Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 29, August, 1873

Sheila was prepared to like Mrs. Lorraine from the first moment she had caught sight of her. The honesty of the gray eyes attracted her. And, indeed, the young widow seemed very much interested in the young wife, and, so far as she could in that awkward period just before dinner, strove to make friends with her. Sheila was introduced to a number of people, but none of them pleased her so well as Mrs. Lorraine. Then dinner was announced, and Sheila found that she was being escorted across the passage to the room on the other side by the young man whom she had seen get out of the hansom.

This Lord Arthur Redburn was the younger son of a great Tory duke; he represented in the House a small country borough which his father practically owned; he had a fair amount of ability, an uncommonly high opinion of himself, and a certain affectation of being bored by the frivolous ways and talk of ordinary society. He gave himself credit for being the clever member of the family; and if there was any cleverness going, he had it; but there were some who said that his reputation in the House and elsewhere as a good speaker was mainly based on the fact that he had an abundant assurance and was not easily put out. Unfortunately, the public could come to no decision on the point, for the reporters were not kind to Lord Arthur, and the substance of his speeches was as unknown to the world as his manner of delivering them.

Now, Mrs. Lorraine had intended to tell this young man something about the girl whom he was to take in to dinner, but she herself had been so occupied with Sheila that the opportunity escaped her. Lord Arthur accordingly knew only that he was beside a very pretty woman, who was a Mrs. Somebody—the exact name he had not caught—and that the few words she had spoken were pronounced in a curious way. Probably, he thought, she was from Dublin.

He also arrived at the conclusion that she was too pretty to know anything about the Deceased Wife's Sister bill, in which he was, for family reasons, deeply interested, and considered it more likely that she would prefer to talk about theatres and such things.

"Were you at Covent Garden last night?" he said.

"No," answered Sheila. "But I was there two days ago, and it is very pretty to see the flowers and the fruit; and then they smell so sweetly as you walk through."

"Oh yes, it is delightful," said Lord Arthur. "But I was speaking of the theatre."

"Is there a theatre in there?"

He stared at her, and inwardly hoped she was not mad.

"Not in among the shops, no. But don't you know Covent Garden Theatre?"

"I have never been in any theatre, not yet," said Sheila.

And then it began to dawn upon him that he must be talking to Frank Lavender's wife. Was there not some rumor about the girl having come from a remote part of the Highlands? He determined on a bold stroke: "You have not been long enough in London to see the theatres, I suppose."

And then Sheila, taking it for granted that he knew her husband very well, and that he was quite familiar with all the circumstances of the case, began to chat to him freely enough. He found that this Highland girl of whom he had heard vaguely was not at all shy. He began to feel interested. By and by he actually made efforts to assist her frankness by becoming equally frank, and by telling her all he knew of the things with which they were mutually acquainted. Of course by this time they had got up into the Highlands. The young man had himself been in the Highlands—frequently, indeed. He had never crossed to Lewis, but he had seen the island from the Sutherlandshire coast. There were very many deer in Sutherlandshire, were there not? Yes, he had been out a great many times, and had had his share of adventures. Had he not gone out before daylight, and waited on the top of a hill, hidden by some rocks, to watch the mists clear along the hillsides and in the valley below? Did not he tremble when he fired his first shot, and had not something passed before his eyes so that he could not see for a moment whether the stag had fallen or was away like lightning down the bed of the stream? Somehow or other, Lord Arthur found himself relating all his experiences, as if he were a novice begging for the good opinion of a master. She knew all about it, obviously, and he would tell her his small adventures if only that she might laugh at him. But Sheila did not laugh. She was greatly delighted to have this talk about the hills and the deer and the wet mornings. She forgot all about the dinner before her. The servants whipped off successive plates without her seeing anything of them: they received random answers about wine, so that she had three full glasses standing by her untouched. She was no more in Holland Park at that moment than were the wild animals of which she spoke so proudly and lovingly. If the great and frail masses of flowers on the table brought her any perfume at all, it was a scent of peat-smoke. Lord Arthur thought that his companion was a little too frank and confiding, or rather that she would have been had she been talking to any one but himself. He rather liked it. He was pleased to have established friendly relations with a pretty woman in so short a space; but ought not her husband to give her a hint about not admitting all and sundry to the enjoyment of these favors? Perhaps, too, Lord Arthur felt bound to admit to himself there were some men who more than others inspired confidence in women. He laid no claims to being a fascinating person, but he had had his share of success, and considered that Sheila showed discrimination as well as good-nature in talking so to him. There was, after all, no necessity for her husband to warn her. She would know how to guard against admitting all men to a like intimacy. In the mean time he was very well pleased to be sitting beside this pretty and agreeable companion, who had an abundant fund of good spirits, and who showed no sort of conscious embarrassment in thanking you with a bright look of her eyes or by a smile when you told her something that pleased or amused her.

