It was a Lover and his Lass
"It would not be for us," said Miss Jean, "but for Lilias; you see, at her age – and Margaret is of the opinion that we should give her every justice; besides, we would not stay all the season, just enough to give her a good idea; and then, you see, being once presented, she would be prepared for whatever might happen."
"We all know what that means," said Mrs. Seton, nodding her head. "Oh, yes, yes, it is very natural. When you have the charge of young people, you must look on into the future. I am always telling Mr. Seton, Katie must have a winter in Edinburgh; that will be season enough for her, for you are never rightly at your ease in society till you have seen something of the world."
"For my part, I think there's far better society in Edinburgh than you can get in London," said Mrs. Stormont. "You get the best in the one place, but it's a very different class you get in the other. A good Scots family counts for nothing among all those fashionable folk. You are asked at the tail-end of one of their great parties, and your friends think they have done their duty by you. No, no, London's not for me."
"That may be very true," said Miss Jean, "but Margaret is of the opinion that this is the right thing to do; and she always strives to carry out what she thinks to be right."
"It's just the most terrible waste of money," Mrs. Stormont continued. "I never think you get half so much for a gold sovereign as you do for a pound note; and if you ask your way in the street, or stroke a bairn on the head as you pass it, there's sixpence to pay. And the beer! nobody but wants beer. How they can stand all that cold stuff on their stomachs is a mystery to me."
"Mr. Seton maintains it's not so bad as a dram," said the minister's wife. "Oh! no, no, if you come to think of it, it is not so bad as the drams. Whisky is far worse for their stomachs. If the one's cold, the other just burns them up. I set my face against it, but it's so little you can do. And sixpence goes a far way in beer; you can always hope he'll not drink it all, but take home the half to his wife. Ah, no, you must not speak against London. It's a grand place London. You see the best of everything there. When we go up now and then, which is not nearly so often as I should wish, we have no cause to complain of our friends. They are just as pleased to see us as we are to see them, and we must dine with this one, and the other will take us to the Academy, or into the park, or to hear a concert. You would be happy there with the music, Mr. Murray. The best always goes to London. Oh! yes, yes, in London there is the best of everything."
"And the worst," said Mrs. Stormont, emphatically, as she rose. She paused to shake hands with Lewis with a certain demonstration of interest. "You are going to settle down in our neighbourhood?" she said. "I'm sure I'm very glad to hear it. There's no better situation that I know of. You're near the moors for the shooting, and close to the river for the fishing, and what could heart of man desire more?"
"Unfortunately I am not much of a sportsman."
"Well, well, there are other attractions," said Mrs. Stormont, with unusual geniality. "We can supply you with better things. A nice house and pleasant neighbours, and a bonnie Scots lassie for a wife, if that is within your requirements. Men are scarce, and you may pick and choose."
"Not quite so bad as that, I hope," said Mrs. Seton, with a heightened colour. "No, no, not so bad as that; but still, no doubt, there are some fine girls."
"Some! there are dozens," said the other, with an evident meaning which Lewis, surprised, did not fathom; "and take you my word, Mr. Murray, you are in a grand position. You have nothing to do but pick and choose."
Miss Jean rose up quickly when this was said. She was nervous and alarmed by every trumpet of battle. She hastily interposed, with her softer voice.
"I must be going, Mrs. Seton. We will soon, I hope, see you at the castle; and Katie knows how welcome she is. No, no, you'll never mind coming to the door. Here is Mr. Murray will see me out," cried Miss Jean, eager to be absent from the fray.
Mrs. Stormont, however, had delivered her shaft, and it was she who led the way, with a smile of satisfied malice.
"You must really settle among us. You must not just tantalize the young ladies," she said.
When she had been placed in her pony-carriage and driven away, Lewis took the opportunity thus presented to him, and accompanied Miss Jean, somewhat to her alarm, into the park through the little wicket. Miss Jean was still a little nervous, with a tremor of agitation about her.
