On the morning of the day on which Lord Earlshope paid this sudden visit to Airlie, the Minister came down into the parlour of the Manse, where Leezibeth was placing the breakfast things.
"Miss Cassilis is coming home to-day," he said.
"Atweel, I'm glad to hear't," said Leezibeth, uttering that peculiar sigh of resignation with which most elderly Scotchwomen receive good news.
The boys were all rejoiced to hear that Coquette was coming; for they had not forgotten the presents she had promised them; and they knew from of old that she was as little likely to forget. This being Saturday, and a wet Saturday, too, they unanimously resolved to stay at home, and play at "bools" in the lobby until Coquette should arrive from Glasgow. But the restraint of this form of amusement became insufferable. Leezibeth's remonstrances about their noise—the Minister being then engaged with his sermon—at last drove them out of the house and up into the hay-loft, where they had unlimited freedom of action and voice.
When Leezibeth delivered to Andrew the necessary orders about the dog-cart it was in a somewhat defiant way—she knew he would not regard very favourably the return of the young lady. But Andrew kept most of his grumbling to himself; and Leezibeth only overheard the single word "Jezebel!"
"Jezebel!" she cried, in a sudden flame of anger. "Wha is Jezebel? Better Jezebel than Shimei the Benjamite, that will be kenned for ever by his ill-temper and his ill-tongue."
Leezibeth stood there, as if daring him to say another word. Andrew was a prudent man. He began to tie his shoe, and as he stooped he only muttered—
"H'm! If Shimei had had a woman's tongue, David micht hae suffered waur. And it's an ill time come to us if we are a' to bend the knee to this foreign woman, that can scarcely be spoken o' withoot offence. Better for us a' if the Minister's brither had been even like Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim. As it was said o' him, 'I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee, into another country, where ye were not born, and there shall ye die. But to the land whereunto they desire to return, thither shall they not return.'"
"Od, I wish Maister Tammas could hear ye!" said Leezibeth, in desperation at being out-talked.
"Ay, ay, Maister Tammas; it was an ill day for him that she came to the Manse. Mark my words, the Minister 'll repent him o't when he sees his auldest son a wreck and a ruin, and a by-word i' the country-side. Ay, indeed: when the young man turns away from his ain folk, Leezibeth, to marry ane o' the daughters o' Heth."
"What for no?" cried Leezibeth, boldly. "Where could he wale out a bonnier lass? I wish ye'd stop yer yaumering, and look oot some plaids and rugs for the dog-cairt, for there's wind and rain enough to last us for the rest o' the year."
A very surly man was Andrew Bogue when he set out at mid-day to drive over to the station. He was enveloped so that only the tip of his nose could be seen; for the wind was dashing heavy showers over the moor, and the sea was white with the breaking of the great waves. It was not a day to improve a man's temper; and when, at last, Coquette arrived, Andrew was not the most pleasant person to bid her welcome.
Coquette was alone. Sir Peter was for accompanying her on the brief railway journey; but she would not hear of it, as she knew that the dog-cart would await her arrival. Coquette came out into the little station. She asked Andrew to get her luggage; and while he was gone she turned and looked up to the high country beyond which Airlie lay. How dismal it looked! The wind was moving heavy masses of dull grey cloud across the sky; and between her and the gloomy landscape hovered the mist of the rain, underneath which the trees drooped, and the roads ran red. She had no view of the sea; but the plain of tumbling waves would not have brightened the prospect much. And so at last she took her seat on the dog-cart; and hid herself in thick shawls and rugs; and was driven away through the dripping and desolate country. It was so different from her first coming hither!
"They are all well at Airlie?" she said.
"Weel aneuch," said Andrew; and that was all the conversation which passed between them on the journey.
They drew near Earlshope, and Coquette saw the entrance to the park, and the great trees hanging wearily in the rain. There was the strip of fir-wood, too, near which she had parted with Lord Earlshope but a short time ago, on that pleasant summer morning. The place looked familiar, and yet unfamiliar. The firs were almost black under the heavy sky; and there was no living creature abroad to temper the loneliness of the moor which stretched beyond. It seemed to Coquette that she was now coming back to a prison, in which she must spend the rest of her life. Hitherto all had been uncertainty as to her future, and she had surrendered herself to the new and sweet experiences of the moment with scarcely a thought. But now all the past had been shut up as if it were a sealed book, and there remained to her—what? Coquette began to think that she had seen the best of life; and that she would soon feel old.
She went into the Manse. It did not look a cheerful place just then. Outside, damp and cold; inside, the wind had blown the smoke down one of the chimneys, and the atmosphere of the house was a dull blue. But Leezibeth came running to meet her; and overwhelmed her with fussy kindness about her wet garments; and hurried her upstairs; and provided her with warm slippers, and what not; until Coquette—who had abandoned herself into her hands—became aware that she was ungratefully silent about those little attentions.
"You are very kind to me, Leesiebess," she said.
"'Deed no, I'm fair delighted to see ye back, miss," said Leezibeth, "for the Manse has been like a kirkyaird since the day ye left it. The Minister has been shut up in the study from mornin' till nicht; the laddies at the schule; and that cantankerous auld Andrew grumbling until a body's life was like to be worried out. And I'm thinking Glasgow doesna agree wi' ye, miss. Ye are looking a wee bit worn and pale; but running about the moor will soon set ye up again."
"It is not pleasant to go on the moor now," said Coquette, as she looked out of the window on the dreary prospect.
"But it canna be aye rainin'—though it seems to try sometimes," said Leezibeth. "I wish it had been ordained that we should get nae mair weet than the farmers want—it is just a wastery o' the elements to hae rain pourin' down like that."
Then Coquette began to inquire why her uncle had not yet come to see her; and Leezibeth explained that the Minister was fairly buried alive in his books ever since he had began seriously to work at his Concordance. So she ran downstairs, and went into the study, and went up to him and dutifully kissed him.
The Minister looked up with dazed eyes, and a pleased look came into the sad grey face.
"You have come back, my bairn? And you are well? And you have enjoyed yourself in Glasgow?"
He failed to notice the somewhat tired air that had not escaped Leezibeth's keen scrutiny.
"You have been hard at work, uncle, I can see; and I am come back to interrupt it."
"Why?" said the Minister, in some alarm.
