May; vol. I

by Mrs. Oliphant

But it was with an agitated heart, and a countenance out of which she could not altogether banish her excitement, that she went down stairs, when old Fleming rang that inevitable bell for dinner. Dinner! with what weary disgust Marjory thought of it, and of the compulsory meeting with all the party, the solemn sitting down to table, the politenesses to Mr. Fanshawe, the efforts she would have to make to interpose herself between her father’s irritable grief and her uncle Charles’s amiable but sometimes untimely wisdom. She changed one black gown for another rapidly, and smoothed her brown hair, which (strangely she felt) kept its bright colour notwithstanding her mourning. What a farce, she thought to herself, (being bitter and sore) that mourning was? It had just as many troublesome accessories as the gayest dress, nay, almost more; for the most heart-broken of women in the deepest of affliction has got to take care of her crape, that dear and odious addition to all mourning garments. From this it is not to be supposed that Marjory was impatient of her crape. She would not have cheated poor Tom out of a single fold, she would have enveloped herself in it from head to foot rather than fail in any prejudice of respect. But her heart was sore and her mind excited. Nothing seemed to her to be true. Tom had deceived her, leading her to suppose that some matter worthy of her ears was to be revealed to her; and lo! it was but this vulgar, poor, conventional, common sort of secret; and even she herself was a deceiver, for did she not pretend to mourn for Tom even now, when she had begun to feel that perhaps his death was expedient? All in the house gave themselves out to be mourning for poor Tom; yet Uncle Charles had recovered his interest in everything that was going on, and little Milly in the afternoon had laughed—Mr. Fanshawe, who was Tom’s friend, and ought to have been more faithful to the poor fellow’s memory, having inveigled the child into it. Thus the party would meet, she said to herself, all longing to escape from this gloom, and talk and think like others, but dared not for Falsehood’s sake; and she herself, the falsest of all, even saw good in the calamity, and gave thanks for it. What treachery, what untruthfulness was in all this! The only one who was utterly true in his grief, was the one who would have most chiefly suffered by Tom’s further life if he had carried his fancy out—the heartbroken father to whom Marjory, to-morrow, no later, would have to carry Tom’s bills, the bills about which, alas! poor Tom had not told the truth. What a confused tangle of falsehood, and pain, and unreality it was!

And Mr. Fanshawe spent a most dreary evening. Marjory had receded, he thought, from all her incipient civilities. She paid scarcely any attention to him, and evaded his skilful reference to the old house, and the visit to it which was to be made to-morrow. If to-morrow was not better than to-day, he felt that he must be driven from Pitcomlie. He could not bear it any longer; and yet there were certain fascinations which held him against his will, even in the midst of this monotony of woe.

CHAPTER XII.

When Marjory went upstairs for the night, she made a strenuous endeavour to get Tom’s papers in order for her father, and to ignore the one paper which had opened a door, as it were, in her brother’s life, and of which nobody knew but herself. She went on working till long past midnight, always with a consciousness of that letter in the corner, which was like the presence of some one in the room with her, of which she was not supposed to be aware. She tried to forget it, but she could not forget. While she collected the bills and tied them together, her mind went on with a perpetual stream of questions—Who was this girl? Where had Tom met her? Had she really hoped to be Mrs. Heriot of Pitcomlie? and a hundred other mental inquiries to which, of course, there could come no answer. In her mind, she went over all the countryside, searching into every cottage in order to find out, if possible, who “Isabell” was. It is a common name enough in Fife—a score of Isabells presented themselves to her fancy, but she could not realize any one of them as the writer of that letter. And Tom had spent but little time at home. If it had not been so Scotch even, Marjory’s curiosity would have been less excited; but it seemed certain that she must know who it was who wrote in that familiar dialect. While her eye noted the dates of those very different documents which she was collecting—while she made out her list of them, and slowly added up the figures—though that was a mental process somewhat difficult, and not very rapid—her whole soul was absorbed in this other current of thought. She was even capable of feeling grieved and miserable about the effect the bills would have upon her father, while in imagination she was passing from door to door, from cottage to cottage, searching for this Isabell. Was she wondering, perhaps, what had become of her lover, poor foolish thing! perhaps after all, Marjory allowed, with difficulty, she might be truly fond of him, might love him even, after her fashion—might be suffering such tortures as she was capable of, wondering at his silence, wearying—was not that the word in the letter? wearying, wearying! for him who was to come no more. Was Tom’s sister, even for a moment, half sorry for the girl? If she was, Marjory scorned the sentiment as a weakness of nature. Then, in its musing, her mind returned to its first view of the matter. Was it certain, after all, that Tom had so far forgotten himself and his family as to woo Isabell for his wife, as the letter implied? might not this be a mere pretence. It seemed to Marjory that her brother was more likely to have sinned vulgarly by that system of false promises which women suppose men to make so lightly, than that he should have seriously intended to introduce such a mistress to the old house. Which would be worst? There could not be a purer-minded woman than she who pondered, with an aching heart and burning cheeks, this odious question. Was it possible there could be a question on the matter? Marjory hated herself for hesitating—yet there was something to be said on both sides;—that he should have meant well and honourably would be better for Tom—but for the race, the house—

