THE Manse of Comlie had one window, which looked upon the churchyard—only one, as Mrs. Murray congratulated herself—and that in a room which was never used but where on occasional moments now and then the old lady would go and sit by herself, not rejecting for her own part the pensive associations which she deprecated for others. On the day of poor Tom Heriot’s funeral, there were two old faces at this window. One was that of Miss Jean Heriot, in new “blacks,” as she called her mourning; whose interest in the melancholy ceremony had overcome even that strong sense of decorum with which a Scottish woman of her age would, under other circumstances, have shut herself up on the day of a funeral “in the family.”
In Scotland, in former days, the attendance of a woman at a funeral was unknown; and it was partly because it was understood that Marjory was to be present, that her old grand-aunt stole across in the early morning, before any one was about, in order to witness, with a mixture of grief, interest, and disapproval, the innovations in the simple ceremonial with which the heir of Pitcomlie was conducted to his last resting-place.
“I don’t know what we are coming to,” said Miss Jean. “You may like these new-fangled ways, Mrs. Murray; but for my part, I would just as soon take to the Prayer-book for good and a’, and be done with compromises; or even the mass-book, for that matter. When you once begin to pray over a grave, how long do you think it’ll be before you pray for the dead?”
“It will never be in the doctor’s time, that I can answer for,” said the Minister’s wife, with firmness. “For my part, if it’s an innovation, it pleases me. Oh! to hear the thud of the earth, and no’ a word said! It is bad enough—bad enough, even when it’s done like baptism, in the name of the Father, and the Son.”
“If you had not been there, you would not have heard,” interrupted Miss Jean. “I hate to see women trailing after a funeral; it’s no their place.”
“I was not there, and yet I heard,” said Mrs. Murray; “there are things you hear with your heart, though you’re far away. And why should not women go to the grave with those that belong to them? It is us that takes care of them to their last breath. Why should not May come with the rest to lay her brother in his grave? after standing by him, poor lad, till his end.”
“It would fit her best to stay at home,” said Aunt Jean; “women are always best at home, especially when they’re young. Thomas has brought up that girl his own way, not my way. I would have trained her very different. When I was Marjory’s age I never dared lift up my face to my mother. What she said should be, it was—no contradiction; no setting up to know better than your elders; whereas it’s my devout opinion that girl thinks herself wiser than the likes of you or me.”
“And so she is in some things,” said Mrs. Murray; “far wiser than me, at least, Miss Jean. I’ve seen her pose the doctor himself, which is not saying little. And here they are, coming down by the east knoll. Oh! what a black, black procession! And to think it’s Tom Heriot! waes me! waes me!—him that should have been bidding us all to his bridal instead of this cruel grave-side!”
Miss Jean said nothing for the moment. She put her aged head close to the window, and followed with an intent gaze of her bright old eyes the dark line that wound down into the churchyard from the higher ground above. What strange sense of the wonder of it may have passed through her mind, who can tell? She was old; her generation was over; not one of those who had been with her in her youth was with her now. Alone, a spectator of the works and ways that were not as her ways and works, she had been keenly looking on and criticising the younger world around for many a day. She had seen the boy born whose remains were now carried before her; she had almost seen his father born. Yet she was here, still a keen spectator, looking on while that young representative of the race was laid among their ancestors.
She said nothing; her sharp eyes glittered as she gazed; she folded her thin hands, all wrinkled and yellow, like old ivory, on the top of her cane, and nothing escaped her keen observation. She took in the new—or what she fancied new—fashion of Marjory’s dress, as well as the enormous train of county friends, old family connections, tenants, and neighbours, who had come to do honour to the Heriots. This gave her a thrill of pleasure in the chillness of her old age, which felt no very strenuous emotion. She counted them upon her withered fingers as they passed down into the grassy churchyard, and ranged themselves against the grey old lichened wall which surrounded it on that side, set close with the grotesque monuments of the last two centuries.
