THIS was the ordinary of the life at the Hewan. A great deal of solitude, a great deal of thought, an endless circling of mind and reflection round one subject which shadowed heaven and earth, and affected every channel in which the thoughts of a silent much-reasoning creature can flow: and at the same time much acquaintance with a crowd of small human events making up the life of the neighbourhood, with which, practically speaking, Mrs Ogilvy had nothing to do, yet with which, in the way of sympathy, advice, and even criticism, she had a great deal to do. Such half confidences as that of Mr Logan were brought to her continually—veiled disclosures made for the purpose of finding out how such and such things looked in the eyes of a woman who was very discreet, who never repeated anything that was said, and who had the power of intimating an opinion as veiled as the disclosure by delicate methods without putting it into words. She sat on her modest height, a little oracle wrapped in mystery as to her own inner life, impartial and observant as to that about her. How she had come to be an authority in the village it would be difficult to tell. She was not a person of noted family or territorial importance, which is a thing which tells for so much in Scotland. Perhaps it was chiefly because, since the great misfortune of her life, she had retired greatly from the observation of the parish, paying no visits, seeing only the people who went to see her, and as for her own affairs confiding in nobody, asking no sympathy—too proud in her love and sorrow even to allow that she was stricken, or that the dearest object of her life was the occasion of all her suffering. Neighbours had adjured her not “to make an idol” of her boy; and after the trouble came they had shaken their heads and assured her in the first publicity of the blow that God was a jealous God, and would not permit idolatry. To these speeches she had never made any reply: and scarcely any one to this day knew whether his mother had ever heard from Robert, or was aware of his movements and history. This position had been very impressive to the little community. It is a kind of pride with which in Scotland there is a great deal of sympathy.
On the other hand she had never rejected the appeal, tacit or open, of any one who came to her. The ladies of the village were almost a little servile in the court they paid to this old lady. They liked to know what Mrs Ogilvy thought of most things that went on, and to have her opinion of any stranger who settled among them; and if a rumour rose in the village, where rumours are so apt to rise, nobody knows how, there was sure to be a concourse in the afternoon, unpremeditated and accidental, of visitors eager to hear, but very diffident of being the first to ask, what the lady of the Hewan thought. Now the suggestion that the minister of Eskholm was about to make a second marriage, overturning the entire structure of life, displacing his daughter, who had been the mistress of the manse for many years, and inflicting a new and alien sway upon his big boys and his little girls, all flourishing under the cheerful sovereignty of Susie, was such an idea as naturally convulsed the parish from one end to the other. And there was little doubt that this was the question it was intended to discuss, when two or three of these ladies met without concert or premeditation in the afternoon at the Hewan; and Janet, half proud of the concourse, half angry at the trouble involved, had to spend all the warm afternoon serving the tea. If such was the purpose, however, it was entirely foiled by the unlooked-for appearance of a lady not at all like the ladies of Eskholm—a stranger, with what was considered to be a strongly marked “English accent,” the very person who was believed to have led the minister astray. The new-comer was good-looking, well-dressed, and extremely anxious to please; but as the only method of doing so which she could think of was to take the lead of the conversation, and to assume the air of the principal person, the expedient perhaps was not very successful. But for the moment even Mrs Ogilvy was silenced. She allowed her hand to be engulfed in the two hands of the stranger held out to her; and even gave to this frank and smiling personage in her consternation the place of honour, the seat by herself. The English lady, Mrs Ainslie, was not shy; and the little hostile assembly in the drawing-room of the Hewan, which had assembled to discuss the danger to the minister of this alarming siren in their midst, was changed into an audience of civil listeners, hearing the siren discourse.
“Oh, I like it beyond description,” she said. “It has become the most important place in the world to me! What a thing providence is! We came here thinking of nothing, meaning to spend six weeks, or at the most two months. And lo! this little country retreat, as we thought it, has become—I really can’t speak of it. My daughter, my only remaining one, the last—whom I have sometimes thought the flower of the flock——”
“You will have a number of daughters?”
