CHAPTER VIII.
A Railway Journey: The Scotch Express.
THE two young men set out together from Loch Arroch. The old lady whose children they both were, waved her handkerchief to them from her window as the steamer rustled down the loch, and round the windy corner of the stubble field into Loch Long. They stood on the deck, and gazed at the quiet scene they were leaving till the farmhouse and the ruin died out of sight. How peaceful it all looked in the bright but watery sunshine! The ivy waving softly from the walls of the ruin, the smoke rising blue from the roof of the farmhouse, which nestled under the shadow of the old castle, the stooks standing in the pale field glistening with morning dew. Bell stood at the door in her short petticoats, shading her eyes with one hand as she watched them, and old Mrs. Murray showed a smiling, mournful face at her window, and the long branches of the fuchsias waved and made salutations with all their crimson bells. Even Bell’s shadow had a distinct importance in the scene, which was so still—still as the rural country is between mountain and water, with mysterious shadows flitting in the silence, and strange ripples upon the beach. The scene was still more sweet from the shore, though not so entirely enveloped in this peaceable habitual calm; for great Benvohrlan was kept in constant life with moving clouds which crossed the sunshine; and the eyes of the spectators on the land did not disdain the bright, many-coloured boat, floating, as it seemed, between three elements—the water, the mountain, and the sky. The shadow-ship floated over the side of the shadow-hill among all the reflected shades; it floated double like the swan on St. Mary’s Lake, and it was hard to tell which was the reality and which the symbol. Such were the variations of the scene from the loch and from the shore.
But though Bell was visible and Bell’s mistress, Jeanie was not to be seen. She had disappeared within the ruins of the Castle, and watched the boat from behind an old block of masonry, with eyes full of longing and sadness. Why had she been so harsh, so hard? Why had she not parted with him “friends?” What did it matter what he said, so long as he said that he looked upon her as an elder brother? Was it not better to be Edgar’s sister than any other man’s beloved? She cried, reflecting sadly that she had not been so kind, so gentle as she ought to this man who was so unlike all others. Like an elder brother—what more could she wish for? Thus poor little Jeanie began to dree her fate.
The day was fine, notwithstanding the prophecy of “saft weather” with which all the observers of sea and sky in the West of Scotland keep up their character as weather prophets as Edgar and Charles Murray travelled to Edinburgh. There was no subject of quarrel between them, therefore they did not quarrel; indeed Edgar, for his part, was amused, when he was not pained, by his cousin’s perpetual self-consciousness and painful desire to keep up his profession of gentleman, and conduct himself in all details of behaviour as a gentleman should. The young Doctor nervously unbuttoned his over-coat, which was much more spruce and glossy than Edgar’s, when he observed that his companion, never a model of neatness or order, wore his loose. He looked with nervous observation at Edgar’s portmanteau, at the shape and size of his umbrella. Edgar had lived in the great world; he had been (or so at least his cousin thought) fashionable; therefore Dr. Charles gave a painful regard to all the minutiæ of his appearance. Thus a trim poor girl might copy a tawdry duchess, knowing no better—might, but seldom does, having a better instinct. But if any one had breathed into Charles Murray’s ear a suggestion of what he was consciously (yet almost against his will) doing, he would have forgiven an accusation of crime more readily. He knew his own weakness, and the knowledge made him wretched; but had any one else suspected it, that would have been the height of insult, and would have roused him to desperate passion.
Thus they travelled together, holding but little communication. The young Doctor’s destination was one of the smaller stations before they reached Edinburgh, where Edgar saw, as the train approached, a graceful young woman, with that air of refinement which a slim and tall figure gives, but too far off to be recognizable, accompanied by a little girl—waiting by the roadside in a little open carriage, half phaeton, half gig.
“Is that your sister?” he asked, taking off his hat, as the lady waved her hand towards them.
“Yes,” said Dr. Charles, shortly, and he added, in his usual tone of apology, “a doctor can do nothing without a conveyance, and as I had to get one, and Margaret is so delicate, it was better to have something in which she could drive with me.”
“Surely,” said Edgar, with some wonder at the appealing tone in which this half statement, half question was made. But a little sigh came from his heart, against his will, as he saw Charles Murray’s welcome, and felt himself rolled away into the cold, into the unknown, without any one to bear him company. He too had once had, or thought he had, a sister, and enjoyed for a short time that close, tender, and familiar friendship which only can exist between a young man and woman when they are thus closely related. Edgar, who was foolishly soft-hearted, had gone about the world ever since, missing this, without knowing what it was he missed. He was fond of the society of women, and he had been shut out from it; for he neither wished to marry, nor was rich enough so to indulge himself, and people with daughters, as he found, were not so anxious to invite a poor man, nor so complacent towards him as they had been when he was rich. To be sure he had met women as he had met men at the foreign towns which he had chiefly frequented during the aimless years just past; but these were chiefly old campaigners, with all the freshness dried out of them, ground down into the utmost narrowness of limit in which the mind is capable of being restrained, or else at the opposite extreme, liberated in an alarming way from all the decorums and prejudices of life. Neither of these classes were attractive, though they amused him, each in its way.
