The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish Story

This story, which Mrs. Livingstone told with reluctance, and, in fact, did not tell half of, was, though the youths did not know it, the story of the very bitterest portion of their mother’s life. The Mistress never told, either to them or to any one else, how, roused in her honest love and wifely sincerity into sympathy with her husband’s generous efforts to preserve her own inheritance to his runaway cousin, she had very soon good reason to be sick of the very name of Mary of Me’mar; how she found out that, after years long of her faithful, warm-hearted, affectionate society, after the birth of children and consecration of time, after all the unfailing courage and exertions, by which her stout spirit had done much to set him right in the world, and, above all, in spite of the unfeigned and undivided love of a full heart like her own, the visionary heart of her husband had all this time been hankering after his first love.

Without preparation, and without softening, the Mistress found this out. He would not advantage his own family at the cost of Mary; he would seek for Mary through the whole world. These had been the words of Norlaw, ten years after Mary of Melmar’s disappearance, and even years after he had become the father of Huntley. The unsuspecting wife thought no harm; then he went and came for a whole year seeking for his cousin; and during that time, left alone day after day, and month after month, the mistress of Norlaw found out the secret. It was a hard thing for her, with her strong personality and burning individual heart, to bear; but she did bear it with an indignant heroism, never saying a word to mortal ear. He himself never knew that she had discovered his prior love, or resented it. She would have scorned herself could she have reproached him or even made him conscious of her own feelings. Good fortune and strong affection at the bottom happily kept contempt out of the Mistress’s indignation; but her heart continued sore for years with the discovery—sore, mortified, humiliated. To think that all her wifely, faithful regard had clung unwittingly to a man who, professing to cherish her, followed, with a wandering heart, a girl who had run away from him years before to be another man’s wife! The Mistress had borne it steadily and soberly, so that no one knew of her discovery, but she had never got beyond this abiding mortification and injury; and it was not much wonder that she started with a sudden burst of exasperated feeling, when Cosmo, her own son, echoed his father’s foolish words. Her youngest boy, her favorite and last nursling, the one bird that was to be left in the nest, could stir to this same mad search, when he had not yet ambition enough to stir for his own fortune. It was the last drop which made all this bitterness run over. No wonder that the Mistress lost command of herself for once, and going up to her own room in a gust of aggravated and angry emotions, thrust Cosmo away from her, and cried, “Am I to bring up sons for her service?” in the indignation of her heart.

Yes, it was a very pretty story for romance. The young girl running away, “all for love"—the faithful forsaken lover thinking of her in secret—rising up to defend her rights after ten long years—eagerly searching for her—and, with a jealous tenderness, refusing to do any thing which might compromise her title, while he alone still fondly believed in her return. A very pretty story, with love, and nothing else, for its theme. Yet, unfortunately, these pretty stories have a dark enough aspect often on the other side; and the Mistress, mortified, silent, indignant, cheated in her own perfect confidence and honest tenderness, when you saw her behind the scenes of the other pretty picture, took a great deal of the beauty out of that first-love and romantic constancy of Norlaw.

When Mrs. Livingstone went to her room, the sons, vexed and troubled, were a long time silent. Cosmo withdrew into a corner, and leaned his head on his mother’s little table. He, too, was deeply mortified, and could not keep back the hot boyish tears from his eyes—he felt himself set aside like a child—he felt the shame of a sensitive temperament at perceiving how greatly his mother was disturbed. Somehow she seemed to have betrayed herself, and Cosmo, jealous for her perfect honor, was uneasy and abashed at this disturbance of it; while still his heart, young, eager, inexperienced, loving romance, secretly longed to hear more of this mystery, and secretly repeated his determination. Huntley, who was pacing up and down the room, lifting and replacing every thing in his way which could be lifted, was simply confounded and thunderstruck, which emotions Patie shared with his elder brother. Patie, however, was the most practical of the three, and it was he who first broke the silence.

“Somehow or other this vexes my mother,” said Patie; “let us ask her no more questions about it; but, Huntley, you ought to know all the hiding-holes about the house. You should look up this will and put it in safe hands.”

“In safe hands?—I’ll act upon it forthwith! Are we to keep terms with Melmar after all that’s past, and with power to turn him out of his seat?” cried Huntley; “no, surely; I’ll put it into hands that will carry it into effect, and that without delay.”

