CHAPTER XLVIII
While the peaceful Manse of Kirkbride was turned into a house of mourning, a strange little drama was being played at Melmar. The household there seemed gradually clustering, a strange chorus of observation, round Oswald and Desirée, the two principal figures in the scene. Melmar himself watched the little Frenchwoman with cat-like stealthiness, concentrating his regard upon her. Aunt Jean sat in her chair apart, troubled and unenlightened, perpetually calling Desirée to her, and inventing excuses to draw her out of the presence and society of Oswald. Patricia, when she was present in the family circle, directed a spiteful watch upon the two, with the vigilance of an ill-fairy; while even Joanna, a little shocked and startled by the diversion of Desirée’s regard from herself, a result which she had not quite looked for, behaved very much like a jealous lover to the poor little governess, tormenting her by alternate sulks and violent outbursts of fondness. Oswald himself, though he was always at her side, though he gave her a quite undue share of his time and attention, and made quite fantastical exhibitions of devotion, was a lover, if lover he was, ill at ease, capricious and overstrained. He knew her pretty, he felt that she was full of mind, and spirit, and intelligence—but still she was a little girl to Oswald Huntley, who was not old enough to find in her fresh youth the charm which has subdued so many a man of the world—nor young enough to meet her on equal ground. Why he sought her at all, unless he had really “fallen in love” with her, it seemed very hard to find out. Aunt Jean, looking on with her sharp black eyes, could only shake her head in silent wonder, and doubt, and discomfort. He could have “nae motive"—but Aunt Jean thought that lovers looked differently in her days, and a vague suspicion disturbed the mind of the old woman. She used to call Desirée to her own side, to keep her there talking of her embroidery, or telling her old stories of which the girl began to tire, being occupied by other thoughts. The hero himself was unaware of, and totally indifferent to, Aunt Jean’s scrutiny, but Melmar himself sometimes turned his fiery eyes to her corner, with a glance of doubt and apprehension. She was the only spectator in the house of whose inspection Mr. Huntley was at all afraid.
Meanwhile Desirée herself lived in a dream—the first dream of extreme youth, of a tender heart and gentle imagination, brought for the first time into personal contact with the grand enchantress and Armida of life. Desirée was not learned in the looks of lover’s eyes—she had no “experience,” poor child! to guide her in this early experiment and trembling delight of unfamiliar emotion. She knew she was poor, young, solitary, Joanna’s little French governess, yet that it was she, the little dependent, whom Joanna’s graceful brother, everybody else’s superior, singled out for his regard. Her humble little heart responded with all a young girl’s natural flutter of pride, of gratitude, of exquisite and tremulous pleasure. There could be but one reason in the world to induce this unaccustomed homage and devotion. She could not believe that Oswald admired or found any thing remarkable in herself, only—strange mystery, not to be thought of save with the blush of that profoundest humility which is born of affection!—only, by some unexplainable, unbelievable wonder, it must be love. Desirée did not enter into any questions on the subject; she yielded to the fascination; it made her proud, it made her humble, it filled her with the tenderest gratitude, it subdued her little fiery spirit like a spell. She was very, very young, she knew nothing of life or of the world, she lived in a little world of her own, where this grand figure was the centre of every thing; and it was a grand figure in the dewy, tender light of Desirée’s young eyes—in the perfect globe of Desirée’s maiden fancy—but it was not Oswald Huntley, deeply though the poor child believed it was.
So they all grouped around her, watching her, some of them perplexed, some of them scheming; and Oswald played his part, sometimes loathing it, but, for the most part, finding it quite agreeable to his vanity, while poor little Desirée went on in her dream, thinking she had fallen upon a charmed life, seeing every thing through the glamour in her own eyes, believing every thing was true.
“Dr. Logan is ill,” said Melmar, on one of those fairy days, when they all met round the table at lunch; all but Mrs. Huntley, who had relapsed into her quiescent invalidism, and was made comfortable in her own room—“very ill—so ill that I may as well mind my promise to old Gordon of Ruchlaw for his minister-son.”