"Did you ever hear anything like yon?" she said. "It was very ill-bred. You see Mrs. Stormont is a person of strong feelings. That is always the excuse Margaret makes for her. But you may disapprove of a thing, surely, and show it in a way becoming a gentlewoman, without going so far as that."
"What is it," asked Lewis, always full of interest in his fellow-creatures, "which this lady does not approve?"
"There are great allowances to be made for her," said Miss Jean. "You see Philip is her only son, and naturally, if he marries at all, she would like him to look higher. The Setons are very nice people. I would not have you think anything different; but it would not be wonderful that she should like him to look higher."
"I see; then it is Mrs. Seton who has arranged to marry her daughter to – "
"Oh, you must not take that into your head. Bless me! I would not say that: it may never come the length of marrying; it is just that Philip is always hanging about the manse. And Katie, she is very young, poor thing, and fond of her amusement – they may mean nothing, for anything I can tell; and that is Margaret's opinion," Miss Jean said, with trepidation. "Margaret has always said it was nothing but a little nonsense and flirtation between the young folk."
"It is the fashion of England," said Lewis, "I suppose – but it is strange to me, too, as to Mrs. Stormont – that Miss Katie should manage her own concerns."
"I know little about the fashions of England," said Miss Jean, slightly annoyed by this answer, "but in Scotland it is not our way to arrange these sort of things; when they come of themselves, we have just to put up with it, if we don't like it, or to be thankful, if we do. It is more natural than that French way of arranging – which comes to nothing but harm, as I have often heard."
Lewis did not stand up in defence of the French way. He said,
"Miss Katie is too young, she will think that is play; but when it is otherwise, when the lady is one who knows what is in the world, and what it is to choose, and understands what she would wish in the companion of her life – "
Here Miss Jean began to shake her head, and laugh softly to herself.
"Where will you find a young creature that will be so wise as that?" she said.
"Perhaps I was not thinking of a young creature," said Lewis, piqued a little by her laugh.
"Ah," said Miss Jean, "that is just another of your French ways. I have heard that in their very stories it will be an elder person, a widow perhaps, that will be the heroine. That's a thing which is very repulsive to the like of us in this country. You will perhaps think I am very romantic, but I like none of your unnatural stories. What I like is two young folk, not very wise perhaps, mistaken it may be, but with honest hearts towards one another, faithful and true; that is what I like to hear of – and no parents interfering, except just to guide a little, and help them on."
"Ah!" said Lewis, with an involuntary sigh, "that is one way, to be sure; but must all other ways be unnatural? Might it not be that the elder person, as you say, should have a charm greater than the younger, should be more sweet in some one's eyes, kinder and truer? All romance is not of one kind."
"I cannot abide," said Miss Jean, severely, "the woman that can begin over again, and tag a new life on to the tail of another. No, I cannot 'bide that. It may be one of my old-fashioned ways: but to everything there is a season, as Solomon, in his wisdom, was instructed to say."
"That is different," said Lewis; "but do you think, then, that the heart grows old? I have known some who were as fresh as any young girl, or even as a child, though they were not what you call young."
"Well, well!" said Miss Jean, with a smile and a sigh, "I will say nothing against that. I'll allow it's true. Oh, yes; but you're a clever young man to discern it. It is just ridiculous," she continued, bursting into a little laugh, "the young feeling that – some persons have; wrinkles and grey hairs outside, and just the foolish feeling within, as if you were still a bit foolish lamb upon the lee."
Miss Jean laughed, but there was a little moisture in her eyes.
"You have neither wrinkles nor grey hairs," said the audacious Lewis. "You choose to be old, but you are not old. Your eyes are as young as Miss Katie's, your heart is more soft and kind. Why there should be anything unnatural in a romance that had you for its centre I cannot see."
"Me!"
Miss Jean stood still in her astonishment; a soft colour passed over her gentle countenance, not so much with the emotion appropriate to the occasion, as with wonder and amazement. It was a moment before she fully realized what he meant to say, and then —
"Bless the laddie! is he going out of his senses," she cried. "Me!"