“They would want either this Mary, or proof that she was dead, before they would do any thing in it,” said Patie, doubtfully; “and yet it’s a shame!”

“She is not dead!” interrupted Cosmo; “why my mother should be angry, I can’t tell; but I’ll find out Mary of Melmar, I know I shall, though it should be twenty years!”

“Be quiet, Cosmo,” said his elder brother, “and see that no one troubles my mother with another question; she does not like it, and I will not have her disturbed; but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. We know little about business, and we’re not of a patient race. Me’mar had better not come near any of us just now, unless it were you, Patie, that can master yourself. I should like to knock him down, and my mother would do worse. I’ll write to this friend of the minister’s, this writer, and put it all in his hands—it’s the best thing I can see. What do you say?”

Patie gave his assent readily; Cosmo did not say any thing. The boy began to feel his youth somewhat bitterly, and to think that they did not care for his opinion; so he went out, and swung himself up by an old elm tree into one of the vacant windows of the castle, a favorite seat of Cosmo, where, among the cool ivy, and hidden by the deep recess of the thick old wall, he could see the sunset, and watch how the shadows stole over the earth. The Eildons were at his right hand, paling gradually out of their royal purple against the pale sky in the east, and the last long rays of the sunset, too low to reach them, fell golden-yellow upon Tyne, and shed a pathetic light on the soft green bank before the door of Norlaw. The common sounds of life were not so subdued now about this lonely house; even the cackle of poultry and bark of dogs seemed louder since the shutters were opened and the curtains drawn back—and Marget went firmly forth upon her errands to the byre, and the hush and stealth of mourning had left the place already. Who would not escape somewhere into some personal refuge out of the oppressive shadow of grief, while youth remains to make that possible? Huntley had been startled to feel that there was such an escape for himself when Katie Logan took his hand in the fullness of her sympathy—and Huntley and Patie together were seeking a similar ease now in discussing the plans of their future life together. Cosmo was only a boy; he had no plans yet which could be called plans—and he was too young to be moved by the hand or the voice of any woman. So he sat among the ivy in the ledge of the deep old window, with his head uncovered, his fair hair falling over his long white hands, and those dark liquid eyes of his gazing forth upon as fair a landscape as ever entered into the dream of a poet.

If Cosmo was a poet he was not aware of it; yet his heart was easing itself after his fashion. He was too young to apprehend the position of his mother, and how it broke into the superficial romance of his father’s life. He thought only of Mary of Melmar, of the girl, beautiful, young, and unfortunate, who ran away “for love,” and had literally left all for her husband’s sake; he thought of displacing his father’s enemy and restoring his father’s first love to her rights. In imagination he pursued her through all the storied countries to which a young fancy naturally turns. He saw himself delivering her out of dangers, suddenly appearing when she was in peril or poverty, dispersing her enemies like a champion of chivalry, and bringing her home in triumph. This was how, while his brothers comforted themselves with an earnest discussion of possibilities, and while his mother, differing from them as age differs from youth—and as personal bereavement, which nothing can ever make up, and which changes the whole current of a life, differs from a natural removal and separation—returned into the depths of the past and lived them over again—this is how Cosmo made his first personal escape out of his first grief.

CHAPTER XIII

“Oh! Patricia! Sinclair has been telling me such a story,” cried a young girl, suddenly rushing upon another, in a narrow winding road through the woods which clothed a steep bank of Tyne; at this spot, for one exclusive mile, the rapid little river was “private property,” the embellishment of a gentleman’s grounds—shut out from vulgar admiration. Tyne, indifferent alike to admiration and exclusivism, was not less happy on that account; but foamed over his stony channel as brisk, as brown, and as clear, as when he ran in unrestricted freedom by the old castle walls of Norlaw. The path was slippery and irregular with great roots of trees, and one or two brooks, unseen, trickled down the brae below the underwood, only detected by the slender, half visible rivulet on the path which you had to step across, or the homely plank half penetrated by water, which bridged over Tyne’s invisible tributary. They did not appear, these fairy springs, but they added each a tingle, like so many harp strings, to the many sounds of Nature. Through this winding road, or rather upon it, for she was not going anywhere, the elder of these two interlocutors had been for some time wandering. She was a delicate looking girl of seventeen, with blue eyes and pale golden hair, rather pretty, but very slight, and evidently not in strong health. The sudden plunge down upon her, which her younger sister made from the top of the brae, took away Patricia’s breath, and made her drop the book which she had been reading. This was no very great matter, for the book was rather an indifferent production, being one of those books of poetry which one reads at seventeen, and never after—but it was rather more important that the color came violently into her pale cheek, and she clasped her hands upon her side, with a gasp which terrified the young hoiden.