“I see scarce anybody wanting,” she said, with a certain subdued exultation; “scarce anybody on this side of Fife but the Sinclairs, and they’re away. Thomas does not please me in many of his ways; but I’ll say this for him, that he has kept up the credit of the house, and all the old family friends.”
Mrs. Murray was crying quietly, with her eyes fixed upon the central group, where stood Mr. Heriot himself, with drooping head, his tall figure showing among all the other tall men who surrounded him with a certain majesty of weakness which went to the heart of this looker-on. His daughter seemed to be leaning on his arm, but by the way in which she clung to him, moving as he moved, Mrs. Murray divined that in reality it was Marjory who supported her father.
It was a bright day, perfectly serene and calm; the sun shining, a gentle little breeze caressing the waving grass, and breathing softly over the mourners. There had been rain in the morning, so that everything was dewy and moist. It was what country people call “a growing day;” a day on which you could almost see the new buds opening out, and hear the new blades of the grass escape out of their sheaths; a day of life and overbrimming vitality; the kind of day in which it is hardest to think of dying or of death.
“Eh, waes me, waes me!” said the old lady, who knew what loss was, with the tears running down her soft old cheeks, as the coffin was lowered into the grave.
Then rose that strangely solemn sound—one voice rising in the open air in the daylight, amidst the hush of a crowd, a sound not to be mistaken for any other, and which chills the very soul of the chance hearer, while it so often gives a momentary consolation to the mourner. Mrs. Murray bowed down her old head, weeping at the sound of her husband’s prayer, which was too far off to be heard. But Miss Jean kept gazing, her bright little eyes shining out of her head, her cap pressed closely against the window.
“New-fangled ways—new-fangled ways!” she was saying to herself. “What the better is the poor body for all that praying? The lad’s soul is beyond the power of prayer. He’s in his Maker’s hand. He was but an ill young lad, and I’m glad for your sake that the doctor has nothing to say about things that can never be known till all’s known. I cannot abide these changes. I approved Marjory when she threw in her lot with the old Kirk, though brought up otherwise; but I do not approve of changing auld forms and ways to make them like anither ritual. No, no; that’s not a thing I can approve. But half Fife is there,” she added, with a long-drawn breath of satisfaction, “I am thankful to think that the family is not letten down, whatever happens. There’s Lord Largo himself, or I’m sore mistaken, and all the family from Magusmoor. It shows great respect—great respect. Thomas Heriot may be proud; there’s men there that would not have come so far for King or Commons. I’m thankful myself to see that real old friendship aye lasts. Marjory being there is the only eyesore to me. She should have stayed at home. Women should bide at home. It would have set her better to have learned a lesson to her young sister how life’s uncertain and death’s sure.”
“Poor bairn! she will learn that soon enough.”
Miss Jean made no reply. She leant her chin upon her cane, and kept looking out, the slight tremulous movement of her head communicating a certain vibration to all the outline of her figure and black drapery. Her mind was intent upon the different groups standing about against the grey churchyard wall, bareheaded under the sun. One by one she recognised them, with her keen eyes. She had known them and their fathers and grandfathers before them, every one. The central group of all was perhaps that which the old woman noted least. She had been grieved for “the family” chiefly because Tom was the heir, and the property must now go to the second son, a thing which was unknown in the Heriot traditions. But her grief was short and soon exhausted, as perhaps every strong sentiment is at her age. She no longer thought of Tom, nor of his desolate father, for whom at first she had been very sorry. What she was principally concerned with, was to see that all was done as it ought to be done, and that nowhere was there any failure of “respect.” And on this point she had been fully satisfied, so that the effect upon her mind, as she sat at the Manse window, was rather one of deep and sombre gratification than of grief.
“Thomas Heriot may be proud,” she repeated to herself, and she was sincerely unconscious of any incongruity in the thought.
“There’s a man there I never saw before,” she added, after a pause, “standing closer to my nephew Thomas Heriot and that old fool, Charlie, than a stranger should be. If he was a chief mourner he could not be nearer. If any of them had any sense they would see that was my Lord Largo’s place. After the near friends comes the highest rank. I wonder what Thomas can be thinking of; and I would like to know who is yon man.”