But these flattering little speculations were doomed to receive a sudden check. The juvenile M.P. began to remark that a shade occasionally crossed the face of his fair companion, and that she sometimes looked a little anxiously across the table, where Mr. Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine were seated, half hidden from view by a heap of silver and flowers in the middle of the board. But though they could not easily be seen, except at such moments as they turned to address some neighbor, they could be distinctly enough heard when there was any lull in the general conversation. And what Sheila heard did not please her. She began to like that fair, clear-eyed young woman less. Perhaps her husband meant nothing by the fashion in which he talked of marriage and the condition of a married man, but she would rather have not heard him talk so. Moreover, she was aware that in the gentlest possible fashion Mrs. Lorraine was making fun of her companion, and exposing him to small and graceful shafts of ridicule; while he seemed, on the whole, to enjoy these attacks.

The ingenuous self-love of Lord Arthur Redburn, M.P., was severely wounded by the notion that, after all, he had been made a cat's-paw of by a jealous wife. He had been flattered by this girl's exceeding friendliness; he had given her credit for a genuine impulsiveness which seemed to him as pleasing as it was uncommon; and he had, with the moderation expected of a man in politics who hoped some day to assist in the government of the nation by accepting a junior lordship, admired her. But was it all pretence? Was she paying court to him merely to annoy her husband? Had her enthusiasm about the shooting of red-deer been prompted by a wish to attract a certain pair of eyes at the other side of the table? Lord Arthur began to sneer at himself for having been duped. He ought to have known. Women were as much women in a Hebridean island as in Bayswater. He began to treat Sheila with a little more coolness, while she became more and more preoccupied with the couple across the table, and sometimes was innocently rude in answering his questions somewhat at random.

When the ladies were going into the drawing-room, Mrs. Lorraine put her hand within Sheila's arm and led her to the entrance to the conservatory. "I hope we shall be friends," she said.

"I hope so," said Sheila, not very warmly.

"Until you get better acquainted with your husband's friends you will feel rather lonely at being left as at present, I suppose."

"A little," said Sheila.

"It is a silly thing altogether. If men smoked after dinner I could understand it. But they merely sit, looking at wine they don't drink, talking a few common-places and yawning."

"Why do they do it, then?" said Sheila.

"They don't do it everywhere. But here we keep to the manners and customs of the ancients."

"What do you know about the manners of the ancients?" said Mrs. Kavanagh, tapping her daughter's shoulder; as she passed with a sheet of music.

"I have studied them frequently, mamma," said the daughter with composure, "—in the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens."

The mamma smiled, and passed on to place the music on the piano. Sheila did not understand what her companion had said; and indeed Mrs. Lorraine immediately turned, with the same calm, fine face and careless eyes, to ask Sheila whether she would not, by and by, sing one of those northern songs of which Mr. Lavender had told her.

A tall girl, with her back hair tied in a knot and her costume copied from a well-known pre-Raphaelite drawing, sat down to the piano and sang a mystic song of the present day, in which the moon, the stars and other natural objects behaved strangely, and were somehow mixed up with the appeal of a maiden who demanded that her dead lover should be reclaimed from the sea.

"Do you ever go down to your husband's studio?" said Mrs. Lorraine.

Sheila glanced toward the lady at the piano.

