The Wizard's Son. Volume 2of 3

She had thus regained the command of herself without in the least forgetting what had been, when Katie came with her story to claim her advice and sympathy. Katie came from her father's castle with what was in reality a more splendid equipage than that which conveyed her with swift prancing horses along the side of the loch. She came attended by a crew of gentlemen, the best in these parts. Young Tom Campbell, of the Ellermore family, was her bow oar. He was furthest off, as being hopelessly ineligible, and not having, even in his own opinion, the least right to come to speech of the heiress, for whom he had a hot boyish passion. Scott of Inverhouran, a Campbell too by the mother's side, and not far off the head of his clan, was stroke; and between these two sat the son of a Glasgow trader, who could have bought them both up, and an English baronet who had come to Birkenbraes nominally for the grouse, really for Katie. Tom of Ellermore was the only one of the crew who might not, as people say, have married anybody, from the Duke's daughter downwards. Katie was accompanied by a mild, grey-haired lady who had once been her governess, and a pretty little girl of fifteen, not indisposed to accept a passing tribute from the least engaged of the gentlemen. Katie deposited her companions and her crew with Mrs. Forrester, and calling Oona aside, rushed up-stairs to that young lady's bed-chamber, where it was evident nobody could pursue them.

"Oh, Oona, never mind them," she cried. "Your mother will give them their tea and scones; but I want you – I want your advice – or at least I want you to tell me what you think. They will do very well with Mrs. Forrester." Then she drew her friend into the little elbow-chair in the window, Oona's favourite seat, and threw herself down on the footstool at her feet. "I want you to tell me – " she said, with a certain solemnity, "what you think of Lord Erradeen."

"Of Lord Erradeen?" said Oona, faintly. She was taken so completely by surprise that the shock almost betrayed her. Katie fixed upon her a pair of open, penetrating brown eyes. They were both fair, but Oona was of a golden tint, and Katie of a less distinguished light brownness. Katie, with her little profile somewhat blurred and indistinct in the outlines, had an air of common sense and reason, while Oona's was the higher type of poetry and romance.

"Yes; you know him better than any one about here. But first, I will tell you the circumstances. We saw a great deal of him in London. He went everywhere with us, and met us everywhere – "

"Then, Katie," cried Oona, with a little burst of natural impatience; "you must know him a great deal better than I."

Said Kate calmly – "I am a quite different person from you, and I saw him only in society. Just hear me out, and you will know what I mean. People thought he was coming after me. I thought so myself more or less: but he never said a word. And the last night we met another girl, who took hold of him as some girls do – you know? Oh, not taking his arm with her hand, as you or I should do, or looking at him with her eyes; but just with a fling, with the whole of her, as those girls do. I was disgusted, and I sent him away. I don't think yet that he wished it, or cared. But of course he was obliged to go. And then Captain – I mean one that knew him – told me – oh, yes, that he was like that; he must always have some one to amuse himself with. I would not see him after: I just came away. Now what does it mean? Is he a thing of that sort, that is not worth thinking about; or is he – ? – oh, no, I am not asking for your advice: I ask you what you think."

Oona was not able to quench the agitation that rose up in her heart. It was like a sea suddenly roused by an unforeseen storm.

"I wish," she said, "you would not ask me such questions. I think nothing at all. I – never saw him – in that light."

"What do you think?" said Katie, without changing her tone. She did not look in her friend's face to make any discovery, but trifled with the bangles upon her arm, and left Oona free. As a matter of fact, she was quite unsuspicious of her companion's agitation; for the question, though very important, was not agitating to herself. She was desirous of having an unbiassed opinion, but even if that were unfavourable, it would not, she was aware, be at all likely to break her heart.

Oona on her side was used to having her advice asked. In the interval she schooled herself to a consideration of the question.

"I will tell you, Katie, how I have seen him," she said, "here with my mother, and among the poor cotters in the Truach Glas. How could I tell from that how he would behave to a girl? He was very pretty, with my mother. I liked him for it. He listened to her and did what she told him, and never put on an air, or looked wearied, as gentlemen will sometimes do. Then he was very kind to the cotters, as I have told you. To see them turned out made him wild with indignation. You may judge by that the kind of man he was. It was not like doing them a favour; it was mending a miserable wrong."

