, glad to see you here!”

“Yes, this is the eldest,” said Verna, puzzled; “he is called Tom, after
his poor grandpapa. Then young Mr. Heriot is not married?”

The housekeeper shook her head solemnly. “Na, na! Mr. Tom wasna a man to
marry; and oh, to think the auld house should depend upon a little
bairn.”

Then the good woman put her apron to her eyes. Verna watched her every
look and movement, and already her attention and curiosity were
awakened; but she would not show her ignorance of the family affairs;
and she was glad to get Mrs. Simpson out of the room, fearing the
outburst which was coming. It came almost before she had closed the door
upon the housekeeper’s ample gown.

“Oh you cruel, cruel Verna!” cried the young widow. “Oh you barbarous,
unfeeling thing! a cap! I will never wear a cap; as if it was not bad
enough to lose Charlie, and come home here like this, and cry my eyes
out, and have to please everybody; instead of my own house, and being my
own mistress, as I was while dear Charlie was living; but to put on a
hideous cap--I will not, I will not! With light hair it is dreadful; I
will rather die!”




CHAPTER XVII.


The situation of the little party of strangers in the west wing of
Pitcomlie for the week after their arrival was strange enough. They were
in the house, but not of it. Partly on pretence of their fatigue, partly
because of the agitated condition of the family, they were not asked to
go down stairs, and it was the second day before Marjory even paid them
a visit. On the afternoon of their arrival Mr. Charles went solemnly
upstairs, and kissed the babies, and shook hands with his new niece.
Mrs. Charles had been carefully tutored by her sister, and she had so
many grievances on hand that she was ready to cry at a moment’s notice.
First and foremost of these was the cap, which had been found in the
village, a hideous head-dress indeed, made for some elderly village
matron, which drowned Matilda’s poor pretty face within its awful
circlet. She resisted with all her might, and cried, and struggled; but
having no one to back her, gave in to superior force at last, as was
inevitable.

“The uglier it is, the more they will feel that you are in earnest,”
said Verna, with an energy that carried everything before it.

And when Mr. Charles came in and paid his respects solemnly, his heart
smote him for all the evil things he had said about her, when he saw
the tears stealing from under Matilda’s long eyelashes, and that
piteous quiver of her lip.

“Some people do themselves much injustice by their style of writing
letters,” he said to Fanshawe, that evening. “She may not be very wise,
but she has plenty of feeling.”

She scarcely spoke at all during this interview, but cried and gave him
a look of hopeless yet affecting sorrow, which went direct to the old
man’s heart. The little boy was disobedient, but that was nothing to be
wondered at after a long sea-voyage and all that had happened; and as
clever Verna thought, the terrible widow’s cap intended for old Mrs.
Williamson at the post-office, gave the young widow worship in the eyes
of all who beheld her. Verna won herself worship in quite a different
way. She put on the most becoming hat she had, and strayed down in the
evening to get a little air. The first evening she saw no one. The
second, Mr. Fanshawe came out and walked with her round the lawn, where
she had seen Marjory first.

“How is Miss Heriot?” she asked, anxiously; “is she better? Was she so
much devoted to her father? I am very, very sorry for her; but my poor
Matty wants comfort too.”

“Miss Heriot has been ill,” said Fanshawe. “She has had so much to
bear--one shock after another.”

“Yes; Charlie’s death,” said Verna, watching him with keen eyes, “and
then Mr. Heriot’s--”

“And her elder brother--so very short a time before.”

“Her elder brother?”

“I forgot. You left India before the news could have reached you. Three
of them have been swept off one after another. Mr. Heriot died of grief;
he never got over poor Tom’s death. The shock to Miss Heriot was not so
much her father’s death, as her certainty that yesterday’s news would
kill him. All this has affected her deeply. We had almost to force her
to do nothing, to see nobody except ourselves--to allow herself to
rest.”

“You have a very deep interest in Miss Heriot?” Verna asked,
hesitatingly. She did not even know his name. “Or perhaps--I beg your
pardon, I am only a stranger--perhaps you are one of the family?”

Fanshawe had started slightly; he had looked up at her with a sudden
movement when she made that suggestion. It had brought the colour to his
face.

“I--take a deep interest in all the family,” he said. “No, I am not one
of them. My name is Fanshawe. I was with poor Tom Heriot when he died. I
am glad to be of use at this moment as far as I can.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. I did not mean to put embarrassing questions,”
she said. “Please forgive me; I am quite a stranger. Poor Matty does not
know much, never having been at home since she was married; and I know
nothing at all. We did not know Mr. Tom Heriot was dead. What a terrible
thing! father and two sons--all the sons--there are no more?”

“No more--the whole family--except Miss Heriot and her little sister,
and your sister’s boys--have been swept away.”

Verna’s heart was beating wildly. She could scarcely contain the sudden
flood of triumph that had poured into all her veins. At last she was
going to be a great lady. Everything would be in her hands. Marry! why,
what was marrying to this? But she restrained herself, to make assurance
sure.

“Poor little Tommy,” she said, with a demure and measured tone, which
was put on to hide her emotion, “only three years old; is it possible
that he is the master, of all this--that everything depends on him?”

“Poor child!” said Fanshawe.

What a farce these words seemed! Oh happy child, blessed child, most
fortunate baby, with eighteen years of a minority before him, and his
aunt, Inverna Bassett, the only clever one of the family to do
everything for him! But she dared not betray the exultation that coursed
through all her veins.

“I hope Miss Heriot will come to see us to-morrow,” she said. “It will
be better for--all of us--if she will be friendly and come.”

Somehow there was a change of inflection in this which caught Fanshawe’s
ear. He was quite incapable of defining what it meant. The rapid
revolution of sentiment, the change from humility and doubt into
superiority and certainty, the implied warning, too delicate to be a
threat, that it would be better “for all of us” that the daughter of the
house should visit its new mistress, all these gradations of thought
went beyond his capacity. He did not understand; but still his ear,
though not his intelligence, caught some change in the tone.

“I do not think,” he said, with some coldness, though he could not have
told why, “that we shall be able to persuade Miss Heriot to rest beyond
to-day.”

“I am glad of that,” said Verna. “I mean I shall be very glad to see
her. I saw her, it is true, yesterday, here, but she did not notice me.
Of course it was a terrible moment for her--and for all of us,” she
added, with a little meaning. “Matty’s first coming home--”

Was there a little emphasis on that last word? Certainly there was a
change of tone.

Fanshawe was confused; he could not quite tell why. As for Verna, her
little brain was in a whirl. She wanted to be alone to think. She put up
her eye-glass once more, and inspected the house with such a wild sense
of power that her faculties for the moment seemed taken from her.

“Good evening,” she said, hastily. “I think I will go back to my poor
sister, who has no one but me to take thought for her.”

How everything had changed! She had no need now to be civil to anybody;
no need to put on any mask, or restrain her real feelings. She rushed
into the house, and upstairs, full of her discovery; but before she
reached her sister’s room, her steps grew slower, and her thoughts less
eager. Verna was ignorant, very ignorant. How did she know that there
might not be some law, or some will, or something that would modify
this too delightful, too glorious state of affairs?

A little chill crept over her. Little Tommy’s heirship might not be
absolutely certain, after all. If it was certain, would not everything
have been turned over to Matilda at once? Would Miss Heriot still
venture to give herself airs as if she were the mistress of the house?
Would she not rather come humbly to them, and do her best to conciliate
and find favour in the eyes of the new mistress? Verna would have done
so; and it was hard for her to realise the emotions of so very different
a woman, whom, besides, she did not know. The result of all her musings,
however, was that she would for the present say nothing to Matilda. She
would leave her for the moment in her uncertainty, wondering what the
family meant to do with her. Matilda might be kept in the desirable
state of subjection so long as she was thus humble in her expectations;
but Verna knew that when she was mistress of Pitcomlie she would no
longer consent to cry and to abstain from talking.

Accordingly, she concluded to keep her news to herself. When she entered
the room where her sister still lay on the sofa, chatting with her
maids, and shrieking now and then an ineffectual remonstrance against
Tommy’s noisy proceedings, there came into Verna’s mind a sudden and
sharp conviction of the foolish mistakes which Providence is always
making in the management of the world.

She had made up her mind that it was she who was to reign in Pitcomlie
if Tommy turned out to be really the heir; but how would she have to do
it? By means of coaxing, frightening, humouring, and keeping in good
disposition this foolish sister, whom she had been half ashamed of for
her silliness all her life. Matilda would be the real possessor of all
these advantages. She herself would only enjoy them as Matilda’s deputy.
Oh! if the Powers above had but been judicious enough to bestow them
direct upon the person justly qualified! This sudden thought made her
sharp and angry as she went into the luxurious room, which Matilda had
turned into chaos.

“What a mess everything is in!” she cried. “Elvin, for Heaven’s sake get
those things cleared away, and try to be something like tidy. They will
think us a pack of savages. Matty, why don’t you exert yourself a
little? I declare it is an absolute disgrace to let everything go like
this. We are not in India, where one can’t move for the heat. And what
if Miss Heriot were to come up now and find you like this, all in a
muddle, baby crying, and Tommy rioting, and your cap off?”

“I have as good a right to do what I like as Miss Heriot has,” said
Matilda, pouting; “and I hate your odious cap.”

“You have got to wear it,” said the peremptory Verna, picking up the
unfortunate head-dress from the floor; “and if I were you I would rather
wear it clean than dirty. As it is so late, Elvin may put it away
carefully in a drawer; but, Matty, Miss Heriot--”

“Oh! how I do hate Miss Heriot!” said Matilda, ready to cry.

“You don’t know what she may have in her power,” said Verna, with a
curious enjoyment of the picture she was about to draw. “She may be able
to do everything for you, or perhaps nothing; how can we tell? But in
the meantime it is better to have her good opinion. Do as I told you;
talk as little as you can, and look as pitiful as you please. Probably
we shall have to go to the funeral; or if not to the funeral--we can say
you are not well enough--at least to the reading of the will, and that
will be very important. Nobody can expect you to do anything but cry.
Whatever you may hear, Matty, for God’s sake don’t commit yourself to
say anything. Leave it all to me. It will save you ever so much trouble,
and you may be sure it will succeed better. You know you are not so
quick as I am; you are a great deal prettier, but not so quick. Now do
promise, there’s a darling. Take your best handkerchief, and tie your
cap well round your face, and cry all the time; not noisily, but in a
nice ladylike way. It will have the very best effect; and if you
promise, it will leave my mind quite easy, and I can give my attention
to what is going on. Now, Matty dear, won’t you do as much as this for
Tommy’s sake and for me?”

“Is the funeral to be to-morrow?” said Matilda, putting off the
formality of the promise.

“Why, I tell you again this is not India, you silly child,” said Verna.
“It will not be, I suppose, till this day week, and there will be hosts
of people. I shall have quantities to do without looking after you. Now
promise, Matty! If you don’t, I can’t answer for what may happen; they
may send you back to papa--”

“I will do whatever is best,” said Matilda, moved by this horrible
threat. “Tell me what is best, and I will do it. Oh, they never could
think of that! They must give me so much a year at least, and some place
to live in. I could not go back to papa to be snubbed and treated like a
baby, and hear the dear children sworn at, and never dare venture to
speak to anyone. I would rather die.”

“If you are good, and do what I tell you, it will never happen,” said
Verna, kissing her. “I have a great deal in my head, Matty. I have heard
something--but never you mind. I will tell you when I have found it all
out. I should not wonder if we were to be very well off, and never to
require to do anything after this but please ourselves. Hush! don’t
agitate yourself. You can’t think what a deal I have to think of; but we
shall know all about it when the funeral is over, and how it is all to
be.”

This had to content Matilda for the moment, and she went to bed with her
head buzzing with all kinds of pleasant thoughts. Poor Charlie! it would
have been much “nicer” if he had lived; he gave her a great deal more of
her own way than Verna did; he was more of a comfort to her--and then a
woman is always of more consequence when there is a man behind her to be
appealed to. But still, now that poor Charlie was dead and gone, and no
thinking nor crying could bring him back, perhaps it might be for the
best. If the old gentleman had left him something very nice in his will,
as Verna seemed to expect, Matilda thought she would go to some bright
nice place where there would be good society, and bring up Tommy.
Perhaps she might be able to have a carriage, if it was as much as Verna
thought--and never would require to think twice about a new dress, or a
pretty bracelet, or anything she might fancy. These gentle fancies
lulled her as she went to sleep. Yes, it was a pious thought, such a
thought as ought to be cultivated in the bosom of every woman; perhaps
after all it might turn out that everything had been for the best.

Verna was not so pious. She sat at her open window half the night,
though the air was chill, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. She
could not quite persuade herself that it was possible. “If--” she said
to herself, before she set off on a wild canter of imagination through
all the glories that could be thought of. If--

What a thing it would be! To be virtual mistress of this house, to have
everything in her power, to be able to turn out “the family” if she
pleased, and make her own will superior everywhere! This hope
intoxicated the young woman. The instinct of managing everybody and
everything had been strong in her all her life; but it never had had
full scope. She had managed her father’s house, but that was little; and
he himself was a rough man, who despised women, and was not capable of
being managed. Now what unbounded opportunities would be hers--the
estate, the house, the village, nay, the county! Verna’s ambition
leaped at all. And she never intended to rule badly, unkindly, or do
anything but good; Matilda should be as happy as the day was long, she
said to herself; Tommy should be sent to the best of schools. She would
be as polite as possible to the Heriots, and beg them to consider
Pitcomlie as their home as long as it suited them.

