MRS. DOUGLAS retired to her room after dinner in a very tearful mood. She had made a great effort and she had not been successful, and all her hopes which had been gradually built up into a palace of delight came tumbling down about her ears. The only comfort she could feel now was in the source of her chief troubles. “Ye may say what you like to me,” she cried as Kirsteen helped her to take off her cap and arrange herself comfortably upon her bed, “but your father will never put up with it. It would have been more natural in ye, Kirsteen, if ye had yielded to your mother, for well I wot ye’ll have to yield to him, whether ye like it or no.”
“Oh, mother, I think ye might understand,” Kirsteen said.
“Understand! it’s easy enough to understand. Ye’ve got a silly notion in your head that ye cannot mairry an old man. Better than you have done it before ye, and it would be a blessing to all your family, and maybe help me to live to see some of my boys come back. But na, ye will never think of that, of nothing but your own pleasure. And you’ll see what your father will say to you,” said Mrs. Douglas, with a vindictive satisfaction, while Kirsteen drew the coverlet over her and arranged the pillow for her head.
“Are ye comfortable, mother?”
“Oh, ay, as much as I can be, so little considered as I am. Ye need not wait. Put my stick within my reach, I’ll chap upon the floor if I want ye, or ye can send Mary if it’s too much trouble,” the angry mother said. She had been very tender up to this point, very anxious to show how entirely it was for everybody’s advantage that this step should be taken. But to spend your strength thus upon an unconvinced and unyielding child is hard to bear, and Mrs. Douglas’s disappointment had turned to wrath.
“Oh, mother,” Kirsteen said with anguish, but the remonstrance met with no reply except a fretful “Go away!” She went down stairs very slowly and reluctantly to the parlour where Mary sat at the household mending, in all the placid superiority of one who is at peace with the world. She had rejected no one’s advice. She had not crossed her father or her mother, or disappointed her family. When Kirsteen sat down and took her work, Mary looked at her and gave utterance to a faint “tshish, tshish” of mild animadversion, but for some time nothing was said. When the silence was broken it was by a question from Mary, “Ye’ll not be expecting Glendochart to-day?”
“Me expecting him? I never expected him! He just came of his own will,” Kirsteen cried, moved in her anger and wretchedness to a few hasty tears.
“Well, well, I’m saying nothing; but I suppose he’s not expected, if that’s the right way.”
“I know nothing about it,” said Kirsteen: which indeed was not quite true.
“It was just to tell Marg’ret she need take no extra trouble about the scones. It’s been a great expense a visitor like that, especially when it comes to nothing: often to his dinner, and still oftener to his tea. And always new scones to be made, and jam on the table, and the boys partaking freely: for how could I tell Jock and Jamie before a stranger, ‘It’s no for you.’ And all to come to nothing!” said Mary, holding up her hands.
“What could it have come to?” cried Kirsteen. “I think I will be just driven out of my senses between my mother and you.”
“Poor mother,” said Mary. “She had just set her heart upon it. It would have been a grand change to her to go and visit ye. It would have done her health good, but there are some that never think on such things. I just wish it had been me that had got the chance.”
“And so do I, with all my heart,” cried Kirsteen, with a hot and angry blush. She felt however that there was something like a dishonesty, an irritating attempt to despoil her of something belonging to her in Mary’s wish.
“I would have put myself in the background,” said Mary. “I would not have thought whether I like it or not. I would just have taken the man however old he had been. I would have said, it will be fine for my mother and a good thing for Kirsteen and all the bairns; and I would just have taken him and never said a word.”
“That would have been pleasant for him—that you should take him for the sake of the family.”
“He would have been none the wiser,” said Mary composedly. “There would have been no necessity to tell him. And he would never have found it out. They say men are very vain; they just think ye are in love with them whether ye are or not. And I would have managed Glendochart fine. But it was not me that had the chance.”
Kirsteen cast a gleam of mingled indignation and contempt at her sister, who went on diligently with her mending while she gave vent to these sentiments. Mary was fitting on a patch upon one of the boys’ undergarments, carefully laying it by the thread. Her mending was famed in the family; nobody made repairs so neatly. She spoke very softly, never lifting her eyes from the work, which indeed required all her attention. And there is a special power, especially for irritation, in the words of wisdom that are thus addressed to one without any lifting of the eyes.
“But that’s just the way of the world,” Mary said with a sigh. “The one that would do it, that would not think of herself, but just do it, is never the one that has it in her power. I’ve seen the same thing many a time. The wilful one that will please herself, it is her that folk seek—”
Kirsteen’s heart swelled high with mortification and pain. If there was anything that she had desired in her visionary moods it had been to sacrifice herself, to do some great thing for her mother, to be the saving of little Jeanie. She had made many a plan how to do this, how to perform prodigies for them, to deliver them from dangers. In her dreams she had saved both from fire and flood, from the burning house which fancy sacrificed lightly to give her the chance of a piece of heroism, or from the roaring stream when it ran to its highest, cutting off Drumcarro, which was a thing that had happened once. And now the smooth and smiling Mary, who would have thought of nobody in such a strait but herself, could reproach Kirsteen! And it was a true reproach. Here was the way, with no need to set the house on fire, or flood the country: here was a deliverance to be accomplished, that was within her power, that she could do so easily with no trouble to any one save to him who was far away, who perhaps would never hear of it, who might have changed his mind and forgotten Kirsteen long before he heard of it. All the best part of her seemed to rise against Kirsteen, demanding of her this sacrifice. Oh, it was so easy to do it in your head, to make a sacrifice of everything when nothing was wanted!—but when the time came—
And as if this was not enough, little Jeanie came running after Kirsteen when the poor girl escaped and wandered out again towards the linn in hope of a little soothing from Nature—Jeanie stole her hand into Kirsteen’s and rubbed her golden locks against her sister’s sleeve. “When ye go to Glendochart take me with you,” said Jeanie. “Oh, I would like to live in a grand house. I would like a powney to ride, and to play upon the harpsichord as my mother did when she was young. They say ye’ll be very rich, Kirsteen, when you go with Glendochart.”