"Because I cannot let you kill yourself with your books. When the weather does become fine again, you will go out with me, and leave your books alone for a time."
"I cannot do that," he said, looking at the sheets before him. "I have purposed having this work finished by the end o' the year, so that, if I am spared and in health, I might even undertake another with the incoming o' the new year. But sometimes I fear my labour will be thrown away. I am not familiar wi' the booksellers and such persons as undertake to bring out new works. The expense of it would be far too great for my own means, and yet I do not know how to recommend it to the notice of those whose business it is to embark money in such enterprises. I do not desire any profit or proceeds from the sale of the book, but I am not sufficiently acquainted with such things to know whether that will be an inducement. The cost of bringing out such a work must be great—Mr. Gillespie, the schoolmaster, did even mention so large a sum as one hundred pounds, but I am afraid not with sufficient caution or knowledge."
Coquette knelt down beside the old man, and took his hand in both of hers.
"Uncle," she said, "I am going to ask you for a great favour."
"And what is it?"
"No, you must promise first."
"It is impossible—it is contrary to the teaching of Scripture to promise what it may be impossible to perform," said the Minister, who was perhaps vaguely influenced by the story of the daughter of Herodias.
"Ah, well, it does not matter. Uncle, I want you to let me be your publisher."
"What do you mean, Catherine?"
"Let me publish your book for you. You know my papa did leave me some money; it is useless to me; I do nothing with it; it becomes more and more every year, and does nothing for anybody. This would be an amusement for me. I will take your book, uncle; and you shall have no more of bother with it; and I will get it printed; and my Cousin Tom—he will send me word how the people do buy it in Glasgow."
"But—but—but—" stammered the Minister, who could scarcely understand at first this astounding proposal, "my child, this generosity you propose might entail serious loss, which I should feel more than if it were my own. It is a grave matter, this publishing of a book—it is one that young people cannot understand, and is not lightly to be undertaken. We will put aside this offer of yours, Catherine——"
"No, uncle, you must not," she said, gently, as she rose and put her hand on his shoulder. And then she drooped her head somewhat, as if in shame, and said to him in a low voice, quite close to his ear: "If my mamma were here, she would do it for you, uncle, and so you must let me."
And then she kissed him again, and went away to call the boys, who were rather anxiously awaiting that summons. They were taken up to her sitting-room, and thither also came Leezibeth, partly to preserve order, and partly to open one of Coquette's boxes, which was placed on a side-table. Coquette, by this time, had plucked up her spirits a little bit. The fire was burning more brightly in the room; and Leezibeth had prepared some tea for her. And so, when this box was finally opened, she proceeded to display its contents in the fashion of a small show-woman; delivering a grave lecture to the circle of boys, who looked on as hungry-eyed as hawks. That decorum did not last long. In a very little while there was a turmoil in the room, and boyish shrieks of laughter over Coquette's ironical jokes went pealing all over the house. For she had brought this for that cousin, and that for the other one; and there was a great deal of blushing, of confused thanks, and of outrageous merriment. Coquette seemed to have purchased an inexhaustible store of presents; and what astonished them more than all was the exceeding appropriateness and exceptional value of those gifts.
"Look here, Coquette," said Dugald, "who told you I lost that knife with the corkscrew and the gimlet and the file in it—for this ane is jist the same?"
"Look here, Dugald," remarked the young lady, standing before him. "Will you please to tell me how you addressed me just now?"
"Oh," said Dugald, boldly, "the Whaup never called ye anything else, and ye seemed well enough pleased."
Here there was some covert laughter at Coquette's expense; for these young gentlemen had formed their own notion of the relations between their brother and Coquette.
"Then," she said, "when you are as tall as the Whaup, and as respectful to me as he is, you may call me Coquette; but not till then, Master Dugald."
In the midst of all this noise, a sudden lull occurred. Coquette turned and saw the tall, spare figure of her uncle at the half-opened door, where he had been for some time an unperceived and amused spectator of the proceedings. One or two of the boys had caught sight of him, and had instantly curbed their wild merriment. But even although this was Saturday, it was clear the Minister was not in an impatient mood with their uproar. On the contrary, he walked into the room, and over to Coquette, and put his hand affectionately on her head.
"You are a very good girl, Catherine," he said.
The boys looked on this demonstration of kindliness with the utmost surprise. Seldom, indeed, had they seen their father forget that rigour of demeanour which the people in many parts of Scotland retain as the legacy of Puritanical reticence in all matters of the feelings and emotions. And then the compliment he paid to her!
"I hope you are not being troubled by those unruly boys, who have much to learn in manners," said the Minister, with a tranquil gravity. "But Leezibeth must see to that; and so, since you are come home, Catherine, I begin to think I should like to hear the sound of music again. I think the Manse has not been quite so cheerful since you left, somehow; and I have missed you much in the evenings. As for music, I have had occasion lately to notice how much King David was in the habit of speaking of it, and of musical instruments, and the singing of the voice. Perhaps we in this country have an unwarrantable prejudice against music—an exercise that we know the chosen people of the Lord prized highly."
It was now Leezibeth's turn to be astonished. To hear the Minister ask for music on a Saturday—the day of his studying the sermon; and to hear him disagree with the estimation in which that godless pastime was held by all decent, sober-minded, responsible folk, were matters for deep reflection to her, and not a little surprise and pain. Yet in her secret heart she was not sorry that Coquette sat down to the piano. Had she dared, she would have asked her to sing one of the old Scotch songs that had first drawn her towards the young French girl.
But Coquette, also remembering that it was Saturday, began to play "Drumclog;" and the beating of the wind and rain without was soon lost in the solemn and stately harmonies of that fine old air. And then, as in days gone by, she played it sharply and triumphantly; and a thrill went through the Minister's heart. He drew his chair nearer to the piano; and heard the close of the brief performance with a sigh.
"Catherine," he said, rather absently, "was there not a song you used to sing about returning to your home after being away from it for a time? It was a French song, I think; and yet the music of it seemed to me praiseworthy."
"I do know that song," said Coquette, in a low voice, "But—but—I cannot sing it any more."
The Minister did not notice the distress that was visible on her face.
"Yet perhaps you remember the music sufficiently to play it on the instrument without the help of the voice," said the grey-haired old man—apparently forgetting altogether that the boys were in the room, and Leezibeth at the door.
