THE wedding tour was but a short one; and when the snow appeared on the hills in October, and the early winter began to isolate Loch Diarmid from the rest of the world, Isabel stood by the Manse window, as she had pictured herself standing, and looked for her husband coming home. She had dreamed of it all; and somehow, out of a dream it had come to a reality, and she found herself in the very position she had imagined, still somewhat wistful, but no longer sad, or distracted by any of the doubts of the past. It would be impossible to say how good he was to her, as good as a good man of the most generous and delicate instincts could be to a young creature whom he loved with all his heart, and with a certain touch of compunction and compassion, and a ghost of remorse mingling in his love. He was not, he knew, the kind of man she should have married; he was old enough to be her father; and the consciousness gave to his love a soft delicacy, and reverence, and tenderness, which are rare in the world. Had she been unreasonable he would have made himself a very slave to her caprices; but Isabel was not unreasonable. She was even yet a little timid of expressing her own wishes or opinions.
The aristocracy of Lochshire was not remarkable for any great intellectual qualities any more than other rural aristocracies; neither was it the highest possible school of manners and social grace. But yet it was a great advance to Isabel of the Glebe Cottage, who had no training in the ways of the world. She was a lady born, as Jean Campbell, with pride, had so often asserted; and the gentle blood, or the gentle mind, or both, asserted themselves. Imperceptibly the change crept over Isabel. Mr. Lothian was ‘well connected’ in his own person, and he was well off, having had something to begin upon, and so many years of frugal bachelor life to provide him with means for the gratification of his young wife. And Miss Catherine, proud of her protégée and of the match she had made, superintended Isabel’s toilette, and watched over her comings and goings. So that the winter passed away in a pleasant flutter of social occupation, and the new Mrs. Lothian had such share of succés as is agreeable to a young wife setting out upon the world.
But yet, on the whole, what she preferred was the long winter nights when she watched for her husband coming home by the waning twilight, and sat down with him at the table to which her own hands had added what decoration was possible. If her eyes did not light up at his approach, they yet smiled softly on him with that serenity which was so new to hasty Isabel. She was glad when he liked his dinner, and listened with a sweet impartial satisfaction while he praised the dishes she had ordered for him, and sometimes helped to prepare, and her own blooming looks. She ‘took his kiss sedately,’ not more moved by it than she was by the whisper into her ear that the tea was ready, of the pretty housemaid, whom she had known all her life. And then the Dominie would stray in and deposit his gaunt length in one of the easy chairs by the drawing-room fire, and the two men would talk of all they knew, and all they had seen, and all they thought, while she sat working between them, saying now and then her half-dozen words, listening with all the fresh curiosity of her age. Her husband would pause now and then to explain to her some special subject of discourse, and Isabel would listen, smiling, looking up from her work. At first she had said, ‘Never mind, I like best to find it out from what you say; I like to hear what Mr. Galbraith thinks, and what you think, and put them together.’ But Mr. Lothian was not satisfied with that. If he had a weakness, it was to instruct his wife, and make her understand everything he was interested in. And he was a little vexed that he could not persuade her, as he said, ‘to take a part.’ But that was a slight—a very slight vexation. And Isabel did not care to take a part. She listened, and she pursued her own thoughts; and sometimes but half heard the talk, thinking of how to plant a new flower-bed as spring was coming, or whether little Mary would not be better for a new frock; or how to arrange the ladies and the gentlemen at the great dinner-party which she was shortly to give in return for the civilities of the Loch. Then she would glance at her husband, who was looking at her with his eyes so full of love. His hair was getting white, it was true; but then his cheek was still like a rose, and was set off by the white hair. And Isabel’s eyes dwelt admiringly on the ruffles which she had hemmed, which she had crimped, and in which she had placed the little pin she had given him when they were married. It was not a very valuable ornament. It was a small oblong brooch, set round with pearls, which she had herself worn with Margaret’s hair in it, as long as she could remember. Now it held a little curl of her own intertwined with Margaret’s, and had been placed on a pin to fit it for its present use. It was the only ornament of the kind the minister ever wore. And it was Isabel herself who had to put it into the delicate cambric every morning. He was so particular about his frills. And she was proud of them, and let no hand touch them but her own.
And when spring came a great idea had developed in Mr. Lothian’s mind. He had been thinking of it all the time, though he had said nothing. It was to take his wife to London, to see everything that could be seen, to go to the theatre, and the opera, and make acquaintance with the big world. It took away Isabel’s breath when the suggestion was made to her. Going to London to her was something like what going to Constantinople would be to a young woman in her position now—only so much more dazzling and splendid to think of. When Jean Campbell heard of it, it brought tears of pride to her eyes. ‘Eh, Isabel, my bonnie woman, ye have a life like a fairy-tale!’ she cried, and such was the effect produced upon the Loch in general by the news of this wonderful project.
