Girlhood and Womanhood Part 12

But he was too far gone for ceremony; he was too near release for pain.

He had even shaken hands with the few family cares he was capable of experiencing, and had commended Dulcie to Sam Winnington without a single doubt. He felt, like Gainsborough, that they were all going to heaven, and Vand.y.k.e was in the company. Where was the room for misunderstanding now! Here was the end of strife, and the conclusion of the whole matter. Some other sentences Will spoke before his parting breath; and when his hearers heard him murmuring the word "garment,"

they fancied he still raved of his calling--on to the end. But his mind had turned and taken refuge in another calling, and it was in reference to it that he quoted the fragment of a verse, "And besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment; and as many as touched him were made whole." "Sam, have you put forth your hand?"

Thus Will Locke departed rejoicing. Dulcie, a thin forlorn widow woman, talked with a lingering echo of his elevation, of her Will's being beyond lamentation, and of herself and her boy's being well off with their faith in the future. Dulcie had a proud, constant presentiment in the recesses of her woman's heart that the husband and father's good name and merited reputation would surely find his memory out in this world yet. She had no material possessions save a few of his gorgeous, gruesome, hieroglyphical pictures, and what she had borrowed or inherited of his lower cunning in tinting, a more marketable commodity in the present mind of society.

Dulcie disposed of Will's paintings, reluctantly, realizing an astonishing amount; astonishing, unless you take into account the fact that his companions and contemporaries were not sure that he was a mere madman now that he had gone from their ranks. They wished to atone for their dislike to his vagaries by preserving some relics of the curious handling, the grotesque imagination, the delicate taste, and the finely accurate knowledge of vegetable and animal forms which had pa.s.sed away.

Then Dulcie went back in the waggon to her old friends at Fairfax, and, by so doing, probably saved her sole remaining child. Dulcie did not know whether to be glad or sorry when she found that Will's boy had no more of his father's genius than might have been derived from her own quick talents, and neat, nice fingers. And she was comforted: not in the sense of marrying again--oh dear, no! she cherished the memory of her Will as a sacred thing, and through all her returning plumpness and rosiness--for she was still a young woman--never forgot the honour she had borne in being a great painter's wife and companion for half-a-dozen years. Perhaps, good as she was, she grew rather to brandish this credit in the faces of the cloth-workers and their wives; to speak a little bigly of the galleries and the Academy, of chiaroscuro and perspective, of which the poor ignoramuses knew nothing: to be obstinate on her dignity, and stand out on her gentility far before that of the attorneys' and the doctors'

wives;--and all this though she had been, as you may remember, the least a.s.suming of girls, the least exacting of wives. But women have many sides to their nature, and remain puzzles--puzzles in their virtues as in their vices; and if Dulcie were ever guilty of ostentation, you have not to dive deep to discover that it was out of respect to her Will--to her great, simple, single-hearted painter.

No, Will Locke's was not a life wrecked on the rocks of adversity, any more than Sam Winnington's was stranded on the sandbanks of prosperity.

The one did a little to mellow the other before the scenes closed, and Will Locke was less obliged to Sam Winnington than Sam to Will in the end. Will's nature and career were scarcely within the scope of Sam's genial material philosophy; but the thought of them did grow to cross Sam's mind during his long work-hours; and good painters' hours are mostly stoutly, steadily, indefatigably long. He pondered them even when he was jesting playfully with the affable aristocrat under his pencil; he spoke of them often to Clary when he was sketching at her work-table of an evening; and she, knitting beside him, would stop her work and respond freely. Then Sam would rise, and, with his hands behind his back, go and look at that lush, yet delicate picture of the Redwater Bower which he had got routed out, framed, and hung in Clary's drawing-room. He would contemplate it for many minutes at a study, and he would repeat the study scores and scores of times with always the same result--the conviction of the ease and security resulting from spiritualizing matter, and the difficulty and hopelessness of materializing spirit. And after these long looks into the past, Sam would be more forbearing in p.r.o.nouncing verdicts on his brethren, worsted in the effort to express what was inherent in their minds; would not decide quite so dogmatically, that all a man had to do was to be sound and diligent, and keep himself far apart from high-flown rubbish, like a common-sense, sober-minded Englishman. And Sam came to be less feverishly anxious about his own monopoly of public esteem; less nettled at art-criticism; perhaps less vivacious in his talents and well-doing, but more manly and serene in his triumph, as Will Locke had been manly and serene in his failure.

