CHAPTER LXI
The Melmar family had just concluded their luncheon, and were still assembled in the dining-room—all but Mrs. Huntley, who had not yet come down stairs—when Desirée, flushed and excited from her interview with the Mistress, who waited for her in the little room, came hastily in upon the party; without noticing any of the others Desirée went up at once to the head of the house, who glared at her from behind his newspaper with his stealthy look of suspicion and watchfulness, as she advanced. Something in her look roused the suspicions of Mr. Huntley; he gave a quick, angry glance aside at Oswald, as if inquiring the cause of the girl’s excitement, which his son replied to with a side-look of sullen resentment and mortification—an unspoken angry dialogue which often passed between the father and son, for Melmar had imposed upon the young man the task of keeping Desirée in ignorance and happiness, a charge which Oswald, who had lost even the first novelty of amusing himself with her found unspeakably galling, a constant humiliation. The little Frenchwoman came up rapidly to her host and employer—her cheek glowing, her eye shining, her small foot in her stout little winter-shoe sounding lightly yet distinctly on the carpet. They all looked at her with involuntary expectation. Something newly-discovered and strange shone in Desirée’s face.
“Sir,” she said, quickly, “I come to thank you for being kind to me. I come because it is honest to tell you—I am going away.”
“Going away? What’s wrong?” said Melmar, with a little alarm; “come into my study, mademoiselle, and we will put all right, never fear; that little deevil Patricia has been at her again!”
Desirée did not wait for the burst of shrewish tears and exclamations which even Patricia’s extreme curiosity could not restrain. She answered quickly and with eagerness,
“No, no, it is not Patricia—it is no one—it is news from home; you know it already—you know it!” cried the girl. “My mother! She is poor; I have had to come away from her to be a governess; and you, alas, knew who she was, but said nothing of it to me!”
And involuntarily Desirée’s eyes sought, with a momentary indignant glance, the face of Oswald. He sat perfectly upright in his chair staring at her, growing red and white by turns; red with a fierce, selfish anger, white with a baffled, ungenerous shame, the ignominy, not of doing wrong, but of being found out. But even in that moment, in the mortifying consciousness that this little girl had discovered and despised him—the revenge, or rather, for it was smaller—the spite of a mean mind, relieved itself at least in the false wooer’s face. He turned to her with the bitterest sneer poor Desirée had ever seen. It seemed to say, “what cause but this could have induced me to notice you?” She did not care for him, but she thought she once had cared, and the sneer galled the poor little Frenchwoman to the heart.
“You are ungenerous—you!” she exclaimed, with a fiery vehemence and passion, “you delude me, and then you sneer. Shall I sneer at you, you sordid, you who wrong the widow? But no! If you had not known me I should have thanked you, and my mother would never, never have injured one who was good to Desirée; but now it is war, and I go. Farewell, Monsieur! you did not mean to be kind, but only to blind me—ah, I was wrong to speak of thanks—farewell!”
“What do you mean? who has deceived you?” cried Joanna, stepping forward and shaking Desirée somewhat roughly by the arm; “tell us all plain out what it is. I’m as sure as I can be that it’s him that’s wrong—and I think shame of Oswald to see him sit there, holding his tongue when he should speak; but you shanna look so at papa!”
And Joanna stood between Melmar and her excited little friend, thrusting the latter away, and yet holding her fast at arm’s length. Melmar put his arm on his daughter’s shoulder and set her quietly aside.
“Let us hear what this discovery is,” said Mr. Huntley; “who is your mother, mademoiselle?”
At which cool question Desirée blazed for an instant into a flush of fury, but immediately shrunk with a cool dread of having been wrong and foolish. Perhaps, after all, they did not know—perhaps it was she who was about to heighten the misfortune of their loss and ruin by ungenerous insinuations. Desirée paused and looked doubtfully in Melmar’s face. He was watching her with his usual stealthy vigilance, looking, as usual, heated and fiery, curving his bushy, grizzled eyebrows over those keen cat-like eyes. She gazed at him with a doubtful, almost imploring, look—was she injuring him?—had he not known?
“Come, mademoiselle,” said Melmar, gaining confidence as he saw the girl was a little daunted, “I have but a small acquaintance in your country. Who was your mother? It does not concern us much, so far as I can see, but still, let’s hear. Oswald, my lad, can’t you use your influence?—we are all waiting to hear.”
