“NO, Beenie,” said Miss Dempster solemnly, “her heart is not in it. Do you think it is possible at her age that a young creature could resist all the excitement and the importance, and the wedding presents and the wedding clothes? It was bad enough in our own time, but it’s just twice as bad now when every mortal thinks it needful to give their present, and boxes are coming in every day for months. That’s a terrible bad custom: it’s no better than the penny weddings the poor people used to have. But to think a young thing would be quite indifferent to all that, if everything was natural, is more than I can understand.”
“That’s very true,” said Miss Beenie, “and all her new things. If it was nothing but the collars and fichus that are so pretty nowadays, and all the new pocket-handkerchiefs.”
“It’s not natural,” the elder sister said.
“And if you will remember, there was a wonderful look about the little thing’s eyes when Ronald went away. To be sure there was Eric with him. She was really a little thing then, though now she’s grown up. You may depend upon it that though maybe she may not be conscious of it herself, there is another Eemage in her poor bit little heart.”
“Ye are too sentimental, Beenie. That’s not necessary. There may be a shrinking without that. I know no harm of young Dirom. He’s not one that would ever take my fancy, but still there’s no harm in him. The stepmother is just ridiculous. She thinks it’s her that’s getting the elevation. There will never be a word out of her mouth but Allonby if this comes to pass. But the heart of the little thing is not in it. She was angry; that was what her colour came from. It was no blush, yon; it was out of an angry and an unwilling mind. I have not lived to my present considerable age without knowing what a girl’s looks mean.”
“You are not so old as you make yourself out. A person would think you were just a Methusaleh; when it is well known there is only five years between us,” said Miss Beenie in an aggrieved tone.
“I always say there’s a lifetime—so you may be easy in your mind so far as that goes. I am just as near a Methusaleh as I’ve any desire to be. I wonder now if Mrs. Ogilvie knows what has happened about Ronald, and that he’s coming home. To be a well-born woman herself, she has very little understanding about inter-marriages and that kind of thing. It’s more than likely that she doesn’t know. And to think that young man should come back, with a nice property though it’s small, and in a condition to marry, just when this is settled! Bless me! if he had come three months ago! Providence is a real mystery!” said Miss Dempster, with the air of one who is reluctant to blame, but cannot sincerely excuse. “Three months more or less, what were they to auld Dauvid Hay? He was just doited; he neither knew morning nor evening: and most likely that would have changed the lives of three other folk. It is a great mystery to me.”
“He will maybe not be too late yet,” said Miss Beenie significantly.
“Woman, you are just without conscience,” cried her sister. “Would that be either right or fair? No, no, they must just abide by their lot as it is shaped out. It would be a cruel thing to drop that poor lad now for no fault of his—just because she did not know her own mind. No, no, I have Ronald’s interest much at heart, and I’m fond in a way of that bit little Effie, though she’s often been impertinent—but I would never interfere. Bless me! If I had known there was to be so little satisfaction got out of it, that’s a veesit I never would have paid. I am turning terrible giddy. I can scarcely see where I’m going. I wish I had stayed at home.”
“If we had not just come away as it were in a fuff,” said Miss Beenie, “you would have had your cup of tea, and that would have kept up your strength.”
“Ay, if,” said Miss Dempster. “That’s no doubt an argument for keeping one’s temper, but it’s a little too late. Yes, I wish I had got my cup of tea. I am feeling very strange; everything’s going round and round before my eyes. Eh, I wish I was at my own door!”
“It’s from want of taking your food. You’ve eaten nothing this two or three days. Dear me, Sarah, you’re not going to faint at your age! Take a hold of my arm and we’ll get as far as Janet Murray’s. She’s a very decent woman. She will soon make you a cup of tea.”
“No, no—I’ll have none of your arm. I can just manage,” said Miss Dempster. But her face had grown ashy pale. “We’re poor creatures,” she murmured, “poor creatures: it’s all the want of—the want of—that cup o’ tea.”
“You’ll have to see the doctor,” said Miss Beenie. “I’m no more disposed to pin my faith in him than you are; but there are many persons that think him a very clever man——”
“No, no, no doctor. Old Jardine’s son that kept a shop in—— No, no; I’ll have no doctor. I’ll get home—I’ll——”
“Oh,” cried Miss Beenie. “I will just run on to Janet Murray’s and bid her see that her kettle is aboil. You’ll be right again when you’ve had your tea.”
“Yes, I’ll be—all right,” murmured the old lady. The road was soft and muddy with rain, the air very gray, the clouds hanging heavy and full of moisture over the earth. Miss Beenie hastened on for a few steps, and then she paused, she knew not why, and looked round and uttered a loud cry; there seemed to be no one but herself on the solitary country road. But after a moment she perceived a little heap of black satin on the path. Her first thought, unconscious of the catastrophe, was for this cherished black satin, the pride of Miss Dempster’s heart.
