‘Eh, I wasna setting up my ain puir judgment; but I thought you looked a wee anxious yourself. And as for Mrs. Lothian, poor lassie, she was shaking like an aspen leaf——’
‘Marion, I request you’ll speak no more such nonsense to me,’ said Miss Catherine, with indignation. ‘What is he to her, think ye?—a stranger that has not been seen in the parish for three or four years?’
‘And that’s true, Miss Catherine,’ said Marion, with a cough expressive of much doubt and general uncertainty. Her mistress lost her temper, and immediately fell upon Marion, not on this subject, but on some other totally unconnected with it; but the experienced handmaiden was in little doubt as to the real occasion of her wrath. ‘As if I didna ken the Captain’s Isabel cared more for that lad’s little finger than for the minister and a’ he could do for her!’ she said to herself, as she retired to her rest.
CHAPTER XXXV
The visit to the Bridge of Allan was anything but a successful expedition on the whole. Little Margaret took cold, and had a trifling illness, which filled her three slaves with trembling terror; and Isabel was so much disposed, with unconscious superstition, to regard this as ‘a judgment’ on her own distracted thoughts and wavering mind, that she was not a pleasant companion to Miss Catherine, who, on the other hand, blamed herself for her over-confidence in her own opinion, for exposing the child to bodily risk and the mother to temptation. Marion made no small amount of critical observations to herself behind their backs, thinking the child’s illness also ‘a judgment.’ ‘Them that flees from the Lord, the Lord’s hand will find them out,’ said Marion to herself. And the little party was not a happy one. They remained until after the anniversary of Mr. Lothian’s murder, of which Miss Catherine was rather disposed to make a solemnity. Poor Isabel, with her heart still trembling for her child, and still suffering from the sharp assault of the new life which had taken her at unawares, found it difficult enough to force back her thoughts into the channel of the past, and feel all the grief, the heavy weight of recollection that was expected of her.
After the anniversary was over they went home. It was on a brilliant June day—a warm, languid, breathless afternoon, when the steamer once more carried them up Loch Diarmid. Miss Catherine herself looked round her with an anxious air when she first stepped on board, involuntarily feeling that he might be there again way-laying them. Isabel did not look for him, but an excitement which she could not conquer took possession of her. It seemed to herself that she was coming home to wait for him, and that, sooner or later, he must come to the place he knew so well to disturb her life. The Lady of the Manor recognised group after group, and speculated with Marion, as there was no satisfaction to be got from Isabel, upon their different errands. ‘There’s John Campbell has been settling his son in Glasgow,’ she said. ‘I hope it will not turn the lad’s head. They’re a very pushing family. But I can’t tell what the smith’s wife should have to do so often in Maryburgh, wasting her time and spending her siller. Marion, is that Archibald Smeaton I see there at the other end of the boat? Go and ask him if the queys are all sold, and what price they brought; and here!—listen—ye can ask him,’ said Miss Catherine, aside into Marion’s ear, ‘if yon Englishman is still about the Loch.’
While Marion went upon this commission there was a momentary pause in Miss Catherine’s talk—partly because Isabel was unresponsive, and partly because she was anxious as to the answer which might be returned to the last question. But her eyes were not the less busy scanning the shores of the Loch with that strange interest which a local notability takes in every symptom of change that may have become visible in his or her absence. She gave a sudden exclamation at one point as they went on, and seized upon Isabel’s arm, forcibly calling her attention.
‘Look at Ardnamore!’ cried Miss Catherine, with a gasp of surprise. Isabel started and lifted her eyes. The house was all open to the rays of the setting sun, the very door was standing wide open, and every appearance of inhabitation was about the place. But what was most wonderful of all was the apparition of a white figure fully revealed in the intense light, standing on the green clearing of the lawn. The trees were all so thick around, and the yellow, slanting sunset shone so full upon the green slope and the one figure on it, that it was difficult to pass it without notice. All the windows were lit up with a glow as of illumination; the green trees were almost reddened by the rays; the white walls of the house blazed with intensity of tone; and the one woman stood in the midst of it all, looking out with a certain wistful, lingering patience in her attitude. Perhaps imagination only conferred upon this white figure, which was too distant to be seen, the qualities of expectation and patience. But the whole scene struck the travellers with a shock of surprise.
‘And no one ever told me a word about it,’ Miss Catherine said, with indignation. ‘Can he have had the sense to let the house—or can they have come back? but then who was that?’
‘It was Ailie,’ said Isabel.