THE day after a great event is, in all kinds of circumstances, a difficult one. The remains of great excitement, not yet quite spent, make the air heavy, and produce innumerable little explosions like half-exhausted fireworks. Common life is feeble, and fills with lassitude people who have been living at high pressure; and the mixture of weariness, oppression, and lingering excitement is hostile to every attempt at settling down. This was the state of the atmosphere at Pitcomlie after the long strain was over, after the shutters were opened, the blinds drawn up, and ordinary existence had re-commenced. And besides this inevitable and feverish dullness, there was all the excitement of half completed events to intensify the painfulness of the pause. The former inhabitants of the house did not know what step to take first; the new possessors were equally doubtful. Neither liked to make the first movement. They avoided each other, yet were compelled to meet.
Mr. Charles spent the morning in his room, pondering over the situation with many troublous thoughts. To tear himself away from this familiar place was painful to him; but that was not all. To leave the home of his fathers in the hands of these two young women, who were altogether strangers to the race, was more painful still. The one, he said to himself, was a selfish fool, utterly incapable of comprehending the interests of the young heir, or of adapting herself to the life that was best for him; the other Mr. Charles had not been able to fathom. He thought her a sensible sort of girl, that might keep her sister out of mischief. He had put all his beloved papers in order, feeling that his work might be interrupted; but these very papers belonged to the house of Pitcomlie; he could not take them away with him any more than he could take the old walls. What was he to do? His work would come to an end—the occupation of his life. He would have to go and seek a new home at his age—find a new refuge for all those accumulations of art which it was so pleasant for him to think he had added to the attractions of the old house. He sat down, and sighed over them at one moment, feeling the change impossible; and then he would rise, stimulated by some recollection of last night, and push the engravings together into their portfolios, and hunt for the covers of the cases in which his curiosities were set forth. Where could he take them to? His own house in George Square certainly was ready for their reception and his, but the idea did not attract him. He was not fond of his own house. It had no associations, no recollections except those of a dreary week now and then which he had spent in it alone. Mr. Charles was a born old bachelor, but he was as little used to being alone as any paterfamilias. His brother’s children had been brought up at his feet, he had possessed the delightful privilege of interfering with their education, laying down laws for them, finding fault with them, interfering and commenting, without any responsibility. No privilege could have been more delightful to him than this; and when he had now and then returned for a few days to his own house, he had been, as it were, a banished man. To be sure if he went to his own house now, he could take the only remaining children of the family with him, and make a home for himself by their means; but this brought in the element of responsibility which he feared, and of which up to this moment he had kept clear. No wonder that Mr. Charles closed his portfolios hurriedly, and sat down in his chair with a sigh. If only any means could be thought of, any device fallen upon, for compromising the matter, and keeping things as they were.
Marjory, strangely enough, was infinitely less sensitive. Though she had no other home, and had never contemplated another—though it was impossible to her to realize the fact that she was no longer mistress of Pitcomlie, yet the possibility of change affected her much less strongly. Her whole being seemed to be dulled and slower of perception. She sent away the servants who came to her as usual for orders, and felt no pain. She even arranged her books and her papers for going away, without any sharp sense of the hardship of leaving her home. She had no particular feeling of any kind. Life seemed to be running low in her, and sometimes grief plucked at her heart; but for other emotions, she did not seem to have any. The thing she felt most was, that she missed something. What was it? Something she had been used to had slid from her. There was a vague want which she could not, and perhaps did not, wish to identify. Fanshawe had gone away that morning. She had been moved by his leave-taking, almost more than she thought seemly in her circumstances. She had a strong feeling of what was fit and natural, and the curious vague excitement with which his last looks and words filled her, seemed strangely out of place, and even wrong. She repressed the feeling with a strong hand; but she did not suspect that the blank sense of inability to feel anything which had crept over her could be connected with that repression in any way. She was dull, dull to the depths of her heart and to the tips of her fingers. Nothing seemed to affect her. As for the little vexations of the household, the transference of her powers, these moved her no more than pin-pricks. She was quite ready to have gone away, and would not have felt it. When she was called downstairs by an intimation that Miss Jean was seen coming up to the great door to visit the family, she obeyed the call without any particular sentiment. Matilda and her sister were both in the drawing-room when Marjory went in, and Miss Jean, leaning upon her cane, in her new “blacks,” to which she had added another fold of crape for each new death, was standing in the middle of the room, looking at them. Matilda had not budged from her sofa. She had nodded, and said, “How d’ye do? Give the lady a chair, Fleming,” without further disturbing herself; and it was these words that Aunt Jean was slowly repeating when Marjory went in.