“Oh, your best gown!” she cried, and hurried back to help her sister out of the mire. But Miss Beenie soon forgot the best gown. Miss Dempster lay huddled up among the scanty hawthorn bushes of the broken hedge which skirted the way. Her hand had caught against a thorny bramble which supported it. She lay motionless, without speaking, without making a sign, with nothing that had life about her save her eyes. Those eyes looked up from the drawn face with an anxious stare of helplessness, as if speech and movement and every faculty had got concentrated in them.
Miss Beenie gave shriek after shriek as she tried to raise up the prostrate figure. “Oh, Sarah, what’s the matter? Oh, try to stand up; oh, let me get you up upon your feet! Oh, my dear, my dear, try if ye cannot get up and come home! Oh, try! if it’s only as far as Janet Murray’s. Oh, Sarah!” she cried in despair, “there never was anything but you could do it, if you were only to try.”
Sarah answered not a word, she who was never without a word to say; she did not move; she lay like a log while poor Beenie put her arms under her head and laboured to raise her. Beenie made the bush tremble with spasmodic movement, but did no more than touch the human form that lay stricken underneath. And some time passed before the frightened sister could realize what had happened. She went on with painful efforts trying to raise the inanimate form, to drag her to the cottage, which was within sight, to rouse and encourage her to the effort which Miss Beenie could not believe her sister incapable of making.
“Oh, Sarah, my bonnie woman!—oh, Sarah, Sarah, do you no hear me, do you not know me? Oh, try if ye cannot get up and stand upon your feet. I’m no able to carry you, but I’ll support you. Oh, Sarah, Sarah, will you no try!”
Then there burst upon the poor lady all at once a revelation of what had happened. She threw herself down by her sister with a shriek that seemed to rend the skies. “Oh, good Lord,” she cried, “oh, good Lord! I canna move her, I canna move her; my sister has gotten a stroke——”
“What are you talking about?” said a big voice behind her; and before Miss Beenie knew, the doctor, in all the enormity of his big beard, his splashed boots, his smell of tobacco, was kneeling beside her, examining Miss Dempster, whose wide open eyes seemed to repulse him, though she herself lay passive under his hand. He kept talking all the time while he examined her pulse, her looks, her eyes.
“We must get her carried home,” he said. “You must be brave, Miss Beenie, and keep all your wits about you. I am hoping we will bring her round. Has there been anything the matter with her, or has it just come on suddenly to-day?”
“Oh, doctor, she has eaten nothing. She has been very feeble and pale. She never would let me say it. She is very masterful; she will never give in. Oh that I should say a word that might have an ill meaning, and her lying immovable there!”
“There is no ill meaning. It’s your duty to tell me everything. She is a very masterful woman; by means of that she may pull through. And were there any preliminaries to-day? Yes, that’s the right thing to do—if it will not tire you to sit in that position——”
“Tire me!” cried Miss Beenie—“if it eases her.”
“I cannot say it eases her. She is past suffering for the moment. Lord bless me, I never saw such a case. Those eyes of hers are surely full of meaning. She is perhaps more conscious than we think. But anyway, it’s the best thing to do. Stay you here till I get something to carry her on——”
“What is the matter?” said another voice, and Fred Dirom came hastily up. “Why, doctor, what has happened—Miss Dempster?”—he said this with an involuntary cry of surprise and alarm. “I am afraid this is very serious,” he cried.
“Not so serious as it soon will be if we stand havering,” cried the doctor. “Get something, a mattress, to put her on. Man, look alive. There’s a cottage close by. Ye’ll get something if ye stir them up. Fly there, and I’ll stay with them to give them a heart.”
“Oh, doctor, you’re very kind—we’ve perhaps not been such good friends to ye as we might——”
“Friends, toots!” said the doctor, “we’re all friends at heart.”
Meantime the stir of an accident had got into the air. Miss Beenie’s cries had no doubt reached some rustic ears; but it takes a long time to rouse attention in those regions.
“What will yon be? It would be somebody crying. It sounded awfu’ like somebody crying. It will be some tramp about the roads; it will be somebody frighted at the muckle bull——” Then at last there came into all minds the leisurely impulse—“Goodsake, gang to the door and see——”
Janet Murray was the first to run out to her door. When her intelligence was at length awakened to the fact that something had happened, nobody could be more kind. She rushed out and ran against Fred Dirom, who was hurrying towards the cottage with a startled face.
“Can you get me a mattress or something to carry her upon?” he cried, breathless.
“Is it an accident?” said Janet.
“It is a fit. I think she is dying,” cried the young man much excited.
