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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 This conversation took place while Isabel was absent on one of her usual
visits to the hill. When the minister had left them, Miss Catherine turned to
Jean and began to inquire into the girl’s symptoms.
‘She has no cough,’ she said; ‘I have noticed that. But now that man is
gone, tell me, Jean Campbell, are ye sure it’s not a pining for yon English
lad?’
‘I canna tell,’ said Jean doubtfully, shaking her head. ‘Whiles I hae my
doubts. She had ay a craving about the post at first. That’s past. But if she
hears a footstep sudden in the road, or maybe a neighbour, coming in for a
crack, lifting the latch at the outer door, she gives a start that drives me
wild; but she never names him. And there were some words she let drop
——’
‘Don’t tell me of words,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘It was her first love, and
there’s nothing in this world she’ll not forgive him. That’s it. And now I see
what I must do.’
But nothing was done that day, nor for several weeks after. It was, as so
often happens, the very crisis of Isabel’s affairs on which they first
discussed the question. When she came home that evening she was ill. The
spring winds were cold, and she had taken a chill on the wet braes; and for
some weeks every symptom which could most afflict her friends made its
appearance. It was whispered in the Loch, with much shaking of heads, that
the Captain’s Isabel was soon to follow her sister: that she had fallen into ‘a
decline;’ that she had never recovered Margaret’s death; and even that the
twin sisters had but one life between them according to the common
superstition, and that the one could not long outlive the other. These
prognostications reached the minister’s ears, moving him to a misery of
which the people who caused it had not the remotest conception. On the
whole the parish, though deeply grieved, enjoyed talking this matter over;
and even Jean Campbell, though her heart, as she said, was breaking, had
long consultations with Miss Catherine, and with Jenny Spence, and many
other anxious visitors, touching the resemblance between Isabel’s illness
and the beginning of Margaret’s. She was rather bent, indeed, on making
this out to be the case, although her tears flowed at every suggestion of
danger to her remaining charge.
‘Her cough has taken no hold of her; she’ll shake it off,’ said Miss
Catherine.
 ‘I mind when Margaret’s was no more than that,’ Jean would answer,
shaking her head. And notwithstanding the profound pain which the thought
of any approaching misfortune to Isabel gave them, there was almost a
degree of mournful enjoyment in the comparing of notes and exchanges of
confidences which took place among the nurses. But the effect was very
different upon the minister. The mere thought of danger to her acted upon
him like a temptation to blasphemy. In such a case what would remain to
him but to curse God and die? Wherever he went, people met him with
questions. ‘Have you heard how the Captain’s Isabel is the day?’ ‘Eh, I
thought she would gang like her sister.’ ‘Ye see twins, ye never can separate
them in life or death.’ Such were the comments he was in the daily habit of
hearing; and they stung him so that every day was full of torture—pain
which, after the bright dreams he had been indulging in, was doubly hard to
bear.
But as it turned out the pain was unnecessary. Isabel had caught cold, her
body being susceptible at all points, and her mind unhinged—just such a
cold as might, had her constitution been weaker, have ended as Margaret’s
had done. Jean was right in her diagnosis—just as Isabel’s illness began
Margaret’s had begun: there had been, even to some extent, the same cause.
The shock which Mr. John’s love, and the painful interruption of it had
given her, had unstrung Margaret’s strength just as Stapylton’s absence had
done her sister. But there the resemblance stopped. The elder sister’s
constitution was feeble and Isabel’s was strong, and other influences
besides that of disappointed love had come in, in Margaret’s case. The
shock had struck at all the delicacies of her nature, and made her sick of the
life in which such thoughts could be. And her contemplative nature, her
visionary heart had taken refuge in heaven; but with Isabel it was not so.
Her illness, though it lasted only for a few weeks, looked like an interval of
months or years. It put Stapylton at a distance from her. So long as she had
lain in her sick room, all expectation of his coming or longing for it had
gone out of her heart; and as she recovered the thought came back but
dimly to her. She had not forgotten him, but time had gone faster than its
wont, and he was further off than she could have supposed—drifted away.
Then Miss Catherine, moved by the urgency of the case as she had
scarcely ever before been moved, announced her intention of taking Isabel
away for change. As soon as she was able to move, they went to one of the
watering-places in which Scotland believes—the Bridge of Allan, and then
to Edinburgh. It was not a very long journey, but everything was new to
Isabel. It roused her in spite of herself. Youth gained the ascendancy over
all the facts which had lessened its brightness. So many new things to see,
the bright summer weather, the change and movement—the sight of crowds
and novelties, drove things more urgent out of her mind.
And then Mr. Lothian came and paid them frequent visits; so frequent
that the parish was moved to its depths, and grumbled at his repeated
absence. ‘We might a’ dee for what he cares,’ said the women at the village-
doors; and even John Macwhirter, though unused to interfere, gave forth his
opinion on the subject: ‘I’m no a man to insist on a call from the minister
every other day,’ he said. ‘He’s enough ado with his sermons, if he gives his
mind to them as he ought; but he’s an aulder man than me that have half a
dozen weans to think of; and a bonnie example that is to his flock, trailing
over half the country after a young lass. Lord, if I was like him I would
bide. Ye wouldna see me bring wife and bairns on my head at his time of
life; and a young wife’s a bonnie handful for an auld man. Ye may gloom,
Mr. Galbraith, but you’re no far from the same way of thinking yoursel.’
‘I’m thinking there’s many young lasses in Edinburgh and many things
of more importance,’ said the Dominie. ‘Mr. Lothian hasna left the parish
for years. And his sermons are running dry, if you’ll take my opinion. No
doubt the world’s a wicked place, but it does the best of men good to see it
now and again. I wouldna say, John Macwhirter, but even you yourself
might take a hint from smiths of more advanced views. And as for a divine
——’
‘You’re grand at your jokes,’ said the half-offended blacksmith; ‘but if I
were to take hints, as ye call it, in the same kind of style as the minister, I
would like to ken what my Margret would say? She would be neither to
hand nor to mind.’
‘Now, I was saying,’ continued the Dominie, ‘a divine has most need of
all. He hears what folk are thinking, and a’ the new wiles o’ the Evil One to
fortify your spirits against them. Maybe you think the Auld Enemy is
always the same?—which shows how much you know about it. No, no,
John. Keep you to your anvil and your iron, and let the minister alone.’
‘Na, if it’s the deevil he’s studying I’ve no a word to say,’ said John; ‘a’
the world kens there’s nae teacher for that like a woman;’ and having thus
secured the last word and the victory, as far as the applauding laughter of
his audience was concerned, John proceeded to constitute himself the
champion of the minister when the Dominie withdrew from the field. ‘After
a’ thae prophets and trash, I’m no surprised he should take the play, but
he’ll be cleverer than I take him for if he gets bonnie Isabel.’
‘It would be the best thing she could do, a lass with no friends,’ said one
of the bystanders.
‘But she’ll not do it,’ said the blacksmith, confidently, wrapping himself
all at once in a flaming mist of sparks. Such was the general opinion of the
Loch. ‘I canna believe she’ll have the sense,’ Jean Campbell said, to whom
it was most important; and after a while the parish almost forgave the
minister for his neglect of them in consideration of the interest with which
they regarded his suit. Everybody, except Isabel herself, was aware of the
conspiracy against her. To herself it appeared strange that Miss Catherine,
out of love for her, should leave the Loch and her own home so long, and
waste the early summer, which was her favourite season, in the dusty,
windy Edinburgh streets. Isabel accepted the sacrifice with the faith of her
age in personal attachment, and said to herself that she could never be
grateful enough to her old friend. She could not but acknowledge to herself
that the change had made of her a new creature. She looked, and thought,
and spoke, and felt herself so to do with a touch of soft surprise—like one
of the young ladies whom she had sometimes seen at Lochhead. She, too,
was a lady born—yet with envy and wonder she had looked at the strangers
whose look and air were so different from her own. They were not different
now. Insensibly to herself Isabel had acquired another tone and air. Her soft
Scottish speech was still as Scotch as ever, but it was changed. She felt
herself to move in a different way, all her sensations were different.
Sometimes she thought of the Glebe with a thrill of strange alarm. To go
back to Jean and her children, and the solitude without books, without
variety—could she do it? Or if that was all in store for her, was it not cruel
to have brought her to this different life?
‘Now bring me some of your friends from the College, and let her hear
you talk,’ said Miss Catherine, in furtherance of her deep design. The
minister, whom she addressed, only shook his head with a doubtful smile.
‘What will she care for our talk?’ he said. ‘The nonsense of a ball-room
would please her better. She would take my friends for a parcel of old
fogies; and so indeed we are.’
