May; vol. I

by Mrs. Oliphant

This, however, was getting too much for poor Fanshawe; his heart was melting in his breast. It was all he could do to keep from some foolish demonstration or other. He had put his other hand on hers where it lay on his arm; he bent over her, stooping his head towards her—almost carried away by the tide of emotion in him. He felt that to save himself, and to save the sanctity of this last meeting, he must fly as long as he was able.

“May I say good-bye to you here?” he said, trembling; “I must go to-morrow. You will write to me about everything? about Milly, and Mr. Charles—and the book—and about Isabell, if you find out anything more; but chiefly, and above all, about yourself—you promise? Then good-bye, and God bless you; you will say the same to me?”

“God bless you!” she said, moved by his emotion, looking at him with tears still in her eyes; “God bless you, dear friend, and good-bye.”

He stood a moment irresolute, hanging over her; holding both her hands—not knowing very well what he did. If there had been light enough to show his face, they never could have parted so. But he knew he was not seen, and felt as if he had concealed his feelings. At that last moment he stooped suddenly, and kissed her hair just where it was parted; and then dropped her hands and disappeared—she could not tell where.

CHAPTER XXII.

The day after a great event is, in all kinds of circumstances, a difficult one. The remains of great excitement, not yet quite spent, make the air heavy, and produce innumerable little explosions like half-exhausted fireworks. Common life is feeble, and fills with lassitude people who have been living at high pressure; and the mixture of weariness, oppression, and lingering excitement is hostile to every attempt at settling down. This was the state of the atmosphere at Pitcomlie after the long strain was over, after the shutters were opened, the blinds drawn up, and ordinary existence had re-commenced. And besides this inevitable and feverish dullness, there was all the excitement of half completed events to intensify the painfulness of the pause. The former inhabitants of the house did not know what step to take first; the new possessors were equally doubtful. Neither liked to make the first movement. They avoided each other, yet were compelled to meet.

Mr. Charles spent the morning in his room, pondering over the situation with many troublous thoughts. To tear himself away from this familiar place was painful to him; but that was not all. To leave the home of his fathers in the hands of these two young women, who were altogether strangers to the race, was more painful still. The one, he said to himself, was a selfish fool, utterly incapable of comprehending the interests of the young heir, or of adapting herself to the life that was best for him; the other Mr. Charles had not been able to fathom. He thought her a sensible sort of girl, that might keep her sister out of mischief. He had put all his beloved papers in order, feeling that his work might be interrupted; but these very papers belonged to the house of Pitcomlie; he could not take them away with him any more than he could take the old walls. What was he to do? His work would come to an end—the occupation of his life. He would have to go and seek a new home at his age—find a new refuge for all those accumulations of art which it was so pleasant for him to think he had added to the attractions of the old house. He sat down, and sighed over them at one moment, feeling the change impossible; and then he would rise, stimulated by some recollection of last night, and push the engravings together into their portfolios, and hunt for the covers of the cases in which his curiosities were set forth. Where could he take them to? His own house in George Square certainly was ready for their reception and his, but the idea did not attract him. He was not fond of his own house. It had no associations, no recollections except those of a dreary week now and then which he had spent in it alone. Mr. Charles was a born old bachelor, but he was as little used to being alone as any paterfamilias. His brother’s children had been brought up at his feet, he had possessed the delightful privilege of interfering with their education, laying down laws for them, finding fault with them, interfering and commenting, without any responsibility. No privilege could have been more delightful to him than this; and when he had now and then returned for a few days to his own house, he had been, as it were, a banished man. To be sure if he went to his own house now, he could take the only remaining children of the family with him, and make a home for himself by their means; but this brought in the element of responsibility which he feared, and of which up to this moment he had kept clear. No wonder that Mr. Charles closed his portfolios hurriedly, and sat down in his chair with a sigh. If only any means could be thought of, any device fallen upon, for compromising the matter, and keeping things as they were.

Marjory, strangely enough, was infinitely less sensitive. Though she had no other home, and had never contemplated another—though it was impossible to her to realize the fact that she was no longer mistress of Pitcomlie, yet the possibility of change affected her much less strongly. Her whole being seemed to be dulled and slower of perception. She sent away the servants who came to her as usual for orders, and felt no pain. She even arranged her books and her papers for going away, without any sharp sense of the hardship of leaving her home. She had no particular feeling of any kind. Life seemed to be running low in her, and sometimes grief plucked at her heart; but for other emotions, she did not seem to have any. The thing she felt most was, that she missed something. What was it? Something she had been used to had slid from her. There was a vague want which she could not, and perhaps did not, wish to identify. Fanshawe had gone away that morning. She had been moved by his leave-taking, almost more than she thought seemly in her circumstances. She had a strong feeling of what was fit and natural, and the curious vague excitement with which his last looks and words filled her, seemed strangely out of place, and even wrong. She repressed the feeling with a strong hand; but she did not suspect that the blank sense of inability to feel anything which had crept over her could be connected with that repression in any way. She was dull, dull to the depths of her heart and to the tips of her fingers. Nothing seemed to affect her. As for the little vexations of the household, the transference of her powers, these moved her no more than pin-pricks. She was quite ready to have gone away, and would not have felt it. When she was called downstairs by an intimation that Miss Jean was seen coming up to the great door to visit the family, she obeyed the call without any particular sentiment. Matilda and her sister were both in the drawing-room when Marjory went in, and Miss Jean, leaning upon her cane, in her new “blacks,” to which she had added another fold of crape for each new death, was standing in the middle of the room, looking at them. Matilda had not budged from her sofa. She had nodded, and said, “How d’ye do? Give the lady a chair, Fleming,” without further disturbing herself; and it was these words that Aunt Jean was slowly repeating when Marjory went in.

“Give the leddy a chair, Fleming!” she said; “that’s a kind and a pleasant welcome for one that was born in the house, and knows everything and every person in it. Perhaps, Fleming, as, no doubt, you’re informed on the subject, you will let me know who this young lady may be?”

“It’s Mrs. Chairles, mem,” said Fleming, solemn as a judge.