“Oh, papa, don’t be so hard-hearted!” cried Joanna—“he’ll maybe get better yet. He’s no’ such a very old man, and he preached last Sabbath-day. Oh, poor Katie! but he has not been a week ill yet, and he’ll get better again.”
“Who is Gordon of Ruchlaw? and who is his minister-son?” asked Oswald.
Joanna made a volunteer answer.
“A nasty, snuffy, disagreeable man!” cried Joanna, with enthusiasm. “I am sure I would never enter the church again if he was there; but it’s very cruel and hard-hearted, and just like papa, to speak of him. Dr. Logan is only ill. I would break my heart if I thought he was going to die.”
“Gordon would be a very useful man to us,” said Melmar—“a great deal more so than Logan ever was. I mean to write and ask him here, now that his time’s coming. Be quiet, Joan, and let’s have no more nonsense. I’ll tell Auntie Jean. If you play your cards well, you might have a good chance of him yourself, you monkey, and with Aunt Jean’s fortune to furnish the manse, you might do worse. Ha! ha! I wonder what Patricia would say?”
“Patricia would say it was quite good enough for Joanna,” said that amiable young lady. “A poor Scotch minister! I am thankful I never had such low tastes. Nobody would speak of such a thing to me.”
“Don’t quarrel about the new man till the old man is dead, at least,” said Oswald, laughing. “Mademoiselle Desirée quite agrees with me, I know. She is shocked to hear all this. Is it not so?”
“I thought of his daughter,” said Desirée, who was very much shocked, and had tears in her eyes. “She will be an orphan now.”
“And Desirée was very fond of Katie,” said Joanna, looking half jealously, half fondly at the little governess, “and so am I too; and she has all the little ones to take care of. Oh, papa, I’ll never believe that Dr. Logan is going to die.”
“Fhat is all this, Joan? tell me,” cried Aunt Jean, who had already shown signs of curiosity and impatience. This was the signal for breaking up the party. When Joanna put her lips close to the old woman’s ear, and began to shout the required information, the others dispersed rapidly. Desirée went to her room to get her cloak and bonnet. It was her hour for walking with her pupil, and that walk was now an enchanted progress, a fairy road, leading ever further and further into her fairy land. As for Oswald, he stood in the window, looking out and shrugging his shoulders at the cold. His blood was not warm enough to bear the chill of the northern wind; the sight of the frost-bound paths and whitened branches made him shiver before he went out. He meant to attend the girls in their walk, in spite of his shiver; but the frosty path by the side of Tyne was not a fairy road to him.
Joanna had left them on some erratic expedition among the trees; they were alone together, Desirée walking by Oswald’s side, very quiet and silent, with her eyes cast down, and a tremor at her heart. The poor little girl did not expect any thing particular, for they were often enough together thus—still she became silent in spite of herself, as she wandered on in her dream by Oswald’s side, and, in spite of herself, cast down her eyes, and felt the color wavering on her cheek. Perhaps he saw it and was pleased—he liked such moments well enough. They had all the amusing, tantalizing, dramatic pleasure of moments which might be turned to admirable account, but never were so—moments full of expectation and possibility, of which nothing ever came.
At this particular moment Oswald was, as it happened, very tenderly gracious to Desirée. He was asking about her family, or rather her mother, whom, it appeared, he had heard of without hearing of any other relative, and Desirée, in answering, spoke of Marie—who was Marie? “Did I never, then, tell you of my sister?” said Desirée with a blush and smile.
“Your sister?—I was not aware—” stammered Oswald—and he looked at her so closely and coldly, and with such a scrutinizing air of suspicion, that Desirée stared at him, in return, with amazement and half-terror—“Perhaps Mademoiselle Desirée has brothers also,” he said, in the same tone, still looking at her keenly. What if she had brothers? Would it have been wrong?
“No,” said Desirée, quietly. The poor child was subdued by the dread of having wounded him. She thought it grieved him to have so little of her confidence; it could be nothing but that which made him look so cold and speak so harsh.
