The little Frenchwoman looked up sharply, keenly, with an alarmed expression on her face. She did not ask any further question, but she met Aunt Jean’s black eyes with eyes still brighter in their youthful lustre, yet dimmed with an indefinable cloud of suspicion and fear.
What was in the old woman’s mind it was hard to tell. Whether she had any definite ground to go upon, or merely proceeded on an impulse of the vague anxiety in her mind.
“’Deed, ay,” said Aunt Jean, nodding her lively little head, “I’ll tell you a’ her story, my dear, and you can tell me fhat you think when I’m done. She was the only bairn and heir of that silly auld man that was Laird of Melmar before this present lad, my niece’s good-man—she was very bonnie, and muckle thought of, and she married and ran away, and that’s all the folk ken of her, Deseery; but whisht, bairn, and I’ll tell you mair.”
Desirée had sunk lower on her knees, leaning back, with her head turned anxiously towards the story-teller. She was an interested listener at least.
“It’s aye thought she was disinherited,” said Aunt Jean, “and at the first, when she ran away, maybe so she was—but nature will speak. When this silly auld man, as I’m saying, died, he left a will setting up her rights, and left it in the hand of another silly haverel of a man, that was a bit sma’ laird at Norlaw. This man was to be heir himsel’ if she never was found—but he had a sma’ spirit, Deseery, and he never could find her. She’s never been found from that day to this—but it’ll be a sore day for Melmar when she comes hame.”
“Why?” said Desirée, somewhat sharply and shrilly, with a voice which reached the old woman’s ears, distant though they were.
“Fhat for?—because they’ll have to give up all the lands, and all the siller, and all their living into her hand—that’s fhat for,” said Aunt Jean; “nae person in this country-side can tell if she’s living, or fhaur she is; she’s been away langer than you’ve been in this life, Deseery; and Melmar, the present laird—I canna blame him, he was the next of the blood after hersel’, nae doubt he thought she was dead and gane, as a’body else did when he took possession—and his heart rose doubtless against the other person that was left heir, failing her, being neither a Huntley nor nigh in blood; but if aught should befall to bring her hame—ay, Deseery, it would be a sore day for this family, and every person in this house.”
“Why?” asked Desirée again with a tremble—this time her voice did not reach the ear of Aunt Jean, but her troubled, downcast eyes, her disturbed look, touched the old woman’s heart.
“If it was a story I was telling out of a book,” said the old woman, “I would say they were a’ in misery at keeping her out of her rights—or that the man was a villain that held her place—but you’re no’ to think that. I dinna doubt he heeds his ain business mair than he heeds her—it’s but natural, fha would do otherwise? and then he takes comfort to his mind that she must be dead, or she would have turned up before now, and then he thinks upon his ain family, and considers his first duty is for them; and then—’deed ay, my dear, memory fails—I wouldna say but he often forgets that there was another person in the world but himsel’ that had a right—that’s nature, Deseery, just nature—folk learn to think the way it’s their profit to think, and believe what suits them best, and they’re sincere, too, except maybe just at the first; you may not think it, being a bairn, yet it’s true.”
“If it were me,” cried Desirée, with a vehemence which penetrated Aunt Jean’s infirmity, “the money would burn me, would scorch me, till I could give it back to the true heir!”