THE morning came so much wished for, in a blaze of wintry sunshine befitting such a joyful day. Kilcranion was a village on the other side of the hills from Loch Diarmid, which lived upon the summer visitors to ‘the saut-water,’ and shut up its houses all the winter through, so that Stapylton had been hailed as an angel of light, when he offered to take one of them, and had every difficulty smoothed out of his way. He was to go there when he had taken Isabel to the Glebe, and complete the necessary arrangements about the house, and would come for her, he said, in the evening to take her home.
Her heart beat so loudly when once more the steamer carried her up Loch Diarmid, that the very power of speech seemed to forsake her. This time there was no kind, homely face looking out from the pier to welcome her. No one knew she was coming. The village folk gave her a gruff ‘good-day’ as she passed, with a look towards her husband, half of scorn, half of disgust. There was no sign of life in the windows of the House, as they passed Lochhead together. People on the road stared at her, and then turned round and stared again, disapproving of her, unfriendly to him. Isabel had known it all, and believed that she had accepted it, half in scorn, half in resignation; but she felt the difference when it was thus brought before her. And Stapylton’s face had clouded over the moment they set foot on the shores of Loch Diarmid. A sullen shadow came over him. He walked with his eyes cast down, saying little to her, taking no notice of anything around.
‘I hate the place!’ he said, with angry energy; ‘if you had taken my feelings into consideration you would never have asked me to come back.’
‘Oh, Horace!’ cried poor Isabel, faltering, ‘let me get my baby, and let us go wherever you like! I will never more ask you to come back.’
‘Always that baby!’ he said, with something that sounded like an oath; and thus all the flutter of joy was stilled in her heart as they went up the hill.
But when she entered the familiar house, and, rushing in all eager and breathless, found herself by the side of the homely cradle in which little Margaret was sleeping, the young mother’s heart felt ready to burst with delight and misery. She fell softly on her knees beside it, and worshipped. Soft tears gushed to her eyes, a soft transport filled her. ‘Oh, my baby, my darling!’ she cried, putting down her head upon the little coverlet, with other inarticulate cries, like the cooings of a dove. When she recollected herself, and looked up with a sudden pang of terror, she caught her husband’s eye bent upon her with that look of incredulity which goes to a woman’s heart. He thought it was a piece of acting for his benefit. He did not believe in the reality of any such overflowing of the heart over an unresponsive child. He would have been, indeed, more offended had he thought it real, than he was by the supposed simulation. The one would have proved his wife to be capable of loving something else as well as she did himself; the other was but the homage of weakness to power. ‘You think you can take me in with all this,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘It is very good acting, Isabel; but I know better than that.’
‘Acting?’ she said, rising slowly to her feet, with wonder so great that it almost overwhelmed the pain.
‘Yes,’ he said, taking her into his arms. ‘Do you think I don’t know that not for all the babies in the world would you risk parting with me?’
She gave a little cry, which he did not understand; and all the sages in the world could not have explained to Horace Stapylton the nature of those tears which his wife shed on his shoulder, with her face buried in her hands; the anguish—the despair of ever understanding, he her, or she him; the sudden fiery indignation, the bitter disappointment, the struggle of love with love, and blame and pity. Oh, that he whom she loved could feel so! Oh, that he could be so little, so—— and then she stopped herself even in her thoughts, and moaned aloud.
‘Well, well,’ he said, superior and compassionate, ‘don’t take it so much to heart, if I’ve found you out. I’ll go now, and at four o’clock I’ll come back for you; but mind you are ready, for I don’t want to be driving about the country in a moonless night.’
When he went away, Isabel felt that she drew a long breath of relief. She was glad, and yet how miserable it was to feel herself glad! She dropped wearily into a chair, and sat and gazed upon her sleeping child. She was thus seated in a kind of stupor, with eyes blinded with tears, when Jean came into the room. Jean had been mollified, in spite of herself, by the care her stepdaughter had taken to provide for her. Even such a benefit could not purchase her approval of the marriage; but that and Isabel’s absence, and a certain something in her eye, which did not speak of perfect satisfaction in her new lot, had touched Jean’s kindly heart.
‘Isna she a picture?’ she cried, placing herself behind Isabel with uplifted hands of worship; ‘and as thriving and as firm as heart could desire. Eh, Isabel! I thought she would have broken her bit heart the day you went away. There would be ay a look at the door, and stretching out her arms to everyone that came nigh, and ay another wail when the poor infant was disappointed. I got an awfu’ fear that it might bring on something—but sin syne she’s been as good and as bonnie as you see her now.’
‘My little darling!’ was all the young mother could say.
‘Hoots, dinna greet: it’s meeting and no parting now,’ said Jean, with a keen look of inspection. And then there was a pause. Isabel had not the heart to move nor to speak, nor even to take her child into her arms.