Coquette began to play the air. It was the song that told of the happy return to France after three long years of absence. She had returned to her home, it is true—leaving behind her many wild, and sad, and beautiful memories; and now that she was back at Airlie, it seemed as though the desolate wind and rain outside were but typical of the life that awaited her here. Coquette played the air as if she were in a dream; and, at last, her cousin Dugald, standing at the end of the piano, was surprised to see her face get more and more bent down, and her fingering of the keys more and more uncertain.
"What for are ye greetin'?" he said to her, gently; but Coquette could make no answer.
Coquette had never got accustomed to the depressing stillness and gloom of the Sabbath as it was kept at Airlie; and on this, the first morning of what seemed to be the beginning of a new era of her life, she almost feared what she would have to encounter. She dreaded the death-like silence of the neighbourhood; the sombre procession of the people to church; the sharp, imperative jangle of the bell; and then the long, drowsy, monotonous day spent indoors, with the melancholy sound of Leezibeth reading aloud to herself in the kitchen. Once, as she lay ill, she talked to Leezibeth about the pleasant Sundays she had learnt to love in her youth—the cheerful gathering of friends and acquaintances at the small church in the early morning—the mysterious music—the solemn lights in the recesses of the building: then out into the clear air again, and home to meet all manner of relatives and friends who had come to spend a quiet holiday. Against all this, Leezibeth naturally protested strongly; and even warmed into poetic language, as elderly Scotchwomen will, who have been familiar all their life with the picturesque phraseology of the Bible.
"It is the day set apart," she said; "it is the day of the Lord; and He walks about on that day, and looks on what He has made, as it was efter a new creation."
"And are you afraid of Him," said Coquette, as she lay half-dreaming on the sofa; "are you afraid of Him, that you all keep indoors on that day, and scarce speak to each other, and let no sound be heard?"
On this particular morning the whole world was steeped in gloom. The storm had so far abated that the trees no longer bent before the wind, and there was no rain; but overhead and stretching far to the horizon was a pall of thick, lurid, steel-blue cloud; and the mountains of Arran threw sombre shadows deep down into the cold grey of the sea. The fir woods near at hand seemed almost black; those on the slopes going southward lay as a series of dusky and indistinguishable patches on the misty greys and greens of the landscape. The road going across the moor had been washed red; and the rapid and drumly stream had overflown its narrow banks.
The boys were in their Sunday clothes, and were secretly caressing in their pockets during the time of family worship the presents Coquette had brought them from Glasgow. Leezibeth was particular that Coquette should put on thick boots, as the roads were so wet; and by-and-by, after much hurrying, and whispering, and admonition, they all set out for church.
It was a cheerless day, cold and damp; and the wind had a raw feeling about it. The cracked bell of the old church was pealing out its summons, and up from Airlie came the struggling and solemn procession of people, seemingly afraid to speak to each other, nearly all of them dressed in stiff and ungainly black garments. Fortunately for Coquette, she was overtaken by an old friend of hers; and she welcomed him gladly; for she knew that he would talk to her even to the church door. It was the Pensioner.
"And I wass told you would pe pack, Miss Cassilis," said Neil, "and richt glad was I to hear't; and how is that you will like Glasgow?"
"I did like it very much," said Coquette.
"Oh, it is sa grand place—but you will need to know where to go for sa goot whisky before you will go to Glasgow."
Coquette hinted that she had not discovered the pet public-house that Neil evidently had in his mind's eye; whereupon the old Highlandman was profuse and earnest in his apologies—he had not "meant it was for sa likes o' her to think o' a public-house," and so forth.
Just at this moment, when the party from the Manse had nearly reached the path across the moor to the church, and were therefore on the point of joining the slow stream of people that came up from the village, the noise of a carriage was heard behind them. Instantly all the faces of the people were turned. Such a sound had rarely indeed been heard at Airlie on a Sunday morning; and there was a manifest lingering on the moorland road to see who this might be that was outraging the solemn and decorous gravity of the Sabbath.
Coquette, the Pensioner, Leezibeth, and the boys, stepped to one side, to let the carriage pass. But it had not passed them when the loud voice of a woman was heard ordering the driver to stop. The vehicle, indeed, halted close by the party from the Manse; and Coquette found to her astonishment and dismay that she was confronted by the woman who had walked up to Lord Earlshope and herself in the Park.
"What! The little Spanish princess!" cried the woman, with her bold, black eyes fixed on the girl with a look of impudent merriment. "So this is where you come from, is it? Here, won't you shake hands with me?"
She sat round in the carriage, and put her hand over the side. Coquette shrank back a step, and inadvertently caught hold of Neil's arm.
"She is afraid of me," said the woman in the carriage to her companion—another woman, less gaudily dressed, who sat opposite her. "She cuts me! Our country beauties are proud! But you were not born and bred in this desolate hole, were you?" she added, addressing Coquette.
The girl was too much alarmed to reply. The whole scene was visible to the people, who made no pretence of walking on to the church, but stopped and stared at the strange spectacle of a bold, red-faced, impudent woman addressing the Minister's niece, and breaking the stillness of the Sabbath morning with her loud talking and her indecent laughter.
The scene only lasted for a couple of seconds, however. The Pensioner walked boldly up to the side of the carriage, and said—
"What is it you will want wis sa Minister's niece?"
For reply, he got a handful of raisins and almonds tossed into his face; and then, with another shriek of laughter, in which her companion joined, the woman called aloud to her coachman—
"Drive on to Earlshope."
"To Earlshope!" whispered the villagers among themselves; and then they looked at Coquette, who, pale and yet apparently self-possessed, had crossed into the path with Leezibeth, and was already walking slowly towards the church.
For an instant or two the Pensioner stood looking at the retreating carriage, his whole frame trembling with rage at the insult he had received. Of the rapid Gaelic he uttered there and then it was fortunate the villagers could overhear or understand but little. Then, with a proud and dignified air, he drew up his shoulders, and marched in military fashion after Coquette, whom he overtook.
"Earlshope! Earlshope!" said the old man, puffing and snorting with indignation. "It will be no Earlshope she will see sa day. Oh, I will know all apout it. We wass warned—and when his lordship did ride away this morning, his last words was apout this leddy that might be for coming to look at sa house."
"Was Lord Earlshope here this morning?" said Coquette, quickly.
