“SHE was sent home in the brougham, that disturbed all our sleep just dashing along the road at the dead of night. They were in a terrible state before that. The minister, too, was here, looking like a ghost to hear if we knew anything; and how could we say we knew anything, seeing she had parted from here in the afternoon not over well pleased with Beenie and me. And Mrs. Ogilvie—she is not a woman I am fond of, and how far I think she’s to blame, I would just rather not say—but I will say this, that I was sorry for her that night. She came, too, with a shawl over her head, just out of herself. She had got the old man off to his bed, never letting on that Effie was out of the house; and she was in a terror for him waking, and the girl not there.”
“No fear of him waking; he is just an old doited person,” said Miss Beenie, with indignation.
“Not so old as either you or me. But let alone till I’ve told my story. And then, Ronald, my man, you’ve heard what’s followed. Not only a failure, but worse and worse; and the father fled the country. They say he had the assurance to come down here to get some papers that were laid up in his wife’s jewel press, and that Effie saw him. But he got clean away; and it’s a fraudulent bankruptcy—or if there’s anything worse than a fraudulent bankruptcy, it’s that. Oh, yes, there has been a great deal of agitation, and it is perhaps just as well that you were out of the way. I cannot tell whether I feel for the family or not. There is no look about them as if they thought shame. They’re just about the same as ever, at kirk and at market, with their horses and carriages. They tell me it takes a long time to wind up an establishment like that—and why should they not take the good of their carriages and their horses as long as they have them? But I’m perhaps a very old-fashioned woman. I would not have kept them, not a day. I would never have ridden the one nor driven about in the other, with my father a hunted swindler, and my family’s honour all gone to ruin—never, never! I would rather have died.”
“Sarah, that is just what you will do, if you work yourself up like this. Will ye not remember what the doctor says?”
“Oh, go away with your doctors. I’m an old-fashioned woman, but I’m a woman of strong feelings; I just cannot endure it! and to think that Effie, my poor little Effie, will still throw in her lot with them, and will not be persuaded against it!”
“Why should she be persuaded against it?” said Ronald Sutherland, with a very grave face. “Nobody can believe that the money would make any difference to her: and I suppose the man was not to blame.”
“The man—was nothing one way or another. He got the advantage of the money, and he was too poor a creature ever to ask how it was made. But it’s not that; the thing is that her heart was never in it—never! She was driven—no, not driven—if she had been driven she would have resisted. She was just pushed into it, just persuaded to listen, and then made to see there was no escape. Didn’t I tell you that, Beenie, before there was word of all this, before Ronald came home? The little thing: had no heart for it. She just got white like a ghost when there was any talk about marriage. She would hear of nothing, neither the trou-so, as they call it now, nor any of the nonsense that girls take a natural pleasure in. But now her little soul is just on fire. She will stick to him—she will not forsake him. And here am I in my bed, not able to take her by her shoulders and to tell her the man’s not worthy of it, and that she’ll rue it just once, and that will be her life long!”
“Oh!” cried Miss Beenie, wringing her hands, “what is the use of a woman being in her bed if she is to go on like that? You will just bring on another attack, and where will we all be then? The doctor, he says——”
“You are greatly taken up with what the doctor says: that’s one thing of being in my bed,” said Miss Dempster, with a laugh, “that I cannot see the doctor and his ways—his dram—that he would come to the window and take off, with a nod up at you and me.”
“Oh, Sarah, nothing of the kind. It was no dram, in the first place, but just a small drop of sherry with his quinine——”
“That’s very like, that’s very like,” said Miss Dempster, with a satirical laugh, “the good, honest, innocent man! I wonder it was not tea, just put in a wine glass for the sake of appearances. Are you sure, Beenie, it was not tea?”
“Oh, Sarah! the doctor, he has just been your diversion. But if you would be persuaded what a regard he has for you—ay, and respect too—and says that was always his feeling, even when he knew you were gibing and laughing at him.”
“A person that has the sense to have a real illness will always command a doctor’s respect. If I recover, things will just fall into their old way; but make your mind easy, Beenie, I will not recover, and the doctor will have a respect for me all his days.”
