HARRY FRANKLAND’S return made a great difference to the tutor, between whom and the heir of the house there existed that vague sense of jealousy and rivalship which was embittered on the part of young Frankland by a certain consciousness of obligation. He was a good-natured fellow enough, and above the meanness of treating unkindly anybody who was in a dependent position; but the circumstances were awkward, and he did not know how to comport himself towards the stranger. “The fellow looks like a gentleman,” he said privately in confidence to his mother; “if I had never seen him before we might have got on, you know; but it’s a horrible nuisance to feel that you’re obliged to a fellow in that kind of position—neither your equal, you know, nor your inferior, nor—. What on earth induced the governor to have him here? If it hadn’t been for these cheap Scotch universities and stuff, he’d have been a ploughman that one could have given ten pounds to and been done with him. It’s a confounded nuisance having him here.”
“Hush, Harry,” said Lady Frankland. “He is very nice and very gentlemanly, I think. He used to be very amusing before you came home. Papa, you know, is not entertaining after dinner; and really Mr. Campbell was quite an acquisition, especially to Matty, who can’t live without a slave,” said the lady of the house, with an indulgent, matronly smile.
“Oh, confound it, why did the governor have him here?” cried the discontented heir. “As for Matty, it appears to me she had better begin to think of doing without slaves,” he said moodily, with a cloud on his face; a speech which made his mother look up with a quick movement of anxiety, though she still smiled.
“I can’t make out either you or Matty,” said Lady Frankland. “I wish you would be either off or on. With such an appearance of indifference as you show to each other—”
“Oh, indifference, by Jove!” said Harry, breaking in upon his mother’s words; and the young man gave a short whistle, and, jumping up abruptly, went off without waiting for any more. Lady Frankland was not in the habit of disturbing herself about things in general. She looked after her son with a serious look, which, however, lasted but a moment. Then she returned immediately to her placidity and her needlework. “I daresay it will come all right,” she said to herself, with serene philosophy, which perhaps accounted for the absence of wrinkles in her comely, middle-aged countenance. Harry, on the contrary, went off in anything but a serene state of mind. It was a foggy day, and the clouds lay very low and heavy over the fen-country, where there was nothing to relieve the dulness of nature. And it was afternoon—the very time of the day when all hopes and attempts at clearing up are over—and dinner was still too far off to throw its genial glow upon the dusky house. There had been nothing going on for a day or two at Wodensbourne. Harry was before his time, and the expected guests had not yet arrived, and the weather was as troublesome and hindersome of every kind of recreation as weather could possibly be. Young Frankland went out in a little fit of impatience, and was met at the hall-door by a mouthful of dense white steaming air, through which even the jovial trees of holly, all glowing with Christmas berries, loomed like two prickly ghosts. He uttered an exclamation of disgust as he stood on the broad stone steps, not quite sure what to do with himself—whether to face the chill misery of the air outside, or to hunt up Matty and Charley, and betake himself to the billiard-room within. But then the tutor—confound the fellow! Just at that moment Harry Frankland heard a laugh, a provoking little peal of silver bells. He had an odd sort of affection—half love, half dislike—for his cousin. But of all Matty’s charms, there was none which so tantalized and bewitched him as this laugh, which was generally acknowledged to be charming. “Much there is to laugh about, by Jove!” he muttered to himself, with an angry flush; but he grew grimly furious when he heard her voice.
“You won’t give in,” said Matty; “the Scotch never will, I know; you are all so dreadfully argumentative and quarrelsome. But you are beaten, though you won’t acknowledge it; you know you are. I like talking to you,” continued the little witch, dropping her voice a little, “because—hush! I thought I heard some one calling me from the house.”
“Because why?” said Colin. They were a good way off, behind one of those great holly trees; but young Frankland, with his quickened ears, discerned in an instant the softness, the tender admiration, the music of the tutor’s voice. “By Jove!” said the heir to himself; and then he shouted out, “Matty, look here! come here!” in tones as different from those of Colin as discord is from harmony. It did not occur to him that Miss Matty’s ear, being perfectly cool and unexcited, was quite able to discriminate between the two voices which thus claimed her regard.
“What do you want?” said Matty. “Don’t stand there in the fog like a ghost; if you have anything to say, come here. I am taking my constitutional; one’s first duty is the care of one’s health,” said the wicked little creature, with her ring of laughter; and she turned back again under his very eyes along the terrace without looking at him again. As for Harry Frankland, the words which escaped from his excited lips were not adapted for publication. If he had been a little less angry he would have joined them, and so made an end of the tutor; but, being furious, and not understanding anything about it, he burst for a moment into profane language, and then went off to the stables, where all the people had a bad time of it until the dressing-bell rang.
