“YOU LIVE ALL the year round at Sunnyside, do you not, Miss Maitland?” said Mr. Allan to me, the second morning after that, which was the Thursday.
“Yes, Mr. Allan,” said I: “where would you have me to live else, but in my own house? But I am sometimes a week now and then up at the Manse.”
“And you are never overcome with ennui!” exclaimed Mr. Allan, in a kind of petted impatient way. “You are never bored — you don’t anathematize the country. Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Maitland, I forgot that you never anathematize anything — but this everlasting sameness does not disgust you.”
“Whisht, Mr. Allan,” said I, “use not such words! But wherefore should I he wearied?”
“Ay, to be sure, wherefore should you? that’s just what, I can’t make out!” said Mr. Allan. “It is the easiest thing in the world to discover that one is tremendously weary; but the wherefore — that’s the difficulty.”
“And are you wearied of Lilliesleaf so soon, Mr. Allan?” said I. “It vexes me to hear you say that, for you will scarce have been here a month yet.”
Mr. Allan looked through the window and down at the floor, and round to his mother’s empty chair, for she was not in the room, being aye rather late of rising in the morning.
“I believe it’s only my mother who has put it into my head,” he said, blurting out the words, as if he thought shame. “I’m a pretty fellow, am I not, Miss Maitland, to throw away my toys, and then cry for them like a spoiled child? and it’s not so much that either as — well, never mind, it’s no matter what it is! Were country gentlemen made for any possible use, think you, Miss Maitland? or, was it only for an example to the whole busy world about them, of the plagues and the pains of idleness?”
“Truly, Mr. Allan,” said I, “I think, that is but an ill way to speak of the good purposes of Providence, and in an especial manner, does not become you, who have been gifted with so many good gifts.”
Mr. Allan looked at me in a graver manner.
“I believe your notions and mine are about as different as Heaven and earth, Miss Maitland,” he said. “I think of some occupation merely as a relief to my idleness; while you are framing great plans which comprehend — well, I hardly know what, none at least than I can think through this morning. We’ll put off speaking about them till some more convenient season. Oh, but don’t be afraid of me either!” for he saw that I was looking at him feared like, and his pleasant smile came out from behind the clouds that were upon his face. “I really do not intend to be a Felix — the convenient season shall come by and bye. So now tell me how you think I should employ myself?”
“It’s no of an old wife like me that you should ask such a question, Mr. Allan,” said I; “and who will venture to say that the convenient season shall come. I knew one once that was like to yourself, Mr. Allan Elphinstone. He was young and light of heart, well endowed in this world’s goods, and well gifted by nature, and with a blythe spirit and a generous, like unto your own; but he put off his convenient season, Mr. Allan; he thought there would be time enough by and bye for minding his chief end; he did not the duty, and he sought not the grace and the strength, and in the time of temptation he fell, and woeful and great was the fall of him.”
It was a sad story, that, for me to tell, and a hard, for the subject of it was one whose name I had not spoken for years. And, seeing that I was moved, Mr. Allan turned his head about, and spoke not a word, for, doubtless, he was a lad of a most kindly nature, and demeaned himself to me, like as if he had been one of our own bairns.
At last, after awhile, he said to me in a more cheerful manner, being at the time walking about the room. “Do you never feel lonely at Sunnyside, Miss Maitland?”
“Hitherto, Mr. Allan,” said I, “the bairns have never given me time to have any lone feeling, seeing they were aye coming and going about me; but, doubtless, I will feel Sunnyside but a solitary place now, when my Grace is away.”
“But you will have visitors from Pasturelands often,” said Mr. Allan, in a kind of careless way. “I wonder Mrs. Maitland is not jealous; I think Miss Mary says aunt as often as mother.”
“Mary is a good bairn,” said I, “and has been a great comfort to me since Grace, left us; but I can only see her now and then; for you know, Mr. Allan, it would not be meet that the house of my sister and my brother should be darkened to make mine light.”