“Then Mademoiselle Marie is a little sister—a child?” said Oswald, softening slightly.
Desirée clapped her hands and laughed with sudden glee. “Oh, no, no,” she cried merrily, “she is my elder sister; she is not even Mademoiselle; she is married! Poor Marie!” added the little girl, softly. “I wish she were here.”
And for the moment Desirée did not see the look that regarded her. When she lifted her eyes again, she started and could not comprehend the change. Oswald’s lip was blue with cold, with dismay, with contempt, with a mixture of feelings which his companion had no clue to, and could not understand. “Mademoiselle has, no doubt, a number of little nephews and nieces,” he said, with a sinister curl of that blue lip over his white teeth. The look struck to Desirée’s heart with a pang of amazement and terror—what did it mean?
“Oh, no, no, not any,” she said, with a deep blush. She was startled and disturbed out of all her maiden fancies—was it a nervous, jealous irritation, to find that she had friends more than he knew. It was very strange—and when Joanna rejoined them shortly, Oswald made an excuse for himself, and left them. The girls followed him slowly, after a time, to the house; Desirée could scarcely answer Joanna’s questions, or appear interested in her pupil’s interests. What was the reason? She bewildered her poor little head asking this question; but no answer came.
CHAPTER XLIX
It was a kind of twilight in Aunt Jean’s room, though it was still daylight out of doors; the sun, as it drew to the west, threw a ruddy glory upon this side of the house of Melmar, and coming in at Aunt Jean’s window, had thrown its full force upon the fire-place half an hour ago. It was the old lady’s belief that the sun put out the fire, so she had drawn down her blind, and the warm, domestic glimmer of the firelight played upon the high bed, with those heavy, dull, moreen curtains, which defied all brightness—upon the brighter toilet-glass on the table, and upon the old lofty chest of drawers, polished and black like ebony, which stood at the further side of the room. Aunt Jean herself sat in a high-backed arm-chair by the fire, where she loved to sit—and Desirée and Joanna, kneeling on the rug before her, were turning out the contents of a great basket, full of such scraps as Aunt Jean loved to accumulate, and girls have pleasure in turning over; there were bits of silk, bits of splendid old ribbon, long enough for “bows,” in some cases, but in some only fit for pin-cushions and needle-books of unbelievable splendor, bits of lace, bits of old-fashioned embroidery, bits of almost every costly material belonging to a lady’s wardrobe. It was a pretty scene; the basket on the rug, with its many-colored stores, the pretty little figure of Desirée, with the fire-light shining in her hair, the less graceful form of Joanna, which still was youthful, and honest, and eager, as she knelt opposite the fire, which flushed her face and reddened her hair at its will; and calmly seated in her elbow-chair, overseeing all, Aunt Jean, with her white neckerchief pinned over her gown, and her white apron warm in the fire-light, and the broad black ribbon bound round her old-fashioned cap, and the vivacious sparkle of those black eyes, which were not “hard of hearing,” though their owner was. The pale daylight came in behind the old lady, faintly through the misty atmosphere and the closed blind—but the ruddier domestic light within went flickering and sparkling over the high-canopied bed, the old-fashioned furniture, and the group by the hearth. When Joanna went away, the picture was even improved perhaps, for Desirée still knelt half meditatively by the fire, turning over with one hand the things in the basket, listening to what the old lady said, and wistfully pondering upon her own thoughts.
“Some o’ the things were here when I came,” said Aunt Jean. “I was not so auld then as I am now—I laid them a’ away, Deseery, for fear the real daughter of the house should ever come hame; for this present Melmar wasna heir by nature. If right had been right, there’s ane before him in the succession to this house; but, poor misguided thing, fha was gaun to seek her; but I laid by the bits o’ things; I thought they might ’mind her some time of the days o’ her youth.”
“Who was she?” said Desirée, softly: she did not ask so as to be heard by her companion—she did not ask as if she cared for an answer—she said it quietly, in a half whisper to herself; yet Aunt Jean heard Desirée’s question with her lively eyes, which were fixed upon the girl’s pretty figure, half kneeling, half reclining at her feet.