Oswald, however, had given up the whole business. He was pleased to be able to annoy his father and affront Desirée at last. Perhaps the rage and disappointment in his heart were in some sort a relief to him. He was at least free now to express his real sentiments. He got up hastily from his chair, thrust it aside so roughly that it fell, and with a suppressed but audible oath, left the room. Then Desirée stood alone, with Melmar watching her, with Patricia crying spitefully close at hand, and even Joanna, her own friend, menacing and unfriendly. The poor girl did not know where to turn or what to do.
“Perhaps I am wrong,” she said, with a momentary falter. “There was no reason, it is true, why you should know mamma. And perhaps it is unkind and ungenerous of me. But—ah, Joanna, you guessed it when I did not know!—you said she must have been here—you are honest and knew no harm! My mother was born at Melmar; it is hers, though she is poor—and she is coming home.”
“Coming home! this is but a poor story, mademoiselle,” said Melmar. “That person died abroad long ago, and was mother to nobody; but it’s clever, by George! uncommonly clever. Her mother’s coming home, and my land belongs to her! cool, that, I must say. Will you take Patricia for your lady’s maid, mademoiselle?”
“Ah, you sneer, you all sneer!” cried Desirée. “I could sneer too, if I were as guilty; but it is true, and you know it is true; you, who are our kinsman and should have cared for us—you, who have planned to deceive a poor stranger girl—you know it is true!”
“If he does,” cried Joanna, “you’re no’ to stand there and tell him. He has been as kind to you as if you belonged to us—you don’t belong to us—go—go away this moment. I will not let you stay here!”
And Joanna stamped her foot in the excess of her indignation and sympathy with her father, who looked on, through all this side-play of feelings, entirely unmoved. Poor little Desirée, on the contrary, was stung and wounded beyond measure by Joanna’s violence. She gave her one terrified, passionate look, half reproachful, half defiant, had hard ado to restrain a burst of girlish, half-weeping recrimination, and then turned round with one sob out of her poor little heart, which felt as though it would burst, and went away with a forlorn, heroical dignity out of the room. Poor Desirée would not have looked back for a kingdom, but she hoped to have been called back, for all that, and could almost have fallen down on the threshold with mortification and disappointment, when she found that no one interfered to prevent her withdrawal. The poor child was full of sentiment, but had a tender heart withal. She could not bear to leave a house where she had lived so long after this fashion, and but for her pride, Desirée would have rushed back to fall into Joanna’s arms, and beg everybody’s pardon; but her pride sustained her in the struggle, and at length vanquished her “feelings". Instead of rushing into Joanna’s arms, she went to the Mistress, who still waited for her in the little room, and who had already been edified by hearing the fall of Oswald’s chair, and seeing that gentleman, as he went furiously forth, kicking Patricia’s lap-dog out of his way in the hall. The Mistress was human. She listened to those sounds and witnessed that sight with a natural, but not very amiable sentiment. She was rather pleased than otherwise to be so informed that she had brought a thunderbolt to Melmar.
“Let them bear it as they dow,” said the Mistress, with an angry triumph; “neither comfort nor help to any mortal has come out of Me’mar for mony a day;” and she received the unfortunate little cause of all this commotion with more favor than before. Poor little Desirée came in with a quivering lip and a full eye, scarcely able to speak, but determined not to cry, which was no small trial of resolution. The family of Melmar were her mother’s enemies—some of them had tried to delude, and some had been unkind to herself—yet she knew them; and the Mistress, who came to take her away, was a stranger. It was like going out once more into the unknown world.
So Desirée left Melmar, with a heart which fluttered with pain, anger, indignation, and a strange fear of the future, and the Mistress guided to Norlaw almost with tenderness the child of that Mary who had been a lifelong vexation to herself. They left behind them no small amount of dismay and anxiety, all the house vaguely finding out that something was wrong, while Joanna alone stood by her father’s side, angry, rude, and careless of every one, bestowing her whole impatient regards upon him.