“Give the leddy a chair, Fleming!” she said; “that’s a kind and a pleasant welcome for one that was born in the house, and knows everything and every person in it. Perhaps, Fleming, as, no doubt, you’re informed on the subject, you will let me know who this young lady may be?”
“It’s Mrs. Chairles, mem,” said Fleming, solemn as a judge.
“Ah! poor thing; I understand,” said Miss Jean; “brought up in India! that explains much. But, Mistress Chairles, if you’ll allow your husband’s grand-aunt to say it, young women in this country get up off their seats when they’re visited by any person worthy of respect. I am twice your age, and I’m Thomas Heriot, your father-in-law’s, aunt.”
“Tell her how delicate I am; I am not allowed to talk much,” said Mrs. Charles, addressing her sister. “And I am in great trouble,” she continued in her own person; “and very much tried, and too unwell to do anything. Pray take a seat. Marjory will be here directly. I suppose she is the person you want?”
“I came to see an afflicted family,” said Miss Jean, solemnly. “Most people think it necessary to say they’re sorry when there’s been death in a family. Oh! you are here, Marjory! Mistress Chairles tells me it’s you I want. I wanted the whole family—that was my intention; but if you’re all as easy in your mind, and stand as little in need of comfort as she does, I’ll have my coming for my going, and I might have stayed at home.”
“I am very glad to see you, Aunt Jean,” said Marjory; and struck with the unchangeable look of the old face, which altered not, whatever altered, a sudden accès of tears came to her. “It seems to be years ago,” she said, faltering; “but you never change.”
“No, I never change,” said the old woman, with a tremble in her voice. The words very nearly overset her composure, steady as she was in the calm of her old age; for Aunt Jean, too, had human feelings—and a still older generation, further off than the father of this house, who had been so lately carried out of it, sprang out of all the shadows as Marjory spoke, and came and stood about the old, old human creature who had once been young.
“I’ll sit down,” she added, hastily. “I’m old and no strong, though I never change. That was a hard word to say. I mind changes enough in myself, more than you have ever known; from young to old, Marjory Hay-Heriot; from a bonnie young thing, as bonnie as you are at your best, to an old witch like what you see me. I hope that’s change enough; but you think I should change away out of the world, and let younger folk take my place and bide? Well, maybe so do I; but one way or another, it’s not in our hands.”
“I did not mean anything unkind, Aunt Jean.”
“Well, you might have meant that, and no harm done,” said the old woman; “and you may cry, it’s natural; but you need not forget your manners. Introduce these young leddies that do not know me. The one on the sofa is Mistress Chairles. Ay, I know that; but she does not know me.”
“Oh, yes; indeed I do, thanks,” said Matilda. “Excuse my getting up. I knew whenever you came in, that you must be poor Charlie’s old aunt.”
“That shows how civil he must have been in his descriptions, and what it is to be well-bred,” said Miss Jean.
“And this,” said Marjory, hastily interrupting her, to stop some farther interchange of courtesies, “is Miss Bassett, Mrs. Charles’s sister.”
Verna came forward with a curtsey of deep deference.
“I hope you will forgive my sister,” she said; “she is very much fatigued with her journey, and all she has had to bear since. It is not very long, not three months, since her baby was born; and with all her trials—”
Miss Jean looked somewhat contemptuously towards the sofa, and then she said, abruptly,
“Where’s your Uncle Chairles? He’s a born haverel, but he’s a man, and, therefore, trusted. Send for him, that I may hear his mind. I’ve not come this long way for nothing, and I want to know what you are all going to do.”
Marjory rang the bell. She did not even understand the look with which Mrs. Charles from the sofa watched her. When she was about to give her orders, however, Matilda interrupted her.
“You can give Mr. Heriot my compliments,” she said, addressing Fleming, “and say that his aunt is here, and that I wish him to come, please. I beg your pardon, Marjory; I prefer to give him all the orders myself. If I don’t, he never will get used to me; and Charlie used to say I was always too humble, letting everybody get the better of me. I should not have said Mr. Heriot, though. Fancy, Verna! it is little Tommy that is Mr. Heriot, and his old uncle is only Mr. Charles. What fun it is!”