‘If it had been me I would have had her afore now! Hoots, never mind waking her; whisht, my bonnie lamb! Your little bed’s saft, but no so saft as your ain mother’s bosom. There she is to ye,’ said Jean, putting the rosy, half-awakened child into her mother’s arms. The good woman stood and gazed at the group with a cordial, kindly pleasure. ‘Poor lass! poor bairn!’ she said to herself as she watched the mother’s passion of kisses and tears and unintelligible words: vague suspicions were creeping about Jean’s mind. This close strain of passion, those tears which did not dry up as they ought to have done, or give place to smiles, filled her with alarm—an alarm, it must be confessed, not unmixed with satisfaction, for had not she, in common with all the country-side, declared that of such a marriage no good could come?
‘Mr. Stapylton, he’s away to Kilcranion?—ye’re to bide there, I hear? but what for could you no come hame, Isabel, to your own house?’
‘It is your house now,’ said Isabel, with an attempt at a smile.
‘Na, na, only the life-rent,’ said Jean, ‘of my ain end; and I’m awfu’ thankfu’ to have that. Am I one to come ben to the parlour and set up for a leddy? No, my bonnie woman, it’s hers and yours a’ the days of my life, as well as when I’m dead and gone. Him and you might have been as comfortable here as in Johnny Gibb’s house at Kilcranion. There’s nae accounting for tastes—but sure am I there’s no a room in it equal to the new parlour here in the Glebe.’
‘It is only for a short time—a month or two,’ said Isabel.
‘And where are you going then, if ane might ask?’
‘We were talking of going to America,’ said Isabel, under her breath. The child had relapsed into sleep again with its head nestled against her breast.
‘To America!’ said Jean. ‘Eh, Isabel! that’s an awfu’ change to think of—and the bairn——?’
‘What of the bairn?’ cried Isabel in a sudden wild panic of terror; and gathering up her child’s rosy, dimpled limbs in her arms, she rose and confronted her stepmother as if there could be any meaning or power in Jean’s unconsidered words.
‘Na, Isabel, I’m meaning nothing,’ said Jean, falling back in dismay; the sharp misery of the young mother’s tone, her desperate attitude, the sudden mastery of her excitement over all her motherly care not to disturb the baby, came like a revelation to her stepmother; with a woman’s wit she seized upon the sudden pang which had come to herself, to comfort with that, the unknown and deeper misery which thus erected itself before her without a moment’s warning. ‘It’s just that my heart will break to part with the darling,’ she cried, putting her apron to her eyes.
And then Isabel calmed down and took her seat again, and shed a few silent tears, trembling meanwhile with excitement, and the secret something which Jean could see was ‘on her mind’ but could not divine. She made no complaint, however, and no disclosure, but quieted herself with a power of self-command which the homely but close observer standing by perceived to be new developed in her. When she spoke again it was about little Margaret’s ‘things,’ that they might be packed up and ready when the gig came for them at four o’clock.
‘Will ye take her away with ye?’ said Jean; ‘it’s awfu’ sudden; will ye take her this very night?’
‘Do you think I would give my darling up again?’ cried Isabel, with her cheek pressed against the child’s cheek.
‘If you’re sure it’s for the best,’ said Jean, whose mind was really disturbed and anxious for her stepdaughter. ‘Isabel, my bonnie woman, I’m meaning no slight to him; but men are queer creatures. They’re no fond whiles of a little bairn that takes up the mother’s time, even when it’s their ain bairn; and she’ll no go to strangers. And ye canna have her with you at night as ye used to have her. My dear, if I was you I would take time to think.’
‘I will never part with my baby again!’ said Isabel. In the quietness her old nature seemed to come back to her. The spell of Stapylton’s presence began to lose its fascinations. She began again to feel that it was still lawful for her to judge and decide for herself.
‘But if it was to make any—dispeace. I’m meaning no offence. She’s well and safe, and ye can trust her with me. My bonnie woman! you must not do that in haste that you’ll repent o’ before the day’s done.’
‘How should I repent of it?’ she said, hastily, but would not yield. She had made up her mind entirely how it was to be done. She would say not a word to her husband, but take it for granted as a thing inevitable. Even, if she saw that to be expedient, she would cover up her baby under her cloak, until the trajet was accomplished. In one way or other, howsoever she might be baffled, she had determined to take the child with her. All that Jean, who saw the practical difficulties better than she did, could succeed in settling was that Jenny Spence’s eldest daughter, at present ‘out of a place,’ whom little Margaret knew, should go with her to Kilcranion, to take care of her, and relieve the young mother from constant attention to the child. Jean sent off her boy instantly to warn Nelly Spence that she must make ready. ‘If she goes by the afternoon boat, she’ll be at the house as soon as you,’ said Jean; and when that was fairly accomplished, it was, as she said, a weight off her mind.