"I have heard all this before," said Katie, with a slight impatience, "but what has that to do with it? You are telling me facts, when I want your opinion. The one has nothing to do with the other. I can put this and that together myself. But what I want is an opinion. What do you think? Don't put me off any longer, but tell me that," Katie cried.

"What do you want my opinion about?" asked the other, with also, in her turn, some impatience in her voice.

Then Katie ceased playing with her bangles, and looked up. She had never before met with such an unsatisfactory response from Oona. She said with a directness which denoted a natural and hereditary turn for the practical – "Whether he will come; and if he comes, what it will be for?"

"He will certainly come," said Oona, "because he must. You that have lived on the loch so long – you know what the lords of Erradeen have to do."

"And do you mean to say," cried Katie, with indignation, "that an old silly story will bring him – and not me? If that is your opinion, Oona! Do you know that he is a man like ourselves? Lord Innishouran thinks very well of him. He thinks there is something in him. For my part, I have never seen that he was clever; but I should think he had some sense. And how could a man who has any sense allow himself to be led into that?" She jumped up from her seat at Oona's feet in her indignation. "Perhaps you believe in the Warlock lord?" she said, with fine scorn. "Perhaps he believes in him? If Lord Erradeen should speak of that to me, I would laugh in his face. With some people it might be excusable, but with a man who is of his century! – The last one was a fool – everybody says so: and had his head full of rubbish, when he was not going wrong. By the by!" Katie cried – then stopped, as if struck by a new thought which had not occurred to her before.

"What is it?" said Oona, who had been listening with mingled resignation and impatience.

"When we took Lord Erradeen up he was with that Captain Underwood, who used to be with the old lord. I told him you would be sorry to see it. Now that I remember, he never asked me the reason why; but Captain Underwood disappeared. That looks as if he had given great importance to what I said to him. Perhaps after all, Oona, it is you of whom he was thinking. That, however, would not justify him in coming after me. I am very fond of you, but I should not care to be talked about all over London because a gentleman was in love with you!"

Oona had coloured high, and then grown pale. "You will see, if you think of it, that you must not use such words about me," she said, with an effort to be perfectly calm. "There is no gentleman in love – as you say – with me. I have never put it in any one's power to speak so." As she spoke it was not only once but a dozen times that her countenance changed. With a complexion as clear as the early roses, and blood that ebbs and flows in her veins at every touch of feeling, how can a girl preserve such secrets from the keen perceptions of another? Katie kept an eye upon her, watching from under her downcast eyelids. She had the keenest powers of vision, and even could understand, when thus excited, characters of a higher tone than her own. She did not all at once say anything, but paused to take in this new idea and reconcile it with the other ideas that had been in her mind before.

"This is very funny," said Katie, after an interval. "I never thought anything dramatical was going to happen to me: but I suppose, as they say in books, that your life is always a great deal more near that sort of thing than you suppose."

"What sort of thing?" said Oona, who felt that she had betrayed herself, yet was more determined than ever not to betray herself or to yield a single step to the curiosity of the world as embodied in this inquiring spirit. She added, with a little flush of courage, "When you, a great heiress, come in the way of a young lord, there is a sort of royal character about it. You will – marry for the sake of the world as well as for your own sake; and all the preliminaries, the doubts, and the difficulties, and the obstacles that come in the way, of course they are all like a romance. This interruption will be the most delightful episode. The course of true love never did run – "

"Oh stop!" cried Katie, "that's all so commonplace. It is far more exciting and original, Oona, that we should be rivals, you and I."

"You are making a great mistake," said Oona, rising with the most stately gravity. "I am no one's rival. I would not be even if – . But in this case it is absurd. I scarcely know Lord Erradeen, as I have told you. Let us dismiss him from the conversation," she added, with a movement of her hands as if putting something away. It had been impossible, however, even to say so much without the sudden flush which said more to the eyes of Katie, not herself addicted to blushing, than any words could do to her ears.