But somehow the sight of his two cousins, brother and sister, gave him a pang which was all the sharper for being entirely unexpected. It made him feel his own forlornness and solitude, how cut off he was from all human solace and companionship. Into his ancient surroundings he could not return; and his present family, the only one which he had any claim upon, was distasteful beyond description. Even his grandmother and Jeanie, whom he had known longest, and with whom he felt a certain sympathy, were people so entirely out of his sphere, that his intercourse with them never could be easy nor carried on on equal terms. He admired Mrs. Murray’s noble character, and was proud to have been able to stand by her against her sordid relations; he even loved her in a way, but did not, could not adopt the ways of thinking, the manners and forms of existence, which were natural and seemly in the little farm-house.
As for Jeanie, poor, gentle, pretty Jeanie! A slight flush came over Edgar’s face as her name occurred to him; he was no lady-killer, proud to think that he had awakened a warmer feeling than was safe for her in the girl’s heart. On the contrary, he was not only pained, but ashamed of himself for the involuntary consciousness which he never put into words, that perhaps it was better for Jeanie that he should go away. He dismissed the thought, feeling hot and ashamed. Was it some latent coxcombry on his part that brought such an idea into his head?
His business in Edinburgh was of a simple kind, to see the lawyer who had prepared the papers for the transfer of his little income, and who, knowing his history, was curious and interested in him, asked him to dinner, and would have made much of the strange young man who had descended from the very height of prosperity, and now had denuded himself of the last humble revenue upon which he could depend.
“I have ventured to express my disapproval, Mr. Earnshaw,” this good man had said; “but having done so, and cleared my conscience if—there is anything I can be of use to you in, tell me.”
“Nothing,” said Edgar; “but a thousand thanks for the goodwill, which is better than anything.”
Then he went away, declining the invitation, and walked about Edinburgh in the dreamy solitude which began to be habitual to him, friendly and social as his nature was. In the evening he dined alone in one of the Princes Street hotels, near a window which looked out upon the Castle and the old town, all glimmering with lights in the soft darkness, which was just touched with frost. The irregular twinkle of the lights scattered about upon the fine bank of towers and spires and houses opposite; the dark depth below, where dark trees rustled, and stray lights gleamed here and there; the stream of traffic always pouring through the street below, notwithstanding the picturesque landscape on the other side—all attracted Edgar with the charm which they exercise on every sensitive mind. When the bugle sounded low and sweet up in mid-air from the Castle, he started up as if that visionary note had been for him. The darkness and the lights, the new and the old, seemed to him alike a dream, and he not less a dream pursuing his way between them, not sure which was real and which fictitious in his own life; which present and which past. The bugle called him—to what? Not to the sober limits of duty, to obedience and to rest, as it called the unwilling soldiers out of their riots and amusements; but perhaps to as real a world still unknown to him, compassed—like the dark Castle, standing deep in undistinguishable, rustling trees—with mists and dream-like uncertainty. Who has ever sat at a dark window looking out upon the gleaming, darkling crest of that old Edinburgh, with the crown of St. Giles hovering over it in the blue, and the Castle half way up to heaven, without feeling something weird and mystical beyond words, in the call of the bugle, sudden, sweet, and penetrating, out of the clouds? What Edgar had to do after the call of this bugle was no deed of high emprise. He had no princess to rescue, no dragon to kill. He got up with that half-laugh at himself and his own fancies which was habitual to him, and paid his bill and collected his few properties, and went to the railway. Other people were beginning to go to bed; the shop windows were closing; the lights mounting higher from story to story. But a stream of people and carriages was pouring steadily down into the hollow, bound like himself, for the London Express. Edgar walked up naturally, mechanically to the window at which firstclass tickets were being issued. But while he waited his turn, his eye and his ear were attracted by a couple of women in the dress of an English Sisterhood, who were standing in front of him, holding a close conversation. One of them, at least, was in the nun’s costume of severe black and white; the other, a young slim figure, wore a black cloak and close bonnet, and was deeply veiled; but was not a “Sister,” though in dress closely approaching the garb. Edgar’s eyes however were not clever enough to make out this difference. The younger one seemed to him to have made some timid objection to the second class.
“Second class, my dear!” said the elder. “I understand first class, and I understand third; but second is neither one thing nor another. No, my dear. If we profess to give up forms and ceremonies and the pomps of this world, let us do it thoroughly, or not at all. If you take second class, you will be put in with your friend’s maid and footman. No, no, no; third class is the thing.”
“To be sure. What am I thinking of?” said Edgar to himself, with his habitual smile. “Of course, third class is the thing.”
