Mrs. Oliphant

“ Tom had never mentioned such a subject to him—
“Which makes me,” said Fanshawe, feeling abashed even in the gloom, “have all the more confidence that you are right, Miss Heriot. Had it been a—nothing, a—a mere levity—I don’t know what words to use—he would have spoken of it; but not a serious and honourable love.”
“Indeed, I am sure you do yourself injustice,” said Marjory, even in her languor of grief, discovering, with surprise, that she was capable of a blush.
“No,” he said, humbly; “men are ashamed of what is good oftener than of what is evil.” ”

“ So you thought your poor wicked old brother worth looking after? You’re a good girl, May; you’re a dear girl. It’s a pleasure to see you. And you’re a beauty, too, by Jove, that can stand the morning light.”
“Tom!” said Marjory, gently.
She was struck to the heart by the sight she saw. His countenance had melted into soft lines like a child’s; the tears were standing in his over-bright eyes. Who does not know that human sentiment which trembles to see a sick man look too amiable, too angelical, too good? This sudden dread came over Marjory. ”

“ There’s no sensation I ever felt so curious as that one—of thinking you’re dying. What an awful fool you’ve been, you say to yourself; and now it’s no good. Struggle as you like, you can’t mend it; you must just lie still and take what’s coming. I say, May,” he added, with a sudden start. “Say something and be cheery, or I’ll get into the dumps again.”
“Here’s the doctor, Tom,” said Fanshawe at the door.
Marjory rose and left the room quickly; she could not bear to meet the eye of that final authority, whose glance seems to convey life or death. ”

“ He said, ‘I won’t have my darling bothered!’ Oh! dear Charlie! what I lost when I lost you!”
“That was a pleasanter way of putting it,” said Verna, grimly; and then she, too, softened, and a glimmer of moisture came into the eyes which would have been fine eyes had they not been somewhat hard and beady. “He was a fool, too,” she said; “a fool about you, as men are; but he was a dear fellow. You pink-and-white creatures have all the luck; you get men to be fond of you that are far too good for you, while people who could understand them—”
Matilda interrupted her with a low laugh. ”

“ Some days passed on in a noiseless calm of suspense; suspense which dwelt chiefly in Marjory’s mind, and did not hang heavily upon anyone else. Mr. Charles, with the placidity of his age and character, settled the question beforehand with sanguine confidence.
“Depend upon it, my dear, we’ll have him home all right and well,” he said; “quite well. There is nothing like a sea-voyage for fever; it’s self-evident. That little woman, that sister-in-law, will take good care of him. What an energetic bit creature it must be! Why do I say bit creature? She may be as tall as you are? ”

“ To the young it is less familiar, less close at hand. The older one grows, the more one is disposed to represent death to one’s self as an every-day incident, and old men who are themselves approaching that verge are apt to dismiss somewhat summarily those who have preceded them. Besides, a week had elapsed between Mr. Heriot’s death and his funeral, and that long interval of seclusion, and absorption in one idea, is enough to take the edge of all but the most sensitive feelings. It was anxiety more than grief that sat heavy on the brow of Mr. Charles. ”

“ Charles, as he led the way to his tower, looking back upon his reluctant follower, “there’s ill men and good men in all the degrees; but I cannot think of a difference so great among us as between that girl, my niece, May, and the like of the selfish creature that wrote that letter. Not a word, not a thought of poor Charlie, as fine a lad as ever stepped—but all her bit miserable bantling of a baby, and her weary self.”
“I suppose, Sir, when a woman has a child she thinks of nothing else,” said Fanshawe, “or so at least people say.” ”

“ Elvin, don’t let anyone in just yet. Matty, listen; old Mr. Heriot—your father-in-law—Charlie’s father, died this morning. The house is all in confusion.”
“Died this morning!” Matilda’s lip began to quiver, her eyes filled suddenly with tears, her face acquired all at once the pitiful look of a child’s face in sudden trouble. “Oh,” she said, “must some one be always dying wherever we go? It is dreadful. I cannot bear to be in a house where there is some one dead. I never was so in my life. Verna, take the baby; take us away, take us away!” ”

“ Fanshawe, this is no time to argue,” said Marjory, shivering; “but my poor Tom ought to know.”
“It would kill him in a moment,” said Fanshawe, “the shock would be too great; he has few enough moments to live. Go and pray for him, Miss Heriot; that’s better than telling him. You are far more likely to be paid attention to up yonder than fellows like poor Tom or me.” ”

“ They seemed to imply vice—vice which to a young and pure-minded woman is the same as crime—nay, is the worst kind of crime. There was then, after all, a mystery in Tom’s life, and here it was; a vulgar degrading mystery—the kind of horror which people say is so common in the lives of young men, a suggestion which Marjory loathed as every woman ought to loath it. It filled her with disgust of Tom and of all men. ”