Mr. Allan looked down to the floor, and began twirling a chair round upon one of its feet, with a strange smile upon his face.
“Do you think it would darken the Manse so completely, Miss Maitland?” he said, and aye he looked down and twirled the chair, and smiled, as if there was something in that that pleased him just wonderfully. “I dare say it would, and lighten Sunnyside, or — any other house, in due proportion. Well, but then, you know, there is Mr. Claud, your nephew, to brighten it up again: so you need not be so scrupulous.”
And there the young man stood before me, holding down his head and smiling, till I knew not what he would be at. “But all this has nothing to do with my future employment,” said Mr. Allan, looking up to me again. “What would you recommend me to do, Miss Maitland? Go and offer myself as an assistant to your friend and my mother’s, Reuben Reid? or set up an amateur carpentry establishment at Lilliesleaf — or turn model farmer — or slaughter the hapless game which has been preserved so long — or get up private concerts and theatricals — or give parties — or what, Miss Maitland? Suggest something, I beseech you; I am out of breath.”
“Truly, Mr. Allan,” I said, “I am feared that I could not in my conscience recommend any of these things.”
“I have no genius for reforming the Kirk, Miss Maitland,” said the young man, merrily, “or I dare say you would approve of that. And what am I to do? Shall I have a mysterious paragraph inserted in the papers, to the effect that Allan Elphinstone, of Lilliesleaf, is about to astonish the world with a new novel, the most original of fictions? Or shall I fit up a dim study, and write poems? Or shall I get a laboratory, and work dire experiments to the terror of all Pasturelands? Or shall I establish myself at the highest window of the highest turret, and discover planets? There! I don’t recollect any other varieties of learned leisure, or occupation at this moment. Decide for me, Miss Maitland, what shall I do?’
“Well, Mr. Allan,” said I, “doubtless it would take a genius to do the like of these things well, as well as to reform the Kirk, and maybe—”
“Maybe I am not so gifted,” said Mr. Allan, laughing. “You are most unmerciful, Miss Maitland; nevertheless, it is useless denying it, I have a suspicion that the genius is wanting, and so there we are just where we began, and I must set off to the Manse to consult the minister. I see you don’t intend to give me any advice.”
Now it was no wish of mine that Mr. Allan should be much going about the Manse; and just at that time a thought came into my head that had often struck me before.
“There is no doubt, Mr. Allan,” said I, “that it would be a very right thing to speak to the minister; but I’ll tell you where you’ll get a work ready to your hands, the which would both be well befitting the Laird of Lilliesleaf, and a charity to the countryside forbye. There is a place at Burrowstoun called Cruive End, lying upon your own lands; and (though it’s a shame to myself, as well as to every Christian man and woman nearhand, that it should be so), yet it must be said that it is a heathen place, and being a heathen place, Mr. Allan, it is likewise a place of pestilence, and a place of violence, contentions and disputations round about it, and plagues and fevers in the bits of houses, mostly every harvest time, when the poor Irish shearer bodies come in to crowd the place; and doubtless, Mr. Allan, there might be a good work done there, if the folk could but be brought out of darkness and of idleset, to learn the Gospel, and to work honest work.”
Mr. Allan’s eyes shone out a light like the sparkle of a fire.
“Pestilence and violence, dirt and poverty!” he cried out. “Splendid, Miss Maitland, and on my own estate too; almost too good news to be true I we’ll have at it immediately! I shall ride down to-day, and begin. Cruive End! There is an expressive odour about the very name. But there, now, you are looking grave again. I have surely said nothing wrong just now.”
“No, Mr. Allan,” said I; “but it was as a serious thing that I was speaking about these benighted heathen folk.”
“To be sure,” said Mr. Allan, “and am not I most serious in speaking of them? The houses are bad, and filthy, and abominable. Well, we’ll pull them down, and build better. The people are pestilent, idle, and good for nothing, of course. Well, we’ll have a school for the little pigs, and baths and wash-houses and libraries for the big ones, and see if we don’t civilize them. I shall earn my honours, Miss Maitland. I feel the laurels upon my brow already. The regenerator of Cruive End!”
