CHAPTER XXVII
THE SKY FALLS ON GILBERT
GILBERT SPEID sat in the house just outside Madrid, which had represented home to him for most of the eighteen months of his sojourn in Spain; he was newly returned from Granada. It had been Mr. Speid’s custom to pass a part of each year there, and it was there that he had, according to his wish, been buried. Gilbert had gone to look at the grave, for the decent keeping of which he paid a man a small yearly sum, and had found his money honestly earned; then, having satisfied himself on that point, he had wandered about in haunts familiar to him in his youth and early manhood. It was not three years since he had set foot in them last and he was not much more than thirty-two years old, but it seemed to him that he looked at them across a gulf filled with age and time. He returned to Madrid wondering why he had left it, and finding a certain feeling of home-coming in his pleasure at seeing his horses.
He made no pretence of avoiding his fellow-creatures and no efforts to meet them; and as, though he spoke perfect Spanish, he had always been a silent man, there was little difference in his demeanour. But it was universally admitted among old acquaintances that his Scottish life had spoiled him. He rode a great deal and frequented the same company; and he would often stroll down to the fencing-school where he had learned so much to practise with his old master, or with any new light which had risen among the foils since he left Spain. He felt the pressing need of settling to some definite aim in life, but he put off the trouble of considering it from week to week and from month to month.
Miss Hersey wrote only occasionally, for her sight was not good, and the world did not then fly to pens and paper on the smallest pretext as it does now. A letter was still something of a solemnity, even to the educated. Also, Miss Hersey thought that the sooner he forgot Cecilia the better it would be, and the sooner he would return. She hoped he would bring back a wife with him—always provided she were not a Roman Catholic. She had told him of Lady Eliza’s accident and death and of Cecilia’s removal to Fullarton, adding that she understood Miss Raeburn was to remain there until some arrangement could be made for her future; Mr. Fullarton was said to have promised Lady Eliza, on her deathbed, that he would act as guardian.
It took nearly a month for a letter from Scotland to reach Madrid, and Gilbert had asked a friend who lived near to take charge of such correspondence as might come for him within a fortnight of his return from Granada. He had only reached home late on the previous night, and he was now expecting the packet to be brought to him.
He had slept long, being tired, and when he emerged from his room the sun was brilliant. He walked out on the whitewashed veranda which ran round the upper story of the house, and looked out on the March landscape which the almond-blossom was already decorating. The ground sloped away before him, and, on the north-west, the Sierra de Guardarama cut into the sky. The pomegranates had not yet begun to flower, but a bush which stood near the walls cast the shadow of its leaves and stems against the glaring white. In Scotland, the buds would scarcely yet be formed on the trees; but the air would be full of the fresh smell of earth and that stir of life, that first invisible undercurrent of which the body is conscious through a certain sixth sense, would be vibrating. The Lour would be running hard and the spring tides setting up the coast. He stood looking, with fixed eyes, across the almond-blossom to a far-off country that he saw lying, wide and gray, in the north, with its sea-voice calling, calling. His servant’s footstep behind him on the stones made him turn; he was holding out a little packet of letters.
‘These have been sent from Don Balthazar’s house,’ said the man, in Spanish, indicating a few tied together with string. ‘The others were at the mail-office this morning.’
Gilbert sat down on the parapet of the veranda and turned over the letters; those that had come from his friend’s house must have been awaiting him a week, possibly longer. There were two which interested him, one from Miss Hersey and one directed in a hand he had seen before but could not now identify; it was writing that he connected with Scotland. Miss Robertson’s letter was among those which Don Balthazar had kept and he opened it first. The old lady generally reserved any tidings of Cecilia for the last paragraph and he forced himself to read steadily from the beginning; for, like many high-strung people, he found an odd attraction in such little bits of self-torture.
Half-way down the last sheet he dropped the paper as though he were shot and the blood ran to his face in a wave. It contained the news of Cecilia Raeburn’s engagement; she was to marry Crauford Fordyce, and the wedding was fixed for the middle of April.
He seized the letter again and glutted his eyes with the hateful words.
‘You will cease to fret about her now,’ concluded Miss Hersey simply, ‘and that will be a good thing. I hear they are to live on a property which belongs to Sir Thomas Fordyce in Roxburghshire. See and get you a wife somewhere else, dear Gilbert, but not a Papist. Caroline and I would think very ill of that.’
It was some time before he strung up his mind to read the rest of the correspondence strewn about his feet, but, when he broke the seal of the other Scottish letter, he looked first at the end. It was signed ‘Wm. Somerville,’ and consisted of four closely-written pages. Before he came to the last line he sprang up, feeling as though the sky had fallen on him. He ran through his room into the passage, shouting at the top of his voice for his servant; the Spaniard came flying up three steps at a time, his dark face pale. He found Gilbert standing in the middle of the veranda; the scattered letters were blowing about, for a sudden puff of wind had risen.
