MR. DOUGLAS himself went to the ball at the Castle. He was of opinion that when a thing is to be done, it is never so well done as when you do it in your own person, and like most other people of similar sentiments, he trusted nobody. Miss Eelen, as one of the race, was no doubt on the whole in the interests of the family, but Drumcarro felt that even she was not to be trusted with so delicate a matter as the securing of “a man” for Mary or Kirsteen. It was better that he should be on the spot himself to strike when the iron was hot, and let no opportunity slip. It is true that his costume was far from being in the latest fashion; but to this he was supremely indifferent, scarcely taking it into the most cursory consideration. If he went in sackcloth he would no less be a Douglas, the representative of the old line upon whose pedigree there was neither shadow nor break. He was very confident that he could not appear anywhere without an instant recognition of his claims. Those of the Duke himself were in no way superior: that potentate was richer, he had the luck to have always been on the winning side, and had secured titles and honours when the Douglases had attainder and confiscation—but Douglas was Douglas when the Duke’s first forbear was but a paidling lairdie with not a dozen men to his name. Such at least was the conviction of Drumcarro; and he marched to the Castle in his one pair of black silk stockings—with his narrow country notions strangely crossed by the traditions of the slave-driving period, with all his intense narrow personal ambitions and grudges, and not an idea beyond the aggrandisement of his family—in the full consciousness of equality (if not superiority) to the best there, the statesman Duke, the great landowners and personages who had come from far and near. Such a conviction sometimes gives great nobleness and dignity to the simple mind, but Drumcarro’s pride was not of this elevating kind. It made him shoulder his way to the front with rising rage against all the insignificant crowd that got before him, jostle as he might; it did not give him the consolatory assurance that where he was, there must be the most dignified place. It must be allowed, however, in defence of his attitude, that to feel yourself thrust aside into a crowd of nobodies when you know your place to be with the best, is trying. Some people succeed in bearing it with a smile, but the smile is seldom warm or of a genial character. And Drumcarro, at the bottom of the room, struggling to get forward, seeing the fine company at the other end, and invariably, persistently, he scarcely knew how, put back among the crowd, was not capable of that superlative amiability. The surprise of it partially subdued him for a time, and Miss Eelen’s exertions, who got him by the arm, and endeavoured to make him hear reason.
“Drumcarro! bless the man—can ye not be content where ye are? Yon’s just the visitors, chiefly from England and foreign parts—earls and dukes, and such like.”
“Confound the earls and the dukes! what’s their titles and their visitors to me? The Douglases have held their own and more for as many hundred years——”
“Whisht, whisht, for mercy’s sake! Lord, ye’ll have all the folk staring as if we were some ferly. Everybody knows who the Douglases were; but man, mind the way of the world that ye are just as much affected by as any person. Riches and titles take the crown of the causeway. We have to put up with it whether we like it or no. You’re fond of money and moneyed folk yourself——”
“Haud your fuilish tongue, ye know nothing about it,” said Drumcarro. But then he felt that he had gone too far. “I’m so used to my wife I forget who I’m speaking to. You’ll excuse me, Eelen?”
“The Lord be praised I’m not your wife,” said Miss Eelen devoutly. She added, perceiving a vacant chair a little higher up near the edge of the privileged line, “I see my harbour, Drumcarro, and there I’ll go, but no further;” and with an able dive through the throng and long experience of the best methods, managed adroitly to settle herself there. She caught by the elbow as she made her dart a gentleman who stood by, a man with grey hair still dressed in a black silk bag in the old-fashioned way which was no longer the mode. “Glendochart,” she said, “one word. I’m wanting your help; you were always on the Douglas’ side.”
“Miss Eelen?” he cried with a little surprise, turning round. He was a man between fifty and sixty, with a fresh colour and gentle, friendly air, much better dressed and set up than Drumcarro, but yet with something of the look of a man more accustomed to the hill-side and the moor than to the world.
“For gudesake look to my cousin Neil, of Drumcarro; he’s just like a mad bull raging to be in the front of everything. Auld Earl Douglas, our great forbear, was naething to him for pride. He will just shame us all before the Duke and Duchess and their grand visitors, if some one will not interfere.”
The gentleman thus appealed to turned round quickly with a glance at the two girls, who with difficulty, and a little breathless and blushing with excitement, had emerged out of the crowd behind Miss Eelen, less skilled in making their way than she. “These young ladies,” he said, “are with you? they’ll be——”
“Just Drumcarro’s daughters, and the first time they’ve ever been seen out of their own house. But yonder’s their father making everybody stand about. For ainy sake, Glendochart.”
“I’ll do your bidding, Miss Eelen.”
The girls both thought, as his look dwelt upon them, that he was a most kind and pleasant old gentleman, and sighed with a thought that life would be far easier and everything more practicable if their father was but such another. But alas, that was past praying for. They had a little more space now that they had gained this comparative haven at the side of Miss Eelen’s chair to take breath and look about them, and shake themselves free of the crowd.