“Ay, Mr. Allan,” said I, “but I never heard of any people yet that were regenerated with baths.”
“There is my mother at last,” cried out Mr. Allan, and off he went to meet her, so full of his new plan, that he never heeded what I said.
So immediately after the breakfast was past, Mr. Allan set away down to Cruive End, for he was one of the kind that have ever a necessity for doing with all their might whatsoever their hand finds to do. So he told me he would call in by Sunnyside, and see if there were any letters, for, being of a considerate nature, he aye minded that I was anxious about tidings from my dear bairn.
It was far on in the day when he came back, and brought me a letter from Grace, which I will just take in. —
“My dear aunt, “I have had sundry qualms of conscience lately, as to the propriety of writing to you as I have hitherto done, that is, entering into all the minutiae of my disagreeables. If I have grieved you, dear aunt, forgive me; I did not intend it — but only thought of pouring out my troubles, and receiving in return your most kind, most soothing sympathy. Shall I confess what it is, which has troubled my conscience in this respect? Forgive me again, aunt, it was a novel. A novel, the heroine of which, like me, delivered herself from Sabbath imprisonment (do not think me her copyist here, I had two emancipated Sabbaths before I read a word of her history) but unlike me, kept her misfortunes to herself, to save her distant friends from suffering with her. Perhaps I, too, might have been as disinterested, if you had brought me up better, but the perfect family confidence of Sunnyside and the Manse has spoiled me, so you must just put up with me, aunt, remembering that it is your own kindness which has made me so selfish.
“I have a story to tell you to-day, the very sad history of my poor mother. Yesterday, while I was writing to Mary, Jessie Gray came to me, asking me to let her mother come in and see me, as “all the ladies” were out. Her mother had been in her youth a servant of mine, so, of course, I bade Jessie bring her in. The mother is a very nice, dean, well-preserved little old woman, with a kindly face, to which my heart warmed, and one of those pleasant tongues, that go on easily without any assistance from without, except now and then a question, or a monosyllable, by way of connection. Our conversation began by Mrs. Gray’s earnest declaration the moment she entered the room, that I was “my mother’s very picture,” — and then followed questions as to whether I recollected Mrs. Shaw, the person who had kept me before I went to Sunnyside, and whom I remember calling nurse.
“Mrs. Shaw was the widow of Mrs. Gray’s brother, and ‘kent many things,’ the honest old woman said, ‘that she had nae call to ken,’ and was sent to America, by my father, to join some friends she had there, and again Mrs. Gray reiterated ‘Just her mother’s very image. I ne’er saw the like o’t.’ So I asked her if she had known my mother.
“‘Ay, Miss Maitland,’ was the answer, ‘I saw her in her cradle, and I saw her in her coffin; and for years, when she was growing up to be a woman, she wadna hae a hand about her but my ain, sae ye may think I kent her look wed, and mind it, Miss Grace. Waes me! it’s a strange thing to see the same free, and say the same name again, and her been in her grave this sixteen year.’
“I went on to ask further questions, and then came a full history, which I shall give you in her own words. Before she began, however, with rare delicacy, she contrived that Jessie should be sent out of the room.
“‘Ye see, Miss Grace,’ began Mrs. Gray, ‘your mother was an ae bairn, and the last of her name, and by reason of her happening to be a lassie, when she suld have been a lad, she didna get a’ the land, some o’t being bound down in an entail, no to pass out o’ the name, (though nae doubt Hunterland was a cauldrife and ill-lying place, compared to Oakenshaw). It was an auld family, the Hunters of Oakenshaw, and your mother’s ain grandmother was the dochter of an Earl, Leddy Grizzy. I hae seen her picture mony a time, and grim and gray she lookit.