“I am a grandmother these four or five years,” said the stranger, spreading out her hands, and putting herself forth, and her still fresh attractions, with a laugh and a pardonable boast. The ladies of Eskholm, all listening, felt a movement among them, a half-perceptible rustle, half of interest, half of envy. This was what it was to be English, to have a house in London, to move about the world, to introduce your girls and have them properly appreciated. How can you do that in a small country place? Some of these ladies were grandmothers too, and no older than Mrs Ainslie, but not one of them could have succeeded in declaring with that light and airy manner, See how young, how fresh, how unlike a grandmother I am! They looked at her with admiration modified by disapproval. They had meant to discuss her, to organise a defence against her; and here she was in command of everybody’s attention, the centre of the group!
“I am sure,” the lady continued, “it is the truest thing to say that marriages are made in heaven. We came here, Sophie and I, thinking of nothing—just for a few weeks in the summer: and here she is happily married! and, for all I know, I may spend the rest of my life in the place. She is my youngest, and to be near her is such an attraction. Besides, I have made such excellent friends—friends that I hope to keep all my life.”
“It is not everybody that is so fortunate,” Mrs Ogilvy said. None of the audience gave her the least assistance. They were fascinated by the confidence of the stranger, her pleasure in her own good fortune, and her freedom from any of that shyness which silenced themselves.
“Fortunate is really too little to say. Fancy, all my girls have made love-matches, and my sons-in-law adore their wives—and me. Now, I think that is a triumph. They are all fond of me. Don’t you think it is a triumph? If ever I feel inclined to boast, it is of that.”
“You are perhaps one of those,” said Mrs Ogilvy, somewhat grimly, “that, as we say in this country, a’body likes,—which is always a compliment—in one way.”
“That ah-body likes,” cried Mrs Ainslie with out-stretched hands, and an imitation which had a very irritating effect on the listeners. “Thank you a hundred times. It is a very pretty compliment, I think.”
“That awbody likes,” repeated Mrs Ogilvy, putting the vowel to rights. “We do not always mean it in just such a favourable sense.”
“It means a person that makes herself agreeable—with no real meaning in it,” said one.
“It means just a whillie-wha,” said another.
“It means a person, as they say, with a face like a fiddle, and no sincerity behind.”
Mrs Ainslie put up her hands again. “Oh, how am I to understand so much Scotch? I must ask Mr Logan,” she said.
And then again there was a pause. She dared to mention him! in the face of all those ladies banded together for his defence.
“What a delightful man he is,” she proceeded—“so learned, and so clever, and so good! I don’t know that I ever met with such a man. If he were only not so weighed down with these children. Dear Mrs Ogilvy, don’t you think it is dreadful to see a poor man so burdened. If he had only some one to keep order a little and take proper care of him. My heart sinks for him whenever I go into his house.”
Then there was a universal outcry, no longer capable of being controlled. “I cannot see that at all,” cried one. “He has Susie,” cried two or three together. “And where could he find a better? I wish, indeed, he was more worthy of such a daughter as that.”
It was an afternoon of surprises, and of the most sensational kind, for just as the ladies of Eskholm were warming to this combat, in which so much more was meant than met the eye, and, a little flushed with the heat of the afternoon and the tea and rising temper, were turning fiery looks toward the interloper, the door opened quietly, without any preliminary bell or even knock at the door, and Susie Logan herself—Susie, in behalf of whom they were all so ready to do battle—walked quietly in. Susie herself was quite calm, perfectly fresh, though she had been walking in the hottest hour of the day,—her white straw hat giving a transparent shade to the face, her cotton dress so simple, fresh, and clean. Nobody ever managed to look so fresh and without soil of any kind as Susie, whatever she might do.
There was a sudden pause again, a pause more dramatic than before, for the speakers had all been in full career, and some of them angry. Susie was very familiar at the Hewan—she was like the daughter of the house. She stopped short at the door and looked round, too much at home even to pretend that she did not see how embarrassing her appearance was. “I must have interrupted something?” she said.
