Mrs. Oliphant

“ Not that Menie is notably thoughtless either, or poor in the qualities of mind which produce thought—but her mind lies still, like a charmed sea under the sunshine. There has never a ship of hope gone down yet under those dazzling waters, never a storm arisen upon them to chafe the waves against the rocks; nothing but flecks of summer clouds, quiet shadows of summer nights, darkness all lit and glorified with mellow moonbeams—and how her heart would be if some strange ghost of tempest rose upon the sky, her heart neither knows nor fears. ”

“ With a proud flush Menie draws up herself—herself who must work in this alone. Ah, sweet dependence, dear humility of the old times! we must lay them by out of our heart to wait for a happier dawn. This day it is independence—self-support—a strength that stands alone; and no one who has not felt such an abrupt transition can know how hard it is to take these unused weapons up.
“Will you let me speak to you, aunt?” Menie’s heart falters within her, as she remembers poor Miss Annie’s unaccepted sympathy. ”

“ From her window Menie Laurie looks out upon this scene—upon the darkness around—the one spot of light, and the half-illuminated faces; looks out wistfully, straining her eyes into the night, wondering where he has gone, and getting time now, as her agitation calms, to be ashamed and annoyed at her own weakness. Very calm for many a day has been Menie Laurie’s quiet heart—soberly, happily contented, and at rest. Little comforts and elegancies, which neither Mrs. Laurie’s income nor Jenny’s kye could attain, Menie has managed to collect into this little room. ”

“ Far away above the rest shines a little speck of light from the high window of Burnside, where once was Menie Laurie’s chamber—her land of meditation, her sanctuary of dreams. The wind rustles among the firs—the ash-trees hold up their bare white arms towards the heavens, waiting till this sweet star, lingering at the entrance of their arch, shall lead her followers through, like children in their dance. And—hush!—suddenly, like a bird new awaked, the burn throws out its voice upon the air, something sad. The passion is overpast. Look up, Menie Laurie; you are not among strangers. ”

“ But you have a duty to me,” said Randall, more coldly. “Your mother must not bid you give me up: you have no right to obey. Ah! I see: I am dull and stupid; forgive me, Menie. You mean that your mother’s fortunes are changed. She has the more need of a son then; and my May Marion knows well, that to be her mother is enough for me—you understand me, Menie. This does not change our attachment, does not change our plans, our prospects, in the slightest degree. It may make it more imperative that your mother should live with us, but you will think that no misfortune. ”

“ Listen—for now a sweet little timid voice, fragrant with the low-spoken Border-speech, softened out of all its harshness, steals upon Johnnie Lithgow’s ear. He knows what the words are, for he draws very near to listen—but we, a little farther off, hear nothing but the voice—a very unassured, shy, girlish voice; and July casts a furtive look around her, to see if it is not possible to get Menie Laurie to whisper her answer to; but when she does trust the air with these few words of hers, July feels less afraid. ”

“ One fear followed another, falling like the autumn leaves; a warmer{320} atmosphere crept into the cottage, a brighter sunshine filled its homely rooms. Day by day, advancing steadily, the son drew farther in, to his domestic place. The mother gave her welcome heartily; the daughter, saying nothing, felt the more; and no one said a word of grumbling, save perverse Jenny, who wept with joy the while, when another year and another life lighted up into natural gladness the sweet harmonious quiet of Menie Laurie’s heart. ”

“ And Menie raised loftily the face which was now glowing with a flash of affectionate pride. With a little awe July assented; but July still in her inmost heart asserted Randall to be clever, and rather avoided a discussion of this perplexing word genius, which July did not feel herself quite competent to define or understand.
And now the road begins to slope upwards, the hedgerow breaks and opens upon braes of close grass, marked here and there by bars and streaks of brown, like stationary shadows, and rich with little nests of low-growing heather and hillside flowers. ”

