The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish Story

“I have another thing to say. My poor Marie spoke to me this morning. I could not tell my child how ill, how very ill she was—I, her mother! but she has learned from our sad looks, or, perhaps, alas, from the wretch, Pierrot, that she is in danger. She spoke to me this morning. She said, ‘Mamma, will no one speak to me of heaven? Alas, I know not heaven. How shall I know the way? Send for the Englishman—the Scottishman—the traveler who came with Cosmo to our old house. I remember how he spoke—he spoke of God as one might who loved Him. None but he ever spoke so to me. Send mother—if he loves God he will come.’ Alas, my friend! could I say to her on her sick bed, ‘My child, this good Monsieur Cameron loved you. I can not break his heart over again, and ask him to come.’ No! I could not say it. I can but write to you, Cosmo. Speak to this good Cameron—this man who loves God. Ah, my friend, can you not think how I feel now that I am ignorant, that I am a sinner—that I, who am her mother, have never taught my Marie? Tell it to your friend—tell him what she has said—she knows not, my poor child, what thoughts might once have been in his heart. Let him come, for the love of God.”

Cosmo scarcely ventured to look at his friend while he read this letter; and as for Cameron himself, he raised it in his hands so as to shade his face, and held it so with strong yet trembling fingers, that nobody might see the storm of passionate emotions there. Never before in his life, save once, had the vehement and fiery nature of the Highlandman been subject to so violent a trial, and even that once was not like this. A great sob rose in his throat—his whole passionate heart, which had been strained then in desperate self-preservation, melted now in a flood of sudden grief and tenderness, ineffable and beyond description. Marie, upon whom he had wasted his heart and love—Marie, whose weakness had filled him with a man’s impulse of protection, sustenance, and comfort—Marie! Now at last should it be his, in solemnwise, to carry out that love-dream—to bring her in his arms to the feet of the Lord whom he loved—to show the fainting spirit where to find those wings of a dove, by which she might fly away and be at rest. Great over-brimming tears, big as an ocean of lighter drops, made his eyes blind, but did not fall. He sat gazing at the conclusion of the letter long after he had read it, not reading it over again like Cosmo—once had been enough to fix the words beyond possibility of forgetting upon Cameron’s heart—but only looking at it with his full eyes, seeing the name, “Mary Roche de St. Martin,” glimmering and trembling on the page, now partially visible, now altogether lost. When Cosmo ventured at last to glance at his friend, he was still sitting in the same position, leaning both his elbows upon the table, and holding up the letter in his hands to screen his face. Cosmo was aware of something strangely touching in the forced, strained, spasmodic attitude, but he could not see the big silent sob that heaved in his friend’s strong heart, nor the tears that almost brimmed over but did not fall out of Cameron’s eyes.

Presently the Highlandman folded up the letter with care and elaboration, seemed to hesitate a moment whether he would keep it, and finally gave it over with some abruptness to Cosmo. “Relics are not for me,” he said, hastily. “Now, when you are ready, let us go.”

“Go?—to Melmar!” said Cosmo, faltering a little.

“Where else?” asked Cameron, sternly—“is that a summons to say no to? I am going without delay. We can get there to-night.”

“The coach will not leave for an hour—take some refreshment first,” said Cosmo; “you have been at work all day—you will be faint before we get there.”

Cameron turned towards him with a strange smile:—

“I will not faint before we get there,” he said slowly, and then rose up and lifted his hat. “You can meet me at the coach, Cosmo, in an hour—I shall be quite ready; but in the first place I must go home; make haste, my boy; I will go, whether you are there or not.”

Cosmo gazed after him with something like awe; it was rather beyond romance, this strange errand—and Cameron, in spite of the fervid Highland heart within him did not look a very fit subject for romance; but somehow Cosmo could not think what personal hopes of his own might be involved in this relenting of Madame Roche—could not think even of Desirée, whose name was not once mentioned in the letter, could think of nothing but Cameron, called of all men in the world to that bedside to tell the dying Marie where to find her Lord.

