CHAPTER X.
You follow the young prince up and down like his evil angel.
KING HENRY IV.
“Eh, Harry, here’s a gentleman coming,” said Violet, as she sat on the floor at the western window of the drawing-room with a book on her lap. Katie Calder kneeling beside her, was looking from the window, and making a superb cat’s cradle on her fingers. It was evening and lessons and work alike concluded, the children chose each her own manner of amusement, until tea should be over, and leave them free for their out-door ramble. But it was Katie’s observation which discovered the gentleman, though Violet was by no means incurious, when the discovery was communicated to her.
“Oh!” said Harry, turning from the window with a slight flush on his face, “it’s Gibbie Allenders—I might as well see him alone—but that would hurt his feelings. Mind he’s quite a foolish fellow.”
This speech was addressed to no one in particular, but Harry looked annoyed and restless, and they all perceived it. Gilbert Allenders, indeed, was a kind of ghost to Harry; for already an intimacy which disgusted his finer mind, but which he seemed to have no power to struggle against, had sprung up between them, and Gilbert never failed by jibe or malicious allusion, every time they met, to remind his new kinsman under what circumstances they first saw each other. Poor Harry! his earliest error here haunted him perpetually—he could not shake its consequences off.
“Has he got his smoking-room fitted up yet, Mrs. Muir Allenders,” asked Gilbert, after the ceremonies of his introduction—though he had seen Agnes before—were over. “Has Harry not begun to retreat into a den of his own yet? Ah you don’t know how we young fellows do in these respects—and really Allenders has shown so much good taste in the other parts of the house, that I am quite anxious to see the den—I’ve seen a collection of pipes in a German student’s room, that would astonish all Scotland to match—Bursch as they call themselves—horrid language that German—but I never could manage the coarse gutturals.”
“We have plenty in our own tongue,” said Uncle Sandy, quietly.
“Ah, Scotch—gone out of date, Sir, out of date—civilized people forget that there ever was such a jargon. I say, Harry, wasn’t that fine, that song Simson gave us the first night I saw you—magnificent—I didn’t know Allenders then, Miss Muir, quite a chance meeting, was it not extraordinary? and I think the first night he was in Stirling too—wasn’t it, Harry?”
Harry cast a guilty angry look round the room; Martha started in her chair; Agnes glanced up uneasily; and Uncle Sandy involuntarily shook his head; but Rose, happy Rose, heard nothing of it all, for with her eyelids drooping in a pleasant heaviness, she was dreaming out her dream—and though it was herself whom Gilbert addressed as Miss Muir, Rose remained peacefully ignorant of all he said.
“And there’s your friend, that lawyer fellow—your business man, I suppose, Allenders—he wasn’t with you; a couple of slow chaps, that advocate and him,” continued the sapient Mr. Gilbert. “I wouldn’t give twopence for such society. If they’re not as flat as the canal and as slow as a heavy boat, I’m no judge.”
“It happens that we are all indebted to Mr. Charteris, and that he is a friend of ours,” said Martha, quickly, “I believe Harry is proud to call him so.”
“And I am sure I never met a pleasanter man,” stole in Agnes.
And the eyes of Rose gleamed positive lightning upon the redoubtable Gilbert. But Rose, though she ventured upon a little short prefatory cough, said nothing.
“By-the-bye,” said Harry, hurriedly, “you have not seen the grounds, Allenders; come and give me your opinion of them.”
“Delighted, if the ladies will accompany us,” said Mr. Gilbert; “otherwise, Harry, I am much obliged, but can’t be detached from such fair company.” And Gilbert returned, with a glance of very unequivocal admiration, the indignant flash of Rose’s eye.
A pause of general disconcertment followed; irritated and defiant, Harry tossed about the books upon a little table near him, and moodily evaded the looks which sought his face. Mr. Gilbert Allenders, the only person present at ease, pulled up his high collar, and settled his long chin comfortably upon his stock, while Agnes, in a little flutter of anxious deprecation and peace-making, began to move among her cups and saucers, and to prepare tea.
