An Orkney Maid

Many stories go about young men and young women, and there is this and that said about Macrae. I have myself met him on Prince’s Street in the afternoon very often, parading there with various gayly dressed women. I do not blame him much for that. The Edinburgh girls are very forward, not like the Norse girls, who are modest and retiring in their ways. I am forced to say that Macrae is a very gay young man, and of course you know all that means without more words about it. He dresses in the highest fashion, goes constantly to theatres with some lady or other, and I do not wonder that people ask, “Where does he get the money? Does he gamble for it?” For he does not go to any kirk on the Sabbath unless he is paid to go there and sing, which he does very well, people say. In his own rooms he is often heard playing the piano and singing music that is not sacred or fit for the holy day. And his father is the most religious man in Edinburgh. It is just awful! I fear you will never forgive me, Miss Thora, but I have still more and worse to tell you, because it is, as I may say, personally heard and not this or that body’s clash-ma-claver. Nor did I seek the same, it came to me through my daily work and in a way special and unlooked-for, so that after hearing it, my conscience would no longer be satisfied and I was forced, as it were, to the writing of this letter to you.

I dare say Macrae may have spoken to you anent his friendship with Agnes and Willie Henderson, indeed Willie Henderson and John Macrae have been finger and thumb ever since they played together. Now Willie’s father is an elder in Dr. Macrae’s kirk and if all you hear anent him be true–which I cannot vouch for–he is a man well regarded both in kirk and market place–that is, he was so regarded until he married again about two years ago. For who, think you, should he marry but a proud upsetting Englishwoman, who was bound to be master and mistress both o’er the hale household?

Then Miss Henderson showed fight and her brother Willie stood by her. And Miss Henderson is a spunky girl and thought bonnie by some people, and has a tongue so well furnished with words to defend what she thinks her rights, that it leaves nobody uncertain as to what thae rights may be. Weel, there has been nothing but quarreling in the elder’s house ever since the unlucky wedding; and in the first year of the trial Willie Henderson borrowed money–I suppose of John Macrae–and took himself off to America, and some said the elder was glad of it and others said he was sair down-hearted and disappointed.

After that, Miss Agnes was never friends with her stepmother. It seems the woman wanted her to marry a nephew of her ain kith and kin, and in this matter her father was of the same mind. The old man doubtless wanted a sough of peace in his own home. That was how things stood a couple of weeks syne, but yestreen I heard what may make the change wanted. This is how it happened.

Yesterday afternoon Mrs. Baird came to Madame David’s to have a black velvet gown fitted. Madame called on Jean Hay to attend her in the fitting and to hang the long skirt properly–for it is a difficult job to hang a velvet skirt, and Jean Hay is thought to be very expert anent the set and swing of silk velvet, which has a certain contrariness of its own. Let that pass. I was kneeling on the floor, setting the train, when Mrs. Baird said: “I suppose you have heard, Madame, the last escapade of that wild son of the great Dr. Macrae?” Then I was all ears, the more so when I heard Madam say: “I heard a whisper of something, but I was not heeding it. Folks never seem to weary of finding fault with the handsome lad.”

“Well, Madame,” said Mrs. Baird, “I happen to know about this story. Seeing with your own eyes is believing, surely!”

“What did you see?” Madame asked.

“I saw enough to satisfy me. You know my house is opposite to the West End Hotel, and last Friday I saw Macrae go there and he was dressed up to the nines. He went in and I felt sure he had gone to call on some lady staying there. So I watched, and better watched, for he did not come out for two hours, and I concluded they had lunched together! For when Macrae came out of the hotel, he spoke to a cabman, and then waited until a young lady and her maid appeared. He put the young lady into the cab, had a few minutes’ earnest conversation with her, then the maid joined her mistress and they two drove away.”

“Well, now, Mrs. Baird,” said Madame, “there was nothing in that but just a courteous luncheon together.”

“Wait, Madame! I felt there was more, so I took a book and sat down by my window. And just on the edge of the dark I saw the two women return, and a little later a waiter put lights in an upper parlour and he spread a table for dinner there and Macrae and the young lady ate it together. Afterwards they went away in a cab together.” Then Madame asked if the maid was with them, and Mrs. Baird said she thought she was but had not paid particular attention.