The muslin gowns had been very successful; the skirts fell in a straight line from the waistband high under their arms to their feet, one with a little edge of fine white embroidery, the other with a frill scarcely to be called a flounce round the foot. The bodices were no longer than a baby’s cut in a modest round with a little tucker of lace against the warm whiteness of the bosom: the sleeves were formed of little puffs of muslin also like a baby’s. Mary wore her necklace of cairngorms with much pride. Kirsteen had nothing upon her milkwhite throat to ornament or conceal it. Nothing could have been whiter than her throat, with the soft warmth of life just tinging its purity; her red hair, which goes so well with that warm whiteness, was done up in what was called a classic knot at the back of her head, but there were some little curls which would not be gainsaid about her forehead and behind her ear. Her arms were covered with long silk gloves drawn up to meet the short sleeves. She was in a great tremor of excited imagination and expected pleasure. She was not thinking of partners indeed, nor of performing at all in her own person. She had come to see the world—to see the fine ladies and gentlemen, to hear some of their beautiful talk perhaps, and watch the exquisite way in which they would behave themselves. This was the chief preoccupation of her mind. She looked round her as if it had been “the play.” Kirsteen knew nothing at all of the play, and had been brought up to believe that it was a most depraved and depraving entertainment, but still there had never been any doubt expressed of its enthralling character. The ball she had decided from the first day it had been mentioned, would be as good as going to the play.
Miss Eelen very soon found an old lady sitting near with whom she could talk, but Mary and Kirsteen stood together looking out upon the faces and the moving figures and speaking to no one. They scarcely cared to talk to each other, which they could do, they both reflected, very well at home. They stood pressing close to each other, and watched all the coming and going. In the position which they had gained they could see all the sets, the great people at the head of the room, the humbler ones below. Kirsteen had an advantage over her sister. She had met Lady Chatty several times at Miss Eelen’s and had admired her, half for herself, half for her position, which had a romantic side very delightful to her simple imagination. “That’s Lady Chatty,” she whispered to Mary, proud of her superior knowledge. “I don’t think much of her,” said Mary, whispering back again. This gave Kirsteen a shock in the perfect pleasure with which she watched the graceful movements and animated looks of the future beauty. She had felt a disinterested delight in following the other girl through her dance, admiring how happy she looked and how bright; but Mary’s criticism had a chilling effect.
A long time passed thus, and Kirsteen began to feel tired in spite of herself; the pleasure of watching a room full of animated dancers very soon palls at twenty. Her expectation of pleasure gradually died away. It was very bonny, but not the delight she had thought. Mary stood with a smile which had never varied since they entered the room, determined to look pleased whatever happened—but Kirsteen was not able to keep up to that level. If he had but been here! then indeed all things would have been different. It gave her a singular consolation to think of this, to feel that it was in some sort a pledge of her belonging to him that she was only a spectator in the place where he was not; but she was too sensible not to be aware that her consolation was a fantastic one, and that she would in fact have been pleased to dance and enjoy herself. She and her sister were pushed a little higher up by the pressure of the crowd which formed a fringe round the room, and which consisted of a great many young men too timid to break into the central space where the fine people were performing, and of tired and impatient girls who could not dance till they were asked. Somehow it began to look all very foolish to Kirsteen, not beautiful as she had hoped.
And then by ill luck she overheard the chatter of a little party belonging to the house. It was the kind of chatter which no doubt existed and was freely used at the balls given by the Pharaohs (if they gave balls), or by Pericles, or at least by Charlemagne. “Where do all these funny people come from?” “Out of the ark, I should think,” the young lords and ladies said. “Antediluvian certainly—look, here is a pair of very strange beasts.” The pair in question seemed to Kirsteen a very pretty couple. The young man a little flushed and blushing at his own daring, the girl, yes! there could be no doubt, Agnes Drummond, Ronald’s sister, of as good family as any in the room. But the young ladies and gentlemen from London laughed “consumedly.” “Her gown must have been made in the year one.” “And no doubt that’s the coat his grandfather was married in.” But all their impertinences were brought to a climax by Lord John, one of the family, who ought to have known better. “Don’t you know,” he said, “it’s my mother’s menagerie? We have the natives once a year and make ’em dance. Wait a little till they warm to it, and then you shall see what you shall see.” Kirsteen turned and flashed a passionate glance at the young speaker, which made him step backwards and blush all over his foolish young face; for to be sure he had only been beguiled into saying what the poor young man thought was clever, and did not mean it. Kirsteen’s bosom swelled with pride and scorn and injured feeling. And she had thought everybody would be kind! and she had thought it would all be so bonny! And to think of a menagerie and the natives making a show for these strangers to see!
“Miss Kirsteen, there is a new set making up, and your sister would be glad of you for a vees-ā-vis if ye will not refuse an old man for a partner.” Kirsteen looked round and met the pleasant eyes, still bright enough, of Glendochart, whom Miss Eelen had bidden to look after the indignant Drumcarro. Kirsteen looked every inch Drumcarro’s daughter as she turned round, an angry flush on her face, and her eyes shining with angry tears.