“What a savage he is,” said Matty, confidentially. “That is the bore of cousins; they can’t bear to see one happy, and yet they won’t take the trouble of making themselves agreeable. How nice it used to be down at Kilchurn that summer—you remember? And what quantities of poetry you used to write. I suppose Wodensbourne is not favourable to poetry? You have never shown me anything since you came here.”
“Poetry is only for one’s youth,” said Colin; “that is, if you dignify my verses with the name—for one’s extreme youth, when one believes in everything that is impossible; and for Kilchurn, and the Lady’s Glen, and the Holy Loch,” said the youth, after a pause, with a fervour which disconcerted Matty. “That summer was not summer, but a bit of paradise—and life is real at Wodensbourne.”
“I wish you would not speak in riddles,” said Miss Matty, who was in the humour to have a little more of this inferred worship. “I should have thought life was a great deal more real at Ramore than here. Here we have luxuries and things—and—and—and books and—.” She meant to have implied that the homely life was hard, and to have delicately intimated to Colin the advantage of living under the roof of Sir Thomas Frankland; but, catching his eye at the outset of her sentence, Matty had suddenly perceived her mistake, and broke down in a way most unusual to her. As she floundered, the young man looked at her with a full unhesitating gaze, and an incomprehensible smile.
“Pardon me,” he said—he had scarcely ever attempted before to take the superiority out of her hands, little trifler and fine lady as she was—he had been quite content to lay himself down in the dust and suffer her to march over him in airy triumph. But, while she was only a little tricksy coquette, taking from his imagination all her higher charms, Colin was a true man, a man full of young genius, and faculties a world beyond anything known to Matty; and, when he was roused for the moment, it was so easy for him to confound her paltry pretensions. “Pardon me,” he said, with the smile which piqued her, which she did not understand; “I think you mistake. At Ramore I was a poor farmer’s son, but we had other things to think of than the difference between wealth and poverty. At Ramore we think nothing impossible; but here—” said Colin, looking round him with a mixture of contempt and admiration, which Matty could not comprehend. “That, you perceive, was the age of poetry, the age of romance, the golden age,” said the young man, with a smile. “The true knight required nothing but his sword, and was more than a match for all kinds of ugly kings and wicked enchanters; but Wodensbourne is prose, hard prose—fine English if you like, and much to be applauded for its style,” the tutor ran on, delivering himself up to his fancy. “Not Miltonian, to be sure; more like Macaulay—fine vigorous English, not destitute of appropriate ornament; but still prose, plain prose, Miss Frankland—only prose!”
“It appears to me that you are cross, Mr. Campbell,” said Matty, with a little spite; for her young vassal showed signs of enfranchisement when he called her by her name. “You like your rainy loch better than anything else in the world; and you are sorry,” said the siren, dropping her voice, “you are even so unkind as to be sorry that you have come here?”
“Sometimes, yes,” said Colin, suddenly clouding over. “It is true.”
“Always,” said Matty; “though you cannot deny that we freed you from the delightful duty of listening to Sir Thomas after dinner,” she went on, with a laugh. “Dear old uncle, why does he snore? So you are really sorry you came? I do so wish you would tell me why. Wodensbourne, at least, is better than Ardmartin,” said Miss Matty, with a look of pique. She was rather relieved and yet horribly disappointed at the thought that Colin might perhaps be coming to his senses, in so far as she herself was concerned. It would save her a good deal of embarrassment, it was true, but she was intent upon preventing it all the same.
“I will tell you why I am sorry, if you will tell me why I ought to be glad,” said Colin, who was wise enough, for once, to see that he had the best of the argument.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Matty; “if you don’t see yourself—if you don’t care about the advantages—if you don’t mind living in the same—I mean, if you don’t see the good—”
“I don’t see any good,” said Colin, with suppressed passion, “except one which, if I stated it plainly, you would not permit me to name. I see no advantages that I can venture to put in words. On the other hand, Wodensbourne has taught me a great deal. This fine perspicuous English prose points an argument a great deal better than all the Highland rhymings in existence,” said the young man, bitterly; “I’ll give you a professional example, as I’m a tutor. At the Holy Loch we conjugate all our verbs affirmatively, interrogatively. Charley and I are getting them up in the negative form here, and it’s hard work,” said Charley’s tutor. He broke off with a laugh which sounded strange and harsh, an unusual effect, to his companion’s ear.