Madame said something to me about the length of the train and then Mrs. Baird seemed annoyed at her inattention, and she added: “Macrae was advertised to sing in the City Hall the next night at a mass meeting of citizens about abrogating slavery in the United States, and he was not there–broke his engagement! What do you think of that? The next night, Sabbath, he did the same to Dr. Fraser’s kirk, where he had promised to sing a pro-Christmas canticle. And this morning I heard that he is going to the Orkneys to marry a rich and beautiful girl who lives there. Now what do you think of your handsome Macrae? I can tell you he is on every one’s tongue.” And Madame said, “I have no doubt of it and I’ll warrant nobody knows what they are talking about.”

After this the fitting on was not pleasant and I finished my part of it as quickly as possible. Indeed, Miss Thora, I was miserable about you and so pressed in spirit to tell you these things that I could hardly finish my day’s work. For my conscience kept urging me to do my duty to you, for it is many favours you have done me in the past. Kindly pardon me now, and believe me,

Your humble but sincere friend,Jean Hay.

This letter Thora read to the last word but she was nearly blind when she reached it. All her senses rang inward. “I am dying!” she thought, and she tried to reach the bed but only succeeded in stumbling against a small table full of books, knocking it down and falling with it.

Mistress Ragnor and her visitor heard the fall and they were suddenly silent. Immediately, however, they went to the foot of the stairway and called, “Thora.” There was no answer, and the mother’s heart sank like lead, as she hastened to her daughter’s room and threw open the door. Then she saw her stricken child, lying as if dead upon the floor. Cries and calls and hurrying feet followed, and the unconscious girl was quickly freed from all physical restraints and laid at the open window. But all the ordinary household methods of restoring consciousness were tried without avail and the case began to assume a dangerous aspect.

At this moment Ragnor arrived. He knelt at his child’s side and drew her closer and closer, whispering her name with the name of the Divine One; and surely it was in response to his heart-breaking entreaties the passing soul listened and returned. “Father,” was the first whisper she uttered; and with a glowing, grateful heart, the father lifted her in his arms and laid her on her bed.

Then Rahal gave him the two letters and sent him away. Thora was still “far off,” or she would have remembered her letters but it was near the noon of the next day when she asked her mother where they were.

“Thy father has them.”

“I am sorry, so sorry!”

That was all she said but the subject appeared to distress her for she closed her eyes, and Rahal kissed away the tears that slowly found their way down the white, stricken face. However, from this hour she rallied and towards night fell into a deep sleep which lasted for fourteen hours; and it was during this anxious period of waiting that Ragnor talked to his wife about the letters which were, presumably, the cause of the trouble.

“Those letters I gave thee, Coll, did thou read both of them?”

“Both of them I read. Ian’s was the happy letter of an expectant bridegroom. Only joy and hope was in it. It was the other one that was a death blow. Yes, indeed, it was a bad, cruel letter!”

“And the name? Who wrote it?”

“Jean Hay.”

“Jean Hay! What could Jean have to do with Thora’s affairs?”

“Well, then, her conscience made her interfere. She had heard some evil reports about Ian’s life and she thought it her duty, after yours and Thora’s kindness to her, to report these stories.”

“A miserable return for our kindness! This is what I notice–when people want to say cruel things, they always blame their conscience or their duty for making them do it.”

“Here is Jean’s letter. Thou, thyself, must read it.”

Rahal read it with constantly increasing anger and finally threw it on the table with passionate scorn. “Not one word of this stuff do I believe, Coll! Envy and jealousy sent that news, not gratitude and good will! No, indeed! But I will tell thee, Coll, one thing I have always found sure, it is this; that often, much evil comes to the good from taking people out of their poverty and misfortunes. They are paying a debt they owe from the past and if we assume that debt we have it to pay in some wise. That is the wisdom of the old, the wisdom learned by sad experience. I wish, then, that I had let the girl pay her own debt and carry her own burden. She is envious of Thora. Yet was Thora very good to her. Do I believe in her gratitude? Not I! Had she done this cruel thing out of a kind heart, she would have sent this letter to me and left the telling or the not telling to my love and best judgment. I will not believe anything against Ian Macrae! Nothing at all!”

“Much truth is in thy words, Rahal, and it is not on Jean Hay’s letter I will do anything. I will take only Ian’s ‘yes,’ or ‘no’ on any accusation.”

