IF Tom Heriot’s funeral had called all the gentry of Fife to do the family honour, it may be supposed that his father’s, following so soon after, and in such circumstances of aggravated distress, brought out a still greater attendance. Mrs. Murray once more sat at the Manse window, with many tears, watching the mournful procession, and wondering much whether it would have been better for him had the Laird of Pitcomlie been “resigned,” or whether it was well for the old man to be thus removed quickly, that he might not have sorrow on sorrow. It seemed to her that his was the lot she would have chosen for herself, and she thought tremulously as she wept, of her daughter in India, and prayed for her as she cried for poor Charlie Heriot. Miss Jean had not ventured this time to join Mrs. Murray at her window. The old woman was peeping from behind her blinds in the white gable, with eyes that shone at sight of the many carriages.
“Thomas Heriot may be proud,” she said to herself, confused between the two deaths, and not feeling quite sure that her nephew was not in one of the mourning coaches enjoying the melancholy grandeur of which he was himself the object. All that was honourable in Fife was there, the old gentry, and the new people of wealth, and the tenantry, and the town—even the fishers, smelling of salt water, though arrayed in the suit of “blacks” which it is a point of honour with that class to keep in readiness for a funeral. The churchyard was quite full of people, intent upon showing their respect for Pitcomlie.
It was Mr. Charles who had received and arranged all this miscellaneous assemblage. People at his age do not mourn for each other very acutely, perhaps because the separation cannot be a long one, perhaps because that grand final event has become so ordinary an occurrence. To the young it is less familiar, less close at hand. The older one grows, the more one is disposed to represent death to one’s self as an every-day incident, and old men who are themselves approaching that verge are apt to dismiss somewhat summarily those who have preceded them. Besides, a week had elapsed between Mr. Heriot’s death and his funeral, and that long interval of seclusion, and absorption in one idea, is enough to take the edge of all but the most sensitive feelings. It was anxiety more than grief that sat heavy on the brow of Mr. Charles.
“We must think now of the living, not of the dead,” he had said on the previous evening.
And indeed there was reason enough to make that transference of solicitude, and to think of the living. For all the courses of nature had been driven out of trim, and no one of the party cared to confront the position, or ask themselves what was to come of it: except indeed Verna, who thought of nothing else; but her thoughts would have been far from pleasing to the others had they known.
It was a long business to get all the sympathizing friends away, and to thank and shake hands with the distant hereditary acquaintances who once more had come so far to do honour to the Heriots. The house was in a curious excitement during this interval. All round Pitcomlie many carriages were waiting, and profuse hospitality was being dispensed by Mrs. Simpson and her maids in the servants’ hall amid gossip, melancholy but consolatory.
Mr. Charles was doing his duty manfully in the dining-room, administering the excellent sherry, and making such serious remarks now and then as did not misbecome a mourner.
Marjory, with Milly at her feet, and Fanshawe, bearing her most sympathetic company, was in the drawing-room, where the shutters were still closed, letting in mournful lines of light through their interstices upon the group. She had felt herself “obliged” last night to tell him about Isabell. She was glad to feel herself obliged to do so, for her heart was aching with a desire for counsel and sympathy; and Fanshawe had taken her confidence very differently from Mr. Charles’s mode of taking it. He had been interested and touched by the letter. He had even suggested at once that this was what poor Tom had intended to speak of; and he agreed with Marjory that the visitor who had so totally declined to tell who she was, or why she came, must have been somehow connected with the unknown Isabell. The secret, which was now between them, added another delicate bond to their friendship. He sat beside her now, talking it all over; suggesting, now one way, now another, of finding out who and where Isabell was. Tom had never mentioned such a subject to him—
“Which makes me,” said Fanshawe, feeling abashed even in the gloom, “have all the more confidence that you are right, Miss Heriot. Had it been a—nothing, a—a mere levity—I don’t know what words to use—he would have spoken of it; but not a serious and honourable love.”
“Indeed, I am sure you do yourself injustice,” said Marjory, even in her languor of grief, discovering, with surprise, that she was capable of a blush.
“No,” he said, humbly; “men are ashamed of what is good oftener than of what is evil.”
They were speaking low, that Milly might not share any more of the secret than was inevitable, a precaution which was vain. Milly took in every word, along with the gloom of the room and the lines of strange, pale eerie light, and the heavy, sad, and painful excitement of the moment. The scene and the story never went out of her mind; but it did not make her much wiser.