"And why not? I cannot see any reason," Lewis said. He was always ingratiating, anxious to please, seeking with a smiling anxiety for the sympathy of his companions. He looked at her now with a tender desire to set her right with herself. A respectful admiration was in his eyes; and indeed, as he looked with the strong desire which he had to find out all that was best in the modest, gentle countenance before him, it was astonishing how pretty Miss Jean began to grow. The faded colour grew sweeter and brighter, the eyes enlarged, the very contour of the face became more perfect. He could not help saying to himself that careful dressing, and a little stir and excitement, would make her handsome; and as for her age, what did a few years matter? Lewis said to himself that he had no prejudices. When a man of forty marries a woman of twenty-five, there is not a word to be said – and why should there be any difference in this case? All this was written in his eyes, had Miss Jean been clever enough to see it there. But she was not. She considered that he was trying to please her, and make her satisfied with herself, as a child sometimes does who cannot bear to think that its mother or aunt is supposed old. Perhaps it pleased her as even the child's naïve compliment pleases. She shook her head.
"You are very kind," she said, "to try to make me think that age is as good as youth. But I'm not wishing to be young – I am quite content, and there is no question of that. What I was wanting to say was that I would never be the one to cross two young things in an attachment." A pretty colour was on Miss Jean's face; she blushed a little for the sake of the imaginary young people. "I would not part them – who can ever tell what may come of it? – I would not part them," she said, with fervour.
Lewis felt a warm glow under his waistcoat, and thought with a little complacency that he was falling in love with Miss Jean as she spoke.
CHAPTER XI
Katie Seton was not yet seventeen, but she was the eldest of her family, which has a maturing influence, and she had been the chief personage in a series of impromptu performances in the manse drawing-room, like the one at which the reader has assisted, almost as long as she could remember; so that she was familiar enough with ideas which are generally beginning to develop at seventeen, and had flirted very innocently ever since she was in short frocks. From that time Philip Stormont had been her favourite partner, her closest attendant. He was the one who walked home with her when they met at the tea-parties of the neighbourhood, following with Katie behind her father and mother in the strictest decorum, when his protection was altogether unnecessary, and finding his way to the manse on any excuse; and there are so many excuses in the country for such visits. Sometimes he had business with the minister which kept him waiting for hours, much deplored by Mrs. Seton, who would bustle out and in, and lament her occupations, which did not permit her to remain with him, and her husband's absence, which wasted his day.
"But I've sent little Robbie to see if he can find his father, and, Katie, you must just do the best you can to wile away the time," Mrs. Seton would say.
Katie did her very best on such occasions. She would give the young man a lesson in dancing, in which she was acknowledged to be the greatest proficient for miles around, or she would go over one song after another, playing the tune with one hand to teach it to him, sometimes guiding him with her own pretty little voice, sometimes breaking down in rills of young laughter at his mistakes, in which he would join. They were on such perfectly easy terms that his mistakes did not trouble him before Katie – he even went wrong on purpose to make her laugh. Sometimes they would meet out of doors and walk together, the younger children who accompanied Katie following their own devices, to the satisfaction of all parties, as soon as it was realized that Stormont had appeared, and that the previous attendants were free. In this way a great many passages had occurred, unknown, indeed, to father and mother, and in themselves bearing but little meaning, which had so linked these two young creatures together, that neither one nor the other could identify themselves apart.
There had been nothing said between them about engagement or marriage, but they felt a mutual right to pout and quarrel, if Katie danced with some one else more than civility required, or if Philip walked home with Annie Borrodaile. Annie Borrodaile was the individual whom Katie had chosen to erect into a dangerous rival; while Philip, on his side, after a marked identification of young Mr. Dunlop the assistant at Braehead, had lately fallen upon Lewis as his antagonist. They would taunt each other with these supposed preferences, in which neither believed, but up to this time nothing had happened, nothing had been said to make a reference to papa necessary on Katie's part, or to give Mr. Philip that right "to put a stop to" a certain acquaintance, which he constantly declared to be necessary. They were playing with the gravity of the matter, and thinking that nobody saw clearer than themselves. But how was it possible that anyone could see so clearly as Philip's mother, who had no one but he, and who was a widow, with her mind and thoughts continually following her son. Somehow, no one could quite tell how, and herself least of all, Mrs. Stormont got to know what her son did; where he walked; how often he met Katie; how often he was received in the manse drawing-room. None of these things were done clandestinely; the servants, the children, the neighbours, all had a part in the proceedings of the young people, who themselves were as honestly void of offence as ever young people were.