“ He got through this satisfactory and pleasant correspondence at a rapid rate, and then he sauntered to the edge of the cliff to wait till Marjory had satisfied herself with her letters. No doubt this would be a much longer process—no doubt she had a hundred dearest friends, who wrote about a thousand ridiculous nothings, and filled up her time and distracted her attention. She had seated herself on the mossy stone steps of the old sun-dial, which stood on that velvet green, undecorated lawn. She had her back turned to him, so that he could look at her at his ease. ”

“ It was with a very rueful countenance that she picked up the discarded headgear, and looked on at the wonderful edifice of fair hair that was being built up over Matilda’s low but white forehead. “I have not felt so comfortable since we left Calcutta,” said that young woman, with a sigh of relief as she looked at herself in the glass. “Crape is not unbecoming when it is fresh; and, thank heaven, one can always have it fresh now.”
“You speak as if you were glad you were a widow; you never think of poor Charlie!” cried Verna, in her discomfiture—glad to have some means of inflicting a sting. ”

“ It seemed to her that Fanshawe, who was a stranger, yet who was in full tide of life, and knew what it meant to be cast about by varying tumults of feeling, would understand her better than her calm old uncle—“though he was a stranger,” Marjory, in her unconsciousness, said to herself.
“Well, my dear, I hope it’s no uninstructive,” said Mr. Charles, with a gentle laugh. “I do not set up for genius; but so far as work goes—honest work—”
There was a pause again, but that was not an unusual circumstance. ”

“ Or was he?—Marjory clasped her hands tightly together with a low cry of pain.{185} Of all miseries on earth, I think suspense is the hardest to bear. To think that something may be happening that very moment, while you are far off, and for good or for evil can do nothing. To think that something may have happened—that the dread calm of certainty may have followed the excitement of a terrible event to the others who know; and to be unable to go out to meet the news you long for—to have nothing to do but to wait for it. There is no more common misery in the experience, at least, of women ”

“ Nobody can expect you to do anything but cry. Whatever you may hear, Matty, for God’s sake don’t commit yourself to say anything. Leave it all to me. It will save you ever so much trouble, and you may be sure it will succeed better. You know you are not so quick as I am; you are a great deal prettier, but not so quick. ”

“ He could not look round to make an appeal to the new mistress of the house, but he raised his voice in his weakness that she might hear him. “We have come to no resolution. I’m very fond of my old tower, and so is Marjory of her father’s house.”
“Say something, Matty, for heaven’s sake,” again said Verna behind backs. “It is a large house—ask them to stay.”
“I am sure,” said Matilda after a pause, “I don’t wish anyone to hurry. If Marjory will promise not to interfere with the servants, or the things—or give orders, or ring the bell for Fleming when she pleases—she may stay if she likes. ”

“ My dear Miss Marjory, a great deal is in your hands.”
“I can do so little,” said Marjory, with tears. “My poor father! his heart is broken. There does not seem anything that we can do.”
“You must tell him to be resigned,” said Dr. Murray. “I am very sorry that he is out. I should have been glad if I had been able to speak a word of comfort to my old friend and respected heritor.{140} You must remind him how much we have all to bear. Not one of us is without his cross. Sometimes it falls heavier on one than on another. It is his turn to-day, and it may be ours to-morrow; but none of us escape. ”

“ Charles. “If you live to my age, you will learn that time is short—far too short for what a man has to do. I am sixty, and the days run through my hands like sea-sand. Many and many{114} is the thing I have to put aside for want of time; and most likely I’ll die with heaps of odds and ends left incomplete.”
“I don’t see any reason,” said Fanshawe, in his levity; “at sixty it appears to me you have much more certainty of life before you than at half the age. A man who lives till sixty may surely live to a hundred if he pleases. ”

“ The Charlies of life, the younger sons, the girls, were open to reasonable discussion; but when the heir thus exposed himself, all family discipline and subordination was in danger. It was almost as bad as if he himself, Thomas Hay-Heriot of Pitcomlie, had been openly criticised by his family. And Tom was a young man who continually laid himself open to animadversion. Even Fleming had been known to have his fling at him, and the only one of Marjory’s revolutionary qualities which really annoyed her father, was her want of proper respect for her brother’s position. ”

“ He wishes you to tell his father; and to come to him at once.”
“It may be a lie,” said Miss Jean in a low voice, and trembling; “very likely it’s a lie. There’s no beginning and no ending; and the man, if it is a man, has not signed his name.”
“Oh, I know his, name; he is one of Tom’s friends. It is no lie!” said Marjory. And then she added, trembling too: “Aunt Jean, don’t you feel, like me, that you always knew this would be the end?” ”

“ Tom’s sister looked up at him with a wistful and anxious glance.
“Mr. Fanshawe,” she said, “this has been brought to me to open. My father cannot bear to look at anything, and I—I feel as if we had no right to search into his secrets. It seems dishonourable, when he cannot defend himself—when he is in our power.”
Fanshawe went round to Marjory’s side, and took into his own the hand which, half unconsciously, she held out, appealing to him, and touched the fingers with his lips. ”