‘Pack up!’ he shouted, ‘get my things ready! I am going to England!’
‘But Señor——’
‘Go on! Begin! I tell you I am going to England to-night—sooner, if possible! Bring me my purse. Send to Don Balthazar and tell him that I am going in a few hours.’
He took the purse from the astonished man, and in another minute was in the stable and slipping a bridle over one of the horse’s heads, while the groom put on the saddle and buckled the girths. He threw himself into it and galloped straight to the nearest inn and posting-house in the town, for the carriage which had brought him back on the previous night belonged to a small post-master in Toledo and could be taken no further than Madrid.
Here he had a piece of disguised good fortune, for, though he could get neither cattle nor conveyance that day, a Spanish Government official was starting for France early on the morrow, and was anxious to hear of some gentleman who might occupy the vacant seat in the carriage he had hired and share the expenses of the road. In those days, when people travelled armed, any addition to a party was to be welcomed. It only remained for him to seek his friend Don Balthazar, and, through him, to procure an introduction to the traveller. Their ways would lie together as far as Tours.
Don Balthazar was a friend of his youth; a lean, serious-looking young man who had turned from a luxuriant crop of wild oats and married a woman with whom he was in love at this moment, a year after Gilbert had gone to Scotland. He had never seen Speid so much excited and he succeeded in calming him as the two talked over the details of the journey. They made out that it would take ten days to reach Tours, allowing three extra ones for any mishaps or delays which the crossing of the Pyrenees might occasion. In France, the roads would be better and travelling would improve. Twenty-three days would see him in Scotland; setting out on the morrow, the fourteenth of March, he could reasonably expect to get out of the Edinburgh coach at Blackport on the sixth of April. The wedding was not to take place until the tenth. He did not confide in Don Balthazar; he merely spoke of ‘urgent business.’
‘Of course it is a woman,’ said Doña Mercedes to her husband that night.
‘But he never used to care about women,’ replied he, stroking his long chin; ‘at least——’
‘Is there any man who does not care about women?’ exclaimed the lady, twirling the laced handkerchief she held; ‘bring me one and I will give you whatever you like!’
‘That would be useless, if he had seen you,’ replied Don Balthazar gallantly.
Doña Mercedes threw the handkerchief at him and both immediately forgot Gilbert Speid.
It was as if Gilbert lived, moved, and breathed in the centre of a whirlwind until he found himself sitting in the carriage by the Spanish official, with Madrid dropping behind him in the haze of morning. Inaction was restful while he could see the road rolling by under the wheels; every furlong was a step nearer his goal. His whole mind had been, so to speak, turned upside down by Captain Somerville’s pen. He was no longer the lover who had divided himself from his mistress because honour demanded it, but a man, who, as the sailor said, was leaving a woman in the lurch; that woman being the one for whom he would cheerfully have died four times a day any time these last two years.
The possibility of arriving too late made him shudder; he turned cold as he remembered how nearly he had stayed another ten days in Granada while this unforeseen news lay waiting for him at Don Balthazar’s house. He had a margin of some days to his credit, should anything check his journey, and, once beyond the Pyrenees, progress would be quicker. If delay should occur on this side of Toulouse, he could there separate himself from his companion and drive by night as well as by day, for he would be on the main posting-road through France.
He had not written to Cecilia. He would travel nearly as fast as the mail and a letter would precede his arrival only by a very short space. There had been no time, in the hurried moments of yesterday, to write anything to her which could have the weight of his spoken words; and, were his arrival expected, he feared the pressure that Fordyce, and possibly Fullarton, would bring to bear upon her before she had the support of his presence. He did not know what influences might be surrounding her, what difficulties hedging her about; his best course was simply to appear without warning, take her away and marry her. He might even bring her back to Spain. But that was a detail to be considered afterwards.
He remembered the sudden admission he had made to Granny Stirk in her cottage and told himself that some unseen divinity must have stood by, prompting him. How little did he suspect of the sequel to that day on which he had caught Lady Eliza’s mare; how unconscious he was of the friend standing before him in the person of the little old woman who offered him her apron to dry his hands and said ‘haste ye back’ as he left her door. He had written her a few lines, directing her to go to Whanland and get his room ready, and adding that he wished his return kept secret from everyone but Jimmy, who was to meet the Edinburgh coach at Blackport on the sixth of April. He had no horses in Scotland which could take him from Blackport to Whanland, but he would be able to hire some sort of conveyance from the inn, and, on the road home, he could learn as much as possible of what was happening from the lad. His letter would, in all probability, arrive a day or so in advance of himself, and Granny Stirk would have time to send her grandson to meet him and make her own preparations. Though the Queen of the Cadgers could not read, Jimmy, who had received some elementary schooling, was capable of deciphering his simple directions.