The Pensioner was startled to find what he had done. In his indignation, he had told not only what he knew himself, but also that which had been given him as a profound secret by the housekeeper. Never in his life before had he been so indiscreet; and in his perplexity and consternation he made wild and desperate efforts to recover the ownership of these mysteries.
"No, no, no!" he said, hurriedly, and with every token of vexation. "It will pe all nonsense that sa woman has put into my head. His lordship at Earlshope? He hassna been sare for many and many's sa day, as sure as I will pe porn!"
The Pensioner gave this last assurance with a downcast head and in a sort of anxious whisper; for they were now near the church door, where outspoken lies might be dangerous cattle to deal with. Coquette's calm eyes looked at the old man, and saw his perturbation. She perceived that he had unintentionally revealed a secret. Lord Earlshope had left the neighbourhood only that morning; and with that, and this wild escapade of his wife, to think over—even if she had nothing of her own to trouble her mind—she entered the small building. For a moment she could not help reflecting that if, instead of listening to the harsh psalm-singing, she could have gone away and knelt down all by herself in one of the small, twilight recesses in a certain little chapel on the Loire, she would have been happy. It would have been to her like bending down once more at her mother's knee.
Meanwhile the carriage had been driven to the gates of Earlshope. The lodgekeeper came out, and naturally opened the gates, although sufficiently surprised to see anybody arrive at such a time. When, at last, the landau arrived at the house, the occupants alighted. The housekeeper was already standing there, in front of the open door, glaring defiance.
The first of the two women walked up the stone steps in a slow and pompous fashion, and, with an air of mock-heroic gravity, produced a card, on which was printed Mrs. Smith Arnold.
"'Deed no!" said the housekeeper, rather incoherently.
Mrs. Arnold looked at her companion, and shrugged her shoulders.
"My good woman, I suppose you can't read. That is not a begging letter. It is a card. I have the permission of Lord Earlshope to look over the house: I don't mean to steal anything, but you may come with us wherever we go, if you please."
The housekeeper began to wax warm.
"Canna read! I can read weel aneugh; and what I say is, that not one step into this house will ye gang the day, his lordship's permission or no permission."
"What do you mean, woman?" said Mrs. Arnold, with an assumption of haughtiness.
"I mean what I say," said the Scotchwoman, doggedly. "And I havena been kept frae the kirk a' for nothing, as ye'll find out, gin ye attempt ony o' your fine airs wi' me."
These latter words were spoken rather hotly; and both the women who stood before her looked surprised. However, the so-called Mrs. Arnold picked up some temper, and merely exclaiming—"Oh, the creature's mad!" brushed past into the house, along with her companion. Lord Earlshope's plenipotentiary was at once stupefied and powerless. In order to avoid a public scandal on the Sabbath morning, she had sent the other servants to church, confident that her own authority would be sufficient to repulse any casual visitor. Now she found the house invaded by two strange women, and she was placed in an awkward dilemma. If she went through the house with them, she would condone their offence, and be unable to eject them; if she went for help to the lodge, they, in the meantime, might pillage and plunder in every direction. Eventually, after a moment of incensed hesitation, she followed them.
And gradually she perceived that they were not thieves. Indeed, Mrs. Smith Arnold betrayed a singular acquaintance with many objects in the house, particularly in a small drawing-room or morning-room which Lord Earlshope was scarcely ever known to enter.
"But where is my portrait?" she said.
"Your portrait!" repeated the housekeeper, with all her indignation welling up again.
"Woman, you are an ass—a microcephalous idiot in fact; but you don't know it, and it is no matter. He might have brought my portrait here; it is a dull hole, and it might have cheered him. And this is the place he used to talk about with something like rapture! Good heavens! it is dismal as a church. Look at the deserted country and the bare shore and the black sea. What's the name of those mountains over there?"
"Ye had better ask them," said the housekeeper, "since ye can make free enough to come into a strange house, and talk as if everything belonged to ye!"
"And so it does—so it does; that is the joke of it. You would understand it if you were not such an ass, my good woman; but I am afraid you are a very stupid person."
"Are ye going to leave this house?" said the housekeeper, in a blaze of anger.
But the temper of the housekeeper was nothing to the sudden passion that shot into the black eyes of this woman, as she said—
"Don't talk to me! I tell you, don't talk to me, or I will dash a bottle of vitriol in your face, and blind you, blind you, blind you!"
Then she burst into an ironical laugh.
"What a fool you are—an ass—an idiot! You haven't got the brains of a slow-worm. My good woman, believe me, you are an ass!"
She began to turn over the things on the table—books, photographs, cards, and what not. The housekeeper started and listened. There was a sound of footsteps on the stair. In a minute or two, the Pensioner made his appearance at the door, tall and erect.
At the sight of this ally, all the housekeeper's courage and anger returned. She denounced the strangers as thieves and pick-pockets. She appealed to the Pensioner to help her. She conjured him to turn them out of the house.
"Sat is what I will do," observed Neil, advancing calmly, with the sort of deferential and yet firm air of the private soldier.
"Please, mem, will ye go, or will I pit ye out o' sa house?"
"Lay a finger on me, and I will set fire to the place, and burn you and it into cinders. Savages that you are—and idiots!"
"You will say what you please," observed Neil, who probably considered these phrases as rather feeble when compared with some that he knew in his native tongue; "but I mean to put ye both out o' sa house. I will not strike you—Cootness knaws; but I will jist tek ye up, one by one, and carry ye down sa stairs, and out into sa gairden, and leave ye there. Will ye go, or will ye not go?"
"Do you know who I am, you idiot?" cried the woman, with her face grown purple with passion.
Her companion laid her hand on her arm; she shook her off.
"I do not care," said the Pensioner.
"I am Lady Earlshope, you ignorant brutes and beasts!" she cried. "And I will have every one of you starved until a crow would not pick your eyes out, and I'll have you whipped, and starved, you ignorant hounds!"
"Lady Earlshope!" said the housekeeper, rather falling back.
The quieter of the two women again interposed and endeavoured to pacify her companion. She, indeed, seemed rather frightened. Eventually, however, she managed to get her infuriated mistress coaxed out of the room and down the stair; and as they were descending they nearly stumbled over a third person—the lodgekeeper, who, fancying that there was something amiss, had come along out of curiosity.
