AND indeed the Duchess did come forward with the gravest looks, after the flowers had all been gathered up and restored to the box and her talk was over with Miss Jean.
“Miss Douglas,” she said, “I am much surprised to find you here.”
“Your Grace,” said Kirsteen, “I am very well here.”
“That is just your silly notion. A young person of your age is not fitted to dispose of her own life. Your worthy parents had looked out a most suitable match for you, and I cannot but say it was very wrong and a shame to all belonging to you that you should run away.”
“I would rather say nothing about it, madam,” said Kirsteen. “Whether that was the cause or not, the heart knoweth its own bitterness; and every one of us, however small we may be, understands their own affairs best.”
“No, young lady,” said the Duchess, “that’s not so. You are not at an age when you are fit to judge. It is just nothing but childish folly,” she added, raising her voice also intentionally, and casting a glance towards her daughter, “to object to a good man and a gentleman of a good family, and who is hale and hearty and full of sense—because he is not just as young as some long-legged fool that you may think better worth your pains.”
“Like me, for instance,” said Lord John in an audible aside.
Her Grace’s eyes softened as her look rested for a moment upon her scapegrace. Then she turned back to Kirsteen with her severest look. “It is a very bad example to other foolish young creatures that you have set in running away. But I hope you will think better of it, and be persuaded, and go back to your family,” she said.
“I do not think I can do that,” said Kirsteen, “for there’s nothing changed that I know, and the reason that brought me away is still there.”
“Miss Douglas,” said the Duchess, “his Grace himself has heard all about this from one and another, and I make little doubt that when he hears where you are and that we have seen you, and what an unsuitable place you are in for a gentleman’s daughter, he will take it into his own hands, and just insist that you must go back.”
Kirsteen had been standing in a respectful attitude listening to the great lady, answering for herself, it is true, with much steadiness, but also with deference and humility. She raised her head now, however, and looked the Duchess in the face. “I am meaning no disrespect,” she said, “but, madam, I am not his Grace’s clanswoman, that he should insist. The Douglases I have always heard tell were sovran in their own place, and gave no reverence to one of another name.”
“Young lady,” cried the Duchess astonished, “you are a very bold person to speak of his Grace in that tone.”
“I am meaning no disrespect,” Kirsteen said. But she stood so firm, and met her Grace’s eye with so little shrinking, that even the Duchess herself was embarrassed. It is unwise to profess an intention of interfering and setting everything straight before you have ascertained that your impulse will be obeyed. The great lady coloured a little and felt herself worsted. It was only natural that she should lose her temper; she turned upon Miss Jean, who stood by very tremulous, half sympathizing with Kirsteen, half overawed by her visitor.
“Then, Miss Brown,” she said, “it should be your duty to interfere. It ill becomes you, a person so well supported by the Scots gentry, to back up a young girl of family in rebellion against her own kith and kin.”
Miss Jean was much taken by surprise, yet she was not unequal to the occasion. “I have told Miss Kirsteen,” she said, “on several occasions that this was what would happen; that her grand friends would step in, and that we would all be called to account. I hope your Grace will excuse me, but I cannot say more. I have no authority. If your Grace cannot move her, how will she heed the like of me?”
“She is a very self-willed young person,” said the Duchess; “but I will see that her friends are communicated with, and no doubt her father will send some one to fetch her away. We will just leave the other question till another time. Charlotte, come away.”
“But I must have my gown, mamma,” cried Lady Chatty; “indeed I’m not going without my gown. What should I do with all the balls coming on, and nothing to wear? You can go away if you please and send the carriage back for me, or John will take me home. But if all the world were falling to pieces, I must have my gown. You must know, Miss Jean, it is for the birthday, and I must have something of your very best. Kirsteen, what is the prettiest thing she has? for you must know. I want some of that silver gauze that is like a mist, and I have it in my head exactly how I want it made. Oh, mamma, don’t stand and look so glum, but just go away, please, and send the carriage back for me.”
The Duchess hesitated for a moment, but in the end took her daughter’s advice, as was her custom. “You will not forget, Miss Jean, what I have said. And as for you, young lady, I hope you will reflect upon your position and take the proper steps to put things right,” she said severely. “John, you will give me your arm down stairs. And see that you are ready, Charlotte, in a quarter of an hour, when the carriage comes back.”