Janet flew back and pulled the mattress off her own bed. “It’s no a very soft one,” she said apologetically. Her man had come out of the byre, where he was ministering to a sick cow, an invalid of vast importance whom he left reluctantly; another man developed somehow out of the fields from nowhere in particular, and they all hurried towards the spot where Miss Beenie sat on the ground, without a thought of her best gown, holding her sister’s head on her breast, and letting tears fall over the crushed bonnet which the doctor had loosened, and which was dropping off the old gray head.
“Oh, Sarah, can ye hear me? Oh, Sarah, do you know me? I’m your poor sister Beenie. Oh if ye could try to rouse yourself up to say a word. There was never anything you couldna do if ye would only try.”
“She’ll not try this time,” said the doctor. “You must not blame her. There’s one who has her in his grips that will not hear reason; but we’ll hope she’ll mend; and in the meantime you must not think she can help it, or that she’s to blame.”
“To blame!” cried Beenie, with that acute cry. “I am silly many a time; but she is never to blame.” In sight of the motionless figure which lay in her arms, Miss Beenie’s thoughts already began to take that tinge of enthusiastic loyalty with which we contemplate the dead.
“Here they come, God be thanked!” said the doctor. And by and by a little procession made its way between the fields. Miss Dempster, as if lying in state on the mattress, Beenie beside her crying and mourning. She had followed at first, but then it came into her simple mind with a shiver that this was like following the funeral, and she had roused herself and taken her place a little in advance. It was a sad little procession, and when it reached the village street, all the women came out to their doors to ask what was the matter, and to shake their heads, and wonder at the sight.
The village jumped to the fatal conclusion with that desire to heighten every event which is common to all communities: and the news ran over the parish like lightning.
“Miss Dempster, Rosebank, has had a stroke. She has never spoken since. She is just dead to this world, and little likelihood she will ever come back at her age.” That was the first report; but before evening it had risen to the distinct information—“Miss Dempster, Rosebank, is dead!”
Fred Dirom had been on his way to Gilston, when he was stopped and ordered into the service of the sick woman. He answered to the call with the readiness of a kind heart, and was not only the most active and careful executor of the doctor’s orders, but remained after the patient was conveyed home, to be ready, he said, to run for anything that was wanted, to do anything that might be necessary—nay, after all was done that could be done, to comfort Miss Beenie, who almost shed her tears upon the young man’s shoulder.
“Eh,” she said, “there’s the doctor we have aye thought so rough, and not a gentleman—and there’s you, young Mr. Dirom, that Sarah was not satisfied with for Effie; and you’ve just been like two ministering angels sent out to minister to them that are in sore trouble. Oh, but I wonder if she will ever be able to thank you herself.”
“Not that any thanks are wanted,” cried Fred cheerfully; “but of course she will, much more than we deserve.”
“You’ve just been as kind as—I cannot find any word to say for it, both the doctor and you.”
“He is a capital fellow, Miss Dempster.”
“Oh, do not call me Miss Dempster—not such a thing, not such a thing! I’m Miss Beenie. The Lord preserve me from ever being called Miss Dempster,” she cried, with a movement of terror. But Fred neither laughed at her nor her words. He was very respectful of her, full of pity and almost tenderness, not thinking of how much advantage to himself this adventure was to prove. It ran over the whole countryside next day, and gained “that young Dirom” many a friend.
And Effie, to whom the fall of Miss Dempster was like the fall of one of the familiar hills, and who only discovered how much she loved those oldest of friends after she began to feel as if she must lose them—Effie showed her sense of his good behaviour in the most entrancing way, putting off the shy and frightened aspect with which she had staved off all discussion of matters more important, and beginning to treat him with a timid kindness and respect which bewildered the young man. Perhaps he would rather even now have had something warmer and less (so to speak) accidental: but he was a wise young man, and contented himself with what he could get.
Effie now became capable of “hearing reason,” as Mrs. Ogilvie said. She no longer ran away from any suggestion of the natural end of all such engagements. She suffered it to be concluded that her marriage should take place at Christmas, and gave at last a passive consent to all the arrangements made for her. She even submitted to her stepmother’s suggestions about the trousseau, and suffered various dresses to be chosen, and boundless orders for linen to be given. That she should have a fit providing and go out of her father’s house as it became a bride to do, with dozens of every possible undergarments, and an inexhaustible supply of handkerchiefs and collars, was the ambition of Mrs. Ogilvie’s heart.
She said herself that Miss Dempster’s “stroke,” from which the old lady recovered slowly, was “just a providence.” It brought Effie to her senses, it made her see the real qualities of the young man whom she had not prized at his true value, and whose superiority as the best match in the countryside, she could not even now be made to see. Effie yielded, not because he was the best match, but because he had shown so kind a heart, and all the preparations went merrily forward, and the list of the marriage guests was made out and everything got ready.
But yet for all that, there was full time for that slip between the cup and the lip which so often comes in, contrary to the dearest expectations, in human affairs.