They left Edinburgh accordingly within the hour. Cameron had entirely recovered his usual composure, but scarcely spoke during the whole journey, in which time Cosmo had leisure to return to his own fortune, with all its perplexities. Even Marie’s illness was not likely to form reason enough in the eyes of the Mistress for his abrupt and unexpected return, and he could hardly himself see what good his presence could do Madame Roche, with dangerous illness, perhaps death, and a disagreeable son-in-law in her house. Take him at his worst, Pierrot, who was Marie’s husband, had a more natural place there than Cosmo, who was only Desirée’s lover—a lover rejected by Madame Roche; and Desirée herself had not intimated by word or sign any desire for his presence. The whole aspect of things did not conduce to make Cosmo comfortable. It seemed almost a necessity to go to Melmar, instantly, instead of going to Norlaw; but what would the Mistress think of so strange a proceeding? And Huntley and Patie now, it was to be presumed, were both at home. What a strange, disturbing influence had come among the brothers! Cosmo began to contemplate his own position with a certain despair; he knew well enough by this time the unreasoning sentiment of Madame Roche; he knew very well that though she relieved herself in her trouble by writing to him, and made a solemn appeal for his services, that it by no means followed when this emergency was past, that she would confirm his sonship by giving him her daughter, or relinquish her past idea for the sake of the hopes she might have excited; and in the second place Cosmo could not tell for his life what use he was likely to be to Madame Roche, or how he could sustain her in her trouble—while the idea of being so near home without going there, and without the knowledge of his mother, aggravated all his other difficulties. He went on, however, with resignation, got down with the calmness of despair and bewilderment at Kirkbride, walked silently towards Melmar, guiding Cameron along the silent leafy ways, and yielding himself, whatever that might be, to his fate.

CHAPTER LXXIII

And there stood the house of Melmar, resting among its trees, in the soft sweet darkness of the June night.

Perhaps Cameron’s heart failed him as he came so near—at least Cosmo reached the house first. The foliage was so thick around that the darkness seemed double in this circle round the house. You could only see the colorless, dark woods, stretching back into the night, and the gleam of blue sky over head, and the lighted windows in the house itself—lights which suggested no happy household meeting, but were astray among different windows in the upper story, telling their own silent tale of illness and anxiety. Cosmo, standing before the door which he knew so well, could only tell that Tyne was near by the low, sweet tinkle of the water among the sighing leaves, and was aware of all the summer flush of roses covering that side of the house by nothing save the fragrance. He stood there gazing up for a moment at one light which moved about from window to window with a strange restlessness, and at another which burned steadily in Marie’s bed-chamber. He knew it to be Marie’s chamber by instinct. A watch-light, a death-light, a low, motionless flame, so sadly different from the wavering and brightening of that other, which some anxious watcher carried about. Cosmo’s heart grew sad within him as he thought of this great solemn death which was coming on Marie. Poor Marie, with her invalid irritability, her little feverish weakness, her ill-bestowed love! To think that one so tender and wayward, from whom even reason and sober thought were not to be expected, should, notwithstanding, go forth alone like every other soul to stand by herself before her God, and that love and pity could no longer help her, let them strain and struggle as they would! The thought made Cosmo’s heart ache, he could not tell why.

Madame Roche met them at the door. She was not violently affected as Cosmo feared—she only kept wiping from her eyes the tears which perpetually returned to fill them, as he had seen his own mother do in her trouble—and perhaps it is the common weeping of age which has no longer hasty floods of youthful tears to spend upon any thing. She gave a cry of joy when she saw Cameron.

“Ah, my friend, it is kind—God will reward you!” said Madame Roche, “and you must come to her—there is little time—my child is dying.”

Cameron did not answer a word—he only threw down his hat and followed her, restraining his step with a painful start when he heard it ring against the pavement. Cosmo followed, not knowing what else to do, to the door of the sick room. He did not enter, but as the door opened he saw who and what was there. And strange to her son sounded the voice which came out of that sad apartment—the voice of the Mistress reading with her strong Scottish accent and old fashioned intonation, so different from the silvery lady’s voice of Madame Roche, and the sweet tones of Desirée. Spread out before her was the big Bible, the family book of old Huntley of Melmar, and she was seated close by the bedside of the sufferer, who lay pallid and wasted, with her thin hands crossed upon the coverlet, and her whole soul in an agony of listening not to be described. Close by the Mistress, Desirée was kneeling watching her sister. This scene, which he saw only in a momentary glance before the door was closed, overpowered Cosmo. He threw himself down upon a window-seat in the long corridor which led to this room, and covered his face with his hands. The sudden and unexpected appearance of his mother brought the young man’s excitement to a climax. How unjust, unkind, ungenerous now seemed his own fears!