“‘Weel, our Miss Grace’s mother, Mrs. Hunter, died when she was but a bairn, and her father when she wasna out sixteen, and a sore, sore heart it was to her. And so she abode in Oakenshaw, with a douce eldem leddy that had been her governess, a widow with no bairns, and few friends but Miss Grace. And a very quiet life it was, maybe ower quiet for the like of a young thing like her; though, doubtless, there were ladies and young folk coming whiles about the house, and aunts and cousins, and such far-awa friends coorting at her — for them that have plenty o’ the unrighteous Mammon, Miss Maitland, will aye hae flatterers — I mind of ane in especial, Miss Grizzy, that lived in the jointure-house on the Crookit-horn brae, and was ca’ed after the auld Leddy Grizel, wha would fain have bidden still at Oakenshaw. I mind of hearing a converse ae day, when I was doing something about my young lady, atween Miss Grizzy and the other leddies, and Miss Grizzy was up-hauding that it wasna right to let Miss Grace bide in that quiet way, but that she bid to come out, and Miss Grizzy behoved to gang with her to chaper — chaper something, I mind na how they ca’ed it — but our Miss Grace would never hear o’ that.
“‘But I am just wearying ye with a lang tale, Miss Maitland. Your mother might be your ain age, maybe no that oot, when Mr. Charles Maitland came on a visit to the young Laird of Helmless, and it was not long before the auld lady and wild Miss Nora (her mother was frae the North country, the which, I suppose had gotten her, her outlandish name) had him over to Oakenshaw.’
“‘Ye hae seen your father, Miss Grace.
You ken yoursel what like he is the now; But then he was as gallant and braw a young gentleman as you could see in a’ the Lowdens; and as for booklearn, and things learned by travel, and knowledge o’ a’ kinds, you would have thought he was just filled fu’ o’ them. And our young lady had doubtless seen little out of her ain house, — but she — had — read books on books, as — mony as — would fill a’ — this room, or mair; and Mr. Maitland could speak to her about them in a way that neither the young laird, nor Miss Nora, could. I say them, because they were our nearest neighbours, and Miss Nora would have gaen — through — fire — and wate for Miss Grace, and Helmless himsel, folks said, took — weary looks — at her on — the Sabbath days, for the Oakenshaw pew was forenent theirs.
“‘He was a douce lad, then, young Helmless, though he has gaen sair ajee sinsyne. But you will think that has little to do wi’t, Miss Maitland. So frae less to mair, it cam’ about, as ye ken yoursel as well as me, that our Miss Grace was married upon the strange young gentleman. There was some kind of trouble about it, for the old Edinburgh gentlemen, that were her guardians, demurred, folks said, on account o’ Mr. Maitland having unco little in the way o’ gear compared to Miss Grace; but she wasna the ane to heed that, and it was settled at last: so they were married. But Miss Grace, though it’s maybe no right to tell you sic a thing, six months after that wedding was over, you would scarce have kent the young lady of Oakenshaw again.’
“You will well imagine, aunt, how deeply interesting — that story was — to — me, and I intreated Mrs. Gray, who now seemed reluctant and uneasy, to go on, which she did at length, with hesitation.
“‘I had been married, mysel, upon my man, John Gray, a good while before that,’ she continued, ‘for I was a hantle aulder than the young — lady. — John — was a forester, and we — got the — lodge — on — the Westeigate road, — to keep — (it’s shut — up and deserted noo, for a’ the pains she took wi’t, and for a’ sae bonnie a place as it is). If ye ever come to your ain, Miss Grace, you should pit some decent body intill’t, for her sake, that’s awa. There’s my own Jannie that’s coming into the cares of a family; but truly you will think I am no blate to be asking the like of that the noo. But as I was saying, Miss Grace, I saw the young lady often, when she was taking her bit walk her lane, or passing the gate in the carriage, and so I noticed the change.
