CHAPTER XX.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
It was December, cold and dreary, when the family returned to Allenders. Their very return was a renewal of the first sorrow to both themselves and Martha. They came, and Harry was not there to welcome them; they had never before felt so bitterly his absent place; they came, but Harry came not with them—and Martha’s very voice of welcome was choked with her anguish for the dead.
There had been much discussion with Uncle Sandy, whom they were all anxious to induce to return to Allenders, and remain with them there. The old man did not consent. Reluctant as he was to be separated from them now, his own old house and neighbourhood were parts of his gentle nature. He could not leave them—could not relinquish his universal charge of “the bairns,” nor deprive his young embroiderers of the air and sunshine, to which no one else might think of admitting them. So Uncle Sandy brought his charge to Glasgow, and bade them an affectionate farewell, promising a yearly visit to Allenders; but he could not give up his little solitary home.
They settled immediately into the monotonous and still order of their future life. Martha’s room, where there were few things to suggest painful remembrances, they made a little work-room; and here Agnes and Rose sat by the window at their work, and Lettie and her little companion learned their lessons, and laboured with varying industry—now enthusiastic—now slack and languid, at the “opening,” in which they were soon skilled. And Martha, returning wearied from business out of doors, or in the library, came up here to take off her outer wrappings, and begin to the other labour which called for her. And Lettie on the carpet, and Katie on her little stool, kept up a running conversation, which sometimes gave a passing moment of amusement to the sadder elder hearts; and little Harry played joyously, beguiling his sad young mother into momentary smiles; and the baby began to totter on his little feet, and make daring journeys from the arms of Martha into his mother’s; and gradually there grew to be a certain pensive pleasure in their evening walk, and they roused themselves to open the window, when the little Leith steamer shot past under the trees; and every day filled itself with its own world of duty, and passed on—slowly, it is true—but less drearily than at the first.
No one grudged now, nor mixed ill-feeling in the emulation with which neighbouring agriculturists watched the fields of Allenders. Something of fear and solemn awe startled the very labourers in these fields when Martha passed them, assiduous and diligent in all the work she set herself to do. They were not afraid of her—she did not impress them with more than the respect which they gave willingly as her right; but there was something solemn in a representative of the dead—a person living, as it seemed, but to carry out the thoughts and wishes of another who had passed away. The stir and thrill of renewed and increased industry came again upon Maidlin Cross. It was true they had no model cottages yet, but the land lay marked out on the other side of the cross, where Harry’s new houses were to be; and Armstrong thought Miss Allenders had answered him almost fiercely, when he proposed to plough this land, and enclose it in a neighbouring field. No—it was Harry’s will those houses should be built, and built they must be, when justice and right permitted; and it soon came to be known in Maidlin, where Harry in his careless good-humour had promised anything without bestowing it, that it needed but a hint of this to Martha to secure the favour. And the works went on steadily and prosperously, and with a wise boldness Martha drew upon Mr. Buchanan’s thousand pounds. Armstrong, no longer driven to the sad alternative of doing nothing, or acting on his own responsibility, became emboldened, and was no longer afraid to be now and then responsible; and Allender Mains became a great farm-steading, and began to send off droves to Stirling market, and Falkirk tryste, and was managed as the cautious Armstrong never could have managed it, had all this gainful risk and expenditure been incurred for himself.
And on the Sabbath days when they leave the church—Agnes in her widow’s weeds leaning on Martha’s arm, and Rose leading the children—they turn aside to a little space railed off from the wall, where moulders the mossed gravestone of the old Laird of Allenders, and where the gowans and forget-me-nots grow sweetly under the spring sunshine upon Harry’s breast. His name is on a tablet of white marble on the wall—his name and age—nothing more. They go there silently—almost as it seems involuntarily—towards their grave, and stand in silence by the railing, visiting the dead, but saying nothing to each other; and after a little while, as silently as they came, the family go away. Nor do they ever allude to this visit, though the custom is never broken through—it is something sacred, a family solemnity, a thing to be done in silence.
And the ladies of Nettlehaugh and Foggo do not disdain now to call on Mrs. and Miss Allenders, nor even Miss Dunlop, though she stands upon her dignity, and has heard a secret whisper that these hands she condescends to shake, work at her collars and handkerchiefs, and earn bread by their labour. But at the end of the dining-room beside Cuthbert’s window, some preparations were begun long ago for the erection of that conservatory which Miss Dunlop recommended to Harry—and to her mother’s consternation, Miss Dunlop makes cool inquiries about it, and presumes they do not intend to carry it out now. Martha answers with a blank gravity which she has learned to assume, to cover the pang with which she mentions his name, that other more important wishes of Harry’s have to be carried out before she can come to this; but that what he intended shall be done without fail, and that it only waits a suitable time. “They say that Heaven loves those that die young,” says Martha, with a grave simplicity, “yet the dead who die in their youth leave many a hope and project unfulfilled—and few have been so full of projects, and had so little time to work them out.”
This is all—but Miss Dunlop, bewildered and conscience-stricken, dares scarcely speak again of the fickle weakness of poor Allenders, and all his vain, magnificent aspirations, and efforts to be great. She has a vague impression that she has blundered in her hasty estimate of poor Harry, and that it was indeed because his sun went down at noon that none of his great intentions ripened into success—for no one ventures to prophesy failure to Harry’s purposes now.
And Cuthbert comes when he can spare a day—comes to bring them news of the far-away world whose vexed and troubled murmurs they never hear, and to receive with affectionate sympathy, all they tell him of their own plans and exertions. Cuthbert is admitted to the work-room, and takes out Agnes and Rose to their nightly walk, upon which Martha, who, herself actively employed, has no need of this, insists; and Agnes leans upon him as on a good and gentle brother; and there comes a strange ease and repose to Rose’s heart as she walks shyly by his side in the twilight, saying little, but preserving with a singular tenacity of recollection everything the others say. And Rose, waking sometimes now to her old personal grief—a thing which seems dead, distant and selfish, under the shadow of this present sorrow—recollects that Martha’s “capital” is from Mr. Buchanan—that Cuthbert is his favourite nephew, and that there may be truth yet in the story which fell like a stone upon her heart. But Rose only speculates unawares upon these individual anxieties—they seem to her guilty, and she is ashamed to harbour them—yet still unconsciously she looks for Cuthbert’s coming, and when he comes grows abstracted and silent, and looks like a shy, incompetent girl, instead of the fair, sweet-hearted woman into whose fuller form and maturity her youth developes day by day. Yet Cuthbert’s eyes are witched and charmed, and he has strangely correct understanding of every shy, half-broken word she says; and Rose would start, and wonder, and scarcely believe, in her timid unconscious humility, could she see how these broken words remain in Cuthbert’s heart.