Madame Roche was one of those women who fear to meet any great emergency alone. In the first shock of dismay with which she heard that Marie’s life was fast hastening to its end, she wrote to Cosmo; and before it was time for Cosmo to arrive—while indeed it was impossible that he could even have received her letter—the poor mother, with an instinct of her dependent nature, which she was not aware of and could not subdue, hastened to send for the Mistress to help her to bear that intolerable agony in which flesh and heart faint and fail—the anguish of beholding the dying of her child. The Mistress, who under similar circumstances would have closed her doors against all the world, came, gravely and soberly to the call of this undeniable sorrow. In face of that all the bitterness died out of her honest heart. Madame Roche had already lost many children. “And I have all mine—God forgive me—I ken nothing of that grief,” cried Mrs. Livingstone, with a sob of mingled thankfulness and terror. It was not her vocation to minister at sick-beds, or support the weak; yet she went without hesitation, though leaving Huntley to do both. And even before Madame Roche sent for her, Desirée, who understood her character, had run over by herself early in the morning, when, after watching all night, she was supposed asleep, to tell the Mistress that her mother had written to Cosmo. So there was neither cause nor intention of offense between the sad family at Melmar and that of Norlaw. When she came to Marie’s sick-bed, the Mistress found that poor sufferer pathetically imploring some one to tell her of the unknown world to which she was fast approaching—while Madame Roche, passionately reproaching herself for leaving her daughter uninstructed, mingled with her self-accusations, vague words about heaven and descriptions of its blessedness which fell dull upon the longing ears of the anxious invalid. The harps and the white robes, the gates of pearl and the streets of gold were nothing to Marie—what are they to any one who does not see there the only presence which makes heaven a reality? The Mistress had no words to add to the poor mother’s anxious eager repetition of all the disjointed words, describing heaven, which abode in her memory—but instead, went softly down stairs and returned with the big Bible, the old, well remembered book, which never failed to produce a certain awe in Madame Roche—and this was how it happened that Cosmo found his mother reading to Marie.

When Cameron entered the room, the Mistress, who had not paused, continued steadily with the reading of her gospel. He, for his part, did not interrupt her—he went to the other side of the bed and sat down there, looking at the white face which he had never seen since he saw it in St. Ouen, scarcely less pale, yet bright enough to appear to his deluded fancy a star which might light his life. That was not an hour or place to think of those vain human dreams. Sure as the evening was sinking into midnight, this troubled shadow of existence was gliding on toward the unspeakable perfection of the other life. A little while, and words would no more vail the face of things to this uninstructed soul—a little while—but as he sat by Marie’s death-bed the whole scene swam and glimmered before Cameron’s eyes—“A little while and ye shall not see me—and again a little while and ye shall see me.” Oh these ineffable, pathetic, heart breaking words! They wandered out and in through Cameron’s mind in an agony of consolation and of tears. He heard the impatient anxious mother stop the reading—he felt her finger tap upon his arm urging him to speak—he saw Marie turn her tender, dying eyes toward him—he tried to say something but his voice failed him—and when at last he found utterance, with a tearless sob, which it was impossible to restrain, the words which burst from his lips with a vehement outcry, which sounded loud though it was nearer a whisper, were only these:—“Jesus! Jesus! our Lord!”