“Affirmatively? Interrogatively?” said Miss Matty, with a pretty puzzled look; “I hate long words. How do you suppose I can know what you mean? It is such a long time since I learnt my verbs—and then one always hated them so. Look here, what a lovely holly-leaf! Il m’aime, il ne m’aime pas?” said Miss Matty, pricking her fingers on the verdant spikes and casting a glance at Colin. When their eyes met they both laughed, and blushed a little in their several ways—that is to say, Miss Matty’s sweet complexion grew a little, a very little, brighter for one moment, or Colin at least thought it did; whereas the blood flushed all over his face, and went dancing back like so many streams of new life and joy to exhilarate his foolish youthful heart.
“By the bye, I wonder if that foolish Harry came from my aunt; perhaps she wants me,” said Miss Matty, who had gone as far as she meant to go. “Besides, the fog gets heavier; though, to be sure, I have seen it twenty times worse at Kilchurn. Perhaps it is the fog and the rain that makes it poetical there? I prefer reality, if that means a little sunshine, or even the fire in my lady’s dressing-room,” she cried, with a shiver. “Go indoors and write me some pretty verses: it is the only thing you can do after being such a savage. Au revoir—there are no half-partings in English; and it’s so ridiculous to say good-bye for an hour or two,” said Miss Matty. She made him a little mock curtsey as she went away, to which, out of the fulness of her grace, the little witch added a smile and a pretty wave of her hand as she disappeared round the corner of the great holly, which were meant to leave Colin in a state of ecstasy. He stayed on the foggy terrace a long time after she had left him, but the young man’s thoughts were not ecstatic. So long as she was present, so long as the strongest spell of natural magic occupied his eyes in watching and his ears in listening to her, he was still carried along and kept up by the witchery of young love. But in the intervals when her presence was withdrawn, matters grew to be rather serious with Colin. He was not like a love-sick girl, able to exist upon these occasional sweetnesses; he was a man, and required something more to satisfy his mind than the tantalizing enchantments and disappointments of this intercourse, which was fascinating enough in its way, but had no substance or reality in it. He had spoken truly—it had been entire romance, sweet as a morning dream at the Holy Loch. There the two young creatures, wandering by the glens and streams, were the ideal youth and maiden entering upon their natural inheritance of beauty and love and mutual admiration; and at homely Ramore, where the world to which Matty belonged was utterly unknown, it was not difficult either for Colin himself, or for those around him; to believe that—with his endowments, his talents, and genius—he could do anything, or win any woman. Wodensbourne was a most sobering, disenchanting reality after this wonderful delusion. The Franklands were all so kind to the young tutor, and their sense of obligation towards him made his position so much better than any other tutor’s of his pretensions could have been, that the lesson came with all the more overwhelming force upon his awakening faculties. The morning and its dreams were gliding away—or, at least, Colin thought so; and this clear daylight, which began to come in, dissipating all the magical effects of sunshine and mist and dew, had to be faced as he best could. He was not a young prince, independent of ordinary requirements; he was truly a poor man’s son, and possessed by an ideal of life and labour such as has inspired many a young Scotchman. He wanted not only to get on in the world, to acquire an income and marry Matty, but also to be good for something in his generation. If the course of true love had been quite smooth with him, if Matty had been his natural mate, Colin could not have contented himself with that personal felicity. He was doubtful of all his surroundings, like most young men of his period—doubtful what to do and how to do it—more than doubtful of all the local ways and fashions of the profession to which he had been trained. But underneath this uncertainty lay something of which Colin had no doubt. He had not been brought into the world without an object; he did not mean to leave it without leaving some mark that he had been here. To get through life easily and secure as much pleasure as possible by the way was not the theory of existence known at Ramore. There it was understood to be a man’s, a son’s duty to better his position, to make his way upwards in the world; and this philosophy of life had been enlarged and elevated in the poetic soul of Colin’s mother. He had something to do in his own country, in his own generation. This was the master-idea of the young man’s mind.