She meant very well. She would get up coal clubs, and clothing clubs,
and all sorts of benevolence in the village. She would be a second
providence for the poor people. Never were there better intentions than
those which Verna formed as she sat at the window, her eyes shining with
anticipation, if--

That was the great thing. The foundations, perhaps, might fail under her
feet; it might all come to nothing; but if--

What a good ruler, how considerate of all the needs of her empire she
meant to be! People so often prospectively good in this world; whether
their goodness would come to nothing if they had the power, it is
impossible to tell; but hoping for it, looking forward to it, how good
they mean to be!

That these feelings should exist above stairs, while such very different
emotions were in the minds of the family below, where two deaths had
occurred, as it were, on one day, need not surprise any one. Verna had
been very sorry for the sufferers; but it was not in the nature of
things that she could be more than sorry. Her own affairs were nearest
to her. They and she inhabited different spheres.




CHAPTER XVIII.


“What did you think of them?” said Fanshawe.

“She cried a great deal; she is very young and pretty. Poor child!” said
Marjory. “We did not say much to each other; how could we? Indeed, you
know that I cannot talk.”

“I know--” said Fanshawe hastily, and then stopped short. He had done
everything for them all during those sad days. It was the eve of the
funeral now, and it was he who had taken every necessary care upon him;
but I cannot explain how he had grown into the house. They were
strangers to him a very short time before; even, it was not long since
he had yawned and asked himself why he did not go away? But now it
seemed to him that he had lived there all his life; that he had never
had any warmer interests; that he could as soon separate himself from
his life as from all that remained of the diminished family. He had
brought Marjory out as her brother might have done on the eve of that
melancholy ceremonial, to breathe the fresh evening breeze, and accustom
herself a little to the outer world once more. He had led her, not to
the cliff, but to the garden, where the associations were less
overwhelming.

The flower-garden was at the other side of the house, sheltered from
all the sea-winds by the old Manor-house on the East, and warmly
nestling into the angles of the present mansion. It was an old-fashioned
garden; there were no stiff flower-beds in it, no studies of colour in
red and blue and yellow; no ribbons of brown leafage, or artificial
lines. In summer, old roses, old lilies--the flowers that our
grandfathers loved, stood about the borders, making the whole garden
sweet; but at present, in the Spring, there was little except crisp
lines of crocuses and snow-drops; at one side was an avenue of limes,
which had, people supposed, been the avenue of the old house. These
limes were not large trees, they were too near the sea for that; but
they had begun to shake out their light silken green leaves in the soft
April air.

It was here the two were walking on the eve of Mr. Heriot’s funeral. The
gate of the old house was still standing, ornamented with the cognizance
of the Heriots, at the end of the avenue, and here there was still an
exit upon the cliff; close to it was the door of the kitchen-garden. I
explain this to show how the circumstances, which were about to happen,
came to pass. Marjory had walked up and down the avenue three or four
times--leaning on Fanshawe’s arm. It had become natural to accept his
arm, to take both physical and moral support from him. I do not know
that either of them had ever gone further in their imaginations;
Marjory, at least, had not. She had no time for any thoughts about
herself. Ever since she had known Fanshawe, she had been absorbed in
matters of a very different kind. She took his support, his kindness,
his sympathy, almost, I fear, as a matter of course, forgetting that she
had no right to it; not entering into the question at all; accepting the
help which was at hand without questioning what it was.

And Fanshawe, for his part, thought badly of himself when other thoughts
would gleam across his mind by turns. He shook himself, as it were, and
was angry, asking himself, “Is this the time?--am I the sort of fellow?”
He was as far from contemplating marriage as a possibility as any
good-for-nothing could be. Marriage! out of Marjory’s presence how he
would have laughed at the idea! But still there had been gleams of light
which had passed across him, fitful glimpses of meaning, even of a kind
of purpose, repressed instantly by a conviction of their utter vanity
and foolishness. Sometimes, unawares, when he was thinking of other
things, some sudden plan would come into his head, some vision would
flit before his eyes; but they were always involuntary. He had not even
recognised them so far as to struggle against them. They were stray
visitants that came upon him without a moment’s notice unawares, and
that were driven away as intruders, without a moment’s indulgence. But
sometimes along with these visions, strange words would throw themselves
in his way, and claim so urgently to be spoken, that it was very hard to
resist them.

This was one of those occasions. In answer to her languid words, “You
know I cannot talk,” some devil or other (he thought) thrust a
passionate, too expressive answer into his mind. And he had, so to
speak, to stoop and pick it up, and throw it from him like a firebrand,
before he could continue the calm conversation in which they had been
engaged.

“You are getting tired, I think,” he said, anxiously. “Come and sit down
here.”

“I am not tired,” said Marjory. “It is wrong to think that because the
mind is worn out the body must be tired too. Does it not sometimes seem
all the stronger? I think it would be best to be ill; but as I am not
ill, what can I do? I can’t pretend. I am not tired, except of doing
nothing, of being cooped up, of being good for nothing--”

“That is what I am,” he said, with a slight glance down upon her, and
then turning his head away. “I am not of any use either to myself or to
other people.”

“How can you say so, Mr. Fanshawe? To us you have been everything that
the kindest friend could be.”

“For why? Because I liked it; because I have been so mixed up--pardon
the homely word--with you and yours; not for any good reason; which I
suppose, as I have been told often, is the only rule of value. Indeed,
the great thing is that you have allowed me to stay, and made me, to my
own surprise, good for something; not much even now. If I tried ever so
often, in an ordinary way I should not know what to do.”

Marjory made no answer. He had seated her on a bench under the
lime-trees. He had been standing opposite, but now he sat down by her.
He had discovered before that she was not to be tempted into these
personal discussions. She was twisting and untwisting her fingers
vaguely, with a nervous habit, not thinking what she did.

“Life is so easy for some people,” she said, at last, “quite clearly
marked out, with nothing strange or complicated in it. It has always
been so with us. I don’t think it will be so in the future. I begin to
feel as if the well-known, well-worn path had stopped, and I do not know
what odd track may follow. I never understood the feeling before.
Perhaps you, who have had more experience--you may understand it, I
don’t.”

“That is what I mean,” he said, “only I never had any well-worn path to
lose. Mine is like this little byway close to us. A big old stone gate,
with shields and all the rest, and nothing opening from it, except that
irregular line on the turf. One keeps to it because there is nothing
else to keep to. This will never be your case, but it is mine. I am good
for nothing. Nobody comes in by me, or goes out by me--”

“Not like the path then,” said Marjory, with a faint smile, “for there
is some one knocking. Is it at the old gate or the garden door?”

It was twilight, and their bench, though completely hidden, was close to
both entrances. In the little pause which followed, the knocking went on
softly, and after a while the gardener was heard trudging along the
gravel path with his heavy steps.

“Wha’s there?” he said.

“It’s me, Sir,” answered another voice; and then after a pause--“a
stranger, if ye please, that wanted to ask a question. I’ll no keep you
long. It’s a Mr. Heriot, is’t no, that lives here?”

“Ay, my woman,” said the voice of the old gardener. “You may say that.
There’s been a Mr. Heriot here for as long as kirks have been standing
or kailyards planted. But there’s nae Mr. Heriot the now, for he died on
Tuesday, and he’s to be buried the morn.”

“Eh, poor man!” said the other, in a startled tone, and she added, in a
lower voice, “I never saw him, but I’m real sorry. It would be him that
had sons--two sons?”

“That’s the maist mysterious part of a’,” said the gardener, glad of a
gossip. “He had two sons--bonnie lads, and strong lads, and like life.
One of them went out to India, and married a wife; but the eldest wasna
of that kind. They are both dead within three weeks, the one after the
other, the father and the two sons.”

A cry, subdued, but strangely piercing and full of mingled awe and
terror, rang into the air. Then the gardener spoke again.

“Does anything ail ye, lass? What’s the matter? They’re no a drap’s
blood to you that you should be that vexed. What are ye saying? Ay,
there was a Tammas, the auldest son. They are a’ Tammasses in this
house--Tammasses and Charlies; but they’re baith dead and gone! Are you
greeting, lass? And what do you ken about the family? Losh me! She’s
greeting like to break her heart.”

“I kent--one of the--young gentlemen,” answered the stranger, with
broken sobs.

“One o’ the young gentlemen? Maister Tom was wild, I aye said it. It
would be Maister Tom. It’s no to your credit, my dear, no to your
credit. A poor lass should have nothing to say to a young gentleman.
Maybe it was away in England? but you’re no English. It might be in the
Hielands. He was aye ranting about here and there, taking no thought.
Now, my bonnie lass, was it in the Hielands? You needna distrust me.”

“It’s no matter to you nor to naebody,” said the other voice.

“Miss Heriot, where are you going?” Fanshawe said, in dismay.

Marjory had risen from his side in a noiseless ghostly way, and had
crossed the path under the limes to a door in the wall, which led into
the other garden. She disappeared in the darkness, while he sat
wondering, and immediately after he heard her speak.

“You are asking after the family. You are sorry for us in our trouble.
You may go, Sandy. I want to speak to her myself. Will you tell me
if--you want anything?”

“Nothing,” said the other voice, with sudden and evident self-restraint.
“I’m sorry to have disturbed you, mem. I meant nothing but to ask a
question on my road as I passed.”

“But you knew my poor brother?”

“I’ve seen a Maister Heriot, that was said to come frae Fife.”

“Will you come in?” said Marjory.

“I thank ye, mem, but I’ve nae time to waste. My errand’s dune. I’ve a
long road before me.”

“If you will come with me I will let you out another way, which is
shorter,” said Marjory, in a conciliatory tone.

There was a momentary pause, and after some hesitating answer, Fanshawe
heard the door of the other garden shut, and saw two figures come back
instead of one. The new-comer was shorter than Marjory. Her dress was
tucked up as if for walking; but there was not light enough to
distinguish her face. I think Marjory, in the new interest which
possessed her, had forgotten Fanshawe. To his infinite surprise, he saw
her grasp the hand of the country lass as she closed the little door in
the wall, and heard her ask eagerly, in a half-whispering voice,

“Are you Isabell?”

The young woman drew back. She drew away her hand. She stood evidently
on the defensive.

“I didna come here,” she said, “to tell wha or what I am. Naebody here
has anything to do with me. If you’re Miss Heriot, I beg your pardon;
but you’re taking too much upon you with a stranger lass, that wants
naething from you.”

The listener rose to his feet; he was shocked and annoyed by what he
thought the impertinence of the wayfarer, whose confidence Marjory had
condescended to ask. But Marjory herself was not offended. She said
hurriedly,

“Do not be afraid of me. I ask with no unkind meaning. I would not hurt
you for the world. What I want is that you should trust me, and tell me
your story. I will do anything in the world for you, if you are
Isabell.”

There was another pause, as of consideration, and then the stranger
replied,

“I canna say, mem, what you may mean. It’s no for me to pry into your
secrets, if you have secrets. There’s many Isabells in the world, and
that might have been my name, and me know nothing about you or yours;
but my name’s no Isabell, if that is any satisfaction. You said you
would show me a short gait to Comlie--”

“I will,” said Marjory, tremulously. They were walking slowly past
Fanshawe, taking no notice of him, and with feelings that were not
altogether delightful, he perceived that she had forgotten his very
existence. “But you asked about my brother,” she added, with soft tones
of pleading, “and he is dead. Poor Tom! I want to know everybody he
knew. Was it in--the Highlands? Will you tell me where you knew him? It
is not for any harm--”

“Mem, I’m sorry to have put fancies in your head by my foolish
question,” said the resolute young woman. “What could the like of me ken
of the like of him? I’ve seen him maybe three or four times; he was kind
to some poor folk in our parish; and hearing the name on a journey, I
knockit at the garden-door to ask what had come of him. I didna ken,”
she added, with a quiver of emotion, which she evidently did all she
could to restrain, “that he was dead. I was struck to hear it, and I’m
sorry for you and all the family, with such a sore trial. If you are the
only leddy, mem, I’m maist sorry for you.”

“Thank you,” said Marjory. “I have lost my father and both my brothers.
I have nothing more left me in the world but one dear little sister.
There is not a more sorrowful woman in all Scotland.”

“Ah! but there is, though!” burst from the girl; and then she made a
sudden pause, as if of obstinacy, and looked Marjory in the face defying
her.

Once more Marjory took her hand. She wept as she spoke, pleading,
crying, both at once, till Fanshawe, who was so close by, felt his heart
melt within him, and could have cried too.

“Oh!” she said, “tell me who that is? I am sure you know something,
though you will not tell. What can I say to show you that I am not an
enemy. Do you mean Isabell?”

There was another painful pause, and once more the girl deliberated with
herself.

“Wha is Isabell?” she said, at last, with a certain determination. “I
ken many an Isabell that’s in no trouble, and some that are. How am I to
ken wha you mean?”

“And I cannot tell you,” said Marjory, with despair. “That is all I know
of her. She--knew--my brother; and so do you. She would be sorry for
him, I am sure; and so are you.”

“I told you, mem,” said the other, resolutely, “my name’s no Isabell.
I’m no responsible for a’ the folk that knew Mr. Heriot. I canna take
upon me to answer for them. And if I said there was in Scotland a mair
sorrowful woman than you could be, oh, can the like of you ever be as
sorrowful as a widow woman, a poor woman, a woman with hungry bairns,
and no a morsel to give them? I’ve kent such: it goes against me to hear
a young lady with plenty of siller and plenty of friends make such a
moan; though I’m sorry for you,” she added, after a pause, “real sorry
for you too. And now will you let me see the short gait, or will I turn
back and go the gait I came? for it’s getting dark, and I dinna wish to
be on a strange road at night by mysel, my lane.”

