CHAPTER XXXVI
THE next day Isabel was too much occupied with her project of visiting Ailie at Ardnamore to be open to any argument or dissuasion. She put aside her stepmother’s attempts to move her, with soft obstinacy. ‘She was never a friend of yours that you should be so keen about her now,’ said Jean.
‘She was more to me than you think,’ said Isabel; and her stepmother’s amazement was great.
‘She was liker Margret than you; but far, far different from Margret,’ Jean resumed, after a pause; ‘and you but a gay heedless lassie, no thinking of such things.’
‘But I tell you she was more to me than you thought,’ said Isabel.
This was all that Jean could extract from her; and it gave rise to many marvels in the good woman’s mind and serious anxiety, which she could not express. ‘Eh, if Ailie had anything to do with that English lad,’ was the thought that passed through her mind; ‘eh, if she should be in league with him now!’ But she could not surmount her hesitation about mentioning Stapylton’s name.
Isabel had to leave her child behind, which was a novel thing to her, and very strange it felt to walk away alone through the village and down the other side of the Loch towards the steep lane that led to Ardnamore. When she got to the gate, it was the height of the warm languorous afternoon, and the air and the weariness had soothed her, and brought a languorous feeling into her heart. She was not excited about Ailie, poor girl! Isabel, in her own heart, had made out a story for Ailie, setting her down as a neglected, melancholy wife, with a strange past behind her and a mysterious future before, no doubt; and yet not so much lifted beyond the range of ordinary humanity as she had been in the old days. She expected to be shown into the old-fashioned drawing-room, with its bright windows looking out on the Loch, and to be joined by the mistress of the house, when she had waited a while, and to see Ailie’s attempt to look contented, and to bear herself like the other ladies. As she approached the house, the garden and everything around looked so everyday and ordinary, that all that was extraordinary in Ailie’s story gradually died out of her visitor’s mind. She would be awkward, perhaps, in her new position; she might not even know how to receive Isabel’s visit; but, still, no doubt three years of absence and travel had improved her. And Isabel felt more and more as if she were paying an ordinary visit, when the maid, who was just like other maids, let her into the house, which was precisely like other houses. The deerskin mats at the door, the antlers in the hall, the hats and plaids hanging about, each took something from her interest. She began to forget Ailie, and think only of Mrs. Diarmid of Ardnamore.
The drawing-room was a large, light room, rather low in the roof, furnished with old-fashioned spindle-legged furniture, gilt and painted, and covered with white covers, to preserve the fading damask below. Isabel went in with a little gentle curiosity, seeing no one. She moved a few steps into the room, her eye catching the Indian inlaid work of a set of writing things upon a table, but not perceiving in the whiteness of the room a white figure seated just within the curtains at the bay window, half hidden in the recess. Even when she did perceive her, Isabel stood uncertain, hesitating whether to go forward or to wait quietly apart till Ailie should make her appearance. For surely this was not Ailie—it must be some visitor, some caller—— But a strange sense of recognition stole over her after the first start. She stood in her intense blackness and gazed at the unknown being whose appearance was such a contrast to her own; and then there came at last a faint sound of a voice: ‘Is it you, Isabel?’
‘Oh, is it you, Ailie?’ she cried, and went up to her with something of her old impetuous manner. Yes, it was Ailie, and yet as unlike Ailie as fancy could have imagined. She was sitting against the wall with no appearance of any occupation—her listless hands lying in her lap. She was dressed in dead white, not light muslin, but opaque white stuff, loosely made, or else hanging loosely upon her worn figure. Her face was almost as white as her gown, her blue eyes were dilated and wandering, her fair hair, which once had so much pale gold in it, had lost its lustre. She was like marble, but yet she was not like death. Something of movement, a thrill of wavering agitation and life, was about her, although she sat as still as if, like the Lady in ‘Comus,’ she had been bound by enchantment into her chair.
