“You would have thought!” cried Jeanie scornful in her passion, turning her soft angelic countenance, in which there were so many things unintelligible to her elder sister, all flushed and wild to Kirsteen. “And me that thought you would understand!” she cried.
There was a pause, and Kirsteen’s heart ached with feelings inexpressible. She had never been accused of not understanding before, and it is a reproach which is hard to bear. She sat silent, painfully wondering into what strange places these young feet had wandered where she could not follow. She had expressed the only conviction that was possible to her one-ideaed soul. The touch of true love had been to herself the one and only touch, never to be obliterated by baser contact. She sat gazing wistfully into the dim air, perplexed and troubled, her eyes filling with tears, her heart with heaviness. To be tempted was the one thing which in her austere and spotless womanhood, a widowed maiden, Kirsteen could not understand.
Jeanie had been sobbing passionately by her side for a minute or more, when suddenly she turned and flung herself again upon her sister, once more hiding her face in Kirsteen’s lap. “Oh!” she cried, “take me with you, Kirsteen! Do you not see now that I cannot be left? You’re holy like a saint, but me, I want more, I want something more. Is it not natural to be happy when you’re young—to get what you like, and see what’s bonny and bright, and get out into the world? I’m not one that can be patient and bide at home. Oh, Kirsteen! I cannot just sew my seam, and read my book like good girls—even with my mother here—and now that she’s gone—Kirsteen, Kirsteen! he will wile me away to my shame if you will not save me, you that are the only one.”
She said all this half intelligibly, clasping her arms round her sister, now raising her head with an imploring look, now burying it again on Kirsteen’s shoulder or in her lap. Such an impassioned creature was unlike anything that Kirsteen had ever known before. She soothed her with soft words, saying, “My dear, my darlin’, my bonny Jeanie!” the tears falling from her eyes as she caressed and stilled the excitement of the other. What could she do? How could she take her? How leave her? She who was herself on sufferance allowed to be here by reason of her mother’s death, but bound to go away to-morrow, and with so little likelihood that any one would pay attention to what she said. She dared not steal her little sister away. She dared scarcely plead for her, for more care, for closer guardianship! Alas, was this all that was to come of the post she had undertaken, she who was to be the stand-by of the family? She who from the beginning had thought of Jeanie as the one for whom everything was to be made bright?
CHAPTER XVII.
Kirsteen, up to this time, had kept as much as possible out of her father’s way, and he had taken no notice of her presence in the house. When she came within his range of vision he turned his back upon her but said nothing. It appeared to her now, however, that it was necessary to change her procedure. If she were to do anything for Jeanie she must take a more decided part. Accordingly, on the evening of her mother’s funeral, Kirsteen appeared at the family table among the others. Her father perceived her as he took his place, and gave her a somewhat fixed look from under his eyebrows, along with a muttered exclamation; but he said nothing, and suffered her presence without any demonstration of displeasure. The evening was like and yet unlike one of the former ceremonials of the house on the eve of the departure of sons. It was a celebration like that, but the hero of the occasion was not there, and the party at table after a week of composed, quiet, subdued voices, and melancholy subjects, showed a certain relief in the fact that all was over, and nothing further required to show their respect. The black ribbons in Miss Eelen’s cap nodded as she moved her head, and Mary was very careful of the crisp new crape which ornamented her dress, while Mr. Pyper, the minister, would make an occasional remark in conformity with what were supposed to be the feelings of the bereaved family. But these were almost the only signs of mourning. Jeanie, after all the agitation of the morning, presented a changeful aspect, and her eyes were heavy and a little red with tears; and Jamie, the last of the boys, had an open-eyed, wistful, almost startled look, feeling very solitary, poor boy, and wishing to be away like the rest. There was no one who had felt the mother’s death, or perhaps it would be almost more just to say the presence of death in the house, as this boy, more imaginative than the rest, to whom the week’s interval had been a terrible one. He was pale under his freckles, with a dismal look in his wide eyes, the impression of the funeral still too strong upon him for any other feeling. But the others were relieved; it is impossible to use another word.
“The country will be very quiet this year with nobody at the castle,” said Mary in subdued tones.
“It will make little difference to ainy of you,” replied Miss Eelen, her black bows nodding in her cap, “for if there had been fifty balls, ye could not in decency have gone to ainy one o’ them.”
“There are more folk in the country than us,” said Mary, with a little sharpness. “But I hear Lady Chatty’s far from happy, poor thing. For my part I never had any confidence in the man.”
“The man was well enough; there’s nothing to be said against the man; they’re just both spenders, and no siller to spend.”