Nancy Stair: A Novel

by Elinor Macartney Lane

My heart went out to all this suffering, but death so near increased my anxiety for my own child, and when the news was brought me on the following morning that Isabel had passed away during the night, the fear for Nancy rose high in me, and I became like a crazed creature, wandering from one room to another, with half-begun prayers to God upon my lips and a feeling of utter helplessness heavy on my soul.

Nine weeks of this I endured, nine weeks of such dread that I should choose death in preference to living the time again, when one morning in early spring Dr. Cameron, who had been watching by the bedside all night, came to me. "I think, my lord," he said, "that the worst is by with. Ye need worry no more," and at the words I buried my face in my hands, as I sat at the table, and wept like a child.

On the day following this announcement, Sandy, who had refused to leave me in my great anxiety, took his boy off to visit the New Republic founded across seas, and Dr. McMurtrie, who kept his residence at Stair, for I would listen to no word of his leaving us yet, watched the dear one on her journey back from the valley of the shadow. It was late summer before she was able to be about at all, and Hallowe'en was celebrated by her first riding out.

As she grew stronger there were two changes I noted in her conduct, the first of these being her unwillingness to see Hugh Pitcairn, whose solicitude for her during her illness had knit us together by cords never to be broken. If she knew he was in the house she would retire to her own room, or if advised of his coming would go abroad to visit or drive, in every way showing a clear avoidance of his society. And the second matter was in connection with the Burn School. This work had been the chief thought of her life before her illness, but upon her recovery she refused to visit the place, would walk or ride far around by the Dead Man's Holm to avoid meeting in with either teachers or pupils; and when Father Michel brought work to her to have it examined she would overlook it listlessly, and put it by immediately on his departure, to be referred to no more. I knew more of the reasons for this conduct than she suspected, her talk in the fever being all of one thing, and the intuition of my love helping me far in discovering the truth. I believed that McMurtrie had learned some matters as well as myself, for twice, when he was telling me something concerning her, he broke off with entire irrelevancy to say: "The little deevil; the plucky little deevil!" with tears in his eyes, and ending with, "God! I'd like to tell Pitcairn," and a roar of laughter.

More than a year had gone by before her color and brightness came back to her, and one gay spring morning, when the "Nanciness" of her had shown itself by some audacious rejoinder, I ventured on a remark, which I hoped would lead to an open talk with me, concerning the affair of the trial.

"Nancy," said I, with nothing but the impulse of the moment to guide me, "would a child of mine commit a forgery?"

She looked up at me quickly, as though to judge my intention, before she answered, "A child of yours did."

"But you were too little to know the force of your conduct then," I continued. "Would a child of mine do such a thing now?"

A curious gleam passed over her face before she answered, looking straight into my eyes as she did so, "Don't worry about that, Jock," she said; "she didn't have to!"

"We will suppose," she went on, with an exact imitation of Pitcairn, "only suppose, you understand, that a bit of evidence was needed in a certain trial to clear one who was very dear; and we will suppose, only suppose, you remember, that there was a girl who had skill enough to seem to obtain it. We will suppose, still, that the girl said to herself, 'If I am on the other side from the great Pitcairn, I shall have no chance against his cross-examination, but if I seem to be on his own side he may be thrown from his guard, and I may suggest the questioning I want followed.' Take the testimony!" she cried, in her natural voice, rising and standing by the chimney-place. "Take the testimony which I gave and go through it word by word, and you can find neither forgery nor perjury. I had been well taught in the letter of the law. I was Pitcairn's own pupil, Jock!"