 ‘And ready to go to the stake for your own notions all the same,’ said
Miss Catherine, with much scorn. ‘Are you, or am I, the best judge of what
she’ll think? As for ball-rooms, heaven be praised, in her mourning that’s
out of the question; and if she set her eyes upon a man under forty, except in
the street, it may be your fault, but it shall not be mine.’
‘Will that serve me, I wonder? or is it fair to her?’ said the scrupulous
minister.
‘The more I see of men, the more I feel what fools they all are,’ said
Miss Catherine; ‘go and do what I tell you, minister, and leave the rest to
me.’
And accordingly Miss Catherine Diarmid’s lodging became the scene of
a few gatherings, which to a girl more experienced in society than Isabel
would have looked sufficiently appalling. But Isabel, with her mind and
intelligence just awakened, and with that fresh sense of ignorance which
made her intelligence doubly attractive, regarded them as banquets of the
gods. Mr. Lothian’s friends were unquestionably old fogies; they had their
ancient jests among themselves, at which they laughed tumultuously, and
the outer world stared; and they had endless reminiscences, also among
themselves, which were far from amusing to the uninitiated. But then by
times they would talk as people talked in the old days when conversation
was one of the fine arts. And Isabel opened her great brown eyes, and her
red lips fell a little apart, like the rose-mouth of a child. She listened with an
interest and admiration, and shy longing to take part, and shyer drawing
back which made it impossible, which altogether rapt her quite out of
herself. And her eyes turned with a certain pride to the minister, who would
take his full share, and was not afraid to lift his lance against any professor
of them all. Isabel raised her pretty head when he spoke, and followed his
words with quiet understanding glances, with rapid comprehension of what
he meant, with the ever ready applause of her bright eyes. He could hold his
own among them all; he was not afraid to enter into any argument. He
contributed his full share to all that was going on; and Isabel looking at him
grew proud of him—with the partizanship of his parishioner, and friend,
and—favourite.
And all this time Miss Catherine sat, like a benevolent crafty spider at
the opening of her net. Nobody divined the deep intention in her choice of
her visitors. Not a man under forty, as she had betrayed to Mr. Lothian, ever
penetrated within her doors. If the question had been suggested to Isabel, no
doubt she would have recognised it as unusual that gentlemen in Edinburgh
should be all approaching half a century. But it did not occur to Isabel. She
was awed and filled with admiration of the men she saw. It did not come
into her heart to ask where were the young men who would have better
matched herself and the other girls whose society Miss Catherine cultivated
for her sake. Even the chatter of these girls did not enlighten her. They
talked of pleasures of which she knew nothing—dancing all night, for
instance—but how could it ever be possible for Isabel to dance all night?
No, was not this better, loftier, a kind of amusement not inconsistent with
all those solemnities of life into which she had had premature admission?
Therefore the absence of the youth did not strike her. Miss Catherine was
old, and it was natural she should choose her friends to please herself.
 CHAPTER XXVI
‘Now,’ said Miss Catherine, when it approached the end of June, and
Edinburgh, like other towns, began to empty itself of its prisoners. ‘Now,
minister, you may go your ways, and settle down in your parish. I am going
to take her home.’
‘Home!’ said Mr. Lothian; ‘to the Glebe?’ and his countenance fell. For,
to come and go a dozen times a day to Miss Catherine’s lodgings, and to see
her young companion constantly under the shelter of her presence, without
awaking Isabel’s susceptibilities or seeming to seek her, was very different
from going to visit her in her own cottage, putting her on her guard by the
very act.
‘Yes, to the Glebe!’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Don’t look at me as if you
thought me an old witch. Maybe I am an old witch. No, she is not coming to
my house. I mean to plunge her back into her own—to Jean Campbell and
the bairns; and then if you cannot make something of the situation, it will be
your fault and not mine.’
Mr. Lothian paused, and mused over this last wile. He smiled a little, and
then he shook his head. ‘It might be good for me,’ he said; ‘but it would be
cruel to her.’
‘Go away with your nonsense!’ said Miss Catherine; ‘I hope I know the
world and what I’m speaking of; but men are fools. I have given her all the
change that was good for her here, and she has had just a taste of what life
is, a flavour to linger in her thoughts. And now she shall know the cold
plunge of the home-coming. Do you think I don’t know it will give her
pain? But how can I help that? It will show her what she wants, and where
she is to get it; and if she does not make up her mind that it is to be found in
the Manse parlour, I tell you again it will be your fault and not mine.’
‘My bonnie young darling!’ said the minister, moved to unusual
tenderness; ‘but I feel as if we were cheating her, conspiring and taking
advantage of her innocence. If it could be done at less cost—— ’
‘Go away and mind your own affairs,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘leave Isabel
to me. Am not I seeking her good? and must I hesitate because my physic
has an ill taste? Not I. Go home with your scruples and see what you’ll
make of it. And you need not take advantage of my work if you have any
objections. It’s in your own hand.’
Upon which the minister went away, shaking his head more and more.
‘You know my scruples will yield but too soon if Isabel is the price held out
before me,’ he said. And he obeyed his general and went away; but
foolishly freighted himself in the very teeth of Miss Catherine’s plans, with
everything he could think of to lessen the dreariness and change the aspect
of the Glebe Cottage. He sent a great box before him when he arrived at
Loch Diarmid, which was on Saturday; and on the Monday he hastened up
to the cottage, and unpacked the case with his own hands, and took from it
pictures and bookshelves, and books to fill them, ‘a whole plenishing,’ as it
appeared to Jean. ‘What is this all for?’ she said, looking at the arrivals with
a sceptical eye.
‘It is that Isabel may not think too much of the past when she comes
back—that there may be something new to cheer her,’ said the minister,
somewhat struck by a sudden consciousness that his motives were not much
more noble or innocent than those of his ally and fellow-conspirator. Jean
stood and looked on while he hung the pictures and put up the shelves, very
critically, and with her own thoughts.
‘Then Isabel is coming back,’ she said, ‘and I’m glad of it; among all
your grandeur she was like to forget her home. And by all I can see you
mean her to stay, or you would not spend good siller and time fitting up all
this nonsense to please her e’e.’
‘It is to comfort her heart, if that may be,’ said the minister; ‘that coming
back may not be more than she can bear.’
Jean was offended, and tossed her head with an impatience she did not
attempt to conceal. ‘I’m no one for forgetting them that’s dead and gone,’
she said, ‘nor changing the place they’ve been in. For my part I would keep
a’ thing the same. It’s like running away from God’s hand, to run away from
the thought of a bereavement. And I would rather mind upon our Margaret
than look at a’ your bonnie pictures; and so, if she’s no spoilt, would
Isabel.’
On the Saturday of Mr. Lothian’s return to Loch Diarmid, Miss
Catherine intimated her intention to Isabel. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘the
summer is wearing on. I would not say a word about it if I did not see how
much better you are. But I think, now that you are able to bear it, we should
be thinking of home.’
And in a moment the chill which the minister had foreseen fell upon
Isabel. It came upon her like a sudden frost, suddenly quenching the light
out of her eyes. She said ‘Yes?’ not so much in acquiescence as with a
sudden wistful question as to when and how this change was to come.
‘I was thinking of the end of the week,’ said Miss Catherine steadily, ‘if
that would be agreeable to you.’
‘Anything would be agreeable to me,’ said Isabel, with a little rush of
tears to her eyes—‘whatever pleases you. It has been so kind, oh! so kind of
you——’
‘You are not to speak to me of kindness,’ said the old lady. ‘It was a
pleasure to myself. But now, God be thanked! you’re well and strong; and
bonnie Loch Diarmid will be in all its beauty. Are you not wearying to get
home?’
‘Oh, yes. I shall be glad——’ faltered Isabel. But it took the colour from
her cheek, and silenced all the little cheerful strain of talk which by degrees
had developed in her. ‘You have stayed away all this time for me,’ she said,
feeling this a subject on which she could more easily enlarge.
‘Yes,’ said Miss Catherine, without hesitation; ‘I don’t pretend to deny it,
my dear. It has been for you. And I am very glad I came. You are a different
creature. But all the same it will be a great pleasure to get home.’
Isabel said nothing more. Oh, why was not the minister there to take her
part? He would have read the sudden dullness in her eye, the change upon
her voice. She sat for the rest of the day quenched out, making attempts to
speak now and then, but failing utterly; trying to smile and to talk as Miss
Catherine did about the proposed return. Oh! how the girl envied Miss
Catherine! The old woman was as lonely as the young one. She had her
duties, it was true; but no one to make Loch Diarmid pleasant to her. And
yet how pleased she was to go back to all the tedium! Was it only because
she was old and Isabel young?
