'Did my father no' offer to send him home in the spring-cart? It's sair wet for him to be walking in the wind and the rain the day.' Or: 'He had a fine bloom on his cheeks, I'll warrant, when he came in through this morning's bluster of wind.' Or again: 'He'll be riding to the hunt with my father to-day; have they put their pink coats on, Jeanie Trim?'
The relations between Kinnaird and the father and mother appeared to be indefinite rather than unfriendly. There were times, it is true, when he came round by the dairy and gave private messages to Jeanie Trim, but at other times he figured as one of the ordinary guests of a large and hospitable household. No special honour seemed to be paid him; there was always the apprehension in the love-sick girl's heart that such timely attentions as the offer of proper refreshment or of the use of the spring-cart might be lacking. The parents were never in the daughter's confidence. She always feared their interference. There was no beginning to the story, no crisis, no culmination.
'Now tell me when ye first saw Mr. Kinnaird?' asked the maid.
But to this there was no answer. It had not been love at first sight, its small beginnings had left no impression; nor was there ever any mention of a change in the relation, or of a parting, only that suggestion of a long and weary waiting, given in the beginning of this phase of memory, when she refused to touch her food, and said she was 'sair longing' to see him again.
The household at Kelsey Farm had flourished in the palmy days of agriculture. Hunters had been kept and pink coats worn, and the mother, of kin with the neighbouring gentry, had kept her carriage to ride in. There had been many pleasures, no doubt, for the daughter of such a house, but only one pleasure remained fixed on her memory, the pleasure of seeing Kinnaird's eyes shining upon her. These days of the lady's youth had happened at a time when religion, if strong, was a sombre thing; and to those who held the pleasures of life in both hands, it was little more than a name and a rite. So it came to pass that no religious sentiment was stirred with the thought of this old joy and succeeding sorrow.
The minister never failed to read some sacred texts when he sat beside her; and when he found himself alone with the old dame, he would kneel and pray aloud in such simple words as he thought she might understand. He did it more to ease his own heart because of the love he bore her than because he supposed that it made any difference in the sight of God whether she heard him or not. He was past the prime of life, and had fallen into pompous and ministerial habits of manner, but in his heart he was always pondering to find what the realities of life might be; he seldom drew false conclusions, although to many a question he was content to find no answer. He wore a serious look—people seldom knew what was passing in his mind; the doctor began to think that he was anxious for the safety of the old dame's soul.
'I am not without hope of a lucid interval at the end,' he said; 'there is wonderful vitality yet, and it's little more than the power of memory that is impaired.'
At this hope the daughters caught eagerly. They were plain women, narrow and dull, but their mother had been no ordinary woman; her power of love had created in them an affection for her which transcended ordinary filial affection. They had inherited from her such strong domestic feelings that they felt her defection from all family ties for the sake of the absent father and brothers, felt it with a poignancy which the use and wont of those winter months did not seem to blunt.
No sudden shock or fit came to bring about the end. Gradually the old dame's strength failed. There came an hour in the spring time—it was the midnight hour of an April night—when she lay upon her bed, sitting up high against white pillows, gasping for the last breaths that she would ever draw. They had drawn aside the old-fashioned bed-curtains, so that they hung like high dark pillars at the four posts. They had opened wide the windows, and the light spring wind blew through the room fresh with the dews of night. Outside, the moon was riding among her clouds; the night was white. The budding trees shook their twigs together in the garden. Inside the room, firelight and lamplight, each flickering much because of the wind, mingled with the moonlight, but did not wholly obscure its misty presence. They all stood there—the minister, the doctor, the grey-haired daughters sobbing, looking and longing for one glance of recognition, the nurse, and the new maid.
They all knelt, while the minister said a prayer.