CHAPTER XXI.
The End of a Drama.
MRS. MURRAY lived two days longer. They were weary days to Edgar. It seems hard to grudge another hour, another moment to the dying, but how hard are those last lingerings, when hope is over, when all work is suspended, and a whole little world visibly standing still, till the lingerer can make up his mind to go! The sufferer herself was too human, too deeply experienced in life, not to feel the heavy interval as much as they did. “I’m grieved, grieved,” she said, with that emphatic repetition which the Scotch peasant uses in common with all naturally eloquent races, “to keep you waiting, bairns.” Sometimes she said this with a wistful smile, as claiming their indulgence; sometimes with a pang of consciousness that they were as weary as she was. She had kissed and blessed her prodigal returned, and owned to herself with a groan, which was, however, breathed into her own breast, and of which no one was the wiser, that Willie, too, was “no more than common folk.”
I cannot explain more than the words themselves do how this high soul in homely guise felt the pang of her oft-repeated disappointment. Children and grandchildren, she had fed them not with common food, the bread earned with ordinary labours, but with her blood, like the pelican; with the toil of man and woman, of ploughman and hero, all mingled into one. High heart, heroic in her weakness as in her strength! They had turned out but “common folk,” and, at each successive failure, that pang had gone through and through her which common folk could not comprehend. She looked at Willie the last, with a mingled pleasure and anguish in her dying mind—I say pleasure, and not joy, for the signs of his face were not such as to give that last benediction of happiness. Nature was glad in her to see the boy back whom she had long believed at the bottom of the sea; but her dying eyes looked at him wistfully, trying to penetrate his heart, and reach its excuses.
“You should have written, to ease our minds,” she said gently.
“How was I to know you would take it to heart so? Many a man has stayed away longer, and no harm come of it,” cried Willie, self-defending.
The old woman put her hand upon his bended head, as he sat by her bedside, half sullen, half sorry. She stroked his thick curling locks softly, saying nothing for a few long silent moments. She did not blame him further, nor justify him, but simply was silent. Then she said,
“You will take care of your sister, Willie, as I have taken care of her? She has suffered a great deal for you.”
“But oh!” cried Jeanie, when they were alone together—kneeling by the bedside, with her face upon her grandmother’s hand, “you never called him but Willie—you never spoke to him soft and kind, as you used to do.”
“Was I no kind?” said the dying woman, with a mingled smile and sigh; but she kept “My bonnie man!” her one expression of homely fondness, for Edgar’s ear alone.
They had more than one long conversation before her end came. Edgar was always glad to volunteer to relieve the watchers in her room, feeling infinitely more at home there than with the others below. On the night before her death, she told him of the arrangements she had made.
“You gave me your fortune, Edgar, ower rashly, my bonnie man. Your deed was so worded, they tell me, that I might have willed your siller away from you, had I no been an honest woman.”
“And so I meant,” said Edgar, though he was not very clear that at the time he had any meaning at all. “And there is Jeanie——”
“You will not take Jeanie upon you,” said the old woman—“I charge ye not to do it. The best thing her brother can have to steady him and keep him right, is the thought of Jeanie on his hands—Jeanie to look for him when he comes home. You’ll mind what I say. Meddling with nature is aye wrong; I’ve done it in my day, and I’ve repented. To make a’ sure, I’ve left a will, Edgar, giving everything to you—everything. What is it? My auld napery, and the auld, auld remains of my mother’s—most of it her spinning and mine. Give it to your aunts, Edgar, for they’ll think it their due; but keep a something—what are the auld rags worth to you?—keep a little piece to mind me by—a bit of the fine auld damask—so proud as I was of it once! I’ve nae rings nor bonny-dies, like a grand leddy, to keep you in mind of me.”
She spoke so slowly that these words took her a long time to say, and they were interrupted by frequent pauses; but her voice had not the painful labouring which is so common at such a moment; it was very low, but still sweet and clear. Then she put out her hand, still so fine, and soft, and shapely, though the nervous force had gone out of it, upon Edgar’s arm.
