AS there was, however, no more said on this subject, and Sir Ludovic was—probably having shaken off something of the heaviness of his mind by putting it in words—as gay as usual at dinner and during the evening, the impression on Margaret’s mind wore off. She had been very unhappy for half an hour or so, then less wretched, then not wretched at all; deciding that it was nothing particular, that it was only some passing cloud or other, or a letter from her brother, or something which had vexed him about “business,” that grand, mysterious source of trouble. Instead of going out that evening, she went down-stairs to where Bell sat in her chair “outside the door,” breathing the quiet of the evening. Bell was full of the excitement of “the view.” “It will be equal to ony picture in a museeum,” said Bell. “To think a creature like that, that I mind just a little callant about the doors, should have such a power.” Margaret, however, did not respond at first. Her mind was still occupied with her father, notwithstanding that his demeanor since had wiped much of the alarming impression away.
“Do you think papa is quite well?” she said. “Bell, will you tell me true? Do you think anything is the matter with papa?”
“The matter with your papa? is he complaining?” said Bell, hastily rising from her chair. “Na, no me, I’ve heard nothing; that’s just the way in this world, the one that ought to ken never kens. Miss Margret, what ails your papa?”
“It was me that was asking you, Bell: it was not him that complained; he spoke of—going away: that some day I would leave Earl’s-hall, and some day he—would be gone,” said Margaret, faltering, large tears coming to her eyes.
“Was that a’?” said Bell, sitting down again on her chair. “Dyin’ is a thing we a’ think of whiles. Sir Ludovic is just in his ordinary so far as I ken, just as particular about his dinner. No, no, my bonnie dear, you need not fash yoursel’ about what the like of us old folk says. We say whiles mair than we mean; and other times it will come to us to think without any particular occasion (as we aye ought to be thinking) of our latter end.”
“That would just be all. I havena heard a word of ony complaints. He takes his meals aye in a way that’s maist satisfactory, and John he would be the first to see if onything was wrang. Na, na, my bonnie doo, you need not fash your head about Sir Ludovic. He’s hale and strong for his age, and runs nae risks: and the Leslies are long-living folk. We mustna count upon that for ourselves,” said Bell, seriously. “I would not say sae to him; for to think of our latter end is what we should a’ be doing, even the like of yoursel’, young and bonnie, far mair auld folk; but auld Sir Paitrick lived to be ninety. I mind him as weel as I mind my ain faither; and every Sabbath in the kirk, rain or shine, a grand-looking auld man with an ee like a hawk. Na, na, my bonnie dear, troubles aye sune enough when it comes; we needna gang out to look for it; but wait till it chaps at the ha’ door.”
This gave Margaret great comfort; the tension of her mind relaxed, and even before Bell had done speaking her young mistress had done thinking. She went back with a bound to the more agreeable subject. “You are to be sitting here, Bell,” she said, “just here, when the picture is done.”
“Bless my heart!” said Bell; the change was so sudden that she scarcely could follow it; “the picture? I thought you had forgotten all about the picture; but, Miss Margret, what would ye hae an auld wife for, sitting here on her auld chair? Something young and bonnie, like yoursel’ now—or even Jeanie—would be mair to the purpose in a picture than an auld wife like me.”
“But it is you I want,” said Margaret, with pretty obstinacy. “What should I care about myself? And Jeanie is very good, but not like you. It must be you, Bell, or nobody. It would not be natural not to see you with your stocking outside the door.”
“Weel, weel!” said Bell, with the air of yielding, half against her will, “you were aye a wilfu’ miss, and would have your way, and few, few have ever crossed you. If a’ your life be like the past, and ye win to heaven at the end, ye may say you were never out of it; for you’ve aye had your ain way.”
“Do they get their own way in heaven?” said Margaret, half laughing; “but I wish you would not speak of the past like that, and my life. Nothing’s past. It has always been just as it is now. Papa is only seventy-five—that makes fifteen years before he can be as old as grandpapa; and by that time I will be old myself. Why should there be any change? I like things to be as they are: you at the door, and John taking a look at the potatoes, and papa reading in the long room. And the summer nights so long, so long, as if they would never end.”
