“Weel, maybe it’s ower mateerial an image; but we’re poor fleshly creatures; and I was meaning a Sawbath afternoon, when you’ve come hame from the kirk, your Bible at hand, and a’ sae quiet,” said Bell, amending her first flight. “Jeanie stepping saft about the place, waiting till it’s time to mask the tea, and auld John on the other side of the fire, and nothing to do but to thank your Maker for a’ his mercies and think upon the sermon—if it was a sound sermon,” Bell added, after a pause, taking up her pail; “for I wouldna say they’re a’ of the kind that ye would like to mind and think upon in a Sawbath afternoon in the gloamin’. Miss Margret, what do you say to run up the stair and see if your papaw’s wanting onything? That would aye be something to do.”
“Oh, Bell, if you only had more imagination! You always tell me to run and see if papa is wanting anything: and he never wants anything, except, perhaps, a book from the high shelf, where they’re all Greek, and I have to climb up upon the steps, and get no good.”
“And whase fault’s that?” said Bell, reproachfully. She had set down the pail again and paused, looking with mournful eyes at the young creature seventeen years old, who did not know what to do with herself. “Whase fault’s that? Did I no beg ye on my bended knees to learn your French book?—a’ wee words, as easy! I could have learned it mysel’; and then ye would have had a’ the shelfs and a’ the books open to you, and your papaw’s learnin’ at your finger’s-end.”
“Do you think French and Greek are the same?” cried Margaret. “Why, they’re different print even—the a b c’s different; they are no more like the same thing than you and me.”
“I’m no saying they’re just the same,” said Bell, a little discomfited. “One thing’s aye different from another. When I was learnin’ it was aw, bay, say that they learned me, no clip-pit and short like your English. But the creature kens something after a’,” she said to herself as she went in-doors with her pail. “A thing like that, with a’ her wits about her, canna be near a learned man without learning something. But no a note o’ the piany!” Bell said, with a real sense of humiliation. For that want what could make up?
Margaret was left alone in the little court, and she soon tired of being alone. When she had remained there for about five minutes, watching the sun shine upon the ruin opposite to her, and print all the irregularities of the wall which connected it with the house upon the broken turf of the court, she got up suddenly and went up-stairs. Musing and dreaming were the only things upon which she could spend with pleasure more than “twa minutes by the clock,” as Bell said. She would read, indeed, as long as any one pleased, but that was an unprofitable exercise, and tended to nothing; for what was it all but foolish stories and daft-like poetry, and play-acting and nonsense? These things were naught in the estimation of the people in the house who were anxious about Margaret’s education. The only member of the household who took no thought of her education at all was the master, who sat up-stairs in solitary state. Even Jeanie, the handmaiden in the kitchen, was very anxious on Miss Peggy’s account. She wanted to see her young mistress go to balls, and have pretty dresses from Edinburgh, and enjoy herself. What was the use of being bonny and young if you stayed aye in one auld house and nobody saw ye? Jeanie asked herself. And this was a question which much disturbed and occupied her mind. Old John, too, who was Bell’s husband, and the male factotum, as she was the female, had his anxieties about Miss Peggy. When she began to want to have pairties and young folk about her, what should they all do? John demanded. He would be willing, and so would Bell, to “put themselves about” to the utmost; but what was to be done for chiney and plate? Wan dozen of everything might be enough for the family, but what would that do for a pairty? So that John’s mind was disturbed also. But old Sir Ludovic, what did he mind? Give him a book, and ye might mine the cellars, and throw your best bomb-shells at the tower, and he would never hear ye. Such was the general opinion of the house.