There was something about poor Tom, and something about some one called Isabell, and partial darkness and transverse lines of light, themselves so pale and dark, that they made the gloom rather heavier. Milly sat close to Marjory’s knee, holding by her dress. The child could not bear to be without a hold upon something. When she let go, she seemed to sail away through some dark world of shadows and misery, full of sounds of the distant wheels of the mourning coaches, and that solemn, dreary bustle which attends the last exit of every mortal from his earthly home. Twice in a few weeks this had occurred, and it gave a confused sense of permanency to the wretchedness, so far as the child was concerned.
To Marjory there was, perhaps—who can say?—a certain sense of fellowship and comfort in the companion with whom she could talk freely, and upon whose sympathy she could reckon, which made up for something. Little Milly, perhaps, who could not in reality feel all that happened half so deeply as her sister, was for the moment more cast down, enveloped in that vague dreariness of childhood which, while it lasts, is more deeply depressing than any maturer grief.
A very different scene was going on upstairs in the west wing, where the strangers were being clothed in their new mourning, in preparation for a solemn appearance at the reading of the will. Poor Matilda, covered with crape, and drowned in the big widow’s cap, was as woe-begone as her sister could have desired, and cried more and more every time she looked in the glass.
“It is hideous with light hair,” she said. “Oh! Verna, how cruel you are! They will think me eighty; they will not feel for me a bit. You know very well, when you have an unbecoming dress, men always find it out, though they never know what makes it unbecoming. And when everything depends on the impression I make, for the poor children—”
“Oh! you little fool!” said Verna, to whom it must be allowed the deep mourning, with the delicate broad hems of her collar and wrists, was very becoming; “the only impression you have to make is that you are a wretched widow, able to think of nothing but your poor dead husband. If you had the heart of a mouse, you would be thinking of him to-day, and not of anything else.”
“And so I am,” said Matilda, with real tears. “He would never have made me wear this horrible thing. He liked to see me look my best, and always thought of me, and what I would like, before everything. You may be sure that so long as I am with you, who are a little tyrant to me, I shall never, never forget poor dear Charlie. And, of course, I want to look decent, for his sake. What are they to think of him, dear fellow, when they see me look such a dowdy, and with no money, nor anything. It is for Charlie’s sake!”
Verna, however, was invincible even to this argument.
“There are a great many other things to think of to-day,” she said. “Now, just remember what I say to you. They can’t change what you are to have, because that will be settled by Mr. Heriot’s will; but if you don’t behave yourself as you ought, they can put you under trustees, or something, who will pay you out so much a month, or so much a year, and make you do exactly what they please. That’s what you have to be afraid of. If they think you look as if you could ever enjoy yourself again, be sure that’s what they will do. I know them. If a woman looks as if she had not the heart to do a single thing, then they let her have her own way.”
“Do you really think so?” cried Matilda, stopping short suddenly in her tears, and looking up to her sister with round eyes, staggered by this new suggestion.
“I am certain of it,” said Verna. “And then, you know, poor Charlie’s will leaves that old uncle guardian along with you. If you want to have any freedom, you must look as if you cared for nothing of the sort. And, Matty, I have just one other word to say. If you hear anything to surprise you, whatever it is, don’t appear to take any notice. Now, recollect what I tell you. Don’t jump up, or cry out, or make a fuss, if you hear that you are either better off or worse off than you thought. If you are left better off than you expect, you’ll see these men will try to get the upper hand, and take away your freedom, unless you look as insensible as possible; and if you are left worse off, there are always ways of working upon them with a heartbroken widow. I don’t want you to be clever and understand, for you can’t; but you can cry. Here’s a lovely handkerchief I got for you expressly. It is just a little too pretty. There is a row of beautiful small work above the hemstitch—too small for other people to notice much—and it will be a comfort to you.”
“Well, it is a beauty,” said the disconsolate widow. “But all the same,” she added, after a moment’s pause, “I don’t see why I should not understand my own business as well as you.”
“Do you?” said Verna, turning round upon her, with flashing eyes.
Matilda quailed, and fell back.
“Don’t look as if you were going to bite me,” she cried. “Did I ever say I did? But that is not my fault. You never will let me manage anything; even Charlie wouldn’t. But he did not tell me I was a fool, as you do. He said, ‘I won’t have my darling bothered!’ Oh! dear Charlie! what I lost when I lost you!”
“That was a pleasanter way of putting it,” said Verna, grimly; and then she, too, softened, and a glimmer of moisture came into the eyes which would have been fine eyes had they not been somewhat hard and beady. “He was a fool, too,” she said; “a fool about you, as men are; but he was a dear fellow. You pink-and-white creatures have all the luck; you get men to be fond of you that are far too good for you, while people who could understand them—”
Matilda interrupted her with a low laugh.