It had been from pure inadvertence that he had been about to take the most expensive place, nothing else having occurred to him. I do not know whether I can make the reader understand how entirely without bitterness, and, indeed, with how much amusement Edgar contemplated himself in his downfall and penniless condition, and what a joke he found it. For the moment rather a good joke—for, indeed, he had suffered nothing, his amour propre not being any way involved, and no immediate want of a five-pound note or a shilling having yet happened to him to ruffle his composure. He kept the two Sisters in sight as he went down the long stairs to the railway with his third-class ticket. He thought it possible that they might be exposed to some annoyance, two women in so strange a garb, and in a country where Sisterhoods have not yet developed, and where the rudeness of the vulgar is doubly rude, perhaps in contrast with, perhaps in consequence of (who knows?) the general higher level of education on which we Scotch plume ourselves. They had given him his first lesson in practical contempt of the world; he would give them the protection of his presence, at least, in case of any annoyance. Not to give them any reason, however, to suppose that he was following them, he waited for some minutes before he took his seat in a corner of the same carriage in which they had established themselves. He took off his hat, foreign fashion, as he went into the railway carriage (Edgar had many foreign fashions). At sight of him there seemed a little flutter of interest between the Sisters, and when he took his seat they bent their heads together, and talked long in whispers. The result of this was that the two changed seats, the younger one taking the further corner of the same seat on which he had placed himself; while the elder, a cheerful middle-aged woman, whose comely countenance became the close white cap, and whose pleasant smile did it honour, sat opposite to her companion.
I cannot say that this arrangement pleased Edgar, for the other was young—a fact which betrayed itself rather by some subtle atmosphere about her than by any visible sign—and his curiosity was piqued and himself interested to see the veiled maiden. But, after all, the disappointment was not great, and he leaned back in the hard corner, saying to himself that the third class might be the thing, but was not very comfortable, without any particular dissatisfaction.
Two other travellers, a woman and a boy, took their places opposite to him. They were people from London, who had gone to Scotland for the boy’s holidays after some illness, and they brought a bag of sandwiches with them and a bottle of bad sherry, of which they ate and drank as soon as the train started, preparing themselves for the night. Then these two went to sleep and snored, and Edgar, too, went partially to sleep, dozing between the stations, lying back in the corner which was so hard, and seeing the dim lamp sway, and the wooden box in which he was confined, creak, and jolt, and roll about as the train rushed on, clamping and striding like a giant through the dark. What a curious, prolonged dream it was—the dim, uncertain light swaying like a light at sea, the figures dimly seen, immoveable, or turning uneasily like spectres in a fever, veiled figures, with little form visible under the swaying of the lamp; and now and then the sudden jar and pause, the unearthly and dissipated gleam from some miserable midnight station, where the porters ran about pale and yawning, and the whole sleepy, weary place did its best to thrust them on, and get rid of the intruder.
Just before morning, however, in the cold before the dawning, Edgar had a real dream, a dream of sleep, and not of waking, so vivid that it came into his mind often afterwards with a thrill of wonder. He dreamt that he saw standing by him the figure of her who had touched his heart in his earlier years, of Gussy, who might have been his wife had all gone well, and of whom he had thought more warmly and constantly, perhaps, since she became impossible to him, than when she was within his reach. She seemed to come to him out of a cloud, out of a mist, stooping over him with a smile; but when he tried to spring up, to take the hand which she held out, some icy restraint came upon him—he could not move, chains of ice seemed to bind his hands and arrest even his voice in his throat. While he struggled to rise, the beautiful figure glided away, saying, “After, after—but not yet!” and—strange caprice of fancy—dropped over her face the heavy veil of the young sister who had excited his curiosity, and who was seated in the other corner of this same hard wooden bench, just as Edgar, struggling up, half awake, found that his railway wrapper had dropped from his knees, and that he was indeed almost motionless with cold.
The grey dawn was breaking, coldest and most miserable hour of the twenty-four, and the other figures round him were nodding in their sleep, or swayed about with the jarring movement of the carriage. Strange, Edgar thought to himself, how fancy can pick up an external circumstance, and weave it into the fantastic web of dreams! How naturally his dream visitor had taken the aspect of the last figure his musing eyes had closed upon! and how naturally, too, the physical chill of the moment had shaped itself into a mental impossibility—a chain of fate. He smiled at the combination as he wrapped himself shivering in his rug. The slight little figure in the other corner was, he thought, awake too, she was so perfectly still. The people on the other side dozed and nodded, changing their positions with the jerking movement of restless sleep, but she was still, moving only with the swaying of the carriage. Her veil was still down, but one little white hand came forth out of the opening of her black cloak. What a pity that so pretty a hand should not be given to some man to help him along the road of life, Edgar thought to himself with true English sentiment, and then paused to remember that English sisterhoods could take no irrevocable vows, at least, in law. He toyed with this idea, he could not tell why, giving far more attention to the veiled figure than half-a-dozen unveiled women would have procured from him.
Foolish and short-sighted mortal! He dreamed and wondered at his dream, and made his ingenious little theory and amused explanation to himself of the mutual reaction of imagination and sensation. How little he knew what eyes were watching him from behind the safe shelter of that heavy black veil!