KIRSTEEN, up to this time, had kept as much as possible out of her father’s way, and he had taken no notice of her presence in the house. When she came within his range of vision he turned his back upon her but said nothing. It appeared to her now, however, that it was necessary to change her procedure. If she were to do anything for Jeanie she must take a more decided part. Accordingly, on the evening of her mother’s funeral, Kirsteen appeared at the family table among the others. Her father perceived her as he took his place, and gave her a somewhat fixed look from under his eyebrows, along with a muttered exclamation; but he said nothing, and suffered her presence without any demonstration of displeasure. The evening was like and yet unlike one of the former ceremonials of the house on the eve of the departure of sons. It was a celebration like that, but the hero of the occasion was not there, and the party at table after a week of composed, quiet, subdued voices, and melancholy subjects, showed a certain relief in the fact that all was over, and nothing further required to show their respect. The black ribbons in Miss Eelen’s cap nodded as she moved her head, and Mary was very careful of the crisp new crape which ornamented her dress, while Mr. Pyper, the minister, would make an occasional remark in conformity with what were supposed to be the feelings of the bereaved family. But these were almost the only signs of mourning. Jeanie, after all the agitation of the morning, presented a changeful aspect, and her eyes were heavy and a little red with tears; and Jamie, the last of the boys, had an open-eyed, wistful, almost startled look, feeling very solitary, poor boy, and wishing to be away like the rest. There was no one who had felt the mother’s death, or perhaps it would be almost more just to say the presence of death in the house, as this boy, more imaginative than the rest, to whom the week’s interval had been a terrible one. He was pale under his freckles, with a dismal look in his wide eyes, the impression of the funeral still too strong upon him for any other feeling. But the others were relieved; it is impossible to use another word.
“The country will be very quiet this year with nobody at the castle,” said Mary in subdued tones.
“It will make little difference to ainy of you,” replied Miss Eelen, her black bows nodding in her cap, “for if there had been fifty balls, ye could not in decency have gone to ainy one o’ them.”
“There are more folk in the country than us,” said Mary, with a little sharpness. “But I hear Lady Chatty’s far from happy, poor thing. For my part I never had any confidence in the man.”
“The man was well enough; there’s nothing to be said against the man; they’re just both spenders, and no siller to spend.”
“That is what I am saying,” said Mary. “The Duke’s daughter, and her beauty, and her fashion, and all that—and at the last to take up with a poor man.”
“What do you think, Drumcarro, of this Catholic Emancipation that is making such a noise?” said Glendochart, as the ladies continued to argue over the subject of Lady Chatty.
“I just think that we’ll have all the wild Irish and the wild North on our hands before we know where we are—and Jesuits going to and fro over the face of the earth like Sawtan in the Scriptures—if the Government doesn’t stand firm.”
“I cannot but think, however,” said Glendochart, “that there’s something to be said on the other side. A large number of our country folk just put out of the question altogether.”
“There’s nothing to be said on the other side of the question,” cried Drumcarro, with his fierce look. “Fellow subjects! just thae deevils of Irish and a whean idle Crofters that will neither fish the seas nor delve the land—and a horde of priests at the head of them. Them that think the Pope of Rome should have a hand in governing this country will get little backing from me.”
“I allow,” said Mr. Pyper, “that it’s a difficult question with modern notions of toleration, and all that—but violent evils must have violent remedies—and when ye think, Glendochart, what this country has suffered from Papal rule—”
“I would just have no dealings with the pooers of darkness,” said Mr. Douglas, bringing down his hand upon the table with a force which made everything tremble.
“Bless me,” cried Miss Eelen, “what’s wrong with ye, Drumcarro? Ye’ll break all the glasses. Eh, but the pooers o’ darkness are no so easy to make or meddle with. The minister will tell ye that they are just in our hearts and at our doors.”
“Ye may say that, Miss Eelen,” said Mr. Pyper, shaking his head professionally; “but it was in the sphere of politics our friend was meaning. It would be a fine thing if, with all our progress, we were to find ourselves back again in the hands of the Inquiseetion and yon wild Irishman O’Connell.”
“I would learn them a lesson,” cried Drumcarro, “there’s none o’ them to be trusted. I would let them know there would be no trafficking with treason. We’ve had enough in Scotland of the thumbscrew and the boot—no but what judeeciously employed,” he added a moment after, “with the ignorant, when ye cannot get at them in any other way—”
“I hope ye don’t advocate torture, Drumcarro; that would be a curious way of opposing Catholic Emancipation,” said Glendochart.
“I’m not saying, sir, that I advocate torture; but I’ve seen cases—when deevilish obstinacy had to be dealt with,” said the old slave-driver, with a gleam of fire from under his shaggy eyebrows.
“Well, well,” said the minister softly, raising a large hand in deprecation of the argument, “that’s perhaps departing from the immediate question. I hear there’s like to be trouble in your parish, Glendochart, about the new presentee. The Duke has been maybe a little hasty—an old tutor, that had to be provided for.”