“We have never had the pleasure of seeing you in Stirling yet, Miss Muir,” said Gilbert, turning his back upon Martha, and addressing himself with great demonstration to Rose. “Haven’t you had my sisters out, calling? I thought so. They’re nice girls enough, considering they’ve been always in the country. Ah, there’s nothing like a season or two in London for polishing up a man.”
“Have you been in London, Mr. Allenders?” asked Agnes.
“Yes, three or four years; but I’m not quite a good specimen,” said Mr. Gilbert, modestly, “for I was at work all the time, studying very hard—oh! very hard;” and the painful student laughed loudly at his own boast of industry. “I say, Harry, Leith races come on next month—you’ll go with us, won’t you? there’s Simson and Allan and me; I said you would be sure to come.”
“I don’t care a straw for Leith races,” said Harry, rudely; but notwithstanding he raised his head, and looked by no means so indifferent as he spoke.
“Care! who said anybody cared?” answered Gilbert; “one must go to lots of places one doesn’t care a straw for—it becomes a duty to society. I’ll undertake to say you’ll come, Harry. We needn’t be more than a couple of days away, and the ladies won’t miss you. Permit me, Miss Muir.”
And Gilbert, politely shutting out Martha and her uncle from sight of the tea-table with his long loose person and his easy chair, elaborately waited upon Rose, and devoted himself to her in a laborious attempt at conversation; but it is very hard to make a conversation where one of the interlocutors says only “Yes” and “No,” and those with anything but good will; so Gilbert took in Agnes as a partaker of his attentions, and talked so fine, and intimated so many festivities to come when the summer should be over, that the little wife grew interested in spite of herself, and wondered (for Agnes had been very “strictly” brought up) whether it would be proper and decorous for her, a matron and house-mother, twenty years old, to go to a ball. Martha, behind backs, sat quietly at her work, and said nothing; while Uncle Sandy looked on with a slight expression of displeasure and offence. The old man had a sensitive perception of ill manners, and by no means liked them to be applied to himself. But Martha was not offended by the neglect of Gilbert Allenders.
After tea, Harry—who had remained very moody and abstracted, except for a few minutes when he, too, kindled at those descriptions of local party-giving—proposed a walk in the grounds, where Agnes willingly, and Rose with great reluctance, were persuaded to accompany them. Rose was very innocent of flirtation—circumstances had guarded her, and kept from her both temptation and opportunity—so that, fully freighted with her present dreams, there could have been nothing less pleasant to Rose than to walk slowly along the mall, under the over-arching foliage, leaning upon the arm of Mr. Gilbert Allenders. And Mr. Gilbert Allenders was burdened with no delicacy. He kept steadily behind Harry and Agnes, he lingered in quiet places, he spoke tender sentimentalities, he quizzed the young ladies of Stirling, he insinuated his perfect conviction of the extreme superiority of Miss Rose Muir; but no amount of proof could have persuaded Gilbert of a tenth part of the disgust and dislike with which Rose Muir listened. She was very near telling him so several times, and begging rather to hear the rude jokes than the mawkish sentiment. But Rose was shy, and her safest refuge was in silence.
“What has Harry to do with such a man as that?” said Uncle Sandy. “Martha, I doubt this fortune is to have its dangers, as great as the poverty.”
“Ay, uncle.” Martha had seen enough, after a week at Allenders, to convince her of that.
“And he’s taken with Rose,” said the old man. “You were feared for Mr. Charteris, Martha; but there’s more reason here.”
“No reason, uncle, no reason,” was the quiet answer. “He may harm Harry, but Rose is very safe.”
“So she is, it is true,” said the uncle. “Ay, and the man that would do no harm to Harry might harm the free heart that clings by nature to things that are true and of good report. God preserve these bairns! If such a thing were happening as that Rose was to marry, I think, Martha, my woman, you should come cannily hame to me.”
A long time after, when both of them had relapsed into thoughtful silence, Martha answered:
“May be, uncle—it might be best; but many things must come and go between this time and that.”
“Harry has been speaking to me about a project he has,” said the old man, “about farming and borrowing siller. Has he told you, Martha?”
“Ay, uncle.”
“And you think well of it?”