"Who are you?" she asked. "Oh, I remember. I suppose you have been listening. Well, you can go and tell your babbling neighbours of the reception Lady Earlshope met with in her own house."
And that is precisely what the man did. He had overheard much of the stormy scene in the drawing-room, and, being of a prudent disposition, did not wish to have anything to do with it. When the carriage drove off, he went quietly back to the lodge, leaving the housekeeper and the Pensioner under the delusion that they alone knew the relationship of this woman to Lord Earlshope. But the lodgekeeper revealed the secret, in an awe-stricken way, to his wife; who whispered it, in profound confidence, to one of the female servants; who subsequently told it to her mother in the village.
There it ran the round, with such exaggerations and comments as may be imagined; and if Coquette had been looked on rather askance from the moment of her coming to Airlie, this news placed her under the ban of a definite suspicion, and even horror. What were her relations with the drunken and passionate woman who had accosted her, in the open face of day, on that memorable Sabbath morning? What was the meaning of her intimacy with Lord Earlshope, and the cause of his visits to the Manse ever since she had come to live there?
Even the children caught the fever of distrust, and avoided Coquette. That would have been a bitter thing for her to bear, had she noticed it; but she was perhaps too much occupied then with her own sad thoughts. Nor was the Minister aware that his own conduct in harbouring this girl was forming the subject of serious remark in the village. The excuses made for him were in themselves accusations. He was withdrawn from worldly affairs. He was engrossed in his books. He was liable to be imposed on. All this was said; but none the less was it felt that the duty of looking sharply after the conduct of his household and the persons around him was specially incumbent on one whose business it was to see narrowly to the interests of the Church, and set an example to his Christian brethren.
For a long period Coquette's life at Airlie was so uneventful that it may be dismissed with the briefest notice. It seemed to her that she had passed through that season of youth and springtime when romance and love and anticipation ought to colour for a brief while the atmosphere round a human existence as if with rainbows. That was all over—if, indeed, it had ever occurred to her. There was now but a sad, grey monotony; a going by of the weeks and months in this remote moorland place, where the people seemed hard, unimpressionable, unfriendly. She began to acquire notions of duty. She began to devise charitable occupations for herself. She even began various studies which could never by any chance be of use to her. And she grew almost to love the slow, melancholy droning by the old Scotch folk of those desolating passages in the Prophets which told of woe and wrath and the swift end of things, or which, still more appropriately, dealt with the vanity of life, and the shortness of man's days.
The Whaup would sometimes talk of marriage—she put it farther and farther off. He seldom indeed came to Airlie; his hospital-work kept him busy; and he was eagerly looking forward to the junior partnership that Dr. Menzies had promised him. But on one of these rare visits he said to his cousin—
"Coquette, you are growing very like a Scotch girl."
"Why?" she asked.
"In manner, I mean; not in appearance. You are not as demonstrative as you used to be. You appear more settled, prosaic, matter-of-fact. You have lost all your old childish caprices; and you no longer appear to be so pleased with every little thing that happens. You are much graver than you used to be."
"Do you think so?" she said, absently.
"But when we are married I mean to take you away from this slow place, and introduce you to lots of pleasant people, and brighten you up into the old Coquette."
"I am very content to be here," she said, quietly.
"Content! Is that all you ask for? Content! I suppose a nun is content with a stone cell eight feet square. But you were not intended to be content; you must be delighted, and you shall be delighted. Coquette, you never laugh now!"
"And you," she said, "you are grown much serious too."
"Oh, well," he said, "I have such a deal to think about. One has to drop robbing people's gardens some day or other."
"I have some things to think about also," she said—"not always to make me laugh."
"What troubles you, then, Coquette?" he demanded gently.
"Oh, I cannot be asked questions, and questions always," she said, with a trace of fretful impatience, which was a startling surprise to him. "I have much to do in the village, with the children—and the parents, they do seem afraid of me."
The Whaup regarded her silently, with rather a pained look in his face; and then she, looking up, seemed to become aware that she had spoken harshly. She put her hand on his hand, and said—
"You must not be angry with me, Tom. I do often find myself getting vexed, I do not know why; and I ask myself, if I do stay long enough at Airlie, whether I shall become like Leezibeth and her husband."
"You shall not stay long enough to try," said the Whaup, cheerfully.
Then he went away up to Glasgow, determined to work day and night to achieve his dearest hopes. Sometimes he reflected, when he heard his fellow-students tell of their gay adventures with their sweethearts, that his sweetheart, in bidding him good-bye, had never given him one kiss. And on each occasion that he went down to Airlie, Coquette seemed to him to be growing more and more like the beautiful and sad Madonnas of early Italian art, and he scarce dared to think of kissing her.
So the days went by, and the slow, humdrum life of Airlie crept through the seasons, bringing the people a little nearer to the churchyard up on the moor that had received their fathers and their forefathers. The Minister worked away with a patient earnestness at his Concordance to the Psalms; and had the pride of a young author in thinking of its becoming a real, bound book with the opening of the new year. Coquette went systematically and gravely about her charitable works in the village, and took no notice of the ill-favour with which her efforts were regarded. All that summer and winter Earlshope remained empty.
One evening, in the beginning of the new year, Mr. Gillespie the Schoolmaster came up to the Manse, and was admitted into the study, where Coquette and her uncle sat together, busy with an array of proof-sheets. The Schoolmaster had a communication to make. Mr. Cassilis, enjoying the strange excitement and responsibility of correcting the sheets of a work which would afterwards bear his name, was forced to beg the Schoolmaster to be brief; and he, thus goaded, informed them, after a short preamble, that Earlshope was to be sold.
The Schoolmaster was pleased with the surprise which his news produced. Indeed, he had come resolved to watch the effect of these tidings upon the Minister's niece, so that he might satisfy his mind of her being in secret collusion with the young Lord of Earlshope; and he now glared at her through his gold spectacles. She had started on hearing the intelligence—so that she was evidently unacquainted with it; and yet she showed no symptoms of regret over an event which clearly betokened Lord Earlshope's final withdrawal from the country.
"A strange, even an unaccountable thing, it may be termed," observed the Schoolmaster, "inasmuch as his lordship was no spendthrift, and had surely as much as could satisfy all his wants or necessities, as one might say. Yet he has aye been a singular young man—which may have been owing, or caused by, certain circumstances, or relationships of which you have doubtless heard, Mr. Cassilis."