“If he manages the parish as ill as he managed some of the young lords,” said Glendochart, with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I will not have a word said against the young lords,” cried Mary. “They’re just very pleasant—and as ceevil young men as ye could meet anywhere—there’s Lord John that we know best.”
Miss Eelen shook her head till the black bows fluttered as if in a strong wind. “You’re all just infatuate about Lord John. I would not trust him, not a step out o’ my sight. I have no faith in your Lord Johns. Begging your pardon, Glendochart, they’re not a true race, and Lord John he is the worst of a’.”
“I think you might know better, Aunt Eelen, than to bring up accusations against the head of my husband’s name.”
“Your husband quotha!” cried Miss Eelen. “It was said of them for hundreds of years before your husband was born or thought of.”
The minister again intervened to smooth matters down with instances of the power and value of the race thus called in question. Jeanie was seated at the other end of the table out of reach of the principal personages who kept up the conversation, but she started at the name of Lord John, and her pale face with the faint redness round the eyes, which appealed so powerfully to Kirsteen’s sympathies, grew suddenly crimson. She cast a terrified look at her sister who sat silently by her, and caught Kirsteen’s hand under the table with a clutch as of despair. Lord John! Kirsteen had made no attempt to identify Jeanie’s wooer whom the girl held in such strange terror. Her own heart gave a bound of alarm yet disdain. She asked with her eyes, “Is that the man?” and received from Jeanie an answering look of confusion and trouble. There were no words exchanged between them. Kirsteen shook her head with a gesture which to Jeanie’s eyes expressed not only disapproval but surprise and scorn, and Jeanie let go her hold of her sister’s hand with an impulse of impatience much like that with which she had cried, “I thought you would understand!” This little conversation by pantomime made the heart of the elder sister ache. “Lord John,” she said to herself, “Lord John!” with mingled fear and astonishment. That Jeanie should be in danger from him—that he should dare! that her little sister with that angelic face, who had once been touched as Kirsteen said by true love should feel a temptation in the flattering words of the man from whom she yet desired to escape, conscious that he was not a true man! Kirsteen’s experiences had been of a simple kind hitherto. She was acquainted with no such problems. It cost her a painful effort to bring herself even to the threshold of Jeanie’s confused mind. She could not comprehend the conflict that was going on there. And yet she could not forsake her little sister even though the circumstances were such as she did not understand.
“Glendochart,” said Mary when the ladies had retired to the parlour leaving the gentlemen to consume their toddy, “has had a letter from Major Gordon that we first met in London, Kirsteen. I cannot call to mind where my husband met him, if it was at the Duke’s or where. But we had him down for the shooting, and two or three times he just went and came—and admired Jeanie—but that’s no wonder, for there’s nobody but what admires Jeanie. He’s wanting to come again if we’ll ask him. But I doubt if I’ll do it—for Jeanie—where is she? I hope she cannot hear me—is on the way to something far grander or I’m much mistaken—and I’m not one that makes mistakes in that way.”
“If ye paid any attention to me,” said Miss Eelen, “I would say ye were making the greatest mistake ye ever made in your life.”
“That’s because it’s not one of your Douglas allies—and you’re full of auld world freats and proverbs about names, but I would like to hear in our family who had anything to say against my husband’s name.”
“If you mean Lord John—do you know he has not a good reputation? Very ill things are said of him.”
“In London,” said the Lady of Glendochart with a superior smile. “My experience is that there’s just nothing but scandal in London. But in his own country he’s the Duke’s son and one of the first of his name.”
“There are some things that one learns in London,” said Kirsteen with a little of that quick growing identification of one’s self with one’s habitation which changes the point of view; “and Mary, if you will let me say it, this is one. The Duke’s son does not match with a country laird’s daughter however bonny she may be, unless he may be one of the romanticks that will make a sacrifice—but Lord John, he is not one.”
“I would hope not,” cried Mary. “The romanticks you are meaning are just fools and fantastic persons like—“ she was about to have said like yourself, but forebore.
“He would need to be fantastic that went to the Duke his father, and said I am going to be married to Jeanie Douglas of Drumcarro.”
“Ye go a little too far, Kirsteen,” said Miss Eelen. “The Douglases might match with princes so far as blood goes. But I’m not saying (for I know their ways) that there is not reason in it. He will just get up a talk about the lassie and then he will go away.”
“Ye are two ravens,” said Mary; “he will do nothing of the kind.”
“I wish you would take her to Glendochart, Mary. She is not happy. If it is Lord John or something else I cannot tell. She says she would like to come with me—but what would my father say?”
“Say! just what we all would say—that we would not permit it. A mantua-maker’s house in London for Jeanie Douglas. Oh, you need not blaze up, Kirsteen; ye have made your bed and ye must lie on it—but Jeanie!”
Kirsteen did not blaze up. Her eyes flashed, her colour rose; but she restrained herself with a great effort—for what would be the use? “The more reason,” she said, “that you should step in—you that are no mantua-maker but a lady in your own house. Take Jeanie with you, and keep her safe—and if you will take my advice ask Major Gordon. He is not rich but he has a very good name.”
