“I’m gaun up to Kellie, Bell, my woman,” said Mrs Stewart. “I wouldna say but we may need Katie at hame; onyway, I’ll gang up to the Castle, and see what they say about it. It’s time she had a while at hame to learn something purpose-like, or it’s my fear she’ll be fit for naething but to hang on about Lady Anne; and nae bairn o’ mine shall do that wi’ my will. Ye’ll set Merran to the muckle wheel, Isabell, as soon as she’s in frae the field; and get that cuttie Janet to do some creditable work. If I catch her out o’ the house when I come hame, it’ll be the waur for hersel.”
“So ye’re aye biding on at the Castle, Bauby,” said Mrs Stewart, as, her long walk over, she rested in the housekeeper’s room, and greeted, with a mixture of familiarity and condescension, the powerful Bauby, who had so long been the faithful friend and attendant of little Katie Stewart. “Ye’re biding on? I thought you were sure to gang with Lady Betty; and vexed I was to think of ye gaun away, that my bairn liket sae weel.”
“I’ll never lee, Mrs Stewart,” said Bauby, confidentially. “If it hadna just been Katie Stewart’s sel, and a thought of Lady Anne, puir thing, left her lee lane in the house, I would as soon have gaen out to the May to live, as bidden still in Kellie Castle. But someway they have grippit my heart atween them—I couldna leave the bairns.”
“Aweel, Bauby, it was kind in ye,” said the miller’s wife; “but I’m in no manner sure that I winna take Katie away.”
“Take Katie away—eh, Mrs Stewart!” And Bauby lifted up her great hands in appeal.
“Ye see her sister Isabell is to be married soon,” said the important mother, rising and smoothing down her skirts. “And now I’m rested, Bauby, I’ll thank ye to take me to Lady Anne’s room.”
The fire burned brightly in the west room, glowing in the dark polished walls, and brightening with its warm flush the clouded daylight which shone through the high window. Again on her high chair, with her shoulders fixed, so that she cannot stoop, Lady Anne sits at her embroidery frame, at some distance from the window, where the slanting light falls full upon her work, patiently and painfully working those dim roses into the canvass which already bears the blossoms of many a laborious hour. Poor Lady Anne! People, all her life, have been doing their duty to her—training her into propriety—into noiseless decorum and high-bred manners. She has read the Spectator to improve her mind—has worked embroidery because it was her duty; and sits resignedly in this steel fixture now, because she feels it a duty too—a duty to the world at large that Lady Anne Erskine should have no curve in her shoulders—no stoop in her tall aristocratic figure. But, in spite of all this, though they make her stiff, and pale, and silent, none of these cares have at all tarnished the gentle lustre of Lady Anne’s good heart; for, to tell truth, embroidery, and prejudices, and steel-collars, though they cramp both body and mind a little, by no means have a bad effect—or, at least, by no means so bad an effect as people ascribe to them in these days—upon the heart; and there lived many a true lady then—lives many a true lady now—to whom devout thoughts have come in those dim hours, and fair fancies budded and blossomed in the silence. It was very true that Lady Anne sat there immovable, holding her head with conscientious firmness, as she had been trained to hold it, and moving her long fingers noiselessly as her needle went out and in through the canvass before her—very true that she thought she was doing her duty, and accomplishing her natural lot; but not any less true, notwithstanding, that the heart which beat softly against her breast was pure and gentle as the summer air, and, like it, touched into quiet brightness by the light from heaven.
Near her, carelessly bending forward from a lower chair, and leaning her whole weight on another embroidery frame, sits Katie Stewart, labouring with a hundred wiles to draw Lady Anne’s attention from her work. One of little Katie’s round white shoulders is gleaming out of her dress, and she is not in the least erect, but bends her head down between her hands, and pushes back the rich golden hair which falls in shining, half-curled tresses over her fingers, and laughs, and pouts, and calls to Lady Anne; but Lady Anne only answers quietly, and goes on with her work—for it is right and needful to work so many hours, and Lady Anne is doing her duty.
But not so Katie Stewart: her needle lies idle on the canvass; her silk hangs over her arm, getting soiled and dim; and Lady Anne blushes to remember how long it is since her wayward favourite began that group of flowers.
For Katie feels no duty—no responsibility in the matter; and having worked a whole dreary hour, and accomplished a whole leaf, inclines to be idle now, and would fain make her companion idle too. But the conscientious Lady Anne shakes her head, and labours on; so Katie, leaning still further over the frame, and still more entirely disregarding her shoulders and deportment, tosses back the overshadowing curls again, and with her cheeks supported in the curved palms of her hands, and her fingers keeping back the hair from her brow, lifts up her voice and sings—