“You may do that safely, Coll, I know it.”

“And I will go back to Edinburgh with him and see his father. Perhaps we have all taken the youth too far on his handsome person and his sweet amiability.”

“Thou wrote to his father when Thora was engaged to him, with thy permission.”

“Well, then, I did.”

“What said his father?”

“Too little! He was cursed short about all I named. I told him Thora was good and fair and well educated; and that she would have her full share in my estate. I told him all that I intended to do for them about their home and the place which I intended for Ian in my business, and referred him to Bishop Hedley as to my religious, financial, social and domestic standing.”

“Why did thou name Bishop Hedley to him? They are as far apart as Leviticus and St. John. And what did he say to thee in reply?”

“That my kindness was more than his son deserved, etc. In response to our invitation to be present at the marriage ceremony, he said it was quite impossible, the journey was too long and doubtful, especially in the winter; that he was subject to sea-sickness and did not like to leave his congregation over Sunday. Rahal, I felt the paper on which his letter was written crinkling and crackling in my hand, it was that stiff with ecclesiastic pomp and spiritual pride. I would not show thee the letter, I put it in the fire.”

“Poor Ian! I think then, that he has had many things to suffer.”

“Rahal, this is what I will do. I will meet the packet on Saturday and we will go first to my office and talk the Hay letter over together. If I bring Ian home with me, then something is possible, but if I come home alone, then Thora must understand that all is over–that the young man is not to be thought of.”

“That would kill her.”

“So it might be. But better is death than a living misery. If Ian is what Jean Hay says he is, could we think of our child living with him? Impossible! Rahal, dear wife, whatever can be done I will do, and that with wisdom and loving kindness. Thy part is harder, it must be with our dear Thora.”

“That is so. And if there has to be parting, it will be almost impossible to spread the plaster as far as the sore.”

“There is the Great Physician–”

“I know.”

“Tell her what I have said.”

“I will do that; but just yet, she is not minding much what any one says.”

However, on Saturday afternoon Thora left her bed and dressed herself in the gown she had prepared for her bridegroom’s arrival. The nervous shock had been severe and she looked woefully like, and yet unlike, herself. Her eyes were full of tears, she trembled, she could hardly support herself. If one should take a fresh green leaf and pass over it a hot iron, the change it made might represent the change in Thora. Jean Hay’s letter had been the hot iron passed over her. She had been told of her father’s decision, but she clung passionately to her faith in Ian and her claim on her father’s love and mercy.

“Father will do right,” she said, “and if he does, Ian will come home with him.”

The position was a cruel one to Conall Ragnor and he went to meet the packet with a heavy heart. Then Ian’s joyful face and his impatience to land made it more so, and Ragnor found it impossible to connect wrong-doing with the open, handsome countenance of the youth. On the contrary, he found himself without intention declaring:

“Well, then, I never found anything the least zig-zaggery about what he said or did. His words and ways were all straight. That is the truth.”

Yet Ian’s happy mood was instantly dashed by Ragnor’s manner. He did not take his offered hand and he said in a formal tone: “Ian, we will go to my office before we go to the house. I must ask thee some questions.”

“Very well, sir. Thora, I hope, is all right?”

“No. She has been very ill.”

“Then let me go to her, sir, at once.”

“Later, I will see about that.”

“Later is too late, let us go at once. If Thora is sick–”

“Be patient. It is not well to talk of women on the street. No wise man, who loves his womenkin, does that.”

Then Ian was silent; and the walk through the busy streets was like a walk in a bad dream. The place and circumstances felt unreal and he was conscious of the sure presence of a force closing about him, even to his finger tips. Vainly he tried to think. He felt the trouble coming nearer and nearer, but what was it? What had he done? What had he failed to do? What was he to be questioned about?

Young as he was his experiences had taught him to expect only injury and wrong. The Ragnor home and its love and truth had been the miracle that had for nine months turned his brackish water of life into wine. Was it going to fail him, as everything else had done? He laughed inwardly at the cruel thought and whispered to himself: “This, too, can be borne, but oh, Thora, Thora!” and the two words shattered his pride and made him ready to weep when he sat down in Ragnor’s office and saw the kind, pitiful face of the elder man looking at him. It gave him the power he needed and he asked bluntly what questions he was required to answer.