With these words the Duchess went away. She could not stand against her beautiful daughter and the necessity of the new gown, but she would not sanction in her own person the example of rebellion and self-assertion. “You will come back for Chatty,” she said to her son, relaxing a little when she got outside that home of insubordination. “She is far too free with common people; and that young woman is a very bold-looking person and not society for your sister.”
“She is a very pretty person,” said Lord John; “I could not think where I had seen her before.”
“Pretty! with that red hair!” cried his mother, shaking her head as she got into her carriage and drove away.
“Now, Kirsteen,” cried Lady Chatty, “quick, quick, now that mamma’s gone—her bark is a great deal worse than her bite—tell me all about it. They wanted to make you marry old Glendochart? Oh, parents are like that everywhere—they want me, too. And couldn’t you just face them and get over them as I do? Couldn’t you just? Miss Jean, she is crying—but I meant no harm.”
“Lady Chatty,” said Kirsteen, “will you try and get her Grace not to write? If I were ever so willing my father would never more let me come back. Oh, if I might just be left alone!—for I cannot tell you everything. My family is not like other families. If I was dying for it they would never more take me home again. Oh, if I might just be let alone!”
“I told you, Miss Kirsteen, what would be the end of it,” said Miss Jean, “and that you would bring me into trouble too.”
“Oh, never mind these old people, they are all the same,” cried Lady Chatty. “But,” she added, “I almost wonder after all, Kirsteen, you did not marry old Glendochart; he would have freed you from all the rest, and he would have done whatever you pleased. And nobody could have put a question or said a word. So long,” said this experienced young lady, looking in Kirsteen’s face, “as there was not some one else. Oh, but I see!” she cried, clapping her hands, “there is some one else.”
“Will your leddyship look at this?—it is the gauze ye were inquiring after,” said Miss Jean. “I will just put it about you over your shoulder, and you will see the effect. And Miss Kirsteen, who has wonderful taste, will give us her advice. Look now in the cheval glass. What does your ladyship think of that?”
“It’s divine,” cried Lady Chatty, clapping her hands; and interesting though the other subject was, the new gown and its possibilities, and a delightful discussion as to certain novel effects, carried the day. Miss Jean threw herself ecstatically into Lady Chatty’s devices by way of changing the subject, and finally in a whirlwind of questions and suggestions, petitions for Kirsteen’s confidence and recommendations of silver trimmings, the visitor was got away at last. Miss Jean, when she was gone, threw the silvery stuff with some impatience upon the floor.
“I have humoured all her whims just to get you clear of her,” she said. “Oh, Miss Kirsteen, did I not tell ye what would happen when you were discovered by your grand friends?”
Curiously enough, however, even to Kirsteen’s own mind there was a certain solace in the thought that these very great people, who knew so little about her, thought her of sufficient importance to interfere personally in her affairs. Her trouble and confusion before the Duchess’s reproof was wonderfully modified by the soothing sense of this distinction. It had been humbling to feel that she had no grand connections, nobody that could interfere. There was consolation in the fulfilment of Miss Jean’s prophecy.
And it may be imagined what excitement ran through the house from the garret to the basement some days after when the Scotch maid came into the workroom breathless, with the thrilling news that my lord Duke was in the parlour waiting to see Miss Douglas. His Grace himself! “Lord bless us!” cried Miss Jean, “ye must go down quick, for a great person’s time is precious, and I will come myself just when I think the interview’s over, for no doubt he will want to give his directions to me.” All the needles in the workroom stopped with the excitement of this visit, and the boldest held her breath. A Duke, no less, to see Miss Carrots, the Scotchy with the red hair! “But that’s how they do, they all hangs together,” was the comment afterwards, couched in less perfect language perhaps than the supposed pure English which Kirsteen admired. Kirsteen herself rose, very pale yet very determined, from her seat at the long table, and brushed from her dress the fragments of thread and scraps of silk. She said nothing, but walked away to this alarming interview with her heart thumping in her breast, though externally all seemed calm. Kirsteen had a strong inclination to run away once again and be no more seen, when she reached the parlour door; and it was chiefly pride that supported her through the ordeal. She went in with much internal trembling but a pale resolution which no duke nor other potentate could break down.