‘You’ll feel the change, my dear,’ said Miss Catherine the day after, as
they sat together alone. ‘It will be a trial to you going home.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Isabel, eagerly; and then she made an effort and said, very
low, ‘It will bring everything to my mind—but, then, it was never out of my
mind; it will be as if it had all happened over again——’
 ‘It would have been the same sooner or later,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘It
has to be got over. And now, I hope, you are able to bear it. And when you
weary, my dear, you can come to me. I will always be glad to see you—
when I have the time.’
‘Thank you,’ said Isabel, feeling her heart sink in her breast. Glad to see
her—when she had time! After having been a mother to her, and her
companion for so long, opening up all her various stores of experience and
knowledge on Isabel’s behalf, feeding her with legend and tale. And now
that was over, too—and Jean Campbell and Jean Campbell’s bairns were all
the companions she should have in the dim future. Oh, for Margaret! Oh,
for the love that was gone! Oh, for—— Isabel knew not what she would
have said. Anything that would have warded off from her the blank that was
about to come.
‘It will not be cheerful for you, Isabel,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘but you
have a stout heart, and you must not forget it is your duty. This has been
very pleasant for the time. It is cheery to see new people and new places.
But home is ay home.’
‘Yes,’ assented Isabel, feeling in her heart that she was the most
abandoned of sinners not to be able to feel any rapture at the thought.
‘And there is no saying when we may have another such holiday,’ said
Miss Catherine, cheerfully. Isabel could make no reply. The full force of the
change rushed upon her. The sounds in the street seemed to grow melodious
as she thought how short a time she would have it in her power to listen to
them. And it seemed to her that her friend was quite unaware of the tumult
which this intimation had raised in her breast. Had Isabel known how
cunningly Miss Catherine had contrived it, how she had been working up to
this climax, and kept the ‘cold plunge’ as her most effectual weapon, the
girl’s mind would have risen up in arms against such cruelty. Miss
Catherine left her seated, melancholy, over some work, with every line in
her face turned downwards, and the new life gone out of her, and retired to
her own room that she might be able to chuckle unrestrained over her
success. ‘She’ll marry him, if he ask her, in six weeks,’ Miss Catherine said
to herself.
Left to herself, Isabel cried—not altogether because she was going home
—because she was so wicked as not to be glad at going home—because her
badness of heart was such that she regretted her holiday life with all its
indulgences. When she returned to the Glebe, should she be able, she asked
herself, to resist the movements of her own feelings, to think as little of
Stapylton as he did of her, to keep from longing and looking and listening
till the suspense brought on another fever? What should she do to occupy
herself? to keep off such a humbling absorption in one thought? There was
but one bright spot in all the monotonous landscape: the minister would
stand by her, whatever happened to her. Night or day she could trust to his
sympathy. He would come to her when she called him, stand by her, be her
support, her counsellor, her guide. She thought not of him, but of herself,
with youth’s spontaneous, unintentional selfishness. It did not occur to her
to think of him. But so far already Miss Catherine’s spells had wrought.
They arrived at Loch Diarmid at the end of the ensuing week; and were
met, not only by Mr. Lothian and by the carriage and servants from
Lochhead, but also by Jean Campbell, eager to see her charge, and
rapturous over the change in her appearance. From the moment in which
they left the steamer. Miss Catherine began to carry out her remorseless
policy. She kissed Isabel as soon as she had stepped ashore, and took leave
of her.
‘You’ll come and see me, my dear, whenever you have time,’ she said;
‘but you’ve a good long walk to the Glebe, and I will not hinder you now.’
And Isabel, standing still by her stepmother’s side, waiting till Jean had
arranged to have someone sent after them with the boxes, watched her
friend drive away with an undescribable sinking at her heart. Miss
Catherine compelled the minister to enter the carriage with her. She pulled
him by the sleeve, and whispered in his ear, and resorted to violent
measures to bring him, as she called it, to himself. ‘Go with her now, and
you show her her own power, and you’ll spoil all,’ she said; and the
bewildered man yielded. The carriage flashed away, while Isabel stood, not
able to believe her eyes, on the little pier. The summer evening light was
sweet upon the Loch, glancing down aslant on the braes, which were golden
with the setting sun; and the labourers were going home, and all the soft
sounds of repose and domestic reunion were in the air. Jean was busy with
the man on the pier about the luggage. Since Isabel had left that same spot
nearly three months before, nobody of Jean’s appearance or manners had
come near her, except as an attendant; and it would be difficult to explain
the sudden sense of desertion, the cruel solitude, and mortification and
falling back upon herself, with which the girl looked after her friend.
 Her friend! Had it been love for her at all which had moved Miss
Catherine, or only pity, and a disagreeable duty, from which she was glad to
be relieved. Was there anyone in the world who cared for Isabel—for
herself? They had been sorry when she was ill; they had pitied her. Even the
minister—he was gone too, with Miss Catherine, leaving her in the first
moment of her return all by herself. Tears flooded to Isabel’s eyes, and
these were driven back by pride, and rushed to her heart again, filling it
with a silent bitterness beyond all expression. It was a kind of public affront
to her, leaving her there on the pier to make her way home as she could.
Even Jean opened her eyes when she returned to the spot where her
stepdaughter stood forlorn.
‘They might have taken you with them as far as Lochhead,’ said Jean. ‘Is
that the way your grand friends part with you? And the minister, too! I
canna understand it. They might have taken you with them as far as
Lochhead.’
‘I would rather walk,’ said Isabel, though she had a struggle to enunciate
the words; and then the two took the familiar road and went on together, as
if it were all a dream.
There was a little consolation in the changed aspect of the little parlour,
the engravings on the walls, the little bookshelves, the volumes the minister
had chosen. It would not be his fault that he had so left her. And for the first
time a sense of pleasure and pride in the watchful, anxious tenderness of her
elderly lover came into Isabel’s mind. At that particular moment she was so
forlorn that these marks of his thought for her came sweet to her heart. It
could not be his fault. As soon as she had taken off her bonnet, she who had
come up the road with such languor, feeling a weariness altogether out of
proportion with the fatigue she had undergone, came eager to look at her
new treasures. He had consulted her about them all, though she had not
known why. She it was who had unwittingly chosen the half-dozen prints
which so changed the aspect of the grey walls. He had remembered exactly
what she liked, what she had said, shy as her opinions on such subjects
always were. Her countenance smoothed out under this influence. Jean,
who had been rather contemptuous of the ‘nonsense,’ followed her about
while she examined everything with anxious eyes. ‘She’s real weel in her
health; but oh, I’m feared she’s changed,’ had been Jean’s first thought as
Isabel’s abstracted looks and indifferent answers to all her news chilled her
warm delight in her stepdaughter’s return. ‘After a’ your grandeur, you’ll no
think much of your ain little house,’ she had even said, with a perceptible
taunt as they entered it. And Isabel’s first step, which had been to sit down
on Margaret’s sofa, and cry her heart out, had, natural as it was, been a blow
to Jean. She had herself become callous to the associations of the place; and
she had taken so much trouble to set out the tea there, and brighten it for the
home-coming. But when Isabel perceived the change about her, and began
to brighten, Jean brightened too.
‘Eh! if I had but thought you would have cared,’ she said. ‘There’s the
history o’ the Prodigal up in the garret, a’ painted and grand, no like thae
black-and-white things. But I never thought ye would care. Oh, aye, it was
just the minister! and a foolish thing it was for a man of his years, climbing
up on chairs and hammering away like a working man. But so long as
you’re pleased——’
‘Did he do everything himself?’ said Isabel.
‘Oh, ‘deed did he—everything; and would have jumpit into the Loch at
the end, if that would have pleased ye. The man’s just infatuate. I think
shame to see it—at his time of life.’
‘He is not so old,’ said Isabel.
‘Ye’ve gotten to your English the time you’ve been away,’ said Jean;
‘and nae doubt it’s as it should be, for you that’s a lady born—but it doesna
sound so kindly as the auld way. And you’re bonnier than ever;’ she added,
walking round her stepdaughter with admiring eyes; ‘and it’s a pleasure to
see a gown that fits like that; and you’ve gotten a new way of doing your
hair; you’re like some of the Miss Campbells that visited Lochhead, or that
English young lady that was living down the Loch. But eh, my bonnie
woman, ye’re no like the Captain’s Isabel.’
‘I don’t know that there is any difference,’ said Isabel, touched in spite of
herself by the tears that rose in her stepmother’s eyes.