‘I did not see you when I came in,’ said Isabel. ‘I only heard of it yesterday; and so you’ve come home?’
‘Aye—I’ve come home.’
‘And you’ve seen your own people again after all,’ said Isabel, trying to adopt a tone of congratulation.
‘Aye—I’ve seen my own folk.’
‘And I am very glad you are back,’ said Isabel, ‘home is the best. But I never heard till yesterday, when I came back too. How glad they would all be! And I hope you were glad too—I hope you were pleased yourself?’
Ailie made no answer. She turned her head half away, and gazed again over the Loch. A little almost imperceptible nod of her head was the only indication she gave of having heard. And Isabel began to grow nervous in spite of herself.
‘Will you not speak to me, Ailie? are you not pleased to see me? I thought you would be pleased—and I would not lose a day. And you must have heard,’ said Isabel, a little affronted as well as amazed at the indifference shown her, and instinctively producing her highest claim to consideration, ‘what dreadful trouble I have had since you went away.’
The word seemed to catch Ailie’s ear without any that followed or preceded it. ‘Trouble!’ she said vaguely, ‘what can your trouble be in comparison with mine?’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ cried Isabel, with violent youthful compunction, ‘you know I have heard nothing. Oh, Ailie, don’t sit there and look so sad—tell me about it—was it your child?’
Ailie turned upon her her great wandering, dilated eyes: ‘My child?’
‘I did not know,’ said Isabel, almost crying, ‘I thought you might have lost—a child—when you said your trouble was worse than mine.’
‘My trouble is worse than any trouble on earth,’ said Ailie; ‘and oh to come back here to look on the same place night and day as I knew in my dreams. I think my heart will burst—it’s broken long, long ago,’ she added, turning away from Isabel, with a sudden pathos in her voice. It seemed a confession of unhappiness so open and undisguised, that Isabel was driven to her wits’ end, not knowing what to do or say.
‘Oh, Ailie!’ she said—‘oh, Ailie, you should not say that now—I told you, you should not marry him——’
‘Marry him!’ said Ailie, with a faint wonder stealing over her face. ‘We are meaning different things, you and me. Aye—I thought I was wedded to the Lord; I thought He was sending me forth to do His will. Oh, woman! what is your bairn or your man to that? And it was not that I deceived myself,’ she continued, rising into vehemence; ‘I never deceived myself. There was His promise, clear as the sun in the skies. Could I no see all the wonders of the latter days? I saw them in myself; I spoke in power; I rose up off my bed that might have been my dying bed—and a’ to be betrayed, and casten down, and deceived!’
‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, wringing her hands, ‘what are you speaking of—what do you mean?’
For the moment Ailie made no answer. She never turned her head to one side or the other—but gazed before her into the air, seeing nothing. ‘Your Margret was right,’ she said, after a pause. ‘It’s sweetest to die—oh, it’s fine to die. Christ died, Isabel. We say it’s for us you know, and so it is for us, but He had to do it. Nae miracle saved Him; that’s what your Margret said.’
‘But He saved you,’ said Isabel, in her awe, under her breath.
At these words Ailie burst into a few sudden, violent tears—a momentary paroxysm which she seemed totally incapable of controlling. ‘Whiles I think it was some devil,’ she said.
‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, ‘this is not you that is speaking—not you that was always so good!’
‘That is another thing,’ said Ailie, without any apparent sense of reproof, ‘whiles that is what I think; that it’s no me, but some ill spirit in me. And though I think I’m sitting here, I may be with your Margret in Heaven, throwing my gold crown before His feet. Oh, if it was but that! Sometimes at night the Lord sends such thoughts like dew—if it is the Lord. But then comes the awfu’ morning, Isabel Diarmid, and I open my eyes, and my heart cries out—He has broken His word.’
‘Ailie! Ailie!’