“I’m going where I’ll hear nothing of you, maybe, for long,” she said. “I would like to take all the news with me—for there’s them to meet yonder that will want to hear. There’s something in your eye, my bonnie man, that makes me glad. You’re no just as you were—there’s more light and more life. Edgar, you’re seeing your way?”
Then, in the silence of the night, he told her all his tale. The curtains had been drawn aside, that she might see the moon shining over the hills. The clearest still night had succeeded many days of rain; the soft “hus-sh” of the loch lapping upon the beach was the only sound that broke the great calm. He sat between her and that vision of blue sky and silvered hill which was framed in by the window; by his side a little table, with a candle on it, which lighted one side of his face; behind him the shadowy dimness of the death-chamber; above him that gleam of midnight sky. He saw nothing but her face; she looked wistfully, fondly, as on a picture she might never see more, upon all the circumstances of this scene. He told her everything—more than he ever told to mortal after her—how he had been able to serve Clare, and how she had been saved from humiliation and shame; how he had met Gussy, and found her faithful; and how he was happy at the present moment, already loved and trusted, but happier still in the life that lay before him, and the woman who was to share it. She listened to every word with minute attention, following him with little exclamations, and all the interest of youth.
“And oh! now I’m glad!” cried the old woman, making feeble efforts, which wasted almost all the little breath left to her, to draw something from under her pillow—“I’m glad I have something that I never would part with. You’ll take her this, Edgar—you’ll give her my blessing. Tell her my man brought me this when I was a bride. It’s marked out mony a weary hour and mony a light one; it’s marked the time of births and of deaths. When my John died, my man, it stoppit at the moment, and it was long, long or I had the heart to wind it again and set it going. It’s worn now, like me; but you’ll bid her keep it, Edgar, my bonnie man! You’ll give her my blessing, and you’ll bid her to keep it, for your old mother’s sake.”
Trembling, she put into his hand an old watch, which he had often seen, but never before so near. It was large and heavy, in an old case of coppery gold, half hid under partially-effaced enamel, wanting everything that a modern watch should have, but precious as an antiquity and work of art.
“A trumpery thing that cost five pounds would please them better,” she said. “It’s nae value, but it’s old, old, and came to John from a far-off forbear. You’ll give it to her with my blessing. Ay, blessings on her!—blessings on her sweet face!—for sweet it’s bound to be; and blessings on her wise heart, that’s judged weel! eh, but I’m glad to have one thing to send her. And, Edgar, now I’ve said all my say, turn me a little, that I may see the moon. Heaven’s but a step on such a bonnie night. If I’m away before the morning, you’ll shed nae tear, but praise the Lord the going’s done. No, dinna leave it; take it away. Put it into your breast-pocket, where you canna lose it. And now say fare-ye-weel to your old mother, my bonnie man.”
These were the last words she said to him alone. When some one came to relieve him, Edgar went out with a full heart into the silvery night. Not a sound of humanity broke the still air, which yet had in it a sharpness of the spring frosts. The loch rose and fell upon its pebbles, as if it hushed its own very waves in sorrow. The moon shone as if with a purpose—as if holding her lovely lamp to light some beloved wayfarer up the shining slope.
“Heaven’s but a step on such a night,” he said to himself, with tears of which his manhood was not ashamed. And so the moon lighted the traveller home.
With the very next morning the distractions of common earth returned. Behind the closed shutters, the women began to examine the old napery, and the men to calculate what the furniture, the cow, the cocks and hens would bring. James Murray valued it all, pencil and notebook in hand. Nothing would have induced the family to show so little respect as to shorten the six or seven days’ interval before the funeral, but it was a very tedious interval for them all. Mrs. Campbell drove off with her husband to her own house on the second day, and James Murray returned to Greenock; but the MacColls stayed, and Margaret, and made their “blacks” in the darkened room below, and spoke under their breath, and wearied for the funeral day which should release them.
