Girlhood and Womanhood Part 18

Leslie would have propitiated the mayor of the palace with kind words and attentions, but when she was snapped up in her efforts, she drew back with a girl's aptness to be affronted and repelled. Next Leslie began to angrily resist Bridget's unbecoming interference with her movements, and design of exercising authority and control over the child whom the master had chosen to set over his house; but her fitful impulses were met and overruled by stubborn and slenderly veiled fierceness. Leslie was not weak, but she was undisciplined; and she who had been the young Hotspur of the most orderly and pacific of families, learnt to tremble at the sound of Bridget's crutch in the lobbies, and her shrill voice rating the servants who flew to do her bidding.

In proportion as Leslie cowered at her subordinate, the subordinate was tempted to despise her and lord it over her.

Hector Garret was blind to this contention. For his own part, he humoured Bridget or smiled at her asperities, as suited him; and it is probable that if he had been appealed to, he would have adopted his old favourite's side, and censured Leslie as touchy, inconsiderate, perhaps a little spiteful. But he never was made umpire, for Leslie had all the disadvantage of a n.o.ble temper in an unseemly struggle. Bridget plagued Leslie, but Leslie would not injure Bridget,--no, not for the world. The imperious old woman was Hector Garret's friend; he had said that he had known no firmer friend than Bridget Kennedy. She had closed his father's eyes, she had stood by himself in sickness and sorrow (for all his strength and self-command, Hector had known sickness and sorrow--that was a marvel to Leslie)--Bridget might clutch her rights to the end, what did it signify? only a little pique and bitterness to an interloper.

Leslie had ceased to credit that she would ever become the wise, helpful woman that she had once warmly desired to see herself. Her own defects were now familiar and sorely disheartening to her, and she had grown aware that she could not by inspiration set and preserve in smooth, swift motion the various wheels of Otter, not even if--unlooked for and undesired sequel!--she received express permission to dance upon the head of old Bridget.

Leslie had fancied once, when Hector Garret told her how few neighbours lived within visiting distance, that she should not want society: but the solitude was matter of regret, especially when it proved that of the few families who exchanged rare intercourse, some of better birth than breeding scarcely held the daughter of the disinherited laird and Glasgow scholar as their equal in social rank, or a spouse worthy of the master of Otter, or indeed ent.i.tled to their special esteem.

The only house without any pretension within sight of Otter was situated at the other extremity of the bay, on a peninsula projecting far into the sea. It had been built in the days when each mansion was a fortalice, and when safety from enemies was of more moment than the convenience of friends.

This Earlscraig was now little more than a grim, grey turret, seldom occupied; the companion body of the building had been destroyed nearly a score of years before by a fire--the tragedy of the country-side, as it consummated the ruin of an old family--and in its horrors a lady of the house perished miserably. So the sight of its cold cl.u.s.ter of chimneys, wind-rocked walls, and scorched and crumbling vestiges of sudden destruction, far from adding to the cheerfulness of the landscape, was a blot on its rural prosperity.

The homes of humbler friends were foreign thresholds to Leslie; the reserved, engrossed, dignified master of Otter crossed them with a freer step. Leslie could but address her servants, and venture to intermeddle bashfully with their most obvious concerns. She had neither tongue nor eye for more distant and difficult dependants.

But Leslie was not dying of ennui or spleen, or miserable and with a nameless fathomless misery. She was only disenchanted--conscious of feeling a great deal older than she had done six months since. How could she have been so credulous, so vain! Verily, every path of roses has its panoply of thorns.

IV.--THE PAGES OF THE PAST.

One winter night Leslie, in her deep chair, observed Hector Garret turning over the leaves of an old pocket-book. Hector; catching her eye, offered it to her with a "See, Leslie, how my father chronicled the fas.h.i.+ons"--he never did suppose her susceptible of very grave interests.

In the dearth of other amus.e.m.e.nts Leslie pored over the ancient diary, and found more suggestive paragraphs than the entry indicated: "Abel Furness has sent me a waistcoat an inch and a half shorter, and a pair of clouded silk hose for the black ditto, ordered." There were--"Three pounds English to my boy Hector, to keep his pocket during his stay at Ardhope." "A crown to Hector as fee for fis.h.i.+ng out the black stot that broke its neck over the rocks." "A letter from Utrecht from my son Hector; a fair hand and a sensible diction." "Forty pounds over and above paid to please Hector on the bond over the flax-fields of Ferndean." "A small stipend secured to my thriftless kinsman, Willie Hamilton, by the advice and with the aid of my son Hector." "To Earlscraig with Hector:" this notice was repeated many times, until the record closed abruptly with the tremulous thanksgiving--"My dear son and heir, Hector, recovered of his malady by the blessing of G.o.d."

Very plainly lay the life-clue of that silent heart, traced in the faded ink of those yellowing pages. How old men cherished their offspring!

