Читать книгу D. K. Broster Collection - D. K. Broster - Страница 140

In the clear air above Meall na Creige a speck was hovering—a large hawk, perhaps even an eagle. Olivia looked up at it fixedly, because if there are tears in your eyes there is in this attitude a more reasonable hope of their not descending your cheeks.

It was all in vain: in vain that she stood here alone with Ian Stewart by the great lichened shoulder of rock on the other slope of the glen, surveying this fair sunlit world; in vain that she knew he loved her, and that she . . . that she was conscious without looking at him of that reserved and sensitive profile of his. The phantom of a young man whom she had never known stood there with them, a cold, shadowy presence, the green Stewart tartan on his breast all reddened with Campbell musket balls, and, since she was Highland too, she knew in her heart that the dead Alan’s only brother, now the heir, could never go back to his father and his clan and announce that he had asked in marriage the daughter of the man whose command had winged those bullets. Nor was it merely the ban of his family and his race which was ranged against her; Ian’s own fidelity to conviction, despite the way in which it racked him, was unshaken—she saw that; and though he had come to Kilrain with no other aim but that of seeing her, such a concession to his own weakness would never happen again. All was over before it had begun.

Olivia would not weep; she called to her all her pride of clan and of womanhood. Allow a man . . . any man—a Stewart least of all—to see. . . . The bird above the mountain soared unexpectedly out of sight. Yet she must still look hard at something; and, her hearing assisting her in the quest, her eyes fell upon a horseman going at a walk upon the road below. He seemed, as far as one could tell from a distance, to be gazing up at her and her companion; then—yes, surely, he was trying to attract their attention! Could it be news of some kind from Cairns?

“Mr. Stewart,” she said rather breathlessly, “do you see a man down there on a grey horse who . . . why, I believe he is dismounting and coming up to us!”

Until she spoke Ian had not been conscious of the rider, nor, indeed, of anything much in his surroundings. Now he looked down the heathery incline and saw the dismounted horseman starting quickly up it. And very soon, to his surprise, and by no means to his gratification, he heard Olivia say animatedly, “Why, it is my dear Mr. Maitland! Whatever can he be doing here?”

In spite of his renewed act of renunciation Ian felt a sharp pang as he heard these words. Who was this Mr. Maitland of whom Miss Campbell could speak in these terms, and whose advent could cause her, even at this moment, so much evident pleasure? The newcomer had the figure of a young man, and he mounted the hillside with all the speed and agility of one, but before he had arrived at their level Ian saw that his face was that of a man of five and forty or so—and a very attractive face it was too, even if its beauty was almost too ethereal for masculine taste. (But it occurred to Ian that a woman might not think so.) A very sweet smile dawned upon it now as, just a trifle out of breath with haste, he arrived at the rocky shoulder.

“My dearest Olivia!” he said, and kissed her hand. “I feared I should not find you. I went first to your lodging at the cottage, and was fortunate in happening upon your good Elspeth there, otherwise——”

“But how did you know that I was here at all—and still more, why are you here?” asked Olivia, laughing, and slipping her hand in a most intimate manner into the newcomer’s arm.

“I knew that you were here from a letter of your father’s, and I am here because Kilrain lies on my way to Lochaber, whither I am bound on affairs,” the gentleman replied, putting his other hand over the one reposing on his arm.

“What good luck!” cried Olivia gaily. “But, dear me, what a centre of travel this little spot is becoming! For here is Mr. Ian Stewart of Invernacree, of whose prowess and kindness I wrote to you. He also was passing through the clachan. Mr. Stewart, let me present you to my oldest friend, Mr. Maitland of Strathmory, whom I sometimes call my godfather.”

Ian came forward and bowed. Mr. Maitland held out his hand.

“Indeed I have heard of you, sir, from Miss Campbell; and if I may, as so old a friend of hers, I should like to add my thanks to those of her family!”

His manner and his look a good deal disarmed Ian. And, after all, Olivia could hardly contemplate marriage with a man of twice her age whom she called, even occasionally, her godfather!

There was some further talk up by the rock. Mr. Maitland wished to know if the young lady were really in need of a sojourn “at the whey”; he had hoped that it was only a whim of her father’s, to which Olivia emphatically responded that his hope was justified. She seemed to Ian quite to have shaken off the sadness consequent upon their recent interview, in the pleasure of seeing this elderly friend of hers. It was no doubt just as well. . . .

Presently they were all going down the side of the hill together, for Mr. Maitland announced that he must push on at once. Miss Campbell asked him where he was going and on what business, but the traveller returned no definite answer.

“Well, my dear Olivia,” said he when they reached his busily grazing horse, “I hope that the rest of your stay will be agreeable and beneficial to you. It has been a great pleasure to have had this glimpse of you; I am only sorry that it must be so short.”

“You might have had a glimpse before this, and a longer one,” replied Miss Campbell with a little pout. “Do you know that you have not visited us at Cairns since some time early in ’53—more than two years ago!”

