Читать книгу It was a Lover and his Lass - Маргарет Олифант, Oliphant Margaret - Страница 4

This was also the opinion of Janet when she heard of the encounter on the road. Her demeanour was very grave when she served her guest with his dinner, of which one of the aforesaid trout constituted an important part. She did not smile upon him as in the morning, nor expatiate upon the diverse dishes, as was her wont, but was curt and cold, putting his food upon the table with a thud of her tray which was something like a blow. Lewis, who had not been used to the mechanical attention of English servants, but to attendants who took a great deal of interest in him and what he ate, and how he liked it, felt the change at once. He was very simple in some matters, as has been said, and the sense of disapprobation quite wounded him. He began to conciliate, as was his nature.

"This is one of Adam's trout," he said.

"Just that; if it wasna Adam's trout, where would I get it?" said the ungracious Janet.

"That is true; and a great deal better than if it came from a shop, or had been carried for miles."

"Shop!" cried Janet, with lively scorn. "It's little you ken about our countryside, that's clear. Where would I get a shop if I wantit it? And wha would gang to sic a place that could have trout caller out of the water."

"Don't be so angry," said Lewis, with a smile. "After all, you know, if I am so ignorant, it is my misfortune, not my fault. If I had been asked where I wanted to be born, no doubt I should have said the banks of Tay."

"That's true," said Janet, mollified. "But you would do nothing o' the sort," she added. "You're just making your jest of me, as you did of the misses."

"I – jest at the – misses," said Lewis, with every demonstration of indignant innocence. "Now, Mrs. Janet, look at me. Do you think I am capable of laughing at – anyone – especially ladies for whom I would have a still higher respect – if I knew them. I – jest! Do you think it is in me?" he said.

Janet looked at him, and shook her head.

"Sir," she said, but with a softened tone, "you're just a whillie whaw."

"Now, what is a whillie whaw? I don't mind being called names," said Lewis, "but you must not call me a ruffian, you know. If one has no politeness, one had better die."

"Losh me! it's no just so bad as that. I said sae to Adam. A young gentleman may have his joke, and no just be a scoundrel."

"Did Adam think I was a scoundrel? I am sorry I made such a bad impression upon him. I thought we had become friends on the river-side."

"Oh, sir, you're takin' me ower close to my word. I wasna meaning so bad as that; but, according to Adam, when you set eyes upon the misses, ye just burst out into a muckle guffaw: and that's no mainners – besides, it's not kind, not like what a gentleman's expected to do – in this country," Janet added, deprecating a little. "For onything I ken," she added, presently, "it may be mainners abroad."

"It is not manners anywhere," said Lewis, angrily. "But Adam is a great deal too hard upon me, Mrs. Janet. I did not break into a loud – anything when I saw the ladies – why should I? I did not know who they were. But afterwards when I discovered their names – You must sympathize with me. I had been looking for young ladies, pretty young ladies," he said, with a laugh at the recollection. "There is something more even that I could tell you. There had been some idea of an arrangement – of making a marriage, you understand – between a Miss Murray and a – gentleman I know; – if the friends found everything suitable."

"Making up a marriage," Janet echoed, with bewilderment, "if the friends found it suitable!"

"Just so – nothing had been said about it," said the young man, "but there had been an idea. And when, knowing he was young, I beheld – two old ladies – "

"I dinna know what you call old," said Janet, with a little resentment. "If Miss Margaret's forty, that's the most she is. She's twa-three years younger than me. Ay, and so there was a marriage thought upon, though your friend had never seen the leddy? and maybe the leddy was no in the secret neither."

"Oh, certainly not," Lewis cried.

"It would be for her siller," said Janet, very gravely. "You would do well to warn your friend, sir, that there's awfn' little siller among them; they've been wranged and robbed, as I was telling you. Not only they're auld, as ye say, but they're puir, that is to say, for leddies of their consequence. I would bid him haud away with his plans and his marriages, if I were you."