“ I have had the good of it so long—but if I had never enjoyed it at all,” cried Marjory with tears, “I should be glad to think he had done it—for me!”
“Ay, ay,” said the old woman, “that’s how the world goes. For his bonnie May! I tell ye there were things once done like that for a bonnie Jean—that has not been bonnie this many, many a day—and the strangers get the good of them. That’s how the world goes.”
“What are they talking about?” said Matilda to Verna. “What an old witch she looks! I know she means to be disagreeable. ”

“ Marjory’s marriage would be the worst thing that could happen for us. I would not stand in her way if it was for her good. When there’s a family of daughters, of course it becomes of consequence; what else can they do, poor things? but Marjory is in a very different position. Poor little Milly is not ten, and what would you and I do, left in a house like this, with a bit creature of ten years old? Her sister is her natural guardian; and what can be more natural than that May should take care of her father’s house and keep everything going? ”

“ Heriot fond of yachting?” said Fanshawe, taking no notice of this dolorous conclusion. “A yacht would be a resource.”
“The boys had once a boat,” said Mr. Charles. “You must pardon us for our uncheerful ways. There is not a thing about but what is connected with his memory. They had a boat when they were quite young, before Charlie went to India. I am not fond of the sea myself; it’s a very precarious pleasure; and to run the risk of your life for an hour’s sail seems a want of sense and a waste of strength.”
“Shouldn’t you like to go to the May, Milly?” ”

“ Hepburn who lived in the house with the iron gates, and was the only unemployed person in Comlie. He was a young man tolerably well off, and more than tolerably good-looking, who had been brought up in a desultory way, was more accomplished than any other individual within twenty miles, did not in the least know what to do with himself, and was treated by Marjory with mingled kindness and condescension, as a clever schoolboy is sometimes treated by a young lady. For his part, Hepburn admired Marjory as he had never admired anyone else in his life. ”

“ May, my dear, to be a sensible girl as you are, you sometimes speak very like a haverel. Loss of money is as great a misfortune as can befall a family. It brings a hundred other things in its train—loss of consideration, troubles of all kinds. Personal losses may hurt more for the moment, but so far as the family is concerned—”
“Oh, don’t say so,” cried Marjory. “Papa, I am afraid there are things that hurt a great deal more. ”

“ Andrews—did you notice, Thomas?—with Tom Morris in it. We must take you to St. Andrews, Mr. Fanshawe, to see golf. You cannot say you know Scotland unless you know golf. Bless my life, what a long time it is since I have been there—not once all last season. What did you say, Thomas?—that is a most unusual thing for me.”
“I said nothing,” said Mr. Heriot. “Go to your golf, whatever happens, Charlie. Golf over your best friend’s grave, if you like. What does it matter? He would never feel it, you may be sure.” ”

“ She could see him hemming and taking out his handkerchief with a look as tragically important as if he were the chief actor in the scene.
“No!” she said; “not the Minister; send down to John Horsburgh’s to get out our horses, Betty. I will tell him myself.”
“You’re not equal to it, my poor bairn.”
“He will take it best from me; and it’s Tom’s wish,” said Marjory, putting on her hat. She felt the tears rising to her eyes; but this was not a moment to let them fall.
“I doubt if Thomas will take it as he ought to take it,” said Miss Jean; “he’s a good man, but he’s always had his own way. ”

“ I know them. If a woman looks as if she had not the heart to do a single thing, then they let her have her own way.”
“Do you really think so?” cried Matilda, stopping short suddenly in her tears, and looking up to her sister with round eyes, staggered by this new suggestion.
“I am certain of it,” said Verna. “And then, you know, poor Charlie’s will leaves that old uncle guardian along with you. If you want to have any freedom, you must look as if you cared for nothing of the sort. And, Matty, I have just one other word to say. ”

“ Life’s a queer sort of business after all,” said the prodigal, raising his shoulders from the pillows, and supporting himself on his hands. “It isn’t the straightforward thing a fellow thinks when he’s beginning. Have your swing, that’s all very well—and God knows I’ve had mine, and done some things I can’t undo; but when one goes in for having one’s swing, one expects to have a steady time after, and settle to work and put all straight. Look here, Fanshawe—if I had died, as I thought I should last night! ”

“ Perhaps, as you say, Marjory, it is best to keep it all in the family, for a man’s apt to say what he should not say in a sudden trouble. And I’m sorry I was so ill to you about keeping me waiting; what was ten minutes, here or there? Oh May, my bonnie lamb! the eldest son!”
And with this Miss Jean, melted by the bad news into use of the pet name which had scarcely passed her lips since Marjory was a child, gave her niece a sudden embrace, by putting her thin hands on May’s two arms, and touching her chin with her own withered cheek. Very seldom was she moved to such an outburst of affection. ”