"I have heard too much of the vain talking of the neighbourhood about his lordship and his affairs," said the Minister, impatiently turning to his proofs.
"I will venture to say, Mr. Cassilis," remarked the Schoolmaster, who was somewhat nettled, "that it is no vain talking, as no one has been heard to deny that he is a married man."
"Dear me!" said the Minister, looking up. "Of what concern is it to either you or me, Mr. Gillespie, whether he is a married man or not?"
The Schoolmaster was rather stunned. He looked at Coquette. She sat apparently unimpressionable and still. He heaved a sigh, and shook his head; and then he rose.
"It is the duty o' a Christian—which I humbly hope that I am, sir,—no' to think ill of his neighbours; but I confess, Mr. Cassilis, ye go forward a length in that airt, or direction, I might term it rather, which is surprising."
The Minister rose also.
"Let me see you through the passage, Mr. Gillespie, which is dark at these times. I do not claim for myself, however, any especial charity in this matter; for I would observe that it is not always to a man's disfavour to believe him married."
As the passage was in reality exceedingly dark, the Schoolmaster could not tell whether there was in the Minister's eye a certain humorous twinkle which he had sometimes observed there, and which, to tell the truth, he did not particularly like, for it generally accompanied a severe rebuke. However, the Schoolmaster had done his duty. The Minister was warned; and if any of his household were led astray, the village of Airlie could wash its hands of the matter.
At last there came people to make Earlshope ready for the auctioneer's hammer; and then there was a great sale, and the big house was gutted and shut up. But neither it nor the estate was sold; though strangers came from time to time to look at both.
Once more the still moorland neighbourhood returned to its quiet ways; and Coquette went the round of her simple duties, lessening day by day the vague prejudice which had somehow been stirred up against her. It was with no such intention, certainly, that she laboured; it was enough if the days passed, and if the Whaup were content to cease writing for a definite answer about that marriage which was yet far away in the future. Leezibeth looked on this new phase of the girl's character with an esteem and approval tempered by something like awe. She could not tell what had taken away from her all the old gaiety, and wilfulness, and carelessness. Strangely enough, too, Leezibeth was less her confidante now; and on the few occasions that Lady Drum came over to Airlie, the old lady was surprised to find Coquette grown almost distant and reserved in manner. Indeed, the girl was as much alone there as if she had been afloat on a raft at sea. All hope of change, of excitement, of pleasure, seemed to have left her. She seldom opened the piano; and, when she did, "Drumclog" was no longer a martial air, but a plaintive wail of grief.
Perhaps, of all the people around her, the one that noticed most of her low spirits was the Whaup's young brother Dugald, of whom she had made a sort of pet. Very often she took him with her on her missions into the village, or her walks into the country round. And one day, as they were sitting on the moor, she said to him—
"I suppose you never heard of an old German song that is very strange and sad? I wonder if I can remember the words and repeat them to you. They are something like this—
Three horsemen rode out to the gate of the town: Good-bye!
Fine-Sweetheart, she looked from her window down: Good-bye!
And if ill fate such grief must bring
Then reach me hither your golden ring!
Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!
Ah, parting wounds so bitterly!
And it is Death that parts us so: Good-bye!
Many a rose-red maiden must go: Good-bye!
He sunders many a man from wife:
They knew how happy a thing was life.
Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!
Ah, parting wounds so bitterly!
He steals the infant out of its bed: Good-bye!
And when shall I see my nut-brown maid? Good-bye!
It is not to-morrow: ah, were it to-day,
There are two that I know that would be gay!
Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!
Ah, parting wounds so bitterly!
"What does it mean?" asked the boy.
"I think it means," said Coquette, looking away over the moor, "that everybody in the world is miserable."
"And are you miserable, too?" he asked.
"Not more than others, I suppose," said Coquette.
The dull, grey atmosphere that thus hung over Coquette's life was about to be pierced by a lightning-flash.
Two years had passed away in a quiet, monotonous fashion; and very little had happened during that time to the people about Airlie. The Minister, it is true, had published his Concordance to the Psalms; and not only had he received various friendly and congratulatory letters about it from clergymen standing high in the estimation of the world, but notice had been taken of the work in the public prints, and that in a manner to fill the old man's heart with secret joy. Coquette cut out those paragraphs which were laudatory (suppressing ruthlessly those which were not) and placed them in a book. Indeed, she managed the whole business; and, especially in the monetary portion of it, insisted on keeping her negotiations with the publishers a profound secret.
"It is something for me to do, uncle," she said.
"And you have done it very well, Catherine," said the Minister. "I am fair surprised to see what a goodly volume it has turned out—the smooth paper—the clear printing: it is altogether what I would call a presentable book."
The Minister would have been less surprised had he known the reckless fashion in which Coquette had given instructions to the publishers, and the amount of money she subsequently and surreptitiously and cheerfully paid.
"There are newspapers," said the Minister, "which they tell me deal in a light and profane fashion wi' religious matters. I hope the editors will read my Concordance carefully, before writing of it in their journals."
"I do not think it is the editor who writes about books," remarked Coquette. "An editor of a Nantes newspaper did use to come to our house, and I remember his saying to my papa, that he gave books to his writers who could do nothing else; so you must not be surprised if they do make mistakes. As for him, uncle, I am sure he did not know who wrote the Psalms."
"Very likely—very likely," said the Minister. "But the editors of our newspapers are a different class of men, for they write for a religious nation and must be acquainted wi' such things. The Schoolmaster thinks I ought to write to the editors, and beg them to read the book wi' care."
"I wouldn't do that, uncle, if I were you," said Coquette; and somehow or other, the Minister had of late got into such a habit of consulting and obeying Coquette that her simple expression of opinion sufficed, and he did not write to any editor.
At times during that long period, but not often, the Whaup came down to Airlie, and stayed from the Saturday to the Monday morning. The anxious and troubled way in which Coquette put aside any reference to their future marriage struck him painfully; but for the present he was content to be almost silent. There was no use, he reflected, in talking about this matter until he could definitely say to her, "Come, and be my wife." He had no right to press her to give any more definite promise than she had already given, when he himself was uncertain as to time. But, even now, he saw at no great distance ahead the fortunate moment when he could formally claim Coquette as his bride. Every day that he rose, he knew himself a day nearer to the time when he should go down to Airlie and carry off with him Coquette to be the wonder of all his friends in Glasgow.
