Merkland: or, Self Sacrifice

Anne ushered the visitor into the study. Mrs. Brock, honest woman, expended upon Christian some piece of common-place consolation, which made the pale lip quiver. Then she entered upon her business.

“Ye see, we’ve reason to be thankfu’, we’ve won on no that ill in the world; and George says its a daftlike thing to us to be paying rent for a house, and us has lying siller that could buy mair than yin. Sae if ye’re agreeable, he’ll make ye his auld offer ower again – twa hunder pounds, and us to get it as it stands, all and haill.”

“I am sorry, Mrs. Brock,” said Christian, “when you like it so well, that I cannot part with it; but I must keep the house in my own possession.”

“Weel,” said Mrs. Brock, “of course it’s your ain to do what ye like wi’t – and ye see there’s John Tamson, he began to build a twa story house, down by the back end o’ the toun – and he’s broke. Its nae wonder – his wife wearing silk gowns, and gowd earrings ilka day, less wadna ser her, and her was only a ewemilker fræ the Lammermuir! Sae George thinks we micht maybe buy John Tamson’s house – its stickit in the building e’enow, but we could sune hae it begun again; and maybe since ye’ll no sell yours, ye wad hae nae objection to quit us at Martinmas.”

“I shall be very glad,” said Christian. “I expect friends home who have been long absent, and this house is not pleasant to me. I will be glad to release you when you choose.”

Mrs. Brock was satisfied; and after various other attempts at conversation, in which Anne bore the brunt as well as she could, and did all in her power to prevent their visitor from recurring to the death of Patrick, Mrs. Brock at last intimated, “that she bid to be thinking o’ gaun hame – though it was an awfu’ hot stourie day, and she was bye ordinary tired.”

Roused by this hint, Anne hastened to bring a glass of wine, and at last their visitor departed.

“So there will be time to restore all,” said Christian, as Mrs. Brock left the house. “It is well, I will have a pleasure in it. It is the first time I have said that word since yon June day! Do I look like a woman dead? Is there something in my voice, and face, that speaks of death?”

“Christian,” said Anne in alarm, “why do you ask that?”

“Because I feel it, Anne – a dead unnatural calm, like the stillness of the Firth before yon storm – not peace but death; I feel it in myself. When I go about, I think I can hear no sound of my footsteps; when I breathe, I think the air seems to cleave before me; when I speak, the voice has a dull, cold modulation, that is not human. I can think of them all – of Patrick in his agony – of myself so short a time ago, as feverish shadows – I feel this calm oppress and envelop me like a shroud – I feel like one dead.”

“This should not be, Christian,” said Anne, “it is but the reaction of stillness after all your labor and watching. How much have you to live for!”

“I have no further work,” said Christian Lillie, in her old composure of melancholy, “no further watching – no one now to care and labor for. You do not know my life; when I was a girl, in the days when others are gay and light of heart, beloved, and served, and cared for, I was fighting with a household shame and sin – a miserable, sensual, earthly sin, in the one man to whom I should have looked up for support and guidance: striving to hide it – to keep it from the knowledge of the bairns – the two that were depending more upon me, their sister, than upon him their father; striving, too, with weary cares of poverty, to keep them from want – real want and not mere meagreness. From that a death relieved me – and then, with only eighteen years over my head, I was left the mother of these two; to protect, and defend, and bring them up, the only near kindred they had in the world. Since then my hands have been full – there has been no lack of vigils or labors in this past life of mine. Now it is over; I have carried Patrick safely to his grave, and seen him laid down there in sorrow and in hope; and now Marion will come again to a bright household in joy and honor. Do you marvel that I think my work over? – the need of me in this world past.”

“I do not marvel,” said Anne, “but I wish that it should be otherwise, Christian. I would not have your sky overcast with this dull calm; I would have it free to receive God’s sunshine; the light he sends upon it, in the evening time.”

“God forbid,” said Christian Lillie rising, and pressing her hands painfully to her breast, “God forbid that I should hide my head, from His mercy of joy; God forbid that I should shut my eyes to His sunshine, or sin His mercies; only I am blinded with this cold calm, and my heart is dead within me. When I am in my own house, bring the child to me – Marion’s bairn, that he called by our unhappy name; and come yourself, my sister Anne, that I may begin to live again. Till then, in my own fashion let me rest.”