What did Hector Garret think of those mute but potent witnesses of a regard that he could know no more on earth? She knew he prized the book, for she had seen it carefully deposited in one of the private drawers in his study. She opened it at the beginning, and slipping her fingers into its gilded pockets, discovered a folded paper. It contained merely a sprig of heather, and written on the enclosure--"From my dear wife, Isobel; her first gift." Two dates were subjoined, with thirty years'

interval--that of the receipt of the token, and that of the inscription of the memorandum.

With flus.h.i.+ng cheeks Leslie sat, and spread out the crushed, brittle spikes, so fondly won, so dearly held. She was sure Hector had not one leaf, riband, or ring which she had given him. Once when he was gayer than his wont, and plagued her with his jesting petting, she took up the scissors and cut off a lock of his hair. He did not notice the theft till it was accomplished, and then he stood half-thoughtful, half-contemptuous. He had not a hair of hers, but of course the whole head was his; his father had judged otherwise.

This earlier Hector Garret--she had heard Bridget enlarge upon his merits. "A fine man, like the master, but frank and light of heart until he lost the lady--ay, a real lady! grand and gladsome--the old lady of Otter." Leslie longed for a vision of those old occupants of her place and her husband's; to have a vivid experience of how they looked, spoke, and lived; to see them in spirit--in their morning good wishes, their noonday cares, their evening cheer, their nightly prayers? Was their union only apparent? were they severed by a dim, shapeless, insurmountable barrier, for ever together, yet for ever apart?

These shades lingered and abode with Leslie in her lonely vigils, ere she distinguished whether their language was that of warning or reproach. She studied their material likenesses--the last save one in the picture-gallery--honest faces, bright with wholesome vigour; their son Hector's was a finer physiognomy, but the light had left lip and eye, and Leslie missed it as she gazed wistfully at these shadows, and compared them with their living representative.

A stranger came to Otter: that was an unfrequent event, even when the spring was advancing, and the boats which had been drawn up for the winter were again launched in the cove, and the brown nets hung anew to dry on the budding whins and gowans--the April gowans converting the haugh into a "lily lea." Their nearest neighbour, only an occasional resident among them, lounged over with his whip, dog-call, and dogs, and entered the drawing-room at Otter, to be introduced for the first time to its mistress. Leslie's instincts were hospitable, and they were by no means strained by exercise; but she did not like this guest; she felt an involuntary repugnance to him, although he was very courteous to her--with an elaborate, ostentatious homage that astonished and confused her. He was a man of Hector Garret's age, but, even in his rough coat, with marked remains of youthful foppishness and pretension. He was a tall man, with beard and moustache slightly silvered; his aquiline features were sharpened and drawn; his bold searching eyes sunken. He was a gentleman, even an accomplished and refined gentleman in manner and accent--and yet there was about him a nameless coa.r.s.eness, the brutishness of self-indulgence and low aims and ends, which no polish could efface or conceal.

Leslie, notwithstanding her slight knowledge of life, apprehended this, and shrank from the man; but he addressed Hector Garret with the ease of an intimate a.s.sociate--and Hector Garret, with his pride and scrupulousness, suffered the near approach, and only winced when the stranger accosted Leslie, complimented Leslie, put himself coolly on the footing of future friends.h.i.+p with the lady of the house.

The day wore on, and still the visitor remained, entertaining himself, and discoursing widely, but for the most part on practices and motives strange at Otter.

"So you've married, after all, Hector," he said, suddenly, as they sat together in the twilight: "well, I excuse you," with a laugh and a touch on the shoulder.

The words were simple enough, but they tingled in Leslie's ears like insolence, and Hector Garret, so hard to rouse, bit his lips while he answered indifferently--"And when does your time come, Nigel? Are the shadows not declining with you?"

"Faith, they're so low, that there's not light left for the experiment; besides, French life spoils one for matrimony here, at least so poor Alice used to say--'no galling bonds on this side of the Channel'--the peaceful _couvent grille_, or a light _mariage de convenance_ among the pleasant southerns;--not that they are so pleasant as they were formerly either."

Hector Garret got up and walked to one of the window recesses, his brow knit, his teeth set.

Leslie rose to steal from the room.

"Nay, stay, madam," urged the bland, brazen intruder; "don't rob us so soon of a fair, living apology for _fades souvenirs_."

But "Go, Leslie, we will not detain you," Hector Garret exclaimed, impatiently; and Leslie hurried to her own chamber in a tumult of surprise and indignation, and vexed suspicion. Mysteries had not ceased; and what was this mystery to which Hector Garret deigned to lend himself in disparaging company with a sorry fine gentleman?

Bridget Kennedy was there before her, making a pretence of fumbling in the wardrobe, her head shaking, her lips working, her eyes blazing with repressed rage and malice.