‘His young wife has turned his head,’ said John Macwhirter. ‘There’s nae fool like an auld fool, especially when there’s a wife in the case.’
‘If it had been in to the Assembly in May, ane could understand,’ said old Sandy Diarmid, ‘to see the Lord Commissioner and a’ the sights; but London’s a different story. It would suit him better to save his siller for the family, when they come.’
‘But I hear there’s nae word of a family,’ said another gossip, ‘and he has been saving since ever he came to the parish. So long as the pulpit’s well supplied I see nae harm in’t for my part.’
At the village doors the question was still more hotly discussed.
‘Set her up with her trips to London!’ cried one of the neighbours, ‘and her only Duncan Diarmid’s daughter, as we a’ ken, and with nae right to such extravagance.’
‘But by the mother’s side Isabel’s a lady born,’ cried Jenny Spence, ‘and her father was an officer as grand as young Kilcranion, that you think so much of. When ye marry an auld man ye may well expect mair consideration at the least. A’ he can do is but little for bonnie Isabel.’
‘If they were to spend the siller on God’s service it would set them better—and him a minister,’ said Mary White.
And in higher circles there were a good many smiles and gentle jokes about the minister’s uxorious fondness. Even Miss Catherine was not quite sure about such an extravagant notion. But all the criticism did not affect Mr. Lothian. He had made all his plans, and arranged everything without regard to the popular babble. ‘I mean my Isabel to see everything, and have everything I can give her,’ he said. He had lived in that mysterious world himself when he was young. He had been tutor to the Marquis, the tutelary deity of the district, who came to church always when he was on the Loch, and had the minister to dine with him and showed him every sort of attention. London was no such wonder and enigma to him as it was to most of his parishioners. And Isabel, for the first time since her marriage, was moved with an excitement which almost renewed her impetuosity. The thought of going ‘to England’ stirred up all her dormant faculties for pleasure. She made him tell her all about it, where they should go; what the Park was like where the ladies rode; if he was sure it was quite right to go to a theatre—and a hundred other particulars; and when at last the moment came for setting out, the young creature almost threw off her wifely gravity and felt herself a girl again.
They went by sea, which was a somewhat awful experience; but yet, when she had recovered the first frightful consequences of acquaintance with the unsteady waters, even the fact of ‘the voyage’ added something to Isabel’s sense of growing experience and knowledge of life. She walked about the deck, leaning on her husband’s arm as the steamer went up the peaceable Thames, quite recovered from all unpleasant sensations, and full of bright wonder and curiosity. ‘You know everything as if you had lived here all your life,’ she said, in unfeigned admiration for her husband’s cleverness, and hung upon him, asking a thousand questions, pleased with all the novelty about her, proud of his unbounded information, a sweeter picture he thought than all London besides could produce.
‘I was here when I was young like you,’ he said, ‘when everything takes hold of one’s mind—when I did not know I was to be so happy as to bring my bonnie Isabel. I suppose it was before you were born.’
‘And perhaps you were thinking of some other Isabel,’ she said, looking up in his face, with the laughing half-jealousy of the wife, a something more like love and less like simple affection (he thought) than he had seen in her before.
‘Never,’ he said, bending down over the sweet face that was his own, ‘my darling, I never loved woman till I saw you. And when I saw you, you were no woman, but a child. I kept my heart young for you, Isabel.’
She gave him a wondering glance, and then a little flush came over her face, and she turned to ask him a question about something else which struck her on the other side of the river. She had not kept her heart fresh for him. She felt, with a momentary sense of guiltiness, that they were not equal on that point. But her very thoughts were as innocently and simply true to him now as if he had been—her father. Something like this was what Isabel thought, but not with any conscious sense that her love for her husband should have been different.
She was quite happy standing there with her hand drawn closely within his arm, proud of him and of everything about him, from his boundless knowledge down to his spotless ruffles; and felt at the present moment no need of anything else for the happiness of her life.
