A Dozen Ways Of Love Part 2

'Did he come round by the yard to the dairy door?'

'That he did; and all to ask how ye were the day.'

The sparkle of the eye returned, and the smile that almost seemed to dimple the wrinkled cheek.

'And I hope ye offered him something to eat, Jeanie; it's a long ride he takes.'

'Bread and cheese, and a cup of milk just like this.'

'What did he say? Did he like what ye gave him?'

'He said a sup of milk sudna cross his lips till you'd had a cupful the like of his; so I brought it in to ye. You'd better make haste and take it up.'

'Did he send ye wi' the cup, Jeanie Trim?'

'Ay, he did that; and not a bit nor sup will he tak till ye've drunk it all, every drop.'

With evident delight the cup was drained.

'Ye told him I was ailing and couldna see him the day, Jeanie?'

'Maybe ye'll see him to-morrow.' The maid stooped and folded the white shawl more carefully over the dame's breast, and smiled in protective kindly fas.h.i.+on. She had a good heart and a womanly, motherly touch, although many a mistress had called her wilful and pert.

There were times when the minister came and sat himself behind his aunt's chair to watch and to listen. He was a meditative man, and wrote many an essay upon modern theology, but here he found food for meditation of another sort.

There was no being in the world that he reverenced as he had reverenced this aged lady. In his childhood she had taught him to lisp the measures of psalm and paraphrase; in his youth she had advised him with shrewdest wisdom; in his ministerial life she had been to him a friend, always holding before him a greater spiritual height to be attained, and now---- He thought upon his uncle as he had known him, a very reverent elder of the kirk, a man who had led a long and useful life, and to whom this woman had rendered wifely devotion. He thought upon his cousins, in whose lives their mother's life had seemed unalterably bound up. He would at times emerge from his corner, and, sitting down beside the lady, would take her well-worn Bible and read to her such pa.s.sages as he knew were graven deep upon her heart by scenes of joy or sorrow, parting or meeting, or the very hours of birth or death, in the lives that had been dearer to her than her own. He was not an emotional man, but yet there was a ringing pathos in his voice as he read the rhythmic words.

At such times she would sit as if voice and rhythm soothed her, or she would bow her head solemnly at certain pauses, as if accustomed to agree to the sentiment expressed. Heart and thought were not awake to him, nor to the book he read, nor to the memories he tried to arouse. The fire of the lady's heart sprang up only for one word, that word a name, the name of a man of whose very existence, it seemed, no trace was left in all that country-side.

The minister would retreat out of the lady's range of vision; and so great did his curiosity grow that he instigated the maid to ask certain questions as she played at the game of the old love-story in her sprightly, pitying way.

'Now I'll tell ye a thing that I want to know,' said the maid, pouring tea in a cup. 'What's his given name? Will ye tell me that?'

'Is it Mr. Kinnaird ye mean?'

'It's Mr. Kinnaird's christened name that I'm speering for.'

'An' I canna tell ye that, for he never told it to me. It'd be no place of mine to ask him before he chose to speak o' it himsel'.'

'Did ye never see a piece of paper that had his name on it, or a card, maybe?'

'I dinna mind that I have, Jeanie. He's a verra fine gentleman; it's just Mr. Kinnaird that he's called.'

'What for will ye no let me tell the master that he comes every day?'

'Ye must no tell my father, Jeanie Trim'--querulously. 'No, no; nor my mither. They'll maybe be telling him to bide away.'

'Why would they be telling him to bide away?'

'Tuts! How can I tell ye why, when I dinna ken mysel'? Why will ye fret me? I'll tak' no more tea. Tak' it away!'

'I tell ye he'll ask me if ye took it up. He's waiting now to hear that ye took a great big piece of bread tae it. He'll no eat the bread and cheese I've set before him till ye've eaten this every crumb.'

'Is that sae? Well, I maun eat it, for I wouldna have him wanting his meat.'

The meal finished, the maid put on her most winsome smile.

'Now and I'll tell ye what I'll do; I'll go back to Mr. Kinnaird, and I'll tell him ye sent yer _love_ tae him.'

'Ye'll no do sic a thing as that, Jeanie Trim!' All the dignity and authority of her long womanhood returned in the impressive air with which she spoke. 'Ye'll no do sic a thing as that, Jeanie Trim! It's no for young ladies to be sending sic messages to a gentleman, when he hasna so much as said the word "love."'

