Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

“Where did he die, and how? I beseech you to tell me, Mrs. Catherine!”

“Anne,” said Mrs. Catherine, gravely; “for what purpose do you seek to know? Wherefore do you question me so?”

“Where did he die, and when, and how?” repeated Anne. – ”Answer me, Mrs. Catherine – do not hesitate – I am prepared.”

Mrs. Catherine paused long before she answered.

“The place was a country place – far south from this; the time was seventeen years ago; the way was – ” Mrs. Catherine paused again. “To what purpose is this questioning, child? It is a matter that concerns you not.”

“The way was – ?” repeated Anne, clasping her hand eagerly.

“The way was – he was killed,” said Mrs. Catherine, in abrupt haste. “Shot, as men shoot beasts. Anne Ross, I brought the bairn Alison to my house, because she was an innocent bairn that I wanted to do a kindness to, and not because of her parentage.”

Anne heard the words, but did not discern their meaning, and sat, in the blind, fainting sickness that possessed her, repeating them to herself, unconsciously.

“Child, child!” said Mrs. Catherine, in alarm. “What ails you? What have you heard? I am meaning, why have you come to me with such a question?”

“One other – only one,” said Anne, recollecting herself. “Mrs. Catherine, who was it – who was the murderer?”

Mrs. Catherine made an appealing motion with her hand, and did not answer.

But Anne was perfectly self-possessed again.

“Was it Norman?”

Mrs. Catherine did not speak; it was not necessary. The answer was far too legibly written in the long, steadfast look of grief and sympathy which she fixed upon her companion’s face.

And so they sat in silence for some minutes, too deeply moved and engrossed for words. At length Anne started up.

“That is all,” she said, hurriedly. “I must go now. I have much to do.”

Mrs. Catherine rose also, took her hand, and led her back to her seat.

“You shall not leave my house, child, till I hear more of this. Who was so cruel as to tell you this sorrowful story? and what is it that you have to do?”

Anne sat down again, mechanically.

“Child,” said Mrs. Catherine; “I have never spoken Norman’s name in your hearing, nor suffered it to be spoken. Who has told you a terrible story, which was buried in grief and forgetfulness long ago, when the unhappy lad found his grave under the sea? It is not known in the countryside, for the deed was done far from here, and your father hung back, and took no note, outwardly, of the miserable boy’s fate. He was right maybe. I would not have done the like – but that is little matter. Who told you?”

“Found his grave under the sea!” murmured Anne, unconsciously.

“What say ye, child?”

“It was Mrs. Ross,” said Anne, “when Miss Aytoun came first to the Tower, she told me that she feared this was his daughter. Oh! Mrs. Catherine, why did you not keep her separate from us? If we had not been brought so much together, this could not have happened.”

“Child,” said Mrs. Catherine, “there is something on your mind yet, which is not known to me; the story is a woeful story, dark enough to cause sore grief; but it is over and past, and there is some living dread upon you. What has happened?”

Anne looked up – she could not find words to communicate her “living dread” – she only murmured “Lewis.”

Mrs. Catherine started. “Lewis? Child what is it ye mean? No that there is anything – No, no, what makes me fear that – there can be no liking between the two.”

“There is, there is,” said Anne.

Mrs. Catherine rose, and walked through the room uneasily.

“It must be put to an end – immediate – without delay. I brought the bairn here to do her a kindness, no to give her a sore heart. Child, Lewis must not enter my house again till Alison Aytoun is home. She is but a bairn – it can have gone no further than the slight liking of a boy and a girl. Where were my eyes that I did not see the peril? Child, it must end this very day – better the pang of a sudden parting – better that each of them should think they were slighted by the other, than that it should ever come to an explanation between them, and then to the rendering of reasons – it must go no further.”

“It is too late,” said Anne; “there has already been an explanation between them. Mrs. Catherine, they are engaged.”

Mrs. Catherine paced up and down the small apartment with quick steps.

“I am compassed with troubles! no sooner seeing my way out of one, than another opens before me. Anne, my puir bairn, I am a selfish fool to think of my own gray head, when the burden falls the heaviest on your young one. What will we do? there is a purpose in your eye as I can see – tell me what it is.”

Anne did not know how to proceed: she could not betray Norman’s secret even to Mrs. Catherine.

“I will tell Lewis,” she said, “and perhaps, Mrs. Catherine – I do not know what is best to be done with poor Alice, so happy and young as she is – perhaps you will tell her – not all – but something to excuse Lewis.”

Mrs. Catherine shook her head.