“Oh no, no, Susie.” “How could you interrupt anything?” “You are just the one that would know the most of it, whatever we were discussing,” the ladies hastened to say, one taking the word from another. Mrs Ogilvy held out her hand without moving. “Come in, come in,” she said; “and ye can leave the door a little open, Susie, for we’re all flushed a little with the heat and with our tea.”
Mrs Ainslie was the one who gave Susan the most marked reception. She alone got up and took the girl in her arms. “How glad I should have been,” she said, “had I known I was to meet you here.”
“Now, Susie, I will not have this,” said Mrs Ogilvy; “sit down and do not make yourself the principal person, my dear; for I was thinking it was me this lady was glad to see. As we are talking of marriages, I would like to know if anybody can tell me about that big lassie Thomasine that I’ve been hearing of—a creature that has a cottage and a kailyard, and not much of a head on her shoulders. Will he be a decent man?”
There were some who shook their heads, and there were some who answered more cordially—Thomasine’s husband had been as much discussed in the parish as a more important alliance could have been. And under the shelter of this new inquiry most of the guests stole away. Mrs Ainslie herself was one of the last to go. She put once more an arm round Susie. “Are you coming, my love? I should like to walk with you,” she said.
“Not yet, Mrs Ainslie,” said Susan, with rising colour. She freed herself from the embrace with a little haste. “I have not seen Mrs Ogilvie for a long time.”
“You have not seen me either,” said the stranger playfully and tenderly, shaking a finger at her; “but it is right that new friends, even when they’re dear friends, should yield to old friends,” she said, with a little sigh and smile. She made a very graceful exit considering all things, and Susie’s presence prevented even the lingerer who went last from murmuring a private word as she had wished. When they were all gone, Susie placed herself by her old friend’s side.
“They worry you, these folk; they come to you with all their clashes. What was it this time? I saw they were stopped by me. It was not that old business,” said Susie, with a blush, “about Johnny Maitland? I thought that was all past and gone.”
“It was not that—it was rather this lady, this English person that stopped all their mouths before you came in. She is a very wyss-like woman, though her manners are strange to me. As I said to your father, she’s well put-on and well looking. Do you like her, Susie?”
“Me! I’ve no occasion not to like her, Mrs Ogilvy.”
“I was not asking that. Do you like her, Susie?”
Upon which Susie began to laugh. “What can I say?—
‘I dinna like ye, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I canna tell.’
I’ve no occasion not to like her. She is always very kind, a little too kind, to me—I am not fond of all that kissing—but it is perhaps just her way. I am not very fond of her, to tell the truth.”
“Nor am I, Susie; but she is maybe well enough if we were not prejudiced.”
“Oh yes, she is well enough,—she is more than that; and papa thinks there is nobody like her,” she added, with a laugh.
“Ah! your papa has an opinion on the subject?”
“And why not? He has a great eye for the ladies. Did you not know that? I think I like her the less because he makes so much of her. There was that party she had for the marriage, I never hear the end of it. It was all so nice, and so little trouble, and no fuss, and no expense, and so forth. How can he tell it was no expense?—all the things were sent out from Edinburgh!” said Susie, offended in her pride of housekeeping; “and as for the sandwiches and things, I have seen the very same in Edinburgh parties, and not so very new either. I could make them perfectly myself!”
“My dear, that is the way of men,” said Mrs Ogilvy; “a bit of bread-and-butter in a strange place they will take for a ferlie: whereas it’s only a piece for the bairns at home.”
“Oh, papa is not so bad as that,” said Susie; “and I’m very silly to mind. Now, just you lean back in your big chair and be quiet a little; and I will go ben to Janet and bring you a little new-made tea.”
