“Miss Heriot, I’ll ask no more questions. If you’ll sit down, and let me speak, I’ll tell you all there is to tell. Maybe I would not have come had I known what you wanted; but I’ll tell you now.”
This brought the others to a very abrupt stop. Fanshawe withdrew, feeling himself somewhat snubbed, if truth must be told, and in a state of mind—in respect to this girl and her sister—very different from the attitude of enthusiastic devotion in which Marjory had depicted him. But he listened, nevertheless, feeling himself pledged to an interest which was more deep than he really felt. What was Tom Heriot to him? But Marjory was everything; therefore he made an effort, and threw all his attention into the new tale.
“I take it for granted,” said Agnes, with that brusque tone of suppressed excitement, sometimes scantly courteous, which often characterizes the Scotch peasant, “that you have told the gentleman all that my poor Bell told you; she did not do it with my will; but since it’s done, and she’s called in the help of others to right her, instead of her ain folk, I have no further call to resist. You have told the gentleman how they were married—”
“Married!” said Fanshawe, with a slight start.
“What did you think else?” said the girl, turning upon him with sudden defiance. “Did you think it was a light lass, of no account, that you were to hear of? for if sae, I’ll go away and trouble you no further. It is clear that you have not been prepared to hear of my sister Bell.”
“Agnes, you must not be so hasty,” said Marjory, humbly. “Mr. Fanshawe—I told you—have you forgotten—last night—”
Fanshawe had not forgotten last night, and was not likely to forget it; but he had, it must be allowed, received the information given him with less seriousness than it deserved. He had to make the humblest and most abject apologies to both of the somewhat stern judges before whom he stood—Marjory, who was abashed by the dullness of her pupil, and Agnes who was all in arms. After this interruption, however, he was on his guard, and the narrative proceeded more smoothly. It was not of a very novel character. Tom Heriot had married Isabell Jeffrey, not entirely as the heir of Pitcomlie should have married its future mistress, but yet lawfully, according to the customs of the country, and to traditions fully accepted in the class to which she belonged. They had pledged themselves to each other as man and wife in the presence of the people in whose house they had met, a man whom Heriot had employed to take charge of his dogs while shooting in the district from which the sisters came, a mountain village in Perthshire. The marriage had been concealed, as such marriages generally are, until the last moment, when it had been necessary to avow it for the sake of poor Isabell’s character. But by that time Tom Heriot was dead, and could no longer be appealed to—and even the mother, utterly cast down by the shame of her favourite child, had refused to believe the unlikely story.
“There was nobody but me, nobody but me,” said Agnes, warming with her tale, “that kent my poor Bell would never lie. My mother; my mother is a decent woman, of a decent honest family. Lightheadedness or shame never was heard of in her kith or kin; all douce, steady folk, constant at the kirk, and mair thought of than the very Minister himsel’. It made her wild. From no believing at first that anything was wrang—which was natural—for wha could believe it? she went off in a mad way to no believing Bell. I can excuse her, for my part. If I had not trusted Bell from the very first, I would have killed her with my hands. John Macgregor and his wife had gone away, nobody kent where. There was no a creature to stand by her to say it was true. Oh, Miss Heriot! you’ve heard Bell’s story, but no mine. You can never ken the days that passed, and the weary nights—her in a way to want a’ the comfort that kindness could give her, and lifting up her white face a’ the time without support or help, to say to them that would na believe her, ‘The bairn is my man’s lawful bairn, and I’m his wife.’ Oh, I’m no heeding,” cried Agnes, “though there’s a man here! I’m no one to speak o’ such things before a gentleman. But to see her in her trouble, aye crying out in her pains, ‘I’ve naething to think shame of, mother, there’s naething to think shame of!’ I’m hard,” said Agnes, stopping suddenly, “but no so hard as to withstand that.”
“You were always her support and comfort,” said Marjory, taking her hand, and with tears in her eyes.
“Was anything else possible? I kent our Bell, ay, better than my mother. She was aye delicate. She never could stand what I could stand. She would aye read her book when she had a moment—no like me that am just a country lass—and oh, so bonnie! When gentlemen came by, they would make errands for a drink of water, or to warm their feet, or to light a cigar, or the like of that, just for the sake of a good look at her. Mr. Heriot was a pleasant gentleman. He had aye a good excuse. He would have this question and that to ask my mother, as if it was her he was wanting. The Lord forgive him,” cried Agnes, “if he meant to deceive! for he is dead and gone, and canna be punished—and I wouldna wish him to be damned for ever and ever, though he would weel deserve it, richly deserve it—if he wanted to deceive!”