On the evening of the day on which Mrs. Stormont had made the visit we have recorded, Katie went out with her young brothers and sisters. Robbie and Jock were the next to her in age. They were fifteen and thirteen, and full of mischief, as indeed, if boys are not at their age, what is to become of them? Rosie and Minnie were younger; they were little girls who had an eye to what was going on, and were deeply aware that, if anything could make Katie indifferent to the fact that they had taken off their shoes and stockings, and were wading on the edge of the river like the boys, or had scrambled up into a tree, and there sat dangling their small legs with absolute insensibility to decorum, it was the sight of Philip coming vaguely along whistling one of the tunes Katie had taught him, and looking about everywhere to find her out. These young people offered no obstacles to Philip's search: they aided him indeed with all their powers. The direction in which they usually took their evening walk was up the water, a path which ended in a wood stretching downwards from the big, empty, unfinished house of Murkley to the river-side. This wood was their favourite resort. There were rabbits in it, and squirrels; there were oaks all twisted and gnarled, which were delightful to climb, and in which the girls found no difficulty. There was a large willow very near the bend of the river, with great branches stretching half-way across the stream, upon which they would sit and fish, perched up like a bird among the foliage, and out of everybody's way. And there was an old quarry of red earth full of pebbles, in which nothing was so easy, if wilder sports failed them, as to establish a shop, and sell mimic sweets and fruits, pretending to be customers and pretending to be saleswomen, to their hearts' desire. This latter delight was best attainable by the girls when May came too, who was only eight, and who thought nothing so delightful as playing shop. Meanwhile, the boys would be after the rabbits, or investigating the nests.
The party had set out from the manse in very good order as usual. Katie had been "upset" during the day, and her mother had petted and consoled her. There had been no direct confidences between them. Mrs. Seton had made little reference to the personal offence, though she had felt it keenly.
"It was not pretty. Oh, no, it was not pretty," she said, "to speak like yon to poor Mr. Murray, a young lad that is a stranger here, and knows nobody's character. If he had known what kind of woman Mrs. Stormont was – fond of making these kind of remarks – he would of course have understood. But, no, no, indeed it was not pretty, and it should just read us a lesson, Katie, to mind how we indulge our fancies, not thinking of other people. It was not, maybe, civil either to you or me; but we know what she is, and we never mind – no, no, we just never mind. But I feel for poor Mr. Murray," Mrs. Seton said.
As for Katie, she said, with anger,
"What right had she to speak like that? as if we were wanting him, or anyone."
"Tut," said her mother, "it was not us she was meaning. She just can't help being disagreeable; it is her way."
But Katie had been angry, and consequently "upset" and wretched all the day. It was at her mother's request that she went out with her brothers and sisters. Mrs. Seton thought the air would do her good.
"Now, Robin and Jock, you will take care of Katie," their mother said. "Play none of your pliskies, but just walk by her side like two gentlemen, and take care of her, poor thing; and, Rosie and Minnie, you are not to drag and hang upon Katie, but let her get a little quiet and fresh air. Take a nice walk, and you'll be better when you come back."
The party set off very solemnly with their charge – they respected their mother, at least, so far as they could be seen from the manse windows, if not a little further. Rosie and Minnie walked in front like two little judges, and Robbie and Jock were on either side of their sister, walking, "like two gentlemen," in quiet gravity and state. Katie, between them, had a languid air. She walked with her head drooping a little, with a pensive seriousness in her countenance. It was impressive to see this fine family taking the air. Till they took the turn to the river-side their seriousness was unbroken. Then nature began to assert itself. Robbie and Jock were startled into animation by the sudden sight of a water-rat, after which Vixen, their dog, without consulting them, but with a glance out of his shag of hair contemptuous and impatient as who should say, "You laggards, come on," had turned in full pursuit. Rosie and Minnie persevered a little longer.