‘Nor me,’ said Jean, putting up her apron. ‘I canna tell what it is, but I
see it. Eh, Isabel, I’m an auld fool. I’ve been thinking we might be real
happy, now you kent me better. But I see the Glebe’s nae place for you now.
You’ll no bide long here.’
‘Where should I go to?’ said Isabel, with a little bitterness; ‘no, you need
not be afraid. I am wanted nowhere but in my own house.’
‘You couldna be any place where you would be mair thought of,’ said
Jean wistfully, ‘but you’re no to be angry at Miss Catherine either. It was
want of thought, maybe, or that she took it into her head that you and me—
after being so long parted—would like best to be alone.’
‘Angry! why should I be angry?’ said Isabel. ‘It is not that. I did not
think of Miss Catherine. She has been very kind, and I hope I am grateful
——’
‘You’re her ain kith and kin. I dinna see the call for gratitude,’ said Jean,
with a little heat. ‘And she might have brought ye hame in the carriage, and
nae harm done. I never understand your fine folk. But sit down, my lamb,
and I’ll pour you out your tea, and ye maun try to mind we would a’ lay
down our lives for you, and that you’re in your ain house, and can do as you
please.’
Perhaps there was a forlorn satisfaction in that, after all. But when Isabel
crept to bed, a few hours later, without any visit from the minister, without
any communication from Lochhead, her heart was far from light. She wept
in the dark when she laid herself down in her own little bed. It had been a
dream, that was all; and now she had come back, and was no longer of
consequence to anyone—a Miss Diarmid, companion of Miss Catherine,
and favourite of society no longer; but only the Captain’s Isabel, too lowly
for the lairds, too high for the peasants. Visions came across her mind of the
scenes she had lately taken a part in, of the smiles that had been bestowed
upon her, of the interest with which her simple words had been listened to;
and now no smiles, no flattering tribute of admiring looks, were to be hers.
Miss Catherine had put her back decisively into her own place; and the
minister—even the minister! Yes, he was very good to her; he had given her
books and pictures to amuse her, as if she had been a solitary child. It was
the last little mark, no doubt, of the interest in her which she had attributed
to another feeling. But why should Mr. Lothian care for her? Why should
Miss Catherine care for her? They had been very kind to her, which is quite
a different matter. They had cured her of her illness, and done a great deal to
improve her; and now they had put her back softly, but firmly, at once into
her own place. No doubt it was best, Isabel thought, turning her face to the
wall, that she should know at once how it was to be; but yet it was a strange
downfall—and very hard to bear.
She did not go to church on the following Sunday, pleading her fatigue;
and with an unexpressed hope that Miss Catherine would have sent to take
her along with herself; but Miss Catherine took no notice. She made the
proper inquiries of Jean, and was sorry to hear Isabel was tired; but that was
all. Mortification, anger, and disappointed affection surged up all together
in poor Isabel’s mind. One of those forlorn days, with her veil over her face,
she made her way, by the most unfrequented paths she could think of, to her
sister’s grave. It was in a corner of the churchyard, out of the way of
passers-by; and Isabel threw herself down by it and clasped her arms round
the white stone in all the abandonment of her immediate pain, though that
pain was not primarily called forth by the loss of Margaret. After she had
wept out all her tears, she still retained her position, her soft arms wound
about the stone, clinging to it as she might have clung to her sister, her head
leaning against it, her dilated, tear-worn eyes gazing sadly into the air at
their full strain, though she saw nothing.
She was watched, though she did not know that anyone was near. Mr.
Lothian had yielded against his will to Miss Catherine’s peremptory
counsels, but he had kept upon the watch wherever Isabel went, finding out
her movements by that strange mesmerism of sympathy which conveys our
secrets through the air. He had seen her to the grave, though she had not
seen him. And when her tears were over, and she sank down into this
melancholy embrace of all that was left to her, the man’s heart could bear it
no longer. She whom he could scarcely refrain from taking to his protecting
arms when she felt but little need of him, how could he stand by and see her
clinging to the cold gravestone as to her only refuge? Isabel was too much
absorbed, too hopeless of any external consolation, to hear the rustle
through the grass as he came to her. He had fallen upon his knees by her
side before she roused herself to turn those wistful, strained eyes to him.
And then all considerations of what he might or might not do had been
driven out of his mind. He put his arms tenderly round her, not even
thinking of love, thinking of nothing but her need. ‘My bonnie darling!’ he
said with a sob, ‘my precious Isabel! It’s the living you must come to, and
not the dead, my dear! my dear!’
‘I have nothing but Margaret in the world,’ said the girl, with sudden,
sharp anguish, the fountain of her tears once more opened by this
unexpected tenderness. She thought as little of love or lovemaking as he did
in the sudden flooding of his heart. Nor was Isabel conscious how he drew
her away from the chill stone to his own breast, and held her, letting fall
actual tears over her as he had not done twice in his life before.
 ‘No, no; not there!’ he said, unconscious of his own words, holding her
close to him, clasping her fast, and thinking, as men so seldom think, not of
himself, but of her. It did not even occur to him how sweet it was to
appropriate her thus to himself. It was her want, her absolute need of him,
her self-abandonment which he could not bear. ‘Here, my darling,’ the man
murmured, with a pathetic abnegation of his own feelings, ‘lean here;’ and
so held her upon his bosom, schooling himself to be—if need were—her
father instead of her lover—anything to comfort her in the moment of her
weakness. When Isabel came to herself, he was gazing upon her, as she
leant on his shoulder, as if from an unapproachable distance. She was in his
arms, and yet his eyes rested on her with wistful reverence, as though she
had been miles away.
‘I did not mean to be so weak and so foolish,’ she said, gathering herself
away from him with a vivid blush. ‘I thought I was—alone—I thought
——’
‘You thought you had nothing in the world but her that is gone,’ said the
minister. ‘Isabel! and yet you know who is the light of my eyes, and the
desire of my heart?’
She leant her hand again upon the stone, her tears dried, her heart
beating, and visibly a crisis before her, which must affect her whole life.
‘I am old enough to be your father,’ he said, with his voice trembling. ‘I
never forget that. I’ve seen you grow up bonnie and bright, and loved you
more year after year. And now I feel as if I were taking an advantage of my
bonnie darling. Isabel, if your life were bright and full of love it would be
different. But you are alone. And never man on earth could love you dearer
than I do. Will you let me take care of you, my darling?’ he cried, and took
her hands and gazed into her face. ‘Will you come to my house and make it
glad? I’ll be young for my Isabel!’ said the minister, with tears in his eyes.
And the virgin heart within him came to his face and chased away the years
as if by magic. He was kneeling, though he was not aware of it; and his
eyes and every line in his countenance were pleading more eloquently than
words. But Isabel, in whose heart two rival forces were struggling, was too
much agitated and blinded by her own feelings to see.
‘Oh, Mr. Lothian, let me go home!’ she cried, stumbling to her feet.
‘How can I think of this—how can I answer you here?’
 ‘You shall answer me where you please,’ he cried, rising with her, and
supporting her with his arms. ‘When you please and where you please, my
darling! But it is here of all places that I want you to know—Isabel, you
know?—that there is one that loves you above life, above happiness—more
than words can say.’
She turned to him for one moment, and gave a sudden, tearful look at his
agitated face. ‘I know, I know!’ she cried. ‘Oh, let me go home, now!’
And he drew her hand within his arm, and took her home, saying not
another word. All was said that could be said. It was for her to decide now.
 CHAPTER XXVII
Yet the minister said one more word as he left his love at her own door.
He had been debating the question with himself as they crossed the braes,
whether he should leave it to her to answer him when she pleased and
where she pleased, as he at first said. He took her to her own door without a
word more upon this subject of which his heart was full; but ere he left her,
he paused a moment, holding her hand in his. ‘Isabel,’ he said, but without
looking at her, ‘if I come to-morrow will you give me my answer?’
Isabel made no reply. She gave him an anxious, timid look, and
withdrew her hand, yet lingered upon the threshold as if there still might be
something to say.
‘I will come to-morrow for my answer,’ he repeated in a more decided
tone. And then the cottage-door closed on her, and he went away.
‘Eh, is the minister no coming in?’ said Jean Campbell. ‘Pity me, Isabel,
what have ye done to him—him that was for ever in this house, and now he
never enters the door?’
‘I have done nothing to him,’ said Isabel. ‘What should I do to him? I
have nothing in my power.’
