Miss Carmichael

“ In the morning he and I went to the village church. Mr. Carmichael read the prayers. Mr. Charlton did not hesitate to draw back the red curtain which enveloped our pew, thus revealing to view a bevy of very pretty girls in the opposite seat. There, handsomest and foremost of all, was Rose Carmichael, her complexion like roses and lilies, her splendid dark eyes half asleep under their drooping lashes. She was a very beautiful girl, and wear what she would, she invariably appeared well-dressed. ”

“ Cameron," she retorted frankly; "I am going to see if Miss Carmichael will be kind and play Bach to me; it is a long time since I heard him played so well. You used to be fond of him, too, in the old days, Paul. Don't you remember how you used to lie on the sofa after that fever and declare that a wife's first duty was to be able to play to her husband? But girls--at least, most girls--don't care to play nowadays unless they are professionals. And if they are professionals they don't care to be wives--not even to a Highland laird." ”

“ Some day, if the opportunity ever comes in your way, I should like you to say a kind word or do a kind act to that girl. She is a perfect heroine; and, if she did not fancy herself under such tremendous obligations to me already, I’d like to look Alice Carmichael up and try to help her.”
“You are bigger and more generous than I am, Tom,” cried Eunice, between gasps of pain. “As I feel now, I pray God never to let me look upon one of their blood again!”
Four or five years later saw Mr. Ashton Carmichael a conqueror in the lists of New York’s smart society. ”

“ Carmichael, patting Sara's hand, “all your troubles are over, I am sure, and you are to come home with me and be taken care of as if you were one of my own little girls; and we are so pleased to think of having you with us until everything is settled, and Mr. Carrisford is better. The excitement of last night has made him very weak, but we really think he will get well, now that such a load is taken from his mind. And when he is stronger, I am sure he will be as kind to you as your own papa would have been. He has a very good heart, and he is fond of children—and he has no family at all. ”

“ Eunice, hurrying forward to explain to the hostess that one of their horses had slipped and fallen upon the asphalt, was royal in her young beauty. In her robes of shimmering rose color, her head, neck, and bodice coruscating with jewels, she stirred Carmichael’s selfish heart as nothing in woman’s shape had done before. He had to turn away to avoid showing his emotion.
“Don’t stare after Mrs. Farnsworth and forget you’ve got to take me in,” said, in his ear, the piqued voice of Miss Gertrude Ellison. “I declare, she has just bewitched all the men. ”

“ Carmichael's one relaxation had been, music, in which, as in other things, the girl had proved herself to be an apt pupil. As often as not, too, on these occasions, old Mrs. Cameron would send a man with the dogcart down the Strath to fetch up Mr. Wilson, and then the two old enemies could fence at each other courteously over the single glass of port, for which the Jesuit had a dispensation. And, if the buttons seemed inclined to come off the foils, Marjory, in the next room, would strike up, "Come, bring to me a stoup o' wine, and bring it in a silver tassie." ”

“ Gretchen took up the empty tankard and made off. The eyes of the two men followed her till she reached the dim bar, then their glances swung round and met. Carmichael was first to speak, not because he was forced to, but because it was his fancy at that moment to give the vintner the best of it.
"She is a fine girl."
"Yes," tentatively.
"She is the handsomest peasant I ever saw or knew."
"You know her?" There was a spark in the vintner's eyes.
"Only for a few days. She interests me." Carmichael produced a pipe and lighted it.
"Ah, yes, the pretty peasant girl always interests you gentlemen." ”

“ Life is a patchwork with the rounding-out pieces always missing. Come along. I'm lonesome to-night."
"So am I," said Hans.
The Black Eagle was lively as usual; and there were some familiar faces. The vintner was there and so was Gretchen. Carmichael hailed her.
"This is my last night here, Herr Carmichael," she said.
"Somebody has left you a fortune?" There was a jest in Carmichael's eyes.
"Yes," replied Gretchen, her lips unsmiling.
"The poor lady who lived on the top floor of my grandmother's house was rich. She left me a thousand crowns."
Carmichael and Grumbach: "A thousand crowns!" ”

