The Duke stood there for a moment more, and then he took off his hat and said, “Thank God.” With all his heart, Glendochart echoed the surprising words. He thought that he indeed had cause for thankfulness—that he should never have had the occasion to approach his chief with news of an alliance that would have been so little to his mind; that Jeanie’s name should have been kept out of the matter altogether, and no questions put to the old man whose nerves had been so strangely shaken. He had indeed cause for thankfulness; but the Duke, why? Glendochart came to understand later why the Duke should have been glad that no new scandal was to be associated with the end of his son’s life.
And so Lord John was carried in great state to the burial place of his fathers, and was rehabilitated with his family, and mourned by his mother and sisters, like other men. And whatever the tragedy was that attended his last hours it was buried with him, and never told to man. There is no coroner in Scotland; and in those remote regions, and at that period, the Duke’s satisfaction that his son’s death was caused by accident was enough for all.
Drumcarro scarcely left his room while that solemn visitor was in the house. He appeared after, a singularly changed and broken man, and fell into something like the habits of his old life. There had been no secret in his strange retirement, but there was no doubt left in the mind of any who surrounded him, that something had happened which was not in the peaceful routine of existence. They formed their own impressions at their leisure; it was nothing to the laird what they thought. He had deceived no man, neither had he confided in any man. When Glendochart left the house, taking charge of the mournful conveyance which carried Lord John home, life at Drumcarro would, in any circumstances, have been a wonderfully changed and shrunken life. It was the first time that the diminished family had been left alone since the death of the mistress. At the family table, once so well surrounded, Drumcarro sat down with his one remaining son, and the vast expanse of the wide table-cloth vacant save in that corner. It did not occur to any one to substitute a smaller table for the long-stretching board where there had been room for all. Jamie, who was never seen without a book, compensated himself for the silence and anxiety of this tête-à-tête by reading furtively, while his father sat with his shoulders up to his ears, and his eyes, almost lost in his shaggy eyebrows, glaring out now and then with a glance of gloomy fire. It was rarely that he addressed the boy, and the boy escaped from him into his book. The mother was gone, Jeanie was gone, every one who could make that empty board a little brighter. The father and son swallowed their meal side by side, but did not prolong it any more than was possible. The sight of them affected Merran’s nerves when she served them, though that ruddy lass might well have been supposed to have no such things in her possession. “There’s the laird just glowering frae him as if he saw something no canny, and Jamie with his book. And me that minds all that fine family!” cried Merran. “Ye must just go ben yourself, Marg’ret, for I canna do it.” And there is no doubt that it was a piteous sight.
Jeanie, on the other hand, recovered her spirit and her ease of mind with singular rapidity under the sheltering roof of Glendochart. She was not told of Lord John’s death for some time, and never of the rapidity with which it followed her interrupted interview. She was very much moved and excited when she heard of his death, wondering with natural self-importance whether her resistance of his suit had anything to do with the breaking down of his health. It half relieved, half disappointed Jeanie to discover after that his death was caused by an accident and not by love. But indeed she had then only a limited space to give in her thoughts to that lover of the past. He of the present had the command of the situation. Determined as she had been not to understand Gordon, the effect of a few days in the same house with him had been marvellous, and when the fairy regions of youthful experience began once more to open before Jeanie, she forgot that she had cause of grievance against the companion who opened to her that magic gate. All tragic possibilities disappeared from the path of the girl who had no longer any distracting struggle, but whose desires and inclinations all went with her fate. Her father made no objection to her marriage. “Let him take her if he wants her. I have no need of her here,” Drumcarro said. Jeanie indeed, instead of brightening the house and soothing the fever in him, excited and disturbed her father: “I want no lass about the house, now her mother that keeped her a little in order is gone.” She was married eventually at Glendochart, the Laird making no appearance even. He was said to be ill, and his illness had taken the curious form, a form not unprecedented, but much against nature, of strong dislike to certain persons. He could not abide the sight of Jeanie: “Let her do what she will, but let her no more come near me. Let him take her if he likes, I’m well pleased to be quit of her.” When Jeanie came attended by her lover to bid her father good-bye, the Laird almost drove her away. He got up from his chair supporting himself upon its arms, his eyes burning like coals of fire, his now gaunt and worn figure trembling with passion. “Go away to the parlour,” he said, “and get your tea, or whatever you’ve come for. I want none of you here.”
“Father, I just came to bid you good-bye,” said Jeanie.
“Go ’way to the parlour. I suffer nobody to disturb me here. Go ’way to Marg’ret. Ye’ll get what ye want from her, and plenty of petting, no doubt. Go ’way to the parlour. Marg’ret! Get them what they want and let them go.”
“Oh, father,” cried Jeanie weeping, “it’s not for anything we’ve come but just for kindness—to say good-bye.”
He was a strange figure standing up between his chair and table, supporting himself by his hands, stooping forward, grown old all at once, his hair and beard long and ragged in aspect, a nervous tremor in his limbs. Could that be the hale and vigorous man who scarcely seemed beyond middle age? Jeanie assayed to say something more, but the words were checked on her lips by his threatening looks.
“Good-bye,” he said. “Consider it’s done and all your duty paid, and begone from my sight, for I cannot bide to see you.” He added a moment after with a painful effort over himself, “I’m an old man, and not well in my health. Marg’ret! Ye mind me of many a thing I would fain forget. Good-bye, and for the love of God go away, and let me see you no more.”
“Is he always like that?” Jeanie asked, clinging to Marg’ret in the parlour, where that faithful adherent prepared tea for the visitors.