‘Oh, dinna speak! He has broken His word. I gave up all for it—all! I thought first I was to serve Him my own way, a single lass. But, Isabel, you mind? I wouldna maintain my way in the face of His word. I gave up all! And he wiled me out to the world with false hopes. And He’s broken His own word. He’s done nought—nought—nought, that He said!’
‘Are ye speaking of Mr. John?’ said Isabel, driven to her wits’ end. ‘Oh, Ailie, is it him you mean?’
‘I mean the Lord,’ said Ailie, folding her hands together, and pressing them to her breast.
And then there was a pause. Isabel, to whom this sounded like blasphemy, drew a step or two apart, full of agitation and alarm. But Ailie was not excited. She did not even change her attitude, but sat still with her eyes vaguely fixed on the world without, and the Loch which lay so bright in the sunshine. She gazed, but she saw nothing—her mind’s eye was turned inward; and to the young creature full of life, and all its movements, who stood by her, this abstracted woman was a marvel past all comprehension. Was she unhappy in her home? was it in the want of love that had frozen her? was it grief or loss, or some bereavement of which Isabel knew nothing? She broke the silence at last with timid inquiries, which sounded like a prayer.
‘But, Ailie,’ she asked, faltering at every word, ‘you have had no grief—in your life? You have still your husband? There has been no—death—nor—trouble? You’ve been—happy?—as much as folk are in this world?’
‘Happy!’ It did not sound like an answer, but only like an echo of the other voice, and another pause followed. ‘It was God’s will I sought and nothing else,’ she said at last. ‘Was it me to think of marrying or giving in marriage? It was my meat and my drink to do His will. Oh, Isabel Diarmid! it’s your man and your bairn you think of—but no me. What I was thinking on was a world lying in darkness—a’ bonnie and bright outside—like that—and a’ miserable and perishing within—and He promised He would mend it a’. Go forth and preach, He said, and I’ll come again and the holy angels, and bring in a new Heaven and a new earth. And there was the word in my ain mouth for a testimony. What was I that I should speak in power if it hadna been Him that did it?—and now all my hope is gone. The Lord Himself has broken His word. What do I care if the earth should tumble to pieces this moment! The minister is but dead, Isabel, and you’ll find him in Heaven; but I’m disappointed in my God,’ cried Ailie, suddenly hiding her face in her hands; ‘and Him I’ll never find again, neither in Heaven nor earth.’
This tragical outcry was so bitter and full of anguish, that Isabel stopped short in the protestations that rose to her lips. And yet the very thought of thus reproaching God made her tremble, as if it must bring down fire from Heaven. ‘Oh, Ailie,’ she faltered, ‘it is not for me to teach you; but oh, I dare not stand and hear you judging God!’
A low moan came from Ailie’s breast. She shook her head sadly. Her great eyes turned to Isabel’s for a moment with the anguish of a dumb creature in pain. She was far beyond tears. ‘There’s nae power nor voice in me now,’ she said, ‘to teach or to speak. He’s taken His gifts away, as well as the hope. I canna burst out and cry, “Oh, why tarry the wheels of His chariot?” It’s all gone—all gone! spirit, and power, and life, and hope!’
Isabel was too much bewildered and overwhelmed to reply. ‘Oh, Ailie, have you no child?’ she cried, at last finding no other words that would come.
She had but asked the question, when the door opened, and Mr. John came suddenly in. When he saw Isabel he paused, and the same softened look which had come over his face in the steamer at the sight of her again gleamed over it.
‘You have come to see her?’ he said, and looked from the young widow in her deep mourning to his marble-white wife in her snowy cold dress with the strangest look of comparison. It seemed to the man as if the fate that might have been his and that which was really his thus stood together in visible contact. Isabel had grown more and more like her sister without knowing it. And now when her heart was so touched with sorrow, and wonder, and compassion, and all the depths of her nature moving in her eyes, it might have been Margaret herself who stood there, looking with infinite pity, striving vainly to understand the woman who was John Diarmid’s wife.