Only these!—only that everlasting open secret of God’s grace by which He brings heaven and earth together! The gentle, blue eyes, which were no longer peevish, brightened with a wistful hope. There was comfort in the very name; and then this man—who labored for the wretched—whom himself could not force his human heart to love, because his Master loved them—this man, whom poor Marie never suspected to have loved her in her selfish weakness with the lavish love of a prodigal, who throws away all—this man stood up by the bedside with his gospel. He himself did not know what he said—perhaps neither did she, who was too far upon her way to think of words—but the others stood round with awe to hear. Heaven? No, it was not heaven he was speaking of—there was no time for those celestial glories, which are but a secondary blessing; and Cameron had not a thought in his heart save for this dying creature and his Lord.

Was it darker out of doors under the skies? No; there was a soft young moon silvering over the dark outline of the trees, and throwing down a pale glory over this house of Melmar, on the roof, which glimmered like a silver shield; and, in the hush, the tinkling voice of Tyne and the breath of the roses, and a sweet white arrow of moonlight, came in, all mingled and together, into the chamber of death. Yet, somehow, it is darker—darker. This pale figure, which is still Marie, feels it so, but does not wonder—does not ask—is, indeed, sinking into so deep a quiet, that it does not trouble her with any fears.

“I go to sleep,” she says faintly, with the sweetest smile that ever shone upon Marie’s lips, “I am so well. Do not cry, mamma; when I wake, I shall be better. I go to sleep.”

And so she would, and thus have reached heaven unawares, but for the careless foot which pushed the door open, and the excited figure which came recklessly in. At sight of him, Cameron instantly left the bedside—instantly without a word, quitted the room—and began to walk up and down the corridor, where Cosmo stood waiting. Pierrot began immediately to address his wife:—His wife!—his life!—his angel! was it by her orders that strangers came to the house, that his commands were disobeyed, that he himself was kept from her side? He begged his adored one to shake off her illness, to have a brave spirit, to get up and rouse herself for his sake.

“What, my Marie! it is but courage!” cried her husband. “A man does not die who will not die! Up, my child! Courage! I will forsake you no more—you have your adored husband—you will live for him. We shall be happy as the day. Your hand, my angel! Have courage, and rise up, and live for your Emile’s sake!”

And all the peace that had been upon it fled from Marie’s face. The troubled eagerness of her life came back to her. “Yes Emile!” she whispered, with breathless lips, and made the last dying effort to rise up at his bidding and follow him. Madame Roche threw herself between, with cries of real and terrified agony; and the Mistress, almost glad to exchange her choking sympathy for the violent, sudden passion which now came upon her, went round the bed with the silence and speed of a ghost, seized his arm with a grip of imperative fury not to be resisted, and, before he was aware, had thrust him before her to the door. When she had drawn it close behind her, she shook him like a child with both her hands. “You devil!” cried the Mistress, transported out of all decorum of speech by a passion of indignation which the scene almost warranted. “You dirty, miserable hound! how daur you come there? If you do not begone to your own place this instant—Cosmo, here! She’s gone, the poor bairn. He has nae mair right in this house, if he ever had ony—take him away.”

But while this violent scene disturbed the death calm of the house, it did not disturb Marie. She had seen for herself by that time, better than any one could have told her, what robes they wore and what harps they played in the other world.

CHAPTER LXXIV

That same night, while they watched their dead at Melmar, the young moon shone kindly into the open parlor window of a pretty cottage, where some anxiety, but no sorrow was. This little house stood upon a high bank of the river Esk, just after that pretty stream had passed through the pretty village of Lasswade. The front of the house was on the summit of the height, and only one story high, while the rapid slope behind procured for it the advantage of two stories at the back. It was a perfectly simple little cottage, rich in flowers, but nothing else, furnished with old, well-preserved furniture, as dainty, as bright, and as comfortable as you could imagine, and looking all the better for having already answered the wants of two or three generations. The window was open, and here, too, came in the tinkle of running water, and the odor of roses, along with the moonlight. Candles stood on the table, but they had not been lighted; and two ladies sat by the window, enjoying the cool breeze, the sweet light, the “holy time” of evening—or, perhaps, not aware of enjoying anything, busy with their own troubles and their own thoughts.