“Then you will not tell me anything?” said Marjory.

“I hae naething to tell you, mem,” said the girl.

This strange visitor entered and disappeared through the Pitcomlie
garden, while Verna was sitting at her open window, plotting and
preparing all the things she would do, if--. Verna knew nothing of her,
and had she known, would have been full of maidenly indignation at the
idea that Marjory could notice “such creatures.” Marjory, however, was
of a very different mind. She led the girl through the flower-garden and
through the house, anxiously guiding her to the light of the lamp in the
hall, where she could see her face. She was but a comely country girl,
nothing more, with fair hair twisted into a net, and a little brown hat
with a plain ribbon. She might have been a respectable country servant,
or a cotter’s daughter. There was nothing in any way remarkable about
her. She had blue eyes, very steady and serious in their expression,
and a firm mouth, which at present was closed fast, as if in fear of
self-betrayal. She dropped a rustic curtsey as Marjory opened to her the
great hall-door, and directed her how to go.

“You’re very kind, mem, and I beg your pardon if I wasna civil,” she
said, with penitence.

Marjory stood looking after her as she disappeared into the night.
Perhaps after all it was but a whim of her own, a fancy that had nothing
in it. She turned away from the door with a sigh, and then the gust of
chilly air which caught her from the garden, reminded her that she had
left Fanshawe there, and that he must have heard all. She went slowly
back to seek him, and make her apology, her mind, like the night, dark
and wistful, full of chill airs and many clouds.




CHAPTER XIX.


If Tom Heriot’s funeral had called all the gentry of Fife to do the
family honour, it may be supposed that his father’s, following so soon
after, and in such circumstances of aggravated distress, brought out a
still greater attendance. Mrs. Murray once more sat at the Manse window,
with many tears, watching the mournful procession, and wondering much
whether it would have been better for him had the Laird of Pitcomlie
been “resigned,” or whether it was well for the old man to be thus
removed quickly, that he might not have sorrow on sorrow. It seemed to
her that his was the lot she would have chosen for herself, and she
thought tremulously as she wept, of her daughter in India, and prayed
for her as she cried for poor Charlie Heriot. Miss Jean had not ventured
this time to join Mrs. Murray at her window. The old woman was peeping
from behind her blinds in the white gable, with eyes that shone at sight
of the many carriages.

“Thomas Heriot may be proud,” she said to herself, confused between the
two deaths, and not feeling quite sure that her nephew was not in one of
the mourning coaches enjoying the melancholy grandeur of which he was
himself the object. All that was honourable in Fife was there, the old
gentry, and the new people of wealth, and the tenantry, and the
town--even the fishers, smelling of salt water, though arrayed in the
suit of “blacks” which it is a point of honour with that class to keep
in readiness for a funeral. The churchyard was quite full of people,
intent upon showing their respect for Pitcomlie.

It was Mr. Charles who had received and arranged all this miscellaneous
assemblage. People at his age do not mourn for each other very acutely,
perhaps because the separation cannot be a long one, perhaps because
that grand final event has become so ordinary an occurrence. To the
young it is less familiar, less close at hand. The older one grows, the
more one is disposed to represent death to one’s self as an every-day
incident, and old men who are themselves approaching that verge are apt
to dismiss somewhat summarily those who have preceded them. Besides, a
week had elapsed between Mr. Heriot’s death and his funeral, and that
long interval of seclusion, and absorption in one idea, is enough to
take the edge of all but the most sensitive feelings. It was anxiety
more than grief that sat heavy on the brow of Mr. Charles.

“We must think now of the living, not of the dead,” he had said on the
previous evening.

And indeed there was reason enough to make that transference of
solicitude, and to think of the living. For all the courses of nature
had been driven out of trim, and no one of the party cared to confront
the position, or ask themselves what was to come of it: except indeed
Verna, who thought of nothing else; but her thoughts would have been
far from pleasing to the others had they known.

It was a long business to get all the sympathizing friends away, and to
thank and shake hands with the distant hereditary acquaintances who once
more had come so far to do honour to the Heriots. The house was in a
curious excitement during this interval. All round Pitcomlie many
carriages were waiting, and profuse hospitality was being dispensed by
Mrs. Simpson and her maids in the servants’ hall amid gossip, melancholy
but consolatory.

Mr. Charles was doing his duty manfully in the dining-room,
administering the excellent sherry, and making such serious remarks now
and then as did not misbecome a mourner.

Marjory, with Milly at her feet, and Fanshawe, bearing her most
sympathetic company, was in the drawing-room, where the shutters were
still closed, letting in mournful lines of light through their
interstices upon the group. She had felt herself “obliged” last night to
tell him about Isabell. She was glad to feel herself obliged to do so,
for her heart was aching with a desire for counsel and sympathy; and
Fanshawe had taken her confidence very differently from Mr. Charles’s
mode of taking it. He had been interested and touched by the letter. He
had even suggested at once that this was what poor Tom had intended to
speak of; and he agreed with Marjory that the visitor who had so totally
declined to tell who she was, or why she came, must have been somehow
connected with the unknown Isabell. The secret, which was now between
them, added another delicate bond to their friendship. He sat beside her
now, talking it all over; suggesting, now one way, now another, of
finding out who and where Isabell was. Tom had never mentioned such a
subject to him--

“Which makes me,” said Fanshawe, feeling abashed even in the gloom,
“have all the more confidence that you are right, Miss Heriot. Had it
been a--nothing, a--a mere levity--I don’t know what words to use--he
would have spoken of it; but not a serious and honourable love.”

“Indeed, I am sure you do yourself injustice,” said Marjory, even in her
languor of grief, discovering, with surprise, that she was capable of a
blush.

“No,” he said, humbly; “men are ashamed of what is good oftener than of
what is evil.”

They were speaking low, that Milly might not share any more of the
secret than was inevitable, a precaution which was vain. Milly took in
every word, along with the gloom of the room and the lines of strange,
pale eerie light, and the heavy, sad, and painful excitement of the
moment. The scene and the story never went out of her mind; but it did
not make her much wiser.

There was something about poor Tom, and something about some one called
Isabell, and partial darkness and transverse lines of light, themselves
so pale and dark, that they made the gloom rather heavier. Milly sat
close to Marjory’s knee, holding by her dress. The child could not bear
to be without a hold upon something. When she let go, she seemed to sail
away through some dark world of shadows and misery, full of sounds of
the distant wheels of the mourning coaches, and that solemn, dreary
bustle which attends the last exit of every mortal from his earthly
home. Twice in a few weeks this had occurred, and it gave a confused
sense of permanency to the wretchedness, so far as the child was
concerned.

To Marjory there was, perhaps--who can say?--a certain sense of
fellowship and comfort in the companion with whom she could talk freely,
and upon whose sympathy she could reckon, which made up for something.
Little Milly, perhaps, who could not in reality feel all that happened
half so deeply as her sister, was for the moment more cast down,
enveloped in that vague dreariness of childhood which, while it lasts,
is more deeply depressing than any maturer grief.

A very different scene was going on upstairs in the west wing, where the
strangers were being clothed in their new mourning, in preparation for a
solemn appearance at the reading of the will. Poor Matilda, covered with
crape, and drowned in the big widow’s cap, was as woe-begone as her
sister could have desired, and cried more and more every time she looked
in the glass.

“It is hideous with light hair,” she said. “Oh! Verna, how cruel you
are! They will think me eighty; they will not feel for me a bit. You
know very well, when you have an unbecoming dress, men always find it
out, though they never know what makes it unbecoming. And when
everything depends on the impression I make, for the poor children--”

“Oh! you little fool!” said Verna, to whom it must be allowed the deep
mourning, with the delicate broad hems of her collar and wrists, was
very becoming; “the only impression you have to make is that you are a
wretched widow, able to think of nothing but your poor dead husband. If
you had the heart of a mouse, you would be thinking of him to-day, and
not of anything else.”

“And so I am,” said Matilda, with real tears. “He would never have made
me wear this horrible thing. He liked to see me look my best, and always
thought of me, and what I would like, before everything. You may be sure
that so long as I am with you, who are a little tyrant to me, I shall
never, never forget poor dear Charlie. And, of course, I want to look
decent, for his sake. What are they to think of him, dear fellow, when
they see me look such a dowdy, and with no money, nor anything. It is
for Charlie’s sake!”

Verna, however, was invincible even to this argument.

“There are a great many other things to think of to-day,” she said.
“Now, just remember what I say to you. They can’t change what you are to
have, because that will be settled by Mr. Heriot’s will; but if you
don’t behave yourself as you ought, they can put you under trustees, or
something, who will pay you out so much a month, or so much a year, and
make you do exactly what they please. That’s what you have to be afraid
of. If they think you look as if you could ever enjoy yourself again,
be sure that’s what they will do. I know them. If a woman looks as if
she had not the heart to do a single thing, then they let her have her
own way.”

“Do you really think so?” cried Matilda, stopping short suddenly in her
tears, and looking up to her sister with round eyes, staggered by this
new suggestion.

“I am certain of it,” said Verna. “And then, you know, poor Charlie’s
will leaves that old uncle guardian along with you. If you want to have
any freedom, you must look as if you cared for nothing of the sort. And,
Matty, I have just one other word to say. If you hear anything to
surprise you, whatever it is, don’t appear to take any notice. Now,
recollect what I tell you. Don’t jump up, or cry out, or make a fuss, if
you hear that you are either better off or worse off than you thought.
If you are left better off than you expect, you’ll see these men will
try to get the upper hand, and take away your freedom, unless you look
as insensible as possible; and if you are left worse off, there are
always ways of working upon them with a heartbroken widow. I don’t want
you to be clever and understand, for you can’t; but you can _cry_.
Here’s a lovely handkerchief I got for you expressly. It is just a
little too pretty. There is a row of beautiful small work above the
hemstitch--too small for other people to notice much--and it will be a
comfort to you.”

“Well, it _is_ a beauty,” said the disconsolate widow. “But all the
same,” she added, after a moment’s pause, “I don’t see why I should not
understand my own business as well as you.”

“Do you?” said Verna, turning round upon her, with flashing eyes.

Matilda quailed, and fell back.

“Don’t look as if you were going to bite me,” she cried. “Did I ever say
I did? But that is not my fault. You never will let me manage anything;
even Charlie wouldn’t. But he did not tell me I was a fool, as you do.
He said, ‘I won’t have my darling bothered!’ Oh! dear Charlie! what I
lost when I lost you!”

“That was a pleasanter way of putting it,” said Verna, grimly; and then
she, too, softened, and a glimmer of moisture came into the eyes which
would have been fine eyes had they not been somewhat hard and beady. “He
was a fool, too,” she said; “a fool about you, as men are; but he _was_
a dear fellow. You pink-and-white creatures have all the luck; you get
men to be fond of you that are far too good for you, while people who
could understand them--”

Matilda interrupted her with a low laugh.

“You were always envious of me,” she said; and with her complaisance
restored, and her pretty handkerchief in her hand, she made herself
comfortable on the sofa, waiting the summons to go downstairs.

Poor little Tommy was _affublé_, like the rest, with paramatta and
crape. He had a large sash of the latter material, which had the air of
a hump and two tails behind; and the paleness of the little Indian
child came out with double effect from this heavy framework. Verna’s
quick eye noticed this, and felt that much was to be made of Tommy. She
posed him at his mother’s knee, and contemplated the group, and felt
that no cruel trustee, no hard-hearted guardian, could stand against
them. When she reflected that the guardian was only Mr. Charles, she
felt triumphant. He certainly would never oppose her. And now the moment
of fate approached; soon it would be decided whether Verna, by Tommy’s
means, was to have it; or, if--

What a relief it would have been to her mind, had she known that the
estate was entailed, and that even Mr. Heriot’s will could do nothing
against that! but whether it is for want of education or not, certain it
is that women know very little about such matters; and Verna’s fine
intellect was hampered by her ignorance. She knew nothing about the laws
of entail, or whether a man could change them at his will and pleasure.
She felt that the possible gain was so great, that there must be some
evil possibility in the way, which would make an end of it. And this
sense of a tremendous decision about to be made, wound Verna up to the
highest pitch of excitement. She looked handsome, though she was not
regularly handsome--almost beautiful in her emotion; her eyes’ sparkled,
her colour was high, and the smile, which usually was too complacent,
was swept away from her face altogether, leaving only an animated
readiness to change in a moment from grave to gay, from calm to
triumphant. Her heart was beating under her new black gown as it had
never beat in her life before. She had not lived till now, it is true,
without some little movements of the heart--but none of them had at all
approached in interest to this.

At last the summons came. With one final imploring supplication to
Matilda to do nothing but cry, and to Tommy to be a good boy, she gave
her sister her arm with every appearance of sympathy, and held out her
other hand to be grasped by Tommy, who, being short, preferred her
dress, to which he clung as for life and death. The maids stood admiring
and sympathetic on the stairs, as this procession stole softly down.
Tommy was whimpering with fright; Matilda put up her beautiful
handkerchief to hide her face; only Verna was composed and sublime,
supporting her widowed sister. In the darkened library, which was, like
the drawing-room, full of lines of ghostly light from the joints of the
shutters, everybody stood up as this group entered, and all hearts were
filled with a certain thrill of sympathy. The chief places were given to
the young widow and her sister. All the others seemed to group round
them as a natural centre.