‘She is changed,’ he said, following with his eyes Isabel’s anxious look—‘sadly changed. It is because she will look at things only in one way. We were mistaken, I think. The world itself is changed, though so few can see it. It is not by converting a single soul here and there, but by moving nations that God’s work is to be done. Ailie, I am going away.’
‘Going: where to?’ she said, with a momentary glance into his face; ‘to take the sword like them that shall perish by the sword? That’s no His command. I’m a poor creature—a miserable creature—He’s cast me off, and broken His word to me; but I’ll no forsake Him. No; there’s no word of power put into my mouth to speak to you, John Diarmid, not any word of power, but them that take the sword shall perish by the sword. He said it with His own lips.’
‘Amen!’ said Mr. John; ‘it matters little. What is life to you or me that I should care to preserve it? As long as there is a race oppressed, so long is God’s word hindered in this world. I must go to my work—the time of patience and quiet is past.’
‘Oh, Mr. John!’ cried Isabel, ‘you will never go and leave her alone like this?’
He turned to her with once more that softened look. ‘Perhaps I would not,’ he said, ‘if I could do her good. But no, Isabel. We have wrenched ourselves out of the common soil, she and I, and we cannot take root again. I must go to do what’s left me to do. We were fools, and took God at His word, without thinking that the paths must be made straight and the rough places smooth. I must go and work as I can—and she—will die.’
He said this so low that Isabel hoped she alone heard it; and she could not restrain a cry of wonder, and horror, and protestation.
‘Aye!’ said Ailie from her window, ‘I will die, if I can. Oh, how easy it will be now, and sweet! When I think how I vexed Margret—and now she’s in the secret, and knows all; and I’m fighting with my own heart, and cast off by my God. John Diarmid, maybe I’ll be gone before you come back.’
‘I would not hinder you, Ailie!’ he said, going up to her with sudden emotion and taking her listless white hands into his. ‘No, though you will reproach me before God, I would not keep you back—now when things have come so far, that is best.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s best. All’s gone from me—all’s gone! I’m of no use but to die. They say when the seed dies in the ground—— Oh, John Diarmid! if you’ll grant it was a lying spirit, and no a word from the Lord, I think I could die content.’
He did not make any answer, but stood before her holding her hands, gazing down with a certain anguish upon the white face from which all the tints of life had altogether died away.
‘Here’s Isabel,’ she went on, now for the first time rousing from her blank contemplation of the world around, and fixing her eyes on his face, ‘her sister. It is as if it were Margret come herself, out of Heaven, out of her grave, to hear you. John Diarmid, it was never love for me, I know. Will you tell me again before her; was it the word of the Lord you brought me yon night, and no just the madness in your heart?’
Still he made her no answer, but stood and held her shadowy hand and gazed down into her face.
‘He said I was to wed him, Isabel, for it was the word of the Lord,’ cried Ailie, rising into excitement. ‘If he’ll answer me this I want no more on earth. If it was but his madness, and no the word of the Spirit, then I could lie down at my Lord’s feet and say we’ve sinned. Oh, can you no see the difference? Say we’ve sinned, it’s easy, easy! But say thou hast tempted me and made me fall; it’s bitterer than death.’
Isabel, with the tears streaming down her cheek, drew near at this passionate appeal. She did not understand what it meant, nor what she was called upon to do. But her mediation was asked for, and she answered the call by instinct. She laid her hand upon Mr. John’s arm and looked up with beseeching eyes in his face. ‘Oh, if you can ease her mind!’ cried Isabel, not knowing what she asked.
‘Would you have me say I had spoken a lie in the Lord’s name?’ he cried, and let his wife’s hands fall, turning away from them with the old fiery glow blazing up in his eyes.