“Oh, Sarah!” cried Miss Beenie, weeping. “Ronald, I wish you would speak to her. You have a great influence with my sister, and you might tell her—— You are just risking your life, and what good can that do?”
“I am not risking my life; my life’s all measured, and reeling out. But I would like to see that bit little Effie come to a better understanding before I die. Ye will be a better doctor for her than me, Ronald. Tell her from me she is a silly thing. Tell her yon is not the right man for her, and that I bid her with my dying breath not to be led away with a vain conceit, and do what will spoil her life and break her heart. He’s not worthy of it—no man is worthy of it. You may say that to her, Ronald, as if it was the last thing I had to say.”
“No,” said Ronald. His face had not at all relaxed. It was fixed with the set seriousness of a man to whom the subject is far too important for mirth or change of feature. “No,” he said, “I will tell Effie nothing of the kind. I would rather she should do what was right than gain an advantage for myself.”
“Right, there is no question about right!” cried the old lady. “He’s not worthy of it. You’ll see even that he’ll not desire it. He’ll not understand it. That’s just my conviction. How should his father’s son understand a point of honour like that? a man that is just nobody, a parvenoo, a creature that money has made, and that the want of it will unmake. That’s not a man at all for a point of honour. You need say nothing from yourself; though you are an old friend, and have a right to show her all the risks, and what she is doing; but if you don’t tell her what I’m saying I will just—I will just—haunt you, you creature without spirit, you lad without a backbone intil ye, you——”
But here Miss Beenie succeeded in drawing Ronald from the room.
“Why will ye listen to her?” cried the young sister; “ye will just help her to her own destruction. When I’m telling you the doctor says—oh, no, I’m pinning my faith to no doctor; but it’s just as clear as daylight, and it stands to reason—she will have another attack if she goes on like yon——”
The fearful rush she made at him, the clutch upon his arm, his yielding to the impulse which he could not resist, none of these things moved Ronald. His countenance was as set and serious as ever, the humour of the situation did not touch him. He neither smiled nor made any response. Downstairs with Miss Beenie, out of sight of the invalid who was so violent in the expression of her feelings, he retained the same self-absorbed look.
“If she thinks it right,” he said, “I am not the one to put any difficulty before her. The thing for me to do is just to go away—”
“Don’t go away and leave us, Ronald, when no mortal can tell what an hour or a day may bring forth; and Sarah always so fond of you, and you such a near connection, the nearest we have in this countryside——”
“What should happen in a day or an hour, and of what service can I be?” he asked. “Of course, if I can be of any use——” but he shook his head. Ronald, like most people, had his mind fixed upon his own affairs.
“Oh, have ye no eyes?” cried Miss Beenie, “have none of ye any eyes? You are thinking of a young creature that has all her life before her, and time to set things right if they should go wrong; but nobody has a thought for my sister, that has been the friend of every one of you, that has never missed giving you a good advice, or putting you in the way you should go. And now here is she just slipping away on her last journey, and none of you paying attention! not one, not one!” she cried, wringing her hands, “nor giving a thought of pity to me that will just be left alone in the world.”
Miss Beenie, who had come out to the door with the departing visitor, threw herself down on the bench outside, her habitual seat in happier days, and burst into subdued weeping.
“I darena even cry when she can see me. It’s a relief to get leave to cry,” she said, “for, oh, cannot ye see, not one of ye, that she’s fading away like the morning mist and like the summer flowers?”
The morning mist and the summer flowers were not images very like Miss Dempster, who lay like an old tree, rather than any delicate and fragile thing; but Dr. Jardine, coming briskly up on his daily visit, was not susceptible to appropriateness of metaphor. He came up to Miss Beenie and patted her on the shoulder with a homely familiarity which a few months ago would have seemed presumption to the ladies of Rosebank.
“Maybe no,” he said, “maybe no, who can tell? And even if it was so, why should you be alone? I see no occasion—— Come up, and we’ll see how she is to-day.”
Ronald Sutherland, left alone, walked down the slope very solemnly, with his face as rigid as ever. Miss Dempster was his old and good friend, but, alas, he thought nothing of Miss Dempster.
“If she thinks it right, it must be so,” he was saying to himself. “If she thinks it’s right, am I the one to put any difficulty in the way?”