"Oh, there was, perhaps, nothing serious in it; it was only an idea," said Lewis lightly. "The trout has been excellent, Mrs. Janet. You cook them to perfection. And I hope you are no longer angry with me or think me a scoundrel, or even – the other thing."

"Oh, ay, sir, ye're just the other thing – ye're a whillie whaw – ye speak awfu' fair and look awfu' pleasant, but I'm no sure how you're thinking a' the time. When I'm down the stairs getting the collops you'll maybe laugh and say, 'That's an old fuil' to yoursel'."

"I should be an ungrateful wretch if I did," said Lewis, "especially as I am very anxious to see what pleasant surprise you have prepared for me under the name of collops."

"Ah!" said Janet, shaking her head, but relaxing in spite of herself, "you're just a whillie whaw."

When she was gone, however, Lewis shook his head still more gravely at himself. Was it not very imprudent of him to have said anything about that project? – and it was scarcely even a project, only an idea; and now it was ridiculous. He had been very imprudent. No doubt this woman would repeat it, and it would get into the air, and everyone would know. The question now was whether he should confine himself in future to the collops, or whether he should explain to Janet that he had meant nothing, and that his communication was confidential. He had certainly been a fool to speak at all. To tell the truth, he had never been alone in a totally new world without any outlet for his thoughts before, and his laugh had been so inevitable, and the explanation so simple. When Janet re-appeared with the collops, however, she was in haste, and nothing more was said; and by-and-by he forgot that he had said anything that it was not quite natural to say.

The presence of this young stranger at a little village inn so unimportant as the "Murkley Arms" was a surprising event in the village, and set everybody talking. To be sure an enthusiastic fisherman like Pat Lindsay, from Perth, had been known to live there for a month at a time during the season, and to nod his head with great gusto when Janet's merits as a cook were discussed. Most people in Murkley were quite aware of Janet's merits, but the outside world, the travellers and tourists who passed, so to speak, on the other side, had no information on the subject. This was one of the points, indeed, in which it was an endless vexation to her that her husband had "nae pith" nor spirit in him. Had the little house been furbished up and made into a fine hotel, Janet knew that she had it in her to make that hotel a success; but with a man who could neither look imposing and dignified at the head of such an establishment, nor do any of the hard work necessary, what could a woman do? She had to give up the hope of rising in the world; but, when it so happened that a guest did come, Janet's treatment of him was royal. And she felt a certain gratitude to the visitor who gave her an opportunity of showing what was in her.

"What is he here for?" she said. "What for should he no be here, if ye please? He's here for his ain pleasure. He's from foreign parts, and it's good for him to see what the life is in a real quiet, honest place. They havena ower much of that abroad. They have your gambling-tables, and music playing morning, noon, and nicht. Eh, but they maun be sick o't! A band once in a way I say naething against, and when it's a regiment marching it's grand; but trumpets blaring and flaring like thae Germans, losh me! it would send a body out of her wits in nae time. He's come away from that, and I think he's a wise man. And though he's no fisher himself he likes to see Adam catch the trout. And he's a fine lad. He's welcome to bide as long as he likes, for me."

This was her answer to the many questions with which at first she was plied on the subject. The minister, who was a man of very liberal mind and advanced views was soon interested in the stranger, and made acquaintance with him as he lingered about on Sunday after church looking at the monuments in the church-yard. Lewis went to church cheerfully as a sort of tribute to society, and also as the only social meeting to which he could get admittance. He loved to be among his fellow-creatures, to see other people round him, and, unknown as he was, this was almost his only way of enjoying the pleasure. The minister, whose name was Seton, accosted him with very friendly intentions.

"You will find, I fear, a great difference in our services from those you are used to," he said. "I would fain hope things were a little better with us than they used to be; but we're far behind in ritual. The sister Church has always held up a far different standard."

"Which Church is that?" said Lewis, with his friendly candour of mind. "I am a very great ignoramus."

