“Troth, wuman, ye’re richt there!” returned her mistress, with cheerful assent. “The mair they see o’ ye, the less they’ll meddle wi’ ye—caird or cadger. Haud ye the licht upo’ yer ain face, lass, an’ there’s feow’ll hae the hert to luik again.”
“Haith, mem, there’s twa sic like o’ ’s!” returned Jean bitterly, and bounced from the room.
“That’s true tu,” said her mistress—adding after the door was shut, “It’s a peety we cudna haud on thegither.”
“I’m gaein’ noo, Jean,” she called into the kitchen as she crossed the threshold at eight o’clock.
She turned towards the head of the street, in the direction of the manse; but, out of the range of Jean’s vision, made a circuit, and entered Mr Mellis’s house by the garden at the back.
In the parlour she found a supper prepared to celebrate the renewal of old goodwill. The clear crystal on the table; the new loaf so brown without and so white within; the rich, clear-complexioned butter, undebased with a particle of salt; the self-satisfied hum of the kettle in attendance for the guidman’s toddy; the bright fire, the golden glow of the brass fender in its red light, and the dish of boiled potatoes set down before it, under a snowy cloth; the pink eggs, the yellow haddock, and the crimson strawberry jam; all combined their influences—each with its private pleasure wondrously heightened by the zest of a secret watch and the hope of discomfitted mischief—to draw into a friendship what had hitherto been but a somewhat insecure neighbourship. From below came the sound of the shutters which Mr Mellis was putting up a few minutes earlier than usual; and when presently they sat down to the table, and, after prologue judged suitable, proceeded to enjoy the good things before them, an outside observer would have thought they had a pleasant evening, if not Time himself, by the forelock.
But Miss Horn was uneasy. The thought of what Jean might have already discovered had haunted her all day long; for her reluctance to open her cousin’s drawers had arisen mainly from the dread of finding justified a certain painful suspicion which had haunted the whole of her intercourse with Grizell Campbell—namely, that the worm of a secret had been lying at the root of her life, the cause of all her illness, and of her death at last. She had fought with, out-argued, and banished the suspicion a thousand times while she was with her, but evermore it had returned; and now since her death, when again and again on the point of turning over her things, she had been always deterred by the fear, not so much of finding what would pain herself as of discovering what Grizell would not wish her to know. Never was there a greater contrast between form and reality, between person and being, between manner and nature, than existed in Margaret Horn: the shell was rough, the kernel absolute delicacy. Not for a moment had her suspicion altered her behaviour to the gentle suffering creature towards whom she had adopted the relation of an elder and stronger sister. To herself, when most satisfied of the existence of a secret, she steadily excused her cousin’s withholdment of confidence, on the ground of her own lack of feelings: how could she unbosom herself to such as she! And now the thought of eyes like Jean’s exploring Grizell’s forsaken treasures, made her so indignant and restless that she could hardly even pretend to enjoy her friend’s hospitality.
Mrs Mellis had so arranged the table and their places, that she and her guest had only to lift their eyes to see the window of their watch, while she punished her husband for the virile claim to greater freedom from curiosity by seating him with his back to it, which made him every now and then cast a fidgety look over his shoulder —not greatly to the detriment of his supper, however. Their plan was, to extinguish their own the moment Jean’s light should appear, and so watch without the risk of counter-discovery.
“There she comes!” cried Mrs Mellis; and her husband and Miss Horn made such haste to blow out the candle, that they knocked their heads together, blew in each other’s face, and the first time missed it. Jean approached the window with hers in her hand, and pulled down the blind. But, alas, beyond the form of a close bent elbow moving now and then across a corner of the white field, no shadow appeared upon it!
Miss Horn rose.