“I doubt if I should advise,” said the elder of the two, “but though I’m an old maid myself, I am not prejudiced either one way or another, my dear. I’ve lived too long, Katie, to say this or that manner of life’s the happiest; it does not matter much whether you are married or not married, happiness lies aye in yourself. It’s common to think a single woman very lone and dreary when she comes to be old; but I’m not afraid for you. Somebody else will have bairns for you, Katie, if you do not have them for yourself. Solitude is not in your cup, my dear—I’m prophet enough to read that.”

Her companion made no answer; and in the little pause which ensued, the Esk, and the roses, and the moonlight came in as a sweet unconscious chorus, but a chorus full of whispers which struck deeper than those quiet words of quiet age.

“But on the other side,” continued the old lady, “Charlie is as good a fellow as ever lived—the best son, the kindest heart! I would not trust myself praising him any more than praising you, my dear. You are both a comfort and a credit to us all, and maybe that is why we should like to make the two of you one. We’re no’ so very romantic, Katie, in our family—that is to say,” continued the speaker, with sudden animation, “the women of us—for if Charlie, or any lad belonging to the house, was to offer himself without his whole heart and love, he had better never show his face to me.”

“But, auntie,” said the younger lady, with a smile, “would it be right to take a whole heart and love, and only have kindness to give in exchange?”

“Women are different, my dear,” said Katie Logan’s maiden aunt; “I will confess I do not like myself to hear young girls speaking about love—I would never advise a man to marry without it—nay, the very thought makes me angry; but—perhaps you’ll think it no compliment to us, Katie—women are different; I have no fears of a good woman liking her husband, no’ even if she was married against her will, as sometimes happens. I would advise you not to be timid, so far as that is concerned. Charlie’s very fond of you, and he’s a good lad. To be married is natural at your age, to have a house of your own, and your own place in this world; and then there are the bairns. Colin will soon be off your hands, but the other three are young. Do you think it would not be best for them if you married a friend?”

Katie did not reply; but perhaps it was this last argument which moved her to a long low sigh of unwelcome conviction. The old lady’s emphatic friend was Scotch for a relative. Would it indeed be better for them that Katie’s husband should be her cousin?

“Unless,” said her aunt, rising up to light the candles, yet pausing to give effect to this last precaution; “unless, my dear, there should be a single thought of any other man resting in your mind. If there is, Katie, think no more of Charlie Cassilis. I’m willing you should marry him first and grow fond of him after; but, my dear, stop and think—do you like any other person better than him?”

“Maybe I do, auntie,” said the low voice, softly; and Katie shook her head thoughtfully in the darkness, with a half melancholy, half pleased motion; “maybe I do.”

“Then, for pity’s sake, not another word!” cried the old lady; and that kindest of aunts rustled out of the pretty parlor, taking one of the candlesticks in her hand, with a commotion and haste which showed that Katie’s quiet half confession had by no means pleased her, in spite of her avowed impartiality. Lucifer, son of the morning, had not fallen at that time into such degrading familiarity with housekeepers and housemaids as has chanced now to that unhappy spirit. Matches were none in all the village of Lasswade, nor throughout the kingdom, save slender slips of wood anointed with brimstone, and bearing the emphatic name of spunk in all the regions north of the Tweed. So Katie’s respectable aunt, who was kind to her servants, rustled along the passage to the kitchen to light the candle, and on the way there and the way back recovered her temper—which was all the better for Katie; and by-and-bye the quiet maiden household shut itself up and went to sleep.

And perhaps when Katie knelt by her bedside that night to say her prayers—by the white bed where little Isabel slept the deep sleep which all the children sleep, thank Heaven, when we are awake with our troubles—a little weariness of heart made a sigh among her prayers. She was not romantic—the women of her family were otherwise disposed, as good Auntie Isabel said, who had not a single selfish impulse in her composition; and Katie was grieved to disappoint Cousin Charlie, and perhaps feared, as women always do, with an unconscious vanity, for the consequences of his disappointment; was she right to damage his happiness, to refuse a supporter for herself, a protector for her children, all for the sake of Huntley, who might perhaps have forgotten her years ago? Katie could not answer her own question, but she did what was the wisest course under the circumstances—laid her head resolutely down, on her pillow and fell asleep, leaving time and the hour to solve the question for her, and only sure of one thing—that her impulse was right.