“Oh, I forgot!” she cried, in sympathy, as eager as her onslaught had been. “Oh! have I hurt you? I did not mean it, you know.”

“No, Joanna,” said Patricia, faintly, “but you forget my nerves always—you never had any yourself.”

Which was perfectly true, and not to be denied. These two, Patricia and Joanna Huntley, were the only daughters of their father’s house—the only children, indeed, save one son, who was abroad. There were not many feminine family names in this branch of the house of Huntley, and invention in this matter being very sparely exercised in these parts, it came about that the girls were called after their uncles, and that the third girl, had there been such an unlucky little individual, following in the track of her sisters, would have turned out Jemima or Robina, according as the balance rose in favor of her father’s brother or her mother’s. Fortunately, Joanna was the last fruit of the household tree, which had blossomed sparely. She was only fifteen, tall, strong, red haired, and full of vigor—the greatest contrast imaginable to her pretty pale sister, whom Joanna devoutly believed in as a beauty, but secretly did somewhat grieve over as a fool. The younger sister was not in the least pretty, and knew it, but she was clever, and Joanna knew that also, which made an agreeable counterpoise. She was extremely honest, downright and straightforward, speaking the truth with less elegance than force, but speaking it always; and on the whole was a good girl, though not always a very pleasant one. At this present moment she was flushed, breathless, and eager, having run all the way from the house with something to tell. But Patricia’s “nerves” could not bear the sudden announcement, though that delicate young lady loved a piece of news fully as well as her sister. Joanna, therefore, stood still, making hasty and awkward apologies, and eager to do something to amend her mistake, while her delicate companion recovered breath. There was something more than nerves in the young lady’s discomposure. She was feeble by nature, the invalid of the family, which Joanna, knowing no sympathetic ailment in her own vigorous person, sometimes had the ill luck to forget.

“And my poor book!” said poor Patricia, picking up the unfortunate volume, which lay fluttering with open leaves on the very edge of that tiny current trickling over the brown path, which, save that it moved and caught an occasional sparkle of light, you could not have distinguished to be a burn. “Oh, Joanna, you are so thoughtless! what was all this haste about?”

“Oh, such a story!” cried Joanna, eagerly. “It’s easy to speak about nerves—but when I heard it I could have run to papa and given him a good shake—I could! and he deserved it! for they say it was all his blame.”

“I should like to hear what it was,” said Patricia, with an exasperating and intolerable meekness, which usually quite overpowered the patience of her sister.

But Joanna was too much interested in the present instance.

“It was Mr. Livingstone of Norlaw,” she said, sinking her voice; “he’s dead, and his funeral was stopped because he was in debt, and it was papa that did it—and the three boys got up at midnight and carried him on their shoulders, with torches in their hands, to Dryburgh, and buried him there. Sinclair says it’s true, every word; and I don’t know whether Huntley did not swim over Tweed to get the boat. Oh, Patricia! I feel as if I could both greet and cry hurra, if I were to see them; and as for papa, he deserves—I don’t know what he does not deserve!”

“I wish you would talk like a lady, Joanna,” said her sister, without taking any notice of this unfilial sentiment; “greet! you could just as well say cry, or weep, for that matter—and it’s only common people that say Tweed, as if they meant a person instead of a river; why don’t you say the Tweed, as people of education say?”

“He’s the truest person I know,” cried Joanna. “Tweed and Tyne! you may say that they’re just streams of water, if you like, but they’re more to me; but the question is papa—I knew he was ill enough and hard-hearted, but I never, never thought he could have been so bad as that—and I mean to go this very moment and ask him how it was.”