“But I will never go with Glendochart!” Kirsteen cried.
“Oh, will ye no? And why will ye no, Kirsteen? Will ye send him away? Oh, you could never be so cruel as to do that! Will he come here no more?—and everything be just as it used to be? Oh, Kirsteen!” cried Jeanie, “I wish you would marry Glendochart!—I would if it was me. He is the kindest man in the whole world. He speaks to me as if he was—No, fathers are not kind like that. I like him, Kirsteen, I am awfu’ fond of him; and so is Jock and Jamie—Oh, I wish ye would change your mind!”
“But, Jeanie, ye would not wish me to be meeserable,” cried poor Kirsteen.
“No,” said Jeanie—but she added with youthful philosophy, “you wouldna be meeserable when me and the rest were so happy. And it is us that will be meeserable if you send him away that has been so good to us all. And how would ye like that?”
Jeanie’s small voice became almost stern as she asked the question, “How would ye like that?—to make all the rest meeserable—when the alternative was nothing more than being meeserable yourself?” Kirsteen had nothing to say against that logic. She told Jeanie to run to a certain drawer where she would find some oranges and share them with the boys. They were Glendochart’s oranges like everything pleasant in the house. And he was the kindest man in the world. And he would be miserable too as well as her mother and Jeanie and the laddies. Oh, poor Kirsteen, with all her best feelings turning traitors to her! would it not be far easier to consent and make them all happy, and just be miserable herself?
But she was not to be left free even now. Before she had got to the side of the linn, to be deafened with the roar and drenched with the spray, which were the only things she could think of in which any solace was, Marg’ret coming round the back of the house interrupted her on her way. “Where are ye going, down by the linn to get your death of cold and maybe an accident into the bargain? You have nothing upon your head, and no gloves on your arms, and the grass is drookit. No, my bonny lamb, ye must not go there.”
“Let me be, Marg’ret. What do I care! If I get my death it will be all the better; but I’ll no get my death.”
“Lord, save us, to hear her speak! Ye’ll no get your death,—it’s just a figure of speech; but ye may get the cauld or a sair throat, or something that will settle on your chest, and that’s as bad. What for would ye go and tempt Providence? Come into my bonny kitchen that is all redd up and like a new pin, and get a good warm.”
“Neither warm nor cold is of any consequence to me,” said Kirsteen, “if folk would just leave me alone.”
“What’s the maitter with my bonny doo? Many a time you’ve come to Marg’ret with your trouble and we’ve found a way out of it.”
“I see no way out of it,” said Kirsteen. She had reached that point of young despair when comfort or consolation is an additional aggravation of the evil. She preferred to be told that everything was over, and that there was no hope.
“Ye may tell me a’ the same,” said Marg’ret, putting her arm round her nursling and drawing her close. “It’s about auld Glendochart, that’s plain for all the world to see.”
“You call him auld Glendochart,” cried Kirsteen.
“Weel, and what would I call him? He’s auld compared to the like of you. He’s no blate to come here with his grey pow and choose the best of the flock. But dinna break your heart for that, Kirsteen. Ye must say to him that ye canna have him. He will take a telling. A man of that age he kens most things in this world. He will just mount his horse again, and ride away.”
“It’s easy speaking,” cried Kirsteen, “but it’s me that dare not say a word. For my father is just red-weed, and will have it, Marg’ret. And my mother, she wants it too. And all of them they are upon me because I cannot consent: for oh, I cannot consent!—whatever folk may think or say, it’s just this, that I cannot do it. I would sooner die.”
“There is nobody that will force you,” said Marg’ret. “Dinna lose heart, my bonny bairn. The laird himself is very fierce sometimes, but his bark is worse than his bite. Na, na, ye must just keep up your heart. Glendochart will soon see, he will let nobody force ye. Things like that never come to pass noo. They’re just a relic of the auld times. Maybe the auld Douglases that we hear so much about, that had the rights of fire and sword, and dark towers and dungeons to shut ye up in, might have done it. But where would he shut ye up here? There’s no a lock to any room door in this house!” Marg’ret’s laugh had a cheerful sound in the air, it broke the spell. “Your father may want to frighten you, and bring ye to his will—but he will do nae maír; and as for the mistress, she will reproach ye for a day and then it’ll be a’ done.”
Kirsteen was obliged to confess that there was something in this. Her mother had been in despair for twenty-four hours, and “just her ordinary” the day after on many previous occasions. It might all “blow over” as Marg’ret said, especially if Glendochart should see with his own eyes how little disposed was the bride whom the family were so anxious to put into his arms. No doubt his feelings would be hurt, which was a thing Kirsteen did not like to think of. But somebody must suffer it was clear, and if so, perhaps it was better that it should be Glendochart who was an old man, and no doubt used to it, and who was also a rich man, and could go away and divert himself as Marg’ret suggested.
Marg’ret was of opinion that though it might hurt his feelings it was not likely at his age that it would break his heart. For hearts are more fragile at twenty than at sixty—at least in that way.