CHAPTER LXII
“Happened!” said bowed Jaacob, with a little scorn; “what should have happened?—you dinna ca’ this place in the world—naething, so far as I can tell, ever happens here except births and deaths and marriages; no muckle food for the intelleck in the like of them, though I wouldna say but they are necessary evils—na, laddie, there’s little to tell you here.”
“Not even about the Bill?” said Cosmo; “don’t forget I’ve been abroad and know nothing of what you’ve all been doing at home.”
“The Bill—humph! it’s a’ very weel for the present,” said Jaacob, with a twinkle of excitement in his one eye, “but as for thae politicians that ca’ it a final measure, I wouldna gie that for them,” and Jaacob snapped his fingers energetically. “It hasna made just a’ that difference in the world ane would have expected, either,” he added, after a moment, a certain grim humor stealing into his grotesque face; “we’re a’ as nigh as possible just where we were. I’m no’ what you would ca’ a sanguine philosopher mysel’. I ken human nature gey weel; and I canna say I ever limited my ain faith to men that pay rent and taxes at so muckle a year; but it doesna make that difference ane might have looked for. A man’s just the same man, callant—especially if he’s a poor creature with nae nobility in him—though you do gie him a vote.”
“Yet it’s all the difference,” cried Cosmo, with a little burst of boyish enthusiasm, “between the freeman and the slave!”
Jaacob eyed him grimly with his one eye. “It’s a’ the like of you ken,” said the cynic, with a little contempt, and a great deal of superiority; “but you’ll learn better if ye have the gift. There’s a certain slave-class in ilka community—that’s my conviction—and I wouldna say but we’ve just had the good fortune to licht upon them in thae ten-pound householders; oh, ay, laddie! let the aristocrats alane—they’re as cunning as auld Nick where their ain interest’s concerned, though nae better than as mony school-boys in a’ greater concerns. Catch them extending the suffrage to the real men, the backbane of the country! Would you say a coof in the town here, that marries some fool of a wife and gets a house of his ain, was a mair responsible person than me! Take it in ony class you please—yoursel’ when you’re aulder—na, Me’mar’s son even, that’s nearer my age than yours—ony Willie A’ thing of a shopkeeper gets his vote—set him up! and his voice in the country—but there’s nae voice for you, my lad, if ye were ane-and-twenty the morn—nor for the young laird.”
The mention of this name instantly arrested Cosmo’s indignation at his own political disabilities. “You say nothing has happened, Jacob,” said Cosmo, “and yet here is this same young laird—what of him?—is he nothing?—he ought to rank high in Kirkbride.”
“Kirkbride and me are seldom of the same opinion,” said the little Cyclops, pushing his red cowl off his brow, and proceeding carelessly to his work, which had been suspended during the more exciting conversation. “I canna be fashed with weakly folk, women or men, though it’s more natural in a woman. There’s that bit thing of a sister of his with the pink e’en—he’s ower like her to please me—but he’s a virtuoso. I’ve been ca’ed one mysel. I’ve mair sympathy with a traveled man than thae savages here. You see I wouldna say but I might think better of baith him and his father if I’m right in a guess o’ mine; and I maun admit I’m seldom wrang when I take a thing into my mind.”
“What is it?” said Cosmo, eagerly.
“There’s a young lass there, a governess,” said Jaacob; “I couldna tell, if I was on my aith, what’s out of the way about her. She’s no’ to ca’ very bonnie, and as for wut, that’s no’ to be looked for in woman—and she’s French, though I’m above prejudice on that score; but there’s just something about her reminds me whiles of another person—though no mair to be compared in ae way than a gowan to a rose. I’m no’ very easy attractit, which is plain to view, seeing, for a’ I’ve met with, I’m no’ a married man, and like enough never will be—but I maun admit I was taken with her mysel’.”
Cosmo’s face was crimson with suppressed anger and laughter both combined.
“How dare you?” he cried at last, with a violent and sudden burst of the latter impulse. Bowed Jaacob turned round upon him, swelling to his fullest stature, and settling his red cowl on his head with an air of defiance, yet with a remote and grim consciousness of fun in the corner of his eye.
“Daur!” exclaimed the gallant hunchback. “Mind what you say, my lad! Women hae ae gift—they aye ken merit when they see it. I’ve kent a hantle in my day; but the bonniest of them a’ never said ‘How daur ye’ to me.”
