The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 63, January, 1863

Angus caught me on the instant, crushed the burning things with his fingers, had his coat round me, had all drenched in the water that the governess had raced after, and then I knew no more.

So the women put me to bed, while Angus brought the surgeon; then they forbade him the room, and attended to my wants; but all night long he paced the halls and heard my moans, and by daybreak I was stupefied. He waited a week, but they would not suffer him to see me, and then his leave of absence had expired.

One night I woke; I felt that the room was darkly rich with the star-lighted gloom, but I could see nothing, for all the soft, cool linen folds; and lying there half-conscious for a time, I seemed to feel some presence in the door-way there.

"Angus, is that you?" I asked.

"Oh, Ailie darling!" he cried, and came forward and fell on his knees by my side, and covered my hands with his tears.

"Poor Angus!" I said, in my muffled way, and I tried half to rise, and I was drawing away a hand that I might dash the tears off his face.

Then of a sudden it came over me in one great torrid flush, and I fell back without a word.

But at the moment, the little gray governess came in again from her errand, and he went. 'T was no use his waiting, though he lingered still a day or two in hopes to see me; but my head was still on my pillow. His time was more than up, he must to the ship, so he left me store of messages and flowers and glass-bred grapes, and was off.

Time wore away, I got about again, and all was as before, long ere the girls came back, or Miss Dunreddin. I went near no moors, I looked no more out of my window, I only sat on the stool by my bedside and kept my face hid in the valances; and the little gray governess would sit beside me and cheer me, and tell me it was not so bad when all was said, and beauty was but little worth, and years would efface much, that my hair was still as dark and soft, my eyes as shining, my–But all to what use? Where had flown the old Strathsay red from my cheek, where that smooth polish of brow, where–I, who had aye been the flower of the race, the pride of the name, could not now bide to brook my own glance in the glass.

But the worst of it all would be, I thought,—not recking the worse to come,—when the girls flocked back. How I dreaded it, how I sought to escape their mock and go home, poor fool! but the little gray governess saw them all first, I must believe, for there was not a quip or a look askance, and they treated me as bairns treat a lamb that has tint its mother. And so seeing I had lost my fair skin, I put myself to gain other things in its place, and worked hard at my stents, at my music, my books. I grew accustomed to things, and would forget there had been a change, and, being young, failed to miss the being bonny; and if I did not miss it, who should? and they all were so kind, that the last year of school was the happiest of the whole. Thus the time drew near my eighteenth summer, and Miss Dunreddin had heard of a ship bound our way from Glasgow, and we were to leave the town with all its rare old histories, and speed through nights and days of seafaring to St. Anne's by the water-side, to the old stone house with its windows overhanging the River of the Cross.

So the old brig slid lazily up the river, beneath the high and beauteous banks, and as between the puffs of wind we lay there in the mid-channel, the mate,—a dark, hawk-eyed man, at whom Effie liked well to toss a merry mock, and with whom, sometimes stealing up, she would pace the deck in hours of fair weather,—a man whose face was like a rock that once was smitten with sunshine, never since,—a sad man, with a wrathful lip even when he spoke us fair,—the mate handed me his glass and bade me look, while he went to the side and bent over there with Effie, gazing down into the sun-brown, idle current. And I pointed it,—and surely that was the old stone gable in its woodbines,—and surely, as we crept nearer, the broad bower-window opened before me,—and surely a lady sat there, a haughty woman with the clustered curls on her temple, her needle poised above the lace-work in the frame, and she gazing dreamily out, out at the water, the woods, the one ship wafting slowly up,—shrouds that had been filled with the airs of half a hemisphere, hull that had ere now been soaked in spicy suns and summers,—and all the glad tears gushed over my eyes and darkened me from seeing. So, as I said, Mrs. Strathsay sat in her broad bower-window looking down the harbor, and a ship was coming up, and Effie and I stood on its deck, our hearts full of yearning. Mine was, at least, I know. And I could but snatch the glass up, every breathing, as we went, and look, and drop it, for it seemed as if I must fly to what it brought so near, must fly to fling my arms about the fair neck bending there, to feel the caressing finger, to have that kiss imprint my cheek once more,—so seldom her lips touched us!