“Is it really so long!” exclaimed the gentleman. “I certainly deserve censure for that.” He began to alter a stirrup leather, and then to examine his horse’s girths, and Ian, who, since he happened to be at the animal’s head, had put an instinctive hand upon its bridle, was struck by the swift change which came over his face. As he turned away from the girl it was as though a mask had slipped off it, and, when he raised himself from his examination, Ian’s impression of sudden metamorphosis was even strengthened. Why, the man looked tragically harassed, as well as ill! Ian was startled by it. Then Mr. Maitland turned round again to Olivia, and she too must have observed some change, for Ian heard her say, “I don’t think you look very well, Mr. Maitland. ’Tis you should be staying here, not I!”

“A touch of tertian fever, my dear, which I had a few days ago,” replied he carelessly. “ ’Tis nothing—save perhaps a sign of advancing years. So, by your leave, I’ll not let myself be overtaken by the night.” He kissed her hand again (Ian wondering whether he were not accustomed, at any rate in the absence of strangers, to kiss her cheek or brow) gave her a message to her father, mounted, saluted Ian and was off.

Ian looked after him and his vanishing grey horse. He too ought to be riding along that road. Why prolong this pain? He said: “I think my own mare must be reshod by now, a thing I found she needed; but the smith was indisposed this morning and could not shoe her.” It was in fact the discovery of this necessity and of the difficulty in remedying it—for, in more brutal language, the blacksmith was drunk—which had caused his delay in coming to Olivia’s cottage. “May I escort you back to your lodging before I set out?” he added.

Olivia assented, and they began to walk back along the road.

“There is a path,” said Ian after a moment or two, indicating one on their left which began to mount from the road. “I fear this is rough walking for you, and the path would be somewhat shorter too, probably.”

“Do you wish it to be, I wonder?” murmured Miss Campbell to herself. But she did not say it aloud.

It was a wider path than some, and they went along it side by side. For a while it pushed by great bushes of broom, whose golden glory was now departed; ahead was a little wood, a mere copse of oak and hazel.

“Do you know, Mr. Stewart,” said Olivia suddenly, as Ian held aside a branch for her to pass, “that the gentleman who has just left us is a living argument against the conviction which . . . which you hold, for Mr. David Maitland has been a friend of my father’s for as long as I can remember; yet he is a Jacobite.”

“There are Jacobites and Jacobites, Miss Campbell.”

“But Mr. Maitland is not one of your theoretical Jacobites,” returned Olivia with vivacity. “He was ‘out’ in the Forty-five; he fought at Falkirk. I believe he only escaped proscription through the good offices of my father. And yet you see,” she ended with a little sigh, “he is our intimate friend.”

“It was not a friend that I wished to be,” said Ian in a voice unlike his own. The sentiment, or something else, produced a silence between them, during which they reached the coppice; and the path, dipping slightly, brought them to the banks of a little woodland stream which it immediately crossed by means of stepping-stones. They came to a halt.

“And so,” said Olivia slowly, looking at the sparkle of the water, “you will not in future be able to think of me as a friend?”

Ian caught his breath. “I hope that I shall be able to avoid thinking of you at all,” he said harshly, a man in pain not always measuring his words. Olivia bit her lip and turned her head away; then, not answering, she placed her foot on the first of the stepping-stones. It rocked a little, even beneath her light weight. The next moment she was caught by both elbows and steadied.

“Step on to the flat stone in the middle,” came Ian’s voice. She obeyed, and he instantly released her.

“The stone was loose,” she said, excusing herself. “Indeed I can usually cross a burn without falling in.”

Her companion was standing in the shallow water beside her. “I do not doubt it. But, lest there be other loose stones. . . .” He offered his hand.

Olivia took it, and next moment was safely on the opposite bank. Before she could make a remark of any kind Ian, still holding her hand, began to speak again, the words tumbling out, and checking, too, like the water-course at their feet.

“Forgive me . . . forgive me for saying that! It is not true. I shall always think of you, I am afraid. It would be too much to expect you to think of me, sometimes . . . just from kindness . . . as one thinks of the very unhappy. . . . Perhaps I should know it—but perhaps it would be better if I did not. . . . And if you will forgive me, I will leave you, now that you are over the burn; there is your way back plain. . . . I cannot walk any further with you . . . there is a term to what one can endure—and so I will go back the other way.”

He looked indeed absolutely exhausted, as a man might do after prolonged torture. Olivia’s hand was still in his; after the first, she had not attempted to withdraw it. She tried to say “Good-bye then,” but no words came. And whether Ian drew her unconsciously towards him by that captive hand, or whether she as unconsciously came, or both, next moment her head was on his breast, and remained there.

Then with his other hand the young man gently turned her face up to his, and she did not resist; she only shut her eyes. So, in the oak copse by the stream, Stewart and Campbell kissed each other without a word; and equally without a word did Ian’s clasp relax. Olivia heard footsteps splashing quickly through water. . . . She put her hands over her face, in a gesture of possession, not of concealment. The air should not so soon obliterate that gift—that gift which she had returned. When she removed them she was alone.

But the world was changed—how changed! She walked home in a different one, whether a gladder or a sorrier, she hardly knew. Mrs. MacUre, after looking at her once or twice, forbore to ask what had become of her escort.