“Very well, Jacob,” said Cosmo, laughing; “I had forgotten your successes. But what of this young lady at Melmar, and your guess about Oswald Huntley? I know her, and I am curious to hear.”
“Just the lad yonder, if you will ken, is taken with her like me—that’s a’. I advise you to say ‘you daur’ to him,” said Jaacob, shortly, ending his words with a prolonged chorus of hammering.
An involuntary and unconscious exclamation burst from Cosmo’s lips. He felt a burning color rise over his face. Why, he could not tell; but his sudden shock of consternation and indignant resentment quite overpowered his composure for the moment—a thrill of passionate displeasure tingled through his heart. He was violently impatient of the thought, yet could not tell why.
“Whatfor no?” said Jaacob. “I’m nane of your romantic men mysel’—but I’ve just this ae thing to say, I despise a lad that thinks on the penny siller when a woman’s in the question. I wouldna tak a wife into the bargain with a wheen lands or a pickle gear, no’ if she was a king’s daughter—though she might be that, and yet be nae great things. Na, laddie, a man that has the heart to be real downricht in love has aye something in him, take my word for’t; and even auld Me’mar himsel’—”
“The old villain!” cried Cosmo, violently; “the mean old rascal! That is what he meant by bringing her here. It was not enough to wrong the mother, but he must delude the child! Be quiet, Jaacob! you don’t know the old gray-haired villain! They ought to be tried for conspiracy, every one of them. Love!—it is profanation to name the name!”
“Eh, what’s a’ this?” cried Jaacob. “What does the callant mean by conspiracy?—what’s about this lassie? She’s gey bonnie—no’ to say very, but gey—and she’s just a governess. I respect the auld rascal, as you ca’ him—and I wouldna say you’re far wrang—for respecting his son’s fancy. The maist o’ thae moneyed men, I can tell ye, are as mean as an auld miser; therefore ye may say what ye like, my lad. I’m friends with Me’mar and his son the noo.”
Jaacob went on accordingly with his hammering, professing no notice of Cosmo, who, busy with his own indignant thoughts, did not even observe the vigilant, sidelong regards of the blacksmith’s one eye. He scarcely even heard what Jaacob said, as the village philosopher resumed his monologue, keeping always that solitary orb of vision intent upon his visitor. Jaacob, with all his enlightenment, was not above curiosity, and took a very lively interest in the human character and the concerns of his fellow-men.
“And the minister’s dead,” said Jaacob. “For a man that had nae experience of life, he wasna such a fuil as he might have been. I’ve seen waur priests. The vulgar gave him honor, and it’s aye desirable to have a man in that capacity that can impose upon the vulgar;—and the bairns are away. I miss Katie Logan’s face about the town mysel’. She wasna in my style; but I canna deny her merits. Mair folks’ taste than mine has to be consulted. As for me, I have rather a notion of that French governess at Melmar. If there’s onything wrang there, gie a man a hint, Cosmo, lad. I’ve nae objection to cut Oswald Huntley out mysel’.”
“Find some other subject for your jests,” cried Cosmo, haughtily; “Mademoiselle Desirée’s name is not to be used in village gossip. I will not permit it while I am here.”
Jaacob turned round upon him with his eye on fire.
“Wha the deevil made you a judge?” said Jaacob; “what’s your madame-oiselle, or you either, that you’re ower guid for an honest man’s mouth? Confound your impidence! a slip of a callant that makes verses, do ye set up your face to me?”
At this point of the conversation Cosmo began to have a glimmering perception that Desirée’s name was quite as unsuitable in a quarrel with Jaacob as in any supposed village gossip; and that the dispute between himself and the blacksmith was on the whole somewhat ridiculous. He evaded Jaacob’s angry interrogatory with a half laugh of annoyance and embarrassment.
“You know as well as I do, Jacob, that one should not speak so of young ladies,” said Cosmo, who did not know what to say.
“Do I?” said Jaacob; “what would ye hae a man to talk about? they’re no muckle to crack o’ in the way o’ wisdom, but they’re bonnie objecks in creation, as a’body maun allow. I would just like to ken, though, my lad, what’s a’ your particular interest in this madame-oiselle?”
