Gilbert, unsleeping, lay with his eyes on the sky; though he had been much tempted to go on with the guard, he would have gained little by doing so; his choice of a night’s lodging must be between Blackport or Monrummon, and, under the circumstances, one place was intolerable as the other.
[CHAPTER XXVIII
AGNETA ON THE UNEXPECTED]
GILBERT was wrong in supposing he would arrive in Scotland on the very heels of his letter, for it reached Granny Stirk’s hands three days before the night which ended, for him, on Monrummon Moor. Jimmy, who had brought it from Kaims in the evening, spelt it out successfully by the firelight.
The old woman sat, drowned in thought, her fiery eyes on the flame; she could not understand why Cecilia had made no response to what Captain Somerville had written, for she had seen him on the previous day and was aware that no word had come from Edinburgh. Though she knew that Barclay had carried the letter to Fullarton she had no suspicion that he had tampered with it, imagining her action and that of the sailor unknown to anyone. How should Barclay guess its contents? Also, she had no notion to what extent he was in Fordyce’s confidence, or what a leading part he had played in the arrangement of the marriage. Instinct and the remembrance of his visit to her were the only grounds for the distrust with which she looked upon him.
She had not doubted Cecilia’s sincerity and she did not doubt it now; but, unlike Gilbert, she was beginning to doubt her courage. She was in this state of mind when she heard that the wedding day was changed from the tenth to the seventh of the month; Speid would only arrive on the evening before the ceremony. The matter had gone beyond her help and she could not imagine what the upshot would be. But, whatever might come of it, she was determined to play her own part to the end. Early to-morrow morning she would send Jimmy to Kaims to tell the sailor of the news she had received and Macquean should go, later, to get a few provisions for Whanland; she, herself, would have a field-day in the laird’s bedroom with mops and dusters and see that his sheets were ‘put to the fire.’
Meanwhile, at Fordyce Castle, events, almost equal to a revolutionary movement in significance, had taken place. Like many another tyrant, Lady Fordyce, once bearded, began to lose the hold which custom had given her over the souls and bodies of her family. Sir Thomas had, for the first time, established another point of view in the house, and its inmates were now pleased and astonished to learn that they survived. That kind of knowledge is rarely wasted. One result of the new light was that Agneta was allowed to accompany Crauford to Edinburgh, where she was to try on her bridesmaid’s costume, report upon Mary’s, and make acquaintance with her future sister-in-law.
The sight of Cecilia was a revelation to Agneta. The hide-bound standards of home had not prepared her to meet such a person on equal terms and she knew herself unable to do so creditably; the remembrance of Mary’s suggestion that they might ‘give her hints’ on the doing of her hair, and such-like details, made her feel inclined to gasp. Cecilia suggested something selected, complicated, altogether beyond her experience of life and outside her conception of it. Crauford, to whom this was evident, looked on triumphantly.
‘Well?’ he began, as they returned together to their lodging in George Street.
‘She is quite different from what I expected, brother—quite different.’