Inchbracken Part 32

'Deed then, Luckie, an' I wad!' cried Joseph, gathering courage at the tone of remonstrance he thought he detected in the old woman's voice.

'An' it's no afore my fire but intil't, the duds o' yer dochter's brat sall gang, ay! an' her ain as weel! gin ye tak na them out o' here.

The shameless limmer! to lay hersel' down in a decent man's bed, an'

never "wi' yer leave?"' He even got so far as to begin tossing the child's clothing together in a heap, when the old woman, s.n.a.t.c.hing a brand from the hearth, struck him across the hand with the red hot end, making him desist with a scream of pain. He glared at her for an instant as if about to rush on her, then wavered and turned round as if about to call for help.

'Noo! set ye doon, Joseph Smiley! an hear sense. Gin ye gang yaupin'

an' skirlin' out there, ye'se raise a din wull do far mair scaith to yersel', nor it can til hiz. An' gin ye aince raise 't, ye'll ne'er can lay't again! sae keep ye a calm sough, an' let me hae my say.'

It wasna muckle,' she continued, ''at I kenned o' you an' Tibbie's on-gaein's, whan I spak to ye first, an' I spak ye fair, an' ye ken what cam o' 't--juist naething ava, sae noo I hae fand out a'thing, an' I hae ta'en advice, an' ye beut to yield, or I can gar ye. I'll pruive yer contrac' an' promise o' mairriage by auld Forsyth 'at I ance named to ye afore, an' hoo ye garred puir Tibbie swear no' to let on, sae lang as Jess Clapperton be'd a single woman, for fear she suld hae ye up afore the shirra for breach o' promise, an' get a' yer siller frae ye for daamage. Weel she's waddet noo, sae the steek's aff Tibbie's mouth, an' sae she's gane an' brocht hame yer bairn, an' ye beut to tak them hame til ye, or I'se gar ye! ye dirty tinkler's tyke!

Ye wad hae gotten them to set the puir la.s.s on the cuttie stule, alang o' the minister's bairn, an' _ye_ kennin' the very contrar yer ain sel'! But, my certie! gin scaith or scorn e'er fa's on _her_, it's _ye_ sall stand aside her, an' tak yer share! An' Jean Macaulay wad be the first to fling the rotten eggs at ye--ye leein' brock! Didna I hear ye evenin' my dochter t'ey cuttie stule afore Jean, wi' my ain lugs, an' garrin' auld Elspeth lauch? Od! but I'd hae liket to pu' the ill sc.r.a.pit tongue out o' yer leein' head! An' what's mair, I'se do't yet, gin ye tak na tent. But there's nae gude, ye an' me to gang fechtin'. We ken ane anither by noo--yer character's gane, and yer name o' G.o.dliness in Glen Effick, an' ye'se be peuten out o' the beadleship, gin ye mak a fash--an' the shirra wad gar ye tak her after a'. Sae juist ye tak thocht in time, an' say naething ava! Ye hae na sped sae waur as mony anither birkie laad, 'at wad before tryin' on his gemms. For Tibbie's a decent la.s.s an' a bonny, tho' it's me 'at says't, (an' ne'er a word wad there hae been o' her, gin it hadna been for that auld rinketer Briggs, my leddy's wumman up by), an' she liket ye rael weel ance, an' she may again, gin ye're juist ordnar gude til her.'

Joseph sat and listened with a lengthening visage, and his finger in his mouth. He felt very foolish. A scandal would ruin him in Glen Effick, and after the scene of the morning he had nothing to hope from the good opinion of his whilom patroness Mrs. Sangster, or his late sweetheart Jean Macaulay. He would become the common talk, and no girl worth anything would have a word to say to him. He felt like some gay b.u.t.terfly caught by the heel in a cobweb of gossamer. Why flutter his pretty wings any more? They would only get broken for nothing. He would never fly again! The admiring flowers would spread their rosy bosoms all in vain, and breathe their fragrant sighs. Poor, poor Lothario! His day was done. He was caught at last. And there like a dreadful spider sat Tibbie, his (to be) mother-in-law, regarding him with red-rimmed eyes, and opening her mouth to devour--well, if not him, at least his bacon. As he looked, she selected another tempting slice (it was cooling now), and her jaws closed on it with a snap, followed by a snort of relish.

'Aweel, Tibbie! Ye can gang hame for the nicht, you an' yer dochter. I wad like to think ower't, an' sleep on't.'

