Nancy Stair Part 36

"MY EVER DEAR PITT:

"When you receive these papers--the last intelligences I shall ever send you--I, the writer of them, shall be no more.

"A great disappointment, one which I have not the heart to endure, together with a return of my old trouble, for I have had three bleedings from the lungs within a month, have cured me of the taste of living, and, by a mere movement of the trigger, I end the game to-night.

"It is a fancy of mine to take my leave of this earthly stay surrounded by the little dear belongings of the one I love.

"There will be much talk back and forth concerning me. I pray you bespeak me, if you will, a brave, insolent, selfish, and unscrupulous man of many villainies, some wit and foresight, a disrespecter of humanity, athirst for power, and a hater of fools; but one who, at the end, was capable of a great love for a great woman.

"I send some verses, which are of my own making to-day. As Shakespeare says, 'Ill favored, but mine own,' and so good night--a long good night.

"TO NANCY STAIR

"I stand upon the threshold going out Into the night.

The mists of old misdeeds crowd all about And blind my sight.

"But thro' the many worlds to come, my feet No more shall roam.

The light from thy dear face at last my sweet Will bring me home.

"To you always, my dear Pitt,

"Borthwicke"

I was dimly conscious of the uproar which arose in the court-room, for I was away in a by-gone time, a vision before me, clear as a picture, of a sunny room, myself at a writing-desk overlooking accounts, and a small curly haired child poring over a book on the rug at my feet

"_Nancy made it just like Jock's!_"

"_Nancy made it just like Jock's!_"

I can recall the fear that seized me as the duke's letter was being examined by those familiar with his writings; the chill I felt as Blake, who knew his hand the best, was summoned to inspect it; my terror as he hesitated, with all the time that sing-song refrain going over and over in my head, so loud that I was afraid that everyone in the court would hear it; and then, far away and little, like a wood-call, "Nancy made it----" And when Blake and Dundas identified the writing, and O'Sullivan, the duke's own secretary, declared that not only would he be willing to swear to his belief of the duke's hand, but to the spirit of the doc.u.ment as well, I put my head on the back of Danvers's chair to hide the tears which rolled down my cheeks, tears of relief, but springing from a very different cause than the one attributed for them.

There was more summing up and going back and forth, but the tension of the trial was over for all except me and one other--one wide-eyed little creature, sitting in her black gown, with d.i.c.kenson beside her, on the other side of the court-room; a slender girlish figure before whom my soul was on its knees.

I imagined her work, after she asked me to pray for her, upon that awful night. I thought of fifty things on the second, as it seemed.

Visions came to me of Nancy dipping her head in the basin of water, Nancy by the mail-bag in the early dawning before the officers had come, and to that "Nancy made it just like Jock's," there came, with terror to my soul, another jumble of words--"Accessory after the fact."

I knew that the jury consulted but a few minutes before the whole of Edinburgh was shaking hands with Danvers, a.s.suring him of their never-shaken trust in his innocence, saw Pitcairn putting his papers into the black-leather case, was conscious that Billy Deuceace was laughing as he talked to some women, with his hand on Danvers's shoulder. I say that I was aware of these things, but so remotely that they seemed part of a dream, for my real thought was to get to Nancy, to take her away, to shield her from I know not what; and leaving the Carmichael party, I made my way to the place where she was awaiting the carriage.

As we stood together near the doorway, Sandy and Danvers, with their friends, pa.s.sed us on their way from the court-room, and my heart bled as I saw the look Nancy gave them, the look of pleading and affection, which Sandy avoided by talking to the one beside him; but Danvers, and none could blame him, considering his belief that she had done her utmost to get him hanged, looked full at her, his eyes showing scorn of her. I felt the slight body quiver, saw her sway back and forth for a little, and then, with a sob like a wounded child, she lost consciousness entirely. Hugh Pitcairn stayed by her until she was enough recovered for me to put her in the coach, and rode back to Stair with us, watching her all the time with an expression of alarm and tenderness, which drew him very near to me.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE MISTS ALL CLEARED AWAY

On toward midnight I was awakened by d.i.c.kenson clamoring at my door, telling me that Nancy lay delirious, with a high fever, calling for me.

Making what haste I could, I reached the poor child, to find her tossing from one side of the bed to the other, uttering hoa.r.s.e cries, with neither intelligence in her glance nor recognition of either my presence or my voice. McMurtrie's att.i.tude, after his examination, drove me wild with fear. "It's like to be a long case," he said. "I want ye to get Dr. Cameron from Glasgow. I'll stay by ye," he added; "I'll just move into the house, for, under G.o.d, it's not my intention to let Nancy Stair leave us yet."

Weeks and weeks went by, during which it seemed as though I neither slept nor ate, listening to the moaning, or, what was far worse, broken talk of her work, of her cares, sc.r.a.ps of forgotten rhymes, bits of Latin verse, law references cited letter for letter, until I needed the doctor myself, who threatened to put me from the house unless I showed a more reasonable behavior.

On in the third week of Nancy's fever I heard that Danvers's wife was ill, but this was nature, and I gave no more thought to the matter. On the afternoon of the day on which the news was brought me the Arran folks sent again to know if Dr. McMurtrie could be spared them, and we sent him over immediately. On his return I asked him, in a perfunctory way, how he had found things, and he returned an evasive answer; but upon my insisting for the truth, he told me that Isabel had given birth to a child the night before, but that it had died before morning, and that she herself was in a most desperate state.