"Ah, I suppose you are High," said the minister, "and don't acknowledge our orders. Of course, you cannot expect me to consent to that. The Church of England is a great institution, but apt to carry things with a high hand, and look down upon Protestant brethren."

"Ah, yes – but I don't know anything about England," said Lewis, still puzzled; upon which Mr. Seton made many apologies.

"I ought to have known – of course, your complexion and all that; you come from the land of enlightenment, where everything is subservient to intellect. How glad I shall be of the opportunity ask to your advice about some passages I am in doubt about! Your fatherland is the home of biblical science."

"I am not a German," said Lewis, "but I know the language well enough, and if I can be of any use – Oh, no, I am an Englishman, though I never was in England – unless I may call this England."

"Which you certainly must not do," said the minister; "we've fought hard enough on that account in our day. I suppose you are here for the fishing," he added, as everybody did, but with a little disingenuousness, for by this time all the world was aware that Lewis did not fish, nor pretend to fish, nor, indeed, do anything but what the good people of Murkley called idling his time away.

"I am no fisher," he said – "not a sportsman at all, and not much of an artist either. I am not very good at anything. I came here because it struck my fancy."

He laughed somewhat uneasily, because it was not true, and he was a bad deceiver; but then Mr. Seton had no reason to suppose that it was not true, and he took it with great composure as a natural reason enough.

"It is a fine country," he said. "I am free to say it, for it is not my country. I am from the south myself."

"The south!" said Lewis, deceived in his turn, and looking with a little surprise at the fine burly form and grizzled locks of the clergyman, who seemed to him of the same type as Adam, and not like anything that he realized as the south. "Do you mean of France, or still nearer the mezzo-giorno? Oh, I know the south very well. I have been through the wildest parts of Sicily and Calabria, as well as most civilized regions."

"I meant Dumfriesshire," said the minister, with a blush. He felt as if he had been guilty of false pretences. "That is south to us. You have been a great traveller, Mr. – "

"Murray," said Lewis, quickly.

"You are a Murray, too? Then I suppose you had ancestors in this district. That's very common; I have had people come here from all the ends of the world anxious to look at the tombstones or the parish register."

"I shall not need to do that," the young man said. "The name came to me with some property," he added, with his usual mixture of caution and imprudence – "from my god-father," he added, after another pause. This was so far true that it was the name by which the young dependent on his bounty had been used to call old Sir Patrick; his voice softened at the word, which he had not used for so long. "He brought me up – he was very good to me. I have lost him, there is about a year."

The minister felt that it was necessary to reply in his professional capacity.

"Ah," he said, "such losses shatter the world to us; but so long as they turn our thoughts to better things, to the land whither we must all travel – "

Lewis was not used to spiritual consolation; he gave his companion a nod of not uncheerful assent.

"He always wished me to travel," he said. "It has become to me a second nature. I am told that it is to the Highlands that tourists go, but otherwise this pleases me very much."

"And you are comfortable at Adam Burnet's? He is a character – the sort of mind that we flatter ourselves is peculiarly Scotch," said the minister. "I hope you will gratify my wife and me by taking your luncheon with us. A stranger is always welcome," he continued, leading the way after Lewis had consented with a smile and bow and flourish of his hat, which made Mr. Seton smile, "in a Scotch manse; and if you are making a long stay, Mr. Murray – "

It was thus that Lewis made his first entry into society in the village.

"You should have seen his bow, my dear," the minister said; "he is just awfully foreign, but a good fellow for all that, or else my skill in faces is at fault."

This was to prepare Mrs. Seton to receive the stranger, whom, indeed, the minister brought in with a sense of an unauthorized interference in what was not his department. He was at liberty to bring an old elder, a brother minister, even a farmer of superior description; but Mrs. Seton was particular about young men. Katie was sixteen, and "there was never any telling," her mother said. In the present case the risks were even greater than usual, for this young man was without an introduction, nobody to answer for him or his respectability, and a foreigner besides, which was at once more terrible and more seductive than an intruder native born.

