MISS JEAN it must be allowed turned to her young companion with some dismay when Mrs. Campbell of Glendochart had been ceremoniously seen to her hackney coach, and deeply cast down and discomfited, had driven away to the respectable person who had been recommended to her to make her new gown. “Were you meaning yon?” Miss Jean asked with solicitude. “Or what were you meaning?”
“I was meaning what I said,” cried Kirsteen holding her head high and with an unusual colour upon her cheeks. “You know yourself that we have more work than can be done if we were to sit at it day and night.”
“For the moment,” said Miss Jean prudently; “but to refuse work just goes to my heart—it might spoil the business.”
“It will do the business good,” said Kirsteen. “We will let it be known, not just yet perhaps, what I said, that we will take no commoners’ orders—that persons who are nobodies need not come here. You did not take me with you into the business just to go on like other folk.”
“No—that’s quite true,” said Miss Jean, but with a little hesitation still.
“By the time,” said Kirsteen, “that you have turned away half-a-dozen from your door, your name will be up over all the town; and whether in the season or out of it, you will have more to do than you can set your face to, and thanks for doing it. Will you trust me or not, Miss Jean? For I allow that I am inexperienced and perhaps I may not be right.”
“It would be very strange if ye were always right,” said Miss Jean with a smile of affectionate meaning, “for all so young and so sure as ye are. But ye have a great spirit and there’s something in me too that just answers till ye. Yes, I’ll trust ye, my dear; and ye’ll just go insulting all the poor bodies that are not good enough to please ye, till ye make a spoon or spoil a horn for yourself; for it does not matter so very much for me.”
“Not the poor bodies,” said Kirsteen, “but the folk with money and nothing else, that come in as if they were doing us a favour—women that Marg’ret would not have in her kitchen; and they will come in here and give their orders as if it was a favour to you and me! I would like to learn them a lesson: that though we’re mantua-makers, it’s not for the like of them—a person with no name to speak of—and giving her orders to one of the Douglases! We will learn them better before we are done.”
“Oh pride, pride!” said Miss Jean, “there’s something in me that answers till ye, though well I wot I have little to be proud of; but these half and half gentry they are just insufferable to me too.”
In all this there was nothing said of Mrs. Mary, to whom none of these descriptions applied, for she was of course one of the Douglases as well as her sister, and Glendochart was as good a gentleman as any of his name. But while Miss Jean Brown, the daughter of a Scotch ploughman, felt something in her that answered to the pride of the well-born Highland girl, there was much in the other that resembled the “half and half gentry,” of whom the experienced mantua-maker had seen many specimens. Miss Jean’s prognostics however were carried into effect with stern certainty in the disappointment of the country visitors. They did indeed dine in Portman Square, but chiefly because of Lady Chatty’s desire to see the personages of the story which she was so fond of telling, and then only on a Sunday evening when the family were alone. Alone, or all but alone, for there was one guest to meet them in the person of Miss Kirsteen Douglas, who was not a stranger in the house nor awkward, as the bride was in her new gown and much overdressed for the family party. It was impossible for Kirsteen to meet Glendochart, whose wooing had been of so much importance in her life, without a warmer tinge of colour and a slight shade of consciousness. But the good man was so completely unaware of any cause for feeling, that she came to herself with a little start and shock, which was highly salutary and chastised that pride which was Kirsteen’s leading quality at this period of her career. Glendochart was so completely married, so pleased with his young wife, and with himself for having secured her, that all former dreams had departed totally from his mind—a discovery which Kirsteen made instantaneously so soon as their eyes met, and which went through and through her with angry amazement, consternation, wonder, mingled after a little while with a keen humorous sense of the absurdity of the situation. He came after dinner and talked to her a little about her circumstances, and how difficult it was to know what to do. “For your father is a very dour man, as Mary says, and having once passed his word that you are never to enter his door, it will be hard, hard to make him change. You know how obdurate he has been about Anne; but we will always be on the watch, and if the time ever comes that a word may be of use——”
“I beg you will take no trouble about it, Glendochart. I knew what I was risking; and but for my mother I have little to regret. And she has not been any the worse,” Kirsteen said, almost with bitterness. Nobody seemed to have been the worse for her departure, not even her mother.
“No, I believe she has been none the worse. She is coming to pay us a visit so soon as we get back.”
Kirsteen could have laughed, and she could have cried. She could have seized upon this precise, well-got-up elderly gentleman and given him a good shake. To think that she should have been frightened almost out of her wits, and flung all her life to the winds, because of him; and that he was here advising her for her good, as well satisfied with Mary as he ever could have been with herself!