‘Oh, lassie, speak the truth!’ said Jean. ‘You ken weel, and a’ the Loch
kens, that you have mair power over him than kith and kin—aye, or the
very Presbytery itself. But you’re that perverse, ye’ll listen to nobody; and I
doubt but ye’ve been unkind to him, or gibed at him, puir man! and he has
nae fault that I ken of but his years.’
‘I don’t think he is very old,’ said Isabel, half under her breath; and she
went away into the little parlour which he had decorated for her, and sat
down by the window, all alone, without even taking off her bonnet. Never
before in her life had she been conscious of having anything so important to
think about. Thinking had nothing to do with the matter when Stapylton
was concerned. It was nothing but a struggle then between her love and
grief—between the lover’s eager wishes on one hand, and all the tender
decorums of life, all the claims of the past, on the other. She had struggled,
but she had not required to think. But now there had come such an occasion
for thought as she had never before known. The question was not one of
inclination or any such urgent motive for or against as should have settled it
for her, without loss of time; on the contrary, it was of the very nature of
those questions which demand the clearest thought. Love, as she had
apprehended it once, had floated altogether away, she told herself, out of
her life. Of that there was to be no more question, either then or for ever;
but yet life would not end because it had been thus divested of its highest
beauty. And Isabel knew she was young, and felt that she had a long
existence before her. Was she to do nothing for the comfort of that existence
—nothing to win it out of the mists and dreams? She sat down breathless,
her heart heaving with the agitation through which she had lately passed,
her nature all astir and moved by a hundred questionings. She did not love
Mr. Lothian. Love was over for her—gone out of her life like a tale that is
told; but life had to continue all the same: and what kind of life?
Then she did what, in the circumstances, was a strange thing to do. She
went to her room, and took out of the locked drawer, the only one she
possessed, Stapylton’s letter, which had lain there for months. But she could
not read it there, nor even in the parlour where there were so many signs of
the one love and none of the other. She went out, for she was still in her
walking dress, carrying the letter in her hand. No, she could not seat herself
under the birch-tree on the hill and read it there—the spell of its
associations would have been too strong; the very air, the bees among the
heather, the rustling of the branches, would have spoken to her of him who
had met her so often on that spot. Isabel hesitated for a moment in doubt,
and then she crossed the road and ascended the hill opposite the cottage.
The place she sought had already grown to be a sacred spot to all the
country-side. The burn still ran trickling by, though the sweet thoughts that
once accompanied it were still; the rowan hung out its odorous blossoms
over the grassy seat. It was Margaret’s little oratory to which her sister went
to think over her fate.
And there she read Stapylton’s letter over again. Her own mind had
advanced, her manners had changed since she read it last. She had grown
used to the delicate, ever thoughtful tenderness of a man who not only
loved her, but was full of old-world, chivalrous respect for her womanhood
and her youth. Her eyes flashed, her whole heart revolted now, as she read
this letter. When she had come to the end she cast it from her like a reptile,
and clasped her hands over her face with a sudden thrill of shame that
blazed over her like fire. She was ashamed of having inspired, of having
received, of having ever reconciled herself to such an address. What could
he have thought of her to write to her so?—how could he have dared?
Isabel did not know how much her own estimation of herself, and the
world, had changed since she read it first. It wrung from her a moaning cry
of injury and self-disgust. To think that she should have borne it—that she
should have spent her tenderest thoughts on a man who was so confident of
his power over her, so insulting in his security! The letter lay white on the
grass, and the breeze caught it, turned it contemptuously over, and tossed it
to the edge of the burn, where it lay dabbling in the soft little current. It was
the first thing that caught Isabel’s eye as she uncovered her face. No, she
could not let it float away on the burn to tell the passers-by how little
respect her first love had felt for her. She caught it up fiercely and thrust it
back into the envelope, as if the paper itself had harmed her.
Then she went silently home, holding Stapylton’s letter in her hand. She
did not put it even in her pocket as a thing belonging to her; but held it,
wetted by the burn, listlessly in her hand. Yet she put it back once more into
the locked drawer. It was one of her possessions still, no more to be parted
with than any other legacy of her past life. It was still afternoon, and the
broad bright summer sunshine lay over the Loch. Isabel sat down at her
parlour window, listless and alone. She was tired with her walk, and had ‘no
object,’ as her stepmother said, in going out again. She could not now
wander about the braes as she had once done. There was a heap of work
lying on the table, domestic mending and making, chiefly for herself; but
she could not sit down to that silent occupation at a moment when all the
wheels of life were standing still, with an expectant jar and thrill, to await
the least movement of her finger. She took a book at first; but her own
thoughts and her own situation were more interesting than any book. Then
she gazed out, without well knowing what she saw—but by degrees, her
perceptions quickening, became aware that Miss Catherine’s boat, with its
bright cushions, was gliding out from the beach opposite Lochhead. It was a
boat which could be identified at once from all the coarser forms on the
Loch. There were ladies in it—young ladies, as Isabel felt. The boat stood
out shining on the silvery sunshiny water, with its shadow as vivid below as
was the substance above. That was how life went for the others—a life
within Isabel’s reach, so near that she could touch it with her finger. It
seemed to her that she could hear their voices and laughter while she sat
alone. They were going up Tam-na-hara, the highest hill on Loch Diarmid,
to judge by the direction they were taking—a merry party, with the sunshine
flooding all round them and their joyful way.
When the boat disappeared, Isabel took up some of the work that lay on
her table. Had it even been work for the children there might have been
some sort of consolation in it; but it was for herself. She seemed to be shut
up in a little round all circling in herself—the grey walls her only
surroundings—this homely household her only sphere. At six Jean came to
the door and called her to tea. The children were seated at their porridge,
Margaret’s chair had been carefully put out of the way, and Isabel sat down
on her stepmother’s other side, to the curious composite meal. She was not
disposed to listen, but Jean was as little disposed to be silent.
‘Mary’s been complaining of her head,’ she said; ‘I think I’ll no send her
to the school the morn; maybe you would give her a bit lesson, Isabel, out
of one of your books, as you used to do. There’s measles about the Loch. I
dinna like to expose her at the school.’
‘Very well—if she likes,’ said Isabel.
‘Na, we’ll no ask her what she likes. Jamie’s been keepit in again the
day. If I was Mr. Galbraith, I’d find some means of making a callant work
better than ay keeping him in. Losh, I would think shame to be mastered by
a wean! And you, ye muckle haverel, why should I be at a’ the trouble, and
Isabel at a’ the expense, keeping ye at the school when ye learn nothing?
Laddie, ye’ve nae ambition. If Mary had been the lad and you the lass——’
‘I wouldna be a lassie to be the Queen,’ said Jamie in indignation.
‘I can do a’ his lessons better than he can,’ cried little Mary; ‘I never was
keepit in in my life. I’m ay dux, and he’s booby—!’
‘Whisht! whisht! and no quarrel,’ said Jean. ‘There’s company at
Lochhead, Isabel. Nae doubt that’s the reason Miss Catherine has never
been here. But she might have sent for ye when there were young folk
about. I’m no meaning a word against you, my bonnie woman; but you
were ay a hasty bit thing, and strangers dinna ken the warm heart that’s wi’
it. It’s vexed me, the minister no coming in. You’ve been taking affronts,
Isabel, at them; or some of your pridefu’ ways; they were a’ a great deal
mair here in the auld time——’
‘It was for another, and not for me,’ said Isabel, with sudden humiliation.
‘I’m no saying that,’ said Jean; ‘but onyway there’s a change. I have my
ain pride, though I’m but a cotter’s daughter myself—and you’ve mair right
to it, that are a lady born—but if you’ll no take it amiss, Isabel, a young lass
like you shouldna show it to the like of them. They’re no used to it. And
though you’ve good blood in your veins, you’re no just the same as Miss
Catherine; and it canna be a small thing that’s turned the minister that he
wouldna come in.’
‘There might be other reasons for that,’ said Isabel under her breath.
‘What are ye saying? The man has worshipped the very ground ye trod
on since you were little older than Mary,’ said Jean seriously; ‘I’m no
saying I understand it for my part. He’s aulder than me—and figure me
fashing my head about a young lad! But if he wearies at the last it can only
have been your blame.’
‘I think it would be best not to speak of such things,’ said Isabel, with
some heat, ‘before the bairns.’
‘Maybe you’re right there,’ Jean muttered, after a moment’s pause. And
then she resumed, ‘Mary, you’ll get your seam if there’s nae lessons to be
learned to-night—unless Isabel gives you some of her poetry—and, Jamie,
get you your books. If you’re diligent, maybe Isabel will gie ye a hand.