Mr. Charles stood with his back to the fire, interrupting the light
which came from it by his long legs. He was very tired and very anxious,
not knowing what the future was to bring forth for those most dear to
him, and looking at the new-comers in the gloom which hid the
expressions of their faces, with a wistful eagerness which was stronger
than curiosity. Nothing that happened could affect him personally, nor
was he without the means to give Marjory a home; but there were more
things involved than mere maintenance, and however things might turn
out, it was certain that the whole family was on the eve of some painful
change.

Marjory sat behind backs, very silent, not so much interested as any one
else present, not caring much what happened. In no circumstances was it
probable that she could have cared much for the mere personal
consideration of how much was or was not left to her; and the idea of
being compelled to leave Pitcomlie, and to give up all the habits and
occupations of her life, had not occurred to her. I doubt whether, even
had it occurred to her, the effect upon her mind would have been
greater. The only thing that interested her specially was Tom’s secret,
the unknown story to which she seemed to have been brought closer last
evening; and it was this which was going dimly, vaguely through her
mind, while the others were occupied with things so much more
immediately present and real.

Milly, as usual, was on a stool by her feet, pressing her golden hair
against her sister’s black dress; and Fanshawe stood near, behind the
back of her chair, unseen, scarcely thought of, yet giving a certain
subtle support. He had no right whatever to be here. The lawyer, Mr.
Smeaton, from Edinburgh, had put on his spectacles to look at him, as he
might have done had he been a big beetle conspicuously out of place.
Even Mr. Charles had hesitated a little before he said, “Are you coming
with us, Mr. Fanshawe?”

Fanshawe would not have accepted so very uncordial an invitation to
intrude into family mysteries in any other house; but this (he said to
himself) was not like any other house; and Marjory had half turned round
to look if he was following. Was not that reason enough? He felt
somewhat uneasy when he found himself there, and in a false position. He
got as far out of the way as possible, behind her chair. And then it
gleamed across him that the others might inquire what right he had to
stand behind Marjory’s chair? No right! not even the right of an honest
intention, a real purpose. He meant nothing; the tie between the two was
entirely fortuitous, without intention on either side. What right had he
to be there?




CHAPTER XX.


Mr. Heriot’s will was an old one. As it was read, some of the listeners
held their breaths with the strangest painful feeling of anachronism and
sense of being suddenly plunged back into an ended world. Little Milly,
wistful and dreary, cried at the merest mention that was made of her
brothers’ names. She was the one of all who had least personal knowledge
of her brothers; but their names had become symbols of grief to her. The
others listened with much outward quietness and internal excitement,
while all the stipulations of that will which the father had made in
full certainty of being survived by his sons, was read in the light of
the fact that both his sons had preceded him to the grave.

The will set forth that there was twenty thousand pounds to be divided
between the younger children; but that little Milly being provided for
in chief by her mother’s fortune, only three thousand was to be given to
her, the rest being divided between the son Charles and the daughter
Marjory of the testator. Mr. Smeaton paused to explain that this sum
would not be fully realized, as some part of the property from which it
was to be drawn had much deteriorated in value; and went into further
detailed descriptions of the property, and the cause of its
deterioration, which tried Verna’s patience to the utmost, and made Mr.
Charles cross and uncross his long legs in nervous impatience.

Even wills, however, come to an end some time. When this was ended there
was a pause. There were no unexpected stipulations, no wrong done to any
one; all was perfectly just, kind, and fatherly. But this was not all.
Except Matilda, who knew nothing, everyone in the room stirred with
uneasy expectation when the reading came to an end. Matilda, for her
part, obeyed her sister’s directions closely; but that did not prevent
her from making an anxious calculation in her mind how much was left of
twenty thousand pounds when you subtracted three, and how much was the
half of seventeen thousand. This was a mental operation which took her a
long time and much thought, and she had not arrived at the other and
more difficult and, in short, utterly insoluble question as to what
income eight thousand five hundred pounds would produce, when Mr.
Charles spoke.

“Is there no later will?” he said; “nothing made since the late sad
changes in the family? no codicil? He might have made some memorandum,
perhaps, of what he wanted to be done in the present melancholy case.”

“Nothing at all,” said Mr. Smeaton; “it was not a case to be foreseen.
Such a thing, I daresay, never entered into his head. Since both are
gone, this poor little fellow must, of course, be named heir of entail,
and guardians appointed--unless his father has appointed guardians.”

“Not likely, not likely,” said Mr. Charles; and both of the gentlemen
looked at Matilda, who, thinking that she had done something wrong, hid
her face in her handkerchief. This produced, as Verna expected, the most
excellent effect.

“Poor young creature!” they said to each other. “It is too much for her,
and no wonder.”

“Miss Bassett,” Mr. Charles added, gently, “perhaps you could rouse your
sister a little to the necessities of her position. You know that in
consequence of the death of my two nephews, Tom and Charlie, all the
bulk of the property goes to that poor infant at your feet. Poor little
man! You understand me? I daresay you have not thought on the subject,
either of you. Poor little Tommy is the actual proprietor of Pitcomlie.
It will be a great responsibility for his mother. Do you think you can
make her understand?”

Matilda’s handkerchief, which she held to her face, was violently jerked
by the start she gave. There are some minds which are quick to
self-interest, though dull to most things else. Mrs. Charles was of slow
intelligence, but she heard and understood this. For a moment she made
an effort to obey her sister; but then nature got the better of her. She
flung the handkerchief on the floor, and appeared from under it, flushed
and tearless.

“What!” she cried, with a suppressed but sharp scream.

The reality of her voice amid this subdued and conventional quiet,
roused them all up like a flash of lightning; and Verna herself, for the
moment, was too much overcome to interfere.

“Did she not know?” said Mr. Smeaton, aside, to Mr. Charles. “The fact
is, the deaths of your brother-in-law and your husband, Mrs. Charles,
have left your little boy the actual proprietor of Pitcomlie. Had I
supposed that you did not know, I would have broken the news more
gently--”

“Tommy!” cried his mother. “Tommy! Do you mean it all belongs to
us--all? this house, and the money, and everything? Oh, Tommy! Are you
sure--are you quite sure? Can’t you be making a mistake? These things so
often turn out to be mistakes; I should not like to believe it, and then
find out it was not true.”

Verna advanced with a warning air; but her sister pushed her away.

“Let me alone, Verna; it is my business and Tommy’s. Please go on, go
on. I can understand everything. Oh! make haste and tell me! All
Tommy’s!--and Tommy, of course, mine, being but a baby. Is it true?”

“It is true, so far as Tommy is concerned,” said the lawyer, with a
smile; “but for his mother--”

“There is a paper,” cried Matilda; “Charlie signed a paper. Verna, you
have it; where is it, that last paper Charlie signed? You made him do
it. I remember I thought it was silly, for what could it matter? It is
something about me and the children. Give it to Uncle Charles; he is in
it, too. Dear me! you are quick enough sometimes,” said poor Matilda, in
vulgar triumph. “Do not keep everybody waiting; where is it now?”

Verna put herself between her sister and the critical eyes that were,
she supposed, inspecting her, and picking up the fallen handkerchief,
restored it to its owner.

“Be quiet, for heaven’s sake,” she cried.

“Oh, why should I be quiet, I should like to know?” cried Matilda.
“Don’t stand between me and the people. If I am mistress of the house, I
mean to be so, and put up with no nonsense. She has got the paper all
right. Tommy, my precious darling! You shall have the nicest things
money can buy. You shall never go to school, my precious, like common
little nasty boys. You shall have----”

“Oh, you fool!” shrieked Verna, in her ear.

At the sound of these familiar words, and the suppressed vehemence with
which they were spoken, Matilda for the moment came to herself. She
looked round, and saw the wondering faces turned towards her. She saw
suddenly that she had abandoned her _consigne_, and had got into deep
waters, which she could not fathom; and with a certain natural cunning,
which her sister blessed, she suddenly fell a crying in her excitement.
Then Verna began to breathe; the ball was again in her hands.

“Poor Charlie was very anxious about his wife and his children before he
died,” she said, “as was very natural, for he did not know if his father
would approve of his coming home. He had not anything to leave, poor
fellow, but he made his will. Here it is. It was partly his doing and
partly mine, as my sister says. I brought it in case it should be
wanted. Whatever Tommy--I mean the children--may have, he made her their
guardian. My sister is very excitable”--Here Verna paused, as if forced
to make some explanation. “She was afraid there would be nothing for the
children. The revulsion has been too much----”

“Mrs. Charles seems, I think, quite able to speak for herself,” said Mr.
Smeaton. “This is the will of Charles Heriot, dated at sea, the 21st
March. It’s worth very little, I may tell you. It is quite informal. If
the family choose to accept and act upon it, I have nothing to say; but
otherwise it is good for nothing. It leaves everything of which he dies
possessed to his widow, and appoints her and his uncle, Charles
Hay-Heriot, of George Square, Edinburgh, the guardians of his children.
That’s so far well; it is a judicious appointment enough--- unless,”
stooping his head, and speaking lower, he added, “unless the family
think it proper to dispute it, when it is a simple piece of waste
paper. It all depends upon what you think, ay or no.”

There was a pause. Matilda’s interposition had made a painful impression
upon Uncle Charles.

“What could we do?” he said, in an undertone.

“You could dispute this, and have guardians appointed by the court,”
said Mr. Smeaton. “But as you’re named, and all’s right otherwise, I do
not see much reason why----”

Matilda heard this low conversation, but she did not know what it was
about. She thought, like every narrow intelligence, that what she did
not understand must be against her. And her feelings overcame her
prudence and her awe of Verna.

“What are you all talking about?” she said, vehemently, sitting up quite
upright in the chair which she had been reclining in. “What are you
doing, plotting and scheming against my boy? You cannot take his
birthright from him. Do you think I will stay quiet, as Verna tells me.
Verna, hold your tongue, it is I that am the mistress, when my Charlie’s
will is being torn up, and our estate taken from us. No, I will not stay
quiet. We must have our rights.”

“Do not mind her, gentlemen,” said Verna, piteously. “She is excited;
she is never like this when she understands. Matilda, dear, no one is
thinking of wronging you. It was this gentleman who explained how
things are. They will appoint another guardian, and take away your
authority, if you don’t mind. Be quiet, or they will take away your
freedom. Matty! if they see you are excited and so forth, they will not
let you have any of the power. Do you hear what I say? They cannot wrong
you, but they will make you a slave; they will take away all your
power.”

This was said in a passionate whisper, close to Matilda’s ear, who gazed
at the speaker, open-eyed, first defiant, then gradually yielding.

“They are not to do anything against Tommy’s rights. I will not stand
and see my child lose his rights,” she cried.

Verna sat down beside her, and took her hand, and carried on a close
conversation in a whisper. It became half Hindustanee as it became
vehement. The lawyer and Mr. Charles, after a moment’s pause, made
themselves into a separate group, and talked over the papers; while
Marjory and little Milly behind, with Fanshawe looking on, formed
another. The central point of the scene was in the two young women, full
of excitement and passion, who were strangers, whom the house knew
nothing of, and who yet were its future mistresses, with the wondering
little boy in crape standing between them, holding fast by each, and
gazing out with round eyes upon the strangers who filled him with a
frightened defiance. You will think it strange that Marjory had no
yearning of the heart towards this baby, who was Charlie’s son; but, as
children have a perverse way of doing in such circumstances, little
Tommy had not a feature which recalled Charlie. He was his mother’s
little staring image, her face, her expression, the very repetition of
her look. Milly’s heart was moved to him for the sole reason that he was
“little”; but Marjory remained cold as the nether millstone to Charlie’s
boy. She sat, indeed, very coldly during the whole discussion. It
sounded to her like a storm going on at a distance, which disturbs no
one--the thunder mere echo, the lightning nothing but reflection. She
looked at the two who were moved by feelings so much stronger than her
own with a vague surprise, which only the curious stupor which hung
about her could explain. She did not enter into their feelings. She was
antagonistic to them, yet saw that but faintly. The whole scene seemed a
dream, which would float away, leaving--what? Marjory’s mind did not
seem even active enough to inquire what it would leave behind.

Thus this strange scene ended, and everybody at Pitcomlie knew that a
change--the greatest ever known in its records--had come about in the
fortunes of the race. Other widowed ladies had reigned in the old house
before now, but they had been kindly daughters of the country-side,
trained in its traditions, and knowing what was expected of them. The
new mistress was a stranger, knowing neither Fife nor Scotland, nor even
English ways, knowing nothing about the family, nor what it demanded
from her, and caring less than she knew. Mr. Charles, with care on his
brow, took a “turn” with Mr. Smeaton on the cliff. They discussed the
matter very seriously, but they did not make much of it one way or
another.

“If young Charlie’s will stands, you will have to manage all the money
matters,” Mr. Smeaton said, “which will be the best thing for the
estate; and perhaps you’ll be able to get an influence over the widow.
She’ll give you a great deal of trouble, that young woman; but, on the
other hand, she will understand nothing about business, and you will get
your own way; whereas, if the will is cancelled as informal, you’ll have
another guardian appointed who may take different views; and she’ll give
plenty of trouble all the same.”

“She’s young,” said Mr. Charles, with careful looks; “she’ll learn
better; but I’m an old man--too old to manage a child’s property, that
will not come of age for eighteen years.”