“ Apart, and watching all, stands Randall Home. There is love in his eye—you cannot doubt it—love and the impulse of protection, the strong, appropriating grasp. There is something more. Look how his head rises in the dimmer background above the table and the lights, above the little company assembled there. With something like laughter, his eye turns upon July—upon July’s wooer, his own friend—kindly, yet with a sense of superiority, an involuntary elevation of himself above them both. And this glance upon Miss Annie is mere scorn, nothing higher ”

“ A shivering chill came over Menie Laurie; this half-derisive silence on one side, this eager impulse of contradiction and opposition on the other, smote her to the heart. It had been rising gradually for some days past, and{144} Menie, without being quite aware of it, had noticed the bias with which her mother and her betrothed listened and replied to each other; the unconscious inclination of each to give an unfavourable turn to the other’s words, a harshness to the other’s judgment, an air of personal offence to a differing opinion, of grave misdemeanour to a piece of blameless jesting. ”

“ Looking round, Jenny may still fuff, but has no reason to complain.
And Menie, leaning out, feels the soft summer air cool down the flush upon her cheeks, and lets her thoughts stray away over the great city yonder, where the sunshine weaves itself among the smoke, and makes a strange yellow tissue, fine and light to veil the Titan withal. The heat is leaving her soft{108} cheek, her hair plays on it lightly, the wind fingering its loosened curls like a child, and Menie’s eyes have wandered far away with her thoughts and with her heart. ”

“ But, harder far than that, what is Menie to do?—Menie, who vows never to leave her—who will not permit her to meet the chill fellowship of poverty alone. A little earthen-floored Dumfriesshire cottage, with its kailyard and its one apartment, is not a very pleasant anticipation to Mrs Laurie herself, who has lived the most part of her life, and had her share of the gifts of fortune; but what will it be to Menie, whose life has to be made yet, and whose noontide and prime must all be influenced by such a cloud upon her dawning day? ”

“ Come you hither, Menie Laurie, that the friendly fireside spirit may be consoled—playing in warm rays upon your hair, which the wind has blown about so pleasantly that the bright threads hang a hundred different ways, and catch a various glow of reflection in every curl—leaping up triumphantly under the raised lids of these sunny eyes—catching a little ring upon your finger, a little golden clasp at your white neck. No wonder Nelly draws her shawl closer, and turns her back upon the light, as she rises to speak to you. ”

“ Everything looks so neat, so fresh, so unsullied, that the travellers grow flushed and heated with a sudden sense of contrast, and remember their own travel-soiled garments and fatigued faces painfully; but Menie has only cast one pleased look upon the smooth green lawn which shrines the yew-tree—made one step upon the well-kept gravel path, and still has her hand upon the carriage-door, half turning round to assist her mother, when a sudden voice comes round{104} the projecting bow-window of Heathbank Cottage—a footstep rings on the walk, an appearance reveals itself in the bright air. ”

“ Nelly Panton sits mournfully upon the wooden stool. If you take her own word for it, no one is more contemptuous of “fyking” and “making a wark” than Jenny of Burnside; but the kitchen—woe be to the hapless stranger who ventures to commend it!—is quite resplendent with brightness and good order. The fire, cheerfully burning in the grate, finds a whole array of brilliant surfaces to dance in, and dances to its heart’s content. ”

“ Laurie, busy with her work, does what she can to keep the conversation “sensible,” but with no great success. The younger portion of the company are too completely occupied, all of them, to think of ordinary intercourse. Miss Annie’s room was never so bright, never so rich with youthful hopes and interests before. Look at them, so full of individual character, unconscious as they are of any observation—though Nelly Panton, very grim in the stiff coat armour of her new assumed gentility, sits at the table sternly upright, watching them all askance, with vigilant unloving eye. ”

“ Love that thinks you loftiest, noblest—love that worships in you its type of grace and high perfection, its embodiment of dreams and longings—rejoice in it, oh youth! But if you ever come to know a love that is disenchanted—a love that with its clear and anxious sight has found you out and read your heart—knowing not the highest part alone, but, in so far as human creature can, all that is written there—yet still is love; if you rejoice no longer, pause at least, and tremble. Light is the blind love of the old poets—frail, and in constant peril. ”