Poor thing!’ she said to herself, as she turned away to put her room in order
after the meal, ‘it’s the best thing I can do for her—better than sitting hand
idle and no a creature to speak to her. If she were a lass that could go to
service, or even that could stir about the house. But her that was never
brought up to do anything, and a lady born!’
The next morning, when Isabel was putting her books in order, and
wiping the dust from the shelves he had put up for her, and pleading his
cause to herself, Miss Catherine suddenly appeared at the Glebe. A more
unexpected visitor could scarcely have been, and for the moment Isabel was
disposed to be stately and affronted. Miss Catherine paused, almost before
she spoke, to look round and observe the change in the room. She shook her
head as she kissed Isabel. ‘Poor man!’ she said; ‘poor man! that’s what his
wisdom suggested to him. To make your own house pleasant and cheery
when he should have thought of nothing but tempting you to his.’ This was
a sufficient indication of her mission. She sat down steadily with the air of
establishing herself for serious work, and pointed Isabel to a seat near her.
‘My dear, sit down; I have a great deal to say to you,’ she said; and the girl’s
impatient temper fired at once.
 ‘Whatever you have to say, Miss Catherine, it can surely be said while I
am doing my work,’ she said, turning to her books. But she was held by the
glittering eye which her old friend, half-contemptuous of her petulance,
fixed upon her, and after a vain attempt to continue her occupation, turned
round and dropped into the indicated place. ‘You have not said anything
yet,’ said Isabel, but with a feeling that already she was having the worst.
‘I might speak to my housemaid while she was dusting,’ said Miss
Catherine, ‘but not to you, Isabel Diarmid. I have come to ask you but one
question, my dear. Are you going to be a reasonable creature, and make
yourself and an honest man happy? or do you mean to deliver yourself over
to weariness and this do-nothing life?’
‘I have plenty to do,’ said Isabel, startled, but without sufficient presence
of mind to answer anything but the first natural scrap of self-defence on
which she could lay her hand.
‘It is not true, Isabel; you have nothing to do worthy a young woman of
good connections by the mother’s side, as you are. And when you have
better in your power, and a life that is worth your while, and a man that is
fond of you, do you mean to tell me you will throw them all away?’
‘Miss Catherine,’ said Isabel, almost crying, ‘you have been very kind;
but I don’t know why you should question me like this. At home I am not so
good as you; you don’t care to come to see me or take notice of me. Why
should you take any interest in me now?’
‘Well, you may say it is him I take an interest in,’ said Miss Catherine,
dryly. ‘If you are affronted, Isabel, as you appear to be, I am come to tell
you what will happen if you send him away again as you did before, and
take no courage to look into your own heart. Are you happy without him? If
it comes to be that he will never pass this road again, never enter this room,
nor take more interest in you, will that be a pleasant ending in your eyes?’
Isabel made no answer; she only turned her head away, with flushed
cheeks and averted looks.
‘For, don’t deceive yourself,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘that would be the
result. He may have been weak, but he has always been able to hope; but if
you say “No” now, there will be no middle course for him. If he puts
himself in your way again, I, for one, will wash my hands of him; and I will
never do anything to throw him in your way. Do you understand what I
mean?’
 ‘Yes, I understand,’ cried the girl; ‘but if you think—if you think—I am
to be threatened——! Miss Catherine, you have been very kind; but you are
not my mother, or my near friend, to meddle with me now.’
‘But I will meddle,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘and for your good. Will you
part with him and me, and all that is best near you, for a dream—a delusion
—a fancy of your bit foolish heart? Or will you accept a happy life and a
good man, and all that heart can desire, when Providence offers them to
you, Isabel?—that is what I have come to ask. And I’ll not go till I get my
answer. I was fond of your mother, and fond of Margaret, and I am fond of
you,’ said the old lady, with softening eyes. ‘My dear, I would give a good
year of my life to see you so safe landed. They are gone that would have
advised you better than me; but I cannot stand by and let you throw your
life away. It would be a happy, good life. You would be like the apple of his
eye. He loves you like the men in books—like the men in your poetry
you’re so fond of, him and you. If I were as young as you, and my life in
my own hands again—— But when I was your age I was a fool; will you be
like all the rest of us, and choose your own dream, and let your life go by?’
‘Were the rest like that?’ said Isabel, suddenly rousing up, with white
lips and troubled eyes, to gaze at her monitor, who had thus changed her
tone all at once.
‘I could tell you stories of that,’ said Miss Catherine, suddenly taking the
girl’s hand into her own, ‘and some day I may. But there is no time for that
now. Isabel, will you think well, and ponder what I say?’
‘I am dizzy with thinking,’ said Isabel, putting her hand to her head with
a certain despair.
‘Then think no more,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘but take what God sends
you. He must not find me here; he would never forgive me. Isabel, me, that
was your mother’s friend, I bid you make that man happy, and not sin
against your own life. He’ll come before I can get away. God bless you,
bairn,’ said Miss Catherine, hurriedly kissing her, ‘and don’t forget what I
say.’
 CHAPTER XXVIII
Miss Catherine’s words had scarcely died out of Isabel’s ear when the
minister himself stood at the door.
She was standing where her kinswoman had left her—standing in front
of the window, where the light fell full upon her face and figure, her hands
held softly together, her eyes full of uncertainty and anxious thought. When
Mr. Lothian came in she raised them to him with a dumb entreaty, which
went to his heart. He had come to have an answer to his love-suit; and she
who had to decide it stood gazing at him, praying him meekly to tell her
what to do and what to say!
He came forward at that appeal, and took her hands into his.
‘Isabel,’ he said, with a voice full of emotion, ‘must I leave it over till
another time, and come back when you have made up your mind? My
darling, you are not to make yourself unhappy for me.’
‘Oh, no, no,’ she said, half-sobbing; ‘I cannot tell what to do. Tell me
what to do. It is you that know best.’
And once more she raised her eyes to her lover—humble, beseeching,
asking his counsel. Surely never man was in so strange a dilemma before.
He made a little pause to master himself; he made an effort to throw off
from him his natural interest in his own suit. He looked at her, into her
beseeching eyes, to see her heart through them, if that might be. His voice
sunk to the lowest passionate tones.
‘Isabel,’ he said, clasping her hand so closely that he hurt her, ‘do you
love him still?’
Then there came a cry as of a dumb creature, and big tears rolled up into
her eyes.
‘No!’ she said, gazing at him with those two liquid globes—dark,
unfathomable seas, in which all his skill and wisdom failed. It seemed to
him as if she had, by some craft of nature, veiled the eyes which he might
have divined, with the unshed tears which he could not divine.
‘You only can tell,’ he cried, losing such semblance as he had of calm
—‘you only can tell! Isabel, do you love him still?’
 ‘No!’ she repeated, with more energy; ‘no, oh, no—never again!’ and let
the tears drop, and looked at him softly, with her eyes unclouded.
‘Then come to me!’ he said, almost with violence, letting her hands fall
and holding out his arms to her.
She paused; a flood of colour rushed over her face, that had been so pale.
Her eyes fell before his. She held out to him the two hands he had loosed
his hold of, and put them into his. It was not such love as he had dreamed.
His heart, that was so young and full of fire, ached with the pang of the
almost disappointment, though it was better to him than any other
satisfaction. She gave herself to him sweetly, gently, with a soft, virginal
calm.
‘Yes,’ she said under her breath, ‘if you will take me—this way—if you
are content——’
‘My dear, my dear, more than content!’ he cried, his heart beating with
love and joy, and disappointment, and mortification, and happiness. She
was so gently acquiescent, so calm, so—resigned—yes, that was the word;
while he was full of all a young man’s fervour and passion. And yet, at last,
she was his, and it was sweet. When he left her he did his best to school
himself in the tumult of his emotions. Was it not always so? Could one
mortal creature ever fully satisfy another at that supreme moment and
junction of two lives? Was there not ever too little or too much—a failure
from the perfect dream, the unspeakable union? But she was his all the
same—to be cherished, cared for, made happy—she who was so
unfriended. About that side of the matter there would be no doubt; and she
would consent to his happiness, acquiesce in it, smile with soft wonder at
his passion. Well, after all, was not that a woman’s natural part?
Isabel, for her part, was very giddy when it was all over, and felt like a
creature in a dream. When she stood up the light seemed to swim away
from her eyes, and a blackness came over the world. Something sang and
buzzed in her ears; strange colours seemed to creep over the Loch and
prismatic reflections. But yet amid all the bewilderment and confusion was
a sense of comfort that it was settled at last. She had no more need to
question with herself—no effort to make after a decision; a sense of quiet
stole into her soul, the storm was over, and she had reached the haven.