Miss Jean looked on with keen eyes. If Marjory had shown any signs of discomfiture, probably she would have enjoyed it; for she too, in her antediluvian experience, she who had once been the Laird of Pitcomlie’s daughter, and dethroned by a sister-in-law, could recall some scenes very similar, which had driven her nearly frantic with rage. But Marjory was still so dull and dead, that this incident scarcely affected her. A slight smile came upon her face when Matilda stopped her, and she drew a chair beside her visitor without making any remark. Miss Jean, however, made a great many remarks. Her keen eyes travelled about the room, from one corner to another, noticing everything in the new arrangements which had already crept in; the displacing of a chair, the sofa drawn forward. She was not very familiar with the Pitcomlie drawing-room, and yet she recognised the changes with her keen eyes.
“That used to be your favourite place?” she said, pointing to the spot where Mrs. Charles’s sofa had replaced Marjory’s chair.
“Yes, I liked the window,” said Marjory, making the best of it.
“And it was there you used to have your work?”
“Yes, Aunt Jean—but—”
“And that’s the bow-window Thomas Heriot was so foolish as to make, poor shortsighted haverel of a man, for his bonnie May?”
“Oh, Aunty, yes! I have had the good of it so long—but if I had never enjoyed it at all,” cried Marjory with tears, “I should be glad to think he had done it—for me!”
“Ay, ay,” said the old woman, “that’s how the world goes. For his bonnie May! I tell ye there were things once done like that for a bonnie Jean—that has not been bonnie this many, many a day—and the strangers get the good of them. That’s how the world goes.”
“What are they talking about?” said Matilda to Verna. “What an old witch she looks! I know she means to be disagreeable. But don’t you think I shall give in, not for all the Heriots in the world. I am not going to be interfered with by sisters, or aunts, or any other kind of relations. I mean to be mistress in my own house.”
“And of course you will do it your own silly way,” said Verna. “When you have the whole house by the ears, don’t ask me to come in and help you, that is all. I never saw anyone so hard-hearted, so silly, so cruel—”
“Oh, I like that,” said Matilda, with a fool’s invincible barbarity. “If I were as cruel as you call me, how long would it be before I sent you back?”
Mr. Charles came into the room at this moment, moody and absent, still full of his own thoughts. His chimney-corner was covered with an old red Indian shawl. Matilda had tried that too this morning, and found it a comfortable seat, though rather too warm for the season. “In Winter it will be charming,” she had said, and left her shawl, her air-cushion, and her footstool, by way of showing her appropriation of the place. Somehow that flag of the invader caught Mr. Charles’s eye even when he drew his chair into the middle of the room, and greeted Aunt Jean with the seriousness which was appropriate to a visit of condolence. “You see us in sad circumstances, very sad circumstances,” he said.
“Some of you bear up wonderfully considering all things,” said Miss Jean, “though perhaps not this girl here, who is a perfect shadow. A funeral visit’s a dreary thing, Chairlie Heriot, and I did not come just to condole. I had a good enough guess how things would be, having gone through it myself; and I came to ask what were your plans, and what was to be done with Marjory? I suppose she does not mean to stay here.”
“Say something, Matty,” whispered Verna, shaking her sister, “for your own sake don’t be quite a wretch—say something! Ask her to stay.”
“We have come to no resolution,” said Mr. Charles blankly. He could not look round to make an appeal to the new mistress of the house, but he raised his voice in his weakness that she might hear him. “We have come to no resolution. I’m very fond of my old tower, and so is Marjory of her father’s house.”
“Say something, Matty, for heaven’s sake,” again said Verna behind backs. “It is a large house—ask them to stay.”
“I am sure,” said Matilda after a pause, “I don’t wish anyone to hurry. If Marjory will promise not to interfere with the servants, or the things—or give orders, or ring the bell for Fleming when she pleases—she may stay if she likes. Only I know dear Charlie would have wished me to be mistress in my own house.”
Mr. Charles had sprung nervously to his feet. “Not another day!” he said hastily; but then sat down again with that blank irresolute air. Where was he to take her? and then the responsibility, and his old tower that he loved!
“You’re a very considerate young woman,” said Miss Jean grimly, with a fierce little chuckling laugh. “You’ll be much respectit in the county, and much thought of by the Heriots’ auld friends. That I’ll assure you of—indeed I’ll see to it myself.”
