RANDAL returned to the Manse preoccupied and abstracted, his mother could not tell why. He brought her word that Sir Ludovic was in the same condition as before, neither better nor worse, and that the ladies had arrived; but he told no more.
“Did you see nobody?” Mrs. Burnside asked. Perhaps in her heart she had hoped that her son might occupy some such post of comforter as Rob Glen had assumed, if not quite in the same way.
“I saw old John,” said Randal; “the ladies were with their father, and John was so gruff that I fear things must be looking badly. He grumbled behind his hand, ‘What change could they expect in a day?’ as if your inquiries irritated him. I don’t wonder if they do. I think I should be worried too by constant questions, if any one was ill who belonged to me.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Randal,” said Mrs. Burnside; “we must always pay proper respect. You may depend upon it, Jean and Grace are capable of saying that we paid no attention at all if we did not send twice a day. One must be upon one’s p’s and q’s with such people. And Margaret—you saw nothing of poor little Margaret? It is for her my heart bleeds. It is more a ploy than anything else for Jean and Grace.”
The same remark had been made by Bell in the vaulted kitchen the very same night. “It’s just a ploy for the leddies,” Bell said; “I heard them say they were going to look out all the old things in the high room. You’ll see they’ll have a’ out, and make their regulations, wha’s to have this, and wha’s to have that; but I say it should all go to Miss Margret. She’ll have little enough else on the Leslie side of the house. I’ll speak to Mr. Leslie about it. He has not muckle to say, but he’s a just man.”
“A wheen auld duds and rubbitsh,” said John, who was busy preparing still another trayful of provisions for his beleaguered city up-stairs.
“Ay; but leddies think muckle o’ them,” said Bell. They had not surmounted their sorrow, but already it had ceased to affect them as a novelty, and all the inevitable arrangements had been brought nearer by the arrival of the visitors. These arrangements, are they not the saving of humanity, which without them must have suffered so much more from the perpetual falling out of one after another familiar figure on the way? Even now it occupied Bell a little, and the ladies a great deal, to think of these stores, which must be arranged and disposed of somehow, in the high room. Margaret’s wild grief and terror were not within the range of any such consolation; but those who felt less keenly found in them a great relief.
The day after their arrival, Mrs. Bellingham and her sister went up-stairs with much solemnity of aspect, but great internal satisfaction, to do their duty. Sir Ludovic was still “very comfortable,” he said; but dozed a great deal, and even when he was not dozing kept his eyes shut, while they were with him. They had remained by his bedside all the previous evening with the most conscientious discharge of duty, and Jean had done everything a woman could do to keep up his spirits, assuring him that he would soon feel himself again, and planning a hundred things which were to be done “as soon as you are about.” To say that this never deceived Sir Ludovic, is little. He listened to it all with a smile, knowing that she was as little deceived as he was. If he had not been in bed and so feeble, he would have shrugged his shoulders and said it was Jean’s way. Miss Grace had not the opportunity to talk, had she wished it; but she did not take the same line in any case. She stood by him on the other side, and from time to time put down her face to touch his, and said, “Dearest papa!” When he wanted anything, she was so anxious to be of use that she would almost choke him by putting his drink to his lips as if he had been a baby.
Poor Sir Ludovic was very patient; they amused him as if they had been a scene in a comedy; but he was very tired when night came, and this was one of the reasons why he kept his eyes closed next morning. He woke up, however, when Margaret stole in—a pale little ghost, large-eyed and trembling. She looked at him so piteously, scarcely able to speak, that the old man was moved to the very heart, notwithstanding the all-absorbing languor of his condition. “Are you better to-day, papa?” she said, in a scarcely audible whisper. When he put out his hand to her, she took it in both hers, and laid down her pretty head upon it, and cried silently, her shoulders heaving with suppressed sobs, though she tried her best, poor child, not to betray them.
“My little Peggy!” said her father, “why is this? Have I not told you I am very comfortable? And by-and-by I shall be more than comfortable—happy; so everybody says; and so I believe, too, though it troubles me not to know a little better. And you will be—like all of us who have lost our parents. It is a loss that must come, my little girl.”
“Oh no, no, papa!” her voice was muffled and hoarse with crying. She could not consent to her own desolation.
