A Noble Life Part 15

Chapter 10

The earl reached Edinburg in the beginning of winter, and in those days an Edinburg winter was a very gay season. That brilliant society, which has now become a matter of tradition, was then in its zenith. Those renowned support-parties, where great wits, learned philosophers, and clever and beautiful women met together, a most enjoyable company, were going on almost every night, and drawing into their various small circles every thing that was most attractive in the larger circle outside.

Lord Cairnforth was a long time before he suffered himself to be drawn in likewise; but the business which detained him in Edinburg grew more and more tedious; he found difficulties arise on every hand, and yet he was determined not to leave until he had done all he wanted to do. Not only in money, but by personal influence, which, now that he tried to use it, he found was considerable, he furthered, in many ways, the interests of Mr. Menteith's sons. The widow, too, a gentle, helpless woman, soon discovered where to come to, on all occasions, for counsel and aid. Never had the earl led such a busy life--one more active, as far as his capabilities allowed.

Still, now and then time hung on his hands, and he felt a great lack of companionship, until, by degrees, his name and a good deal of his history got noised abroad, and he was perfectly inundated with acquaintances. Of course, he had it at his own option how much or how little he went out into the world. Every advantage that rank or fortune could give was his already; but he had another possession still--his own as much here as in the solitudes of Cairnforth, the art of making himself "weel likit." The mob of "good society," which is not better than any other mob, will run after money, position, talent, beauty, for a time; but it requires a quality higher and deeper than these, and distinct from them all, to produce lasting popularity.

This the earl had. In spite of his infirmities, he possessed the rare power of winning love, of making people love him for his own sake. At first, of course, his society was sought from mere curiosity, or even through meaner motives; but gradually, like the good clergyman with whom

"Fools who came to scoff remained to pray,"

Those who visited him to stare at, or pity a fellow-creature so afflicted, remained, attached by his gentleness, his patience, his wonderful unselfishness. And some few, of n.o.ble mind, saw in him the grandest and most religious spectacle that men can look upon--a human soul which has not suffered itself to be conquered by adversity.

Very soon the earl gathered round him, besides acquaintances, a knot of real friends, affectionate and true, who, in the charm of his cultivated mind, and the simplicity of his good heart, found ample amends for every thing that nature had denied him, the loss of which he bore so cheerfully and uncomplainingly.

By-and-by, induced by these, the excellent people whom, as by mesmeric attraction, goodness soon draws to itself, he began to go out a little into society. It could be done, with some personal difficulty and pain, and some slight trouble to his friends, which last was for a long time his chief objection; for a merciful familiarity with his own affliction had been brought about by time, and by the fact that he had never known any other sort of existence, and only, as a blind person guesses at colors, could speculate upon how it must feel to move about freely, to walk and run. He had also lost much of his early shyness, and ceased to feel any actual dread of being looked at. His chief difficulty was the practical one of locomotion, and this for him was solved much easier than if he had been a man of limited means. By some expenditure of money, and by a good deal of ingenious contrivance, he managed to be taken about as easily in Edinburg as at Cairnforth; was present at church and law-court, theatre and concert-room, and at many a pleasant reunion of pleasant people every where.

For in his heart Lord Cairnforth rather liked society. To him, whose external resources were so limited, who could in truth do nothing for his own amus.e.m.e.nt but read, social enjoyments were very valuable. He took pleasure in watching the encounter of keen wits, the talk of clever conversationalists. His own talent in that line was not small, though he seldom used it in large circles; but with two or three only about him, the treasures of his well-stored mind came out often very brilliantly. Then he was so alive to all that was pa.s.sing in the world outside, and took as keen an interest in politics, social ethics, and schemes of philanthropy as if he himself had been like other men, instead of being condemned (or exalted--which shall we say? Dis aliter visum!) to a destiny of such solemn and awful isolation.

Yet he never put forward his affliction so as to make it painful to those around him. Many, in the generation now nearly pa.s.sed away, long and tenderly remembered the little figure, placed motionless in the centre of a brilliant circle--all clever men and charming women-- yet of whose notice the cleverest and most charming were always proud.

Not because he was an earl--n.o.bility was plentiful enough at Edinburg then--but because he was himself. It was a pleasure just to sit beside him, and to meet his pleasantness with cheerful chat, gay banter, or affectionate earnestness.

