‘I suppose it is,’ he said, with a little sigh; and looked at Isabel with eyes that were almost wistful. She took no notice of him. She behaved in every respect as Miss Catherine would have had her behave, had she instructed her previously in the matter, holding up little Margaret to old Marion, taking share in the play, and when that was no longer necessary, giving her attention to her baby’s dress, keeping her eyes and hands and mind occupied. Just as she ought to have behaved, but yet, in the very perfection of this conduct, there was something which alarmed her guardian. The calmness was too elaborate, the composure too carefully put on; after the first start too, and anxious look of her appealing eyes.
But it was clear there was nothing more to be made of this. He pushed his seat away from them a little as if owning himself discomfited. ‘And you are going away?’ he said.
‘Only for a day or so—only—not for long I mean—to pay a visit,’ said Miss Catherine, feeling the warfare carried into her own country; and then there was another embarrassed pause. ‘You will excuse us, I am sure, Mr. Stapylton,’ she went on taking courage. ‘But you see Mrs. Lothian has scarcely gone at all into society—I mean has seen nobody since. And you will perceive that here in public, with all these folk about, and seeing any stranger for the first time——’
‘I understand,’ said Stapylton. The sound of the name, Mrs. Lothian, had given him evidently a painful thrill. He rose to his feet when he heard it, and grew once more quite pale. Mrs. Lothian! He took off his hat and withdrew with a delicacy of feeling for which she had not given him credit. Was it possible that she could have done Stapylton injustice after all?
And he kept apart as long as they remained together in the steamer. When they were landing at Maryburgh he did indeed approach for an instant to make himself of use to them, but without a word or look, so far as she was aware, which a saint could have censured. She did not hear, it is true, the five words which somehow dropped into Isabel’s ear when she found herself standing dizzy and agitated on the pier, ‘I shall see you again;’ that was all. But Miss Catherine did not hear them, or perhaps she would have been less softened in respect to Stapylton, and less satisfied that he was finally got rid of, and to be seen no more.
Isabel was a perplexity to her friend for all the rest of the journey. Instead of the cheerful stir there had been about her when she started, she had fallen back upon herself. Her eyes looked heavy, a sourd excitement seemed to hang about her, which her anxious companion could not explain. It was not the natural thrill of recollection which might have moved a young woman under such circumstances, she thought, but a certain suppressed painful tumult of mind to which Miss Catherine had no clue. But for one thing, she was more absorbed than ever, if that were possible, in her baby. She scarcely spoke, except to little Margaret, to whom she pointed out everything, as if the child could understand her, fidgeting about her dress, fastening and unfastening the wraps round her, inventing a hundred little occupations to fix her attention to her child. She would not allow Marion, who had been looking forward to the delight of assuming the management of the baby, to touch her, but left Miss Catherine at once on their arrival to put little Margaret to bed. ‘Marion will do that; the bairn knows her,’ said Miss Catherine, but Isabel only shook her head. ‘No, I cannot part with my baby,’ she said, and went away burying herself with the child in her own room, where, after a long interval, she was found hugging it in her arms, having as yet made no progress in its toilette. Then Miss Catherine began to get alarmed.
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘the tea is waiting. I came to look at her in her bed, the darling! You’re thinking of the time we were here before, Isabel; but you must not give way to your feelings, and such a treasure in your arms. You must think of the bairn.’
‘And so I do think of her,’ cried Isabel, straining the child so passionately to her breast that little Margaret, unused to such violence, began to whimper with fright, and put out her baby arms to Miss Catherine. Then Isabel’s excitement broke forth in weeping. She almost thrust the child into Miss Catherine’s arms, and covered her face with her hands. ‘She turns from me too,’ she cried, with floods of sudden burning tears. And little Margaret, half for sympathy, out of an infant’s strange forlorn consciousness of something unusual in the air, cried too, and the scene altogether became so painful that Miss Catherine lost heart.
‘I cannot understand you, Isabel,’ she said. ‘There are no memories here to make you heart-broken like this, and nobody is turning from you that I know of. I have come away with you myself, though I’ve plenty to do at home. And there is not one of your friends but would make a sacrifice to see you happy. What is the matter? You have always been happy with your baby. Why should you change now?’
‘I have not changed.’ said Isabel, under her breath.