"Your father is so imprudent," she said to Katie. "How can we tell who he is?"

"He looks very innocent," said that young woman, who had seen the stranger a great many times, and found him entirely unlike her ideal. Innocent was not what Miss Katie thought a young man ought to look. She followed her mother to the early Sunday dinner, which Mr. Seton entitled lunch, without the slightest excitement, but there was already some one in the room whose presence disturbed Katie's composure more. Of the three gentlemen there assembled, Lewis was the least in height and the least impressive in appearance. The two stalwart Scotchmen, between whom he stood, with vigour in every line of their long limbs and every curl of their crisp locks, threw him into the shade. He was shorter, slighter, less of him altogether. His hair was light, and not very much of that. In all probability when he was older he would be bald, and people who depreciated Lewis were apt to say of him that he was all one colour, hair and complexion. His dress had a little of a foreign cut, or rather it was elaborately English à la mode de Paris, and he was not at all indifferent about his reception here, but sincerely anxious to please and make a favourable impression, and did not in the least hesitate to show that he was so. This went against him with the party generally, but Lewis was quite unaware of that.

The other young man whom he had found there, when the minister showed him into the little drawing-room and went to report what he had done to his wife, was in reality half a head taller, and looked twice the size of Lewis. He was brown and ruddy like most of the men about, accustomed to expose himself to the weather, and to find his occupation and pleasure out of doors. He was slightly shy, but yet quite at his ease, knowing that it was his duty to talk and be friendly to the stranger, and doing his duty accordingly, though he had none of Lewis's eager desire to make himself agreeable. When the minister entered they were introduced to each other as Mr. Murray and Mr. Stormont, upon which Lewis said immediately, with a little effusive pleasure,

"Ah, I know your name very well; you must belong to the tower on the other side of the river. I attempt to sketch you almost every day."

"Oh!" said young Stormont, and in his mind he added, "It's an artist," which seemed to account for the stranger at once.

"My attempts have not been very successful," Lewis added, laughing. "I go out with Adam when he goes to fish, and when a trout is very interesting my sketch-book falls out of my hands."

"You can't see much of the tower from the other side," said Stormont. "I hope you will come and study it near at hand."

"That I will do with great pleasure," cried Lewis. It exhilarated him to find himself again in good company. "You are very kind to admit me into your house," he said, with frank gratification, to the minister. "Mrs. Janet and her husband are very interesting; they throw a great light upon the country: but I began to long to exchange a little conversation with persons – of another class."

"I am sure we are very glad to see you," said Mrs. Seton. "It must be lonely in an inn, especially if you have come out of a family. We have seen you passing, and wondered what you could find in Murkley. There is no society here. Even the tourists going out and in are a variety when you are further north, but here we are just dropped in a corner and see nothing. Oh, yes, old Pat Lindsay who thinks of nothing but his trout. Trout are nice enough things on the table, but not as the subject of conversation. Even Mr. Stormont here is away oftener than we would like him to be."

"Only for the shooting," said Stormont, "and a little while in Edinburgh in the winter, and sometimes a run up to town in the spring."

"How much does that leave?" said the lady, playfully. "But never mind, we cannot expect to bind a young man here. I think of the time when my own boys will grow up and want to be moving. Thanks be to Providence, Katie's a girl and will stay at home."

Katie's eyes, which were bright and brown like the Tay, opened a little wider at this, and gave out a glance which was half laughter across the table. Lewis, looking on with great interest, felt that the glance was winged to somewhere about that part of the table where young Stormont sat, and felt a great sympathy and interest. He met her eyes with a slight smile in his, making unconscious proffer of that sympathy, which made Katie blush from head to foot, and grow hot with indignation as well, as if she had been found out.

"Mr. Murray has been a great traveller," said the minister, "and, Katie, you should seize the opportunity to try how your German sounds, my dear. It is apt to be one thing on a book and another in the mouth. I made so dreadful a failure in the speaking of it myself the first time I tried to do it that I never made the attempt a second time. But I suppose one language is the same as another to you."