“But this ane is ending, and you must go to your bed,” said Bell. “The dew’s no so heavy to-night after the rain; but it’s time to go inbye and go to all our beds; it’s near upon ten o’clock.”
Margaret lingered to look at the soft brightness of the skies, those skies which never seemed to darken. And now that her mind was relieved, there was something else she wished to look at and pass a final judgment upon. Though it was ten o’clock and bedtime, she could still see all there was to see in the little sketch-book which Rob had given her to draw in. She had made a few scratches in the intervals of her careful attendance upon the chief artist; and Rob had looked with satisfaction upon these scraps, and said that this was good and that better. Margaret, for her part, surveyed them now with mingled hope and shame. They were not like the picture at all, though they were intended to represent the same thing; but perhaps if she worked very hard, if she gave her mind to it! Bell did not think very much of them, as she came and looked over the young lady’s shoulder. She shook her head. “He’s a clever lad, yon,” said old Bell, “but I wish he could learn you the piany instead of drawing pictures. I canna think but you would come more speed.” Margaret shut up her book hastily, with some petulance, not liking the criticism, and this time she did not resist the repeated call to go “inbye.” She could not but feel that a great deal was wanting before she could draw like Rob; but as for the piano which Bell brought up upon all occasions, what could Margaret do? She had tried to puzzle out “a tune” upon the old spinnet in the high room with indifferent success, and this had given Bell real pleasure. But then that was apt to disturb papa; whereas these scratches of uneven lines in the sketch-book disturbed nothing except her own self-esteem and ease of mind.
Margaret said nothing about it next morning, learning prudence by dint of experience, but was out among the potatoes arranging the artist’s seat, and the little table to hold all his requirements, and the water for his colors, in readiness for his appearance. The whole house indeed, except Sir Ludovic among his books, who had fallen back into his ordinary calm, externally at least, and asked no questions, was in agitation about this picture. Jeanie, poor girl, kept in the background altogether. She would not even come to look at the picture, though Bell adjured her to do so.
“What makes you blate, you silly thing?” Bell said. “It’s no a gentleman; it’s naebody but Rob Glen, Mrs. Glen’s son, at Earl’s-lee—a neebor lad, so to speak. You must have been at the school with him. Gang forward and see what’s doing, like the rest.” But nothing would make Jeanie gang forward. She felt sure by this time that he did not know she was here, and had begun to think that there was some mistake, and that perhaps he was not to blame. It wrung her heart a little, peeping from her turret-window, to see Miss Margaret hovering about him, looking over his shoulder, waiting on him, a more graceful handmaid than Jeanie; but at the same time a little forlorn pride was in her mind. Miss Margaret understood about his painting, no doubt, and could talk about things that were above her own range; but it was not in that stiff polite way that Rob would have conducted his intercourse with Jeanie. She watched them, herself unseen, with pain, yet with consolation. Not like that; not with so many commonplace witnesses—Bell lingering about looking on, even old John marching heavily across the lines of potatoes to take a look—would Rob have been content to pass the hours if she had been by, instead of Margaret. But it was well for Rob to have such grand friends. She would not put herself in the way to shame him or make him uncomfortable. Jeanie went to her work magnanimously, and with a lightened heart. She would not even sing as she put the rooms in order, lest her voice should reach him through the open window, and he should ask who it was. She hid herself in the depths of the old house that he might not see her; but yet his presence made a difference in the atmosphere. She could not blame him now that she had seen him. And she had waited long already, and had not lost heart. After all, Jeanie reflected, nothing was changed; and insensibly a little confidence and hope came back to her; for it was very evident, for one thing, that he did not know she was here.