It was eight days after leaving Madrid that the fellow-travellers parted at Tours, having met with no delay, beyond the repairing of a wheel which had kept them standing in a wayside village for a couple of hours, and the almost impracticable nature of the roads in the Pyrenees. The official had called in the help of his Government in the matter of post-horses to the frontier, and these, though often miserable-looking brutes, were forthcoming at every stage. Owing to the same influence, a small mounted escort awaited them as they approached the mountains; and the Spaniard’s servants, who occupied a second carriage and had surfeited themselves with tales—only too well founded—of murders and robberies committed in that part of the country, breathed more freely.
It was with rising spirits that Speid bade his companion farewell, and, from the window of the inn at which they had passed the night, watched his carriage roll away on the Paris road; he had hired a decent chaise, which was being harnessed in the courtyard below to start on the first stage of its route to Havre, and he hoped to embark from that seaport in three days.
Of the future which lay beyond his arrival at Whanland he scarcely allowed himself to think, nor did he arrange any definite plan of action. Circumstances should guide him completely and what information he could get from Jimmy Stirk. He had no doubt at all of Cecilia’s courage, once they should meet, and he felt that in him which must sweep away every opposition which anyone could bring. He would force her to come with him. There were only two people in the world—himself and the woman he loved—and he was ready, if need be, to go to the very altar and take her from it. She had cried out and the echo of her voice had reached him in far-away Spain. Now, there was no power on earth which should stand before him.
So he went on, intent on nothing but the end of his journey; looking no further; and holding back from his brain, lest it should overwhelm him, the too-intoxicating thought that, in a couple of weeks, she might be his.
When, at last, from a point of rising ground a few miles from the seaboard, he saw the waters of the English Channel, his heart leaped. He drove into Havre just at sunset on the evening of the twenty-fifth of March. Six days later he was in London.
He had hoped to reach it earlier, but it was with the greatest difficulty that he was able to get a passage to Portsmouth; he had crossed to England in a wretched fishing-boat and that bad weather, predicted on the French shore and only risked by the boat’s owner for a large sum of money, met and delayed him.
He saw the dark mass of Edinburgh Castle rising from the lights of the town on the second evening after his departure from London; the speech which surrounded the coach, as it drew up, made him realize, with a thrill, that now, only two divisions of his journey lay between him and Blackport—Blackport where he would meet Jimmy, perhaps hear from him that he had seen Cecilia. Next morning found him on the road to Perth, where he was to sleep that night.
The weather was cold and gusty on the last day of his travels, and the Tay, as they crossed it after leaving Perth, yellow and swollen; but the familiar wide fields and the distant wall of the Grampians stirred his heart with their promise. The road ran up the Vale of Strathmore, north-east of the Sidlaws; as their undulations fell away they would stretch to Kaims and the sea, and he would once more be in that enchanted spot of land where the North Lour ran and the woods of Morphie unrolled themselves across its seaward course.
The last change of horses was at Forfar; from there, they were to run through the great moor of Monrummon into Blackport, where they would be due at eight o’clock. If he could secure anything which had wheels from one of the posting-houses, he would sleep that night at Whanland.
The passengers buttoned their coats tightly as they went forward, for the weather was growing worse and the wind came tearing in their faces. Before darkness fell, fringes of rain-cloud, which had hung all day over the Grampians, began to sweep over them. The horses laid back their ears as heavy drops, mixed with hail, struck them in sensitive places and the coachman’s hands were stiff on the reins from the chill water running off his gloves. Now and again the gale raised its voice like an angry woman, and the road reflected the lamps as though it had been a pond. They had left Forfar some time when the coachman, in the darkness, turned a hard, dripping face to Gilbert, who was on the box-seat.
‘D’ye hear yon?’ he said, lifting his whip.
Speid leaned his head sideways and was conscious of a roar above the voice of the blast; a tossing and rolling sea of noise in the air which he thought must be like the sound of waves closing above the head of a drowning man. It was the roar of the trees in Monrummon.
As the coach plunged in, the dark ocean of wood swallowed it up, and it began to rock and sway on one of the bad roads intersecting the moor. The smell of raw earth and wet heather was mixed with the strong scent of the firs that laboured, surged, buffeted overhead in the frenzy of the wind. The burns that, in places, crossed their road had now become turgid torrents, dragging away soil and stones in their rush.