For every body loved him. Women, of course, did; they could not help it; but men were drawn to him likewise, with the sort of reverential tenderness that they would feel toward a suffering child or woman-- and something more--intense respect. His high sense of honor, his true manliness, attracted the best of all the notabilities then const.i.tuting that brilliant set; and there was not one of them worth having for a friend at all who was not, in greater or less degree, the friend of the Earl of Cairnforth.

But there was another side of his Edinburg life which did not appear till long after he had quitted Modern Athens forever--nor even then fully; not until he had pa.s.sed quite away from the comments of this mortal world. Then, many a struggling author, or worn-out professional man, to whom life was all up-hill, or to whom sudden misfortune had made the handful of "siller" (i.e. "silver") a matter of absolute salvation to both body and soul--scores of such as these afterward recalled hours or half hours spent in the cozy study in Charlotte Square, beside the little figure in its chair--outwardly capable of so little, yet endowed with both the power and will to do so much. Doing it so generously, too, and withal so delicately, that the most sensitive went away with their pride unwounded, and the most hardened and irreligious were softened by it into thankfulness to One higher than their earthly benefactor, who was only the medium through whom the blessings came.

These were accidental offices, intermingled with the princ.i.p.al duty which the earl had undertaken, and which he carried out with unremitting diligence--the care of his old friend's children. He placed some at school, and others at college; those who were already afloat in the world he aided with money and influence--an earl's name was so very influential, as, with an amused smile, he occasionally discovered.

But, busy as his new life was, he never forgot his old life and his old friends. He turned a deaf ear to all persuasions to take up his permanent abode, according as his rank and fortune warranted, in Edinburg. He was not unhappy there--he had plenty to do and to enjoy; but his heart was in quiet Cairnforth. Several times, troublesome, and even painful as the act of penmanship was to him, he sent a few lines to the Manse. But it happened to be a very severe winter, which made postal communication difficult. Besides, in those days people neither wrote nor expected letters very often. During the three months that Lord Cairnforth remained in Edinburg he only received two epistles from Mr. Cardross, and those were in prolix and Johnsonian style, on literary topics, and concerning the great and learned, with whom the poor learned country minister had all his life longed to mix, and had never been able.

Helen, who had scarcely penned a dozen letters in her life, wrote to him once only, in reply to one of his, telling him she was doing every thing as she thought he would best like; that Captain Bruce had a.s.sisted her and her father in many ways, so far as his health allowed, but he was very delicate still, and talked of going abroad, to the south of France probably, as soon as possible. The captain himself never wrote one single line.

At first the earl was a little surprised at this: however, it was not his habit easily to take offense at his friends. He was quite without that morbid self-esteem which is always imagining affronts or injuries.

If people liked him, he was glad; if they showed it, he believed them, and rested in their affection with the simple faith of a child. But if they seemed to neglect him, he still was ready to conclude the slight was accidental, and he rarely grieved over it. Mere acquaintances had not the power to touch his heart. And this gentle heart which, liking many, loved but few, none whom he loved ever could really offend. He

"Grappled them to his soul with hooks of steel,"

And believed in them to the last extremity of faith that was possible.

So, whether Captain Bruce came under the latter category or the former, his conduct was pa.s.sed over, waiting for future explanation when Lord Cairnforth returned home, as now, every day, he was wearying to do.

"But I will be back again in pleasant Edinburg next winter," said he to one of his new friends, who had helped to make his stay pleasant, and was sorely regretting his departure. "And I shall bring with me some very old friends of mine, who will enjoy it as much as I shall myself."

And he planned, and even made preliminary arrangements for a house to be taken, and an establishment formed, where the minister, Helen, and, indeed, all the Cardross family, if they chose, might find a hospitable home for the ensuing winter season.

"And how they will like it!" said he, in talking it over with Malcolm one day. "How the minister will bury himself in old libraries, and Miss Cardross will admire the grand shops and the beautiful views. And how the boys will go skating on Dunsappi Loch, and golfing over Bruntsfield Links. Oh, we'll make them all so happy!" added he, with pleasure shining in those contented eyes, which drew half their light from the joy that they saw, and caused to shine in the eyes around him.

It was after many days of fatiguing travel that Lord Cairnforth reached the ferry opposite Cairnforth.