Ragnor gave him the unhappy letter and he read it with a look of anger and astonishment. “Father,” he said, “all this woman writes is true and not true; and of all accusations, these are the worst to defend. I must go back to my very earliest remembrances in order to fairly state my case, and if you will permit me to do this, in the presence of your wife and Thora, I will then accept whatever decision you make.”

For at least three minutes Ragnor made no answer. He sat with closed eyes and his face held in the clasp of his left hand. Ian was bending forward, eagerly watching him. There was not a movement, not a sound; it seemed as if both men hardly breathed. But when Ragnor moved, he stood up. “Let us be going,” he said, “they are anxious. They are watching. You shall do as you say, Ian.”

Rahal saw them first. Thora was lying back in her mother’s chair with closed eyes. She could not bear to look into the empty road watching for one who might be gone forever. Then in a blessed moment, Rahal whispered, “They are coming!”

“Both? Both, Mother?”

“Both!”

“Thank God!” And she would have cried out her thanks and bathed them in joyful tears if she had been alone. But Ian must not see her weeping. Now, especially, he must be met with smiles. And then, when she felt herself in Ian’s embrace, they were both weeping. But oh, how great, how blessed, how sacramental are those joys that we baptise with tears!

During the serving of dinner there was no conversation but such as referred to the war and other public events. Many great ones had transpired since they parted, and there was plenty to talk about: the battles of Balaklava and Inkerman had been fought; the never-to-be-forgotten splendour of Scarlett’s Charge with the Heavy Brigade, and the still more tragically splendid one of the Light Brigade, had both passed into history.

More splendid and permanent than these had been the trumpet “call” of Russell in the Times, asking the women of England who among them were ready to go to Scutari Hospital and comfort and help the men dying for England? “Now,” he cried,

“The Son of God goes forth to war!Who follows in His train?”

Florence Nightingale and her band of trained nurses, mainly from the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy, and St. John’s Protestant House, was the instant answer. In six days they were ready and without any flourish of trumpets, at the dark, quiet midnight, they left England for Scutari and in that hour the Red Cross Society was born.

“How long is it since they sailed?” asked Rahal.

“A month,” answered Ian, “but the controversy about it is still raging in the English papers.”

“What has anyone to say against it?” asked Rahal. “The need was desperate, the answer quick. What, then, do they say?”

“The prudery of the English middle class was shocked at the idea of young women nursing in military hospitals. They considered it ‘highly improper.’ Others were sure women would be more trouble than help. Many expect their health to fail, and think they will be sent back to English hospitals in a month.”

“I thought,” said Ragnor, “that the objections were chiefly religious.”

“You are right,” replied Ian. “The Calvinists are afraid Miss Nightingale’s intention is to make the men Catholics in their dying hour. Others feel sure Miss Nightingale is an Universalist, or an Unitarian, or a Wesleyan Methodist. The fact is, Florence Nightingale is a devout Episcopalian.”

A pleasant little smile parted Ragnor’s lips, and he said with an Episcopalian suavity: “The Wesleyans and the Episcopalians, in doctrine, are much alike. We regard them as brethren;” and just while he spoke, Ragnor looked like some ecclesiastical prelate.

“There is little to wonder at in the churches disagreeing about Miss Nightingale,” said Rahal, “it is not to be expected that they would believe in her, when they do not believe in each other.” As she spoke she stepped to the fireside and touched the bell rope, and a servant entered and began to clear the table and put more wood on the fire, and to turn out one of the lamps at Rahal’s order. Ragnor had gone out to have a quiet smoke in the fresh air while Rahal was sending off all the servants to a dance at the Fisherman’s Hall. Ian and Thora were not interested in these things; they sat close together, talking softly of their own affairs.

Without special request, they drew closer to the hearth and to each other. Then Ragnor took out a letter and handed it to Ian. He was sitting at Thora’s side and her hand was in his hand. He let it fall and took the letter offered him.