“Ah yes, my little girl, it must come; and so we go on to have children of our own, and then to leave them à la grace de Dieu. My Peggy, listen! If you were old like Jean and Grace, you would not care; and then think this wonder to yourself: I am glad that my little girl is so young and breaks her heart. Glad! think of that, my little Peggy. It is good to see that your little heart is broken. It will mend, but it warms my old one.”
“Oh, papa!” she cried, kissing his pale hand, “oh, papa!” but could not lift her head or look him in the face.
“So now, my little girl,” he said, “we will not make believe, you and I, but acknowledge that we are going to part for a long, long time, my Peggy. I hope for a very long time; but probably,” he said, with a smile, “if all is true that we fancy and believe, it will not be so long for me as for you. I shall have the best of it. You would like your old father to have the best of it, my little girl?”
At this she lifted her face and gave him a look which said Yes, yes, a hundred times! but could not speak.
“I knew you would,” he said. “I, you see, will find myself among old friends; and we will have our talks about what’s come and gone since we parted, and there will be a great many people to make acquaintance with that I have known only—in the spirit, as the Bible says;—and there will be the One, you know, that you say your prayers to, my Peggy. When you say your prayers, you can fancy (the best of life is fancy,” said Sir Ludovic, with a faint smile,) “that I’m there somewhere, about what the Bible calls His footstool, and that He, perhaps, being so tender-hearted, may call to me and say, ‘Ludovic! here is your little girl.’”
“Oh, papa! will you say something more, something more?”
“I would if I could, my Peggy; but I am tired again. I’ll have a little doze now; but sit still and stay by me, my own little girl.”
And there Margaret sat almost all the day. Excessive weeping brought its own cure, and she could not weep any more, but sat like a snow statue, except that her eyes were swollen; and by-and-by fell into a kind of torpor, a doze of the spirit, sitting in the warm stillness, with no sound but the soft stir of the fire, and sometimes the appearance of old John, who would open the door stealthily, and look in with his long, grave, serious face to see if anything was wanted. Margaret sat holding her father’s hand, stilled by exhaustion and warmth, and quiet and grief: and Sir Ludovic dozed, opening his eyes now and then, smiling, dozing again. So the long, still morning went by.
A very different scene was going on in the high room, which was over the long room, and as long and large, running the whole width of the house. It had a vaulted roof, curiously painted with old coats of arms, and was hung with old tapestry, gradually falling to pieces by process of time. Several of the windows, which had originally lighted it, had been built up in the days of the window-tax, and stretching across the place where two of them had been was a great oak “aumory” or press, full of those riches which John called “old rubbitsh,” but which were prized by ladies, Bell knew. There were old clothes enough to have set up several theatres, costumes of all kinds, sacques and pelisses, brocade and velvets, feathers and lace. Mrs. Bellingham remembered specially that there was a drawer full of lace; but Sir Ludovic had never permitted these treasures to be ransacked when his elder daughters were at Earl’s-hall. He would not tolerate any commotion over his head, and accordingly they had been shut out from these delightful hoards. It was with corresponding excitement now that they opened the doors, their fingers trembling with eagerness. Mrs. Bellingham had interpreted something he said into a desire that they should make this investigation, and had immediately declared that his wish was a law to her.
“Certainly, Grace,” she had said; “we will do it at whatever cost, since papa wishes it.”
“Oh yes, if dearest papa wishes it,” said Grace. And Sir Ludovic smiled, as usual, seeing the whole, with an amused toleration of their weakness. Jean got out the drawer of lace with nervous anxiety. “It may be nothing, it may be nothing,” she said, meaning to save herself from disappointment. She took out the drawer altogether, and carried it to the window where there was a good light, with her heart beating.
“Don’t be excited, Grace,” she said, “perhaps it is only modern; most likely mere babies’ caps, Valenciennes and common stuff.” Then she made a little pause, gave one hurried glance, and produced the one word “Point!” with an almost shriek.
“Point?” said Miss Grace, pressing forward with the point of her nose; she was short-sighted, and only thus could she inspect the treasure. Mrs. Bellingham held her off with one hand, while with the other she dived among the delicate yellow rags; the excitement grew to a height when she brought out her hand garlanded with wreaths as of a fairy web. There was a moment of silent adoration while the two ladies gazed at it. Some sea-fairy, with curious knowledge of all the starry fishes and twisted shells, and filmy fronds of weed at the bottom of the ocean, must have woven this. “Venice! and I never saw finer; and not a thread broken!” cried the finder, almost faint with delight.