And Isabel enjoyed all the sights of London with the same proud satisfaction. He could tell her about everything, from Westminster and St. Paul’s down to the old gentlemen riding in the Row, among whom he pointed out to her the Duke and Sir Robert Peel, and at least a dozen more, as if he had known them all his life, she said to herself. He was not so learned in respect to the ladies, it was true. But still to know so much was a great thing. And then it made his wife so independent. She had no need to ask, to consult books, to remain in ignorance of anything. It gave her the sweetest sense of superiority when she met a young country lady in the Row with her husband who was not so clever as the minister, and saw them gaze and gape at the notabilities. ‘Mr. Lothian will tell you who they are,’ said Isabel, proudly. And when her countrywoman confided to her how little she knew about the places she had seen, the gratification of the minister’s wife grew stronger and stronger. ‘Mr. Lothian was here when he was young,’ she said; ‘and I never need to ask anybody but him—he knows everything.’
‘Here when he was young, indeed!’ young Mrs. Diarmid, of Ardgartan, exclaimed to her husband, when they parted company. ‘Here as a tutor, I suppose; but Isabel gives herself as many airs as if he were the Marquis himself.’
‘Well, at least he was the Marquis’s tutor,’ said young Ardgartan; ‘and if she is pleased with her old man, it is very lucky for her.’
And the fact was that Isabel was thoroughly pleased with her old man, and enjoyed her expedition with all her heart. The Marquis asked his old tutor to dinner, and gave Isabel his arm, and placed her by his side with much admiration of her sweet looks. ‘I used to know your father,’ he told her, ‘when I was a lad. What an eye he had! and would tire us all out shooting over the Kilcranion moors.’ This acknowledgment of Captain Duncan as himself in some way received by the local deities, was balm to Isabel’s soul, and opened her shy intelligence to the Marquis, who found her little sayings as piquant as sayings usually are which fall from pretty lips. And the Marchioness offered Mrs. Lothian her box at the Opera to Isabel’s great confusion and perplexity. The young ladies of the house clustered round her, telling her what the music was to be, and how she would enjoy it, and how much they envied her her first opera. ‘You will think you are in Heaven,’ cried one enthusiastic girl. When she left the grand house in Park Lane, with this ecstatic prospect before her, Isabel felt that her life, as the stepmother had said, was indeed like a fairy-tale.
‘But is it so nice as they say?’ she asked her husband, as they went home.
‘To them it is,’ said that man of universal information, ‘for they have been brought up to it. I am not so sure about you; but you must ask me no more questions, for I want you to judge of it for yourself.’
And it was with a sense of responsibility that Isabel set out for this new felicity. She had put on one of her wedding-dresses, the blue one which her husband loved—and had white flowers in her pretty brown hair. Her sense of her present judicial position took from her the pretty girlish excitement into which she had fallen about all the novelties that surrounded her, and restored that soft dignity of the old man’s wife, the look of age she had tried to put on when she first realised Mrs. Lothian’s responsibility. She looked, perhaps, rather more girlish in this state of importance and seriousness than she did in her livelier mood. And there was another reason, too, for unusual dignity. Lady Mary was to go with her under her charge. ‘And I trust to you, Mrs. Lothian, to take care of her,’ the Marchioness had said, with a sense of the joke which was far from being shared by Isabel. It was the first time she had ever acted as chaperone, and her mind was disturbed by the awful question what she should do if anyone approached the young lady who was under her charge. ‘Is she not to speak to anyone?—and am I to keep everybody away?’ she asked her husband, and if possible admired Mr. Lothian’s knowledge more than ever when he instructed her in her easy duties. As for Lady Mary herself, she was quite excited by the prospect of witnessing Isabel’s delight. ‘Oh I wish I were you!’ she cried, ‘I am blasée, you know. I know them all off by heart, and exactly how they will look, and how Grisi will bring out her notes. But you will think you are in Heaven.’ And then they all got into the lordly carriage, with the powdered footmen, and went to this earthly paradise, with no thought of any evil awaiting them, or harm which could enter there.
There were many opera-glasses directed to the box when Isabel in her simplicity and pretty dignity, half-matron half-child, took her seat in it. Lady Mary was no beauty, and the eyes of the world directed themselves to the fresh, new face with a rustle of curiosity and interrogation. Isabel gave one glance round her in acknowledgment of the fine assembly, and the ladies in their pretty dresses, and then turned her face intent upon the stage. The opera was Lucia di Lammermoor. Her companions both watched her with much more interest than they did the scene—Lady Mary with delightful expectation at first, then with a shade of disappointment and surprise: while the minister looked on amused, and yet conscious of the least little shade of anxiety, lest his wife should compromise herself by a total want of susceptibility to the entertainment. Neither of them observed, at first, among the gazers below and around one pair of opera-glasses, which the owner with a sudden start had directed full upon the box at the commencement of the performance, and which remained fixed, held with rigid hands, during the whole of the first act. When the curtain fell, Isabel drew breath and heart, her eyes somewhat strained and dilated with the intense gaze she had been fixing upon the stage.
