‘Well, well,’ he said, superior and compassionate, ‘don’t take it so much to heart, if I’ve found you out. I’ll go now, and at four o’clock I’ll come back for you; but mind you are ready, for I don’t want to be driving about the country in a moonless night.’
When he went away, Isabel felt that she drew a long breath of relief. She was glad, and yet how miserable it was to feel herself glad! She dropped wearily into a chair, and sat and gazed upon her sleeping child. She was thus seated in a kind of stupor, with eyes blinded with tears, when Jean came into the room. Jean had been mollified, in spite of herself, by the care her stepdaughter had taken to provide for her. Even such a benefit could not purchase her approval of the marriage; but that and Isabel’s absence, and a certain something in her eye, which did not speak of perfect satisfaction in her new lot, had touched Jean’s kindly heart.
‘Isna she a picture?’ she cried, placing herself behind Isabel with uplifted hands of worship; ‘and as thriving and as firm as heart could desire. Eh, Isabel! I thought she would have broken her bit heart the day you went away. There would be ay a look at the door, and stretching out her arms to everyone that came nigh, and ay another wail when the poor infant was disappointed. I got an awfu’ fear that it might bring on something—but sin syne she’s been as good and as bonnie as you see her now.’
‘My little darling!’ was all the young mother could say.
‘Hoots, dinna greet: it’s meeting and no parting now,’ said Jean, with a keen look of inspection. And then there was a pause. Isabel had not the heart to move nor to speak, nor even to take her child into her arms.
‘If it had been me I would have had her afore now! Hoots, never mind waking her; whisht, my bonnie lamb! Your little bed’s saft, but no so saft as your ain mother’s bosom. There she is to ye,’ said Jean, putting the rosy, half-awakened child into her mother’s arms. The good woman stood and gazed at the group with a cordial, kindly pleasure. ‘Poor lass! poor bairn!’ she said to herself as she watched the mother’s passion of kisses and tears and unintelligible words: vague suspicions were creeping about Jean’s mind. This close strain of passion, those tears which did not dry up as they ought to have done, or give place to smiles, filled her with alarm—an alarm, it must be confessed, not unmixed with satisfaction, for had not she, in common with all the country-side, declared that of such a marriage no good could come?
‘Mr. Stapylton, he’s away to Kilcranion?—ye’re to bide there, I hear? but what for could you no come hame, Isabel, to your own house?’
‘It is your house now,’ said Isabel, with an attempt at a smile.
‘Na, na, only the life-rent,’ said Jean, ‘of my ain end; and I’m awfu’ thankfu’ to have that. Am I one to come ben to the parlour and set up for a leddy? No, my bonnie woman, it’s hers and yours a’ the days of my life, as well as when I’m dead and gone. Him and you might have been as comfortable here as in Johnny Gibb’s house at Kilcranion. There’s nae accounting for tastes—but sure am I there’s no a room in it equal to the new parlour here in the Glebe.’
‘It is only for a short time—a month or two,’ said Isabel.