“It is Mr. Fanshawe, poor Tom’s friend,” said Mrs. Murray, with a half-restrained sob, “that nursed him when he had the accident, and sent for them, and has been the kindest friend. It was him that brought Mr. Heriot down, heart-broken as he was. Marjory could never have done it without him, as I hear. Mrs. Simpson was over,” added the old lady, apologetically, afraid of seeming to know better than “a relation,” “to settle about some of the servants’ mourning, and it was from her I heard.”
“Marjory could never have done it!” said Miss Jean, with some scorn. “If Marjory is at the bottom of everything, she should learn better than to make difficulties. When a woman sets up for being helpless, she can aye get help; but when she sets up for being the mainspring of everything, she has to give up such pretences. Marjory could not have done without him—He’s come to help Marjory, has he? I know what that means. For once in their lives the Heriots are going to show a little judgment and marry Marjory. In that way ye can understand yon stranger being so near.”
“Oh, Miss Jean, God forgive you!” said Mrs. Murray. “Why should you judge the worst? It is nothing of the sort.”
“I’ll keep my opinion, and you’ll keep yours,” said Miss Jean, grimly. “Am I blaming them? The girls that have been born Heriots have never had anything done for them. Every thing for the lads; for the lasses they took their chance. If a good man came, good and well; if it was but an indifferent man, they did what they liked—took him or not according to their fancy; as may be well seen, for all the daughters have married badly, everyone, except those that did not marry at all. Na, na, I’m not blaming them. There’s even myself; if my father and my brother had taken an interest—if they had put themselves out of their way—I might have had bairns and grandbairns of my own, and held up my head as high as any. But I was left a motherless thing to do what I liked, to refuse good offers, and act like a fool, and throw away my prospects before I knew what they meant. If Thomas Heriot is taking more thought for his girrl, it’s no’ from me that he’ll have any blame.”
“Poor man!” said the Minister’s wife, “this is not a moment to expect him to take much thought.”
“It’s a moment when it’s very important to do all he can for Marjory,” said Miss Jean tartly. “There’s Tom gone, poor lad, that was not steady enough to marry; and if anything was to happen to Thomas, I ask you what would become of that girrl? A girrl always brought up to be mistress and mair? The property goes to young Chairles, and he’s married to a strange woman that nobody knows; and what would become of Marjory? She’ll rule the roost no more as she’s done all her life; she’ll drop into Mr. Heriot of Pitcomlie’s sister, and I know what that means.”
“She has been Mr. Heriot of Pitcomlie’s daughter all her life, and desired no better,” said Mrs. Murray.
“Oh, ay, but that’s very different. She’ll want for nothing,” said Miss Jean, reflectively, “she’ll have plenty to live on. She’ll have her own little money and old Charlie’s money, and mine when I go; but she’ll be of no more consequence in the countryside—no more consequence than—— me,” said the old lady. “No’ so much, for you’re all feared for me. It will be a terrible downcome for Marjory. No, no, if her father thinks of marrying her to Tom’s friend, or anybody’s friend, that can give her a good house over her head and a position, it’s not from me that he’ll get any blame.”
“Oh, Miss Jean, it’s little such thoughts are in any of their heads,” said Mrs. Murray. “Mr. Heriot’s heart’s broken; he thinks neither of marrying nor giving in marriage. Eh, poor man! poor man! he’s turning away now, leaving the grave, leaving his first-born out there in the rain and the snow, and the hot sun and winter wind. I’ve done it myself. I know what it is. God help him! He’s thinking neither of marrying nor of Marjory. He’s thinking but of him that’s gone.”
“He should do his duty to the living whoever’s gone,” said Miss Jean, watching with her sharp old eyes. “And Thomas Heriot’s sore failed,” she added to herself, eagerly looking out as the melancholy procession turned to the gate close by the Manse where the carriages were waiting. “He is sore failed. I should not be surprised if he was not long for this world; and then what will that girrl do?”