Meanwhile, Isabel sat sunk in a quiet which was almost stupor; the past days had been very agitating days. And now the stillness and the soft sleep of the child, and the embracing of the old kindly house which seemed to stretch its arms round her with a forgiving calm, and Jean’s kindly accustomed ministrations lulled her very soul within her. The good things she had lost came back and floated round her, bringing something of their own peace into her heart; and all that was disturbing and novel had passed away for a moment like a dream. She felt as if she could have slept like the baby.
‘Sleep, my darling, if ye can,’ said Jean, compassionately, ‘you’ve been doing more than you were able—it’s the cold air, and then the fire—— ’
‘No, no,’ said Isabel, rousing up. ‘Instead of that, if you will pack up her things, I’ll take little Margaret out for a walk, while the sun is so warm on the braes.’
‘Weel, weel,’ said Jean, ‘ye’ll come to nae harm there now.’ Not now, all the harm was over and done. ‘And that she’s no happy is written in her face,’ Jean continued, as she watched her straying out into the sunshine, with a spark of natural wonder that she should take that way of spending the short day. But she was mollified when she saw that Isabel crossed the road to the spot on the hill where it had been Margaret’s custom to pray. ‘And she’ll maybe get good there, poor thing, so ill as she has done for herself,’ the sympathetic woman said to herself, looking out from the door. She had watched wilful Isabel so often taking her wayward course from that door; sometimes to meet her ‘lad,’ as in the old times upon the braes; sometimes demure and stately to join Miss Catherine in some long longed-for pleasure; then leaning on her husband’s arm, the serene minister’s wife; then mournful in her widow’s weeds. ‘I understood a’ but this,’ Jean said, meditatively, to herself. ‘But that she’s no happy is written in her face.’
The child was now awake, smiling upon her, after the first momentary blank of forgetfulness, and had made her heart leap by saying, or stammering, ‘Mamma,’ the accomplishment which all this time Jean had been labouring to teach her. Little Margaret danced and babbled in her mother’s arms, and stretched out her hands to the running burn and to the bare branches of the other Margaret’s rowan-tree, when Isabel paused beneath it. She had meant to bring her great trouble out with her there, and to ask God’s counsel, when she left the cottage; but the baby’s mirth beguiled the poor young mother. She sat down on the grassy seat, and forgot everything, and played with her child. What good would thinking do her? What good (she had almost said, and stopped herself with a pang of reproach) would prayer do her? Oh, if she could but pray! and then, in her agitation, she caught at the momentary delight that was nearest to her, and played with her baby, and on the edge of the precipice forgot her terror. Then, as softer and softer thoughts gained her mind, Isabel rose up again, and, half stealthily, went past her own door and up the hill-side to the spot where she had so often met her lover under the little birch-tree. The grass and the heather were heavy with wintry moisture, but she was unaware of it. And again her head grew giddy, and everything looked to her like a dream. Was it Stapylton’s wife who was standing there under the tree, where he had been so fond and so cruel? Was this his child in her arms? Was her life one and indivisible, or a thing of shreds and patches, broken into fragments? She stood and grew giddy with the thought, looking over the wintry braes, while little Margaret caught at the drooping branches of the birch, and laughed at the shower of dewy spray which they scattered over her. Her baby laugh seemed to her mother to wake echoes all over earth and Heaven—echoes that reached the churchyard, where they were lying who would have defended the child—which might reach the child’s enemy on the road miles away, and put evil thoughts in his mind against the innocent, unconscious creature. And her child’s enemy was her own lover and husband—could such a misery be?
She was standing thus as in a dream, when a voice in her ear made her start, and spring aside in mortal terror. She could not have told what she was afraid of. Something—anything—ghosts in the daylight; and what she saw was not unlike a ghost. It was Ailie in her white dress, with a shawl over her head—Ailie, who had fallen as entirely out of Isabel’s self-absorbed musings as if she had never been.
‘What are you doing here, Isabel Diarmid?’ she said, ‘your courting’s past, and you’re married to another man. You have chosen this world, and you’re satisfied. What are you doing here?’
‘Oh, Ailie! you frighten me,’ said Isabel, holding her child fast in her arms.
‘Many a time I frighten mysel,’ said Ailie, ‘I come and go, and I carena where. I am seeking the Lord and I canna find Him. Something says in my heart Lo here and Lo there—but there’s nae sound of His coming, though I’m ay listening night and day?’
‘And are you no better?’ said Isabel, in her bewilderment: ‘and is there no word of Mr. John?’