As for Margaret, she was very happy in the fresh exhilaration of the morning air, in the excitement of what was going on, and in the society of her new friend. Nobody had so much amused her, occupied her, filled her mind with novel thoughts as Rob Glen. To watch him as he worked was an unceasing delight. He had chosen his place on the edge of the little belt of wood which encircled Earl’s-hall. Had the Leslies been well-to-do this would have been a mere flower-garden for beauty and pleasure; but as the Leslies were poor, it was potatoes, a more profitable if less lovely crop. The fir-trees, of which the wood was chiefly composed—for that corner of Fife is not favorable to foliage—sheltered them from the sun, which streamed full upon the old house, with all its picturesque irregularities. The little court, with its well and its old thorn-tree, which lay so deep in shadow in the evening, was now full of light. The door standing open let in a mass of sunshine into the little vaulted passage which led to the lower story, and touched the winding stair with an edge of whiteness; and the huge old “ivy-tree,” as Margaret called it, the branches of which, against the wall which shut in the court on the west side, were like architecture, great ribs of wood, dark, mossy, and ancient, as if they had been carved out of stone—shone and glowed, and sent back reflections from the heavy masses of blunt-leaved foliage, which clad the tower completely from head to foot. Bell’s chair was placed in front of this open door to show where the figure was to be.
“But to pit me there in the forenoon with the sun in my een, and a’ the work of the house lyin’ neglectit!” said Bell. “Well, I wat you’ll never see me sae.”
“It might be Sunday,” suggested Rob, “the day of rest.”
“The Sabbath’s more than a day of rest,” said Bell, reprovingly. “In the morning all right-minded folk are at the kirk, the only place for them; and to gie a stranger to suppose that me, I was letting ony idle lad draw my picture on the Lord’s-day!”
“Bell, Bell!” cried Margaret, horrified.
But Rob could afford to laugh.
“Never mind,” he said; “I am not offended. Bell can call me an idle lad if she likes—so does my mother, for that matter. She thinks I might as well swing on a gate all day, as do what I am doing now.”
“Poor body!” said Bell, with a deep sigh of sympathy. “I feel for her with a’ my heart. But you’ll be wanting a piece,” she added, turning to go in, “and, Miss Margret, there’s a cold air about. If I was you I would slip on a bit of a jacket or something. The earth’s damp amang the pitawties. I’ll send you out your piece.”
“I feel as if I were a boy again, fishing in the burn, when Bell speaks of a piece,” said Rob, in an undertone.
“I hope you are not angry,” said Margaret, humbly. “Bell always says whatever she pleases. She does not stand in awe of anybody—even my sister Jean, who is a grand lady—at least, I am sure she thinks she is very grand; but Bell never minds. You must not be angry, Mr. Glen.”
“Angry! I am pleased. I like to feel myself a boy again; then too, if you will recollect, I had a beautiful little lady beside me, Miss Margaret, who would hold the rod sometimes and watch for a nibble.”
“Don’t call me that” said Margaret, with momentary gravity. “Yes—a funny little girl in a sun-bonnet. How glad I used to be when you caught anything! It was not very often, Mr. Glen.”
“Not at all often, Miss Margaret; and sometimes you would take off your little shoes, and dabble your little white feet in the water—how white they were! I remember thinking the fishes would bite just to get nearer, just to have a sight of them.”
“Indeed the fishes were not so silly,” cried the girl, blushing, and half affronted, but too shy to venture on showing her offence. In such matters as this Rob’s gentleman-breeding failed him. He did not know in what he had gone wrong. “The sun is changing already,” she said, hurriedly; “have you got your shadows right, Mr. Glen? I think you will soon want the umbrella.”
“Not yet,” he said; “I can work for another hour; but here is old John interfering with my foreground. Is this the ‘piece?’ It is not so simple as that you used to share with me on the burn-side.”
“It is a picnic,” said Margaret, with a little awe, as John appeared, slowly progressing among the potatoes, with a white-covered tray. John’s approach was a solemnity under any circumstances, but across the long lines of potatoes it was still more imposing.