"Oh, you may talk," said Mrs. Lorraine, with the least expression of contempt in the gray eyes. "She is singing to gratify herself, not us."

"Yes, I sometimes go down," said Sheila in as low a voice as she could manage without falling into a whisper, "and it is such a dismal place. It is very hard on him to have to work in a big bare room like that, with the windows half blinded. But sometimes I think Frank would rather have me out of the way."

"And what would he do if both of us were to pay him a visit?" said Mrs. Lorraine. "I should so like to see the studio! Won't you call for me some day and take me with you?"

Take her with her, indeed! Sheila began to wonder that she did not propose to go alone. Fortunately, there was no need to answer the question, for at this moment the song came to an end, and there was a general movement and murmur of gratitude.

"Thank you," said Mrs. Lorraine to the lady who had sung, and who was now returning to the photographs she had left—"thank you very much. I knew some one would instantly ask you to sing that song: it is the most charming of all your songs, I think, and how well it suits your voice, too!"

Then she turned to Sheila again: "How did you like Lord Arthur Redburn?"

"I think he is a very good young man."

"Young men are never good, but they may be very amiable," said Mrs. Lorraine, not perceiving that Sheila had blundered on a wrong adjective, and that she had really meant that she thought him honest and pleasant.

"You did not speak at all, I think, to your neighbor on the right: that was wise of you. He is a most insufferable person, but mamma bears with him for the sake of his daughter, who sang just now. He is too rich. And he smiles blandly, and takes a sort of after-dinner view of things, as if he coincided with the arrangements of Providence. Don't you take coffee? Tea, then. I have met your aunt—I mean, Mr. Lavender's aunt: such a dear old lady she is!"

"I don't like her," said Sheila.

"Oh, don't you, really?"

"Not at present, but I shall try to like her."

"Well," said Mrs. Lorraine calmly, "you know she has her peculiarities. I wish she wouldn't talk so much about Marcus Antoninus and doses of medicine. I fancy I smell calomel when she comes near. I suppose if she were in a pantomime, they'd dress her up as a phial, tie a string round her neck and label her 'POISON.' Dear me, how languid one gets in this climate! Let us sit down. I wish I was as strong as mamma."

They sat down together, and Mrs. Lorraine evidently expected to be petted and made much of by her new companion. She gave herself pretty little airs and graces, and said no more cutting things about anybody. And Sheila somehow found herself being drawn to the girl, so that she could scarcely help taking her hand, and saying how sorry she was to see her so pale and fine and delicate. The hand, too, was so small that the tiny white fingers seemed scarcely bigger than the claws of a bird. Was not that slender waist, to which some little attention was called by a belt of bold blue, just a little too slender for health, although the bust and shoulders were exquisitely and finely proportioned?

"We were at the Academy all the morning, and mamma is not a bit tired. Why has not Mr. Lavender anything in the Academy? Oh, I forgot" she added, with a smile. "Of course, he has been very much engaged. But now I suppose he will settle down to work."

Sheila wished that this fragile-looking girl would not so continually refer to her husband; but how was any one to find fault with her when she put a little air of plaintiveness into the ordinarily cold gray eyes, and looked at her small hand as much as to say, "The fingers there are very small, and even whiter than the glove that covers them. They are the fingers of a child, who ought to be petted."

Then the men came in from the dining-room. Lavender looked round to see where Sheila was—perhaps with a trifle of disappointment that she was not the most prominent figure there. Had he expected to find all the women surrounding her and admiring her, and all the men going up to pay court to her? Sheila was seated near a small table, and Mrs. Lorraine was showing her something. She was just like anybody else. If she was a wonderful sea-princess who had come into a new world, no one seemed to observe her. The only thing that distinguished her from the women around her was her freshness of color and the unusual combination of black eyelashes and dark blue eyes. Lavender had arranged that Sheila's first appearance in public should be at a very quiet little dinner-party, but even here she failed to create any profound impression. She was, as he had to confess to himself again, just like anybody else.

