CHAPTER XXXIII
Thus life went on for months over Loch Diarmid. The minister’s dreadful end had fallen into gentle forgetfulness. Another minister was now the referee and head and butt of the parish, discussed in the smithy, criticised ‘at the doors.’ And he and his wife had been asked to dinner at the neighbouring country-houses, but not with so much success as had attended the début of Isabel—and had called upon Mrs. Lothian, ‘the last minister’s widow,’ as the present female incumbent described her, and had not known very well what to make of the girl in her close cap, smiling over her baby—with her strange surroundings, and curious nondescript position. Mrs. Russell, the new minister’s wife, asked with a good deal of perplexity, ‘Is she a lady? I know she is a great friend of Miss Catherine. But everybody knows Miss Catherine is very odd. Dined at the Marquis’s in London, and went to the opera with Lady Mary! I can scarcely believe that. How could Lady Mary, an unmarried girl, take anybody to the opera? She does everything for that child herself—no nurse, nor anything like a nurse; indeed, I am not sure there was any servant at all. The woman I saw in the kitchen was her stepmother, I hear. Naturally it is not very pleasant for us to have the widow of Mr. Russell’s predecessor in such a position. Of course I would like to be kind to her if I could, but—— And then the way the people speak of her! For one that calls her Mrs. Lothian, there are half a dozen that say just Isabel, or Isabel at the Glebe, or the Captain’s Isabel, or some country name like that. I can tell you it’s very embarrassing for me.’
This little statement, which was made to Mrs. Campbell of Maryburgh, the nearest clergywoman of the district, and to Mrs. Diarmid of Ardgartan, and even to the doctor’s wife in the parish, got into circulation through the malice or amusement of these ladies, and roused a little flutter of indignation on Loch Diarmid, where Isabel’s position was so fully understood, and where she was known beyond all controversy to be a lady born—whereas of Mrs. Russell herself nobody knew anything. But it did not disturb the quiet at the Glebe, where Baby Margaret reigned supreme, shutting out all the outer world with her small presence, her quick coming smiles, the gradual ‘notice’ she took of the external world to which she had come, her first recognition of the devoted vassals about her. Her first little pearly tooth was a greater event than the Reform Bill, which happened somewhere about that time; and it may well be supposed that the first time the small princess visibly indicated her knowledge and preference of her mother was more to Isabel than if the Queen had called upon her, much less Lady Mary. The cottage was all absorbed and wrapt up in the child for that first year of her existence. On the whole, perhaps, it is no great testimony to the female intelligence, that it can thus permit itself to be swallowed up in adoring contemplation and tendance of a helpless, speechless infant, with no intellectual existence at all.
‘I cannot understand you women,’ said the Dominie; ‘if she keeps content it is more than I can fathom. No—if her heart had been dead like the hearts of some—but her heart has never been right awakened; and if there was any word, say of that English lad——’
‘Lord, preserve us!’ cried Miss Catherine, holding up her hands in dismay; ‘you don’t mean to say, Mr. Galbraith, that we’re threatened with him back.’
‘I say only what I hear,’ said the Dominie. ‘They were saying in John Macwhirter’s last night that he had been seen looking at the beasts on Smeaton’s farm; and he should be well known at Smeaton’s farm, if anywhere. There’s a fine breed of cattle to be roupit.’
‘Oh, yes, I know all about that,’ said Miss Catherine, who had endeavoured in vain to secure some of the cattle in question. ‘Archie Smeaton’s a worldly-minded body, and ay hankering after more siller. But to bring that lad back—the only man I have any fear of in the world! No, no, it is you that makes me doubt poor Isabel. With her bairn in her arms there’s no man in the world she would ever look at; we need not fear that.’
The Dominie shook his head. ‘It may be nature,’ he said; ‘you should know better than me—but at three-and-twenty, to give up all your life to an infant, and never seek more in this world, is what I cannot comprehend. If her heart was crushed and dead it might be so, but that is not the case. I am not saying you are right or you are wrong, but it’s very strange to me.’
‘And for one thing, she must not know,’ said Miss Catherine, with an anxious look in her face; ‘neither you nor me will say a word to let her know?’
The Dominie turned away with a grim smile. ‘If that is all your certainty,’ he said, ‘there’s no such great difference between us.’ They exchanged a few more anxious words, standing together half-way up the ascent, and then Miss Catherine continued her walk towards the Glebe.