Will Locke's life and death, so devoid of pomp and renown, might be beyond lamentation, after all.

ADAM HOME'S REPENTANCE.

I.--WILD, WITTY NELLY CARNEGIE.

"A bonny bride's sune buskit; eh, Nanny Swinton?"

"But ye're no bonny, Miss Nelly; na, na, ye cannot fill the shoon o' yer leddy mother; ye're snod, and ye may shak yer tails at the a.s.sembly, but ye're far ahint Lady Carnegie."

"An' I've but to dance my set with young Berwickshire Home, I care not though I bide at home after all."

But Nelly Carnegie would have little liked that resource, though she now flung the powder out of her nut-brown hair, and tapped her little mirror with her fan.

In a low dark closet, up a steep stair, in a narrow, confined, dark-browed house in the Canongate of Edinburgh, one of the belles of 17--made her toilette. Her chamber woman, in curch and tartan screen, was old nurse and sole domestic of the high-headed, strong-minded, stately widow of a wild north-country laird, whose son now ruled alone in the rugged family mansion among the grand, misty mountains of Lochaber. Nelly Carnegie was no beauty; not fair as a red-and-white rose, like Lady Eglinton, or any one of her six daughters; not dainty, like poor imprisoned Lady Lovat; she was more like desperate Lady Primrose, flying shrieking from her mad husband's sword and pistols, or fierce Lady Grange, swearing her bootless revenge on the wily, treacherous, scared Lord of Session. She was but wild, witty Nelly Carnegie, whom no precise, stern mother could tame, no hard life at her embroidery or her spinet could subdue. She was brown as a gipsy, skin, eyes, and hair--the last a rich, ruddy chestnut brown--with nothing to distinguish her figure but its diminutiveness and the nimbleness of the shapely hands and feet; while her mother's lace lappets were higher by half a foot than the crown of many a manikin on whom she looked down, and her back that never bent or leant for a second on rail or cushion, was straight as an arrow, as well as long. But Nelly, in her absurd, magnificent brocade, and her hoop, that made her small figure like a little russet cask, and with busk and breast-knot and top-knot, was admired, as odd people will choose what is irregular, strange, and racy, in preference to what is harmonious, orderly, and insipid.

Nelly had a cavalier to walk by her sedan, as her mother and she traversed the rough streets. He handed her out at the old a.s.sembly door, but she flung away his hand, and followed her mother alone within the dignified precincts, leaving a gloom and a storm on a lowering brow, unshaded by the c.o.c.ked hat, then carried under the wearer's arm.

The old a.s.sembly Rooms where potent Jacky Murray presided, where urbane Duncan Forbes won all hearts, where a gentle laird wooed in sweet numbers--and in vain--the Annie Laurie of that well-known old song, are now almost forgotten. Other things have pa.s.sed away in company with the wigs and ruffles, the patches and snuff. The grace may remain, and the refinement be thorough where then it was superficial, but the courtliness of conscious superiority, the picturesque contrarieties and broken natural land that lay below the heaths and craters, exist but as the black gloom and red glare of the past.

There the grave responsible Lord of Session, sober in mien as Scotchmen are wont to be, sat at midnight and roared over his claret in the mad orgies of the h.e.l.l-fire Club; here the pawky, penetrating lawyer, shrewd both from calling and character, played the reckless game of a correspondence with the stage Court of St. Germains; yonder mettle beauty sailed along on her high-heeled shoes to finish the night's triumph at an oyster supper in a den behind the Luckenbooths. And there again walked an imperial dowager, who still span her own linen and struck her serving-man with her ivory cane. Truly the old Edinburgh a.s.sembly Rooms had their secrets, and contained exciting enough elements under their formal French polish.