He was standing playing with his eyeglass against the window, blocking out most of the light—a large man enveloped in the huge folds of his neckcloth, and in layer upon layer of waistcoats, enormous at the shoulders but dwindling towards the legs in tight pantaloons. Truth to tell, his Grace was more nervous, so far as appearances went, than the little girl whom he had been sent to bring to a sense of her duty. He said, “How d’ye do?” very ceremoniously, and offered her a chair. “You’re one of our county neighbours, Miss Douglas, I hear. My land marches with Drumcarro, perhaps you will know. It is on the edge of the old Douglas country, which, as luck will have it, now chiefly belongs to me, though it is no doing of mine.”
“But my father represents the old Douglases, your Grace, though we have so little of the land.”
“It is a long time since,” said the Duke, “but it is perhaps true; and you have a right to stand up for your own side. The more reason for the Duchess’s great concern at finding you here.”
“I am very well here, my lord Duke,” said Kirsteen rigidly; she had to keep so much control upon herself not to tremble that she had become as stiff as a wooden image, and was well aware of the fact, which did not add to her comfort.
“You are not my clanswoman, Miss Douglas,” said his Grace, using her own expression, “and you know as well as I do I have no power over you. But I think I am perhaps implicated in what has happened from the foolish mistake I made in taking you for the daughter of Glendochart on the occasion when we had the pleasure of seeing you at the Castle. You may have thought from that that he was considered an old man, but he is nothing of the sort. He is younger than I am,” said the Duke, waving his hand with an air of conscious youth; “he is a man in the prime of life. As for assuming you to be his daughter, it was only a foolish jest, my dear young lady. For I knew he had no daughter nor child of any kind, being an unmarried man. I hope this explanation will smooth matters,” the Duke said, with a demonstrative wave of his hand.
“Oh, it never was that,” cried Kirsteen, “it never was that! And I have never said a word about Glendochart, nor given that as my reason. I had other reasons,” she said.
“My dear young lady, however you explain it, it was very foolish,” said his Grace, “for all you needed to have done was to have said a word to Glendochart himself. He would never have had pressure put upon you. He is as true a gentleman as you will find between this and him. He would never have taken a bride by force. A word to him would have been enough.”
“I know that well,” said Kirsteen, “oh, I know that well.” She added, “But if it please your Grace, I never said it was because of Glendochart. I had—other reasons.”
“Oh, you had other reasons?” said the Duke, perplexed. “But I hope now that we have talked it over you will see what is suitable, and just go quietly home.”
“I feel convinced,” said the Duke, “that though you may be a little headstrong, you are not just a rebel, liking your freedom, as the Duchess was disposed to think; and now that I have set it all before you, you will just take your foot in hand, as we say in Scotland, and go cannily home.”
“I cannot do that, your Grace,” said Kirsteen.
“And why cannot you do that? You may depend upon it, it is the only right way. ‘Children, obey your parents,’ is the word of Scripture. You must really go home. Your forbears and mine have known each other when the Douglases were more on a level perhaps with my family than they are now, so you see I have a certain right to speak. My dear young lady, you will just come home.”
“I cannot do that, my lord Duke.”
“Hush, hush, ye will allow I must know better from my position and all that. Pack up your things, and I will see that you have a postchaise ready and a servant to take care of you. You see we take a great interest in you, both the Duchess and myself.”
“I am much obliged to your Grace—and to the Duchess—”
“Yes, yes; but that’s nothing. I will tell somebody to order the postchaise for you, and you’ll find, with a little judgment, that all will go well.”
He patted her arm softly, stroking her down as if she had been a cat or a child. “Just go cannily home,” he said, “that’s always the best place for a girl—just go cannily home.”
At this moment Miss Jean, unable to contain herself longer, tapped at the door, and Kirsteen made her escape, leaving these high powers to concert the method of her going—a futile proceeding so long as the will of the proposed traveller remained unchanged.