“Fha was she? She was the daughter of this house,” said Aunt Jean, “and fhat’s mair, the mistress of this house, Deseery, if she should ever come hame.”
The little Frenchwoman looked up sharply, keenly, with an alarmed expression on her face. She did not ask any further question, but she met Aunt Jean’s black eyes with eyes still brighter in their youthful lustre, yet dimmed with an indefinable cloud of suspicion and fear.
What was in the old woman’s mind it was hard to tell. Whether she had any definite ground to go upon, or merely proceeded on an impulse of the vague anxiety in her mind.
“’Deed, ay,” said Aunt Jean, nodding her lively little head, “I’ll tell you a’ her story, my dear, and you can tell me fhat you think when I’m done. She was the only bairn and heir of that silly auld man that was Laird of Melmar before this present lad, my niece’s good-man—she was very bonnie, and muckle thought of, and she married and ran away, and that’s all the folk ken of her, Deseery; but whisht, bairn, and I’ll tell you mair.”
Desirée had sunk lower on her knees, leaning back, with her head turned anxiously towards the story-teller. She was an interested listener at least.
“It’s aye thought she was disinherited,” said Aunt Jean, “and at the first, when she ran away, maybe so she was—but nature will speak. When this silly auld man, as I’m saying, died, he left a will setting up her rights, and left it in the hand of another silly haverel of a man, that was a bit sma’ laird at Norlaw. This man was to be heir himsel’ if she never was found—but he had a sma’ spirit, Deseery, and he never could find her. She’s never been found from that day to this—but it’ll be a sore day for Melmar when she comes hame.”
“Why?” said Desirée, somewhat sharply and shrilly, with a voice which reached the old woman’s ears, distant though they were.
“Fhat for?—because they’ll have to give up all the lands, and all the siller, and all their living into her hand—that’s fhat for,” said Aunt Jean; “nae person in this country-side can tell if she’s living, or fhaur she is; she’s been away langer than you’ve been in this life, Deseery; and Melmar, the present laird—I canna blame him, he was the next of the blood after hersel’, nae doubt he thought she was dead and gane, as a’body else did when he took possession—and his heart rose doubtless against the other person that was left heir, failing her, being neither a Huntley nor nigh in blood; but if aught should befall to bring her hame—ay, Deseery, it would be a sore day for this family, and every person in this house.”
“Why?” asked Desirée again with a tremble—this time her voice did not reach the ear of Aunt Jean, but her troubled, downcast eyes, her disturbed look, touched the old woman’s heart.
“If it was a story I was telling out of a book,” said the old woman, “I would say they were a’ in misery at keeping her out of her rights—or that the man was a villain that held her place—but you’re no’ to think that. I dinna doubt he heeds his ain business mair than he heeds her—it’s but natural, fha would do otherwise? and then he takes comfort to his mind that she must be dead, or she would have turned up before now, and then he thinks upon his ain family, and considers his first duty is for them; and then—’deed ay, my dear, memory fails—I wouldna say but he often forgets that there was another person in the world but himsel’ that had a right—that’s nature, Deseery, just nature—folk learn to think the way it’s their profit to think, and believe what suits them best, and they’re sincere, too, except maybe just at the first; you may not think it, being a bairn, yet it’s true.”
“If it were me,” cried Desirée, with a vehemence which penetrated Aunt Jean’s infirmity, “the money would burn me, would scorch me, till I could give it back to the true heir!”
“Ay,” said Aunt Jean, shaking her head, “I wouldna say I could be easy in my mind mysel’—but it’s wonderful how weel the like of you and me, my dear, can settle ither folks’ concerns. Melmar, you see, he’s no’ an ill man, he thinks otherwise, and I daur to say he’s begun to forget a’ about her, or just thinks she’s dead and gane, as most folk think. I canna help aye an expectation to see her back before I die mysel’—but that’s no’ to say Me’mar has ony thought of the kind. Folk that are away for twenty years, and never seen, nor heard tell o’, canna expect to be minded upon and waited upon. It’s very like, upon the whole, that she is dead many a year syne—and fhat for should Melmar, that kens nothing about her—aye except that she could take his living away frae him—fhat for, I’m asking, should Melmar gang away upon his travels looking for her, like yon other haverel of a man?”