The regular b.a.l.l.s at the a.s.sembly Rooms were eras in Nelly Carnegie's life, and yet she met always the same company. She knew every face and name, and what was worse, danced nightly with the same partner. The select society was const.i.tuted at the commencement of the season, and when once the individual fan was drawn from the c.o.c.ked-hat of fate, there was no respite, no room for change. Young Home of Staneholme had knowledge of the filigree circle through which Nelly was wont to insert her restless fingers, and Lady Carnegie furthered his advances; so that although Nelly hated him as she did the gloomy Nor' Loch, she received his escort to and from the a.s.sembly Rooms, and walked with him her single minuet, as inevitably as she lilted Allan Ramsay's songs, or scalded her mouth with her morning's porridge.

Nelly's suitor was not ill to look upon, so far as flesh and blood went.

He was a well-made, robust fellow, whose laced coat and deep vest showed the comely, vigorous proportions of youth. The face was manly, too, in spite of its beardless one-and-twenty, but the broad eyebrows sank, either in study or sullenness, and the jaw was hard and fixed.

Yet to see how Nelly strained her bonds, how she gecked and flouted and looked above him, and curtsied past him, and dropped his hand as if it were live coals, while the heavy brow grew darker, until it showed like a thunderstorm over the burning red of the pa.s.sion-flushed cheek.

"Tak tent, Nelly," whispered a sedate companion, sensible, cautious, and canny, whose flaxen hair over its roll had the dead greyness of age, though the face below was round and dimpled; "young Staneholme drew his sword last night on the President's son because he speered if he had skill to tame a goshawk."

"Tak tent, yerself, Janet Erskine," Nelly responded wrathfully; "think twice ere you wed auld Auchtershiel."

Janet shrank, and her bright blue eye blinked uneasily, but no additional colour came into her cheek, nor did her voice shake, though it fell. "It must be, Nelly; I daurna deny my father, and mony mair drink forby Auchtershiel; and if he cursed his last wife out and in, and drove her son across the sea, they were thrawn and cankered, and he was their richtfu' head. I'll speak him fair, and his green haughs are a braw jointure. But, Nelly, do ye believe that the auld Laird--the auld ane before Auchtershiel himself, he that shot the Covenanter as he hung by the saugh over the Spinkie-water, and blasphemed when he prayed--walks at night on the burn bank?"

"I dinna ken; if I did not fear a livin' sorrow, I would daur a dead ane," Nelly protested, with a shade of scorn in her levity; "and ye can bide in the house on the soft summer nights. The Lady of Auchtershiel need not daunder by the burn side; she can be countin' her house purse in the still room; but if I were her, I would rather beg my bread."

"Whisht, for shame, Nelly Carnegie," was returned with a shrillness in the measured tones; "you would not; and ye'll learn yer own task, and say Yes to sour, dour Staneholme."

"I never will; I'll let myself be starved to death, I'll throttle myself with my own hands first," cried Nelly Carnegie, fire flashing in her large eyes and on her dark cheeks; and looking up in her defiance she met the glow for glow of Staneholme's star. Time-serving Janet Erskine moved off in unconcealed trepidation, and Nelly stood her ground alone, stamping her foot upon the boards, and struggling in vain against the cruel influence which she could not control, and to which she would not bend.

"He need not gloom and look at me; hearkeners never hear good of themselves," Nelly thought, with pa.s.sionate vehemence; but her sparkling eyes fell slowly, and her proud panting heart quailed with a long throb.

II.--A GALLANT REBUFFED.--NELLY'S PUNISHMENT.