Then at once, and as by a spell, Ailie fell into the stillness and apathy from which she had been momentarily roused. Her husband turned away and went to another window to read his letters, leaving her relapsed into her old attitude, her hands again crossed in her lap, her eyes gazing out upon the bright, unvarying landscape. Isabel stood by her almost as motionless as she, looking at her with an anxiety which seemed to deprive her of all power of speech. What could she say? What was there in Heaven or earth that could comfort this forlorn creature? How hopeless she looked, abstracted from all the life that surrounded her! Mr. John returned to them before Isabel could find a word to say. He went forward to his wife and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
‘Farewell, Ailie,’ he said; ‘if I should, as you say, perish by the sword, this will be the end of all between us—and, perhaps, it would be best for you.’
‘Farewell,’ she said, dreamily; ‘farewell!’ It seemed at first as if she was about to let him go without even a look. But at last a little stir of life moved her. ‘We’ve been no blessing to each other,’ she said; ‘neither you to me, nor I to you. And my heart’s dead and the Spirit gone from me; but you were never an ill man to me, John Diarmid. It’s right Isabel should know. The will o’ the Lord—if it was the will o’ the Lord—hasna been blessed to you or to me. But you were never ill to me; you would have been good to me if——’
‘If——’ said Mr. John. ‘We will enter into that subject no more. But farewell, Ailie. I think we will never meet in this world again.’ Then he turned to Isabel and took both her hands into his. ‘I do not care for my life,’ he said, ‘no more than she does. It is for God’s service to do what He likes with. But so long as she lives will you be good to her? Neither for her sake nor mine, but for——’
‘O, hush!’ cried Isabel, ‘there should be no other name spoken of here. Why should you go away? Ailie, you are his wife, tell him to stay. And you are not old that you should part. Oh, Mr. John, look at me! Is it well to be alone in the world at my age, and at her age? Stay and take care of her yourself. She is your wife. Ailie, take his hand and make him stay!’
She stood impetuous between the two, holding a hand of each, trying, with her young energy, to draw the sombre, passionate, disappointed man and the abstracted, visionary wife to each other.
‘God will not bless you if you part,’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, look at me that am a widow! What would I give to have my good man to be my help and protection? Ailie, speak to him, and he will stay.’
Mr. John was the first to free himself from her hand.
‘I cannot stay,’ he said, ‘not even if she wanted me as much as now she wants to be free of me. I have my use in the world, though not the use I once thought. Farewell! the chances are I will never see Loch Diarmid again.’
‘Is he gone?’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, Ailie, look out after him, or kiss your hand to him. Oh, give him one look before he goes, as if you were a living woman, and no made of stone!’
And in her horror she rushed herself into the recess of the window, and waved her hand to him as he went away. Mr. John turned round before the door of his father’s house, which he was leaving, as he believed for ever. A strange smile came over his face. The woman whom in his madness he had compelled to marry him was there like a white vision, making no sign. But the other tearful face, full of emotion, was turned towards him; and Isabel, who had almost hated him for half her life, waved her hand in the compunction of her mind. ‘My Margaret!’ he said, softly to himself; and thus turned and disappeared out of the quiet world in which he was unfit to live.
‘He is gone! Oh, Ailie, he is gone!’ said Isabel, coming back from the window with a sob.
‘Aye, he’s gone!’ said Ailie; ‘and you are more moved than his wife. I know what you would say, Isabel, but it’s useless—useless! What is man to me? All that I ever was, all that I wanted, was to be the handmaid of the Lord.’
‘But you are married to him!’ cried Isabel; ‘you are his wife; you should go with him, or he should stay with you. Oh, Ailie, if it is not too late——!’
‘There’s nae marrying, nor giving in marriage in Heaven,’ said Ailie. ‘If there is a Heaven—if it’s no just a delusion like the rest. But what can I do? I’m willing to come to an end, and be done with all manner of life, if that’s the Lord’s will. Asking and praying and wishing for one thing more than another has gone clean out of my heart.’