“And enough to trim you from top to toe,” said Grace, solemnly. Bell coming in jealously on some pretence, saw them, with their hands uplifted and eyes gleaming, and approached to see what the cause of so much emotion might be.
“Eh!” said Bell, “the heap o’ things that us poor folk miss for want o’ kennin’. Is that something awfu’ grand now, leddies, that makes you look so fain?”
“It is a most lovely piece of lace,” cried Mrs. Jean. “Venice point; though I fear, Bell, you will not know what that means. Every little bit done by the needle—you will understand that. Look at all those little sprays.”
“Eh, leddies,” said Bell. “Ye ken what the fishwife says in ane o’ Sir Walter’s novels—‘It’s no fish you’re buyin’, but men’s lives.’ Eh, what heaps o’ poor women’s een must be workit into that auld rag. But it was my late lady’s a’ the same. I’ve seen her wear it, and many a time she’s told me the same story. So it will be Miss Margret’s part o’ her fortune,” said the old house-keeper, with malicious demureness. This discouraged the investigators considerably.
“I never saw it before,” said Mrs. Bellingham; “but then I knew but little of the late Lady Leslie; of course, if it was her mother’s it must be Margaret’s. Fold it up and put it aside, Grace. Was this Lady Leslie’s too?”
“Na, I canna say; I never saw that before,” said Bell, overwhelmed. “Eh, that was never made by woman’s fingers. It must be shaped out o’ the gossamer in the autumn mornings, or the foam of the sea.”
But Bell’s presence disturbed the inquiry; it was not until she was called away to see to Sir Ludovic’s beef-tea that they fully rallied to their work.
“I don’t believe a word of what that old woman says. Lady Leslie, indeed! Lady Leslie was not five-and-twenty when she died, poor thing. Stand out of the way, Grace, don’t come so close. You may be sure you shall see it all—and no girl understands lace. It might be her mother’s? Dear me, what a memory you have got, Grace! She had no mother. She would never have married poor papa if there had been a mother to look after her. Thank Providence, Margaret will be better off. This affliction,” said Mrs. Bellingham, with solemnity, “which is so sad for all of us, will not be without its good side for poor little neglected Margaret. Though whether it is not too late to make any change in her—”
“She is very nice-looking,” said Miss Grace, “and being pretty covers a great deal—at least as long as you are young.”
“Pretty! None of the Leslies were ever ugly,” said her sister; “but it breaks my heart to look at her. Neither education nor manners. She might be a country lass at the meanest farm; she might be a fisher-girl mending nets— Grace, I wish you would sometimes let me get in a word! It’s melancholy to see her running about in those cotton frocks, and think that she is my father’s daughter. We will have our hands full with chat girl. Now this is old Flanders—there is not very much of it. I remember it as well as if I had seen it yesterday, on old Aunt Jean.”
“Then that should be yours, for you were her name-daughter—”
“Grace, how can you be so Scotch! Say godchild—you can always say godchild—it sounds a great deal better!”
“But we were not English Church people when we were born, and there’s no godmo—”
“I think there never was such a clatter in this world!” cried Mrs. Bellingham. “Talk—talk—one cannot get in a word! I know papa’s old-fashioned ways as well as you do, but why should we publish them? What would anybody think at the Court if it was known that we were Presbyterians—not that I ever was a Presbyterian after I was old enough to think for myself.”
“It was being at school,” said Grace; “and a great trouble it was to have to drive all the way to Fifetown on Sundays, instead of going to Dr. Burnside. You were married, it didn’t matter for you; but—do you mean to have Aubrey down, Jean, after all?”
“Of course I mean to have Aubrey,” said Mrs. Bellingham. She had been carefully measuring on her finger and marking the lengths of the lace, which was the reason Miss Leslie had been allowed to deliver herself of so long a speech. “He will perhaps join us somewhere after this sad time is over. It is not to be supposed that we will be able for much company at first,” she said, with a sigh. “There are three yards of the Flanders—too much for a bodice and too little for anything else, and it would be wicked to cut it. After all we have gone through, of course there will be a time when we will have no spirits for company; but Aubrey is not like a stranger. Being my nephew, he will be a kind of cousin to Margaret. Dear me, I wish I could think there was a good chance that he would be something more; for the responsibility on you and me of a young girl—”
“Oh, he will be very willing to be something more,” cried Miss Grace, with alacrity; “a pretty young creature like Margaret, and a good income.”