Had he ever said the word 'love,' this Kinnaird, whose memory was a living presence in the chamber of slow death? The minister believed that he had not. There was no annal in the family letters of his name, although other rejected suitors were mentioned freely. Had he told his love by look or gesture, and left it unspoken, or had look and gesture been misunderstood, and the whole slight love-story been born where it had died, in the heart of the maiden? 'Where it had died!'--it had not died. Seventy years had pa.s.sed, and the love-story was presently enacting itself, as all past and all future must for ever be enacting to beings for whom time is not. Then, too, where was he who, by some means, whether of his own volition or not, had become so much a part of the pulsing life of a young girl that, when all else of life pa.s.sed from her with the weight of years, her heart still remained obedient to him?

Where was he? Had his life gone out like the flame of a candle when it is blown? Or, if he was anywhere in the universe of living spirits, was he conscious of the power which he was wielding? Was it a triumph to him to know that he had come, gay and debonair, in the bloom of his youth, into this long-existing sanctuary of home, and set aside, with a wave of his hand, husband, children, and friends, dead and living?

Whatever might be the psychical aspects of the case, one thing was certain, that the influence of Kinnaird--Kinnaird alone of all those who had entered into relations with the lady--was useful at this time to come between her and the distressing symptoms that would have resulted from the mania of self-starvation. For some months longer she lived in comfort and good cheer. This clear memory of her youth was oddly interwoven with the forgetful dulness of old age, like a golden thread in a black web, like a tiny flame on the hearth that shoots with intermittent brilliancy into darkness. She was always to see her lover upon the morrow; she never woke to the fact that 'to-day' lasted too long, that a winter of morrows had slipped fruitless by.

The interviews between Jeanie Trim and Kinnaird were not monotonous. All else was monotonous. December, January, February pa.s.sed away. The mornings and the evenings brought no change outwardly in the sick-room, no change to the appearance of the fine old face and still stately figure, suggested no variety of thought or emotion to the lady's decaying faculties; but at the hours when she sat and contentedly ate the food that the maid brought her, her mental vision cleared as it focused upon the thought of her heart's darling. It was she whose questions suggested nearly all the variations in the game of imagination which the young woman so aptly played.

'Was he riding his black mare, Jeanie Trim?'

'I didna see the beast. He stood on his feet when he was tapping at the door.'

'Whisht! Ye could tell if he wore his boots and spurs, an' his drab waistcoat, b.u.t.toned high?'

'Now that ye speak of it, those were the very things he wore.'

'It'd be the black mare he was riding, nae doubt; he'll have tied her to the gate in the lane.' Or again: 'Was it in the best parlour that ye saw him the day? He'd be drinking tea wi' my mither.'

'That he was; and she smiling tae him over the dish of tea.'

'Ay, he looks fine and handsome, bowing to my mither in the best parlour, Jeanie Trim. Did ye notice if he wore silk stockings?'

'Fine silk stockings he wore.'

'And his green coat?'

'As green and smart as a bottle when ye polish, it with a cloth.'

'Did ye notice the fine frills that he has to his s.h.i.+rt? I've tried to make my father's s.h.i.+rts look as fine, but they never have the same look.' The hands of the old dame would work nervously, as if eager to get at the goffering-irons and try once more. 'An' he'd lay his hat on the floor beside him; it's a way he has. Did my mither tell him that I was ailing? His eyes would be s.h.i.+ning the while. Do ye notice how his eyes s.h.i.+ne, Jeanie?'

'Ay, do I; his eyes s.h.i.+ne and his hair curls.'

'Ye're mistaken there, his hair doesna curl, Jeanie Trim--ye've no'

obsairved rightly; his hair is brown and straight; it's his beard and whiskers that curl. Eh! but they're bonny! There's a colour and s.h.i.+ne in the curl that minds me of the lights I can see in the old copper kettle when my mither has it scoured and hung up on the nail; but his hair is plain brown.'

'He's a graun' figure of a man!' cried the blithe maid, ever sympathetic.

'Tuts! What are ye saying, Jeanie! He's no' a great size at all; the shortest of my brithers is bigger than him! Ye might even ca' him a wee man; it's the spirit that he has wi' it that I like.'

Thus, by degrees, touch upon touch, the portrait of Kinnaird was painted, and whatever misconceptions they might form of him were corrected one by one. There was little incident depicted, yet the figure of Kinnaird was never drawn pa.s.sive, but always in action.