“I mind now,” said Mary, “that these Gordons were friends of yours—and you want to keep Jeanie down, just in a mean position when she might take her place among the highest. I would not have thought ye were so little, Kirsteen. But I have nothing of that. I’ve always been proud of Jeanie and I’m not minding if she’s put over my head. I’ll bring no man here to distract her mind—and I’ll put no spoke in her wheel, my bonny little sister. She shall be the first and grandest of us all, if I can do it. And then her ladyship,” cried Mary, “will know who was her best friend.”
“Perhaps I think less of ladyships being more used to them,” cried Kirsteen, irritated beyond her self-control. “If ye bring her to shame instead of grandeur who will she thank then?”
“To shame!” cried Mary. “Let them say that word that dare.”
“But I dare! And I know them all, and what they think of him in his own family. And that he’s not safe for a girl like Jeanie to know. Aunt Eelen, you know them as well, and you know if what I say is true.”
“Young weemen,” said Miss Eelen, “if ye think that words of strife are seemly in a house where the mother’s buried that day, it’s not my opinion. Kirsteen goes too far, though I would not say but there was reason in it,” she added after a moment “Whisht, both of you—here is the poor bairn herself.”
The next morning Kirsteen, in her despair, took a still bolder step. She went to the door of the room in which Drumcarro was, and knocked for admittance. He stared at her as she came in with a lowering brow, and humph! of ungracious surprise, and stopped in his reading of the paper, but said nothing.
“Father,” said Kirsteen, “I am going away to-day.”
He gave her another lowering and stormy glance. “It is the best thing you can do,” he said. “You were never wanted here.”
Kirsteen, wounded, could not refrain from saying, “My mother wanted me,” which was met solely by that impatient indifference which we render badly by the word humph!
“But I did not come to speak of myself. I know,” she said, “father, that you like where you can to add on a little of the old Douglas lands to what you have already.”
He gave her a more direct look, astonished, not knowing what she meant; then, “What o’ that?” he said.
“No more than this—that money’s sometimes wanting, and I thought if the opportunity arose—I have done very well—I have some siller—at your command.”
Drumcarro was very much startled; he dropped the newspaper which he had been holding before him, as an intimation that her visit was an interruption, and turning round stared at her for a moment with genuine surprise. Then he said, “Your mantua-making must have thriven. I would like to know one thing about ye, have you put my name intill your miserable trade?”
“No,” she said; “so far as any name is in it, it is Miss Kirsteen.”
He gave a sigh of relief. “I’m glad at least that ye have not brought disgrace upon the name of Douglas.”
“The name of Douglas will never get disgrace from me,” cried Kirsteen proudly, with an answering glance of fire. “There is no one that bears it that has more care of it than me. If you kept it in as great honour at home——”
He laughed grimly. “My lass, you may trust me for that.”
“I hope so, father; I hope there will be no speaking got up about the bonniest of us all—the youngest and the sweetest.”
His fiery eyes gave forth a gleam of mingled exultation and anger. “I see,” he said, “you’re jealous, like all your kind. A woman can never stand another being mounted o’er her head. Trust you me, my woman, to take care of Jeanie; it’s my place.”
“Yes,” she said, “it’s your place.” Then hesitating, Kirsteen continued: “She would have liked—to go to London with me.”
“To London with you!”
“It is excusable,” said Kirsteen; “it is natural that a young thing should desire to see a little of the world.”
Mr. Douglas expressed his feelings in a harsh and angry laugh. “Out of a mantua-maker’s windows,” he cried; then added with solemnity, “and her mother dead just a week to-day.”
“It’s not for want of heart,” said Kirsteen. She paused again, and then speaking quickly with all the courage she could summon up: “Oh, father, yon Lord John—there’s no truth in him; there’s no trust to be put in him! She’s frightened for him, father.”
“Hold your peace!” he cried. “I’ll have none of your slandering here.”
“Father, mind—you’ll have to be both father and mother to Jeanie. If it should come to pass that every old wife in the clachan had a hold of her bonny name!”
Perhaps it was not unnatural that Drumcarro should resent this speech. “If ye will mind your own concerns,” he said grimly, “I will take care of mine. The sooner you go your own gait the better; there will be more peace left behind.”
“I have delivered my soul,” said Kirsteen; “the wyte will be upon your own head if you close your eyes. Farewell, father, if we should never meet again.”
She stood for a moment waiting his reply; then made him a curtsey as she had done when she was a little girl. Something perhaps in this salutation touched Drumcarro. He broke out into a laugh, not so harsh as before. “Fare ye well,” he said, “you were always upsetting, and wiser than other folk. But I’ll mind what you said about the siller, which was not without reason. And I’ve little doubt but I’ll see ye again. You’re too fond o’ meddling not to come back now ye’ve got your hand in.”
This was all the leave-taking between father and daughter, but Kirsteen’s heart was touched as she went away. It was at once a sign of amity and a permission—a condoning of her past sins and almost an invitation to return.