My heart went out to all this suffering, but death so near increased my anxiety for my own child, and when the news was brought me on the following morning that Isabel had pa.s.sed away during the night, the fear for Nancy rose high in me, and I became like a crazed creature, wandering from one room to another, with half-begun prayers to G.o.d upon my lips and a feeling of utter helplessness heavy on my soul.

Nine weeks of this I endured, nine weeks of such dread that I should choose death in preference to living the time again, when one morning in early spring Dr. Cameron, who had been watching by the bedside all night, came to me. "I think, my lord," he said, "that the worst is by with. Ye need worry no more," and at the words I buried my face in my hands, as I sat at the table, and wept like a child.

On the day following this announcement, Sandy, who had refused to leave me in my great anxiety, took his boy off to visit the New Republic founded across seas, and Dr. McMurtrie, who kept his residence at Stair, for I would listen to no word of his leaving us yet, watched the dear one on her journey back from the valley of the shadow. It was late summer before she was able to be about at all, and Hallowe'en was celebrated by her first riding out.

As she grew stronger there were two changes I noted in her conduct, the first of these being her unwillingness to see Hugh Pitcairn, whose solicitude for her during her illness had knit us together by cords never to be broken. If she knew he was in the house she would retire to her own room, or if advised of his coming would go abroad to visit or drive, in every way showing a clear avoidance of his society. And the second matter was in connection with the Burn School. This work had been the chief thought of her life before her illness, but upon her recovery she refused to visit the place, would walk or ride far around by the Dead Man's Holm to avoid meeting in with either teachers or pupils; and when Father Michel brought work to her to have it examined she would overlook it listlessly, and put it by immediately on his departure, to be referred to no more. I knew more of the reasons for this conduct than she suspected, her talk in the fever being all of one thing, and the intuition of my love helping me far in discovering the truth. I believed that McMurtrie had learned some matters as well as myself, for twice, when he was telling me something concerning her, he broke off with entire irrelevancy to say: "The little deevil; the plucky little deevil!" with tears in his eyes, and ending with, "G.o.d!

I'd like to tell Pitcairn," and a roar of laughter.

More than a year had gone by before her color and brightness came back to her, and one gay spring morning, when the "Nanciness" of her had shown itself by some audacious rejoinder, I ventured on a remark, which I hoped would lead to an open talk with me, concerning the affair of the trial.

"Nancy," said I, with nothing but the impulse of the moment to guide me, "would a child of mine commit a forgery?"

She looked up at me quickly, as though to judge my intention, before she answered, "A child of yours did."

"But you were too little to know the force of your conduct then," I continued. "Would a child of mine do such a thing now?"

A curious gleam pa.s.sed over her face before she answered, looking straight into my eyes as she did so, "Don't worry about that, Jock,"

she said; "she didn't have to!"

"We will suppose," she went on, with an exact imitation of Pitcairn, "only suppose, you understand, that a bit of evidence was needed in a certain trial to clear one who was very dear; and we will suppose, only suppose, you remember, that there was a girl who had skill enough to seem to obtain it. We will suppose, still, that the girl said to herself, 'If I am on the other side from the great Pitcairn, I shall have no chance against his cross-examination, but if I seem to be on his own side he may be thrown from his guard, and I may suggest the questioning I want followed.' Take the testimony!" she cried, in her natural voice, rising and standing by the chimney-place. "Take the testimony which I gave and go through it word by word, and you can find neither forgery nor perjury. I had been well taught in the letter of the law. I was Pitcairn's own pupil, Jock!"

It was less than a week from this time that I came in from a ride, happier than I had thought to be again in this life, when a sight met my eyes which threw me clear from my reckoning. Going past the door of Nancy's sitting-room, I looked in, and at first sight thought my eyes had deceived me, for standing in the middle of the room was Hugh Pitcairn, and Nancy's head was on his shoulder. I saw that she was crying, and that the great lawyer himself, who was far from unmoved, patted her shoulder every once in a while, saying, "There, there!"

staring out of the window and blinking hard to keep the tears back.

I went on to my own chamber and sat down in a heap on the side of the bed, as I used to do at college, repeating, "Good Heavens!" over and over to myself, until interrupted in the performance by Huey, who came in to gather the fire. "Where is Mr. Pitcairn, Huey?" said I. "He's went," he replied, and on the words a fear seized me lest Nancy should retire into one of her silences, and I should be left in a state of raging curiosity through the night. Upon inquiry I found that she was sleeping, and went down to the library, where I had but just settled myself when Hugh Pitcairn appeared before me, a legal doc.u.ment in his hand, having been for a walk to recover himself, I supposed. He looked more wooden than I had ever seen him, and, in the language of the country, I knew he would make me pay for the emotion he had shown before Nancy.

"I've news for you," he said.

"Hugh," I answered, "if they're pleasant, ye're welcome; but if they are not, I tell ye frankly, I've been stretched to breaking in the past year, and can not stand much more."

"It's not ill," he answered. "It concerns the death of the Duke of Borthwicke."

Here was dangerous walking for me, and I waited.

"Do you recall," he inquired, "the French woman at the Burnside who taught the Ma.r.s.eilles work?"

"A poor distraught body who ran from her own shadow?" said I.

He nodded.

"Although she spoke the French tongue, it seems she was Irish by birth.

Her name"--he coughed a little behind his hand as though to give me time--"her name was Barnet."

I had heard the name before, but where? I saw that Hugh was waiting for me to place it, but any significant connection it might have I found myself unable to recall.