There the Castle stood, just as he had left it, its white front gleaming against the black woods, then yellow and brown with autumn, but now only black, or with a faint amber shadow running through them, preparatory to the green of spring. Between lay the beautiful loch, looking ten times more beautiful than ever to eyes which had not seen it for many long months. How it danced and dimpled, as it had done before the squall in which the earl's father was drowned, and as it would do many a time again, after the fashion of these lovely, deceitful lochs, and of many other things in this world.

"Oh, Malcolm, it's good to be at home!" said the earl, as he gazed fondly at his white castle walls, at the ivy-covered kirk, and the gable end of the Manse. He had been happy in Edinburg, but it was far sweeter to come to the dear old friends that loved him. He seemed as if he had never before felt how dear they were, and how indispensable to his happiness.

"You are quite sure, Malcolm, that n.o.body knows we are coming? I wished to go down at once to the Manse, and surprise them all."

'Ye'll easy do that, my lord, for there's naebody in sight but Sandy the ferryman, wha little kens it's the earl himsel he's kepit waiting sae lang."

"And how's a' wi' ye, Sandy?" said Lord Cairnforth, cheerily, when the old man was rowing him across. "All well at home--at the Castle, the Manse, and the clachan"?

"Ou ay, my lord. Except maybe the minister. He's no weel. He's missing Miss Helen sair."

"Missing Miss Helen!" echoed the earl, turning pale.

"Ay, my lord. She gaed awa--it's just twa days sin syne. She was sair vexed to leave Cairnforth and the minister."

"Leave her father?"

"A man maun leave father and mither, and cleave unto his wife--the scripture says it. And a woman maun just do the like for her man, ye ken. Miss Helen's awa to France, or some sic place, wi' her husband, Captain Bruce."

The earl was sitting in the stern of the ferry-boat alone, no one being near him but Sandy, and Malcolm, who had taken the second oar. To old Sandy's communication he replied not a word--asked not a single question more--and was lifted out at the end of the five-minutes'

pa.s.sage just as usual. But the two men, though they also said nothing, remembered the expression of his face to their dying day.

"Take me home, Malcolm; I will go to the Manse another time. Carry me in your arms--the quickest way."

Malcolm lifted his master, and carried him, just as in the days when the earl was a child, through the pleasant woods of Cairnforth, up to the Castle door.

n.o.body had expected them, and there was nothing ready.

"It's no matter--no matter," feebly said the earl, and allowed himself to be placed in an arm-chair by the fire in the housekeeper's room. There he sat pa.s.sive.

"Will I bring the minister?" whispered Malcolm, respectfully. "Maybe ye wad like to see him, my lord."

"No, no."

"His lordship's no weel please," said the housekeeper to Mrs. Campbell, when the earl leant his head back, and seemed to be sleeping. "Is it about the captain's marriage: Did he no ken?"

"Ne'er a word o't"

"That was great lack o'respect on the part o' Captain Bruce, and he sic a pleasant young man; and Helen, too. Miss Helen tauld me her ain sel that the earl was greatly set upon her marriage, for the captain gaed to Edinburg just to tell him o't. And he wrote her word that his lordship wished him no to bide a single day, but to marry Miss Helen and tak her awa'. She'd never hae done it, in my opinion, but for that. For the captain was at her ilka day an a' day lang, looking like a ghaist, and telling' her he couldna live without her--she's a tender heart, Miss Helen--and she was sae awfu' vexed for him, ye ken. For, sure, Malcolm, the captain did seem almost like deein'."

"Deein'!" cried Malcolm, contemptuously, and then stopped. For while they were talking the earl's eyes had open wide, and fixed with a strange, sad, terrified look upon vacancy.

He remembered it all now--the last night he had spent at Cairnforth with his cousin--the conversation which pa.s.sed between them--the questions asked, which, from his not answering, might have enabled the captain to guess at the probable disposal of his property. He could come to no other conclusion than that Captain Bruce had married Helen with the same motive which must have induced his appearance at the castle, and his eager and successful efforts to ingratiate himself there --namely, money; that the fortune which he had himself missed might accrue to him through his union with Lord Cairnforth's heiress.

How had he possibly accomplished this? How had he succeeded in making good, innocent, simple Helen love him? For that she would never have married without love the earl well knew. By what persuasions, entreaties, or lies--the housekeeper's story involved some evident lies--he had attained his end, remained, and must ever remain, among the mysteries of the many mysterious marriages which take place every day.