IT was six months since Gilbert Speid had gone from Whanland. Summer, who often lingers in the north, had stayed late into September, to be scared away by the forest fires of her successor, Autumn. The leaves had dropped, and the ice-green light which spreads above the horizon after sunset on the east coast had ushered in the winter.
Christmas, little observed in Scotland, was over; the New Year had brought its yearly rioting and its general flavour of whisky, goodwill, and demoralization. Many of the county people had resorted to their ‘town-houses’ in Kaims, where card-parties again held their sway, and Mrs. Somerville, prominent among local hostesses, dispensed a genteel hospitality.
The friendship between Barclay and Fordyce was well established, for the young gentleman had paid the lawyer a second visit, even more soothing to his feelings than the first. In the minds of these allies Gilbert’s departure had caused a great stir, for Crauford was still at Kaims when his rival summoned Barclay, and informed him that he was leaving Whanland for an indefinite time. But, though Fordyce had no difficulty in deciding that Speid’s action was the result of his being refused by Cecilia Raeburn, Kaims fitted a new and more elaborate explanation to the event each time it was mentioned. The matter had nothing to do with the young lady, said some. Mr. Speid was ruined. Anyone who did not know of his disastrous West Indian speculations must have kept his ears very tight shut. And this school of opinion—a male one—closed its hands on the top of its cane, and assumed an aspect of mingled caution and integrity. This view was generally expressed in the street.
In the drawing-rooms more luscious theories throve. Miss Raeburn, as everyone must have seen, had made a perfect fool of poor Mr. Speid. All the time she had been flirting—to call it by no worse a name—with that rich young Fordyce, and had even enticed him back, when his uncle at last succeeded in getting him out of her way. It was incredible that Mr. Speid had only now discovered how the land lay! He had taken it very hard, but surely, he ought to have known what she was! It was difficult to pity those very blind people. It was also opined that Mr. Speid’s departure was but another proof of the depravity of those who set themselves up and were overnice in their airs. He was already a married man, and justice, in the shape of an incensed Spanish lady—the mother of five children—had overtaken him while dangling after Miss Raeburn. With the greatest trouble, the stranger had been got out of the country unseen. It was a lesson.
Among the few who had any suspicions of the truth, or, at least, of a part of it, was Barclay; for he had been a young clerk in his father’s office at the time when the first Mr. Speid left Whanland in much the same way. He could not help suspecting that something connected with the mystery he remembered was now driving Gilbert from Scotland, for he scorned no means of inquiry, and had heard through channels he was not ashamed to employ, of a demeanour in Cecilia which proved it impossible that she had sent her lover away willingly. Some obstacle had come between them which was not money; the lawyer had good reasons for knowing that there was enough of that. He also knew how devoted Lady Eliza was to the young woman, and how welcome it would be to her to have her settled within such easy reach. He did not believe that any personal dislike on her part had set her against the marriage, for, however little he liked Gilbert himself, he knew him for a type of man which does not generally find its enemies among women. He was certain, in his own mind, that she had stood in the way, and his suspicion of her reasons for doing so he duly confided to Fordyce, bidding him pluck up heart; he was willing, he said, to take a heavy bet that a year hence would see Cecilia at the head of his table. Thus he expressed himself.
‘And I hope it may often see you at it too,’ rejoined Crauford, with what he considered a particularly happy turn of phrase. Barclay certainly found no fault with it.
Though Crauford’s vanity had made the part of rejected one insupportable, and therefore spurred him forward, he probably had less true appreciation of Cecilia than any person who knew her, and in the satisfactory word ‘ladylike’ he had sunk all her wonderful charm and unobvious, but very certain, beauty; he would have to be a new man before they could appeal to him as they appealed to Gilbert. What had really captivated him was her eminent suitability to great-ladyhood, for the position of being Mrs. Crauford Fordyce was such an important one in his eyes that he felt it behoved him to offer it immediately, on finding anyone who could so markedly adorn it.