That was an exciting day at the Glebe. Miss Catherine returned in the
afternoon in the carriage, which was a rare grandeur, and kissed Isabel, and
blessed her. She had gained her purpose, and it was no longer needful to
shut the girl out from her house and her life. As the first symptom of the
great change over, she carried Isabel off in the carriage to join the visitors at
Lochhead; and it was Miss Catherine who intimated the great news to Jean,
who had been much startled and mystified by the commotion in the house,
though without any very clear idea what it meant. It was an intimation not
without its importance to Jean, and took away her breath; but she received it
with a stoical concealment of her own individual feelings, with a few tears,
and a shower of good wishes. ‘And me that was finding fault with Isabel
because the minister wouldna come in!’ she said, with an unsteady laugh.
Meanwhile Isabel, with her head swimming, had gone back to the other
sphere for which she had sighed, and found herself the object of a thousand
little regards and observations. Miss Catherine, after her neglect, did not
seem able to do enough to show her affection; and ere long the minister,
now no longer her friend and adviser, but her lover and affianced husband,
joined the party. The sight of him had the most curious effect on Isabel; she
was immediately covered, as by a shield, from Miss Catherine’s too
demonstrative satisfaction, from the overwhelming comments of the others;
but for herself her head swam more than ever, and the solid earth seemed to
have grown unsteady under her feet. She was in a dream; not such a sweet
dream as he was walking about in, his head in the clouds; and not painful
either, as one doomed and going to the sacrifice. It was only confusion—a
mist which she could not penetrate—something which blurred all the
outlines and confounded one object with another. She kept apart, and kept
silent, feeling that if she spoke she would be incoherent, and if she moved
might totter. It was all so new. When she had time to use herself to ‘what
had happened,’ things would be different; such, at least, was what she said
to herself.
But things were very little different until the wedding took place, which
was a few days after the completion of the year of mourning for her sister.
During the interval she scarcely ever regained her balance. She was as
composed as usual, and took everything with outward calm; but she did not
know what she was doing. The notes of her being were jangled out of tune
—not harshly, but vaguely. The effect upon her was not to distort, but to
dim everything. The world became vague, and all that was in it. It did not
seem to her that she was to begin only a new chapter of existence, but that a
new book, mysterious and strange, lay before her, beyond the crisis which
she slowly approached. And at last the day came; a September day, early in
the month, when the heather had just died out of bloom, and the crack of the
sportsman’s gun was heard on the hills. There was no church-going
procession, no pretty stream of bridal maidens from the Glebe to the
church. The marriage took place in the little grey parlour, with the
decorations in it which the bridegroom had put up, and with the associations
that were so sacred to both. They stood where Margaret’s sofa had stood,
where she had died, and were made man and wife. And when it was done
and had become irrevocable the bride woke up with a little cry—the mist
vanished from her eyes and she saw things clear—a cloud of interested,
smiling faces around her, a man by her side who was her husband—the new
life, no longer a matter of the future, but present, had begun.
‘Did you speak, my darling?’ said her new husband, drawing her arm
through his, and looking at her with the ineffable satisfaction in his eyes of
a man who had attained all his desires, and reached the summit of content.
Isabel gazed up at him, attracted and touched in spite of herself by that
wonderful look of happiness, scarcely able to refrain from being glad for
him, notwithstanding the sharp and new impression of reality which
weighed so strangely on herself. ‘I never thought it would come true,’ she
sighed, turning her head away with momentary petulance, and burst into
uncontrollable tears.
The bystanders were too much interested in the bride to notice if any
cloud passed over the minister’s face. Had there been so, it would have
been foolish; for was it not to be expected that a bride the moment she was
married should signalise that wonderful event by the most natural sign of
emotion? It was but what everyone looked for, an almost duty of her
position. The women took her from her husband and kissed and blessed and
cried over her in their turn. ‘And nae mother to support her at sic a time,’
the humbler wedding-guests said to each other as they stood about the door.
There were two lines of sympathetic gazers all round the post-chaise when
it came to take the bridal pair away; fashion was not urgent on that point on
Loch Diarmid—but Mr. Lothian, with all the poetry of youth still in him,
was eager to carry his love away and have her all to himself. She was very
pale and trembled excessively as she was led out of her father’s house; but
at last she had fully awakened out of all her dreamings, and felt the force of
the change she had made. And Isabel did not turn from, but to, her husband
in that dangerous crisis of her being. Whatever might happen, she was
conscious that he was her support and comforter. She put her hand into his
trustfully, and went away—not happy as he was, yet at peace. Into the long
summer stretch of life, the existence without passion, without suffering, that
lay before her now all was over; taking farewell—was it for ever?—of the
cottage in which she had been born.
 CHAPTER XXIX
The wedding tour was but a short one; and when the snow appeared on the
hills in October, and the early winter began to isolate Loch Diarmid from
the rest of the world, Isabel stood by the Manse window, as she had
pictured herself standing, and looked for her husband coming home. She
had dreamed of it all; and somehow, out of a dream it had come to a reality,
and she found herself in the very position she had imagined, still somewhat
wistful, but no longer sad, or distracted by any of the doubts of the past. It
would be impossible to say how good he was to her, as good as a good man
of the most generous and delicate instincts could be to a young creature
whom he loved with all his heart, and with a certain touch of compunction
and compassion, and a ghost of remorse mingling in his love. He was not,
he knew, the kind of man she should have married; he was old enough to be
her father; and the consciousness gave to his love a soft delicacy, and
reverence, and tenderness, which are rare in the world. Had she been
unreasonable he would have made himself a very slave to her caprices; but
Isabel was not unreasonable. She was even yet a little timid of expressing
her own wishes or opinions.
The aristocracy of Lochshire was not remarkable for any great
intellectual qualities any more than other rural aristocracies; neither was it
the highest possible school of manners and social grace. But yet it was a
great advance to Isabel of the Glebe Cottage, who had no training in the
ways of the world. She was a lady born, as Jean Campbell, with pride, had
so often asserted; and the gentle blood, or the gentle mind, or both, asserted
themselves. Imperceptibly the change crept over Isabel. Mr. Lothian was
‘well connected’ in his own person, and he was well off, having had
something to begin upon, and so many years of frugal bachelor life to
provide him with means for the gratification of his young wife. And Miss
Catherine, proud of her protégée and of the match she had made,
superintended Isabel’s toilette, and watched over her comings and goings.
So that the winter passed away in a pleasant flutter of social occupation,
and the new Mrs. Lothian had such share of succés as is agreeable to a
young wife setting out upon the world.
 But yet, on the whole, what she preferred was the long winter nights
when she watched for her husband coming home by the waning twilight,
and sat down with him at the table to which her own hands had added what
decoration was possible. If her eyes did not light up at his approach, they
yet smiled softly on him with that serenity which was so new to hasty
Isabel. She was glad when he liked his dinner, and listened with a sweet
impartial satisfaction while he praised the dishes she had ordered for him,
and sometimes helped to prepare, and her own blooming looks. She ‘took
his kiss sedately,’ not more moved by it than she was by the whisper into
her ear that the tea was ready, of the pretty housemaid, whom she had
known all her life. And then the Dominie would stray in and deposit his
gaunt length in one of the easy chairs by the drawing-room fire, and the two
men would talk of all they knew, and all they had seen, and all they thought,
while she sat working between them, saying now and then her half-dozen
words, listening with all the fresh curiosity of her age. Her husband would
pause now and then to explain to her some special subject of discourse, and
Isabel would listen, smiling, looking up from her work. At first she had
said, ‘Never mind, I like best to find it out from what you say; I like to hear
what Mr. Galbraith thinks, and what you think, and put them together.’ But
Mr. Lothian was not satisfied with that. If he had a weakness, it was to
instruct his wife, and make her understand everything he was interested in.
And he was a little vexed that he could not persuade her, as he said, ‘to take
a part.’ But that was a slight—a very slight vexation. And Isabel did not
care to take a part. She listened, and she pursued her own thoughts; and
sometimes but half heard the talk, thinking of how to plant a new flower-
bed as spring was coming, or whether little Mary would not be better for a
new frock; or how to arrange the ladies and the gentlemen at the great
dinner-party which she was shortly to give in return for the civilities of the
Loch. Then she would glance at her husband, who was looking at her with
his eyes so full of love. His hair was getting white, it was true; but then his
cheek was still like a rose, and was set off by the white hair. And Isabel’s
eyes dwelt admiringly on the ruffles which she had hemmed, which she had
crimped, and in which she had placed the little pin she had given him when
they were married. It was not a very valuable ornament. It was a small
oblong brooch, set round with pearls, which she had herself worn with
Margaret’s hair in it, as long as she could remember. Now it held a little curl
of her own intertwined with Margaret’s, and had been placed on a pin to fit
it for its present use. It was the only ornament of the kind the minister ever
wore. And it was Isabel herself who had to put it into the delicate cambric
every morning. He was so particular about his frills. And she was proud of
them, and let no hand touch them but her own.