“Toots!” said Mr. Smeaton; “you’re not sixty. What ails you to live till
the laddie’s of age? there’s plenty of your name have done it before
you.”

“My brother was but sixty-one,” said Mr. Charles.

“Ay, ay; but the circumstances are different, they cannot occur again.
On the whole, if I were in your place, I would stand by young Charlie’s
will.”

This was the subject of conversation with the elders of the party, as
the Spring afternoon came to an end; very different from their subdued
doubtfulness and care were the feelings of Matilda and her sister as
they went upstairs. Matilda, for her part, did not want to go upstairs
at all.

“I want to see the house,” she said. “It is my own house now, and I have
a right to see it. I don’t see why I should be shut up in a bedroom--the
mistress of the house!”

“Come along for to-day; we are to go down to dinner!” said Verna. “How
could you see the house when all the shutters are closed, and everything
shut up?”

“Let them open it, then!” said Matilda. “It has been shut up long
enough--a whole week. What would anyone think of that in India?” But
finally she allowed herself to be persuaded to go back to her room, as
Tommy wanted his tea. When she reached that sanctuary, she plucked the
cap from her head, and tossed it to the other end of the room. “That
shall never go on again!” she cried. “Now I am my own mistress, I don’t
see why I should make myself hideous for anybody. You need not look
shocked, Verna; you need not say a word. There are some things I won’t
do. I mean to be a good sister to you, and give you everything you want,
but I won’t have you sit upon me, and tell me what I am to do. You may
be the cleverest, but I’m Tommy’s mother, and I have the power to do
what I like--and I will, too!” she cried, letting down her bright locks,
which had been simply fastened behind to admit of the covering of the
cap. “Quick, Elvin, bring me all my pads and hairpins, and do up my hair
decently. I won’t go down to dinner a fright; you can put it on if you
like, since you are so fond of it,” she said, with a mocking laugh, as
her sister picked up the unfortunate cap. Verna was not so happy as her
sister; she had never been thus defied by Matilda before. Her brilliant
hopes of sovereignty were overcast. If this rebellion was to continue,
all her plans would be put out of joint. It was with a very rueful
countenance that she picked up the discarded headgear, and looked on at
the wonderful edifice of fair hair that was being built up over
Matilda’s low but white forehead. “I have not felt so comfortable since
we left Calcutta,” said that young woman, with a sigh of relief as she
looked at herself in the glass. “Crape is not unbecoming when it is
fresh; and, thank heaven, one can always have it fresh now.”

“You speak as if you were glad you were a widow; you never think of poor
Charlie!” cried Verna, in her discomfiture--glad to have some means of
inflicting a sting.

“Oh, you cruel, unkind thing! as if I did not miss him every hour,” said
Matilda, with the ready tribute of tears which sprang up at a moment’s
notice. “He never would have allowed you to bully me as you do; he never
asked me to do anything I didn’t like; never called me a fool, as you
do.”

“He must have thought it many a time,” said Verna spitefully.

“He did not; he was very fond of me--and I was fond of him, very fond of
him!” cried Matilda; “but do you think he would have liked me to be
tyrannized over, to make myself look hideous?--never. He would have
liked to see me at the head of the table--”

Verna had not very fine or fastidious taste; but she had sense enough to
perceive when anything was offensively out of harmony with the
courtesies of life. She cried:

“For heaven’s sake, Matty--for Charlie’s sake, not to-night!”

“We shall see about that,” said Matilda, complacently nodding her head;
“it is for Charlie’s sake, poor fellow; he married me without any money,
or great connections, or anything. And I want them to see I am not such
a dowdy, nor so plain, nor so insignificant as they think. For Charlie’s
sake, and to do him credit, poor fellow, I am determined to be mistress
in my own house.”

Verna was struck dumb; she was cast from her height of hope, and the
fall stunned her. It was of no use now to call her sister a fool, though
she was proving herself so in the most violent manner. Folly is not
always obedient and submissive; there are times when it takes the upper
hand, and then there is nothing so impossible as to move it one way or
another. Poor Verna, in her little pride of cleverness, was actually
cowed by the unexpected force of the heartless idiocy which she
despised. It was stronger than she in that grand primitive power of
unreason, which is strong enough to confuse the best intellect, and
break the stoutest heart in the world.




CHAPTER XXI.


The drawing-room was but dimly lighted when the party at Pitcomlie
assembled in it for dinner, and Matilda had been so little seen as yet,
that the absence of her widow’s cap made but little impression upon the
small silent company. She came in, feeling somewhat triumphant, with her
pretty hair rising in billows from the low white brow, which people had
told her was like that of a classic statue. There was very little that
was classic about poor Matilda, but she liked this praise. It sounded
lofty and elevated; nobody had ever called her clever--but this seemed
to approach or even to exceed the point of cleverness. After a momentary
pause, Mr. Charles offered her his arm. He was about to place her at his
own right hand at the foot of the table, as became a visitor. Matilda,
however, stood holding him fast until all the party had entered the
room. Then she said, looking round upon the company, “To save
inconvenience don’t you think I had better take my proper place at
once?” and marched the unfortunate old uncle up to the head of the
table. There she spread herself out complacent and delighted. “I always
think when there is a change to be made it had better be done at once,”
she said, beaming with a triumphant smile, with her jet ornaments
twinkling in the light, upon the astounded party.

They were so entirely taken by surprise that a moment’s confusion
occurred, no one knowing where to place him or herself. Mr. Charles,
helpless and amazed, was pinned to Matilda’s side. To her other hand,
Mr. Smeaton quietly looking on and enjoying the joke, led Verna, who was
crimson with painful blushes, and not daring to lift her eyes. Marjory
was the last to perceive the alteration that had been made. She was
about to pass on to her usual place, when Fanshawe quietly stopped her,
and placed her at the foot of the table. She looked up with an
astonished glance, and met the triumphant eyes of the new mistress from
its head. I am doubtful whether Marjory at the moment fully realized
what it was. She gave a surprised look round, and then a smile passed
over her face--could anyone suppose she cared for this? It hurt her a
great deal less than it did Verna, who was her natural antagonist; but
who thought it the most dreadful “solecism,” and wondered what people
would think. “They will think we are nobodies, and know nothing,” Verna
said to herself, and scarcely ventured to hold up her head. The company
in general, indeed, was taken by such surprise that there was no
conversation for a few minutes. Fleming’s face as he placed himself
behind Mrs. Charles’s chair was a study of consternation and dismay. He
carried the dishes to Marjory first, and pulled her sleeve and
whispered,

“You’ll no be heeding? the woman’s daft, Miss Marjory, you’re no
heeding?” with an anxiety which regained him his character in Fanshawe’s
eyes.

“It is quite right,” said Marjory in the same undertone. “She is the
mistress of the house, she was quite right. It is best she should take
her place at once.”

Fleming marched round the table, shaking his head. He groaned when he
served the new mistress. He called her Mistress Chairles till her
patience was exhausted.

“Please to call me Mrs. Heriot,” she said angrily.

“Oh aye, Mistress Chairles,” said Fleming, “will ye take some chicken or
some mutton?”

“If you do not call me by my right name I will send you away,” cried
Matilda. She was “daft,” as he said, or rather intoxicated with
satisfaction and triumph.

“You can do that, Mistress Chairles,” said the old man indifferently,
going on with his service. Deeper and deeper blushed poor Verna. Oh,
what solecisms! what ignorance of the world! She did not know whether
she should refrain from noticing, or whether she ought to excuse and
explain her sister’s conduct. The first was the most difficult,
especially as her companion, the lawyer, looked on with suppressed
amusement, and noted everything. Then Matilda began to entertain her
neighbours on her other side.

“Is that gentleman--I don’t know his name--at the foot of the table, a
relation?” she asked.

“No,” said Mr. Charles, who was just now coming to the surface after his
consternation, “his name is Fanshawe, he is a friend of poor Tom’s.”

“Then he is engaged to Marjory, I suppose?”

“No,” repeated Mr. Charles once more, still more blankly; and then he
looked down to the other end of the table, where certainly Mr. Fanshawe
was talking very eagerly to his niece, and added, “Not so far as I
know.”

“Ah, young ladies are sometimes sly in those sort of affairs,” said Mrs.
Charles. “I should think Marjory was one of the sly ones. Now I never
can hide what I feel; but I suppose Marjory is a great deal cleverer
than I.”

Mr. Charles made no reply. He glanced at her confounded, without a word
to say. Was this the little thing that had looked so gentle, and cried
so bitterly? He was at his wrong end of the table, everybody and
everything were out of their proper places. He was suddenly made into a
visitor, he who had been at home here all his life.

“Where do you live, Mr. Heriot?” said Mrs. Charles, “it is dreadful to
know so little about the family; but I always was an ignorant little
thing. It would be so kind if you would tell me about everybody.”

“Where do I live?” he said, “I have lived here most of my life--it is a
difficult question to answer; though of course I have my house in
George’s Square.”

“Where is that?” she asked; but waiting for no answer, added suddenly
with an innocent look of curiosity, “and will Marjory live with you?”

“Matty!” cried Verna in an agony; nothing but solecisms! she thought.

“Would you think Verna was much older than I?” said Matilda, turning to
the lawyer. “She thinks I ought to do everything she tells me; but when
once a woman has been married, nobody has a right to tell her what to do
except her husband. Don’t you think so? One always knows one’s own
affairs best.”

“It is common to say so,” said the lawyer; “but for my part, I think we
are all most clever in managing our neighbours’ affairs.”

This speech puzzled Matilda, who was silent for a moment. The party was
so small, and the others talked so little, that these brilliant remarks
were heard by everybody, except, perhaps, the questions about Fanshawe,
which she had had the grace to make in a somewhat lower tone. Even Verna
was so paralyzed by the whole proceeding, and by her sister’s
unparalleled audacity, that she had entirely lost her conversational
powers. She plucked up a little courage now, and made an effort to
regain the lead which she had lost.

“It is such a loss to go to India so young as we did,” she said; “we
make no acquaintance with our own country. Our ways are all Indian. We
are as bad as the Americans for asking questions. The reason is that we
are always meeting new people in India. We should not know anything
about them if we did not ask.”

This speech raised Verna very much in the lawyer’s opinion. It was
clever, he thought, and good-natured, shielding the fool of a sister.

“I am sure you will be able to be of great service to Mrs. Heriot,” he
said, in an undertone. “Your good sense will show what is best. It may
be a difficult business, and your brother-in-law’s will is not worth a
snuff if the family choose to oppose it. So she must not try their
patience, you see, for old Charles Heriot, though very pleasant in his
manner, is an old Turk when he’s opposed. There is no saying what he
might do,” said Mr. Smeaton, enjoying the slander which he was uttering
within hearing almost of the person assailed, “if his blood was up; and
if your sister was to show any--well, incivility is a hard word, but you
know what I mean--to Miss Marjory, Charles Heriot would take fire. You
must advise her, Miss Bassett; you must advise her. Hoolie and fairly,
as we say in Scotland, or as the Italians have it, _Chi va piano va
sano_.” These words Mr. Smeaton pronounced as if they were broad Scotch;
but Verna did not understand them, so it made little difference to her.
And he added, “Everything here is long established, and hard to root up.
You’ll have to make your changes with great discretion, and take time to
them. Everything will be made more difficult for you if auld Charles
Heriot should take fire at any little affront, and flare up.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you a thousand times for your advice!” cried
Verna. “It is exactly my own opinion, and what I have said to her over
and over. But I did not know Mr. Charles Heriot was so hot-tempered; he
looks mild enough.”

“The very deevil--if you’ll excuse the word,” said Mr. Smeaton, “when
his blood’s up.”

Perhaps Verna was the only one who was sorry when that dinner was over.
She was anxious for advice, and to be thus fortified seemed to her of
the greatest importance; and she received with religious faith those
valuable hints about Mr. Charles Heriot’s temper, among other things.
When the ladies left the table, she tried hard to persuade Matilda to go
to her room, under pretext of fatigue; but the young widow was obdurate.

“I want to see the house,” she said, making her way, sweeping and
rustling in her crape, to the drawing-room. Marjory followed, still with
very little feeling of what had happened. But even Marjory was conscious
of some painful feeling when she saw her sister-in-law laid luxuriously
upon the little sofa in the bow-window, which was her own particular
seat.

“Indeed, it is very comfortable,” said Matilda. “You know how to be
comfortable. This is your favourite place, is it not, Marjory? Poor
Charlie used to tell me of the bow-window, and how it was made for you.”

“Yes, I was fond of it,” said Marjory.

“Then I hope you will always feel you have a right to it when you come
to see me,” said Mrs. Charles. “We shall change some things, no doubt;
but you will always be welcome, Marjory. I suppose you are to be
married soon. You may think it would hurt my feelings to hear of a
wedding, being a widow myself; but I am not so selfish. I am sure I
congratulate you; he looks very nice indeed.”

“There is nothing to congratulate me about,” said Marjory.