Margaret, perhaps, was the one on whom this interval fell most lightly; but yet Margaret had her private sorrows, less easy to bear than the natural grief which justified her tears. The sailor Willie paid but little attention to her beauty and her pathetic looks. He was full of plans about his little sister, about taking her with him on his next voyage, to strengthen her and “divert” her; and poor Margaret, whose heart had gone out of her breast at first sight of him, as it had done in her early girlhood, felt her heart sicken with the neglect, yet could not believe in it. She could not believe in his indifference, in his want of sympathy with those feelings which had outlived so many other things in her mind. She went to Edgar a few days after their grandmother’s death with a letter in her hand. She went to him for advice, and I cannot tell what it was she wished him to advise her. She did not know herself; she wanted to do two things, and she could but with difficulty and at a risk to herself do one.
“This is a letter I have got from Mr. Thornleigh,” she said, with downcast looks. “Oh! Cousin Edgar, my heart is breaking! Will you tell me what to do?”
Harry’s letter was hot and desperate, as was his mind. He implored her, with abject entreaties, to marry him, not to cast him off; to remember that for a time she had smiled upon him, or seemed to smile upon him, and not to listen now to what anyone might say who should seek to prejudice her against him. “What does my family matter when I adore you?” cried poor Harry, unwittingly betraying himself. And he begged her to send him one word, only one word—permission to come down and speak for himself. Edgar felt, as he read this piteous epistle, like the wolf into whose fangs a lamb had thrust its unsuspecting head.
“How can I advise you how to answer?” he said, giving her back the letter, glad to get it out of his hands. “You must answer according to what is in your heart.”
Upon this Margaret wept, wringing her lily hands.
“Mr. Edgar,” she said, “you cannot think that I am not moved by such a letter. Oh! I’m not mercenary, I don’t think I am mercenary! but to have all this put at my feet, to feel that it would be for Charles’s good and for Sibby’s good, if I could make up my mind!”
Here she stopped, and cast a glance back at the house again. Edgar had been taking a melancholy walk along the side of the loch, where she had joined him. Her heart was wrung by a private conflict, which she could not put into words, but which he divined. He felt sure of it, from all he had seen and heard since they came, as well as from the impression conveyed to his mind the moment she had named the sailor Willie’s name. I do not know why it should be humbling for a woman to love without return, when it is not humbling for a man; but it is certain that for nothing in the world would Margaret have breathed the cause of her lingering unwillingness to do anything which should separate her from Willie; and that Edgar felt hot and ashamed for her, and turned away his eyes, that she might not see any insight in them. At the same time, however, the question had another side for him, and involved his own fortunes. He tried to dismiss this thought altogether out of his mind, but it was hard to do so. Had she loved Harry Thornleigh, Edgar would have felt himself all the more pledged to impartiality, because this union would seriously endanger his own; but to help to ruin himself by encouraging a mercenary marriage, this would be hard indeed!
“Are you sure that you would get so many advantages?—to Charles and to Sibby?” he cried, with a coldness impossible to conceal.
She looked at him startled, the tears arrested in her blue eyes. She had never doubted upon this point. Could she make up her mind to marry Harry, every external advantage that heart could desire she felt would be secured. This first doubt filled her with dismay.
“Would I no?” she cried faltering. “He is a rich man’s heir, Lady Mary’s nephew—a rich gentleman. Oh! Cousin Edgar, what will you think of me? I have always been poor, and Charles is poor—how can I put that out of my mind?”
“I do not blame you,” said Edgar, feeling ashamed both of himself and her. And then he added, “He is a rich man’s son, but his father is not old; and he would not receive you gladly into his family. Forgive me that I say so—I ought to tell you that I am not a fair judge. I am going to marry Harry’s sister, and they object very much to me.”
“Object to you!—they are ill to please,” cried Margaret, with simple natural indignation. “But if you were in the family, that would make things easier for us,” she added, wistfully, looking up in his face.
“You have made up your mind, then, to run the risk?” said Edgar, feeling his heart sink.
“I did not say that.” She gave another glance at the house again. Willie was standing at the door, in the morning sunshine, and beckoned to her to come back. She turned to him, as a flower turns to the sun. “No, I am far, far from saying that,” said the young woman, with a mixture of sadness and gladness, turning to obey the summons.