“I suppose papa knows better than we do,” said Patricia, with a slight sigh; “but I wish he would not do things that make people talk. It is very annoying. I dare say everybody will know about this soon, if it’s true. If it was all himself it would not so much matter, and you never go out anywhere, Joanna, so you don’t feel it—but is very unpleasant to mamma and me.”

“I was not thinking of either mamma or you; I was thinking of the Livingstones,” cried Joanna, with a flush of shame on her cheeks; “and I mean to go in this very instant, and ask him what it means.”

So saying, the impetuous girl rushed up the path, slowly followed by Patricia. It was one of the loveliest bits of woodland on the whole course of Tyne. Mosses and wild flowers, and the daintiest ferns known to Scotland, peeped out of every hollow—and overhead and around, stretching down half way across the river, and thrusting out, with Nature’s rare faculty of composition, their most graceful curves of foliage against the sky, were trees, not too great or ancient to overshadow the younger growth; trees of all descriptions, birches and beeches and willows, the white-limbed ash, with its green bunches of fruit, and the tender lime, with its honey blossoms. You could have almost counted every separate flash of sunshine which burned through the leaves, misty with motes and dazzling bright with that limitation; and yet the shadow overhead trembled and fluctuated with such a constant interchange, that the spot which was in shade one moment was in the brightest light the very next. The light gleamed in Joanna’s red hair, as she plunged along in her impetuous way towards the house, and fell in touches here and there upon the graceful little figure of her sister, in her close cottage bonnet and muslin gown, as Patricia came softly over the same road, book in hand. But we are bound to confess that neither of the two, perfectly accustomed and familiar as they were, found a moment’s leisure among their other thoughts to pause upon this scene; they went towards the house, the one after the other—Patricia with a due regard to decorum as well as to her nerves and feebleness of frame—Joanna totally without regard for either the one or the other; and both occupied, to the entire neglect of every thing else, with thoughts of their own.

The house of Melmar was placed upon a level platform of land, of a considerably lower altitude than this brae. Pausing to look at it, as neither Joanna nor Patricia did, on the rustic bridge which crossed the Tyne, and led from this woodland path into the smooth lawn and properly arranged trees of “the private grounds,” Melmar appeared only a large square house, pretentious, yet homely, built entirely for living in, and not for looking at. If Nature, with her trees, and grass, and bits of garden land, softening the angles and filling in the gaps, had done her best to make it seemly, the house was completely innocent of aiding in any such attempt. Yet, by sheer dint of persistence, having stood there for at least a hundred years, long enough to have patches of lichen here and there upon its walls, Melmar had gained that look of steadiness and security, and of belonging to the soil, which harmonizes even an ugly feature in a landscape. The door, which was sheltered by a little portico, with four tall pillars, in reality stone, but looking considerably like plaster, opened from without after the innocent fashion of the country. Running across the lawn, Joanna opened the door and plunged in, without further ado, into her father’s study, which was at the end of a long passage looking out upon the other side of the house. He was not there—so the girl came rushing back again to the drawing-room, the door of which stood open, and once more encountering her sister there, did her best to disturb the delicate nerves a second time, and throw Patricia out of breath.

This papa, whom Joanna had no hesitation about bearding in his own den, could not surely be such an ogre after all. He was not an ogre. You could not have supposed, to look at him, that any exaltation of enmity, any heroic sentiment of revenge, could lodge within the breast of Mr. Huntley, of Melmar. He was a tall man, with a high, narrow head, and reddish grizzled hair. A man with plenty of forehead, making up in height for its want of breadth. He was rather jovial than otherwise in his manner, and carried about with him a little atmosphere of his own, a whiff of two distinct odors, not unusual attendants of elderly Scotsmen, twenty years ago, reminiscences of toddy and rappee. He looked around with a smile at the vehement entrance of Joanna. He permitted all kinds of rudenesses on the part of this girl, and took a certain pleasure in them. He was not in the slightest degree an exacting or punctilious father; but not all his indulgence, nor the practical jokes, banter, and teasing, which he administered to all children, his own, among the rest, when they were young enough—had secured him either fondness or respect at their hands. They got on very well on the whole. Patricia pouted at him, and Joanna took him to task roundly when they differed in opinion—but the affection they gave him was an affection of habit, and nothing more.