It was hard upon her to hear the conversation between the sisters which
followed, about new curtains and chairs that were necessary. It was not
Verna’s fault, who gave piteous, conciliatory looks at the daughter of
the house. She bore it all as long as she could, and then she went
noiselessly outside upon the cliff. The Spring was very mild that year.
This was again a lovely night, with a faint blue sky all sprinkled with
stars, and the vague, half-seen sea beneath, which sent up long sighing
waves upon the rocks, not loud, but full of pensive moaning. There was a
young moon shining, a moon covered with fleecy white clouds like a veil.
Through the softened night rose the white rock of the May, with its
steady light; and the lighthouse further off which Marjory knew so well,
and which had so often turned and thrown a pleasant gleam at her across
the broad waters, gleamed out all at once as she strayed round the
well-known path. It was, perhaps, only Mrs. Charles’s gracious
intimation that she would always be welcome, which roused her to the
sense that the time was approaching when she must leave this dear old
home. It was not in Marjory’s nature to make a lesser grief into a great
one; and she had endured so much, that this additional trouble was not
heavy to her, as it would have been in other circumstances. But it gave
her a certain sore feeling of pain and loss in the midst of her heavier
burdens. It seemed hard to have such a subject thrust all at once,
without a moment’s notice, upon her. Her heart felt sore, as if a sudden
new thrust had been made at it; sore with a feeling of resentment and
impatient vexation. She strayed along the familiar round, the “turn”
which she had taken so often, hearing now and then the voices through
the half-open window; voices higher pitched and more shrill than any
native to this locality. Even that difference of tone seemed somehow
unreasonably offensive to her. She chid herself for the foolish feeling;
but how could she help it? The moon gleamed softly upon the old
Manor-house and on Mr. Charles’s tower; there was a glimmer of
half-dying firelight making his windows visible. Had Marjory known that
her successor, Verna, had already planned in her mind how to pull all
those ruins down!

She had not been thinking of Fanshawe, nor of any one, when he joined
her suddenly; her thoughts had been all vague, full of that soreness
which was almost a relief from the heavy stupor of her grief. She had
seemed to herself, not suffering actively, but stupid in sadness; sad,
sad down to the bottom of her heart; a state of mind not without a
certain repose in it, which this other sensation of being wounded and
injured shot across, now and then, like a thrill of life. But it seemed
very natural to her when Fanshawe came to her side, more natural even
than if it had been Uncle Charles. He held out his arm, and she took it
only half consciously, and with a kind of faint pleasure allowed him to
lead her to the edge of the cliff, where the sea-line was visible, with
the Isle of May rising well out of the waters, and the twinkling lights
along Comlie shore marking out the length of the little town. Her heart
was overwhelmed with this profound and gentle sadness; and yet there was
a pleasure in it, too.

“Miss Heriot,” said Fanshawe; “I want to have you a little while to
myself, to-night. This is no place for me any longer. I must go away.”

“It is no place for any of us,” said Marjory, instinctively adopting him
into the number of those who belonged to her. They were so few now.

But he took no advantage of this inference. He took it for granted,
simply as she did. Perhaps he pressed her hand a little closer to his
side; but if so, the action was involuntary.

“No,” he said, “it is no place for you. This piece of impertinence
to-night--”

“I never thought of it,” said Marjory; “it was nothing; that could not
make any difference; but we must go.”

“It is selfish of me to say anything,” he said; “but it is I who must go
first--not the same man who came here a month ago, Miss Heriot; just a
month--though it might be an hour, or it might be a year. It has
separated my life into two pieces. May I write to you after I have
managed to take myself away?”

“Surely,” she said, in her gentlest tone.

“And will you write to me? I have no right to ask it; but you
are--different, somehow. You know how little I am good for. I don’t
mean to make any professions to you now--to say you have made me better.
Perhaps I am past making better. I should like to try, first; but if you
would write now and then, just three words--”

“Certainly I will write,” she said, looking frankly in his face. “How
much you have been to us all this terrible time! Do you think I can ever
forget it? And it is not only that we owe you a day in harvest--as we
Scotch folk say--but people cannot feel with each other as we have done,
and then cease and forget each other. Certainly I will write; it will be
one of my pleasures.”

He held her hand tight in his arm; his heart was beating vaguely with
many half-formed impulses. But even if anything like love had been ripe
in him, it would have seemed profanation at that moment. He only held
her hand closer to his side where his heart was stirring so strangely,
and said--

“You make me almost happy--if it was possible to be happy in going away.
I suppose I shall never come back--absolutely back here, to Pitcomlie;
but we shall see each other? It is not a parting, this--only for the
moment? say you think so, to cheer me.”

“I hope so!” she said. She was franker, more open than he was; but she
was much less agitated. It was to her an easy thing to believe in this
future meeting, because she wished for it without any passionate desire.
But he longed for assurance, and doubted even while he affirmed; for it
seemed to him as if his whole future was dark and uncertain till that
moment should come.

“How good it is to hear you say so!” he said. “If you hope for it, it
will come to pass. I have not so much faith in my own prayers.”

“Alas! the things I have hoped for have not come to pass,” she said,
with a little outburst of sorrow. And then, when her brief fit of
weeping was over (he would have liked so to have taken her into his
arms, to have had her sob on his breast--but dared not), she looked up
to him again with a faint smile. “I have got so used to cry and show you
all my weakness,” she said; “how I shall miss you! It is luxury to have
some one by who will not be impatient of one’s tears.”

This, however, was getting too much for poor Fanshawe; his heart was
melting in his breast. It was all he could do to keep from some foolish
demonstration or other. He had put his other hand on hers where it lay
on his arm; he bent over her, stooping his head towards her--almost
carried away by the tide of emotion in him. He felt that to save
himself, and to save the sanctity of this last meeting, he must fly as
long as he was able.

“May I say good-bye to you here?” he said, trembling; “I must go
to-morrow. You will write to me about everything? about Milly, and Mr.
Charles--and the book--and about Isabell, if you find out anything more;
but chiefly, and above all, about yourself--you promise? Then good-bye,
and God bless you; you will say the same to me?”

“God bless you!” she said, moved by his emotion, looking at him with
tears still in her eyes; “God bless you, dear friend, and good-bye.”

He stood a moment irresolute, hanging over her; holding both her
hands--not knowing very well what he did. If there had been light enough
to show his face, they never could have parted so. But he knew he was
not seen, and felt as if he had concealed his feelings. At that last
moment he stooped suddenly, and kissed her hair just where it was
parted; and then dropped her hands and disappeared--she could not tell
where.




CHAPTER XXII.


The day after a great event is, in all kinds of circumstances, a
difficult one. The remains of great excitement, not yet quite spent,
make the air heavy, and produce innumerable little explosions like
half-exhausted fireworks. Common life is feeble, and fills with
lassitude people who have been living at high pressure; and the mixture
of weariness, oppression, and lingering excitement is hostile to every
attempt at settling down. This was the state of the atmosphere at
Pitcomlie after the long strain was over, after the shutters were
opened, the blinds drawn up, and ordinary existence had re-commenced.
And besides this inevitable and feverish dullness, there was all the
excitement of half completed events to intensify the painfulness of the
pause. The former inhabitants of the house did not know what step to
take first; the new possessors were equally doubtful. Neither liked to
make the first movement. They avoided each other, yet were compelled to
meet.

Mr. Charles spent the morning in his room, pondering over the situation
with many troublous thoughts. To tear himself away from this familiar
place was painful to him; but that was not all. To leave the home of his
fathers in the hands of these two young women, who were altogether
strangers to the race, was more painful still. The one, he said to
himself, was a selfish fool, utterly incapable of comprehending the
interests of the young heir, or of adapting herself to the life that was
best for him; the other Mr. Charles had not been able to fathom. He
thought her a sensible sort of girl, that might keep her sister out of
mischief. He had put all his beloved papers in order, feeling that his
work might be interrupted; but these very papers belonged to the house
of Pitcomlie; he could not take them away with him any more than he
could take the old walls. What was he to do? His work would come to an
end--the occupation of his life. He would have to go and seek a new home
at his age--find a new refuge for all those accumulations of art which
it was so pleasant for him to think he had added to the attractions of
the old house. He sat down, and sighed over them at one moment, feeling
the change impossible; and then he would rise, stimulated by some
recollection of last night, and push the engravings together into their
portfolios, and hunt for the covers of the cases in which his
curiosities were set forth. Where could he take them to? His own house
in George Square certainly was ready for their reception and his, but
the idea did not attract him. He was not fond of his own house. It had
no associations, no recollections except those of a dreary week now and
then which he had spent in it alone. Mr. Charles was a born old
bachelor, but he was as little used to being alone as any paterfamilias.
His brother’s children had been brought up at his feet, he had
possessed the delightful privilege of interfering with their education,
laying down laws for them, finding fault with them, interfering and
commenting, without any responsibility. No privilege could have been
more delightful to him than this; and when he had now and then returned
for a few days to his own house, he had been, as it were, a banished
man. To be sure if he went to his own house now, he could take the only
remaining children of the family with him, and make a home for himself
by their means; but this brought in the element of responsibility which
he feared, and of which up to this moment he had kept clear. No wonder
that Mr. Charles closed his portfolios hurriedly, and sat down in his
chair with a sigh. If only any means could be thought of, any device
fallen upon, for compromising the matter, and keeping things as they
were.

Marjory, strangely enough, was infinitely less sensitive. Though she had
no other home, and had never contemplated another--though it was
impossible to her to realize the fact that she was no longer mistress of
Pitcomlie, yet the possibility of change affected her much less
strongly. Her whole being seemed to be dulled and slower of perception.
She sent away the servants who came to her as usual for orders, and felt
no pain. She even arranged her books and her papers for going away,
without any sharp sense of the hardship of leaving her home. She had no
particular feeling of any kind. Life seemed to be running low in her,
and sometimes grief plucked at her heart; but for other emotions, she
did not seem to have any. The thing she felt most was, that she missed
something. What was it? Something she had been used to had slid from
her. There was a vague want which she could not, and perhaps did not,
wish to identify. Fanshawe had gone away that morning. She had been
moved by his leave-taking, almost more than she thought seemly in her
circumstances. She had a strong feeling of what was fit and natural, and
the curious vague excitement with which his last looks and words filled
her, seemed strangely out of place, and even wrong. She repressed the
feeling with a strong hand; but she did not suspect that the blank sense
of inability to feel anything which had crept over her could be
connected with that repression in any way. She was dull, dull to the
depths of her heart and to the tips of her fingers. Nothing seemed to
affect her. As for the little vexations of the household, the
transference of her powers, these moved her no more than pin-pricks. She
was quite ready to have gone away, and would not have felt it. When she
was called downstairs by an intimation that Miss Jean was seen coming up
to the great door to visit the family, she obeyed the call without any
particular sentiment. Matilda and her sister were both in the
drawing-room when Marjory went in, and Miss Jean, leaning upon her cane,
in her new “blacks,” to which she had added another fold of crape for
each new death, was standing in the middle of the room, looking at them.
Matilda had not budged from her sofa. She had nodded, and said, “How
d’ye do? Give the lady a chair, Fleming,” without further disturbing
herself; and it was these words that Aunt Jean was slowly repeating when
Marjory went in.

“Give the leddy a chair, Fleming!” she said; “that’s a kind and a
pleasant welcome for one that was born in the house, and knows
everything and every person in it. Perhaps, Fleming, as, no doubt,
you’re informed on the subject, you will let me know who this young lady
may be?”

“It’s Mrs. Chairles, mem,” said Fleming, solemn as a judge.

“Ah! poor thing; I understand,” said Miss Jean; “brought up in India!
that explains much. But, Mistress Chairles, if you’ll allow your
husband’s grand-aunt to say it, young women in this country get up off
their seats when they’re visited by any person worthy of respect. I am
twice your age, and I’m Thomas Heriot, your father-in-law’s, aunt.”

“Tell her how delicate I am; I am not allowed to talk much,” said Mrs.
Charles, addressing her sister. “And I am in great trouble,” she
continued in her own person; “and very much tried, and too unwell to do
anything. Pray take a seat. Marjory will be here directly. I suppose she
is the person you want?”

“I came to see an afflicted family,” said Miss Jean, solemnly. “Most
people think it necessary to say they’re sorry when there’s been death
in a family. Oh! you are here, Marjory! Mistress Chairles tells me it’s
you I want. I wanted the whole family--that was my intention; but if
you’re all as easy in your mind, and stand as little in need of comfort
as she does, I’ll have my coming for my going, and I might have stayed
at home.”

“I am very glad to see you, Aunt Jean,” said Marjory; and struck with
the unchangeable look of the old face, which altered not, whatever
altered, a sudden _accès_ of tears came to her. “It seems to be years
ago,” she said, faltering; “but you never change.”

“No, I never change,” said the old woman, with a tremble in her voice.
The words very nearly overset her composure, steady as she was in the
calm of her old age; for Aunt Jean, too, had human feelings--and a still
older generation, further off than the father of this house, who had
been so lately carried out of it, sprang out of all the shadows as
Marjory spoke, and came and stood about the old, old human creature who
had once been young.

“I’ll sit down,” she added, hastily. “I’m old and no strong, though I
never change. That was a hard word to say. I mind changes enough in
myself, more than you have ever known; from young to old, Marjory
Hay-Heriot; from a bonnie young thing, as bonnie as you are at your
best, to an old witch like what you see me. I hope that’s change enough;
but you think I should change away out of the world, and let younger
folk take my place and bide? Well, maybe so do I; but one way or
another, it’s not in our hands.”

“I did not mean anything unkind, Aunt Jean.”

“Well, you might have meant that, and no harm done,” said the old woman;
“and you may cry, it’s natural; but you need not forget your manners.
Introduce these young leddies that do not know me. The one on the sofa
is Mistress Chairles. Ay, I know that; but she does not know me.”

“Oh, yes; indeed I do, thanks,” said Matilda. “Excuse my getting up. I
knew whenever you came in, that you must be poor Charlie’s old aunt.”