"It's nothing but a rat! but boys will rin for naething!" said Miss Rosie, more contemptuous than Vixen. A minute or two after, they thought they saw a squirrel, and flew along the path. Katie grew a little less languid when she was thus left alone. She said to herself that the air had done her good already. She did not call back the boys, as she had once thought of doing, or summon the little girls, who were within reach of her voice. What was the use when here was Philip Stormont coming? He was more of her own age, she said to herself, and more a companion, and there could be no doubt that he too, as well as the young Setons, was wonderfully fond of that road by the river-side. It can no more be denied that she was glad to see him approaching than that she had confidently expected his appearance; but the first sight of him suddenly gave Katie's little soul a perverse turn, and she received him without her usual cordiality, with a preternaturally grave face.
"I have often wondered," she said, "what brings you out at this hour, and on this side of the water. It is nothing for us, because we don't dine, and we have had our tea; but I have just been thinking what becomes of your dinner, and you walking about all the evening. You must be awfully fond of walking," Katie said, looking up, with the profoundest air of philosophical inquiry on her face.
"Walking! It is perhaps something else I am fond of," said Philip.
"Something else? I never see you with your fishing-rod," proceeded Katie; "but that does not matter, for of course you have your own reasons. But what happens about your dinner, if you dine at seven o'clock?"
"We don't dine at seven o'clock. Who would go in, a night like this, for a dull dinner? No, I have just something when I go home: and in the mean time I see you."
"Oh, me! – that's not much consequence," said Katie; and then she added, "I know now why Mrs. Stormont was not pleased, if she has to take her dinner by herself. I would not stand it, if I were your mother. I wonder what you mean, all you boys. Do you think you are so much grander than women are, that you turn everything upside down for your own pleasure? Oh! if I were your mother, I would be worse than vexed! I would just not put up with it," cried Katie, stamping her small foot. The object of this assault was petrified. He looked at her with a gasp of dismay.
"How do you know," he blundered out at last, "that my mother was angry? You know I don't think myself grand at all nor anything worth speaking of," he added, in a deprecating tone. "It is you, Katie, that are angry."
"And I have cause, Mr. Stormont," said Katie, with dignity.
"Mr. Stormont! Is it a quarrel, then? You are always wanting to quarrel with me," he said, in a tone of complaint, yet conciliation; "but it takes two to do that. What is it now?"
"Oh, it is nothing," cried Katie; "if unkind things are said about me, it is none of your affair. I am not complaining. It is a little strange, however," she said, after an effective pause, "that because a gentleman does not go in at the right hour and eat his dinner as he ought, a girl that has nothing to do with him, that is no connection, should be abused in her own mother's house."
"Is it me that you have nothing to do with?" said Philip, piteously. "I think nobody can have so hard a heart."
"What have I to do with you, Mr. Philip? – we are just friends. You are friends with a great many people. There are the Borrodailes – "
"I knew that was coming," said Philip, "though I tell you six times a day that Annie Borrodaile is nothing – "
"I said not a word about Annie Borrodaile. It is just a guilty conscience that makes you name one more than another. And why should you tell me six times a day? I wonder what I have got to do with it?"
"Katie," cried poor Philip, "how can you speak to me so, when you know just as well as I do that there's no one in the world I care about but you? You have got everything to do with me. You know, if all the ladies in the world were here, it is you I would choose; you know it is for you I come here; you know I think of nobody else and nothing else." Here Philip, approaching humbly, endeavoured to draw into his own Katie's hand, which lay within reach upon her lap, for by this time the pair had seated themselves, as they usually did, upon a fallen tree which lay conveniently within reach of the road, but sheltered by the brushwood. "Nobody else, and nothing else," said Philip, drawing closer.
"Except the trout," said Katie, with a laugh, "and birds in the season, and the hunting, and the curling, and two or three hundred things, not to speak of Annie Borrodaile."