The ingenuous reader will be disgusted with Marjory, as Marjory was with herself; but notwithstanding, the fact remains which we are obliged to record. She got rid of the dilemma with an impatient sigh, disowning it, refusing to answer her own question; and plunged into her additions, which were not much less painful. Oh! to carry that woeful list to Tom’s father! to be obliged to set in order the record of poor Tom’s prevarications (what a hard word lies is—yet sometimes the right one) and extravagances, and the unhappy meanness which must always mingle with extravagance—how it made her heart ache! She sat through half the night preparing that miserable list, and thinking of the other matter which was equally miserable in whatever light it was contemplated. It was two o’clock in the morning, when with her head and her heart alike throbbing with pain, she rose and went to her window and looked out upon the night. It was very dark; she could hear the monotonous rising and falling of the sea, sometimes like a long drawn sob, sometimes sharp like a cry, as it beat and splashed upon the rocks. “The moaning of the homeless sea.” How many people listening to it all over the world put their own weariness, and sadness, and discouragement into that great and ceaseless voice! Between the black sky and the black water, both cheerless and dismal, Marjory felt as if she stood alone, with no one to help her. The world was asleep—all human sympathy was closed up in unconsciousness. Was that other poor soul, that foolish creature, that Isabell, waking somewhere too, and wondering, wearying in her ignorance? Just then a revolving light, far off, sent a sudden steady, yet momentary, flash across the dark water. It was as well known to her as her own name—yet somehow at that moment it was unexpected, and flashed across the waves to her like a word of consolation. At the same moment, Marjory saw what she had not seen before, a figure standing out upon the cliff, turned with its back to the sea as if gazing up at the house. It seemed to her, for the moment, like a ghostly visitor, and gave her a little thrill of terror. Then she turned away with a nervous laugh. The red sparkle of the cigar, and something in the outline of the figure, revealed Fanshawe to her. She dropped her blind, and went in with a little comfort—a sense of society and security; probably had it been the old gardener, she would have felt that sensation of comfort just as warmly. But no; had it been the gardener, Marjory would have wanted, in the first place, to know what he did there; with Mr. Fanshawe, she asked no questions. It was as if some one had held out a friendly hand to her through the chilliness and dullness that wrapped the world.

It may seem to many people very strange that Marjory should have had so disagreeable a task to do, and not her father, or uncle, or even their solicitor. I cannot explain it further than by saying that this was the custom among the Hay-Heriots. It is so in some houses; the women of some families, as I believe I have already said, are always thrust forward to receive any domestic blow, and transmit it, blunted by its first penetration into the softness of their bosoms. Marjory saw nothing remarkable in this, nor did she even complain of it. Had her mother been living, they would both have received the thrust and taken the edge off, before it reached the father; but as it was, the eldest daughter of the house, heiress of its traditions if of little else, took up her inheritance without shrinking. Had it been out-of-door business, the solicitor would have been employed no doubt; but so far as domestic troubles went the wives and daughters at Pitcomlie were the attorneys of the head of the house and bore the brunt first, preparing the burden for him that he might put it on in the easiest way.

“Have you sorted the papers?” Mr. Heriot asked in his harsh voice next morning at breakfast. He never looked at any one now till he had been irritated into attention. His voice had altogether changed. There was a line of redness and heat under his eyes, leaving the rest of his face pallid though still brown—and this redness seemed to be reflected in the eyes themselves, which were bloodshot and heavy. The droop of his head, the inward look he had, the air of absorption, the passionate inclination to find fault when he spoke at all, altered his aspect so entirely that his friends of six months ago would scarcely have known the man. He never looked even at his daughters. He spoke to Marjory with his eyes fixed upon his coffee, which he swallowed in great gulps. Mr. Charles had insisted upon talking to him of the visits they had received the day before, which perhaps had something to do with the suppressed passion which showed itself in his tone.

“Not quite,” said Marjory, faltering, “nearly, papa—perhaps to-morrow—”

“To-morrow!” he said, “who can say anything about to-morrow? are you or I so sure of seeing it that we should put off our duty? You are a silly thing like the rest. What is to hinder you to give a day to your work like the most part of your fellow-creatures? They go out to their day’s darg, be it storm or fine, with a sore heart or a light one. But the like of you must be kept from every fashious thing.”

“I submit it to you, Thomas, whether that’s quite fair upon Marjory,” said Mr. Charles, “we’re all in sore trouble—sore trouble, and you worst of all, poor man! but as the Minister says—”