‘Don’t you feel, then, as if this was all a dream, and that was true?’ said Lady Mary, who was a musical enthusiast.
‘I don’t know,’ said Isabel. ‘I don’t understand; if I could see what they all mean.’ She glanced round her and down at the stalls as she spoke, and there she caught a glimpse of—what was it?—a face, a part of a face staring up at her, almost hidden by the black circles of the glasses, but yet with something in its aspect that seemed familiar to her. ‘Do they always stare like that?’ she said, drawing back with the sense of having received a shock, though she could not tell how.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lady Mary, hastily. ‘No one minds—don’t think of that. But tell me, don’t you feel it—doesn’t it go to your heart?’
‘I think, if there was anything in my heart, I would say it, and not sing it,’ said Isabel. ‘I think they are all mad. Is she Lucy Ashton? But Lucy would not have the heart to sing. Oh, how could she sing when she could scarcely speak?’
‘Oh, don’t you see,’ said Lady Mary, ‘that is just what music is? When you cannot speak, you can burst out in music. You can go to the piano, and say everything that is in your heart—you can sing——’
‘Yes,’ said Isabel, softly; ‘Auld Robin Gray, or that Irish song the poor girl sang when her heart was breaking; but all that music, full of shakes, and trills, and great bursts like the organ made on purpose—oh, no; not if her heart was breaking!’
‘But, my dear,’ said the minister, ‘how can you tell? an Italian heart may break in music?’
‘Perhaps an Italian heart, but not Lucy Ashton’s,’ said Isabel, a wave of sudden colour passing over her face. How strange it was, out of this crown of her happy, peaceful existence to look back on the time when she had first read about Lucy Ashton, and understood. She was an uninstructed rustic, and had never heard any music in her life before. This historian says not a word in support of her way of thinking; but such was her ignorant opinion, out of the depths of her reticent Scotch heart, in which there lay so deep a sense of every emotion. It was her ignorance, no doubt, which suggested it. Anyone who had read the ‘Bride of Lammermoor’ to her, with the very least power of characteristic representation, could have played on her as on a delicate instrument; but she did not know how to understand the other form of the poem. It bewildered her. She was not in Heaven, but in the most curious artificial sphere. And then, what was that thing—those two black motionless glasses, fixed upon her from below? Whose was the turn of the head that seemed to appear to her behind them—the aspect of the half-seen figure lost among the crowd? She could not tell; but it all awoke the strangest thrill of uneasiness in her heart.
‘I should like to go home,’ she whispered to her husband. ‘Who is that always staring? And the music makes me dizzy. I should like to go home.’
‘Staring, my darling! There are so many people staring,’ said Mr. Lothian; ‘and I am not surprised,’ he added, looking down upon her with fond admiration. The speech and the movement brought him forward to the front of the box. He took no notice of anything else, having his whole attention fixed upon his wife; but she saw a sudden movement below, and the direction of the opera-glasses change a little, as if the gaze was turned on her husband. The sensation to her was as if some dangerous being in a mask were watching them. And everything was so unreal—those people on the stage going through what was supposed to be the business of life in music, and the spectators periodically rousing themselves to a little paroxysm of frenzy, according to Isabel’s opinion. She had never seen anything so unreal and so strange; and it might be some enemy who was watching them for anything she knew——
But she sat out the performance bravely, trying to conceal her first impressions, now and then carried away by a splendid outburst of melody, but still keeping close to her text that Lucy Ashton could not have had the heart. ‘How could she have remembered to sing like that, if her heart was breaking?’ said Isabel; and there was a painful pang in her own which she could not explain. She seemed to see those glasses before her even on the way out, gazing at her from behind a pillar. They were before her eyes all the way home, and withdrew her attention even from Lady Mary’s lamentations over her want of musical taste. ‘But I see it is because you are not used to it,’ Lady Mary said at last. ‘Half a dozen more evenings would make you think so differently. Oh, Mr. Lothian, stay a little longer, and let us educate your wife!’
‘It would take a longer time than we can spare,’ said the minister, only half pleased with the suggestion; and Isabel gave a little shudder in her corner. She was thinking of that opera-glass, and of the high crest of hair rising behind it, and the air of the half-seen figure. Could it be——? Whom could it be? It was the only unsuccessful attempt at pleasure she had made since they went to town.