'Fient a stap her or me sall gang out ower yer door, Joseph Smiley, afore Sawbith! We micht na get in sae chancey next time. O' Sawbith she'll gang linket wi' ye t'ey Kirk, an' I'se walk ahint ye, carryin'

yer bairn. Sae ye maun speak t'ey minister the morn, an' speir him to baptise't. An' sae ye'll can explain a' thing t'ey minister yersel', afore they hae time to raise clashes. Ye can juist tell the tale about Jess Clapperton, 'at ye made a fule o' puir Tib wi'. I wad na say but it micht do for the minister very weel, an' _ye_ ken hoo to put legs an' arms til't as weel as the next ane. Ye was ne'er at a loss for a lee in yer life, Josey, my man, I'm thinkin'! Losh keep me! I'm thinkin' I've begood to like ye a'ready! It'll be yer ain fau't gin I be na the _gude_ mither to ye, forby the gude-_mither_. Set ye doon noo, an' tak yer supper. I'm fear'd it's cauld for ye, an' ye'll hae to drink yer tea wantin' the milk. Wee Josey drank that a while syne.

It's a' e'y family! An' syne, I'm fear'd ye'll hae to sleep e'y fluir for the nicht; for me an' the bairn's gaun in aside Tibbie.'

Joseph groaned in spirit, and ate his supper in silent despair. Not one kick of resistance was left in his miserable soul, and he submitted to his fate as meekly as Sindbad, after some experience of the old man of the sea, found it best to do.

Tibbie devoted her attention to the entertainment of the young heir, who seemed to enjoy his return to the paternal hall, and rode on her knee crowing in the highest spirits, to the enlivening strains of--

'Wooed sn' married an' a','

which his grandam lilted to him, with just a suspicion of malice in her humorous triumph.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

_FOUND_.

Time hung rather heavily on Kenneth's hand. The raw damp autumn offered little temptation to exercise out of doors. His daily ride to Glen Effick was discontinued, his friends having left; and he smoked cigars in the billiard-room, or wrote letters in his own, the live-long day. Julia, hitherto so available, was now never to be found when wanted, or if she did appear, her ready sympathy with the whim of the moment, and her quickness to suggest congenial pastime, seemed to have forsaken her. She sat mostly in her own room now, or in Lady Caroline's, which, as far as Kenneth's entertainment was concerned, was much the same thing. She, who had formerly taken so much interest in mess-room reminiscences and general gossip, would now look up vacantly when she was addressed, as though her thoughts had been far away, and were only induced to return for a moment by a sense of politeness. The distribution of the morning letters would rouse her a little--there appeared always to be letters for her now--but having secured her own, she would relapse into abstraction, and seize the earliest opportunity to withdraw.

Kenneth had letters of his own to write now, and knew all about the coming in and going out of mails for Torquay. But that occupied only a portion of his time, and he felt aggrieved that Julia should be so pre-occupied. 'What is the use of a girl in the house if she is always to be busy?' He expressed his discontent to Lady Caroline, who was immensely amused.

'Julia is engaged, Kenneth, or almost; for it is not announced yet.'

'I am very glad to hear it, mother, I am sure. If the girl had stayed here much longer without marrying, she might have felt herself badly used if I did not marry her myself. And I do not know that I am equal to marrying for politeness. But why should that prevent her being jolly at home? unless, indeed, the man is Bluebeard, and she expects a bad time? _I_ am engaged myself, but I think I could be jolly on that account, if only there was opportunity.'

Lady Caroline said nothing; but she was amused, as often before, at the single-minded egotism of his lordly s.e.x, which knows no law but its own pleasure, and imagines that must be equally delightful to every one else. The male baby graciously believes that it pleases his nurse to sing herself hoa.r.s.e in coaxing him to sleep, and he is pleased that she should make herself happy, shaking his rattle till her arm aches, in endeavouring to amuse him; and all subsequent female ministrations to his solacement are accepted in the like simple good faith that it must be joy to the girl to be merry in his company, and that mirth is its own reward.

Lady Caroline liked her son better for his unreasonableness, and felt proud of herself, in being the mother of such a rajah. Wherever the idolatrous instinct exists, there must be a love of the unreasonable.

Who could worship a being capable of being argued with, persuaded, coaxed, or bullied? It is the utter pa.s.siveness of Juggernaut that attracts his devotees. No matter how ugly he may be, he sits there serene among his gilded carved work, while the crashing wheels of his car grind on their course regardless of the blood and groans of mangled victims--force unpitying and inflexible.

It was some weeks before Major Steele would come to Inchbracken, not, indeed, till the last shred of autumn had been withered up by foot or swept away by wintry storms. He lingered on by the sea sh.o.r.e, wandering for hours by the hungry waves which swallowed up his love, accompanied by his old mother, in whose unspoken sympathy alone he seemed to find comfort. He seldom spoke to her, but he shunned every one else. When, however, winter became established, her health compelled them to return to town. There the closer contact with his fellows inseparable from city life became intolerable, and he was glad to avail himself of Kenneth's invitation, reminding him at the same time of the freedom and privacy he had promised.