And so they arranged. At the term of Martinmas, or sooner, if John Tamson’s house, the newly-acquired property of George Brock, should be sooner completed – whenever Christian had regained possession of the old home cottage, Anne was to visit her with Lilie. At present, all was done for her that affectionate care could do, and on the next day Anne left Aberford.

When in the evening she entered Mrs. Catherine’s Edinburgh drawing-room, in its stately pride of olden furniture, gracefully not stiffly antique, she found James Aytoun and his mother waiting to meet her. Mrs. Aytoun gave her a tremulous welcome, which was half an embrace, and would have been wholly one, had Mrs. Aytoun been at all a demonstrative person. James shook hands with her with respectful kindness and friendship. The good opinion of such a mother and son was worth having. Anne felt enlivened and exhilarated.

“Alice has gone out,” said Mrs. Aytoun: “she will be with us very soon again. They were to watch for your coming, but I fear these young people become engrossed in their own matters sometimes.”

“They?” said Anne.

“Ay, she has a gallant with her you have seen before,” said Mrs. Catherine, “be patient – you will find out who he is before long.”

“Is it Lewis? – is Lewis here?” asked Anne.

“Mrs. Catherine wishes to take Alice from us again,” said Mrs. Aytoun. “I am afraid, Miss Ross, I can hardly thank you for the barrier you have removed. Alice is so young – little more than a child yet.”

James Aytoun took up a book, and went away smilingly to a window. He saw that a consultation matrimonial and maternal was impending.

“I do think she is too young. I do not approve of too early marriages,” said Mrs. Aytoun, shaking her head. “Why, many girls are but leaving school at Alice’s age – she is not quite eighteen yet.”

“She is in no peril,” said Mrs. Catherine. “It’s my hope, kinswoman, that you do not think you are sending her into a savage country, where there will be but barbarous people to show kindness to the bairn. There is no fear of her – I warrant her in as careful hands, when she is in Lewis’s, as she could be under the shadow of my very sel; I would not just have advised you to wed her – a bairn as she undoubtedly is – to the like of Archie Sutherland; but she is in no peril with Lewis.”

The slightest possible additional color wavered over Anne’s face. She did by no means perceive any connexion, logical or otherwise, between the marriage of little Alice Aytoun and Archie Sutherland.

“I am not afraid for her,” said Mrs. Aytoun: “it is not peril that I mean; but so young a girl entering upon the care of a house – the management of a family – besides the pain of losing her. If it had not been for your mother’s presence, and your own, Miss Ross, I should never have consented – at her age.”

Mrs. Aytoun expressed something of what she felt, but not all. She did not like the idea of Alice entering another family, not as its mistress, but as a younger daughter. She felt sure of Anne; but Alice was by no means so exuberant in her praise of Mrs. Ross.

“I do not know what arrangement my mother may make,” said Anne, “but, of course, whether we remain in Merkland or not, it must make a very great, and a very pleasant change to us.”

Mrs. Aytoun smiled a dubious smile – she was not reconciled to it. In any way, parting with the girl-daughter was a great venture, but to send her into the rule of a husband’s mother, while even the husband himself was comparatively unknown! Mrs. Aytoun was jealous and afraid for her little clinging Alice, whose life hitherto had been so carefully guarded.

“And so you are demurring to the lad’s petition?” said Mrs. Catherine. “Well, I do not marvel; but a month or two can make little odds, and you bid to have parted with her soon or syne.”

“Certainly, that is a consolation,” said Mrs. Aytoun, with her faint smile. “It is selfish of me, I am afraid, to be so loath to think of parting with Alice; and part I must one time or other, that is true, but still – a little longer, I think, she may be left to me. Your brother has been pressing an early time upon us, Miss Ross. I do not object that he should wish it – but you must do us the kindness to help me in deferring this a little.”

“I believe,” said Anne, “that my brother Norman may be home – that we may expect him at the end of the year. I should like exceedingly that he could be present – that it were deferred until that time.”

Mrs. Aytoun pressed her hand gratefully – Alice, radiant with smiles and blushes, looked in at the door. “Oh! Anne is here – she has come,” she exclaimed as she ran to Anne’s side – Lewis was behind her.

“So my mother has been bringing you over to our side,” said James Aytoun, when the evening was considerably advanced, as he took a seat near Anne. “Mrs. Catherine is wavering. I fear to find her throw her mighty forces into alliance with the active, serviceable, energetic troops whom Lewis himself brings into the field. We are by no means pleased to have our little Alice carried off from us so rapidly. I begin to fear Mrs. Catherine is anything but a safe guardian for young ladies; I certainly shall not advise any client of mine to send favorite daughters or sisters to the Tower, if he wants to keep them out of harm’s way.”