“I’ve come to speak to you, papa,” cried Joanna. “I’ve just been hearing the whole story, every word—and oh, I think shame of you!—it’s a disgrace, it’s a sin—I wonder you dare look any of us in the face again!”

“Eh? what’s all this?” said Melmar; “Joan in one of her tantrums already? Three times in a day! that’s scarcely canny—I’ll have to speak to your aunt Jean.”

“Oh, papa!” cried Joanna, indignantly, “it’s no fun—who do you think would carry you to Dryburgh if somebody stopped your funeral? not one! You would have to stay here in your coffin and never be buried—and I wouldna be sorry! You would deserve it, and nothing better—oh, I think shame on you!”

“What? in my coffin? that’s a long look beforehand,” said Melmar. “You may have time to think shame of me often enough before that time, Joan; but let’s hear what’s all this about Dryburgh and a funeral—who’s been here?”

“Sinclair was here,” cried Joanna, “and he heard it all at Kirkbride—every word—and he says you had better not be seen there, after all you’ve done at Norlaw.”

“I am sure, papa, it’s very hard,” said Patricia. “You set everybody talking, and then people look strange at us. Mamma knows they do; and I could cry when I think that we’re going out to-morrow, and it would have been such a nice party. But now everybody knows about this, and nobody will speak to us—it’s too bad of you, papa.”

“What is it, my darling?” cried Mrs. Huntley, from her easy chair.

“Eh, fat’s this?” said Aunt Jean, wheeling round upon hers.

A popular commotion was rising; Melmar saw the premonitory tokens, and made his escape accordingly.

“Joan,” he said, pulling her ear as he passed her, “you’re an impudent monkey; but you may spare your wrath about Norlaw—I knew as little as you did that the man was dead—however, he is dead, and I don’t break my heart; but you can tell Sinclair I’ll tell him a word of my mind the next time I’m near Kirkbride.”

“Sinclair doesna care!” said Joanna; but Melmar pulled a thick curl of her red hair, and betook himself to his study, leaving the rising gust of questions to wear itself out as it might.

CHAPTER XIV

The drawing-room of Melmar was a large room tolerably well furnished. Three long windows on one side of the apartment looked out upon the lawn before the house, carefully avoiding the view “up Tyne,” which a little management might have made visible. The fire-place was at the upper end of the room, sparkling coldly with polished steel and brass, and decorated with a very elaborate construction of cut paper. The chairs were all covered with chintz in a large-flowered pattern, red and green—chintz which did not fit on well, and looked creasy and disorderly. A large crumb-cloth, spread over the bright-colored carpet, had the same disadvantage; one corner of it was constantly loose, folding up under the chairs and tripping unwary passengers. There was a round rose-wood table, sparely covered with books and ornaments, and another oblong one with a cover on it, which was meant for use.

By this last sat Mrs. Huntley, with some knitting in her lap, reclining in a cushioned chair, with her feet upon a high footstool. She was pale, with faint pink cheeks, and small, delicate features, a woman who had, to use her own expression, “enjoyed very bad health” all her life. She had very little character, not much animation, nothing very good nor very bad about her. It would scarcely have been true even to say that she loved her children; she was fond of them—particularly of Patricia—gave them a great many caresses and sweetmeats while they were young enough, and afterwards let them have their own will without restraint; but there did not seem enough of active life in her to deserve the title of any active sentiment. She was deeply learned in physic and invalid dietry, and liked to be petted and attended, to come down stairs at twelve o’clock, to lie on the sofa, to be led out for a little walk, carefully adapted to her weakness, and to receive all the little attentions proper to an invalid. Her exclusive pretensions in this respect had, it is true, been rather infringed upon of late years by Patricia, who sometimes threatened to be a more serious invalid than her mother, and who certainly assumed the character with almost equal satisfaction. However, Patricia was pretty well at the present moment, and Mrs. Huntley, supported by her maid, had only about half an hour ago come down stairs. She had a glass of toast-and-water on the table beside her, a smelling-bottle, an orange cut into quarters upon a china plate, a newspaper within reach of her hand, and her knitting in her lap. We beg Mrs. Huntley’s pardon, it was not knitting, but netting—her industry consisted in making strange, shapeless caps, bags, and window-curtains, which became excessively yellow after they were washed, and were of no use to any creature; for the refined art of crotchet was not then invented, nor had fancy-work reached that perfection which belongs to it now.