“That shows how civil he must have been in his descriptions, and what it
is to be well-bred,” said Miss Jean.

“And this,” said Marjory, hastily interrupting her, to stop some farther
interchange of courtesies, “is Miss Bassett, Mrs. Charles’s sister.”

Verna came forward with a curtsey of deep deference.

“I hope you will forgive my sister,” she said; “she is very much
fatigued with her journey, and all she has had to bear since. It is not
very long, not three months, since her baby was born; and with all her
trials--”

Miss Jean looked somewhat contemptuously towards the sofa, and then she
said, abruptly,

“Where’s your Uncle Chairles? He’s a born haverel, but he’s a man, and,
therefore, trusted. Send for him, that I may hear his mind. I’ve not
come this long way for nothing, and I want to know what you are all
going to do.”

Marjory rang the bell. She did not even understand the look with which
Mrs. Charles from the sofa watched her. When she was about to give her
orders, however, Matilda interrupted her.

“You can give Mr. Heriot my compliments,” she said, addressing Fleming,
“and say that his aunt is here, and that I wish him to come, please. I
beg your pardon, Marjory; I prefer to give him all the orders myself. If
I don’t, he never will get used to me; and Charlie used to say I was
always too humble, letting everybody get the better of me. I should not
have said Mr. Heriot, though. Fancy, Verna! it is little Tommy that is
Mr. Heriot, and his old uncle is only Mr. Charles. What fun it is!”

Miss Jean looked on with keen eyes. If Marjory had shown any signs of
discomfiture, probably she would have enjoyed it; for she too, in her
antediluvian experience, she who had once been the Laird of Pitcomlie’s
daughter, and dethroned by a sister-in-law, could recall some scenes
very similar, which had driven her nearly frantic with rage. But Marjory
was still so dull and dead, that this incident scarcely affected her. A
slight smile came upon her face when Matilda stopped her, and she drew a
chair beside her visitor without making any remark. Miss Jean, however,
made a great many remarks. Her keen eyes travelled about the room, from
one corner to another, noticing everything in the new arrangements which
had already crept in; the displacing of a chair, the sofa drawn forward.
She was not very familiar with the Pitcomlie drawing-room, and yet she
recognised the changes with her keen eyes.

“That used to be your favourite place?” she said, pointing to the spot
where Mrs. Charles’s sofa had replaced Marjory’s chair.

“Yes, I liked the window,” said Marjory, making the best of it.

“And it was there you used to have your work?”

“Yes, Aunt Jean--but--”

“And that’s the bow-window Thomas Heriot was so foolish as to make, poor
shortsighted haverel of a man, for his bonnie May?”

“Oh, Aunty, yes! I have had the good of it so long--but if I had never
enjoyed it at all,” cried Marjory with tears, “I should be glad to think
he had done it--for me!”

“Ay, ay,” said the old woman, “that’s how the world goes. For his bonnie
May! I tell ye there were things once done like that for a bonnie
Jean--that has not been bonnie this many, many a day--and the strangers
get the good of them. That’s how the world goes.”

“What are they talking about?” said Matilda to Verna. “What an old witch
she looks! I know she means to be disagreeable. But don’t you think I
shall give in, not for all the Heriots in the world. I am not going to
be interfered with by sisters, or aunts, or any other kind of relations.
I mean to be mistress in my own house.”

“And of course you will do it your own silly way,” said Verna. “When you
have the whole house by the ears, don’t ask me to come in and help you,
that is all. I never saw anyone so hard-hearted, so silly, so cruel--”

“Oh, I like that,” said Matilda, with a fool’s invincible barbarity. “If
I were as cruel as you call me, how long would it be before I sent you
back?”

Mr. Charles came into the room at this moment, moody and absent, still
full of his own thoughts. His chimney-corner was covered with an old red
Indian shawl. Matilda had tried that too this morning, and found it a
comfortable seat, though rather too warm for the season. “In Winter it
will be charming,” she had said, and left her shawl, her air-cushion,
and her footstool, by way of showing her appropriation of the place.
Somehow that flag of the invader caught Mr. Charles’s eye even when he
drew his chair into the middle of the room, and greeted Aunt Jean with
the seriousness which was appropriate to a visit of condolence. “You see
us in sad circumstances, very sad circumstances,” he said.

“Some of you bear up wonderfully considering all things,” said Miss
Jean, “though perhaps not this girl here, who is a perfect shadow. A
funeral visit’s a dreary thing, Chairlie Heriot, and I did not come just
to condole. I had a good enough guess how things would be, having gone
through it myself; and I came to ask what were your plans, and what was
to be done with Marjory? I suppose she does not mean to stay here.”

“Say something, Matty,” whispered Verna, shaking her sister, “for your
own sake don’t be quite a wretch--say something! Ask her to stay.”

“We have come to no resolution,” said Mr. Charles blankly. He could not
look round to make an appeal to the new mistress of the house, but he
raised his voice in his weakness that she might hear him. “We have come
to no resolution. I’m very fond of my old tower, and so is Marjory of
her father’s house.”

“Say something, Matty, for heaven’s sake,” again said Verna behind
backs. “It is a large house--ask them to stay.”

“I am sure,” said Matilda after a pause, “I don’t wish anyone to hurry.
If Marjory will promise not to interfere with the servants, or the
things--or give orders, or ring the bell for Fleming when she
pleases--she may stay if she likes. Only I know dear Charlie would have
wished me to be mistress in my own house.”

Mr. Charles had sprung nervously to his feet. “Not another day!” he said
hastily; but then sat down again with that blank irresolute air. Where
was he to take her? and then the responsibility, and his old tower that
he loved!

“You’re a very considerate young woman,” said Miss Jean grimly, with a
fierce little chuckling laugh. “You’ll be much respectit in the county,
and much thought of by the Heriots’ auld friends. That I’ll assure you
of--indeed I’ll see to it myself.”

“Oh, thanks,” said Matilda, with a certain alarm, for it was evident
even to her obtuse understanding that more was meant than met the ear.

“I’ll see to that myself,” the old woman repeated with a chuckle. “And
in the meantime, Marjory, go you and get your things, and bring the
bairn, and come away home with me. Comlie High Street is no amiss for a
born and bred Heriot; everybody in Fife knows you, and what you are, and
how you come there, which is more than can be said for everybody. Come
away, my bonny woman; and as for you, Chairlie Heriot, you can do what
you please; stay on till they turn you out, or till you’ve gathered up
all your playthings, your pictures and your papers, and the whole
paraphernalia. But in the meantime I’ll no see my flesh and blood
putting up with the slights of a strange woman. Marjory and the bairn
shall come with me.”

Mr. Charles was wounded in his tenderest feelings, but still he saw a
certain consolation and relief in this suddenly propounded plan, which
would save him from so many difficulties.

“I would not say but it was the best thing that could be done,” he said,
slowly. “Anyhow, May, my dear, it would leave us time to think.”

“I had thought of it,” said Marjory. “I knew Aunt Jean would take us in.
It is the best refuge for us. I shall be glad to go away, and yet not to
go away. If you think we will not be a trouble to you--”

“Na, na; no trouble, no trouble. In a whilie,” said the old woman, with
moisture in her keen eyes, “it will all be yours, my old house and my
pickle siller. It’s a great thing to have natural heirs. You’re too
natural, Marjory, too natural. You’ve smiled the lads away from you with
scornings and civil speeches, as I did myself. You’ll be Miss Heriot,
like me. It’s suited me well enough, but yet I’m wae to see another
begin. For life’s long, and sometimes it’s weary and dreary. There’s
more trouble the other way, but even trouble is a divert, and keeps you
from that weary think-thinking, and all about yourself.”

“But you’ve no warrant, Aunt Jean--no warrant,” said Mr. Charles, with
great impatience, “for saying that Marjory will be an old maid, like
you.”

“An old maid!” said Miss Jean, hastily; “she’s an old maid already;
she’s five-and-twenty; that’s the age that makes an old maid--and not
five-and-seventy, which is my amiable time of life. But I’m no one to
give nicknames, or I would be sore tempted to say that you were an old
maid yourself, Charlie Heriot, with all your pernickety ways. You were
never a lad of mettle, even in your best days; but you’ll get no rest
for your long legs here, ye may take my word for it. In the meantime, ye
can give me your arm to the door, where I’ll wait for Marjory. Good
morning to ye, leddies; you’re very civil and polite to the family, and
I’ll not fail to make it known.”

“Oh, what an old witch!” said Matilda, as Miss Jean marched out with her
cane tapping more briskly than usual upon the floor. “I suppose she
wanted to come too, and live upon Tommy’s money, like all the rest; but
he has got a mother to take care of him, the precious darling!”

“Oh, Matty, for heaven’s sake--don’t be such a fool!”

“You’re frightened of the witch,” cried Matilda, with a laugh; “as if
she could do us either good or harm.”

“No good, you may be sure!” said Verna, walking to the window with
disturbed looks. Miss Jean’s old carriage stood at some little distance
from the door, and she herself walked up and down in front of the house
with her cane, leaning on Mr. Charles’s arm. Fleming stood on the steps,
taking his part in the conversation. “A bonnie-like mistress for the old
house!” she was saying, with scorn in her keen black eyes.

“Ye may say that, Miss Jean!” said old Fleming, shaking his head.

Verna did not understand what was the meaning of so strange an
expression. “Bonnie” sounded like admiration, and Matilda certainly was
pretty; but there was little admiration in the tone. Her watch was
interrupted by the entrance of Marjory to take leave. Milly was clinging
by her sister’s side as usual, holding out her little hand with a
certain defiance; and even Matilda faltered out a half-apology, and
raised herself from her sofa to say good-bye.

“I hope it isn’t for what I said about the servants, Marjory. Of course,
I didn’t mean to vex you; but you know yourself, unless a change is made
at once, it is never made; and dear Charlie was so set upon it that I
should be mistress of my own house.”

“You are quite right, and I am not vexed;” said Marjory, with a smile;
and it was thus hurriedly, without any more leave-taking, before the
weeping maids had time to gather from all the corners, to take leave of
her, that she left, as she thought for ever, her father’s house.




CHAPTER XXIII.


“Go away, go away, you taupies!” said Fleming; “go away to your wark;
what’s the use o’ a wheen women, girnin’ and greetin’ about the place?
It’s a’ I can to do to keep things gaun, saftly and steadily, for the
credit of the house, so long as my time lasts--without distraction from
you.”

“Whar’s Miss Marjory?” said the housemaid. “If you think it’s you we’re
wanting you’re far mistaken. Maister Fleming, it was ill done of you to
let her go away, and never to say a word. Eh, what changes in this house
since I came here! I’ve been here ten year come the term--”

“And me mair than that!” said Beenie, who was kitchenmaid under Mrs.
Simpson, and nearly as good a cook as her superior. “I mind her when she
was a bit lassie, and me no much mair myself. If any have reason to be
down-hearted about the family it’s me, that am the longest here, except
Mr. Fleming. Eh! but I’m wae no’ to have seen the last of her--as I’ve
seen the last o’ a’ the rest.”

“For guidsake, woman, dinna speak as if Miss Marjory was dead like the
rest!” cried another. They all stood round the door, gazing out after
the rumbling old carriage as it jolted along the drive. Mr. Charles had
turned from the door, and was visible in the distance, making towards
the side entrance into his beloved refuge. Marjory’s maid set up a
dismal cry at the sight of the departing vehicle. “Oh, my young leddy!
my bonny young leddy!” she cried. “I’m no so auld as some of you, but
that’s no my fault; and I’ve seen mair of Miss Marjory than the whole of
you put together. Eh! will I never see her mair? will she never come
back to this dreary house? We may get as good places, but there will
never be the like of her in Pitcomlie again.”

“Haud you your tongue, my woman!” said Fleming, patting her on the
shoulder. “If Miss Marjory had thought as much of you as you do of her,
she would have taken you with her. She’s no that ill left but what she
can keep her maid like any other leddy. Haud a’ your tongues--”

“What’s a’ this, Sirrs?” said Mrs. Simpson, suddenly appearing on the
field. “Miss Marjory? If Miss Marjory was gane twenty times o’er, is
that a reason for neglecting the wark? Wark maun be done, whoever goes
or stays. Death itself makes little difference. Mr. Fleming, it’s no
what I expected of you, to encourage those taupies in their idleness. Go
away to your wark, go away every one of you. I’ll speak to Miss
Marjory--Lord bless us! I’ll never mind that Miss Marjory’s nae longer
the mistress here. Now thae woman are gane, I’m free to say that it
makes a great difference to the place, Mr. Fleming. I’ve nothing to say
against English leddies; there are ower many of them in the country-side
for the like of us to find fault; but Mistress Chairles is no to my
taste--she’s no to my taste. I’ve learnt what it was to have leddies
over me that were grand at understanding, and I canna put up with a
whippersnapper like that.”

Fleming nodded his head in assent; he nodded so often that one of the
young maid-servants, lurking at a distance, had nearly betrayed herself
by laughter; but there was no merriment in his mind. “You’re in the
right of it there!” was all he said.

“It may be rather early to make up your mind what to do,” said Mrs.
Simpson; “and especially me as I have a kind of dependence upon Mr.
Chairles, that was the one, ye maybe ken that brought me here--”

“I’m leaving at the term,” said Fleming shortly.

“At the term?”

“Just that! I have sixpence here and sixpence there, laid out to
advantage. A man canna hear so much gude solid conversation as I’ve
heard at Pitcomlie table, without having his wits shairpened. I’m no
wanting to set up myself as mair clever than ordinary; but it’s weel
invested, weel invested. It would be a sin against my many mercies if I
did not acknowledge as much.”