“An occupation is always good,” said Martha. “I am doubtful and anxious about his plans for getting money, but the work should do him service; and Harry has begun on a great scale here, uncle. It is impossible he can go on so on his present income, and he will rather increase than diminish—he is always so confident. So I should be glad to think he had a chance of improving the property. I thought it a great fortune a month ago. It does not look so inexhaustible now.”
“Well, as the money would come to you at any rate in the ordinary course of nature,” said the old man hesitating; “and as there is aye the land to fall back upon, no to speak of my two hundred pounds, I think I may venture to speak to Miss Jean whenever I get back to Ayr.”
“Miss Jean! Does Harry mean to ask her for the money?” asked Martha.
“What think ye of it? She is far from a likely person, but he means to offer her higher interest, he says, than anybody else. What think ye of it, Martha? for I am only doubtful myself,” said the old man, anxiously.
But Martha only shook her head. “Do it, if Harry asks you, uncle—do it. I have given up advising now. He must be left alone.”
And Harry, to his great wonder, and with a strange mixture of irritation and pleasure, found himself left alone—suffered, without remonstrance or check, to follow entirely the counsel of his own will. Good little Agnes had great trust in what Harry said about economy and prudence, and triumphantly pointed out to Martha those resolutions of sublime virtue with which every piece of practical extravagance was prefaced; and Martha listened with a grave smile, and never suggested doubt to the simple heart, which, for itself, saw the most inexhaustible fortune in those much spoken of “rents,” and never dreaded now the old familiar evils of poverty.
Martha descended from her mother’s place among them. She stood aside, as she felt was meet, and suffered the young husband and the young wife to take their lawful place, free of all interference of hers. She herself now was only guardian of Rose and Violet, domestic helper of Mrs. Agnes—Harry Muir’s quiet elder sister, living in his house, a member of his family; and Martha’s natural pride took a secret unconscious delight in bowing itself to this voluntary humility. She soon began to be neglected, too, for the strangers who visited the young household did not feel that the eldest and least attractive member of it had any such claim on their attention as the pretty, girlish wife, or the graceful sister Rose. So Martha dwelt more and more in her own room, always working, and watching the shadows on Demeyet for her hourly relaxation. These shadows going and coming, and the soft wind rustling in the leaves, and the water continually passing by, and gleaming out and in among the shadowing foliage, were delights to her in her solitude. So were the children, when they drew her out to walk between them by the waterside, or when they sat at her feet, and retailed to her the stories of Dragon; and so were Harry’s good spirits, his constant occupation, his very infrequent lapses, and the sunny tone and atmosphere with which the hopeful house was filled. Yet Martha was anxious for Rose, whose dreams—sweet golden mists—were the first and only thoughts which her young sister had never ventured to whisper in her ear; for the graver woman knew by true instinct, though they had never visited her own experience, what these youthful dreamings were, and always gave tenderly and quietly the sympathy which the young moved heart came to seek of her, when Rose leaned upon her shoulder in the summer nights, and looked at the star twinkling about Demeyet, and sighed. With her arm round the girl’s waist, and both their faces veiled in the gloom, Martha would sigh, too, and tell stories of the old time that was past—gentle remembrances of the father and mother, tales of Uncle Sandy, and of many a familiar name in Ayr. And Rose smiled, and shed gentle tears, and asked questions about those old humble romances, those dead sorrows, those softened and tranquil histories of common life, till the dreams in her heart no longer oppressed her with their shadowy enchantment, but floated away, leaving her only with a deeper apprehension and sympathy; and themselves came back, when it was their time, freshened as with the evening dews. Sometimes, while they were thus seated by the open window, Martha leaning on it, and Rose on her, with sweet sounds ascending—rustling of trees and water, far-off child-voices of Violet and Katie, Martha would feel for a moment—and as she felt it, her steady hand shook a little, and her voice trembled—that this ready memory of hers, and the unconscious link which drew one story after another into her remembrance, and from her lips, was a mark of the age which began gradually to draw near. Age! the time of repose, of quietness, of peace; in the day-time, when such a thought struck her, the fiery heart within her chafed and rebelled; but at night she only felt her eyelid moisten, and her heart swell. Martha was wrong—age was not near; but in spite of forebodings and anxiety, this was a time of peace—a reposing time wherein strength for the great conflict was to be gathered.