“I wish you would take her to Glendochart, Mary. She is not happy. If it is Lord John or something else I cannot tell. She says she would like to come with me—but what would my father say?”
“Say! just what we all would say—that we would not permit it. A mantua-maker’s house in London for Jeanie Douglas. Oh, you need not blaze up, Kirsteen; ye have made your bed and ye must lie on it—but Jeanie!”
Kirsteen did not blaze up. Her eyes flashed, her colour rose; but she restrained herself with a great effort—for what would be the use? “The more reason,” she said, “that you should step in—you that are no mantua-maker but a lady in your own house. Take Jeanie with you, and keep her safe—and if you will take my advice ask Major Gordon. He is not rich but he has a very good name.”
“I mind now,” said Mary, “that these Gordons were friends of yours—and you want to keep Jeanie down, just in a mean position when she might take her place among the highest. I would not have thought ye were so little, Kirsteen. But I have nothing of that. I’ve always been proud of Jeanie and I’m not minding if she’s put over my head. I’ll bring no man here to distract her mind—and I’ll put no spoke in her wheel, my bonny little sister. She shall be the first and grandest of us all, if I can do it. And then her ladyship,” cried Mary, “will know who was her best friend.”
“Perhaps I think less of ladyships being more used to them,” cried Kirsteen, irritated beyond her self-control. “If ye bring her to shame instead of grandeur who will she thank then?”
“To shame!” cried Mary. “Let them say that word that dare.”
“But I dare! And I know them all, and what they think of him in his own family. And that he’s not safe for a girl like Jeanie to know. Aunt Eelen, you know them as well, and you know if what I say is true.”
“Young weemen,” said Miss Eelen, “if ye think that words of strife are seemly in a house where the mother’s buried that day, it’s not my opinion. Kirsteen goes too far, though I would not say but there was reason in it,” she added after a moment “Whisht, both of you—here is the poor bairn herself.”
The next morning Kirsteen, in her despair, took a still bolder step. She went to the door of the room in which Drumcarro was, and knocked for admittance. He stared at her as she came in with a lowering brow, and humph! of ungracious surprise, and stopped in his reading of the paper, but said nothing.
“Father,” said Kirsteen, “I am going away to-day.”