Edgar stood still, looking after her with wondering gaze. The good-looking sailor, whose likeness to himself did not make him proud, was a poor creature enough to be as the sun in the heavens to this beautiful, stately young woman, who looked as if she had been born to be a princess. What a strange world it is, and how doubly strange is human nature! Willie had but to hold up a finger, and Margaret would follow him to the end of the earth; though the rest of his friends judged him rightly enough, and though even little Jeanie, though she loved, could scarcely approve her brother, Margaret was ready to give up even her hope of wealth and state, which she loved, for this Sultan’s notice. Strange influence, which no man could calculate upon, which no prudence restrained, nor higher nor lower sentiment could quite subdue!
Edgar followed his beautiful cousin to the house with pitying eyes. He did not want her to marry Harry Thornleigh, but even to marry Harry Thornleigh, though she did not love him, seemed less degrading than to hang upon the smile, the careless whistle to his hand, of a man so inferior to her. I don’t know if, in reality, Willie was inferior to Margaret. She, for one, would have been quite satisfied with him; but great beauty creates an atmosphere about it which dazzles the beholder. It was not fit, Edgar felt, in spite of himself, that a woman so lovely should thus be thrown away.
As this is but an episode in my story, I may here follow Margaret’s uncomfortable wooing to its end. Poor Harry, tantalized and driven desperate by a letter, which seemed, to Margaret, the most gently temporising in the world, and which was intended to keep him from despair, and to retain her hold upon him until Willie’s purposes were fully manifested, at last made his appearance at Loch Arroch Head, where she was paying the Campbells a visit, on the day after Edgar left the loch. He came determined to hear his fate decided one way or another, almost ill with the excitement in which he had been kept, wilder than ever in the sudden passion which had seized upon him like an evil spirit. He met her, on his unexpected arrival, walking with Willie, who, having nothing else to do, did not object to amuse his leisure with his beautiful cousin, whose devotion to him, I fear, he knew. Poor Margaret! I know her behaviour was ignoble, but I regret—as I have confessed to the reader—that she did not become the great lady she might have been; and, notwithstanding that Edgar’s position would have been deeply complicated thereby, I wish the field had been left clear for Harry Thornleigh, who would have made her a good enough husband, and to whom she would have made, in the end, a very sweet wife. Forgive me, young romancist, I cannot help this regret. Even at that moment Margaret did not want to lose her young English Squire, and her friends were so far from wanting to lose him that Harry, driven to dire disgust, hated them ever after with a strenuous hatred, which he transferred to their nation generally, not knowing any better. He lingered for a day or more, waiting for the answer which Margaret was unwilling to give, and tortured by Willie, who, seeing the state of affairs, felt his vanity involved, and was more and more loverlike to his cousin. The issue was that Harry rushed away at last half mad, and went abroad, and wasted his substance more than he had ever done up to that moment, damaged his reputation, and encumbered his patrimony, and fell into that state of cynical disbelief in everybody, which, bad as are its effects even upon the cleverest and brightest intelligence, has a worse influence still upon the stupid, to whom there is no possibility of escape from its withering power.
When Harry was fairly off the scene, his rival slackened in his attentions; and after a while Margaret returned to her brother, and they did their best to retrieve their standing at Tottenham’s, and to make the position of the doctor’s family at Harbour Green a pleasant one. But Lady Mary, superior to ordinary prejudices as she was, was not so superior as to be altogether just to Margaret, who, though she deserved blame, got more blame than she deserved. The Thornleighs all believed that she had “laid herself out” to “entrap” Harry—which was not the case; and Lady Mary looked coldly upon the woman who had permitted herself to be loved by a man so far above her sphere. And then Lady Mary disliked the doctor, who never could think even of the most interesting “case” so much as to be indifferent to what people were thinking of himself. So Harbour Green proved unsuccessful, as their other experiments had proved, and the brother and sister drifted off again into the world, where they drift still, from place to place, always needy, anxious, afraid of their gentility, yet with that link of fraternal love between them, and with that toleration of each other and mutual support, which gives a certain beauty, wherever they go, to the family group formed by this handsome brother and sister, and the beautiful child, whom her uncle cherishes almost as dearly as her mother does.
Ah, me! if Margaret had made that “good match,” though it was not all for love, would it not have been better for everybody concerned?