"It is very interesting," she said. "We may dismiss him from the conversation, but we can't dismiss him from life, you know. And if he is sure to come to Kinloch Houran, as you say, not for me, nor for you, but for that old nonsense, why then he will be – And we shall be forced to consider the question. For my part, I find it far more interesting than I ever thought it would be. You are proud, and take it in King Cambyses' vein. But I'm not proud," said Katie, "I am a student of human nature. It will take a great deal of thinking over, and it's very interesting. I am fond of you, Oona, and you are prettier and better than I am; but I don't quite think at this moment that I will give in even to you, till – "

"If you insist on making a joke, I cannot help it," said Oona, still stately, "but I warn you, Katie, that you will offend me."

"Oh, offend you! Why should I offend you?" cried Katie, putting her arm within that of the princess. "It is no joke, it is a problem. When I came to ask for your opinion I never thought it would be half so interesting. If he has good taste, of course I know whom he will choose."

"Katie!" cried Oona, with a violent blush, "if you think that I would submit to be a candidate – a competitor – for any man to choose – "

"How can you help it?" said Katie, calmly. "It appears it's nature. We have a great deal to put up with, being women, but we can't help ourselves. Of course the process will go on in his own mind. He will not be so brutal as to let us see that he is weighing and considering. And we can have our revenge after, if we like: we can always refuse. Come, Oona, I am quite satisfied. You and me, that are very fond of each other, we are rivals. We will not say a word about it, but we'll just go on and see what will happen. And I promise you I shall be as fond of you as ever, whatever happens. Men would say that was impossible – just as they say, the idiots, that women are never true friends. That is mere folly; but this is a problem, and it will be very interesting to work it out. I wonder if those boys have eaten all the scones," Katie said, with the greatest simplicity, as she led Oona down-stairs. She was so perfectly at her ease, taking the command of her more agitated companion, and so much pleased with her problem, that Oona's proud excitement of self-defence melted away in the humour of the situation. She threw herself into the gaiety of the merry young party down-stairs, among whom Mrs. Forrester was in her element, dispensing tea and the most liberal supply of scones, which Mysie, with equal satisfaction, kept bringing in in ever fresh supplies, folded in the whitest of napkins. Katie immediately claimed her share of these dainties, intimating at once, with the decision of a connoisseur, the kind she preferred: but when supplied remained a little serious, paying no attention to "the boys," as she, somewhat contemptuously, entitled her attendants, and thinking over her problem. But Oona, in her excitement and self-consciousness, ran over with mirth and spirits. She talked and laughed with nervous gaiety, so that Hamish heard the sound of the fun down upon the beach where he watched over the boats, lest a passing shower should come up and wet the cushions of the magnificent vessel from Birkenbraes, which he admired and despised. "Those Glasgow persons," said Hamish, "not to be disrespectful, they will just be made of money; but Miss Oona she'll be as well content with no cushions at all. And if they'll be making her laugh that's a good thing," Hamish said.

CHAPTER XI

The first to see the subject of so many thoughts was not any one of those to whom his return was of so much importance. Neither was it at Kinloch Houran that Walter first appeared. On a cold October evening, in one of the early frosts from which everybody augurs a severe winter, and in the early twilight which makes people exclaim how short the days are getting, he knocked suddenly at the door of Mr. Milnathort's house in Edinburgh. Being dark everywhere else, it was darker still in the severe and classic coldness of Moray Place. The great houses gathered round, drawing, one might have thought, a closer and closer circle; the shrubs in the enclosure shivered before the breeze. Up the hill from the Firth came the north-east wind, cutting like a scythe. It was a night when even a lighted window gives a certain comfort to the wayfarer; but the Edinburgh magnates had scarcely yet returned from the country, and most of the houses were dark, swathed in brown paper and cobwebs. But winter or summer made but little difference to the house of Mr. Milnathort, and there a certain light of human welcome was almost always to be found. Lord Erradeen came quickly along the Edinburgh streets, which are grim in the teeth of a north-easter. His frame was unstrung and his spirit unsatisfied as of old. He had been "abroad" – that is to say, he had been hurrying from one place to another in search of the unattainable one which should not be dull. Most places were dull; there was nothing to do in them. He took in at a draught the capabilities of folly that were there, then passed on in the vain quest. Had he been wholly ignoble he would have been more easily satisfied. But he was not satisfied. In the worst he seemed to want something worse, as in the best he wanted something better. He was all astray upon the world, desiring he did not know what, only aware that nothing was sufficient for his desires. Underwood, who was his companion, had catered vulgarly for the unhappy young man, who used with scorn the means of distraction provided him, and was not distracted, and upon whom disgust so soon followed novelty that his companion was at his wits' end. And now he had come back, obeying an impulse which he neither understood nor wished to obey. A necessity seemed laid upon him; all in a moment it had risen up in his mind, a sense that he must get back. It was so involuntary, so spontaneous, that it did not even occur to him at first to resist it, or to think of it as anything but a natural impulse.