Sometimes, as he looked at Coquette, he felt rather anxious; and wished that the days could pass more quickly.
"I am afraid the dulness of this place is weighing very heavily on you, Coquette," he said to her one Saturday afternoon that he had got down.
"You do say that often to me," she said, "and I find you looking at me as if you were a doctor. Yet I am not ill. It is true, I think that I am becoming Scotch, as you said once long ago; and all your Scotch people at Airlie seem to me sad and resigned in their faces. That is no harm, is it?"
"But why should you be sad and resigned?"
"I do catch it as an infection from the others," she said with a smile.
Yet he was not satisfied; and he went back to Glasgow more impatient than ever.
"For," he said to himself, "once I can go and ask her to fulfil her promise, there will be a chance of breaking this depressing calm that has settled on her. I will take her away from Airlie. I will get three months' holidays, and take her down to see the Loire, and then along to Marseilles, and then on to Italy, and then back through Switzerland. And only think of Coquette being always with me; and my having to order breakfast for her; and see that the wine is always quite sound and good for her; and see that she is wrapped up against the cold; and to listen always to her sweet voice, and the broken English, and the little perplexed stammer now and again—isn't that something to work for? Hurry on, days, and weeks, and months, and bring Coquette to me!"
So the time went by, and Coquette had no news of Lord Earlshope—there was not even the mention of his name. But one dull morning in March, she was walking by herself over the moor; and suddenly she heard on the gravel of the path in front of her a quick footstep that she seemed to recognise. Her heart stood still, and for a second she felt faint and giddy. Then, without ever lifting her head, she endeavoured to turn aside and avoid him.
"Won't you even speak to me, Coquette?"
The sound of his voice made the blood spring hotly to her face again, and recalled the beating of her heart; but still she remained immovable. And then she answered, in a low voice—
"Yes, I will speak to you if you wish."
He came nearer to her—his own face quite pale—and said—
"I am glad you have nearly forgotten me, Coquette; I came to see. I heard that you looked very sad, and went about alone much, and were pale; but I would rather hear you tell me, Coquette, that it is all a mistake."
"I have not forgotten anything," said Coquette.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing at all."
"Coquette," he cried, coming quite close to her, "tell me this—once for all—have you forgotten nothing as I have forgotten nothing?—do you love me as if we had just parted yesterday?—has all this time done nothing for either of us?"
She looked round, wildly, as if seeking some means of escape; and then, with a sort of shudder, she found his arms round her as in the olden time, and she was saying, almost incoherently—
"Oh, my dearest, my dearest, I love you more than ever—night and day I have never ceased to think of you—and now—now my only wish is to die—here, with your arms round me!"
"Listen, Coquette, listen!" he said. "Do you know what I have done? A ship passes here in the morning for America: I have taken two berths in it, for you and for me: to-morrow we shall be sailing away to a new world, and leaving all those troubles behind us. Do you hear me, Coquette?"
The girl trembled violently: her face was hidden.
"You remember that woman," he said, hurriedly. "Nothing has been heard of her for two years. I have sought everywhere for her. She must be dead. And so, Coquette, you know, we shall be married when we get out there; and perhaps in after years we may return to Airlie. But now, Coquette, this is what you must do; the Caroline will be waiting off Saltcoats to-night; you must go down by yourself; and I will tell you how to have the gig come for you. And then we are to intercept the ship, darling; and to-morrow you will have turned your face to a new world, and will soon forget this old one, that was so cruel to you. What do you say, Coquette?"
"Oh, I cannot, I cannot!" murmured the girl. "What will become of my uncle?"
"Your uncle is an old man. He would have been as lonely if you had never come to Airlie, Coquette; and we may come back to see him."
She looked up now, with a white face, into his eyes, and said slowly—
"You know that if we go away to-night I shall never see him again—nor any one of my friends."
He shrank somehow from that earnest look; but none the less he continued his eager and piteous pleadings. "What are friends to you, Coquette?" he said. "They cannot make you happy."
It was but a little while thereafter that Coquette was on her way back to the Manse, alone. She had promised to go down to Saltcoats that night, and she had sealed her sin with a kiss.
She scarcely knew what she had done; and yet there was a dreadful consciousness of some impending evil pressing upon her heart. Her eyes were fixed on the ground as she went along; and yet it seemed to her that she knew the dark clouds were glowing with a fiery crimson, and that there was a light as of sunset glaring over the moor. Then, so still it was! She grew afraid that in this fearful silence she should hear a voice speaking to her from the sky that appeared to be close over her head.
Guilty and trembling she drew near to the Manse; and, seeing the Minister coming out of the gate, she managed to avoid him, and stole like a culprit up to her own room. The first thing that met her eyes was a locket containing a portrait of her mother. She took it up, and placed it in a drawer, along with a crucifix and some religious books to which Leezibeth had objected. She put it beside them reverently and sadly—as though she knew she never dared touch them any more. And then she sat down, and buried her face in her hands.
She was unusually and tenderly attentive to her uncle at dinner-time; and in answer to his inquiries why she scarcely ate anything, she said that she had taken her accustomed biscuit and glass of port wine—which Dr. Menzies had recommended—later than usual. The answer did not quite satisfy the Minister.
"We must have Lady Drum to take ye away for a change," he said, "some o' these days."
When she had brought her uncle the silk handkerchief with which he generally covered his face in anticipation of his after-dinner nap, Coquette went upstairs, and placed a few odd things in a small reticule. She came downstairs again, and waited patiently until tea was over, and the boys sent off to prepare their lessons for the next day.
Then Coquette, having put on her shawl and hat, stole out of the house, and through the small garden. She looked neither to the right nor to the left. Of all the troubles she had experienced in life, the bitterest was nothing in comparison to the ghastly sense of guilt that now crashed her down. She knew that in leaving the Manse she was leaving behind her all the sweet consciousness of rectitude, the purity and innocence which had enabled her to meet trials with a courageous heart. She was leaving behind her the treasure of a stainless name, the crown of womanhood. She was leaving behind her her friends, who would have to share her shame, who would have to face on her behalf the cruel tongues of the world. She was leaving behind her even the treasured memories of her mother—for Heaven itself would be closed against her, and she would be an exile from all that a pure and true woman could hold dear.