They lowered us down in boats at last, the captain going ashore with us, the porters following with our luggage. The great hall-door below stood open, and the familiar servants were there to give us greeting, and we stayed but for a hand's-shake, except that my old nurse, where she caught it, wet my shawl with her sudden weeping, so that Effie had run up the stairs before me, and was in the drawing-room and was folded in the tender grasp, and had first received the welcome. A moment after, and I was among them. Mrs. Strathsay stood there under the chandelier in the sunshine, with all its showering rainbow-drops,—so straight and stately she, so superb and splendid,—her arms held out,—and I ran forward, and paused, for my veil had blown over my face, to throw it back and away,—and, with the breath, her shining blue eyes opened and filled with fire, her proud lips twisted themselves in pain, she struck her two hands together, crying out, "My God! how horrible!" and fainted.

Mrs. Strathsay was my mother. I might have fallen, too,—I might have died, it seems to me, with the sudden snap my heart gave,—but all in a word I felt Mary Strathsay's soft curls brushing about my face, and she drew it upon her white bosom, and covered the poor thing with, her kisses. Margray was bending over my mother, with the hartshorn in her hands, and I think—the Lord forgive her!—she allowed her the whole benefit of its battery, for in a minute or two Mrs. Strathsay rose, a little feeble, wavered an instant, then warned us all away and walked slowly and heavily from the place, up the stairs, and the door of her own room banged behind her and hasped like the bolt of a dungeon.

I drank the glass of wine Mary brought me, and tried hard not to sadden them, and to be a woman.

"Poor thing!" said Margray, when she'd taken off my bonnet and looked at the fashion of my frock, "but you're sorely altered. Never fret,—it's worth no tear; she counted much on your likely looks, though,—you never told us the accident took them."

"I thought you'd know, Margray."

"Oh, for sure, there's many escapes.—And this is grenadine? I'd rather have the old mohair.—Well, well, give a man luck and throw him into the sea; happen you'll do better than us all. If my mother cannot marry you as she'd choose, you'll come to less grief, I doubt." And Margray heaved a little sigh, and ran to tumble up her two-year-old from his rose-lined basket.

I went home with Margray that night; I couldn't bear to sleep in the little white bed that was mine when a happy child, and with every star that rose I felt a year the older; and on the morrow, when I came home, my mother was still in the same taking, so I went back again and whiled the day off as I could; and it was not so hard, for Mary Strathsay came over, and Effie, and there was so much to tell, and so much to ask, and Effie had all along been so full of some grand company she had met that last year in Edinboro', that the dinner-bells rang ere we thought of lunch; but still a weight lay on me like a crime on conscience. But by the next dawning I judged 't was best that I should gather courage and settle things as they were to be. Margray's grounds joined our own, and I snatched up the babe, a great white Scotch bairn, and went along with him in my arms under the dripping orchard-boughs, where still the soft glooms lingered in the early morn. And just ere I reached the wicket, a heavy step on the garden-walk beyond made my heart plunge, and I came face to face with my mother. My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, I did not dare glance up, yet I felt her eyes upon me as if she searched some spot fit for her fine lips, and presently her hand was on my head, and the kiss had fallen on my hair, and then she gathered me into her arms, and her tears rained down and anointed my face like chrism. And I just let the wondering wean slip to the grass, and I threw my arms about her and cried, "Oh, mother, mother, forgive me, and love me just a little!" It was but a breathing; then I remembered the child at my feet, and raised him, and smiled back on Mrs. Strathsay, and went on with a lighter heart to set my chests and drawers straight.

The days slipped into weeks, and they were busy, one and all, ordering Effie's wardrobe; for, however much I took the lead, she was the elder and was to be brought out. My mother never meant to bring me out, I think,—she could not endure the making of parade, and the hearing the Thomsons and Lindsays laugh at it all, when 't was but for such a flecked face,—she meant I should slip into life as I could. We had had the seamstresses, and when they were gone sometimes Mrs. Strathsay came and sat among us with her work;—she never pricked finger with fell or hem, but the heaviest task she took was the weaving of the white leaf-wreaths in and out the lace-web before her there,—and as we stitched, we talked, and she lent a word how best an old breadth could be turned, another gown refitted,—for we had to consider such things, with all our outside show of establishment.