"Katie speaks it very well, I believe," said her mother; "but, dear me, where is the use of it here? We are out of the way both of books and people, and how is a girl to keep it up? There's a great deal of nonsense about teaching children foreign languages, in my opinion. But, whisht, let me think what company we have that would suit Mr. Murray; everybody is so far off. To be sure, there is one family, but then they are all ladies – the Miss Murrays at the castle. We must not leave them out, but they would be little resource to a young man."

"And perhaps they are not so kind, so hospitable as you," said Lewis. "I have already, I fear, offended them, or if not them then their admirers. It is they who are called the Misses? Then I thought that must mean young ladies, very young. It was foolish, but I did so. And when in the road with Adam we encountered these old ladies – "

"Oh, stop, stop, not old. I cannot have them called old," cried Mrs. Seton. "Bless me, Miss Jean is not much more than my age."

"And it does not matter whether they are old or young," said Katie; "we are all very fond of them."

"And I," said Lewis, putting his hand on his heart, "respect them infinitely. I am much interested in those ladies. The oldness is nothing – it does not affect me. I wish to know them above everything. I have known their grandfather – abroad."

"Bless me," said Mrs. Seton; "old Sir Patrick? This is most interesting. I never saw him; he was away before we came here. And what did you think of him? He was a tyrant, I've always heard, and a terrible egotist; thinking of nothing but his own pleasure. You know the story, I suppose, of how he left all his money away from the family; and nothing to any of them but the old house and that big folly of a new one. I wonder they don't pull that place down."

"Oh, mamma, if money was to come into the family! that is what Lilias says. If some uncle they never heard of was to come from India, or somebody they had been kind to die all at once, and leave them a fortune."

"I will not have you see so much of Lilias, if she fills your head full of nonsense," said Mrs. Seton. "Such folly! for they have no uncle in India, that ever I heard tell of; and people now-a-days don't make those daft-like wills – though, to be sure, Sir Patrick's an example. Did you ever see, Mr. Murray, the young man we've heard so much about?"

"The fellow that got the money," young Stormont said.

"What kind of a being was it?" said the minister. "Some supple foreign lad that flattered the silly old man. It has always been strange to me that there was nobody near to speak a word for justice and truth."

"You are hard upon foreigners," said Lewis. "It is not their fault that they are foreign. Indeed they would not be foreign there, you know, but the people of the country, and we the foreigners. I knew this fellow, as you say. He was not even foreign, he was English. The old gentleman was very fond of him, and good to him. He did not know anything about the money."

"Ah, Mr. Murray, you'll never persuade me that. Would a young man give up years of his life to an old one without any expectations? No, no, I cannot believe that."

"Did he give up years of his life? Oh, yes, I suppose so. No one thought of it – in that light. He loved him like his father. There was no one else to take care of him, to make him happy. I see now from the other point of view. But I do not think he meant any harm."

This Lewis said much too seriously and anxiously for his rôle of spectator, but at the moment, there being no suspicion, no one remarked his nervous earnestness. He cast a sort of appealing glance round the table, with a wistful smile.

"No one," he said, "there, thought any harm. He was the most astonished himself."

"And what kind of a fellow was he," said Stormont, "a gentleman, or just some cad the old man had picked up?"

At this Lewis grew red in spite of himself, then did his best to laugh, though the effort was great.

"I do not know," he said, "having always lived abroad, what is exactly a cad, and also what, when you come to its exact meaning, is a gentleman?"

"Oh, a gentleman – " said Mrs. Seton. "Bless me, what a question? It is just – not to be mistaken: there is no two words about it – No, no – describe it! how could I describe it? A gentleman! my dear Mr. Murray, you can be in no doubt about that."

"And a cad is just a cad," said young Stormont, "a fellow, don't you know, that's not a gentleman – just as a hill isn't a river, and can never be."

