The Minister's Wife - Mrs. Oliphant

Скачать книгу

sat propped among her pillows, watching with soft eyes. She was herself so much beyond the world—so ready to go; so far on her way, as she herself expressed it, that the tumult of feeling in her sister’s bosom appeared to her almost like the baby flutterings of childhood. But Jean, whose experience was of a different kind, stood looking after the girl with mingled indignation and sympathy.

      ‘It’s hard on her,’ said the stepmother. ‘You ken an awfu’ deal mair than me, Margret; but you dinna see it’s hard upon her as I do: though I could never forgive her thinking of anything serious, and you so ill. We maun a’ hae our little diversion,’ Jean added, after a pause. ‘It’s but that. It couldna be marrying and giving in marriage the lass was thinking of, and you so far from well.’

      ‘Would it not be more unkind if it was mere diversion?’ said Margaret.

      ‘Na,’ said Jean quickly, ‘a lass like a bairn must whiles have the play. We’re a’ the better o’t. And Isabel meant nae mair. She’s thoughtless whiles, but she has a tender heart. You canna believe she was planning out her life and you lying suffering here?’

      ‘She’s so young,’ said Margaret, though a momentary contraction passed over her face. It was meet that Isabel’s life should be planned out before she was left alone in the world.

      Isabel for her part went very slowly to the door, and looked up and down the road, to cheat her own conscience into the belief that she was obeying her sister. She took a few steps round the house in the wrong direction to look for the watcher, and went back to the door with a relieved heart, not having seen him. Her heart was not detached from her first love, but she had been much shaken in her belief in him at their last meeting; and though she denied indignantly that it was ‘diversion,’ she trembled to bring Stapylton to the length of an interview with Margaret, thereby binding him and herself for ever. So Isabel thought in her simplicity. ‘It would be as bad as being married,’ she said to herself; and she had no desire to be married. All that her heart asked could be given by those chance meetings, by the sweet sense of being loved, the charm of the tender secret which was between the two. To go any further at such a moment would have shocked and startled the girl; and what was to be done if she brought him to Margaret, but that the most serious consequences might follow. She was incapable of ‘diverting herself,’ as Jean thought, but yet had no inclination to quicken the pace of life, or rush upon facts. Serious existence looked still distant and far off, and Isabel approached it with tender delay, with soft wistfulness and reluctance. It would come to that eventually, no doubt. But why should Horace, why should Margaret, be so impatient now?

      Isabel stood at the door, and her flushed face cooled in the evening air, and the beating of her heart grew less loud; but she could not see her lover on the road. ‘He must have gone away back, if he was ever there,’ she said, when she returned to Margaret’s room, or ‘maybe it was but the peeweep on the hill.’

      ‘It was nae peeweep,’ said Jean Campbell, turning round; but she was charitable enough to say no more, when she saw the look of anxiety on Isabel’s face.

      ‘If he’s gone there is no more to be said,’ said Margaret; and then she sighed. ‘It is not because I’m going,’ she added, with a smile, as it were correcting herself, ‘but because I would fain put myself in God’s place for my bonnie Bell; as if He did not love her more than I can—as if she were not safest with him!’

      And then poor Isabel, full of remorse, bent down her head upon her sister’s outstretched hands. Could she trust Margaret, perfect as she was, to see all her thoughts; all the fancies that rose in her mind as God did? Jean Campbell, whose homely mind was free of these complications, withdrew at this point, drying her eyes and shaking her head.

      ‘And she’s nae aulder than Isabel!’ said the humble stepmother. It was the most pathetic commentary that could have been made.

       Table of Contents

      ‘I would not have thought,’ said Miss Catherine, looking steadily at young Stapylton, who had gone to pay her a visit, ‘that the farming over the hill was worth so long study. They must be wearying for you at home.’

      ‘There are more things than the farming,’ said Horace; ‘there is the grouse, for instance, and it will soon be September. The folks at home have to make up their mind to it. A man is not like a girl.’

      ‘The Lord forbid!’ said Miss Catherine, ‘or fathers and mothers would have little comfort of their lives. I hope there’s a pleasant young sister to keep them company at home.’

      ‘Oh, there are three girls, thank you,’ said young Stapylton, carelessly, ‘they are jolly enough. It’s against my principles to be always turning up at the Hall. What is the good of being young if one is not to have a little freedom? I suppose I shall settle down some time like my father. It’s very respectable and all that, but it’s not amusing. Women never can understand a man. You think we should be tied down to all the old cut-and-dry habits like yourselves.’

      ‘No,’ said Miss Catherine, ‘it is not to be expected we should understand you. We are creatures of a lower class, as is well known. But still you know the very dogs come to a kind of comprehension of their masters. I would think the Hall and the neighbours you have known all your days, and the hunting and such like, would have as many charms as Mr. Lothian and the grouse. It’s but a poor sphere for you here.’

      ‘Well, I suppose so long as I am content, that is enough,’ said Horace, with a feeling that he was being laughed at; and then he added, with an attempt at sarcasm, ‘Besides there are a great many superior people here; and this movement is very interesting to a student of human nature, you know.’

      ‘And what does a student of human nature make of the movement?’ said Miss Catherine, grimly, looking at the young fellow with her penetrating grey eyes. He was not the blasé young man of the present day, experienced in everything and weary of all. He was not sufficiently polished for the soft sneer and universal derision now current among us, but he was the first rough sketch of that accomplished personage; the fashion had come in, or at least had reached to his level. But it was a rough species of the art, and only good as an essay.

      ‘Well,’ said Horace, with a certain grandeur, an air which had often imposed upon Isabel, who knew no better, ‘I suppose it is just one of the ordinary religious swindles. But the simplicity of the people makes it look better than usual, to begin with. And it is only beginning. One can’t tell at first what follies such a business may fall into. The woman is mad, I suppose; or else she has taken this way of thrusting herself into notice. She is rather pretty, too. Somebody might be fool enough to marry her, if she was taken up by the better class. As for the men, I suppose they have some motive: ambition to be first among their neighbours, or love of excitement, or something. It is like whisky; and then it don’t lead to trouble as whisky does.’

      Miss Catherine was much opposed to ‘the movement’ herself; but her soul was moved within her by this speech.

      ‘Do you tell them your opinions as frankly at the Glebe?’ she said, quietly; and her companion changed colour somewhat at the question.

      ‘Well, you know, the eldest girl is of the same way of thinking,’ he said. ‘It is quite natural she should be. She is very ill, and she must come to that, sooner or later: and then they all think it’s a chance for her to get better. I don’t wonder, in the least, at Margaret. The other—don’t know what to think,’ he added, with a little reluctance: ‘but, of course, one would not shock the feelings of two girls.’

      ‘That’s good of you,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘and I see the force of what you say. Religion is what we must all come to, sooner or later. It’s a very fine way of putting it, and shows a perception of character—But, my young friend, is it right of you to turn your steps night after night towards the Glebe? I am never at my west window in the evening, but I see you with your face that way. They are gentlewomen

Скачать книгу