‘Oh, aye, Mrs. Lothian, she’s better,’ said old Janet Macfarlane, coming forward nimbly from among the heather. The old woman was worn with anxiety and excitement, but kept her undaunted courage. ‘I beg your pardon, I canna mind your new name; they’re awfu’ fashious thae English names. Mrs. Diarmid’s a hantle better, since the letters came from Ardnamore. He’s in Paris, he’s among his grand friends. I canna understand what it’s a’ about myself, but he says it’ll be in the papers if he shouldna hae time to write: and if your goodman should get an English paper, maybe you would let us hear. She’s real weel, and taking her walks, her and me, like the auld times,’ said Ailie’s champion. She met Isabel’s eye steadily, as she told this lie of pride and love. Ailie for her part took no notice. She was standing by Isabel’s side, looking with wistful eyes on the wild landscape, and seeing nothing; a creature distraught, and torn out of all the common woes and rules of life—but not mad, though even her mother thought so—at least not yet.
‘I was never ill,’ she said softly, ‘I want but one thing, Isabel, but that I canna get. I would be as well as you, and as light-footed, and as ready to do whatever there was to do—if I had but light from the Lord.’
‘Has it never come back?’ said Isabel, wistfully, not knowing what to say.
‘Whiles I think it will never come back,’ said Ailie, shaking her head, ‘and whiles there is a glimmer of hope. My mother’s ay at my side night and day; and if she is that kind, would He break His word? Isabel, it’s an awfu’—awfu’ trial! What are your trials to that? To be disappointed in your God! But if she is that kind, would He break His word? I never was a mother myself. But if you were tempted with a’ this world could bestow, would you give up your little bairn?’
A cry burst out of Isabel’s heart. She clasped her child closer, and sprang apart from the strange questioner.
‘Oh, no never—never! not if I should die.’
‘And you’re but a young thing, and she’s but an old worldly woman,’ said Ailie, with solemn calm, ‘and would He break His word that’s above a’?’
Isabel’s heart, which had been momentarily still, beat so loudly at this unthought-of anticipation of her inmost struggle that she could not speak, but only gaze with awe and troubled wonder, while Ailie glided away as she came without another word. She passed along among the heather, threading her way by instinct, a strange, ghostly white figure, with her mother like a shadow beside her. Thus the shuttle which wove out one of those lives, shot across the other once again, making a mystic connection between them. Isabel went home, hushed and silent, after this strange encounter. The wonder of it overpowered her, and silenced her own thoughts.
‘You have told me nothing about Ailie,’ she said, when she was once more seated in the little parlour before the cheerful fire.
‘She’s taken to wandering far and near,’ said Jean, ‘ay in her white gown. Some say she’s clean daft, poor lass; but I canna think it’s as bad as that. She’s awfu’ good to the poor folk, and whiles will stop and say a word—if you’ll believe me, Isabel—mair like our Margret’s words and mair comforting and reasonable than when she spoke in the power.’
‘But her heart is broken,’ said Isabel, with a sigh, which came from the depths of her own.
‘And there’s something, they say down by, in this week’s paper about Mr. John. But you’ll hear better than me. Some awfu’ business there’s been in France about killing the king. They say he’s one of thae revolutionaries. But I havena seen the paper myself,’ said Jean. ‘I’m thinking I hear the wheels of the gig coming up the brae.’
Isabel gave a hurried glance up in her face, and another at her child. A glance not of suggestion, but of speechless, bewildered appeal.
‘Go out and meet your man, my bonnie woman,’ her stepmother added hurriedly, ‘and give me the bairn.’
Not another word was said between them on the subject. There was no confidence made, no counsel asked. But Isabel understood that her stepmother saw vaguely, yet truly, what was in her heart. The wintry afternoon was growing dark; the stars were already half visible in the frosty sky.
‘Make haste, for it is getting late!’ Stapylton shouted from the door. Isabel put on her own outdoor dress with trembling hands, while Jean dressed her child. Then she took little Margaret into her arms under her cloak. Her face was deadly pale with excitement, and resolution, and terror. She put up her white lips to her stepmother to kiss her, though such salutations were rare between them—and then went out firmly with her precious hidden burden—her heart bounding wildly against her breast.
‘Make haste, Isabel!’ her husband shouted from the gig. He did not get down to help her into it, having already begun to glide out of the habits of a lover. And, after an awful moment of fear, she found herself seated by his side, without remark on his part. The baby moved and struggled under the cloak, but Stapylton took no notice. ‘What are you putting in now to delay us?’ he cried to Jean, who was placing the child’s little basket of ‘things’ behind. He was full of impatience to be off, and thought of nothing else for the moment. ‘It will be quite dark before we get home,’ he said, with almost a scowl at the delay.
Jean stood and gazed after them as they darted from the door. ‘Oh, canny, canny, down the brae!’ she cried. She had not shed a tear over the parting, but her heart was heavy and sore. ‘She’ll repent it but once, and that will be a’ her life,’ she said to herself, as the black speck disappeared over the hill, ‘and it’s begun already. I ay said it, if that were ony satisfaction; but she never would listen to me.’