There was no entrance-hall in this primitive house; but only a little space at the “stair-foot,” the bottom of the well through which the spiral staircase wound its narrow way; but though it was dark, and the twist of the unprotected steps a little alarming to a stranger, Margaret ran up as lightly as a bird. At about half the height of an ordinary flight of stairs there were two doors close to each other, forming a little angle. One of these Margaret pushed open softly. It led into a long room, running all the length of the building, panelled wherever the wall was visible, and painted white, as in a French house: one side, however, was covered entirely with book-shelves. The depth of the recesses in which the small windows were embedded showed the thickness of the wall. One at each end and one in the middle were all that lighted the long room, two or three others which had belonged to the original plan having been blocked up on account of the window tax, that vexatious impost. In the centre of the room stood a large old japanned screen, stretched almost across the whole breadth, and dividing it into two. On the south side, into which the door opened, a large writing-table was placed upon the old and much-worn Turkey-carpet which covered the middle of the floor; and seated at this, but with his back to the sunshine, which was pouring in, sat an old man in a chair, reading. The window behind him and the window in the side each poured its stream of sunshine between the deep cuttings of the ancient walls, five or six feet thick, but neither of these rays of warmth and light touched this solitary inhabitant. He was so much absorbed in his reading that he did not hear the door open. Margaret came in behind him and stood in the sunshine, the impersonation of youth—the light catching her at all points, gleaming in her eyes, bringing color to her cheek, making her collar and the edge of white round her hands blaze against the darkness of her dress. But no ray touched the old man in his chair. He was as still as if he had been cut out of gray marble, his face motionless, the movement of his eyes as he read, the unfrequent movement necessary to turn the page, being all the sign of life about him. The book he was reading was a large old folio, propped up upon a sort of reading-desk in front of him. A large wide garment, something between a long coat and a dressing-gown, of dark-colored and much-worn velvet, and wrapped round his thin person, gave it some dignity; and he wore a little black velvet skull-cap, which made his fine head and thin white locks imposing. Margaret stood breathless, making no sound for a moment, and then said, suddenly, “You look like Archimage in the cave, papa!”
The old man made a faint movement of surprise; a wrinkle of impatience came into his forehead, a momentary smile to his lip. “Yes, yes, my little Peggy; go and play,” he said. She stood for a moment behind him, hesitating, looking round her with eager eyes in search of something, anything, to interest her. She was neither surprised nor wounded to find herself thus summarily disposed of: she was used to it. Finally, seeing nothing likely to interest her, Margaret turned lightly away, and disappeared through a second door which was close to the one by which she had entered. This brought her into a small rounded room, with one window, a little white-panelled Scotch-French boudoir, with a high mantel-piece and small antique furniture—a little square of Turkey-carpet on the floor, a pretty old marquetry cabinet, and some high-backed chairs of the same covered with brocaded silk from some great-grandmother’s gown. Margaret knew nothing about the value of these old furnishings. She thought the walnut-wood table, with its elaborate clustered legs, a much finer article, though it was often in her way. There were some old pictures on the walls, some books, and more ornament and grace than in all the rest of the house put together. What did Margaret care? She sang an old tune to herself, drumming with her fingers upon the window-sill, and thinking what she should do. Then she drew open a drawer in the cabinet and took from it some old fancy-work, faded but fine, with a bundle of wools and silks in the same condition. It was the relic of some old lady’s industry (Lady Jean, old Bell said; but how should she know?) which had been found in one of the periodical routings out of old presses and drawers in which Margaret delighted. The linen on which the work was half done was yellow and the colors faded, but it had struck the girl’s fancy, and she had carried it off with her to finish (this time a hundred years, Bell said, satirically). Margaret took it out now and laid it on the table; then she went flying up the stone stairs, and all over the rooms, to find her thimble and her scissors, which were not to be found.
And while she tries to find these, what can we do better than let the reader know who old Sir Ludovic was, and how he came to have so young a child? Margaret’s foot flying up-stairs, and the sound she made of doors and drawers opening, and now an impatient exclamation (for the way thimbles hide themselves and refuse to be found!) and now a little snatch of song, was all that was audible in the still old house. Bell and John and Jeanie in the kitchen had their cracks, indeed, as they took their tea; but sounds did not travel easily up the spiral stair, and the long room with its one inhabitant was as void of all movement as was the vacant little white-panelled chamber with Lady Jean’s old work thrown on the table. All silence, languor, stillness; and yet one creature in the house to whom stillness was as death.