In an arm-chair by one of the windows sat a very different person—an old woman, black-eyed, white-haired, wearing an old-fashioned black dress, with a snowy white muslin handkerchief pinned down to her waist in front and behind—a large muslin apron of the same spotless complexion, a cap of clear cambric trimmed with rich old-fashioned lace, and bound round with a broad black ribbon, which was tied in a bow on the top of her head. This was a relative of Mrs. Huntley, known as Aunt Jean in the house of Melmar. She was the last survivor of her family, and had a little annuity, just enough to keep her muslin kerchiefs and aprons and old-fashioned caps from wearing out. She was quite kindly used in this house where nobody paid any particular regard to her, but where long ago it had seemed very good fun to Melmar himself to get up a little delusion on the score of Aunt Jean’s wealth, which, according to the inventor of it, was to be bequeathed to his daughter Joanna. This was a favorite joke of the head of the house; he was never tired of referring to Aunt Jean’s fortune, or threatening Joanna with the chance of forfeiting it, which delicate and exquisite piece of fun was always followed by a loud laugh, equally delicate and characteristic. Aunt Jean, however, fortunately, was deaf, and never quite understood the wit of her nephew-in-law; she stuck quietly to her corner, made rather a pet of Joanna, persisted in horrifying Patricia by her dress and her dialect, which breathed somewhat strongly of Aberdeenshire, and by dint of keeping “thretty pennies,” as she said, in the corner of her old-fashioned leather purse—pennies which were like the oil in the widow’s cruse, often spent, yet always existing—and in her drawers in her own room an unfailing store of lace, and muslins, and ribbons, old dresses, quaint examples of forgotten fashion, and pieces of rich stuff, such as girls love to turn over and speculate on possible uses for—kept up an extensive popularity. Aunt Jean was not in the very slightest degree an invalid—the tap of her little foot, which wore high-heeled shoes, was almost the smartest in the house. She sat in winter by the fire, in summer by one of the windows, knitting endless pairs of stockings, mits, and those shapeless little gloves, with a separate stall for the thumb, and one little bag for all the fingers, in which the hapless hands of babies are wont to be imprisoned. It was from an occupation of this kind that Aunt Jean turned, when the din of Joanna’s accusation penetrated faintly into her ears.

“Eh, fat’s that?” said Aunt Jean; it was something about a debt and a funeral, two things which were not particularly likely to interest Joanna. Something remarkably out of the usual course must have happened, and the old lady had all the likings of an old woman in the country. Gossip was sweet to her soul.

“Oh, mamma, so vexatious!” cried Patricia, in a voice which could not by any possibility reach the ears of Aunt Jean; “papa has been doing something to Mr. Livingstone, of Norlaw—he’s dead, and there’s been something done that looks cruel—oh! I’m sure I don’t know exactly what it is—Joanna knows;—but only think how the people will look at us to-morrow night.”

“Perhaps I may not be able to go, my dear,” said Mrs. Huntley, with a sigh.

“Not able to go? after promising so long! mamma, that is cruel!” cried Patricia; “but nobody cares for me. I never have what other people have. I am to be shut up in this miserable prison of a place all my life—not able to go! Oh, mamma! but you’ll all be sorry when there’s no poor Patricia to be shut up and made a victim of any more!”

“I do think you’re very unreasonable, Patricia,” said Mrs. Huntley; “I’ve gone out three times this last month to please you—a great sacrifice for a person in my weak health—and Dr. Tait does not think late hours proper for you; besides, if there is any thing disagreeable about your papa, as you say, I really don’t think my nerves could stand it.”

“Fat’s all this about?” said Aunt Jean; “you ken just as well as me that I canna hear a word of fat you’re saying. Joan, my bairn, come you here—fa’s dun wrang? Fat’s happened? Eh! there’s Patricia ta’en to the tears—fat’s wrang?”

Nothing loth, Joanna rushed forward, and shouted her story into the old woman’s ears. It was received with great curiosity and interest by the new hearers. Aunt Jean lifted up her hands in dismay, shook her head, made all the telegraphic signs with eye and mouth which are common to people restrained from full communication with their companions. Mrs. Huntley, too, was roused.