There were no tears in her eyes; but there was a cold, dead feeling at her heart; and she trembled at the slight sound she made in closing the gate.
What a strange, wild evening it was, as she got outside, and turned to cross the moor over to the west. Through a fierce glare of sunset, she could see that all along the horizon there stood a wall of dense and mysterious blue cloud. Underneath this the sea lay black; the wind had not stirred the waves into breaking; and she could only tell that the great dark plain moved in lines and lines, as if it were silently brooding over the secrets down in its depths. But above this dense wall of cloud flared the wild light of the sunset, with long fierce dashes of scarlet and gold; while across the blaze of yellow there drifted streaks of pure silver, showing the coming of a storm. Up here on the moor, the stretches of dry grey grass which alternated with brown patches of heather had, as it were, caught fire; and the blowing and gusty light of the west burned along those bleak slopes until the eye was dazzled and pained by the glow. Even in the far east the clouds had a blush of pink over them, with rifts of green sky between; and the dark fir woods that lay along the horizon seemed to dwell within a veil of crimson mist.
There was a strange stillness around, despite the fact that the wind was sufficient to move the flaming clouds hither and thither, causing now this and now that stretch of the grey moor to burn red under the shifting evening sky. There was quite an unusual silence, indeed. The birds seemed to have grown mute; not even the late blackbird sang in the hawthorn bushes by the side of the moorland stream. Coquette hurried on, without letting her eyes wander this way or that; there was something in the appearance of the moor and in the wild light that alarmed her.
Suddenly she was confronted by some one; and, looking up with a stifled cry, she found the Pensioner before her.
"I hope I hefna frichtened ye, Miss Cassilis," he said.
"No," said Coquette. "But I did not expect to meet any one."
"Ye will pe going on a veesit; but do not go far, for it iss a stormy-looking nicht, and you will maybe get ferry wet before sat you will be home again."
"Thank you. Good-night," said Coquette.
"Good-night," said the Pensioner.
Then he turned, and said, before she was out of hearing—
"Miss Cassilis, maype now you will know if his lordship iss never coming back to Earlshope any more, not even if he will pe unable to let sa house?"
"How should I know?" said Coquette, suddenly struck motionless by the question.
"Oh, indeed, now," said the Pensioner, in a tone of apology. "It wass only that some o' the neebors wass seeing you speaking to Lord Earlshope this morning, and I wass thinking that very likely he wass coming back to his own house."
"I know nothing about it," said Coquette, hurrying on, with her heart overburdened with anguish and dread.
For now she knew that all the people would learn why she had run away from her uncle's house; and they would carry to the old man the story of their having seen her talking to Lord Earlshope. But for that, the Minister might have thought her drowned or perished in some way. That was all over; and her shame would be publicly known; and he would have to bear it in his old age.
Down at the end of the moor, she turned to take a last look at the Manse. Far up on the height, the windows of the small building were twinkling like gleaming rubies; the gable and the wall round the garden were of a dusky red colour; overhead the sky was a pure, clear green, and the white sickle of a new moon was faintly visible. Never before had Airlie Manse seemed to her so lovable a place—so still, and quiet, and peaceful. And when she thought of the old man who had been like a father to her, she could see no more through the tears that came welling up into her eyes, and she turned and continued on her way with many bitter sobs.
The wind had grown chill. The wall of cloud was slowly rising in the west, until it had shut off half of the glowing colours of the sunset; and the evening was becoming rapidly darker. Then it seemed to Coquette that the black plain of the sea was getting strangely close to her; and she began to grow afraid of the gathering gloom.
"Why did he not come to meet me?" she murmured to herself. "I have no courage—no hope—when he is not near."
It grew still darker; and yet she could not hurry her steps, for she trembled much, and was like to become faint. She had vague thoughts of returning; and yet she went on mechanically, as if she had cast the die of her fate, and could be no more what she was.
Then the first shock of the storm fell—fell with a crash on the fir woods, and tore through them with a voice of thunder. All over now the sky was black; and there was a whirlwind whitening the sea, the cry of which could be heard far out beyond the land. Presently came the rain in wild, fierce torrents that blew about the wet fields and raised channels of water in the roads. Coquette had no covering of any sort. In a few minutes she was drenched; and yet she did not seem to care. She only staggered on blindly, in the frantic hope of reaching Saltcoats before the night fell. She would not go to meet Lord Earlshope. She would creep into some hovel; and then, in the morning, send a message of repentance to her uncle; and go away somewhere; and never see any more the relations and friends whom she had betrayed and disgraced.
Nevertheless, she still went recklessly on, her eyes confused by the rain, her brain a prey to wild and despairing thoughts.
The storm grew in intensity. The roar of the heavy surf could now be heard far over the cry of the wind; and the rain-clouds came across the sea in huge masses, and were blown down upon the land in hissing torrents. And still Coquette struggled on.
At last she saw before her the lights of Saltcoats. But the orange points seemed to dance before her eyes. There was a burning in her head. And then, with a faint cry of "Uncle, uncle!" she sank down by the roadside.
Almost at the same moment there was a sound of wheels. A waggonette was stopped just in front of her, and a man jumped down.
"What is the matter wi' ye, my lass? Bless me, is it you, Miss Cassilis!"
The girl was quite insensible, however; and the man, who happened to know Miss Cassilis, lost no time in carrying her to the waggonette, and driving her to his own house, which was but a few hundred yards farther on, at the entrance to the town. There his wife and one of the servants restored Coquette to consciousness, and had her wet clothes taken off, and herself put to bed. The girl seemed already feverish, if not delirious.
"But what does she say of herself?" asked this Mr. M'Henry, when his wife came down. "How did she come to be on the way to Saltcoats a' by herself?"
"That I dinna ken," said his wife; "but the first words she spoke were, 'Take me back to Airlie, to my uncle. I will not go to Saltcoats.'
"I would send for the Minister," said the husband, "but no human being could win up to Airlie on such a nicht. We will get him down in the morning."
So Coquette remained in Saltcoats that night. Under Mrs. M'Henry's treatment, the fever abated; and she lay during the darkness, and listened to the howling of the storm without. Where was Lord Earlshope?
"I hope he has gone away by himself to America, and that I will never see him again," she murmured to herself. "But I can never go back to Airlie any more."