“You’re to pit that on, Miss Margaret,” he said, after he had set down his burden, with a sigh of relief, handing to her the little gray jacket which he carried over his arm.
“But it is not cold. I don’t want it, the sun is shining; and, John, will you bring the big umbrella, the great big one with the heavy handle, to shelter Mr. Glen?”
“She said you were to pit it on. I maun finish one errant afore I begin anither,” said the old man. “She said there was a cauld air, and that you were to pit it on.”
“I will when I am cold. Oh, tell Bell she has sent us a great deal too much. Chicken and cake, and white bread and cheese—and jam!” The last pleased the critic, and subdued her remonstrance. “But it is too much. I would like a little milk instead of the wine.”
“She said the wine was better for ye,” said the old man; “and she said you were to pit that on.”
“Oh, John! you are worse, you are a great deal worse than Bell is. You never will hear any reason. She, if one speaks to her, one can make her see what is sense,” cried Margaret, half crying; “but you, you are a great deal worse—you are tyrannical!”
“I am doing what I’m bid,” said John. “It’s no me. Do I ken when you should pit on your jaicket and when you should pit it off? But she said you were to pit that on.”
“And Bell is a very sensible woman,” said Rob. “It is cold this morning after the rain; and, John, I hope you will tell her that her provision is noble. I never saw such a ‘piece’ before.”
John made no reply. He gave a glance of surly disdain at the interloper. What had Rob Glen to do here, beside “our young leddy?” “And me to wait upon him—set him up!” the old man grumbled to himself as he went back grimly to the house, having seen one, at least, of his orders fulfilled. There were points upon which John was proud to think he himself was “maister and mair;” but on ordinary domestic occasions he was content to accept the rôle of executor, and see that his wife’s behests were carried out.
Margaret, in her gray jacket (which was not unacceptable, after all), went away from Rob’s side and opened her sketch-book. She did not choose to be laughed at, which she felt to be possible, and it was time for her to try that gable again, which had eluded her so often. To jump at the outline of a rugged Scotch gable, after having proved your incapacity to draw a straight line, was, perhaps, a bold proceeding; and there was a perplexing little round of masonry penetrated by slits of little windows, and giving light, as Margaret knew, to the second little spiral staircase, the one at the east end of the house, which tried her ignorance dreadfully, but which she returned to notwithstanding, again and again. Margaret was gazing up against the sky, intently studying this, when her eyes were caught by a face at the high window looking down as intently upon the group in the sunshine.
“Ah, Jeanie!” she said, with a nod and a smile; but Jeanie took no notice of the little salutation.
“Did you speak, Miss Margaret?” said Rob Glen, busy over his drawing, and not looking up.
“I was only nodding to Jeanie,” said the girl.
Jeanie! Rob did not budge. It was the commonest of names; there was nothing in it to rouse his special attention. And even if he had known that it was the one Jeanie with whom he had some concern, would that have made any difference? He worked on quite calmly. But Jeanie withdrew in haste, with a pang for which she could not account. She had seen and heard, by the sound of the voices, that something was said between them; but Rob never looked up to see who it was of whom Miss Margaret spoke. When Jeanie came back to peep again, they were sitting together at the little luncheon Bell had sent them, with much talking and soft laughter, sharing the same meal, and reminding each of humbler picnic meals eaten together in other years. As they grew more at ease with each other, the doubtful taste of Rob’s compliments ceased to offend Margaret; or perhaps in the greater intimacy of this odd conjunction, so absolutely free, yet so entirely under restraint, public to all the watchful eyes that guarded her, there was something that made him avoid compliments. There is always much that is suggestive in a meal thus shared by two, with no intrusive third to break its completeness. A certain romance infolds the laughing pair; the very matter-of-fact character of the conjunction, the domesticity, the homeliness, increase their sense of union. It suggests everything that is in life. The boy and girl over their “piece,” the youth and the maiden over their impromptu repast: what was it but playing at honey-mooning, a pleasant mockery, or essay at, or caricature of, the most serious conjunction? Even Margaret felt a certain half delightful shyness of her companion in this odd union, free as her mind was of all embarrassing thoughts; and as for Rob, the suggestion gave him a thrill of pride and pleasure not to be put into words. Jeanie stole to the window to look at them again, while they were thus engaged, and the sight went to her heart.