“ The dreamer is invariably tripping over his illusions; and Carmichael was rather boyish in his dreams. What absurd romances he was always weaving round her! What exploits on her behalf! But never anything happened, and never was the grand duke called upon to offer his benediction.
It was all very foolish and romantic and impossible, and no one recognized this more readily than he. No American ever married a princess of a reigning house, and no American ever will. ”

“ Carmichael leant upon a stile, and recalled the carriage of her head, the quick flash of her eye, the tap of her foot, the fascination of her manner. She was free from the affectations, gaucheries, commonplaces, wearinesses of many good women he had known. St. Theresa had been the woman enshrined in the tabernacle of his heart, but life might have been a trifle tiresome if a man were married to a saint. The saints have no humour, and do not relax. Life with a woman like Miss Carnegie would be effervescent and stimulating, full of surprises and piquancy. ”

“ But the beautiful Lallie Carmichael was the heroine, and a clean-shaven American the hero. Elsie watched them almost breathlessly, and after a time it was she herself who was leaning back in the crowded restaurant, in a very low dress, and waving an ostrich-feather fan, torn between passion and loyalty. The American hero assumed no definite personality, other than that which his creator had endowed him. ”

“ In all probability she is married to some lucky fellow”——
“She wasna married when I saw Mrs Carmichael four months since; she was in what leddies call delicate health though; she had aye been melancholy since the time of the water business. Mrs Carmichael thought ye were a great fule for rinnin’ awa.”
“Mrs Carmichael is very kind.”
“’Deed is she,” replied the laird, “as kind-hearted a woman as ever lived. ”

“ I do not wish you to marry Marjory Carmichael; but neither do I wish you to marry that iceberg of a girl, and be miserable. Let me have my say, Paul, for the sake of old times. She does not love you, my poor Paul--I doubt if she can love anything--and you do not love her, you do not even admire her. ”

“ It is well known that Mistress Carmichael, beautiful Mistress Carmichael, cold Mistress Carmichael, proud Mistress Carmichael’ (he watched the effect of each epithet in succession on his irritated listener) , ‘has taken to herself a friend, an admirer, a lover, call it what you will, with whom she holds clandestine interviews in the Abbey garden at night. As I live, ’tis the common talk of the palace; and people laugh and whisper and sneer about the spotless Maries, and wonder why the Queen takes no notice of it. Nay, chafe not with me. ”

“ Carmichael laughed. "France is an incurable cosmic malady; it will always be. It may be beaten, devastated, throttled, but it will not die."
"You are fond of France?"
"Very."
"Do you think it wise to say so here?"
"I am the American consul; nobody minds my opinions."
"The American consul," repeated the vintner.
Gretchen could now be seen, wending her return in and out among the clustering tables. She set the tankards down, and Carmichael put out a silver crown.
"And do not bother about the change."
"Are all Americans rich?" she asked soberly. "Do you never keep the change yourselves?" ”

“ This railing against marriage on the part of his friends was pure boyishness, and they all were engaged on the mere prospect of a kirk, but Carmichael had more of a mind on the matter. There was in him an ascetic bent, inherited from some Catholic ancestor, and he was almost convinced that a minister would serve God with more abandonment in the celibate state. As an only child, and brought up by a mother given to noble thoughts, he had learned to set women in a place by themselves, and considered marriage for ordinary men to flavour of sacrilege. ”

“ The verandah was full of women. We longed to go in, but did not think they would let us. The courtyard was rather confused; men were rushing about, putting up arches and decorating them; servants were sweeping, and cooking, and shouting to one another; the women were talking and laughing. And all the time from within the house came the sound of the dirge for the dead, and the laugh and the wail struck against each other, and jarred. No one noticed us for awhile, but at last a woman saw us, and beckoned us to come. "We are all defiled to-day ”