Miss Jean proved however a true prophet in respect to the disappointment of the newly-married couple with their reception in London, and their willingness eventually to accept the hospitality of the mantua-maker, and meet her friends, the minister, the doctor, the silk-mercer, and the old lady of quality, at her comfortable table. Miss Jean gave them a supper at which all these highly respectable persons were present, along with another who gave a character of distinction to the assembly, being no less a person than young Captain Gordon, promoted on the field of battle and sent home with despatches, the son of the old lady above mentioned, who was not too grand, though all the fine houses in London were open to him, to come with his mother, covering her with glory in the eyes of the humbler friends who had been kind to her poverty. This encounter was the only one which brought Glendochart and his wife within the range of the commotion which was filling all society and occupying all talk. Afterwards, when they returned home, it was the main feature of their record, what Captain Gordon had said, and his account of the battle—“which, you see, we had, so to speak, at first hand; for he got his promotion upon the field, and was sent home with despatches, which is only done when a young man has distinguished himself; and a near connection of the Huntly family.” I am not sure that Mary did not allow it to be understood that she had met this young hero at the Duke’s table in Portman Square, but certainly she never disclosed the fact that it was at the mantua-maker’s in Chapel Street, Mayfair. Captain Gordon proved to be of much after importance in the family, so that the mode of his first introduction cannot be without interest. The old lady who patronized Miss Jean by sharing her Sunday dinners, and many other satisfactory meals, felt herself, and was acknowledged by all, to have amply repaid her humble friend by bringing this brilliant young hero fresh from Waterloo to that entertainment, thus doing Miss Jean an honour which “the best in the land” coveted. Alick, so far as he was concerned, made himself exceedingly agreeable. He fought the great battle over again, holding his auditors breathless; he gave the doctor details about the hospitals, and told the minister how the army chaplain went among the poor Highlanders from bed to bed. And he accepted an invitation from Glendochart for the shooting with enthusiasm. “But they will want you at Castle Gordon,” said the proud mother, desirous to show that her son had more gorgeous possibilities. “Then they must just want me,” cried the young soldier. “They were not so keen about me when I was a poor little ensign.” Everything was at the feet of the Waterloo hero, who was in a position to snap his fingers at his grand relations and their tardy hospitality. Kirsteen in particular was attracted by his cheerful looks and his high spirit, and his pleasure in his independence and promotion. It was in accord with her own feeling. She said that he put her in mind of her brothers in India—all soldiers, but none of them so fortunate as to have taken part in such a great decisive battle; and thought with a poignant regret how it might have been had Ronald Drummond continued with Lord Wellington’s army instead of changing into the Company’s service. It might have been he that would have been sent over with the despatches, and received with all this honour and renown—and then!—Kirsteen’s countenance in the shade where she was sitting was suffused with a soft colour, and the tears came into her eyes.
“They get plenty of fighting out there,” said the young soldier, who was very willing to console the only pretty girl in the room; “and if it’s not so decisive it may be just as important in the long run, for India is a grand possession—the grandest of all. I will probably go there myself, Miss Douglas, for though Waterloo’s a fine thing, it will end the war, and what’s a poor soldier lad to do?”
“You will just find plenty to do in your own country, Alick,” said his mother eagerly.
“Barrack duty, mother! it’s not very exciting—after a taste of the other.”
“A taste!” said the proud old lady. “He’s just been in everything, since the time he put on his first pair of trews. I know those outlandish places, as if they were on Deeside, always following my soldier laddie—Vimiera, and Badajos, and down to Salamanca and Toulouse in France. I could put my finger on them in the map in the dark,” she cried with a glow of enthusiasm; then falling into a little murmur of happy sobbing, “God be thanked they’re all over,” she cried, putting her trembling hand upon her son’s arm.
“Amen!” said the minister, “to the final destruction of the usurper and the restoring of law and order in a distracted land!”
“We’ll just see how long it lasts,” said the doctor, who was a little of a free thinker, and was believed to have had sympathies with the Revolution.
“We’ll have French tastes and French fashions in again, and they’re very ingenious with their new patterns it must be allowed,” said the silk-mercer; “but it will be an ill day for Spitalfields and other places when the French silks are plentiful again.”
“There’s ill and good in all things. You must just do your best, Miss Jean, to keep British manufactures in the first place,” the minister said. “It’s astonishing in that way how much the ladies have in their hands.”
“Were you at Salamanca—and Toulouse?” said Kirsteen in her corner, where she kept as far as possible from the light of the candles, lest any one should see the emotion in her face.
“Indeed I was, and the last was a field of carnage,” said the young soldier. “Perhaps you had a brother there?”