And when spring came a great idea had developed in Mr. Lothian’s
mind. He had been thinking of it all the time, though he had said nothing. It
was to take his wife to London, to see everything that could be seen, to go
to the theatre, and the opera, and make acquaintance with the big world. It
took away Isabel’s breath when the suggestion was made to her. Going to
London to her was something like what going to Constantinople would be
to a young woman in her position now—only so much more dazzling and
splendid to think of. When Jean Campbell heard of it, it brought tears of
pride to her eyes. ‘Eh, Isabel, my bonnie woman, ye have a life like a fairy-
tale!’ she cried, and such was the effect produced upon the Loch in general
by the news of this wonderful project.
‘His young wife has turned his head,’ said John Macwhirter. ‘There’s nae
fool like an auld fool, especially when there’s a wife in the case.’
‘If it had been in to the Assembly in May, ane could understand,’ said old
Sandy Diarmid, ‘to see the Lord Commissioner and a’ the sights; but
London’s a different story. It would suit him better to save his siller for the
family, when they come.’
‘But I hear there’s nae word of a family,’ said another gossip, ‘and he has
been saving since ever he came to the parish. So long as the pulpit’s well
supplied I see nae harm in’t for my part.’
At the village doors the question was still more hotly discussed.
‘Set her up with her trips to London!’ cried one of the neighbours, ‘and
her only Duncan Diarmid’s daughter, as we a’ ken, and with nae right to
such extravagance.’
‘But by the mother’s side Isabel’s a lady born,’ cried Jenny Spence, ‘and
her father was an officer as grand as young Kilcranion, that you think so
much of. When ye marry an auld man ye may well expect mair
consideration at the least. A’ he can do is but little for bonnie Isabel.’
‘If they were to spend the siller on God’s service it would set them better
—and him a minister,’ said Mary White.
And in higher circles there were a good many smiles and gentle jokes
about the minister’s uxorious fondness. Even Miss Catherine was not quite
sure about such an extravagant notion. But all the criticism did not affect
Mr. Lothian. He had made all his plans, and arranged everything without
regard to the popular babble. ‘I mean my Isabel to see everything, and have
everything I can give her,’ he said. He had lived in that mysterious world
himself when he was young. He had been tutor to the Marquis, the tutelary
deity of the district, who came to church always when he was on the Loch,
and had the minister to dine with him and showed him every sort of
attention. London was no such wonder and enigma to him as it was to most
of his parishioners. And Isabel, for the first time since her marriage, was
moved with an excitement which almost renewed her impetuosity. The
thought of going ‘to England’ stirred up all her dormant faculties for
pleasure. She made him tell her all about it, where they should go; what the
Park was like where the ladies rode; if he was sure it was quite right to go to
a theatre—and a hundred other particulars; and when at last the moment
came for setting out, the young creature almost threw off her wifely gravity
and felt herself a girl again.
They went by sea, which was a somewhat awful experience; but yet,
when she had recovered the first frightful consequences of acquaintance
with the unsteady waters, even the fact of ‘the voyage’ added something to
Isabel’s sense of growing experience and knowledge of life. She walked
about the deck, leaning on her husband’s arm as the steamer went up the
peaceable Thames, quite recovered from all unpleasant sensations, and full
of bright wonder and curiosity. ‘You know everything as if you had lived
here all your life,’ she said, in unfeigned admiration for her husband’s
cleverness, and hung upon him, asking a thousand questions, pleased with
all the novelty about her, proud of his unbounded information, a sweeter
picture he thought than all London besides could produce.
‘I was here when I was young like you,’ he said, ‘when everything takes
hold of one’s mind—when I did not know I was to be so happy as to bring
my bonnie Isabel. I suppose it was before you were born.’
‘And perhaps you were thinking of some other Isabel,’ she said, looking
up in his face, with the laughing half-jealousy of the wife, a something
more like love and less like simple affection (he thought) than he had seen
in her before.
‘Never,’ he said, bending down over the sweet face that was his own,
‘my darling, I never loved woman till I saw you. And when I saw you, you
were no woman, but a child. I kept my heart young for you, Isabel.’
She gave him a wondering glance, and then a little flush came over her
face, and she turned to ask him a question about something else which
struck her on the other side of the river. She had not kept her heart fresh for
him. She felt, with a momentary sense of guiltiness, that they were not
equal on that point. But her very thoughts were as innocently and simply
true to him now as if he had been—her father. Something like this was what
Isabel thought, but not with any conscious sense that her love for her
husband should have been different.
She was quite happy standing there with her hand drawn closely within
his arm, proud of him and of everything about him, from his boundless
knowledge down to his spotless ruffles; and felt at the present moment no
need of anything else for the happiness of her life.
And Isabel enjoyed all the sights of London with the same proud
satisfaction. He could tell her about everything, from Westminster and St.
Paul’s down to the old gentlemen riding in the Row, among whom he
pointed out to her the Duke and Sir Robert Peel, and at least a dozen more,
as if he had known them all his life, she said to herself. He was not so
learned in respect to the ladies, it was true. But still to know so much was a
great thing. And then it made his wife so independent. She had no need to
ask, to consult books, to remain in ignorance of anything. It gave her the
sweetest sense of superiority when she met a young country lady in the
Row with her husband who was not so clever as the minister, and saw them
gaze and gape at the notabilities. ‘Mr. Lothian will tell you who they are,’
said Isabel, proudly. And when her countrywoman confided to her how little
she knew about the places she had seen, the gratification of the minister’s
wife grew stronger and stronger. ‘Mr. Lothian was here when he was
young,’ she said; ‘and I never need to ask anybody but him—he knows
everything.’
‘Here when he was young, indeed!’ young Mrs. Diarmid, of Ardgartan,
exclaimed to her husband, when they parted company. ‘Here as a tutor, I
suppose; but Isabel gives herself as many airs as if he were the Marquis
himself.’
‘Well, at least he was the Marquis’s tutor,’ said young Ardgartan; ‘and if
she is pleased with her old man, it is very lucky for her.’
 And the fact was that Isabel was thoroughly pleased with her old man,
and enjoyed her expedition with all her heart. The Marquis asked his old
tutor to dinner, and gave Isabel his arm, and placed her by his side with
much admiration of her sweet looks. ‘I used to know your father,’ he told
her, ‘when I was a lad. What an eye he had! and would tire us all out
shooting over the Kilcranion moors.’ This acknowledgment of Captain
Duncan as himself in some way received by the local deities, was balm to
Isabel’s soul, and opened her shy intelligence to the Marquis, who found
her little sayings as piquant as sayings usually are which fall from pretty
lips. And the Marchioness offered Mrs. Lothian her box at the Opera to
Isabel’s great confusion and perplexity. The young ladies of the house
clustered round her, telling her what the music was to be, and how she
would enjoy it, and how much they envied her her first opera. ‘You will
think you are in Heaven,’ cried one enthusiastic girl. When she left the
grand house in Park Lane, with this ecstatic prospect before her, Isabel felt
that her life, as the stepmother had said, was indeed like a fairy-tale.
‘But is it so nice as they say?’ she asked her husband, as they went
home.
‘To them it is,’ said that man of universal information, ‘for they have
been brought up to it. I am not so sure about you; but you must ask me no
more questions, for I want you to judge of it for yourself.’
And it was with a sense of responsibility that Isabel set out for this new
felicity. She had put on one of her wedding-dresses, the blue one which her
husband loved—and had white flowers in her pretty brown hair. Her sense
of her present judicial position took from her the pretty girlish excitement
into which she had fallen about all the novelties that surrounded her, and
restored that soft dignity of the old man’s wife, the look of age she had tried
to put on when she first realised Mrs. Lothian’s responsibility. She looked,
perhaps, rather more girlish in this state of importance and seriousness than
she did in her livelier mood. And there was another reason, too, for unusual
dignity. Lady Mary was to go with her under her charge. ‘And I trust to you,
Mrs. Lothian, to take care of her,’ the Marchioness had said, with a sense of
the joke which was far from being shared by Isabel. It was the first time she
had ever acted as chaperone, and her mind was disturbed by the awful
question what she should do if anyone approached the young lady who was
under her charge. ‘Is she not to speak to anyone?—and am I to keep
everybody away?’ she asked her husband, and if possible admired Mr.
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