“Oh, thanks,” said Matilda, with a certain alarm, for it was evident even to her obtuse understanding that more was meant than met the ear.
“I’ll see to that myself,” the old woman repeated with a chuckle. “And in the meantime, Marjory, go you and get your things, and bring the bairn, and come away home with me. Comlie High Street is no amiss for a born and bred Heriot; everybody in Fife knows you, and what you are, and how you come there, which is more than can be said for everybody. Come away, my bonny woman; and as for you, Chairlie Heriot, you can do what you please; stay on till they turn you out, or till you’ve gathered up all your playthings, your pictures and your papers, and the whole paraphernalia. But in the meantime I’ll no see my flesh and blood putting up with the slights of a strange woman. Marjory and the bairn shall come with me.”
Mr. Charles was wounded in his tenderest feelings, but still he saw a certain consolation and relief in this suddenly propounded plan, which would save him from so many difficulties.
“I would not say but it was the best thing that could be done,” he said, slowly. “Anyhow, May, my dear, it would leave us time to think.”
“I had thought of it,” said Marjory. “I knew Aunt Jean would take us in. It is the best refuge for us. I shall be glad to go away, and yet not to go away. If you think we will not be a trouble to you—”
“Na, na; no trouble, no trouble. In a whilie,” said the old woman, with moisture in her keen eyes, “it will all be yours, my old house and my pickle siller. It’s a great thing to have natural heirs. You’re too natural, Marjory, too natural. You’ve smiled the lads away from you with scornings and civil speeches, as I did myself. You’ll be Miss Heriot, like me. It’s suited me well enough, but yet I’m wae to see another begin. For life’s long, and sometimes it’s weary and dreary. There’s more trouble the other way, but even trouble is a divert, and keeps you from that weary think-thinking, and all about yourself.”
“But you’ve no warrant, Aunt Jean—no warrant,” said Mr. Charles, with great impatience, “for saying that Marjory will be an old maid, like you.”
“An old maid!” said Miss Jean, hastily; “she’s an old maid already; she’s five-and-twenty; that’s the age that makes an old maid—and not five-and-seventy, which is my amiable time of life. But I’m no one to give nicknames, or I would be sore tempted to say that you were an old maid yourself, Charlie Heriot, with all your pernickety ways. You were never a lad of mettle, even in your best days; but you’ll get no rest for your long legs here, ye may take my word for it. In the meantime, ye can give me your arm to the door, where I’ll wait for Marjory. Good morning to ye, leddies; you’re very civil and polite to the family, and I’ll not fail to make it known.”
“Oh, what an old witch!” said Matilda, as Miss Jean marched out with her cane tapping more briskly than usual upon the floor. “I suppose she wanted to come too, and live upon Tommy’s money, like all the rest; but he has got a mother to take care of him, the precious darling!”
“Oh, Matty, for heaven’s sake—don’t be such a fool!”
“You’re frightened of the witch,” cried Matilda, with a laugh; “as if she could do us either good or harm.”
“No good, you may be sure!” said Verna, walking to the window with disturbed looks. Miss Jean’s old carriage stood at some little distance from the door, and she herself walked up and down in front of the house with her cane, leaning on Mr. Charles’s arm. Fleming stood on the steps, taking his part in the conversation. “A bonnie-like mistress for the old house!” she was saying, with scorn in her keen black eyes.
“Ye may say that, Miss Jean!” said old Fleming, shaking his head.
Verna did not understand what was the meaning of so strange an expression. “Bonnie” sounded like admiration, and Matilda certainly was pretty; but there was little admiration in the tone. Her watch was interrupted by the entrance of Marjory to take leave. Milly was clinging by her sister’s side as usual, holding out her little hand with a certain defiance; and even Matilda faltered out a half-apology, and raised herself from her sofa to say good-bye.
“I hope it isn’t for what I said about the servants, Marjory. Of course, I didn’t mean to vex you; but you know yourself, unless a change is made at once, it is never made; and dear Charlie was so set upon it that I should be mistress of my own house.”
“You are quite right, and I am not vexed;” said Marjory, with a smile; and it was thus hurriedly, without any more leave-taking, before the weeping maids had time to gather from all the corners, to take leave of her, that she left, as she thought for ever, her father’s house.