“Her income is but a small one to tempt a Bellingham; but I suppose because he is my nephew you must have a fling at him. I have often noticed that inclination in you, Grace. I am sure my family, by marriage, have never but shown you the greatest attention, and Aubrey never makes any difference between us. He calls you Aunt Grace, though you are no more his Aunt Grace— Here is a very nice piece, I don’t know what it is. It is English, or perhaps it might be Argentan, or one of the less known kinds. Would you like to have it? It is very pretty. So here are three pieces to commence with: the Venice point for Margaret, if it really was her mother’s—but I don’t believe it—and the Flanders for me.”
Grace lifted the piece allotted to her now with but scant satisfaction. It was Jean who had always the lion’s share; it was she who took the management of everything, and put herself forward. Though Miss Leslie was very willing to sacrifice herself when occasion offered, she did not like to be sacrificed calmly by others, without deriving any glory from it. But she said nothing. There was a great deal more still to be looked over, and Jean could not always have so good an excuse for appropriating the best, as she had when she secured Aunt Jean’s old piece of Flanders lace.
While these very different scenes were going on within the walls of Earl’s-hall, the old gray house in which so soon the last act of a life was to be accomplished was the centre of many thoughts and discussions outside. At the breakfast-table at the Manse Mrs. Burnside read aloud a letter from Mrs. Ludovic in Edinburgh, asking whether the Minister’s wife could receive her husband, who was uneasy about his father, and anxious “to be on the spot,” whatever happened.
“I thought of sending my Effie with Ludovic, if you would take her in,” Mrs. Leslie wrote. “Of course, Earl’s-hall, so little bedroom accommodation as they have, is quite full with Jean and Grace and their maid. It is very provoking that it should be such a fine old house, and one that we would be very unwilling to let go out of the family, and yet so little use. Ludovic has always such confidence in your kindness, dear Mrs. Burnside, that I thought I might ask you. Of course, you will say No at once, if it is not convenient. Effie is not very strong, and I would like her to have a change; and we thought it might be something for poor little Margaret, if anything happens, to have some one near her of her own age. She is the one to be pitied; and yet she has been sadly neglected, poor child—and I don’t doubt but in this, as in other matters, all things will work together for good.”
“That’s a sorely misused text,” said the Minister, shaking his head.
“Is this better?” said Randal: “‘Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.’ They seem all rushing upon their prey.”
“No, no, you must not say that. Their own father—who should come to his death-bed but his children? I’ll write and say, ‘Certainly, let Ludovic come;’ and if you can do without that green room for your old portmanteaux, Randal, I’ll find a place for them among the other boxes; and we might take little Effie too. I am always glad to give a town-child the advantage of good country air.”
“She cannot be such a child if she is the same age as Margaret—”
“And what is Margaret but a child? Poor thing, poor thing! Yes, she has been neglected; she has not had the up-bringing a lady of her family should have; but, dear me,” said Mrs. Burnside, who was of the old school, “I’ve seen such things before, and what harm did it do them? She cannot play the piano, or speak French, or draw, or even dance, so far as I can tell; but she cannot but be a lady—it was born with her—and the questions she asks are just extraordinary. I would not make a stipulation for the piano myself everywhere; but still there’s no doubt she has been neglected. Jean and Grace are far from being ill women; but I don’t think I would like to change old Sir Ludovic, that never said a harsh word to her, for the like of them.”
“Yes, mother, Margaret can draw. The young fellow who put Sir Ludovic into his carriage last Sunday, whom you were so impatient of—”
“Me impatient! Randal, you take the very strangest ideas. Why should I be disturbed, one way or other, by Rob Glen? What about Rob Glen?”
“Not much, except that he is giving her—lessons. It seems he is an artist—”
“An artist—Rob Glen! But oh, did I not say Mrs. Ludovic was right? She has been sorely neglected! Not that old Sir Ludovic meant any harm. He was an old man and she a child; and he forgot she was growing up, and that a girl is not a child so long as a boy. After all, perhaps, she will be better in the hands of Grace and Jean.”
“And so the text is not misused, after all,” said the Minister, once more shaking his head.