‘It’ll na’ do to loss oursel’s here,’ observed the coachman. ‘Haud up, man!’
The last exclamation was addressed to the off wheeler, who had almost slipped on a round stone laid bare by the water flaying the track. The only inside passenger, a West-country merchant on his way north, let down the window and put out his head, to draw it in promptly, outraged by finding himself in such surroundings and by the behaviour of the elements outside. Such things did not happen in Glasgow.
It was when they were on the middle of the moor that the bed of a burn, steeper than any they had yet encountered, crossed their way. It was not much wider than an ordinary ditch, but the force of the water driven through it had scored the bottom deep, for the soil was soft in its course. The coachman had his team well together as they went down the slope to it, and Gilbert watched him, roused from his abstraction by the fascinating knowledge that a man of parts was handling the reins. The feet of the leaders were clear of the water and those of the wheelers washed by the red swirl in the burn’s bed, when the air seemed to rush more quickly a few yards to their left, and, with a crack like that of the sky splitting, the heavy head of a fir-tree came tearing downwards through its fellows.
The terrified horses sprang forward up the steep ground; the coach staggered like a drunkard; the pole dipped, rocking upwards, and the pole-chains flashed in the light of the swinging lamps as it snapped in two.
The traces held, for they reached the further side almost by their own impetus, and the guard was at the leaders’ heads before the Glasgow merchant had time to let down his window, and, with all the righteous violence of the armchair man, to launch his reproaches at the driver; Gilbert climbed down and began to help the guard to take out the leaders. The coachman sat quietly in his place.
‘Well, well; we’ll just need to bide whaur we are,’ he said, as the swingle-trees were unhooked.
By the light of the lamps, the pole was found to be broken, slantwise, across the middle and there was nothing for the passengers to do but make the best of their position and await the morning. The gale continued to rage; and, though the guard declared it possible to lash the breakage together and proceed carefully by daylight, such an attempt would be out of the question in the state of the roads, while the storm and darkness lasted. The two other outside passengers, one of whom was a minister, were an honest pair of fellows, and they accepted their situation as befitted men of sense.
The window of the coach went down and the Glasgow man’s head appeared. He had tied up his face in a woollen handkerchief with large red spots. The ends rose above his head like rabbit’s ears.
‘You’ll take me to the end of my journey or I’ll ken the reason!’ he shouted to the little group. ‘I’ve paid my money to get to Aberdeen and it’s there I’m to go!’
Guard and coachman smiled, the former broadly and the latter at the side of his mouth. Neither said anything.
‘My name’s George Anderson, and I’m very well acquaint wi’ you!’ roared the inside passenger in the voice of one who has discovered a conspiracy.
He had never seen any of the party till that morning, but he did not seem to mind that.
‘The pole is broken, sir. You can see it for yourself if you will come out,’ said Gilbert, going up to the coach.
‘Na, thank ye. I’m best whaur I am,’ said the man.
The smile now extended to the minister and his companion, and, at sight of this, the merchant burst into fresh wrath.
‘Am I to be kept a’ the night in this place?’ he cried. ‘I warrant ye, I’ll have the lot o’ ye sorted for this when I get to Aberdeen!’
‘If you like to ride one of the leaders into Blackport, you can,’ suggested Gilbert, with a sting in his voice; ‘the guard is going with the mails on the other.’
‘Aye, ye’d best do that. Ye’d look bonnie riding into the town wi’ yon thing on your head,’ said the minister, who had a short temper.
The window went up.
The united efforts of Speid and his four companions succeeded in getting the coach to one side of the way, and three of the horses were tied up, its shelter between them and the weather; the Glasgow merchant remained inside while they moved it. The rain was abating and there were a few clear patches in the sky, as, with the mail-bags slung round him, the guard mounted the fourth horse and prepared to ride forward.
‘If you can find a boy called Stirk at the inn,’ said Gilbert, ‘tell him to wait for me in Blackport till morning.’ And he put some money in the man’s hand.
The guard touched his cap and disappeared.
It was a long night to Speid. The three passengers built themselves a shelter with luggage and rolled themselves in what wraps and rugs they had; not one of them had any desire to share the inside of the coach with its occupant. The ground was too damp to allow a fire to burn and what wood lay at the roadside was dripping. In a few hours the guard returned with such tools as he could collect; the road improved further on, he said, and the remaining six miles of the stage could be done at a walk after the sun rose. He had seen nothing of Jimmy Stirk. He and the coachman joined the party in the shelter.
Gilbert, unsleeping, lay with his eyes on the sky; though he had been much tempted to go on with the guard, he would have gained little by doing so; his choice of a night’s lodging must be between Blackport or Monrummon, and, under the circumstances, one place was intolerable as the other.