But how it was to be reconciled with this aimless, dependent life in the rich English household—with this rivalry, which could never come to anything, with Sir Thomas Frankland’s heir—with this vain love, which, it began to be apparent to Colin, must, like the rivalry, end in nothing—it was hard to see. He remained on the terrace for about an hour, walking up and down in the fog. All that he could see before him were some indistinct outlines of trees, looking black through the steaming white air, and, behind, the great ghost of the house, with its long front and wings receding into the mist—the great, wealthy, stranger house, to which he and his life had so little relationship. Many were the thoughts in Colin’s mind during this hour; and they were far from satisfactory. Even the object of his love began to be clouded over with fogs, which looked very different, breathing over those low, rich, English levels, from the fairy mists of the Lady’s Glen. He began to perceive dimly that his devotion was a toy and plaything to this little woman of the world. He began to perceive what an amount of love would be necessary to make such a creature as Matty place herself consciously by the side of such a man as himself. Love!—and as yet all that he could say certainly of Matty was that she liked a little love-making, and had afforded him a great many facilities for that agreeable but unproductive occupation. Colin’s heart lost itself in an uncertainty darker than the fog. His own position galled him profoundly. He was Charley’s tutor. They were all very kind to him; but, supposing he were to ask the child of the house to descend from her eminence and be his wife—not even his wife, indeed, but his betrothed; to wait years and years for him until he should be able to claim her—what would everybody think of him? Colin’s heart beat against his breast in loud throbs of wounded love and pride. At Wodensbourne everything seemed impossible. He had not the heart to go away and end abruptly his first love and all his dreams; and how could he stay to consume his heart and his life? How go back to the old existence, which would now be so much harder? How begin anew and try another life apart from all his training and traditions, for the sake of that wildest of incredible hopes? Colin had lived for some time in this state of struggle and argument with himself, and it was only Matty’s presence which at times delivered him from it. Now, as before, he took refuge in the thought that he could not immediately free himself; that, having accepted his position as Charley’s tutor, he could not relinquish it immediately; that honour bound him to remain for the winter at least. When he had come, for the fiftieth time, to this conclusion, he went indoors, and upstairs to his room. It was a good way up, but yet it was more luxurious than anything in Ramore, and on the table there were some flowers which she had given him the night before. Poor Colin! after his serious reflections he owed himself a little holiday. It was an odd enough conclusion, certainly, to his thoughts, but he had an hour to himself and his writing-desk was open on the table, and involuntarily he bethought himself of Miss Matty’s parting words. The end of it was that he occupied his hour writing and re-writing and polishing into smooth couplets the pretty verses which that young lady had asked for. Colin’s verses were as follows; from which it will be seen that, though he had a great deal of poetical sentiment, he was right in refusing to consider himself a poet:—
“In English speech, my lady said,
There are no sweet half-partings made—
Words half regret, half joy, that tell
We meet again and all is well.
Ah, not for sunny hours or days
Its grave ‘Farewell’ our England says;
Nor for a moment’s absence, true,
Utters its prayer, ‘God be with you.’
Other the thoughts that Love may reach,
In the grave tones of English speech;
Deeper than Fancy’s passing breath,
The blessing stands for life or death.
If Heaven in wrath should rule it so,
If earth were capable of woe
So bitter as that this might be
The last dear word ’twixt thee and me—
Thus Love in English speech, above
All lighter thoughts, breathes: ‘Farewell, Love;
For hours or ages if we part,
God be with thee, where’er thou art.
To no less hands than His alone
I trust thy soul out of mine own.’
Thus speaks the love that, grave and strong
Can master death, neglect, and wrong,
Yet ne’er can learn, long as it lives,
To limit the full soul it gives,
Or cheat the parting of its pain
With light words ’Till we meet again.’
Ah, no, while on a moment’s breath
Love holds the poise ’twixt life and death,
He cannot leave who loves thee, sweet,
With light postponement ’Till we meet;’
But rather prays, ‘Whate’er may be
My life or death, God be with thee!
Though one brief hour my course may tell,
Ever and ever Fare thou well.’”
Probably the readers of this history will think that Colin deserved his fate.
He gave them to her in the evening, when he found her alone in the drawing-room—alone, at least, in so far that Lady Frankland was nodding over the newspaper, and taking no notice of Miss Matty’s proceedings. “Oh, thank you; how nice of you!” cried the young lady; but she crumpled the little billet in her hand, and put it, not into her bosom as young ladies do in novels, but into her pocket, glancing at the door as she did so. “I do believe you are right in saying that there is nothing but prose here,” said Matty. “I can’t read it just now. It would only make them laugh, you know;” and she went away forthwith to the other end of the room, and began to occupy herself in arranging some music. She was thus employed when Harry came in, looking black enough. Colin was left to himself all that evening. He had, moreover, the gratification of witnessing all the privileges once accorded to himself given to his rival. Even in matters less urgent than love, it is disenchanting to see the same attentions lavished on another of which one has imagined one’s self the only possessor. It was in vain that Colin attempted a grim smile to himself at this transference of Matty’s wiles and witcheries. The lively table-talk—more lively than it could be with him, for the two knew all each other’s friends and occupations; the little services about the tea-table which he himself had so often rendered to Matty, but which her cousin could render with a freedom impossible to Colin; the pleased, amused looks of the elders, who evidently imagined matters to be going on as they wished;—would have been enough of themselves to drive the unfortunate youth half wild as he sat in the background and witnessed it all. But, as Colin’s evil genius would have it, the curate was that evening dining at Wodensbourne. And, in pursuance of his benevolent intention of cultivating and influencing the young Scotchman, this excellent ecclesiastic devoted himself to Colin. He asked a great many questions about Scotland and the Sabbath question, and the immoral habits of the peasantry, to which the catechumen replied with varying temper, sometimes giving wild answers, quite wide of the mark, as he applied his jealous ear to hear rather the conversation going on at a little distance than the interrogatory addressed to himself. Most people have experienced something of the difficulty of keeping up an indifferent conversation while watching and straining to catch such scraps as may be audible of something more interesting going on close by; but the difficulty was aggravated in Colin’s case by the fact that his own private interlocutor was doing everything in his power to exasperate him in a well-meaning and friendly way, and that the words which fell on his ear close at hand were scarcely less irritating than the half-heard words, the but too distinctly seen combinations at the other end of the room, where Matty was making tea, with her cousin hanging over her chair. After he had borne it as long as he could, Colin turned to bay.