But, under the manipulation of Barclay, his feelings were growing more intense, and he lashed himself into a far more ardent state of mind. The lawyer hated Gilbert with all his heart, and therefore spared no pains in urging on his rival. His desire to stand well with Fordyce and his pleasure in frustrating his client jumped the same way, and he had roused his new friend’s jealousy until he was almost as bitter against Speid as himself. Crauford, left alone, would probably have recovered from his disappointment and betaken himself elsewhere, had he not been stung by Barclay into a consistent pursuit of his object; and, as it was upon his worst qualities that the lawyer worked, his character was beginning to suffer. For all the elder man’s vulgarity, he had a great share of cleverness in dealing with those who had less brains than himself, and Fordyce was being flattered into an unscrupulousness of which no one would have believed him capable. He would have done anything to worst Gilbert.
Meantime, there was consternation at Fordyce Castle. Crauford had no wish to be more at home than was necessary, and it was only towards the end of Lady Maria Milwright’s sojourn there that he returned, to find his mother torn between wrath at his defection and fear lest he should escape anew. The latter feeling forced her into an acid compliance towards him, strange to see. But he was impervious to it, and, to the innocent admiration of Lady Maria, in whose eyes he was something of a hero, he made no acknowledgment; his mind was elsewhere. Mary and Agneta looked on timidly, well aware of a volcanic element working under their feet; and Agneta, who felt rebellion in the air and had some perception of expediency, made quite a little harvest, obtaining concessions she had scarce hoped for through her brother, to whom Lady Fordyce saw herself unable to deny anything in reason. It was a self-conscious household, and poor Lady Maria, upon whom the whole situation turned, was the only really peaceful person in it.
Macquean was again in charge of Whanland and of such things as remained in the house; the stable was empty, the picture which had so influenced Gilbert was put away with its fellows, and the iron box of jewels had returned to the bankers. The place was silent, the gates closed.
Before leaving, Speid had gone to Kaims to bid his cousins good-bye, and had remained closeted with Miss Hersey for over an hour. He said nothing of his discovery, and made no allusion to the barrier which had arisen between him and the woman he loved. He only told her that Cecilia had refused him at Lady Eliza’s wish, and that, in consequence, he meant to leave a place where he was continually reminded of her and take his trouble to Spain, that he might fight it alone. At Miss Hersey’s age there are few violent griefs, though there may be many regrets, but it was a real sorrow to her to part with her kinsman, so great was her pride in him. To her, Lady Eliza’s folly was inexplicable, and the ‘ill-talk’ on account of which she no longer visited Mrs. Somerville did not so much as enter her mind. Relations are the last to hear gossip of their kinsfolk, and the rumours of thirty years back had only reached her in the vaguest form, to be looked upon by her with the scorn which scurrilous report merits. That they had the slightest foundation was an idea which had simply never presented itself. Very few ideas of any kind presented themselves to Miss Caroline, and to Miss Hersey, none derogatory to her own family.
‘Her ladyship is very wrong, and she will be punished for it,’ said the old lady, holding her gray head very high. ‘Mr. Speid of Whanland is a match for any young lady, I can assure her.’
He looked away. Evidently ‘Speid of Whanland’ sounded differently to himself and to her. He wondered why she did not understand what had gone against him, but he could not talk about it, even to Miss Hersey.
‘You will find plenty as good as Miss Raeburn,’ she continued. ‘You should show her ladyship that others know what is to their advantage better than herself.’
Gilbert sighed, seeing that his point of view and hers could never meet. Granny Stirk would have understood him, he knew, for she had tasted life; but this frail, gentle creature had reached that sexless femininity of mind which comes after an existence spent apart from men. And he loved her none the less for her lack of comprehension, knowing the loyalty of her heart.
‘You will come back,’ she said, ‘and, maybe, bring a wife who will put the like of Miss Raeburn out of your head. I would like to see it, Gilbert; but Caroline and I are very old, and I think you will have to look for news of us on the stone in the churchyard. There are just the two names to come. But, while we are here, you must tell me anything that I can do for you after you have gone.’
‘I will write to you, ma’am,’ said Speid, his voice a little thick; ‘and, in any case, I mean to ask you a favour before I go.’
She looked at him with loving eyes.
‘I am going to give you my address,’ he said, ‘or, at least, an address that will eventually find me. I am going to ask you to send me word of anything that happens to Miss Raeburn.’
‘You should forget her, Gilbert, my dear.’
‘Oh, ma’am! you surely cannot refuse me? I have no one but you of whom I can ask it.’