“I cannot explain this letter,” he said, “unless I preface it with some facts regarding my unhappy childhood and youth. I am, as you know, the son of Dr. Macrae, but I have been a disinherited son ever since I can remember. I suppose that in my earliest years I was loved and kindly treated, but I have no remembrance of that time. I know only that before I was five years old, my father had accepted the solemn conviction that I was without election to God’s grace. Personally I was a beautiful child, but I was received and considered, body and soul, as unredeemable. Father then regarded me as a Divine decree which it was his duty to receive with a pious acquiescence. My mother pitied and, in her way, loved me, and suffered much with me. I have a little sister also, who would like to love me, but there is in all her efforts just that touch of Phariseeism which destroys love.”

“But, Ian, there must have been some reason for your father’s remarkable conviction?”

“That is most likely. If so, he never explained the fact to me or even to my mother. She told me once that he did not suspect that I had missed God’s election until I was between five and six years old. I suppose that about that age I began to strengthen his cruel fear by my antipathy to the kirk services and my real and unfortunate inability to learn the Shorter Catechism. This was a natural short-coming. I could neither spell or pronounce the words I was told to learn and to memorise them was an impossible thing.”

“Could not your mother help you?”

“She tried. She wept over me as she tried, and I made an almost superhuman effort to comprehend and remember. I could not. I was flogged, I was denied food and even water. I was put in dark rooms. I was forbid all play and recreation. I went through this martyrdom year after year and I finally became stubborn and would try no longer. In the years that followed, until I was sixteen, my daily sufferings were great, but I remember them mainly for my mother’s sake, who suffered with me in all I suffered. Nor am I without pity for my father. He honestly believed that in punishing me he was doing all he could to save me from everlasting punishment. Yes, sir! Do not shake your head! I have heard him praying, pleading with God, for some token of my election to His mercy. You see it was John Calvin.”

“John Calvin!” ejaculated Ragnor, “how is that?”

“It was his awful tenets I had to learn; and when I was young I could not learn them, and when I grew older I would not learn them. My father had called me John Calvin and I detested the name. On my eighteenth birthday I asked him to have it changed. He was very angry at my request. I begged him passionately to do so. I said it ruined my life, that I could do nothing under that name. ‘Give me your own name, Father,’ I entreated, ‘and I will try and be a good man!’

“He said something to me, I never knew exactly what, but the last word was more than I could bear and my reply was an oath. Then he lifted the whip at his side and struck me.”

Rahal and Thora were sobbing. Ragnor looked in the youth’s face with shining eyes and asked, almost in a whisper, “What did thou do?”

“I had been struck often enough before to have made me indifferent, but at this moment some new strength and feeling sprang up in my heart. I seized his arms and the whip fell to the floor. I lifted it and said, ‘Sir, if you ever again use a whip in place of decent words to me, I will see you no more until we meet for the judgment of God. Then I will pity you for the life-long mistake you have made.’ My father looked at me with eyes I shall never forget, no, not in all eternity! He burst into agonizing prayer and weeping and I went and told mother to go to him. I left the house there and then. I had not a halfpenny, and I was hungry and cold and sick with an intolerable sense of wrong.”

“Father!” said Thora, in a voice broken with weeping. “Is not this enough?” And Ragnor leaned forward and took Thora’s hand but he did not speak. Neither did he answer Rahal’s look of entreaty. On the contrary he asked:

“Then, Ian? Then, what did thou do?”

“I felt so ill I went to see Dr. Finlay, our family physician. He knew the family trouble, because he had often attended mother when she was ill in consequence of it. I did not need to make a complaint. He saw my condition and took me to his wife and told her to feed and comfort me. I remained in her care four days, and then he offered to take me into his office and set me to reading medical text books, while I did the office work.”

“What was this work?”

“I was taught how to prepare ordinary medicines, to see callers when the doctor was out, and make notes of, and on, their cases. I helped the doctor in operations, I took the prescriptions to patients and explained their use, etc. In three years I became very useful and helpful and I was quite happy. Then Dr. Finlay was appointed to some exceptionally fine post in India, private physician to some great Rajah, and the Finlay family hastily prepared for their journey to Delhi. I longed to go with them but I had not the money requisite. With Dr. Finlay I had had a home but only money enough to clothe me decently. I had not a pound left and mother could not help me, and Uncle Ian was in the Madeira Isles with his sick wife. So the Finlays went without me; and I can feel yet the sense of loneliness and poverty that assailed me, when I shut their door behind me and walked into the cold street and knew not what to do or where to go.”