“ Another great tear; no one knows so well what an imp this said little Davie is—but Jessie sighs again. “It was a’ me.”
But it is not this little cloud of childish trouble that throws a something of pensive sadness into Jessie’s pictured face. The face is the face before you; but the atmosphere, Menie Laurie, is in your own heart. Something sad—touched with that sweet pathos which lies on the surface of all great depths—and this true picture grows under Menie’s hand to a heroic child.
It is a strange place for an artist to be. ”

“ Distress and dismay—it is not hard to see them{178} both in Menie Laurie’s face, so pale and full of thought, as she leans upon the wall here among the wet leaves, looking out. Yes, she is looking out, fixedly and long, but not upon the misty far-away London, not upon the pleasant slope of green, the retired and quiet houses, the whispering neighbour trees. Something has brought the dreamy distant future, the unknown country, bright and far away—brought it close upon her, laid it at her feet. ”

“ Beyond the Brigend your eye loses itself on a line of road travelling away towards the hills, with two great heavy ash-trees holding their gaunt arms over it for a portal and gateway—on a level line of fields, broken hedges, scattered trees, with the blue tints of distance, and here and there the abrupt brown dash of a new-ploughed field to diversify the soft universal green—and on the hills themselves, a bold semi-circular sweep stealing off faintly to the sky on one hand—while at the other, Criffel, bluff and burly, slopes his great shoulder down upon the unseen sea. ”

“ Miss Annie is about in the room once more, giving dainty touches to its somewhat defective arrangement—throwing down a book here, and there altering an ornament. Patience, Menie Laurie! many another one before you has sat in resolute outward calm, with a heart all a-throb and trembling, even as yours is. Patience; though it is hard to bear the rustling of Miss Annie’s dress—the faint discords of July’s music. ”

“ They stand there, arched and canopied, under these familiar trees, the hamlet’s quiet houses receding behind them—Burnside yonder, the limit of the scene, and the burn, the kindly country voice, singing a quiet measure to keep them calm. An old man and a young, learned with experiences of life: the elder, fresh and noble, daring to meet the world with open face, aware of all the greatest truths and mysteries of the wonderful existence which we call common life, but nothing more ”

“ Mrs Laurie—who never can be anything but Mrs Laurie, a matron of sober years, and Menie’s mother—sits, in her grave-coloured gown and snowy cap, upon the sofa; while on a stool low down by her side, in a little tremor of expectation, Miss Annie perches like a bird, waiting the arrival of her visitors. Mrs Laurie, with her Dumfriesshire uses, quite believes what Miss Annie says, that only “a few friends” are coming to-night,{134} and has not the slightest idea that the lady of the house will be greatly mortified if her rooms are not filled in an hour or two with a little crowd. ”

“ She is sitting by the little work-table in the window, her eyes, so wistful as they have grown, so large and full, and eloquent with many meanings, turning from one to the other with quick earnest glances, which are indeed whispers of deprecation and peace-making. “He means something else than he says; he is not cold-hearted nor insincere; you mistake Randall,” say Menie’s eyes, as they labour to meet her mother’s, and gaze with eager perturbation in her face, deciphering every line{145} and wrinkle there. ”

“ Down comes July, not without a stumble now and then, over boulder or bramble, but looking very much as if she floated on the sweet atmosphere which streams down fresh and full from the top of the hill, and the elastic spring air could bear her well enough upon its sunny current for all the weight she has. Very simple are the girlish salutations exchanged when the friends meet. “Eh, Menie, where are you going?” ”

“ With a startled glance Mrs Laurie looks round her, at the old man’s face of anxious friendliness, at the deep flush on Randall’s brow, and at her own Menie’s drooping head. “Shall I leave you, Menie?” Menie makes no answer—as pale and as cold as marble, with a giddy pain in her forehead, unable to raise her swimming eyes—but she makes a great effort to support herself, as her mother gradually looses her hand from her arm. ”