He had not been able to rest after this strange inclination came upon him, and it seemed to him in the heat of it that he had always had the same desire, that all the time this was what he had wanted, to get back. He hurried along over land and water, sometimes in the stream of summer tourists coming home, sometimes crossing the other tide of the sick and feeble going away – and when he touched English soil again, that he should have hurried to Edinburgh of all places in the world, was beyond Walter's power of explanation even to himself. He had felt a barrier between himself and the home of his youth. His mother was separated altogether from his new existence. She could not comprehend it, he thought, and his heart turned from the explanations that would be necessary. He could not go to her; and to whom could he go? The suggestion that came into his mind was as fantastical as the whole strange story of his recent life. He was nothing indeed but a bundle of caprices, moved and played upon as if by the winds. And it had seemed a sort of relief to his uncertain mind and consuming thoughts when it occurred to him to come to Moray Place to see the invalid who had known so much about him, while he knew nothing of her. It relieved him, as any resolution relieves an uncertain mind. It was something between him and that future which always failed to his expectations. When he had made up his mind he reflected no more, but went on, and even had an uneasy nap in the railway-carriage as he came north; nor ever asked himself why he was coming till he went up the steps at Mr. Milnathort's door, and then it was too late for any such question. He mounted the long stone staircase with all the throbbings of fatigue in his brain, the sweep and movement of a long journey. Only once before had he been in this house, yet it seemed familiar to him as if it had been his home, and the unchanged aspect of everything affected him as it affects men who have been away for half a life-time – so many things happening to him, and nothing here. This gave him a certain giddiness as he followed the same servant up the same stairs. He was not the same. He had been unconscious of all the peculiarities of his fate when he crossed that threshold before. He had known the good, but not the evil; and now the very carpets, the sound of the door rumbling into the echoes of the tall, silent house, were the same – but he so far from being the same! Then in a moment out of the dim night, the half-lighted stair, he came upon the soft blaze of light in which Miss Milnathort delighted. She lay on her sofa as if she had never stirred, her old-young face in all its soft brightness, her small delicate hands in continual motion. She gave a little cry at the sight of Walter, and held out those hands to him.

"You have come!" she cried. "I was looking for you;" raising herself on her couch as much as was possible to her, as if she would have thrown herself into his arms. When she felt the pressure of his hands, tears sprang to her eyes. "I knew," she cried, "that you would come. I have been looking for you, and praying for you, Lord Erradeen."

"Perhaps," said Walter, moved too, he could scarcely tell why, "that is how I have come."

"Oh, but I am glad, glad to see you," the poor lady said. "You never came back last year; but I will not reproach you – I am too glad to have you here. And where have you been, and what have you been doing? To see you is like a child coming home."

"I have been in many different places, and uneasy in all," said Walter; "and as for what I have been doing, it has not been much good: wandering about the face of the earth, seeking I don't know what; not knowing, I think, even what I want."

She held out her hand to him again: her eyes were full of pity and tenderness.

"Oh how I wanted you to come back that I might have spoken freely to you. I will tell you what you want, Lord Erradeen."