The next time Nelly saw Adam Home was by the landing in the Canongate, in whose shelter lay the draw-well wherein the proud, gently-born laird's daughter every afternoon dipped the Dutch porcelain jug which carried the fresh spring-water wherewith to infuse her mother's cherished, tiny cup of tea. Young Home was pa.s.sing, and he stepped aside, and offered to take the little vessel from her hand, and stoop and fill it. He did this with a silent salutation and glance that, retaining its wonted downward aim, yet suddenly lightened as if it loved to rest upon the little girlish figure, in its homely tucked-up gown, the crimson hood drawn over the chestnut hair that turned back in a crisp wave from the bold, frank, innocent face. But she waved him off, and balancing her foot upon the edge-stone, saw herself reflected in the steel-like water. Then he begged with rare softness in a voice that was rough and gruff, unless it deepened with strong feeling--

"Will you suffer me, Nelly Carnegie? I would give my hand to pluck but a flower to serve you."

Had he tried that tone at first, before she was more than chilled by his sombre and imperious gravity, before her mother supported him unrelentingly and galled and exasperated her by persecution, he might have attracted, fascinated, conquered. As it was, she jeered at him.

"Serve me! he could do me no better service than 'mount and go.' A posy!

it would be the stinging-nettle and dank dock if he gathered it."

The revenge he took was rude enough, but it was not unheard of in those days. He caught her by the wrist, and under the shadow of the ab.u.t.ting gable he kissed the knitted brow and curling lips, holding her the while with a grasp so tight that it gave her pain. When she wrung herself from him, she shook her little hand with a rage that quivered through every nerve, and had more of hate than of romping folly or momentary pique in its pa.s.sion.

"Nelly Carnegie," said her mother, as she carefully pulled out the edge of a coil of yellow point-lace, which rested on her inlaid foreign work-table, and contrasted with her black mode cloak and white skinny fingers, and looking with her keen, cold, grey eyes on the rebellious daughter standing before her, went on, "I have word that Staneholme goes south in ten days."

Nelly could have said, "And welcome," but she knew the consequences, and forbore.

"He's willin' to take you with him, Nelly, and he shows his good blood when he holds that a Carnegie needs no tocher."

Still Nelly did not answer, though she started so violently that her loosely-crossed hands fell apart; and Nanny Swinton, who was about her housewifery in the cupboard off the lady's parlour, heard every word, and trembled at the pause.

"Your providing is not to buy," continued the mistress of the aristocratic family, whose attendance was so scanty and their wants so ill supplied that even in necessaries they were sometimes pinched; "we've but to bid the minister and them that are allied to us in the town, and Nanny will scour the posset dish, and bring out the big Indian bowl, and heap fresh rose-leaves in the sweet-pots. You'll wear my mother's white brocade that she first donned when she became a Leslie, sib to Rothes--no a bit housewife of a south-country laird. She was a n.o.ble woman, and you're but a heather lintie of a la.s.s to come of a good kind. So G.o.d bless you, bairn; ye'll tak the blast of wind and gang."

As if the benediction had loosened the arrested tongue, Nelly burst out--"Oh, mother, mother! no."

Lady Carnegie, in her own person, had looked upon death with unblenching front, and had disowned her only son because, in what appeared to others a trifle, he had opposed her law. Nor did a muscle of her marked face now relax; her occupation went on without a check; she did not deign to show surprise or displeasure, although her voice rose in harsh, ironical emphasis--

"Nelly Carnegie, what's your will?"

"Not that man, mother; not that fearsome man!" pleaded Nelly, with streaming eyes and beseeching tones, her high spirit for the moment broken; her contempt gone, only her aversion and terror urging a hearing--"The lad that's blate and dull till he's braggit by his fellows, and then starker than ony carle, wild like a north-country cateran; even the haill bench o' judges would not stand to conter him."

"He'll need his stiff temper; I couldna thole a man but had a mind of his own, my dear," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lady Carnegie in unexpected, clear, cherry accents, as if her daughter's extremity was diversion to her.

"Oh, spare me, spare me, mother," Nelly began again.

"Hooly and fairly, Nelly Carnegie," interrupted the mother, still lightly and mockingly, "who are you that ye should pick and choose? What better man will speer your price? or think ye that I've groats laid by to buy a puggy or a puss baudrons for my maiden lady?"