‘“Ye are pale yoursel, Miss Grace, and have little colour on your cheek, and so was your mother; but she had a glint. — Losh! there it’s rising on your ain face, the very same as it used to do on hers, like the passing o’ a licht ower’t — but she dwined, Miss Grace, and the bonnie, changefii’ glinting light gaed away, and in its place there came a steadfast whiteness, that I never saw the like o’, and whiles a flushing of deep deep red, that I would never like to see again.
“‘And what?’ said I, eagerly— ‘was it his fault? What was the cause?’
“Mrs. Gray hesitated long, and I could scarcely get her to go on.
“‘Mr. Maitland was a gay young gentleman,’ she said, at last, in a very serious and subdued voice, ‘and likit company and diversion and change, and your mother, Miss Grace, (maybe it might be wi’ her douce upbringing, maybe wi’ the sore shadow o’ death fa’ing on her when she was little mair than a bairn) was ane that cared for nane o’ thae things, but built up her pleasure in her ain hame. I have seen her stop at my door mony a time when I was sorting my man’s dinner, wi’ Jessie a bairn in the cradle and Jamie a stirring laddie at my fit, and me hurrying for John coming in to his meat: I hae seen her stand still awhile, just looking at us, and then I hae heard a deep, lang sigh. The Almighty forbid that I should ever hear young thing drawing sic anither.’
“Mrs. Gray paused again, and then, without further solicitation from me, went on, as if she herself was too much interested in the story to give it up.
“‘Mr, Maitland gaed to Edinburgh, Miss Grace, and he gaed to London, and he gaed abroad, and my young lady abode her weary lane in Oakenshaw, dwining and growing whiter every day; and I have heard the servants about the place say, that even the letters were unco few, and long times between them. And a sore heart it was to every mortal about the place, for she had been the pride o’ us a’. I have seen Miss Nora sit down among the bushes by the water-side, where naebody could see her, and greet like to break her heart, and when she heard my fit once — for the water ran soughing by our very door — she said to me, ‘Oh! Jenny Shaw (for that was my ain name) how different my brother would have been.’
“‘But, at last, Miss Grace, you came hame in the spring o’ the year, and we thocht, for a while, that a’thing was gaun to mend. I was often at the Place then, for I had a wee blossom o’ my ain a week before the lady’s, that the Lord gathered the day after His name was named upon it — sae I whiles helped to nurse yoursel, Miss Grace — and your life was like new life to a’ the house, and in especial to your mother. Weel, by and bye, Mr. Maitland came hame, and wi’ him a company o’ gay and wild young gentlemen, and the lady here, Mrs. Lennox, and her guidman among them; but our lady’s strength wasna a’ spent, and some of them she would not suffer below her roof, and muckle dispeace there was about it, though it was only them that were weel kent for open reprobates that she lifted her voice against. And then her ain auld friends having nae great favour for Mr. Maitland, fell a’ away, and Miss Nora, o’ Helmless, was married upon a gentleman far away in the north country, and your mother was left her leelane wi’ a housefu’ o’ strangers, and this Mrs. Lennox aye trying to mock at her, and Mr. Maitland — weel, weel, you are his bairn, Miss Grace, as well as hers, and it becomes me not to speak this way to you.’
“I felt that it did not, aunt; nevertheless, I also felt it necessary that I should hear all. Mrs. Gray had wrought herself into indignant vehemence by this time; and partly to moderate her, partly that her censures might not fall so directly upon the man whom I must still call father, I asked if the governess to whom she said my mother was so much attached, remained with her then —
“‘He wanted the lady to part wi’ her, when they were first married,’ said Mrs. Gray, indignantly. ‘I canna help it, Miss Grace, my mouth is opened, and I maun speak. But your mother would not consent to that; only the auld lady got rooms that were mostly like a separate house, where Mr. Maitland needed never see her, if he didna like her; but when this Mrs. Lennox came, she got into the old lady’s quiet room, and gecked at her, and taunted her, when your mother wasna there, till she took it into her own hands, and gaed away from Oakenshaw. It was a wrang thing, and a faint-hearted, to leave the puir young lady in her extremity; but so she did.