Lady Caroline agreed that they should see as few visitors as possible during the poor man's stay; 'but, indeed,' she added, 'we have all grown so unsociable since we became engaged, that the excluded will have nothing to regret.'

'Indeed I am not engaged, dear Lady Caroline!' remonstrated Julia in a subdued voice.

'And indeed, mother, I am not unsociable,' added Kenneth, who was going on to 'define his position,' as precisely as an American senator does, but his voice was drowned in the uproarious guffaw with which his uncle greeted his opening words.

'Poor man!' moralized Julia, 'the quiet of the country will soothe him. His was indeed a fearful calamity.'

'Ah yes!' sighed Lady Caroline, 'and I declare I like him the better for being inconsolable! They are not all so tender-hearted and faithful, Julia, by any means. Now, my General! Do you think _I_ can count on leaving so much desolation behind me? The idea would almost console one for having to go.'

'You forget, my dearest lady,' said the General finishing his egg (it was at breakfast), Major Steele had been less than two years married.

Providence has been far kinder to us than that, and I doubt not, when the time of our separation shall arrive at last, that you will wear your weeds admirably, and continue to justify the opinion I have always held of you as the best dressed woman of my acquaintance.'

It was December when Major Steele arrived at Inchbracken. The ground was powdered with early snow, and the higher hilltops looked solidly white and alpine. The sharp air and the movement had stirred his torpid blood into some appearance of animation, but as the excitement of arrival wore off, he relapsed into wan despondency, and was indeed a melancholy object.

The two older men from the first gave up the case in reverent despair.

What had there ever been in their most comfortable but burdensome lives, to ent.i.tle them to intrude their ignorant sympathy on the unparalleled tragedy of this man's sore bereavement? Like Job's three friends, they would have sat by him without speaking for three days and three nights, with eyes fixed sorrowfully on the carpet, had human life been still as of old, a majestic but monotonous sequence extending over centuries; but in its modern abbreviated form, with so many things to attend to in the brief threescore and ten, that was impossible. They sighed and looked gloomy when they found themselves near him, and then escaped to some other quarter of the house with all decent speed.

It was on Kenneth, as old friend and special host, that the full duty of condolence devolved. He led his friend to the smoking-room where they could sit together by the hour in silent amity, watching the blue smokerings widen and disappear, companionable to each other's sight, yet leaving the mind at rest from disturbing talk. Fearing to touch unwisely on the open wound, Kenneth did not venture on any allusion to his friend's bereavement. Mary's commission was ever present in his mind, but he dared not approach the subject to raise a hope that might only be quenched again in deeper gloom. He dared not question him even, that he might judge of the probability for himself; he simply waited, hoping that in time the other would give the opening which he desired.

Julia was perhaps the most successful sympathizer in the household.

Her fine dramatic instinct enabled her to throw herself into the artificial mood, and play the part with an abandon relieved and varied by graceful little touches which she could never have displayed in her natural character. She was a woman with a head rather than a heart, and it was when feeling was presented to her through the imagination rather than her own emotions, that she was able to realize, seize and clothe it in expression. Her performance in the new role of 'Woman the Consoler,' was delicate, but beautiful and touching in the extreme, and more than once brought the handkerchief to honest Lady Caroline's eyes, who declared in confidence to her General that Julia was a 'fine creature,' and far too good for that vulgar Cr[oe]sus in Manchester.

Perhaps the same idea may have struck Julia, or it may have been that the artist in her was engrossed by the new delineation of character, and revelled, for the time, in the artificial emotions of her own creation. It is certain that the Manchester correspondence lost much of its interest. The morning letter was slipped into her pocket as usual, at breakfast, but she no longer seized the first opportunity to escape with it to her own room, and by the end of the week she found three of them still in her pocket unopened. They were all opened at once, glanced over, and locked up in the drawer with those that had gone before them, and some sort of an answer was scrawled to 'Dear Augustus.' It was scarcely so charming a letter as some that had preceded it, and Augustus thought so, with his first twinge of love, pain, and jealousy; for hitherto his path had been one of rose-strewn triumph. But the letter did not take long to knock off--that was the main point at the moment--and she descended the stairs, gloved and bonneted, for a stroll by the lake, before Major Steele had begun to think of growing impatient.