“Not a brother—but a—friend,” said Kirsteen, unable to restrain a faint little sigh. The young man looked so sympathetic and was so complete a stranger to her that it was a relief to her full bosom to say a word more. “I could not but think,” she added in a very low tone, “that but for that weary India—it might have been him that had come with glory—from Waterloo.”
“Instead of me,” said the young soldier with a laugh. “No, I know you did not mean that. But also,” he added gravely, “both him and me we might have been left on the field where many a fine fellow lies.”
“That is true, that is true!” Kirsteen did not say any more; but it flashed across her mind how could she know that he was not lying on some obscure field in India where lives were lost, and little glory or any advantage that she knew of gained? This gave her, however, a very friendly feeling to young Gordon, between whom and herself the tie of something which was almost like a confidence now existed. For the young man had easily divined what a friend meant in the guarded phraseology of his country-woman.
It was not till long after this that there came to Kirsteen a little note out of that far distance which made amends to her for long waiting and silence. The letter was only from Robbie, whose correspondence with his sisters was of the most rare and fluctuating kind, yet who for once in a way, he scarcely himself knew the reason why, had sent Kirsteen a little enclosure in his letter to his mother, fortunately secured by Marg’ret, who was now everything—nurse, reader, and companion to the invalid. Robbie informed his sister that Jeanie’s letter about old Glendochart had “given him a good laugh,” and that he thought she was very right to have nothing to say to an old fellow like that. Before the letter arrived there was already a son and heir born in Glendochart house, but Robbie was no further on in the family history than to be aware of the fact that Kirsteen had gone away rather than have the old lover forced upon her. He told her how on the march he had passed the station where Ronald Drummond was, “if you mind him, he is the one that left along with me—but you must mind him,” Robbie continued, “for he was always about the house the last summer before I came away.”
He was keen for news of home, as we are all when we meet a friend in this place. And I read him a bit of Jeanie’s letter which was very well written, the little monkey, for a little thing of her age; how old Glendochart followed you about like a puppy dog, and how you would never see it, though all the rest did. We both laughed till we cried at Jeanie’s story. She most be growing a clever creature, and writes a very good hand of writing too. But it was more serious when we came to the part where you ran away in your trouble at finding it out. I hope you have come home by this time and have not quarrelled with my father; for after all it never does any good to have quarrels in a family. However I was saying about Ronald that he was really quite as taken up as I was with Jeanie’s letter, and told me I was to give you his respects, and that he would be coming home in a year or two, and would find you out whether you were at Drumcarro or wherever you were, and give you all the news about me, which I consider very kind of him, as I am sure you will do—and he bid me to say that he always kept the little thing he found in the parlour, and carried it wherever he went: though when I asked what it was he would not tell me, but said you would understand: so I suppose it was some joke between you two. And that’s about all the news I have to tell you, and I hope you’ll think of what I say about not quarrelling with my father. I am in very good health and liking my quarters—and I am,
Your affect. brother,
R. D.
If this had been the most eloquent love-letter that ever was written, and from the hand of her lover himself, it is doubtful whether it would have more touched the heart of Kirsteen than Robbie’s schoolboy scrawl, with its complete unconsciousness of every purpose, did. It was the fashion of their time when correspondence was difficult and dear and slow, and when a young man with nothing to offer was too honourable to bind for long years a young woman who in the meantime might change her mind; although both often held by each other with a supreme and silent faithfulness. The bond, so completely understood between themselves with nothing to disclose it to others, was all the dearer for never having been put into words; although it was often no doubt the cause of unspeakable pangs of suspense, of doubt—possibly of profound and unspeakable disappointment if one or the other forgot. Kirsteen read and re-read Robbie’s letter as if it had been a little gospel. She carried it about with her, for her refreshment at odd moments. There came upon her face a softened sweetness, a mildness to the happy eyes, a mellowing beauty to every line. She grew greatly in beauty as her youth matured, the softening influence of this sweet spring of life keeping in check the pride which was so strong in her character, and the perhaps too great independence and self-reliance which her early elevation to authority and influence developed. And everything prospered with Kirsteen. Miss Jean’s business became the most flourishing and important in town. Not only commoners, whom she had so haughtily rejected, but persons of the most exalted pretensions had to cast away their pride and sue for the services of Miss Brown and Miss Kirsteen; and as may be supposed, the more they refused, the more eager were the customers at their door. Before Kirsteen was twenty-seven, the fortune which she had determined to make was already well begun, and Miss Jean in a position to retire if she wished with the income of a statesman. This prosperous condition was in its full height in the midst of the season, the workroom so throng that relays of seamstresses sat up all night, there being no inspectors to bring the fashionable mantua-makers under control, when the next great incident happened in the life of our Kirsteen.