“I like to see you do it, Susie. I like to take it from your hand. It is not for the tea——”
“No, it is not for the tea,” said the girl; and, though she was not fond of kissing, as she said, she touched Mrs Ogilvy’s old soft cheek tenderly with her fresh lips, and went away briskly on her errand with a tear in her eye. Perhaps it is something of a misnomer to call Susie Logan a girl. I fear she must have been thirty or a little more; but she had never left her home, and though she was full of experience, she retained all the freshness and openness of youth. Her hazel eyes were limpid and mildly bright; her features good if not remarkable; her colour fresh as a summer morning. Nowhere could she go without carrying a sense of youth and life with her; and here in this still existence at the Hewan among the old people she was doubly young, the representative of all that was wanting to make that house bright. She alone could make the mistress yield to this momentary indulgence, and permit herself to look tired and to rest. And for her Janet joyfully boiled the kettle over again, though she had just been congratulating herself on having finished for the day.
Susan went back and administered the tea, that cordial which is half for the body and half for the mind, but which swallowed amid a crowd of visitors fulfils neither purpose: and then she seated herself by Mrs Ogilvy’s side. “How good it is to feel they’re all gone away and we are just left to our two selves!”
“Have you anything particular to say to me, Susie?”
“Oh no, nothing particular; everything is just in its ordinary: the little ones are sometimes rather a handful, and if papa would get them a governess I would be thankful. They mean no harm, the little things; but the weather is warm and the day is long, and they are not fond of their lessons—neither am I,” said Susie, with a laugh, “if the truth were told.”
“And you are finding them a little too much for you—that is what your father was saying——”
“I find them too much for me! did papa say that?” cried Susie, alarmed; “that was never, never in my head. I may grumble a little, half in fun; but too much for me, Mrs Ogilvy! me that was born to it, the eldest daughter! such a thing was never, never in my mind——”
“I told him so, my dear, but he would not believe me; he just maintained it to my face that it was too much for you, and your health was beginning to fail.”
“What would he mean by that?” said Susie, sitting up very upright on her chair. A shadow came over her brightness. “Oh, I hope he has not got any new idea in his head,” she cried.
“Maybe he will be thinking of a governess for the little ones, Susie.”
“It might be that,” she acknowledged in subdued tones. “And then,” she added, with again a sudden laugh, “I heard that woman—no, no, I never meant to speak of her so—I heard Mrs Ainslie saying to him it would be a good thing. I would rather not have the easement than get it through her hands.”
“Oh fie! Susie, fie! she would have no ill motive: you must not take such things into your head.”
“It is she that makes me feel as if it were too much,” cried Susie, “coming in at all hours following me about the house. I get so tired of her that I am tired of everything. I could just dance at the sight of her: she puts me out of my senses; and always pitying me that want none of her pity! It must be kindness, I suppose,” said Susie, grudgingly; “but then I wish she would not be so kind.” After this there was a pause. The talk came to an end all at once. Mrs Ainslie and her doings dropped out of it as if she had gone behind a veil; and Susie looked in her old friend’s face, with the tenderest of inquiring looks, a question that needed not to be spoken.
“No word still, no word?” she rather looked than said.
“Never a word: not one, not one!” the elder woman replied.
Susie put her head down on Mrs Ogilvy’s knee, and her cheek upon her friend’s hand, and then gave way to a sudden outburst of silent tears, sobbing a little, like a child. Mrs Ogilvy shed no tear. She patted the bowed head softly with her hand, as if she had been consoling a child. “The time’s very long,” she said,—“very long, and never a word.”
After a while Susie raised her head. “I must, perhaps, not be very well after all,” she said, with an attempt at a smile; “or why should I cry like that? It is just that I could not help thinking and minding. It was about this time of the year——”
“The fifteenth of this month,” Mrs Ogilvy said; “to-morrow, and then it’ll be fifteen years.”
They sat for a little together saying nothing; and then Susie exclaimed, as if she could not contain herself, “But he’ll come back—I’m just as sure Robbie will come back! He will give you no warning; he was never one for writing. You will just hear his step on the road, and he will be here.”
“That is what I think myself,” Mrs Ogilvy said.
And while they were sitting together silent, there suddenly came into the silence the click of the gate and the sound of a step. And they both started, for a moment almost believing that he had come.