"Is he there, madam, still?" she demanded, impetuously. "Is he torturing and maddening Master Hector with his tones and gestures? He!--he that ought to crouch among the bent gra.s.s and fern sooner than pa.s.s the other on the high road. Borrowing and begging, to lavish on his evil courses: he who could not pay us--not in red gold, but with his heart's blood--the woe he wrought. They had guileful, stony hearts, the Boswells, before they ever took to foreign lightness and wickedness: and evil to him who trafficked with them in life or death."

"Who is he, Bridget? I do not know him; I cannot understand," gasped Leslie.

"Don't ask me, madam--you, least of all."

"Tell me, Bridget, tell me," implored the girl, frightened, yet exasperated, catching the old woman's withered hands, and holding them fast.

"Don't ask me, madam," reiterated Bridget, sternly. "Better not."

"I will know; what do you mean? Oh, you hurt me, you hurt me! I will ask Hector Garret himself. I cannot bear this suspense!"

"Child, do you choose what you can bear? Beware!" menaced the nurse; then, as Leslie would have broken from her--

"Have it, then! He is the brother of that Alice Boswell who perished in the burning of Earlscraig nigh twenty years ago."

"Poor lady, Bridget," Leslie said, with a bewildered, excited sob. "Poor unhappy lady; but what has that to do with him, with me? I understand no better. Help me, Bridget Kennedy--a woman, like myself. I will not let you go."

"Madam, what good will it serve? It is small matter now:" then half reluctantly, half with that possession with which truth fills its keeper, slowly and sadly she unfolded the closed story. "What had Master Hector to do with Alice Boswell? He had to do with her as a man has to do with his heart's desire, his snare, his pitfall."

"He loved her, Bridget; he would have wedded her. I might never have been his--that is all."

"Love, marriage!" scornfully; "I know not that he spoke the words, but he lay at her feet. Proud as Master Hector was, she might have trodden on his neck; cool as Master Hector seems to others, he was fire to her.

I have seen him come in from watching her shadow, long hours below her window, in the wind and rain, and salt spray. I have known him when he valued her glove in his bosom more than a king's crown--blest, blest if he had but a word or a glance. But it is long gone by, madam. Master Hector has gained wisdom and gravity, and is the head of the house; and for fair Miss Alice, she has gone to her place. Yes, she was a beauty, Miss Alice; she could play on stringed instruments like the heavenly harpers, and speak many tongues, and work till the flowers grew beneath her fingers. She learnt to wile men's souls from their bodies, if nothing more, in the outlandish parts where she was bred."

"So fair, so gifted--did she care for him in return, Bridget? Did she love him as he loved her?" asked a faint voice.

"What need you mind, madam?" sharply. "It is ill speaking harsh words of the dead. Did I not say she had gone to her place? G.o.d defend you from such a pa.s.sage. Let her rest. Sure she cared for him, as she cared for aught else save herself. She scattered smiles and favours on scores. He knew at last what she took, and what she gave, if he did not guess it always."

"Why did he not save her, Bridget? die with her!"

"Madam," bitterly, "he did what man could do. They say he was more like a spirit than a mortal; but if he was to lose his love, how could even Master Hector fight against his Maker? He was fain to follow her; he dallied with death for weeks and months. Those were fell days at Otter, but the Lord restored him, and now he is himself again, and no woman will ever move Master Hector more."

There was silence in the room for a s.p.a.ce. At last Bridget broke it: "Do you want anything more with me, madam, or shall I go?"

Haughty as Bridget Kennedy was, she spoke hesitatingly, almost pitifully. She had stabbed that young thing, sitting pale and cold before her; and no sooner was the deed done than her strong, deep nature yearned over her victim as it had never done to Hector Garret's girl wife, in the first rosy flush of her thoughtless gladness.

"Nothing more." The words were low and heavy, and when Bridget left her, Leslie raised her hands and linked them together, and stretched them out in impotence of relief.

What was this news that had come to her as from a far country?--this blinding light, this burst of knowledge that had to do with the very springs of a man's nature, this fountain so full to some, so empty to others? She had been deceived, robbed. Hector Garret was Alice Boswell's--in life and death, Alice Boswell's.

This love, which she had known so slightly, measured so carelessly--oh, light, shallow heart!--had been rooted in his very vitals, had constrained him as a conqueror his captive, had been the very essence of the man until it spent itself on Alice Boswell's wild grave. He had come to her with a lie in his right hand, for he was bound and fettered in heart, or else but the blue, stiff corpse of a man dead within; he had betrayed her woman's right, her best, dearest, truest right, her call to love and be loved. Another might have wooed her as he had wooed Alice Boswell; to another she might have been the first, the only one! she knew now why she was no helpmeet, no friend for him; why his hand did not raise her to his eminence, his soul's breath did not blow upon hers, and create vigour, goodness, and grace to match his own. Deep had not cried unto deep: heart had not spoken to heart: the dry bones, the vacant form, the empty craving, were her portion; and out of such unnatural hollowness have arisen, once and again, deadly l.u.s.t and sin.