“Hush,” said Cosmo, whose cheeks began to burn; “she is my kinswoman; by this time perhaps she is with my mother in Norlaw; she is the child of—”
Cosmo paused, thinking to stop at that half-confidence. Jaacob stood staring at him, with his red cowl on one side, and his eye gleaming through the haze. As he gazed, a certain strange consciousness came to the hunchback’s face. His dwarf figure, which you could plainly see had the strength of a giant’s, his face swart and grotesque, his one gleaming eye and puckered forehead, became suddenly softened by a kind of homely pathos which stole over them like a breath of summer wind. When he had gazed his full gaze of inquiry into Cosmo’s face, Jaacob turned his head aside hurriedly.
“So you’ve found her!” said the blacksmith, with a low intensity of voice which made Cosmo respectful by its force and emotion; and when he had spoken he fell to upon his anvil with a rough and loud succession of blows which left no time for an answer. Cosmo stood beside him, during this assault, with a grave face, looking on at the exploits of the hammer as if they were something serious and important. The introduction of this new subject changed their tone in a moment.
When Jaacob paused to take breath he resumed the conversation, still in a somewhat subdued tone, though briskly enough.
“So she’s aye living,” said Jaacob; “and this is her daughter? A very little mair insight and I would have found it out mysel’. I aye thought she was like. And what have you done with her now you’ve found her? Is she to come hame?”
“Immediately,” said Cosmo.
“She’s auld by this time, nae doubt,” said Jaacob, carelessly; “women are such tender gear, a’thing tells upon them. It’s their beauty that’s like a moth—the like of me wears langer; and so she’s aye to the fore?—ay! I doubt she’ll mind little about Me’mar, or the folk here about. I’m above prejudices mysel’, and maybe the French are mair enlightened in twa three points than we are—I’ll no’ say—but I wouldna bring up youngsters to be natives of a strange country. So you found her out with your ain hand, callant, did you? You’re a clever chield! and what’s to be done when she comes hame?”
“She is the Lady of Melmar, as she always was,” said Cosmo, with a little pride.
“And what’s to become of the auld family—father and son—no’ to say of the twa sisters and the auld auntie,” said Jaacob, with a grim smile. “So that’s the story! Confound them a’! I’m no’ a man to be cheated out of my sympathies. And I’m seldom wrang—so if you’ve ony thoughts that way, callant, I advise ye to relinquish them. Ye may be half-a-hunder’ poets if ye like, and as mony mair to the back o’ that, but if the Huntley lad liket her she’ll stick to him.”
“That is neither your concern nor mine!” cried Cosmo, loftily. But, as Jaacob laughed and went on, the lad began to feel unaccountably aggravated, to lose his temper, and make angry answers, which made his discomfiture capital fun to the little giant. At length, Cosmo hurried away. It was the same day on which the Mistress paid her visit to Desirée, and Cosmo could not help feeling excited and curious about the issue of his mother’s invitation. Thoughts which made the lad blush came into his mind as he went slowly over Tyne, looking up at that high bank, from which the evening sunshine, chill, yet bright, was slowly disappearing—where the trees began to bud round the cottages, and where the white gable of the manse still crowned the peaceful summit—that manse where Katie Logan, with her elder-sister smile, was no longer mistress. Somehow, there occurred to him a wandering thought about Katie, who was away—he did not know where—and Huntley, who was at the ends of the earth. Huntley had not actually lost any thing, Cosmo said to himself, yet Huntley seemed disinherited and impoverished to the obstinate eyes of fancy. Cosmo could not have told, either, why he associated his brother with Katie Logan, now an orphan and absent, yet he did so involuntarily. He thought of Huntley and Katie, both poor, far separated, and perhaps never to meet again; he thought of Cameron in his sudden trouble; and then his thoughts glided off with a little bitterness, to that perverse woman’s love, which always seemed to cling to the wrong object. Madame Roche herself, perhaps, first of all, though the very fancy seemed somehow a wrong to his mother, Marie fretting peevishly for her French husband, Desirée giving her heart to Oswald Huntley. The lad turned upon his heel with a bitter impatience, and set off for a long walk in the opposite direction as these things glided into his mind. To be sure, he had nothing to do with it; but still it was all wrong—a distortion of nature—and it galled him in his thoughts.