Hector Garret observed this growing taste, and appreciated it. Leslie had ceased to apologize for her stupidity, and to be shy of his scrutiny. When he found her procuring and preserving this or that specimen, or noting down a primitive fact, if he asked an explanation he had one directly.
"This pale flower, and that with the green flowers and the great leaves, are lady's-smock and lady's-mantle; they say they are named after the Virgin, but I think Adam must have named them in the Garden.—Bridget tells me that the Irish believe the fairies sleep in these bells.—This is the plant of whose root cats are so fond that they burrow about it and nibble it, and as it does not hurt them, I have dug up a bit for our puss—little Leslie looks after her already.—I have been writing down the day when the swallows twittered at the window, to compare with their arrival next summer. Peggy Barbour saw a double nest with one hole last year; it must have been an old pair and a young maintaining a joint roof-tree.—Yes, of course, these are jay's feathers."
Another resource which Leslie found within Hector Garret's perception was that of music. She had been endowed with a flexible, melodious voice, and as soon as she had use for them, she gathered by magic a host of ditties, blithe or sad, stirring or soothing, from the romantic fervour of 'Charlie, he's my darling,' to the pathos of 'Drummossie Moor,' or the homely, biting humour of 'Tibbie Fowler,' to carol to the accompaniment of the ancient spinet, in order to cheer or lull the child.
Hector Garret would move to his study-window, and open it softly, in the gloaming hour when the purple sunset was on the sea, and the bats abroad from the old chimneys, to listen to his wife in the room above singing to her child. He did not hear her music otherwise: if he had solicited it, she would have complied, with a little surprise, but he did not seek the indulgence.
The alteration in Leslie which matured her unexpectedly from a girl to a woman affected powerfully both the arbiters of her destiny. Bridget Kennedy, from a tyrant, was fairly transformed into her warmest and most faithful adherent. There was something high and great in the wild old woman, that could thus at once confess her error, admit greatness in any form in another, and succumb to it reverently. Truly, Bridget Kennedy was like fire to the weak and foolish, a scourge and a grizzly phantom; to the brave and capable, a minister fearless, fond, and untiring to her last breath.
It was very strange to Hector Garret to be sensible of Bridget's lapse from his side,—to hear the present mistress, the subdued diligent woman, canonized to the level of the grand, glad lady of Otter to whom Bridget had been so long fanatically loyal. He said to himself that the child had helped to effect it, the precious descendant, the doted-on third generation; but he was uncertain. He himself was so impressed with the patient woman he had formed out of the lively girl, so tortured by a conviction that he had gagged and fettered her—that her limbs were cramped and benumbed, her atmosphere oppressive, her life self-denying—that he could bear it no longer.
"God forgive me, Leslie, for the wrong I have done you!" he confessed one night with a haggard, remorseful face, when she stood, constrained and pensive, on his joyless hearth.
She looked up quickly, and laughed a dry laugh. "You are dreaming," she replied. "How much larger Otter is than the Glasgow house! it was a mere cupboard in comparison. How much pleasanter the fields and hills and sands than the grimy, noisy streets where my head ached and my eyes were weary. And little Leslie is a thousand times dearer than my own people, or any companions that I ever possessed. Hush! hush! I hear her cry; don't detain me, unless for anything I can do for you—because nothing keeps me from Leslie."
The coals of fire were heaped upon his head: there could be no reparation.
Why was Hector Garret not resigned? It was a cruel mistake, but it might have been worse, for hearts are deceitful, and what is false and baneful is apt to prove an edge-tool. Here was permanent estrangement, comfortless formality, cold, compulsory esteem; but there was no treachery in the household, no malignant hate, no base revenge.