When the bereaved widower first arrived at Inchbracken, Julia was very silent. Young innocence and awakening womanhood stood appalled before the revelation of grief and mystery in human life. Her eyes and voice drooped plaintively, but it was not till the following morning that she and the sufferer exchanged a word. Even then it was but little that was said, some civil words of routine, but the gentle pensive droop in word and look, distilled like heavenly dew over some acrid waste. Even so the Angel of Pity may look down on the vanquished and sore wounded in the battle of life; and the poor woe-begone Major felt grateful and consoled at the gentle tribute to his grief. She would linger in the breakfast-room with needle work or a book, and the Major got into a way of hovering round, as some frost-benumbed toad might creep from under his cold stone, to stretch his stiffened limbs, and thaw them in the watery sunshine of a February afternoon. When this arrangement seemed growing into a habit, Julia betook herself to the morning-room, which she could count on having to herself at that hour, for pursuing her work or studies. Presently the door would open and the widower would appear, asking her permission to sit awhile, and apologizing for his intrusion. There must have been companionship in each other's presence, for there was not much conversation, and what there was was vapid enough; but the divine pity in Julia's pensive droop transfused itself through each syllable, and the desolate one felt soothed and refreshed.

What Julia felt, it is difficult to say, and one cannot but wonder that, after the first three days, she did not find the whole business a lackadaisical bore. We can only suppose that life in the proper character and circ.u.mstance of Julia Finlayson had become intolerably dull, and that she had adopted those of the Angel of Pity by way of a change. She could not have seriously contemplated capturing the broken-hearted widower, especially since Lady Caroline had just secured Mr. MacSiccar's report as to the fortune and standing of Augustus Wallowby, Esquire. The report had been most satisfactory, in fact had so far exceeded expectation, that good Lady Caroline had been seduced into a momentary irreverence at the ways of Providence, in giving vulgar people so much money. She was sorry for it immediately after, however, for she was a good Tory, and honoured the powers that be, among which Providence admittedly takes the first place. As to the vulgarity even, Lady Caroline might have been brought to admit that she had seen examples of it in circles bordering very closely on the Court, and she would not have been at all reluctant to acknowledge that it existed in the army, and when found there was quite as offensive as any thing that the proverbial Manchester of her day could produce.

At last a morning came, when, over a sympathetic pipe, the Major expressed a wish to go and look at the Effick water, where all his happiness and love had come to such dismal shipwreck.

'All right,' said Kenneth; 'would you like to drive over to-day? We shall have plenty of time if we start at once. The dog-cart can be got out in twenty minutes, and we may be off in half an hour.'

He had now the opportunity he had been waiting for to fulfil Mary's commission, and already he felt himself writing to her in triumph, and describing how judiciously he had fulfilled her wish. He took the proofs she had given him of the poor baby's ident.i.ty from his desk, and placing them in his pocket, was ready to mount the dogcart when it was brought round. The brotherhood of so many silent pipes had at last established itself between him and his friend Steele. The poor fellow at last felt able to speak the thoughts that were gnawing at his heart, and as they drove along that wintry road down to the sea, he spoke freely of his misery and of the shipwreck.

'Were there any pa.s.sengers by the 'Maid of Cashmere' besides Mrs.

Steele?' Kenneth ventured to ask.

'Old Brigadier Currie had engaged the state-room on one side of the cabin for himself and his native servants, and I had taken the other.'

'And had the captain or crew any women and children on board, do you think?'

'My wife, her maid, and the baby were the only females on board.'

'Then cheer up, old fellow! Perhaps things are not so bad as we have been thinking! Do you know that, now, for instance?' he added, pulling out the gold chain from his pocket.

'Know it? That? If I could believe my eyes I would say it belonged to my wife!' He took the chain and handled it very tenderly, and then went on. 'There was an old Begum we had been able to be kind to. A hill tribe had attacked her town, and she had fled for protection to Dourgapore, where we were stationed. My wife was the only lady in the station, therefore she was put under her care, and when she went back to her princ.i.p.ality, after we had driven off the marauders, she made my wife some presents, and among the rest a bag of gold mohurs. I was doubtful how receiving a money present would sound at head-quarters, but our Colonel said it was a matter between the women, I could not be held to know anything about. However, to prevent misrepresentation, we determined to make it into jewellery, so we got a native goldsmith to string the pieces into a long chain. He sat in our compound and riveted the coins together with bits of gold wire, while we sat under the verandah looking on. You know these creatures are always watched while they work, to prevent their swallowing the gold, they are such inveterate thieves. But how came this into your possession? A piece of it was found clutched in my poor Lydia's hands when she was found.'

'Then I may tell you. I would have written weeks ago, but I was afraid to add disappointment to your other misfortunes, so I asked you to come here, and when you had come I found I could not speak to you about it. A man's grief seems such a sacred thing. But now. There was a friend of mine actually saw that ship caught up by the storm, and carried in sh.o.r.e and dashed against the rocks. They are rocks completely surrounded by water and surf at a high tide, and with an easterly wind. He could not possibly get near, and there was no human dwelling within sight, or for miles around, so he could give no help.