Margray came running through the garden that afternoon, and up where we sat, and over her arm was fluttering no end of gay skirts and ribbons.

"I saved this pink muslin—it's real Indian, lascar lawn, fine as cobweb—for you, Alice," she said. "It's not right to leave it to the moths,—but you'll never need it now. It shall be Effie's, and she'll look like a rose-bud in it,—with her yellow locks floating."

"Yes," said I.

"You'll not be wanting such bright things now, child; you'll best wear grays, and white, and black."

"Indeed, then, I sha'n't," I said. "If I'm no longer lovely myself, I'll be decked out in braw clothes, that I may please the eye one way or another."

"No use, child," sighed my mother 'twixt her teeth, and not meaning for me to hear.

"So would I, Ailie," said Mary Strathsay, quickly. "There's much in fine fibres and soft shades that gives one the womanly idea. You're the best shape among us all, my light lissomeness, and your gowns shall fit it rarely. Nay, Margray, let Alice have the pink."

"Be still, Mary Strathsay!" said my mother. "Alice will wear white this summer; 'tis most suitable. She has white slips and to spare."

"But in the winter?" urged the other. "'Twill be sad for the child, and we all so bright. There's my pearl silk,—I'm fairly tired of it,—and with a cherry waist-piece"–

"You lose breath," said my mother, coldly and half vexed.

So Mary Strathsay bit her lip and kept the peace.

"Whisht now, child, your turn will come," said Margray, unfolding a little bodice of purple velvet, with its droop of snowy Mechlin. "One must cut the coat according to the cloth. That's for Effie,—gayly my heart's beat under you," laying it down and patting it on one side, lovingly. "There, if white's the order of the day, white let it be,—and let Mrs. Strathsay say her most, she cannot make other color of this, and she shall not say me nay. That's for Alice." And she flung all the silvery silk and blonde lace about me.

"Child, you'll sparkle!" whispered Mary Strathsay in my ear, hastening to get the glittering apparel aside, lest my mother should gainsay us.

But Mrs. Strathsay did not throw us a glance.

"You're ill-pleased, Effie," said Margray; for our little beauty, finding herself so suddenly the pet, had learned to toss her head in pretty saucy ways.

"Not a speck!" Effie answered up. "'Twas high time,—I was thinking."

Margray laughed, and took her chin 'twixt thumb and finger, and tried to look under the wilful lids that drooped above the blue light in her eyes.

"You're aye a faithful pet, and I like you clannish. Stand by them that stands by you, my poor man used to say. You shall put on as fine a gown, and finer, of my providing, the day you're wedded."

"I'll gie ye veil o' siller lace,
And troth ye wi' a ring;
Sae bid the blushes to your face,
My ain wee thing!"

sang Mary.

"I want none of your silver lace," said Effie, laughing lightly, and we little dreamed of the girl's thought. "I'll have that web my mother has wrought with myrtle-leaf and blossom."

"And 'twas begun for me," said Mary, arching her brows, and before she thought.

"You,—graceless girl!" said my mother. "It's no bridal veil will ever cross your curls!"

"Surely, mother, we've said too much,—you'll overlook old scores."

"'T is hard forgetting, when a perverse child puts the hand to her own hurt."

"No hurt to me. You would not have had me take a man at his word when he recked not what he said."

"Tsh! Tsh! Charles Seavern would have married you. And with the two brothers gone, he's an earl now,—and you flung him off. Tsh!"

"I never saw the time, mother, solemnly as I've told you, when his right hand knew what his left hand did,—what with his champagne-suppers, your Burgundy, and Johnny Graeme's Jamaica. He'd have been sorely shocked to wake up sober in his earldom some fine morning and find a countess beside him ready-made to his hand."

"You spared him!" said my mother. And in a minute she added, softwise,