“If I were you, I wouldna let them bide ower lang philandering, they twa,” said John. “I’m no that sure that I would have left them there ava’. Like twa young marrit folk, the ane forenenst the ither—”
“Haud your tongue, you ill-thinking man!” cried Bell, with a half-shriek. “How dare ye! But be a lassie the maist innocent that ever was born, ye’ll aye put it upon her that she kens as muckle as yoursel’.”
“It’s no what she kens I’m thinking o’: it’s a’ instinck,” said John. “A lad and a lass—they’re drawn to ane anither; it’s nature. I wish it was a gentleman that had come this gate instead o’ that laud. Plenty gentlemen waste their time drawing pictures. There’s Sir Claude; he’s auld and a married man? I kent you would say that. Was I meaning Sir Claude? but he aye has his house fu’ o’ his ain kind; or even if it had been Randal Burnside—yon’s a lad that will rise in the world; but whatever evil spirit sent us Rob Glen—”
“John, my man, you’re no an ill man, and if you’ll haud to the things ye understand—”
“I wuss there was one of ye a’ that understood that poor bairn’s living, and what’s to come o’ her,” said John. “Sir Ludovic, he’s no lang for this world.”
“He’s just in his ordinar, and his faither lived to ninety.”
“He’s no just in his ordinar. I havena likit the looks of him this month past; and now he sees it himsel’.”
“Lord bless us, man!” cried Bell, in alarm; “and ye never said a word to me!”
“What good would that have done if I had said a word to ye? You canna keep out Death. If he’s coming, he’ll come, and no be hindered by you or me. But now he’s found it out himsel’. Will I tell ye what he said to me no an hour ago? But I’ll not tell you; maybe ye would think it was just naething, and pit your jokes on me.”
“You may do just what you like,” said Bell: “speak or no speak, he seems just in his ordinar to me.”
“Is this like his ordinar?” says John, indignantly. “He says to me no an hour ago, ‘Are the horses busy, John?’ he said; and I says (for it doesna do to let on when wark’s slack; you never ken what folk may take into their head), ‘Oh ay, Sir Ludovic,’ I says, ‘they’re aye busy.’ ‘Could we have them for the carriage on Sunday?’ he says. ‘Weel, Sir Ludovic,’ says I, ‘it might be sae; but what would it be for? Miss Margret, she aye walks, and wouldna thank ye for ony carriage; and the ither leddies, they’re no here.’ Then he strikes his stick on the floor. ‘Can I have the carriage on Sunday?’ he cries, him that’s aye so quiet. Aweel! that’s a’; and if that doesna prove that he’s been turning many a thing ower in his mind.”
“Was it to gang to the kirk?” said Bell, somewhat struck by awe; “he hasna been at the kirk this year or more.”
“I tellt ye sae,” said John; “and Sir Ludovic, he’s no man to make a careless end. He’ll do all decently and in order. He’ll no let the minister think he’s neglectit. Ye’ll give me out my best claes, as if it was a funeral. I ken what he means, if naebody else does; and syne what is to become of that bairn?”
“Oh, man, haud your tongue, haud your tongue,” cried Bell. “Sir Ludovic! that has aye been so steady and so weel in health. I canna credit what you say. Your best claes! Put on your bonnet, mair like, and gang and bid the doctor come this way, canny, the morn’s morning, without saying a word to anybody. That’s the thing for you to do. And now I’ll send that laud away,” she added, briskly. This was a little outlet to her feelings; and to do Bell justice, she was glad to have a moment alone after hearing this alarming news.