"Stop a little," he said, "I don't wish to plunge into that. Let us wait a little. I think I am pleased to come back, though I hate it. I am pleased always more or less to do what I did not do yesterday."

"That is because your mind is out of order, which is very natural," she said. "How should it be in order with so much to think of? You will have been travelling night and day?"

"Rather quickly; but that matters nothing; it is easy enough travelling. I am not so effeminate as to mind being tired; though as a matter of fact I am not tired," he said. "So far as that goes, I could go on night and day."

She looked at him with that mingling of pleasure and pain with which a mother listens to the confidences of her child.

"Have you been home to see your mother?" she asked.

Walter shook his head.

"I have had no thought but how to get to Scotland the quickest way. I have felt as if something were dragging me. What is it? All this year I have been struggling with something. I have sometimes thought if I had come back here you could have helped me."

"I would – I would! if I could," she cried.

"It is not a thing that can be endured," said Walter; "it must come to an end. I don't know how or by what means; but one thing is certain, I will not go on bearing it. I will rather make an end of myself."

She put a hand quickly upon his arm.

"Oh do not say that; there is much, much that must be done before you can despair: and that is the thought of despair. Some have done it, but you must not. No – not you – not you."

"What must I do then?"

She caressed his arm with her thin, little, half-transparent hand, and looked at him wistfully with her small face, half child, half old woman, suffused and tremulous.

"Oh!" she said, "my bonnie lad! you must be good – you must be good first of all."

Walter laughed; he drew himself back a little out of her reach.

"I am not good," he said. "I have never been good. Often enough I have been disgusted with myself, and miserable by moments. But if that is the first thing, I do not know how to attain to it, for I am not good."

She looked at him without any change in her face while he made this confession. It did not seem to make much impression upon her.

"I can tell you," she said, "how to overcome the devil and all his ways; but it costs trouble, Lord Erradeen. Without that you will always be as you are, full of troubles and struggles: but you should thank your God that you cannot be content with ill-doing like those that are the children of perdition. To be content with it – that is the worst of all."

"Well, then I am in a hopeful way, it appears," said Walter with a sort of laugh, "for I am certainly far enough from being content." After a minute's pause he added – "I said we should not plunge into this subject at once; tell me about yourself. Are you well? Are you better?"

"I am well enough," she said, "but never will I be better. I have known that for many years – almost from the moment when, to get away from him, I fell off yon old walls, and became what you see."

"To get away from – whom?" He glanced round him as she spoke with a look which was half alarmed and half defiant. "I know," he said, in a low voice, "what delusions are about."

"From Him. What he is, or who he is, I know no more than you. I have thought like you that it was my own delusion. I have wondered from year to year if maybe I had deceived myself. But the upshot of all is what I tell you. I am lying here these thirty years and more, because, being very young, I had no command of myself, but was frightened and flew from Him."

"It is against all possibility, all good sense, against everything one believes. I will not believe it," cried Walter; "you were young as you say, and frightened. And I was – a fool – unprepared, not knowing what to think."

Miss Milnathort shook her head. She made no further reply; and there was a little interval of silence which Walter made no attempt to break. What could he say? It was impossible: and yet he had no real scepticism to oppose to this strange story. In words, in mind, he could not allow that either he or she were more than deceived; but in himself he had no doubt on the subject. His intelligence was easily convinced, indeed, that to attribute the events that happened to him to supernatural influence was in contradiction to everything he had ever been taught, and that it was superstition alone which could invest the mysterious inhabitant of Kinloch Houran with power to act upon his mind across great seas and continents, or to set any occult forces to work for that purpose. Superstition beyond all excuse; and yet he was as thoroughly convinced of it in the depths of his being as he was defiant on the surface. There was perfect silence in the room where these two sat together with a sense of fellowship and sympathy. As for Lord Erradeen, he had no inclination to say anything more. It was impossible, incredible, contrary to everything he believed: and yet it was true: and he did not feel the contradiction to be anything extraordinary, anything to be protested against, in this curious calm of exhaustion in which he was. While he sat thus quite silent Miss Milnathort began to speak.