“You were always envious of me,” she said; and with her complaisance restored, and her pretty handkerchief in her hand, she made herself comfortable on the sofa, waiting the summons to go downstairs.
Poor little Tommy was affublé, like the rest, with paramatta and crape. He had a large sash of the latter material, which had the air of a hump and two tails behind; and the paleness of the little Indian child came out with double effect from this heavy framework. Verna’s quick eye noticed this, and felt that much was to be made of Tommy. She posed him at his mother’s knee, and contemplated the group, and felt that no cruel trustee, no hard-hearted guardian, could stand against them. When she reflected that the guardian was only Mr. Charles, she felt triumphant. He certainly would never oppose her. And now the moment of fate approached; soon it would be decided whether Verna, by Tommy’s means, was to have it; or, if—
What a relief it would have been to her mind, had she known that the estate was entailed, and that even Mr. Heriot’s will could do nothing against that! but whether it is for want of education or not, certain it is that women know very little about such matters; and Verna’s fine intellect was hampered by her ignorance. She knew nothing about the laws of entail, or whether a man could change them at his will and pleasure. She felt that the possible gain was so great, that there must be some evil possibility in the way, which would make an end of it. And this sense of a tremendous decision about to be made, wound Verna up to the highest pitch of excitement. She looked handsome, though she was not regularly handsome—almost beautiful in her emotion; her eyes’ sparkled, her colour was high, and the smile, which usually was too complacent, was swept away from her face altogether, leaving only an animated readiness to change in a moment from grave to gay, from calm to triumphant. Her heart was beating under her new black gown as it had never beat in her life before. She had not lived till now, it is true, without some little movements of the heart—but none of them had at all approached in interest to this.
At last the summons came. With one final imploring supplication to Matilda to do nothing but cry, and to Tommy to be a good boy, she gave her sister her arm with every appearance of sympathy, and held out her other hand to be grasped by Tommy, who, being short, preferred her dress, to which he clung as for life and death. The maids stood admiring and sympathetic on the stairs, as this procession stole softly down. Tommy was whimpering with fright; Matilda put up her beautiful handkerchief to hide her face; only Verna was composed and sublime, supporting her widowed sister. In the darkened library, which was, like the drawing-room, full of lines of ghostly light from the joints of the shutters, everybody stood up as this group entered, and all hearts were filled with a certain thrill of sympathy. The chief places were given to the young widow and her sister. All the others seemed to group round them as a natural centre.
Mr. Charles stood with his back to the fire, interrupting the light which came from it by his long legs. He was very tired and very anxious, not knowing what the future was to bring forth for those most dear to him, and looking at the new-comers in the gloom which hid the expressions of their faces, with a wistful eagerness which was stronger than curiosity. Nothing that happened could affect him personally, nor was he without the means to give Marjory a home; but there were more things involved than mere maintenance, and however things might turn out, it was certain that the whole family was on the eve of some painful change.
Marjory sat behind backs, very silent, not so much interested as any one else present, not caring much what happened. In no circumstances was it probable that she could have cared much for the mere personal consideration of how much was or was not left to her; and the idea of being compelled to leave Pitcomlie, and to give up all the habits and occupations of her life, had not occurred to her. I doubt whether, even had it occurred to her, the effect upon her mind would have been greater. The only thing that interested her specially was Tom’s secret, the unknown story to which she seemed to have been brought closer last evening; and it was this which was going dimly, vaguely through her mind, while the others were occupied with things so much more immediately present and real.
Milly, as usual, was on a stool by her feet, pressing her golden hair against her sister’s black dress; and Fanshawe stood near, behind the back of her chair, unseen, scarcely thought of, yet giving a certain subtle support. He had no right whatever to be here. The lawyer, Mr. Smeaton, from Edinburgh, had put on his spectacles to look at him, as he might have done had he been a big beetle conspicuously out of place. Even Mr. Charles had hesitated a little before he said, “Are you coming with us, Mr. Fanshawe?”
Fanshawe would not have accepted so very uncordial an invitation to intrude into family mysteries in any other house; but this (he said to himself) was not like any other house; and Marjory had half turned round to look if he was following. Was not that reason enough? He felt somewhat uneasy when he found himself there, and in a false position. He got as far out of the way as possible, behind her chair. And then it gleamed across him that the others might inquire what right he had to stand behind Marjory’s chair? No right! not even the right of an honest intention, a real purpose. He meant nothing; the tie between the two was entirely fortuitous, without intention on either side. What right had he to be there?