“What other man?” cried Desirée, eagerly.
“Oh, just Norlaw; he was aince a wooer himsel’, poor haverel,” said Aunt Jean; “he gaed roaming about a’ the world, seeking after her, leaving his wife and his bonny bairns at hame; but fhat good did he?—just nought ava, Deseery, except waste his ain time, and lose his siller, and gie his wife a sair heart. She’s made muckle mischief in her day, this Mary of Melmar. They say she was very bonnie, though I never saw her mysel’; and fhat for, think you, should the present lad, that kens nought about her, take up his staff and gang traveling the world to seek for her? Oh, fie, nae!—he has mair duty to his ain house and bairns, than to a strange woman that he kens not where to seek, and that would make him a beggar if he found her; I canna see she deserves ony such thing at his hand.”
At first Desirée did not answer a word; her cheek was burning hot with excitement, her face shadowed with an angry cloud, her little hand clenched involuntarily, her brow knitted. She was thinking of something private to herself, which roused a passion of resentment within the breast of the girl. At last she started up and came close to Aunt Jean.
“But if you knew that she was living, and where she was?” cried Desirée, “what would you do?”
“Me! Oh, my bairn!” cried Aunt Jean, in sudden dismay. “Me! what have I to do with their concerns?—me! it’s nane of my business. The Lord keep that and a’ evil out of a poor auld woman’s knowledge. I havena eaten his bread—I never would be beholden that far to any mortal—but I’ve sitten under his roof tree for mony a year. Me!—if I heard a word of such awfu’ news, I would gang furth of this door this moment, that I mightna be a traitor in the man’s very dwelling;—eh, the Lord help me, the thought’s dreadful! for I behoved to let her ken!”
“And what if he knew?” asked Desirée, in a sharp whisper, gazing into Aunt Jean’s eyes with a look that pierced like an arrow. The old woman’s look fell, but it was not to escape this gaze of inquiry.
“The Lord help him!” said Aunt Jean, pitifully. “I can but hope he would do right, Deseery; but human nature’s frail; I canna tell.”
This reply softened for the moment the vehement, angry look of the little Frenchwoman. She came again to kneel before the fire, and was silent, thinking her own thoughts; then another and a new fancy seemed to rise like a mist over her face. She looked up dismayed to Aunt Jean, with an unexplained and terrified question, which the old woman could not interpret. Then she tried to command herself with an evident effort—but it was useless. She sprang up, and came close, with a shivering chill upon her, to put her lips to Aunt Jean’s ear.
“Do they all know of this story?” she asked, in the low, sharp voice, strangely intent and passionate, which even deafness itself could not refuse to hear; and Desirée fixed her gaze upon the old woman’s eyes, holding her fast with an eager scrutiny, as though she trembled to be put off with any thing less than the truth.
“Hout, no!” said Aunt Jean, disturbed a little, yet confident; “fha would tell the like of Patricia or Joan—fuils and bairns! and as for the like of my niece herself, she’s muckle taken up with her ain bits of troubles; she might hear of it at the time, but she would forget the day after; naebody minds but me.”
“And—Oswald?” cried Desirée, sharply, once again.
“Eh! ay—I wasna thinking upon him; he’s the heir,” said Aunt Jean, turning her eyes sharp and keen upon her young questioner. “I canna tell fhat for you ask me so earnest, bairn; you maunna think mair of Oswald Huntley than becomes baith him and you; ay, doubtless, you’re right, whatever learned ye—he kens.”
Desirée did not say another word, but she clasped her hands tightly together, sprang out of the room with the pace of a deer, and before Aunt Jean had roused herself from her amazement, had thrown her cloak over her shoulders, and rushed out into the gathering night.