“I will not dance. I am obliged to you, sir,” she said.
“Not dance,” said Mary, in an indignant whisper, “when we’re both asked! And what would ye have? We cannot all have young men.”
“I will not dance—to make sport for the fine folk,” said Kirsteen in the same tone.
“You are just like my father,” said Mary, “spoiling other folks’ pleasure. Will ye come or will ye not, and the gentleman waiting—and me that cannot if you will not.”
“Come, my dear,” said old Glendochart. He patted her hand as he drew it through his arm. “I have known your father and all your friends this fifty years, and ye must not refuse an old man.”
Neither of the girls were very much at their ease in the quadrille, but they watched the first dancers with anxious attention, and followed their example with the correctness of a lesson just received. Kirsteen, though she began very reluctantly, was soothed in spite of herself by the music and the measure, and the satisfaction of having a share in what was going on. She forgot for a moment the gibes she had listened to with such indignation. A quadrille is a very humdrum performance nowadays to those who know nothing so delightful as the wild monotony of the round dance. But in Kirsteen’s time the quadrille was still comparatively new, and very “genteel.” It was an almost solemn satisfaction to have got successfully through it, and her old partner was very kind and took her out to the tea-room afterwards with the greatest attention, pointing out to her the long vista of the corridor and some of the pictures on the walls, and everything that was worth seeing. They were met as they came back by a very fine gentleman with a riband and a star, who stopped to speak to her companion, and at whom Kirsteen looked with awe. “And who may this bonny lass be?” the great man said. “A daughter of yours, Glendochart?”
“No daughter of mine,” said the old gentleman in a testy tone. “I thought your Grace was aware I was the one of your clan that had not married. The young lady is Miss Kirsteen Douglas, a daughter of Drumcarro.”
“I beg your—her pardon and yours; I ought to have known better,” said the Duke. “But you must remember, Glendochart, when you are in such fair company, that it is never too late to mend.”
“He should indeed have known better,” said Glendochart, when they had passed on. “These great folk, Miss Kirsteen, they cannot even take the trouble to mind—which kings do, they say, who have more to think of. And yet one would think my story is not a thing to forget. Did you ever hear how it was that John Campbell of Glendochart was a lone auld bachelor? It’s not a tale for a ball-room, but there’s something in your pretty eyes that makes me fain to tell.”
“Oh, it is little I care for the ball-room,” cried Kirsteen, remembering her grievance, which she told with something of the fire and indignation of her original feeling. He laughed softly, and shook his head.
“Never you fash your head about such folly. When my Lord John goes to St. James’s the men of fashion and their ladies will say much the same of him, and you will be well avenged.”
“It’s very childish to think of it at all,” said Kirsteen, with a blush. “And now will you tell me?” She looked up into his face with a sweet and serious attention which bewitched the old gentleman, who was not old at all.
“I was away with my regiment on the continent of Europe and in the Colonies and other places for many years, when I was a young man,” Glendochart said.
“Yes?” said Kirsteen, with profoundest interest—for was not that the only prospect before him too?
“But all the time I was confident there was one waiting for me at home.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” said Kirsteen, as if it had been her own tale.
“The news from the army was slow in those days, and there was many a mistake. Word was sent home that I was killed when I was but badly wounded. I had neither father nor mother to inquire closely, and everybody believed it, and she too. I believe her friends were glad on the whole, for I was a poor match for her. Her heart was nearly broke, but she was very young and she got over it, and, whether with her own will or without it I cannot tell, but when I came home at last it was her wedding-day.”
“Oh!” Kirsteen cried almost with a shriek, “was that the end of her waiting? Me, I would have waited and waited on——”
“Wait now and ye will hear. The marriage was just over when I came to her father’s house thinking no evil. And we met; and when she saw me, and that I was a living man, and remembered the ring that was on her finger and that she was another man’s wife—she went into her own maiden chamber that she had never left and shut to the door. And there she just died, and never spoke another word.”
“Oh, Glendochart!” cried Kirsteen with an anguish of sympathy, thinking of Ronald, and of the poor dead bride, and of the sorrow which seemed to her throbbing heart impossible, as if anything so cruel could not have been. She clasped his arm with both her hands, looking up at him with all her heart in her face.
“My bonny dear!” he said with surprised emotion, touching her clasped hands with his. And then he began to talk of other things: for they were in the ball-room, where, though every one was absorbed in his or her own pleasure, or else bitterly resenting the absence of the pleasure they expected, yet there were a hundred eyes on the watch for any incident. Kirsteen, in the warmth of her roused feelings, thought nothing of that. She was thinking of the other who was away with his regiment, for who could tell how many years—and for whom one was waiting at home—one that would never put another in his place, no, not for a moment, not whatever news might come!