“‘And then?’ said I.
“‘And then, Miss Grace,’ said Mrs. Gray, solemnly, ‘after lang endurance and muckle pain, afore you had won through twa years o’ your pilgrimage, your mother ended her’s. I mind her as if it had been yesterday, wi’ her lang black hair and her white face, and the dead baby lying in her arm. Waes me! waes me!’
“‘I was not my mother’s only child, then,’ I said, as well as I was able.
“‘It was dead, Miss Grace,’ said Mrs. Gray; ‘and it’s no my part to say wha’s blame that was. But before the sod had lain on their head a week, the young mother and the bairn that never saw the light o’ day, he was away to London, with no a sign o’ mourning about him, but the crape on his hat and the black claes.’
“I was little inclined to speak after that sad story was finished, and my poor mother’s kind humble friend had become excited and vehement, and scarcely joined in my tears. We sat a long time in silence after that, and then Mrs. Gray left me, promising to return, and to bring me a lock of my mother’s hair, which she herself had cut off from the brow of the dead.
“And now, aunt, what think you of this story. I inherit my mother’s name, and face, and nature, they say, and yet I must submit to the sway of these people who broke my mother’s heart. Oh, aunt! is it not a sad story? Ask Mrs. Elphinstone if she knows anything more. I could almost supplicate Mrs. Lennox even, to tell me about my mother, and will long for Mrs. Gray’s return, almost as I would for a visit from you.
Mary must want her letter to-day. It was lying before me while Mrs. Gray was speaking, and got blistered and obliterated before I was aware. Tell her the reason and she will excuse me. — Write to me yourself about my mother, and believe me ever, “My dear aunt, “Your most affectionate,
“GRACE MAITLAND.”
I marvelled that the bairn should mind everything Mrs. Gray said so well as to put it down in her own very words to be sent to me; but, doubtless, when folk have much interest in a thing, it quickens the memory in a wonderful degree. I know by myself that there is converse that passed in my young days, as dear in my mind the now, as if it had been spoken yesterday; and Grace had aye a turn for the like of that.
But woes me, it was a sad, sad story! I could not think of it without trembling for my own bairn, lest the like should befall her. I have aye had a drither all my days about the marrying of young things, for truly, whatever way you can take it, it is a sore venture, and in an especial manner, for the like of my bairn Grace. Nevertheless, I have no call to put in a discourse about that, seeing folk have aye had their own thought concerning these matters, and will aye continue to have, as far as I can see.
I had some converse with Mrs. Elphinstone that afternoon, whenever I had read Grace’s letter, concerning the poor young mother that had been sacrificed that way, but this world is a coldrife world, and the like of these things are no uncommon; wherefore Mrs. Elphinstone spoke of it in but a light way. Also I was not pleased with a bit half-mocking smile that came upon her face, when I said that my bairn was wearying sore for her own home. Truly it is a cold world, and Mrs. Elphinstone had been much in the very midst of it, and besides that, she knew not either the nature or the upbringing of our bairns. But just then, Mr. Allan came in, and truly my bit anger (and it was not anger either, only I was not just pleased) melted away before his blythe face.
“Miss Maitland,” he cried out to me, “how could you be so cruel as to keep me so long in ignorance of Cruive End. It’s a very Utopia for an improver, and an improver I have vowed myself from this day henceforth. Mother, you are half an artist: plan me a pretty village. But prettiness won’t do either — you will never be able to come half up to the picturesque barbarism of Cruive End.”
“The young ladies at the Castle,” said I, “wanted the women to wear jacket things, and coats of many colours, Mr. Allan, to make them picturesque; but say you that Cruive End is so in its natural state?”
Mr. Allan laughed.
“Perfectly so, Miss Maitland; at least so far as my judgment goes. But, mother, I insist, you must go with me to see Cruire End in its natural state, or else you never will believe me afterwards, when you see it improved, as to what it has been.”