He went over to where Mrs. Lorraine was, and sat down beside her. Sheila, remembering his injunctions, felt bound to leave him there; and as she rose to speak to Mrs. Kavanagh, who was standing by, that lady came and begged her to sing a Highland song. By this time Lavender had succeeded in interesting his companion about something or other, and neither of them noticed that Sheila had gone to the piano, attended by the young politician who had taken her in to dinner. Nor did they interrupt their talk merely because some one played a few bars of prelude. But what was this that suddenly startled Lavender to the heart, causing him to look up with surprise? He had not heard the air since he was in Borva, and when Sheila sang

Hark, hark! the hornOn mountain-breezes borne!Awake, it is morn,Awake, Monaltrie!—

all sorts of reminiscences came rushing in upon him. How often had he heard that wild story of Monaltrie's flight sung out in the small chamber over the sea, with a sound of the waves outside and a scent of sea-weed coming in at the door and the windows! It was from the shores of Borva that young Monaltrie must have fled. It must have been in Borva that his sweetheart sat in her bower and sang, the burden of all her singing being "Return, Monaltrie!" And then, as Sheila sang now, making the monotonous and plaintive air wild and strange—

What cries of wild despairAwake the sultry air?Frenzied with anxious care,She seeks Monaltrie—

he heard no more of the song. He was thinking of bygone days in Borva, and of old Mackenzie living in his lonely house there. When Sheila had finished singing he looked at her, and it seemed to him that she was still that wonderful princess whom he had wooed on the shores of the Atlantic. And if those people did not see her as he saw her, ought he to be disappointed because of their blindness?

But if they saw nothing mystic or wonderful about Sheila, they at all events were considerably surprised by the strange sort of music she sang. It was not of a sort commonly heard in a London drawing-room. The pathos of its minor chords, its abrupt intervals, startling and wild in their effect, and the slowly subsiding wail in which it closed, did not much resemble the ordinary drawing-room "piece." Here, at least, Sheila had produced an impression; and presently there was a heap of people round the piano, expressing their admiration, asking questions and begging her to continue. But she rose. She would rather not sing just then. Whereupon Lavender came out to her and said, "Sheila, won't you sing that wild one about the farewell—that has the sound of the pipes in it, you know?"

"Oh yes," she said directly.

Lavender went back to his companion.

"She is very obedient to you," said Mrs. Lorraine with a smile.

"Yes, at present," he said; and he thought meanly of himself for saying it the moment the words were uttered.

Oh, soft be thy slumbers, by Tigh-na-linne's waters;Thy late-wake was sung by Macdiarmid's fair daughters;But far in Lochaber the true heart was weepingWhose hopes are entombed in the grave where thou'rt sleeping.

So Sheila sang; and it seemed to the people that this ballad was even more strange than its predecessor. When the song was over, Sheila seemed rather anxious to get out of the crowd, and indeed walked away into the conservatory to have a look at the flowers.

Yes, Lavender had to confess to himself, Sheila was just like anybody else in this drawing-room. His sea-princess had produced no startling impression. He forgot that he had just been teaching her the necessity of observing the ways and customs of the people around her, so that she might avoid singularity.

On one point, at least, she was resolved she would attend to his counsels: she would not make him ridiculous by any show of affection before the eyes of strangers. She did not go near him the whole evening. She remained for the most part in that half conservatory, half ante-room at the end of the drawing-room; and when any one talked to her she answered, and when she was left alone she turned to the flowers. All this time, however, she could observe that Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine were very much engrossed in their conversation; that she seemed very much amused, and he at times a trifle embarrassed; and that both of them had apparently forgotten her existence. Mrs. Kavanagh was continually coming to Sheila and trying to coax her back into the larger room, but in vain. She would rather not sing any more that night. She liked to look at flowers. She was not tired at all, and she had already seen those wonderful photographs about which everybody was talking.

"Well, Sheila, how did you enjoy yourself?" said her husband as they were driving home.

"I wish Mr. Ingram had been there," said Sheila.

"Ingram! He would not have stopped in the place five minutes, unless he could play the part of Diogenes and say rude things to everybody all round. Were you at all dull?"

"A little."

"Didn't somebody look after you?"

"Oh yes, many persons were very kind. But—but—"

"Well?"

