“I’ll not promise to take you to Kirsteen, any more than to take you to court,” he said. “I’ll promise nothing that takes your mind off me. To think of having you all to myself is enough for me. I mean to carry you off to some Italian bower, where there will be nothing to do but love, and love, and——”
“Till you are tired of love, as you call it, and me too,” said Jeanie, with a little disdain.
He gave her a curious look, wondering if at last the little simplicity had fathomed what he really meant. But Jeanie’s eyes were all untroubled, and her brow serene. She was disappointed and dissatisfied with his way; but only because it was not her way, and contrary to her expectations, not that she had divined the shame that was in his heart.
But one day a gleam of strange light burst upon the girl. He had been telling her of one of his friends, who had gone to those Italian bowers, and of the life he led; the lake, the moonlight, the myrtles and roses in the middle of winter, till Jeanie’s eyes grew bright. “We will get him to look for a place for us, on the water’s edge,” Lord John said. No thought of suspicion, or of finding her lover out, was in Jeanie’s mind. She asked, as a girl does, eager to hear of others in the same circumstances as herself, “And is he married, too?”
For the moment she could not comprehend the hurried demonstration, the embarrassment of Lord John among his caresses, the laugh, always so distasteful to her. “They don’t think of that out there,” he said, “they don’t put you in chains out there, they trust everything to love—as my Jeanie is going to do.”
What did it mean? She was always shy of these vehement caresses—she freed herself, with a strange chill upon her, and said that she must go. They had been wandering by the side of the linn, under the bare, over-arching trees; and Jeanie would not listen to the explanations which he was anxious to make, and which she understood no more than the offence. She was sure of nothing but that she must get away.
CHAPTER XX.
Jeanie fled to her own room, and all that had been said went vaguely rolling and sweeping through her mind like clouds blowing up for a storm. A hundred things he had said came drifting up—singly they had no meaning, and without something in her own soul to interpret them they would have conveyed no enlightenment to the uninstructed Highland girl. Even now, though aroused and frightened, it was very hard for Jeanie to put in shape or to explain to herself, what were the suspicions and the uneasiness she felt,—“they don’t think of that out there, they don’t put you in chains out there,”—what did it mean? Jeanie knew that there was a kind of persiflage—though she did not know the word nor yet what it meant—in which marriage was spoken of as bondage, and it was said of a man that he was going up for execution on his marriage day. That was said “in fun” she knew. Was Lord John in fun? Was it a jest, and no more? But there was something uncertain, something dissatisfied in Jeanie’s heart which would not be calmed down by any such explanation. What, oh, what did he mean? She was not to be taken to court, nor even to see Kirsteen. She was to go to that Italian bower where all was trusted to love. An Italian bower sounded like Paradise to Jeanie. She had not the most remote idea what it was. She was prepared to believe anything, to allow of any difference between the conditions of life there and those she knew. That might be quite right in an Italian bower which was not right in a Highland glen. She was bewildered in her innocence and simplicity; and yet that very simplicity gave her the sensation that all was not well.
After this there was a long interval in her intercourse with Lord John. He wandered about the glen and the hillside, but she took care never to fall in his way, the excitement of eluding him making a kind of counterpoise for the absence of the excitement there used to be in meeting him. And then he began to make frequent calls, to endure interviews with Drumcarro and inquire into Mrs. Douglas’s ailments in order to see Jeanie, to whom he directed the most appealing looks. And the impression and suspicion gradually died away from her mind. When she met him by accident after this interval out of doors, and he was free to demand explanations, Jeanie hung her head and said nothing. How could she explain? She had nothing to explain. And once more, though with self-reproach, the daily walks and talks were resumed. In her dull life it was the only relief. Her mother was growing more and more helpless and wanted more and more attention. And when Jeanie stole out from her long nursing for a breath of air no doubt it pleased and exhilarated her to see him waiting, to receive his welcome and all the tender words he could think of. Drumcarro himself saw them together, and made no remark. Marg’ret saw them together and was glad and proud to see the favourite of the house courted by the Duke’s son. Thus no one helped Jeanie, but everything persuaded her against her own perception that all was not well.
That perception, however, grew stronger and stronger, but with it a longing of Jeanie’s forlorn youth for the only pleasure that remained in her life. He flattered her so, he conveyed to her in every word and look such evidence of her own delightfulness, of her power over him, and his devotion to her! And all the rest of life was so overcast to Jeanie, so dull and grey, so destitute of pleasure. It was like a momentary escape into that Italian bower of which he spoke, to go out to him, to see his eyes glowing with admiration, to hear of all the delightsome things which were waiting for her. Day by day it became more clear to Jeanie that Lord John’s love was not like that of those downright wooers at whom she had once scoffed, who would have her answer yes or no, and left nothing vague in respect to their wishes. It occurred to her too, though she would not permit it to put itself into words, even in her mind, that his love was not like that which she had been so sure of in Lewis Gordon’s eyes, but which had never been spoken. Lord John was bold, there was no timidity nor reverence in his look, he was confident, excited, sure that he had her in his toils. All these the girl saw with the perspicacity of despair—yet could not free herself or break away. With him she divined there might be shame lying in wait for her, but with him, too, was all that was brilliant and fair in life. A time of splendour, of pleasure, of joy, if after that despair—while within her own possibilities there was nothing but the given routine, the dull existence in which nothing ever stirred, in which no pleasure was. Oh, if only something would come, she cared not what. Death or a saviour—what did it matter?—to carry Jeanie away.