"As distinct as that?" said Lewis. "It is hard upon us who have always lived abroad. It means, to be well-educated and well-bred – "

"And well-born, Mr. Murray; you must not leave out that. Well-born, above all things; there's everything in race."

"But those whom you meet only in society," said Lewis, "even on the Continent – where every man must have ses papiers– he does not carry them about with him. He does not pin a little carnet on his sleeve. You must take him on trust."

"That is just the danger of promiscuous society," said Mrs. Seton, briskly. "That is what I always say to papa. It is so easy to be taken in by a fair exterior; and when you don't know who people are, and all about them, it's a serious thing," said the lady, shaking her head, "especially where there are young people. Oh, it is a very serious thing, Mr. Murray. I am sure I always say about ball-room acquaintances and persons of that sort, if harm comes of it, really you have nobody to blame but yourself."

There was a pause after this, and a great sense of embarrassment. Katie looked at her mother with anxious, telegraphic communications, of which Mrs. Seton either would not or did not take any notice. Even Mr. Stormont, though not very quick, saw the dilemma. Lewis was the most self-possessed.

"I must be more grateful than ever," he said, turning to his hostess, with that conciliatory smile which was so natural to him, "that you have given your hospitality so kindly to one who has no vouchers, no one to speak for him – a stranger."

"Bless me, Mr. Murray, I hope you never thought – Dear, dear, you might be sure that was the last thing in my mind. Present company, you know, of course; and then in some cases the first look is enough," said Mrs. Seton, with a gracious bow to her guest.

This little episode distracted the company altogether from the question propounded by Stormont about Sir Patrick Murray's heir, and during the rest of the meal Lewis exerted himself to keep away from dangerous subjects: which was a greater mental effort to him, perhaps, than any he had ever made in his life. For he was ready by nature to take everybody he met into his confidence. He had the most unbounded trust in his fellow-creatures, and he wanted to be approved, to have the sympathy of those about him. He, whose impulse it was to be always looking out of the window – how could he put up shutters, and retire into seclusion and mystery? It was the thing of all others most difficult to him. But he was quick and ready, and kept his wits about him, having been thus put on his guard. He betrayed something else with great and simple pleasure – his own accomplishments, which were, in Mrs. Seton's opinion, many. He showed them his amateur sketch-book, which seemed the work of a great artist to these uninstructed people, and, indeed, was full of fairly brilliant dashes at scenery and catchings up of effect, which he himself was well aware were naught, but which were very attractive to the uncritical. And it was all they could do to keep him from the piano, where he sadly wanted to let them hear one or two morceaux from the last opera. Mrs. Seton had to place herself in front of the instrument with an anxiety to prevent the desecration of the Sabbath without exposing herself to the charge of narrow-mindedness, which was highly comic.

"That will be for to-morrow," she said. "We must not have all our good things at once. No, no, we must leave something for to-morrow. The servants, you see, have prejudices – we have to consider so many things in a manse. A clergyman's family are always talked about: and then economy's my principle, Mr. Murray; we must keep something for to-morrow. And that just reminds me that I hope you will come in a friendly way and spend the evening – we have no parties, you know, here – but if you will just come in a friendly way: and then it will give us the greatest pleasure," Mrs. Seton said, nodding her head and smiling.

Thus immediate advantage sprang from the over-boldness of his foreign ways; and when he left the manse, young Stormont, though somewhat contemptuous of a man who "went in for" music and spoke all sorts of languages, yielded to the ingratiating ways of the stranger, and invited him half surlily to lunch with him next day at the tower, which Lewis accepted with his usual cordiality.

He went back with a sense of exhilaration to the parlour overlooking the village street, all so still in the drowsy Sunday afternoon.

"Me voici lancé," he said to himself, with glee. He had known the excitements of society very different from that of Murkley, but he knew the true philosophy of being not only contented, but pleased, when you cannot get everything you like, with what you are lucky enough to be able to get.