"Nobody seemed to be better off than myself. They all seemed to be wanting something to do; and I am sure they were all very glad to come away."

"No, no, no, Sheila. That is only your fancy. You were not much interested, that is evident; but you will get on better when you know more of the people. You were a stranger—that is what disappointed you—but you will not always be a stranger."

Sheila did not answer. Perhaps she contemplated with no great hope or longing the possibility of her coming to like such a method of getting through an evening. At all events, she looked forward with no great pleasure to the chance of her having to become friends with Mrs. Lorraine. All the way home Sheila was examining her own heart to try to discover why such bitter feelings should be there. Surely that girl was honest: there was honesty in her eyes. She had been most kind to Sheila herself. And was there not at times, when she abandoned the ways and speech of a woman of the world, a singular coy fascination about her, that any man might be excused for yielding to, even as any woman might yield to it? Sheila fought with herself, and resolved that she would cast forth from her heart those harsh fancies and indignant feelings that seemed to have established themselves there. She would not hate Mrs. Lorraine.

As for Lavender, what was he thinking of, now that he and his young wife were driving home from their first experiment in society? He had to confess to a certain sense of failure. His dreams had not been realized. Every one who had spoken to him had conveyed to him, as freely as good manners would admit, their congratulations and their praises of his wife. But the impressive scenes he had been forecasting were out of the question. There was a little curiosity about her on the part of those who knew her story, and that was all. Sheila bore herself very well. She made no blunders. She had a good presence, she sang well, and every one could see that she was handsome, gentle and honest. Surely, he argued with himself, that ought to content the most exacting. But, in spite of all argument, he was not content. He did not regret that he had sacrificed his liberty in a freak of romance; he did not even regard the fact of a man in his position having dared to marry a penniless girl as anything very meritorious or heroic; but he had hoped that the dramatic circumstances of the case would be duly recognized by his friends, and that Sheila would be an object of interest and wonder and talk in a whole series of social circles. But the result of his adventure was different. There was only one married man the more in London, and London was not disposed to pay any particular heed to that circumstance.

CHAPTER XIII.

BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

If Frank Lavender had been told that his love for his wife was in danger of waning, he would have laughed the suggestion to scorn. He was as fond of her and as proud of her as ever. Who knew as well as himself the tenderness of her heart, the delicate sensitiveness of her conscience, the generosity of self-sacrifice she was always ready to bestow? and was he likely to become blind, so that he should fail to see how fair and frank and handsome she was? He had been disappointed, it is true, in his fancies about the impression she would produce on his friends; but what a trifle was that! The folly of those fancies was his own. For the rest, he was glad that Sheila was not so different from the other women whom he knew. He hit upon the profound reflection, as he sat alone in his studio, that a man's wife, like his costume, should not be so remarkable as to attract attention. The perfection of dress was that you should be unconscious of its presence: might that not be so with marriage? After all, it was better that he had not bound himself to lug about a lion whenever he visited people's houses.

Still, there was something. He found himself a good deal alone. Sheila did not seem to care much for going into society; and although he did not much like the notion of going by himself, nevertheless one had certain duties toward one's friends to perform. She did not even care to go down to the Park of a forenoon. She always professed her readiness to go, but he fancied it was a trifle tiresome for her; and so, when there was nothing particular going on in the studio, he would walk down through Kensington Gardens himself, and have a chat with some friends, followed generally by luncheon with this or the other party of them. Sheila had been taught that she ought not to come so frequently to that studio. Bras would not lie quiet. Moreover, if dealers or other strangers should come in, would they not take her for a model? So Sheila stayed at home; and Mr. Lavender, after having dressed with care in the morning—with very singular care, indeed, considering that he was going to his work—used to go down to his studio to smoke a cigarette. The chances were that he was not in a humor for working. He would sit down in an easy-chair and kick his heels on the floor for a time, watching perhaps the sunlight come in through the upper part of the windows and paint yellow squares on the opposite wall. Then he would go out and lock the door behind him, leaving no message whatever for those crowds of importunate dealers who, as Sheila fancied, were besieging him with offers in one hand and purses of gold in the other.