White Heather: A Novel (Volume 3 of 3). William Black

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СКАЧАТЬ to her that, if this were Lord Ailine who was coming along, perhaps she might appeal to him – she might beg of him to write to Ronald – or even to go to Glasgow – for had not these two been companions and friends? And he was a man – he would know what to do – what could she do, a helpless girl? Presently Lord Ailine appeared, coming leisurely along the banks of the little stream in company with a keeper and a young lad; and when he saw her, he raised his cap and greeted her.

      'Don't let us disturb you, Miss Douglas,' said he. 'Gathering flowers for the dinner-table, I suppose?'

      'I hope I have done no harm,' said she, though her mind was so agitated that she scarcely knew what she said. 'I – I have not seen any birds – nor a hare either.'

      'Harm? No, no,' he said good-naturedly. 'I hope your mamma is quite well. There's a haunch of a roe-buck at the lodge that Duncan can take along this afternoon – '

      'Your lordship,' said the keeper reprovingly, 'there's Bella drawing on to something.'

      'Good morning, Miss Douglas,' he said quickly, and the next moment he was off.

      But even during that brief interview she had instinctively arrived at the conclusion that it was not for her to spread about this bruit in Inver-Mudal. She could not. This news about Ronald to come from her lips – with perhaps this or that keeper to carry it on to the inn and make it the topic of general wonder there? They would hear of it soon enough. But no one – not even any one in her own household – would be able to guess what it meant to her; as yet she herself could hardly realise it, except that all of a sudden her life seemed to have grown dark.

      She had to get back to the cottage in time for the mid-day dinner, and she sate at table there, pale and silent, and with a consciousness as of guilt weighing upon her. She even did her best to eat something, in order to avoid their remarks and looks; but she failed in that, and was glad to get away as soon as she could to the privacy of her own room.

      'I'm sure I don't know what's the matter with Williamina,' Mrs. Douglas said with a sigh. 'She has not been looking herself for many a day back; and she seems going from bad to worse – she ate hardly a scrap at dinner.'

      Of course it was for the Doctor to prescribe.

      'She wants a change,' he said.

      'A change,' the little dame retorted with some asperity, for this was a sore subject with her. 'She would have had a change long before now, but for her and you together. Three months ago I wanted her sent to Glasgow – '

      'Glasgow – for any one in indifferent health – ' the highland Doctor managed to interpolate; but she would not listen.

      'I'm sure I don't understand the girl. She has no proper pride. Any other girl in her position would be glad to have such chances, and eager to make use of them. But no – she would sooner go looking after a lot of cottar's children than set to work to qualify herself for taking her proper place in society; and what is the use of my talking when you encourage her in her idleness?'

      'I like to have the girl at home,' he said, rather feebly.

      'There,' she said, producing a letter and opening it – although he had heard the contents a dozen times before. 'There it is – in black and white – a distinct invitation. "Could you let Meenie come to us for a month or six weeks when we go to Brighton in November?"'

      'Well,' said the good-natured Doctor, 'that would be a better kind of a change. Sea-air – sunlight – plenty of society and amusement.'

      'She shall not go there, nor anywhere else, with my cousin and his family, until she has fitted herself for taking such a position,' said the little woman peremptorily. 'Sir Alexander is good-nature itself, but I am not going to send him a half-educated Highland girl that he would be ashamed of. Why, the best families in England go to Brighton for the winter – every one is there. It would be worse than sending her to London. And what does this month or six weeks mean? – Surely it is plain enough. They want to try her. They want to see what her accomplishments are. They want to see whether they can take her abroad with them, and present her at Paris and Florence and Rome. Every year now Sir Alexander goes abroad at Christmas time; and of course if she satisfied them she would be asked to go also – and there, think of that chance!'

      'The girl is well enough,' said he.

      She was on the point of retorting that, as far as he knew anything about the matter, Williamina was well enough. But she spared him.

      'No, she has no proper pride,' the little Dresden-china woman continued. 'And just now, when everything is in her favour. Agatha never had such chances. Agatha never had Williamina's good looks. Of course, I say nothing against Mr. Gemmill – he is a highly respectable man – and if the business is going on as they say it is going, I don't see why they should not leave Queen's Crescent and take a larger house – up by the West End Park. And he is an intelligent man, too; the society they have is clever and intellectual – you saw in Agatha's last letter about the artists' party she had – why, their names are in every newspaper – quite distinguished people, in that way of life. And, at all events, it would be a beginning. Williamina would learn something. Agatha is a perfect musician – you can't deny that.'

      But here the big Doctor rebelled; and he brought the weight of his professional authority to bear upon her.

      'Now, look here, Jane, when I said that the girl wanted a change, I meant a change; but not a change to singing-lessons, and music-lessons, and German lessons, and Italian lessons, and not a change to an atmosphere like that of Glasgow. Bless my soul, do you think that kind of change will bring back the colour to her cheek, and give her an appetite, and put some kind of cheerfulness into her? Queen's Crescent! She's not going to Queen's Crescent with my will. Brighton, if you like.'

      'Brighton? To get herself laughed at, and put in the background, as a half-educated ignorant Highland peasant girl? So long as she is what she is, she shall not go to Brighton with my will.'

      So here was an absolute dead-lock so far as Meenie's future was concerned; but she knew nothing of it; and if she had known she would not have heeded much. It was not of her own future she was thinking. And it seemed so terrible to her to know that there was nothing she would not have adventured to save this man from destruction, and to know that she was incapable of doing anything at all. If she could but see him for a moment – to make an appeal to him; if she could but take his hand in hers; would she not say that there had been timidity, doubt, misapprehension in the past, but that now there was no time for any of these; she had come to claim him and save him and restore him to himself – no matter what he might think of her? Indeed she tried to put all thought of herself out of the matter. She would allow no self-pride to interfere, if only she could be of the smallest aid to him, if she could stretch out her hand to him, and appeal to him, and drag him back. But how? She seemed so helpless. And yet her anxiety drove her to the consideration of a hundred wild and impossible schemes, insomuch that she could not rest in her own room, to which she had retreated for safety and quiet. She put on her bonnet again and went out – still with that guilty consciousness of a secret hanging over her; and she went down the road and over the bridge; and then away up the solitary valley through which the Mudal flows. Alas! there was no laughing over the brown shallows now; there was no thinking of

      'the sweet forget-me-nots,

      That grow for happy lovers';

      all had become dark around her; and the giant grasp of Glasgow had taken him away from her, and dragged him down, and blotted out for ever the visions of a not impossible future with which she had been wont to beguile the solitary hours. 'Drinking himself to death, in the lowest of low company:' could this be Ronald, that but a few months ago had been the gayest of any, with audacious talk of what he СКАЧАТЬ