“Scotland is not in the South Seas,” said the young Scotchman; “a day’s journey any time will take you there. As for our Universities, they are not rich like yours, but they have been heard of from time to time,” said Colin, with indignation. His eyes had caught fire from long provocation, and they were fixed at this moment upon Matty, who was showing her cousin something which she half drew out of her pocket under cover of her handkerchief. Was it his foolish offering that the two were about to laugh over? In the bitterness of the moment, he could have taken the most summary vengeance on the irreproachable young clergyman. “We don’t tattoo ourselves now-a-days, and no Englishman has been eaten in my district within the memory of man,” said the young savage, who looked quite inclined to swallow somebody, though it was doubtful who was the immediate object of the passion which played in his brown eyes. Perhaps Colin had never been so much excited in his life.
“I beg your pardon,” said the wondering curate. “I tire you, I fear—” and he followed Colin’s eyes, after his first movement of offence was over, and perhaps comprehended the mystery, for the curate himself had been in his day the subject of experiments. “They seem to have come to a very good understanding, these two,” he said, with a gentle clerical leaning towards inevitable gossip. “I told you how it was likely to be. I wish you would come to the vicarage oftener,” continued the young priest. “If Frankland and you don’t get on—”
“Why should not we get on?” said Colin, who was half mad with excitement; he had just seen some paper, wonderfully like his own verses, handed from one to another of the pair who were so mutually engrossed—and, if he could have tossed the curate or anybody else who might happen to be at hand out of window, it would have been a relief to his feelings. “He and I are in very different circumstances,” said the young man, with his eyes aflame. “I am not aware that it is of the least importance to any one whether we get on or not. You forget that I am only the tutor.” It occurred to him, as he spoke, that he had said the same words to Matty at Ardmartin, and how they had laughed together over his position. It was not any laughing matter now; and to see the two heads bending over that bit of paper was more than he could bear.
“I wish you would come oftener to the parsonage,” said the benevolent curate. “I might be—we might be—of—of some use to each other. I am very much interested in your opinions. I wish I could bring you to see the beauty of all the Church’s arrangements and the happiness of those—”
Here Colin rose to his feet without being aware of it, and the curate stopped speaking. He was a man of placid temper himself, and the young stranger’s aspect alarmed him. Harry Frankland was coming forward with the bit of paper in his hand.
“Look here,” said Frankland, instinctively turning his back on the tutor, “here’s a little drawing my cousin has been making for some schools you want in the village. She says they must be looked after directly. It’s only a scratch, but I think it’s pretty—a woman is always shaky in her outlines, you know; but the idea ain’t bad, is it? She says I am to talk to you on the subject,” said the heir; and he spread out the sketch on the table and began to discuss it with the pleased curate. Harry was pleased too, in a modified way; he thought he was gratifying Matty, and he thought it was good of such a wayward little thing to think about the village children; and, finally, he thought if she had been indifferent to the young lord of the manor she would not have taken so much trouble—which were all agreeable and consolatory imaginations. As for Colin, standing up by the table, his eyes suddenly glowed and melted into a mist of sweet compunctions; he stood quite still for a moment, and then he caught the smallest possible gesture, the movement of a finger, the scarce-perceptible lifting of an eyelash, which called him to her side. When he went up to Matty he found her reading very demurely, with her book held in both her hands, and his little poem placed above the printed page. “It is charming!” said the little witch; “I could not look at it till I had got rid of Harry. It is quite delightful, and it is the greatest shame in the world not to print it; but I can’t conceive how you can possibly remember the trumpery little things I say.” The conclusion was, that sweeter dreams than usual visited Colin’s sleep that night. Miss Matty had not yet done with her interesting victim.