To play her part with any attempt at propriety, she must have time to bring her mind to it without the strain of his presence. He might appear at Fullarton at any moment, with the intention of staying for days, and Cecilia decided that she must escape from a position which became hourly more difficult. While she racked her brain in thinking how this might be effected, like a message from the skies, came a letter from her friend and Fullarton’s cousin, the Lord Advocate’s widow. ‘Though I know Mr. Crauford Fordyce very slightly,’ she wrote, ‘he is still related to me and I have to thank him warmly for being the means of bringing my dearest Miss Raeburn into the family. Would that I could see you to offer you my sincerest good wishes! I do not know whether the day is yet fixed, but, should you have time to spare me a visit, or inclination to consult the Edinburgh mantua-makers, I should receive you with a pleasure of whose reality you know me well enough to be assured.’
She had still nearly eight weeks’ respite. The wedding, which was to take place upon the tenth of April, was, at her earnest request, to be at Morphie Kirk, for she wanted to begin her new life near the scenes of the old one. She was to be married from Fullarton; Robert, having constituted himself her guardian, would give her away, and Crauford, according to time-honoured etiquette, would be lodged in Kaims; Mr. Barclay had offered his house. In justice to the bridegroom, she must not fall short of the ordinary standard of bridal appearance, and she showed Robert his cousin’s letter, saying that, with his permission, she would go to Edinburgh to buy her wedding gown. On the plea of ill-health Lady Fordyce had refused to be present at the ceremony, and it was only the joint pressure brought to bear on her by brother and husband which forced from her a reluctant consent that Mary and Agneta should go to Fullarton and play the part of bridesmaids. Sir Thomas had shown unusual decision.
It was on the day before her departure that Cecilia rode out to take a last look at Morphie. Though there was, as yet, no hint of coming spring in the air, in a month the thrushes and blackbirds would be proclaiming their belief in its approach, and a haze, like a red veil, would be touching the ends of the boughs. As she stopped on the highroad and looked across the wall at Morphie House, she felt like a returned ghost. Its new owners had left it uninhabited and the white blinds were drawn down like the eyelids of a dead face; her life there seemed sometimes so real and sometimes so incredible—as if it had never been. She saw herself going through the rooms, loitering in the garden, and performing the hundred and one duties and behests she had done so willingly. She smiled, though her heart ached, as she remembered her aunt’s short figure leaning out of a window above the stable-yard, watching the horses being brought out for exercise and calling out her orders to the men. How silent it all was now; the only moving things were the pigeons which had always haunted Morphie, the descendants of those for which Gilbert had fought two years ago. She turned away and took the road that followed the river’s course to Whanland.
Here too, everything was still, though the entrance gate was standing open. She had never yet been inside it; long before it had acquired special interest for her she had felt a curiosity about the untenanted place; but Lady Eliza had always driven by quickly, giving unsatisfactory answers to any questions she had put. She rode in, unable to resist her impulse, and sat on horseback looking up at the harled walls. The front-door was ajar, and, seeing this, she was just about to ride away, when there were footsteps behind her and Granny Stirk, her arms loaded with fresh-cut sticks, came round a corner of the house. She let her bundle fall in a clattering shower and came up to Cecilia. Since Gilbert had left she had not seen the woman who, she was sure, had been the cause of his departure, and her heart was as hard against her as the heart of Miss Hersey Robertson.
‘Do you take care of the house?’ asked Cecilia, when they had exchanged a few words.
‘Ay; whiles a’ come in-by an’ put on a bittie fire. The Laird asket me. But Macquean’s no verra canny to work wi’.’
‘Oh, Granny, let me come in!’ cried Cecilia. ‘I want so much to see this place, I shall never see it again—I am going away you know.’
The Queen of the Cadgers eyed her like an accusing angel.
‘And what for are ye no here—you that sent the Laird awa’?’ she cried. ‘Puir lad! He cam’ in-by to me, and says he, “Ye’ve been aye fine to me, Granny,” says he. And a’ just asket him, for a’ kenned him verra well, “Whaur is she?” says I. “It’s a’ done, Granny,” says he, “it’s a’ done!” An’ he sat down to the fire just wearied-like. “An’ are ye no to get her?” says I. “Na,” says he. “Aweel, ye’ll get better,” says I. A’ tell’t him that, Miss Raeburn—but he wadna believe it, puir lad.’
Cecilia had not spoken to one living creature who had met Gilbert Speid since they parted and her eyes filled with tears; she slid from her horse and stood weeping before the old woman. Her long self-control gave way, for the picture raised by Granny’s tongue unnerved her so completely that she seemed to be losing hold of everything but her own despair. She had not wept since the day she had heard the wild geese.