“It will not do. It will not do. If I excuse Lewis, she will think it is but some passing thing that awhile will wear away. – No, child, no, if the bairn hears anything, she must hear all.”

“I will tell Lewis,” said Anne; “but I must first learn the whole of this dreadful story more perfectly. I thought of going to old Esther Fleming: she was Norman’s nurse, Mrs. Catherine – is she likely to know of this?”

“I mind much of it myself,” said Mrs. Catherine, “but you will get it better from Esther Fleming than from any other mortal. I have been taken up with many diverse things, but Norman and her own son were year’s bairns, and Norman was the light of Esther Fleming’s eyes. Your father made no endeavor to help the miserable young man, child. I know what you would say – there was no time – and it is true – for the deed had not been two days done, when he was on the sea – be thankful, child, that he perished in the sea and did not die a shameful death.”

Anne trembled – the consciousness of her secret overpowering her as if it had been guilt. Alas! over the head of the murderer the shameful death impended still.

“Did the family know?” she asked, her mind becoming strangely familiar with the subject: “could they know of Norman’s relationship to Lewis?”

“No,” said Mrs. Catherine. “When Arthur Aytoun died, his wife was a young thing, feeble in her health, and oppressed with many troubles; for I have heard that he was far from a good man. James Aytoun was but a bairn then, and Alison was not born; besides that, they were strangers in that countryside, as well as Norman – being from the south – and would know little of him but his name. Mrs. Aytoun is a woman of a chastened spirit, child; she knows the unhappy lad has answered for his guilt langsyne before his Maker; and think not that she will keep his name in the mother’s heart of her, in any dream of vengeance.”

Anne could not answer: her secret lay upon her like a cloud, weighing her down to the very earth.

“I must tell the bairn,” continued Mrs. Catherine, as if consulting with herself; “ay, I must tell the bairn, that she may know, without having any sick month of waiting, that there is a bar between Lewis and her that cannot be passed over – that there is a stern and terrible conclusion put to the dreams of their young love. – Child! it is a sore weight to lay upon a spirit innocent of all sorrow.”

Anne assented silently.

“And you will have a harder battle with the youth,” said Mrs. Catherine. “Child, there are bairns in this generation that would fain inherit the rights and possessions of their fathers, without the ills and the wrongs. Take heed of Lewis, lest he endeavor to hold this black deed lightly. I will not have it. The blood that a Ross spilt must never be joined in near kindred to another Ross. There is a deadly bar between the houses. Forgiveness there may be, full and free – I doubt it not – but union never. Mind, there can be no softening – no forgetting. The spirit that was sent to its account in violence and haste, by Norman’s hand, would rise to bar that ill-trysted betrothal. It must end.”

Anne rose.

“I will go,” she said. “I parted from Lewis last night in anger, because I had no kind word to say to Alice when he bade me be her sister. I must hasten now to learn these terrible details more accurately. Lewis might refuse to believe a story which came so suddenly upon him, and came for such a purpose, if I did not know it all. I must go now.”

“You will get it best from Esther,” said Mrs. Catherine. “I know she has brooded, in secret, over his sin and his death, since ever his sun set in yon terrible waves of blood-guiltiness. Anne, my bairn!” Mrs. Catherine paused, laid her hand upon Anne’s drooping head, and went on, her voice sounding low and solemn. “The Lord uphold and strengthen you for your work; the Lord guide you with the uplifting of His countenance, and give you to walk firm in the midst of tribulation, and not to falter or be weary in the way.”

Once out again upon Oranside, Anne felt the oppression of her terrible secret grow upon her to suffocation. “He is alive! he is alive!” – the words came bursting to her lips; she felt tempted, in the strange, almost irresistible, insanity of the moment, to proclaim it aloud, as she hurried along; running sometimes, with a sick feeling of escaping thereby from the phantom that overshadowed her inmost heart. The crime itself seemed to become dimmer, in its far distance. The thought that Norman was alive, laden with his fearful burden of remorse and blood-guiltiness, abiding perchance the shameful death of the murderer, filled her whole being almost to frenzy, and, with its circle of possibilities, curdled her very blood with terror.

Mrs. Ross and Lewis were about sitting down to breakfast, when Anne returned to Merkland, and the domestic horizon was anything but clear. Lewis, forgetful of his last night’s sullen petulance, was in high spirits – spirits so high as to aggravate his mother’s ill-humor. She grudged that he should have found so much pleasure at the Tower; and, sneering at Mrs. Catherine, whose unquestioned superiority had always galled her, kept up a biting war of inuendo and covert sarcasm.