“What is that you say?” said Mrs. Catherine, “do you make light of my good name, James Aytoun? and do you, Anne, sit still and hear? you are an irreverent generation! Never you heed, Alison. It is because you are overlooking the rule of Laban, the son of Bethuel, and cheating him of his elder right.”

“If you will come to Merkland, James,” said Lewis, “I will say a good word for you to Marjory Falconer. By the bye, I forgot my great news – have you heard about Marjory, Anne?”

“What about her?”

“In the first place, she has made a silent recantation – if one may guess from appearances. A hint of Walter Foreman’s the other day, about the rights of women, instead of setting her off at a tangent, as such a thing used to do, threw her into an agony of blushing, and made her dumb. That is great enough for one report; but I have another. Marjory Falconer – listen to me all who know Strathoran – Marjory Falconer is about to be married!”

“To be married!” echoed little Alice, with a look of laughing wonder and dismay. These two, Lewis and his betrothed, had not got the slightest glimpse of Marjory Falconer yet, well though they fancied they knew her; Anne looked slightly puzzled, and a little anxious: Mrs. Catherine smiled.

“Who is it? who is it?” cried little Alice.

“Anne can guess,” said Lewis: “I see his name upon her lips. It seems my news is no such wonder, after all.”

“Who is she going to marry, Lewis?” asked Anne, hastily, “it is rather a wish than a guess with me. Marjory does not give confidences of that kind – is it Mr. Lumsden?”

“May all your wishes, sister Anne,” said Lewis, with mock gravity, “be as fully realized. It is the mighty minister of Portoran. Ralph, they say, rebelled, and had a swearing fit when he heard of it, which Marjory promptly checked, however, and sent him down stairs to the congenial society of his horses and grooms. It will be a serious matter for Ralph though, for Marjory, with all her whims, kept things going at Falcon’s Craig.”

“I am very glad to hear it,” said Anne. “It is one of the few marriages that have no drawback; one can feel that Marjory, with her strength and good sense, is safe now, in a pure healthful atmosphere, where she will grow and flourish. I am very glad.”

Lewis and Alice exchanged glances and laughed.

“Lewis,” said Mrs. Catherine, “hold your peace. It becomes the like of you – gallants that have a while to grow before they reach their full stature – to take heed that you meddle only with things within your power of vision. Ay! you are lowering your bit forehead on me, Alison Aytoun; but truly, after all, there are wiser men in this world, to my own certain knowledge, than this gallant that calls himself of Merkland.”

“But Miss Falconer figures very largely in Alice’s reminiscences,” said James, smiling. “To whom shall I apply for an account of her? to you, Mrs. Catherine, or to Lewis.”

“I bid you come yourself and see, James Aytoun,” said Mrs. Catherine. “As for Lewis, he does not know, and therefore it is not likely he can tell; but truly, I think you would be better employed telling my Anne, whom you have set yourself beside, the issue of the plea, that Robert Ferguson and you have been working at so long.”

James obeyed: with signal disgrace and utter discomfiture, Lord Gillravidge’s defence had been overpowered. The road through the Strathoran grounds, by the omnipotent voice of the Court of Session, was proclaimed free as the sunshine to all and sundry, its natural proprietors and heirs. Henceforward the pulling down of barricades was a legal and proper enforcement of the law, and the erection of the same entirely useless, for any other purpose than that of keeping the well-disposed lads of Strathoran in glee and mischief. Mrs. Catherine was victorious, and triumphed moderately in her victory.

“If it were not that I hope in my lifetime to see Archie Sutherland back to his own lands, I would hazard a trial with that English alien, of his title to take their old inheritance from the clansmen whose right it is. You shake your head, James Aytoun – I will uphold it in the face of a whole synod as learned in the law as yourself, that the clansman has the same natural right of possession as his chief; that it comes to him by the same inheritance; that in no way is the laird more certain in his tenure than the humble man, except in so far as he is chief of both land and men, natural protector, ruler and guardian of the same. You forget the ancient right and justice in this drifting unsettled generation. If it were not that you pleaders of the law, have a necessity of spinning out the line of a plea, past the extremity of mortal life, and I hope to see Archie home within the course of mine, I would see that this was tried without delay, let the whole parliament-house of you shake the heads of your wisdom if ye likit.”