“ Often and often we meet her in the high-caste houses of the place, where she is always an honoured guest because of her wonderful sanctity. She watches keenly then lest any of the younger members of the household should incline to listen to us.
One of her relatives is an English-educated lawyer, a bitter though covert foe, who not long ago stirred up such opposition that we were warned not to go near the place. Men had been hired "to fall upon us and beat us." This because a girl, a connection of his, read her Bible openly, instead of in secret as she had done before. ”

“ To hear one of their own people saying, with evident sincerity, "One thing I know, that whereas I was blind now I see," makes them look at each other and nod their heads sympathetically. This is something that appeals, something they can appreciate; many a time it arrests attention when nothing else would.
We were not able to get the photo of that special girl in the blue seeley, but this girl is so like her that I put her here. She is a Vellalar. The jewels worn by a girl of this class run into thousands of rupees. They are part of the ordinary dress. ”

“ Sometimes the glad girl-life reasserts itself, and she plays and laughs with her sister-in-law's pretty baby boy; but if she hears a man's voice she disappears upstairs. There are proverbs in the language which tell why.
I sat on the verandah of a well-to-do Hindu house one day, and talked to the bright-looking women in their jewels and silks. And all the time, though little I knew it, a widow was tied up in a sack in one of the inner rooms. ”

“ I think there is nothing in all our work which so rends and tears at the heart-strings within us, as seeing the spiritual clash with the natural, and to know that while Caste and bigotry reign it always must be so. [78]
We had a good long talk. "I want to be a Christian," she said, and for a moment I hoped great things, for she as the mistress of the house was almost free to do as she chose. I thought of her influence over her sons and their wives, and the little grandchildren ”

“ The prettiest thing about the Carcellini is the way it answers to a shaft of light. It leaps up like a fountain and fairly bubbles radiance. See! I will lean over and hold it between my thumb and finger sidewise under this candle nearest us, and you can get the effect.”
As she did so Carmichael’s eyes glittered and his breath came quick. A moment later a shiver of alarm and excitement ran around their quarter of the table. In inclining her head to catch the best light from the candle Gertrude Ellison had set fire to the fanciful aigrette of twisted tulle that soared high from her hair behind. ”

“ One middle-aged female, whose conversation oscillated between physiology and rescue work, compelled Carmichael to sue for mercy on the ground that he had not been accustomed to speak about such details of life with a woman, and ever afterwards described him as a prude. It seemed to Carmichael that he was disliked by some women because he thought more highly of them than they thought of themselves. ”

“ Not while I live; the Carnegies have their own faults, but ingratitude is not one. Nor the dear Rabbi's grave." Then there was silence, which Carmichael found very trying—they had been so near that day in Kilbogie Manse, with only the Rabbi, who loved them both, between; but now, although they stood face to face, there was a gulf dividing them.
"It may not be easy for me to visit Drumtochty often, for you know there has been a change ... in our circumstances, and one must suit oneself to it."
Carmichael flushed uneasily, and Kate supposed that he was sympathising with their losses. ”

“ Kate had never given herself to the study of Old Testament history, and would have had some difficulty in identifying Elijah—there was a mare called Jezebel of vicious temper—but she caught the contagion of enthusiasm. If the supreme success of a sermon be to stimulate the hearer's mind, then Carmichael ought to have closed at this point. His people would have been all the week fighting battles for conscience sake, and resisting smooth, cunning temptation to the farthest limits of their lives and in unimaginable ways. ”

“ There was something under the man's boldness, or he would hardly have been so ready with his promises to free the provost; nor would he have dared show his ill-will so openly. And what was the reward he expected from Margaret?
"The man can not be in love with her?" he muttered. "A mere cordwainer!"
But the thought suited well with Carmichael's insolent behavior; he was a man who would dare much, Duncan felt. ”