‘I will do it, Gilbert.’
It was with this understanding that they parted.
To Jimmy Stirk and his grandmother his absence made a blank which nothing could fill. The old woman missed his visits and his talk, his voice and his step, his friendship which had bridged the gulf between age and youth, between rich and poor. She was hardly consoled by the occasional visits of Macquean, who would drop in now and then to recapitulate to her the circumstances of a departure which had never ceased to surprise him. He was not cut after her pattern, but she tolerated him for his master’s sake.
From Morphie bits of information had trickled; on the day of his last visit the servants had let nothing escape them, and Lady Eliza’s face, as she went about the house, was enough to convince the dullest that there was tragedy afoot. A maid had been in the passage, who had seen Gilbert as he left Cecilia.
‘Ye’ll no have gotten any word o’ the laird?’ inquired Granny on one of the first days of the young year, as Macquean stopped at her door.
‘Na, na.’
The old woman sighed, but made no gesture of invitation. From behind her, through the open half of the door, Macquean heard the sound of a pot boiling propitiously, and a comfortable smell reached him where he stood.
‘A’ was saying that a’ hadna heard just very muckle,’ continued he, his nostrils wide—‘just a sma’ word——’
‘Come away in-by,’ interrupted the Queen of the Cadgers, standing back, and holding the door generously open. ‘Maybe ye’ll take a suppie brose; they’re just newly made. Bide till a’ gie ye spune to them.’
It was warm inside the cottage, and he entered, and felt the contrast between its temperature and that of the sharp January air with satisfaction. Granny tipped some of the savoury contents of the black pot into a basin.
‘What was it ye was hearin’ about the laird?’ she asked, as she added a horn spoon to the concoction, and held it out to him.
‘Aw! it was just Wullie Nicol. He was sayin’ that he was thinkin’ the laird was clean awa’ now. It’s a piecie cauld, d’ye no think?’ replied Macquean, as well as he could for the pleasures of his occupation.
‘But what else was ye to tell me?’ she said, coming nearer.
‘There was nae mair nor that. Yon’s grand brose.’
With the exception of the old ladies in the close, no one but Barclay had heard anything of Speid. Macquean received his wages from the lawyer, and everything went on as it had done before Gilbert’s return, now more than a year since. Business letters came to Barclay at intervals, giving no address and containing no news of their writer, which were answered by him to a mail office in Madrid. To any communication which he made outside the matter in hand there was no reply. Miss Hersey had written twice, and whatever she heard in return from Speid she confided only to her sister. It was almost as though he had never been among them. The little roan hack and the cabriolet with the iron-gray mare were sold. As Wullie Nicol had said, he was ‘clean awa’ now.’
Gilbert’s one thought, when he found himself again on Spanish soil, was to obliterate each trace and remembrance of his life in Scotland, and he set his face to Madrid. On arriving, he began to gather round him everything which could help him to re-constitute life as it had been in Mr. Speid’s days, and, though he could not get back the house in which he had formerly lived, he settled not far from it with a couple of Spanish servants and began to wonder what he should do with his time. Nothing interested him, nothing held him. Old friends came flocking round him and he forced himself to respond to their cordiality; but he had no heart for them or their interests, for he had gone too far on that journey from which no one ever returns the same, the road to the knowledge of the strength of fate. Señor Gilbert was changed, said everyone; it was that cold north which had done it. The only wonder was that it had not killed him outright. And, after a time, they let him alone.
Miss Hersey’s letters did not tell him much; she heeded little of what took place outside her own house and less since he had gone; only when Sunday brought its weekly concourse to her drawing-room did she come into touch with the people round her. Of Lady Eliza, whose Presbyterian devotions were sheltered by Morphie kirk and who made no visits, she saw nothing. Now and then the news would reach Spain that ‘Miss Raeburn was well’ or that ‘Miss Raeburn had ridden into Kaims with her ladyship,’ but that was all. Gilbert had wished to cut himself completely adrift and he had his desire. The talk made by his departure subsided as the circles subside when a stone has been dropped in a duckpond; only Captain Somerville, seeing Cecilia’s face, longed to pursue him to the uttermost parts of the earth, and, with oaths and blows, if need be, to bring him back.