“No doubt, no doubt!” said Mrs. Simpson, dazzled by this intimation, and
respectfully interested, as most people are in confidences respecting
money; “you’re so weel kent for a sensible man, that I can easy believe
that.”

“Yes, it’s weel invested,” said Fleming. “I’m no one to brag, but I’ve
had opportunities mair than most men can boast of, and I hope I’ve
profited. A nice quiet business now, either in the public line, or a
general merchant’s, might be very suitable to a man like me--that has
studied mankind a wee, and knows the world; but there’s mair than a man
wanted for setting up--there’s the wife.”

“Oh, ay, nae doubt ye’ll be thinking of a wife!” said Mrs. Simpson,
veiling under a smile of rustic raillery the palpitation of her matronly
bosom at this address. There is something in the aspect of a man who has
intentions, which betrays itself at once to the accustomed eye. Mrs.
Simpson recognized it by instinct, and she made violent efforts to
regain the utter unconsciousness which is the wisest attitude to be
maintained in such a case by every woman who respects herself. “You’ll
no be long a wanter when you have sic a story to tell,” she said; “and
nae doot ye have some bonnie lass in your eye.”

“Weel!” said Fleming, with that indescribable air of subdued yet
triumphant vanity which no woman ever mistakes, “maybe no just a lass;
nor maybe what you would call bonnie to them that looks but skin-deep;
but a real, honest, decent woman that knows the world--and that’s
better. I’m no just to call young nor bonnie mysel’; and if I maun speak
the truth, as is aye best, it’s just you, my woman--nobody but you.”

“Me! the man’s gane gyte!” said Mrs. Simpson, with admirable surprise.
She took him in from head to foot with one glance of her eye, and put
him into a mental balance, and weighed him in the course of one moment.
He was not young--nor yet bonnie; certainly not bonnie she allowed to
herself; but yet there was something to be said on his side of the
question.

“Na, no me,” said the old butler. “I’m but showing my sense. There’s
many a braw lad of my years, with guid prospects, excellent prospects,
and nae incumbrances, that would please his e’e with some bit gilflirt
o’ twenty, raither than satisfy his mind as I’m doing. Therefore, Betty
Simpson, my woman, if you’ve naething to say against it, there’s my
hand, I’ll ne’er beguile ye. As for the bairns, as there’s but two, and
them grown up, I’ll look over the bairns.”

“Lord bless the man, his head’s clean turned,” cried Mrs. Simpson. “Look
over the bairns! They’re nae sin that I should be excused for them. Na,
na. Naebody that’s no proud to have them--a callant that’s a credit to
a’ belonging to him, and as trig a lass of sixteen as ever steppit, and
extraordinary clever with her hands for her age--”

“I tell you I’ll look over them,” said Fleming. “I’ve nae incumbrances
mysel’; but since they’re there, and canna be made away wi’, I’ll put up
with them, my woman. Ye may take me or ye may leave me. I’m no forcing
ye one way or the other; but here I am, no an ill man, though I say it
that shouldna, and you’ll be a great fuil if ye dinna close the bargain.
That’s a’ I’ve got to say.”

“Ye’re but an auld haverel yourself to talk any such nonsense,” said the
housekeeper, beginning to melt. “But if I could be sure ye meant a’ ye
say----”

“A’, and mair, my deary,” said Fleming, advancing with antiquated
gallantry. “But it’s no the time nor the season,” he continued, making a
pause. “I’ll gi’e ye what proof ye like at a mair convenient moment. A’,
and mair.”

“If ye werena such an auld whillie-wha--” said the housekeeper; but she
finally withdrew, with a promise to turn it over in her mind. Fleming
was not tortured by any serious anxiety. He nodded his head when he was
left by himself with a satisfied smile. “That’s done!” he said to
himself decisively, and prepared to carry in the tray for the afternoon
tea, with sentiments of genial placidity and benevolence. These amiable
feelings, however, were doomed to be soon ruffled.

“Bring it here,” said Matilda, impetuously; “do you think I am going to
get up off my chair to go to the other end of the room? Wheel that table
up to the sofa and place it here.”

“The table will have to go back again, I’m thinking, Mistress Chairles,
when you’re done,” said Fleming. “It’s one that belongs to auld Mr.
Charles Heriot, no to the house.”

“Hold your tongue, Sir; I was not consulting you,” cried Matilda. “I
never heard a servant venture to talk so. You will please to recollect,
that sort of thing might do with Miss Heriot, but it will not do with
me. She might put up with it, but I shan’t. If you cannot be quiet and
respectful, you had better make up your mind to go at once.”

“I’ll do that, Mistress Chairles,” said Fleming. “You and me will never
’gree, I see weel. I’ve settled to leave at the term; but if it’s mair
agreeable to you to gie me board wages and so forth----”

“What do you mean by the term, as you call it?” said Matilda, beginning
to quake.

“It’s an awful pity when leddies do not understand the language o’ the
country they’re living in,” said Fleming, drily. “The term is
Whitsunday, Mistress Chairles, if you ken that. If no, I’ll bring ye the
date when I’ve lookit it up in the Almanack.”

“Leave the room, Sir, and go as soon as possible,” cried Matilda, in
wrath. It cannot be denied that the old butler of Pitcomlie was trying
as a servant to unaccustomed nerves and tempers. He drew the table she
had indicated, which was a heavy one, inlaid with marble, one of Mr.
Charles’s curiosities, with much trouble to the side of the sofa, and
arranged the tray very deliberately upon it. Then he walked slowly to
the fire and made it up, and for five minutes kept pottering about the
room, putting invisible trifles in order, and wearing Matilda’s temper
to a fierce and fine edge. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, go away!” she cried,
“and leave the house, you horrid impertinent---- Miss Marjory might put
up with you, but I shan’t. Send Mr. Charles Heriot to me directly. Go
and call him directly, do you hear, Sir? Will you go, or must I go
myself?” cried the impatient young woman, jumping up from her sofa.
“Ring the bell, Verna, ring the bell instantly! send for the old
gentleman. I suppose there are other servants in the house?”

“Oh, ay, Mrs. Chairles, plenty of servants,” said Fleming, making his
exit in a leisurely way, while the bell pealed through the house,
rousing all the maids.

“She’s fainted or something,” cried Mrs. Simpson. “She’s just the kind
o’ person to faint. Run you, Jenny, and get the English maid; and some
of ye flee with cauld water--and I’ll burn some feathers and come after
ye myself.”

“What’s the matter--what’s the matter?” said Mr. Charles, stumbling
through the women, who had crowded towards the drawing-room door, in the
pleasureable excitement of such an occurrence.

“It’s Mrs. Chairles that’s fainted. It’s the young leddy,” they all
murmured in tones of interest. Matilda, however, herself met him,
furious, on the threshold.

“Am I to have nothing but impudence?” she cried, “and people laughing at
me, and--and paying no attention to whatever I say? Is this my house or
is it not? I will not put up with it. I will pack them all out of the
house one after another. I will give them no characters; I will---- Oh,
you are all a set of barbarians!” cried Matilda, bursting into tears.
“Oh, if poor dear Charlie had been here, he would never, never have
allowed me to be used like this. And you--do you call yourself a
gentleman, and let them all insult me? Or perhaps you told them to do
it, because it is me, and not your niece that you are so fond of. Oh,
Verna, come and help me! Oh, isn’t there anybody? No man that is a
gentleman would stand and gape, and see me treated so!”

Mr. Charles did gape, there is no doubt. He was filled with the
profoundest consternation. In all his experience, such a thing had never
happened before. He did not understand the kind of creature thus
sobbing, raging, insulting everybody around her. He made a gulp to
swallow down his amazement, and waved his hand to the assembled
servants.

“Go away, go away,” he said. “Whisht--never mind--go away like good
creatures, like kind creatures. You see it’s a mistake, and you’re not
wanted. Mrs. Simpson, my good woman, there’s no need for your feathers
and your salts. Take them all away. There’s nothing wanted--nothing
wanted,” Mr. Charles repeated, closing the door upon the assistants.

It was rather terrible to confront the heroine of the scene himself; but
he had all a Scotchman’s terror of “exposure,” and shame of excitement,
and loud voices. At this moment, too, when the family was in such
trouble! Mr. Charles looked pale and limp as he closed the door behind
him, and faced, trembling, the clamouring newcomer, who made such claims
upon him. He kept his eye upon her, as he might have done upon some
unknown wild animal. And he cast a pitiful glance at Verna, who sat dumb
in his own particular corner--a fact which he did not omit to
note--working, as Mr. Charles described it afterwards, “at some
ridiculous woman’s work or other, and paying no more attention than if
it was not her concern.”

“Whisht, whisht!” said Mr. Charles; “don’t cry! It cannot be so bad as
you think. If anybody has done anything to disturb you, of course we’ll
put it all right--we’ll put it all right; don’t cry. Tell me what’s
happened, and no doubt we’ll be able to put it all right.”

“Oh! how can you ask me what’s happened--everything’s happened!” cried
Matilda. “There is not a servant in the house that does not insult us.
They say disagreeable things to Elvin; they hate the poor Ayah, though I
don’t mind that so much, for I want an opportunity to send her away. I
am sure they pinch poor Tommy when they have a chance, for the child’s
arms are black and blue. And as for me!” cried Matilda, rising into
renewed excitement; “it’s all because they think we’re interlopers, and
because the other Heriots, the old family, have gone and twisted their
minds. They think no more of me than if I was the dust below the feet of
that Marjory. Marjory, indeed! an old maid, as that old witch said, that
never had any right to be mistress--that was never anything but the old
gentleman’s daughter--”

“Hem--ahem!” Mr. Charles made a great sound of coughing; it was the only
thing he could do to drown all this, and to keep himself from getting
angry. (“I was very near getting into a passion,” he said afterwards; “I
was very near speaking sharp, as I would have been sorry to have
spoken.”) To prevent this, he coughed so much that Matilda’s voice was
drowned, and his own angry feelings cooled down.

“You will excuse my cough. I have got cold, it appears,” he said,
pleased with his own skill in having devised this expedient; and then,
when a momentary pause had been obtained, he added, “We’ll not discuss
Marjory, if you please. The servants here have been good kind of
creatures; faithful and honest, so far as I’ve seen. You must excuse
them if they feel the change. Some of them have been long here, and are
used to--to the old family, as you say. But if there’s been any real
insult, any disrespect, no doubt you have a right to my services; I
cannot think, however, that any one in this house has been guilty of
that. Miss Bassett--”

“Oh, don’t ask anything of me,” said Verna, turning her back. “She
chooses to manage her own affairs herself. I don’t mean to interfere.”

“Oh! you wicked, cruel girl!” cried Matilda, throwing herself, sobbing,
on the sofa. “Oh! why was I spared from the voyage, or from my
confinement--the one coming so close on the other? Why was I made to
live after my poor Charlie--my Charlie, that never would let any one
worry me? If he were here, none of you would dare--you would all be
trying which could be kindest--you would, every one! Oh! what shall I
ever do in this hard-hearted place? Why didn’t you take me and leave me
with Charlie, and be done with it, rather than kill me an inch at a
time, as you are doing now?”

Mr. Charles walked about the room in confusion and dismay, and heard a
great deal more of this, before he could get free to inquire into the
real causes of the fray. When he escaped at last, the confusion of his
mind was such that he stepped into the middle of Fleming’s tray full of
glasses for dinner, and broke several before he could pull himself up.
When the further perturbation and excitement consequent upon this crash
had been dispelled, and the pieces of broken glass carefully picked up
and disposed of, Mr. Charles, still tremulous, swallowed a glass of
sherry, and opened his mind to the old retainer of the house.

“Fleming,” he said, “we’ve had a great and blessed dispensation in our
ladies, in this house. They’ve been free of the follies of their kind in
a way that’s quite extraordinary to think of. But we must not expect
that we’re always to be so fortunate, or that Providence has just
singled us out, you know, for special favour. We must try and put up
with what’s sent, and do our duty to the best of our ability--”

“‘Deed, Mr. Chairles,” said Fleming, “I have nae doubt it’s real
important to you to be able to take that comfort to yoursel’, being one
of the family, and in a manner bound to do your best; but as for me, I’m
but a servant. I’ve served my forty year, which is long enough to gi’e
me the best of characters in ony place; and I’ve saved a pickle siller,
and invested it--by your advice, Sir, and that of ithers--in a very
advantageous manner; and if I’m ever to mairry a wife, and hae a
fireside of my ain, I have nae time to lose. I’m no saying but what
you’ll make a great hand o’t, and carry the leddies through and break
them in; but for me at my age to stand yon bit creature’s temper and her
ignorance, and haud my tongue and clip my words to please her--by
George! it’s what I’ll no do! And when I’m driven to sweer, Mr.
Chairles--”

“And, by George! I’ll not do it either!” said Mr. Charles, smiting his
lean thigh. He was so roused up and stimulated by this valiant
resolution, that he took another glass of sherry on the spot, a thing he
had not been known to do for years. “I wish ye joy of the wife, &c.,” he
said. “I’ll not follow your example in that; but why I should make
myself miserable and ridiculous, for an idiot of a strange woman, at my
time of life! By George! I’ll not do it, any more than you!”


                            END OF VOL. I.

                   *       *       *       *       *

                   PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.

                   *       *       *       *       *

                            February 1887.

                          Tauchnitz Edition.


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