‘And you have not a thought for him, the moment he has said farewell to you—not a tear. Oh, Ailie!’ cried Isabel, in her impetuosity, ‘are you made of stone?’
‘My heart’s dead,’ she said; and then relapsed into silence, which the hasty, eager creature beside her could not break.
To leave her thus in her apathy seemed impossible to Isabel, and it was equally impossible to stay and devote herself to Ailie’s solace, for Ailie did not seem susceptible of any solace. She was lost in her own thoughts. Before Isabel’s heart had ceased to throb with agitation and excitement, Ailie had settled back into the profoundest stillness, saying nothing to her visitor, taking no notice even of her presence. And there was nothing left for it but to leave her to herself—to the silence she preferred.
Isabel had just made up her mind to do this when the door opened again, this time with more sound and commotion, and Ailie’s mother entered the room. She came forward briskly, bringing the ordinary out-of-door life into the mysterious atmosphere, though a certain appearance of anxiety about her eyes betrayed that even Janet was disturbed by a state of affairs so much different from her hopes.
‘Eh, Mrs. Lothian, I’m glad to see you,’ she said, ‘but will you no sit down? My daughter is so taken up about parting with Ardnamore that she’s no as thoughtful as she should be. Ailie, my dear, I hope you’ve thanked Mrs. Lothian for coming to see you. It’s a real attention, and her no in the way of visiting; but you were ay friends. Will you no sit down?’
‘I am going away,’ said Isabel, with a little dignity. ‘I have been here a long time. If there is anything I can do for Ailie, or anything Miss Catherine can do, if you will let us know——’
‘Miss Catherine, no doubt, will come and see her,’ said Janet; ‘she’s her ain relation. Na, there’s nothing anybody can do. She’s in her ain house, and a pleasant house it is. But Mrs. Diarmid will ay be glad to see her friends. You see she’s taken up just at this moment with her husband going away,’ said the dauntless old woman, confronting Isabel bravely, with a look which defied criticism. Isabel, however, had been too much moved by the interview to have any regard for appearances. She turned round upon the watchful mother as soon as the door of the room closed upon them.
‘Oh, tell me,’ she said, ‘has she been long like this? Is she always like this? Is there nothing that can be done?’
‘Like what, Mistress Lothian?’ said the old woman, looking direct into Isabel’s eyes.
And then there was a dead pause. Janet’s forehead had a contraction in it which only anxiety could have made so distinctly visible among the native wrinkles. The ruddy old cheek was blanched out of its usual wholesome wintry colour; but she stood by the door of the room in which her daughter sat, like a sentinel, and defied the world.
‘I mean—oh, how can you ask me?—who can see her, and not feel their hearts break?’ cried Isabel. ‘Will it always be like this?’
‘I dinna take your meaning,’ said Janet, grimly. ‘Ardnamore’s away on business, and Mrs. Diarmid is, maybe, no so cheerful as she might be. And I wouldna say but she’s a wee tired with her journey. I think ye never were abroad? It’s more fashious than just going to London. And when ye’ve been travelling like that, day and night, ye want rest.’
Isabel’s innocent mind was confused by this view of the matter. ‘Then, do you think, after all, that she’s not unhappy?’ she asked.
‘Unhappy!’ cried the old woman, ‘and her a good man, and a comfortable house, and well thought on, and everything that heart could desire!’
She had raised her voice, and the words seemed to ring through the mysterious, silent house. Isabel, who was too inexperienced to avoid yielding a bewildered assent to any strenuous assertion, was so moved by this that she went away wondering, asking herself whether she could be mistaken. But as soon as the door had closed upon her poor Janet’s strength broke down. She threw her apron over her head, and leaned against the wall, silent yet convulsed by a momentary struggle. ‘But I’ll never let on to the world,’ the old woman said to herself, as she came out from under that veil with a fiery sparkle in her worn, old eyes. Poor Ailie had at least one defender ready to stand by her to the death.