A Princess of Thule

“Mairi,” said Sheila, standing quite erect, but with her eyes cast down, “is my cousin.”

“Your cousin! Don’t be ridiculous, Sheila. You know very well that Mairi is nothing more or less than a scullery-maid; and I suppose you mean to take her out of the kitchen and introduce her to people, and expect her to sit down at table with them. Is not that so?” She did not answer, and he went on, impatiently: “Why was I not told that this girl was coming to stay at my house? Surely I have some right to know what guests you invite, that I may be able at least to ask my friends not to come near the house while they are in it.”

“That I did not tell you before – yes, that was a pity,” said Sheila, sadly and calmly. “But it will be no trouble to you. When Mrs. Lorraine comes up at two o’clock there will be luncheon for her and for her friends. She will not have to sit down with any of my relations or with me, for if they are not fit to meet her, I am not; and it is not any great matter that I do not meet her at two o’clock.”

There was no passion of any sort in the measured and sad voice, nor in the somewhat pale face and downcast eyes. Perhaps it was this composure that deceived Frank Lavender; at all events, he turned and walked out of the house, satisfied that he would not have to introduce this Highland cousin to his friends, and just as certain that Sheila would repent of her resolve and appear in the dining-room as usual.

Sheila went down stairs to the kitchen, where Mairi still stood awaiting her. She gave orders to one of the servants about having luncheon laid in the dining-room at two, and then she bade Mairi follow her up-stairs.

“Mairi,” she said, when they were alone, “I want you to put your things in your trunk at once – in five minutes, if you can; I shall be waiting for you.”

“Miss Sheila!” cried the girl, looking up to her friend’s face with a sudden fright seizing her heart, “what is the matter with you? You are going to die!”

“There is nothing the matter, Mairi. I am going away.”

She uttered the words placidly, but there was a pained look about the lips that could not be concealed, and her face, unknown to herself, had the whiteness of despair in it.

“Going away!” said Mairi, in a bewildered way. “Where are you going, Miss Sheila?”

“I will tell you by and by. Get your trunk ready, Mairi. You are keeping me waiting.”

Then she called for a servant, who was sent for a cab; and by the time the vehicle appeared Mairi was ready to get into it, and her trunk was put on the top. Then, clad in the rough blue dress she used to wear in Borva, and with no appearance of haste or fear in the calm and death-like face, Sheila came out from her husband’s house and found herself alone in the world. There were two little girls, the daughters of a neighbor, passing by at the time; she patted them on the head and bade them good-morning. Could she recollect, five minutes thereafter, having seen them? There was a strange and distant look in her eyes.

She got into the cab, and sat down by Mairi, and then took the girl’s hand. “I am sorry to take you away, Mairi,” she said; but she was apparently not thinking of Mairi, nor of the house she was leaving, nor yet of the vehicle in which she was so strangely placed. Was she thinking of a certain wild and wet day in the far Hebrides, when a young bride stood on the decks of a great vessel and saw the home of her childhood and the friends of her youth fade back into the desolate waste of the sea? Perhaps there may have been some unconscious influence in this picture to direct her movements at this moment, for of definite resolves she had none. When Mairi told her that the cabman wanted to know whither he was to drive, she merely answered: “Oh, yes, Mairi, we will go to the station;” and Mairi added, addressing the man: “It was the Euston Station.” Then they drove away.

“Are you going home?” said the young girl, looking up with a strange foreboding and sinking of the heart to the pale face and distant eyes – “are you going home, Miss Sheila?”

“Oh, yes, we are going home, Mairi,” was the answer she got, but the tone in which it was uttered filled her mind with doubt, and something like despair.

PART IX

CHAPTER XIX.

A NEW DAY BREAKS

WAS this, then, the end of the fair and beautiful romance that had sprung up and blossomed so hopefully in the remote and bleak island, amid the silence of the hills and moors and the wild twilights of the North, and set around about, as it were, by the cold sea-winds and the sound of the Atlantic waves? Who could have fancied, looking at those two young folks as they wandered about the shores of the island, as they sailed on the still moonlight nights through the channels of Loch Roag, or as they sang together of an evening in the little parlor of the house at Borvapost, that all the delight and wonder of life then apparently opening out before them was so soon and so suddenly to collapse, leaving them in outer darkness and despair? All their difficulties had been got over. From one side and from another they had received generous help, friendly advice, self-sacrifice, to start them on a path that seemed to be strewn with sweet-smelling flowers. And here was the end – a wretched girl, blinded and bewildered, flying from her husband’s house and seeking refuge in the great world of London, careless whither she went.

Whose was the fault? Which of them had been mistaken up there in the North, laying the way open for a bitter disappointment? Or had either of them failed to carry out that unwritten contract entered into in the halcyon period of courtship, by which young people promise to be and remain to each other all that they then appeared?

Lavender, at least, had no right to complain. If the real Sheila turned out to be something different from the Sheila of his fancy, he had been abundantly warned that such would be the case. He had even accepted it as probable, and said that as the Sheila whom he might come to know must doubtless be better than the Sheila whom he had imagined, there was little danger in store for either. He would love the true Sheila even better than the creature of his brain. Had he done so? He found beside him this proud and sensitive Highland girl, full of generous impulses that craved for the practical work of helping other people, longing, with the desire of a caged bird, for the free winds and light of heaven, the sight of hills and the sound of seas, and he could not understand why she could not conform to the usages of city life. He was disappointed that she did not do so. The imaginative Sheila, who was to appear as a wonderful sea-princess in London drawing-rooms, had disappeared now; and the real Sheila, who did not care to go with him into that society which he loved, or affected to love, he had not learned to know.

And had she been mistaken in her estimate of Frank Lavender’s character? At the very moment of her leaving her husband’s house, if she had been asked the question, she would have turned and proudly answered, “No!” She had been disappointed – so grievously disappointed that her heart seemed to be breaking over it – but the manner in which Frank Lavender had fallen away from all the promises he had given was due, not to himself, but to the influence of the society around him. Of that she was quite assured. He had shown himself careless, indifferent, inconsiderate to the verge of cruelty; but he was not, she had convinced herself, consciously cruel, nor yet selfish, nor radically bad-hearted in any way. In her opinion, at least, he was courageously sincere, to the verge of shocking people who mistook his frankness for impudence. He was recklessly generous: he would have given the coat off his back to a beggar, at the instigation of a sudden impulse, provided he could have got into a cab before any of his friends saw him. He had rare abilities, and at times wildly ambitious dreams, not of his own glorification, but of what he would do to celebrate the beauty and the graces of the princess whom he fancied he had married. It may seem hard of belief that this man, judging him by his actions at this time, could have had anything of thorough self-forgetfulness and manliness in his nature. But when things were at their very worst, when he appeared to the world as a self-indulgent idler, careless of a noble woman’s unbounded love; when his indifference, or worse, had actually driven from his house a young wife who had especial claims on his forbearance and consideration – there were two people who still believed in Frank Lavender. They were Sheila Mackenzie and Edward Ingram; and a man’s wife and his oldest friend generally know something about his real nature, its besetting temptations, its weakness, its strength and its possibilities.

Of course Ingram was speedily made aware of all that had happened. Lavender went home at the appointed hour to luncheon accompanied by his three acquaintances. He had met them accidentally in the forenoon, and as Mrs. Lorraine was most particular in her inquiries about Sheila, he thought he could not do better than ask her there and then with her mother and Lord Arthur, to have luncheon at two. What followed on his carrying the announcement to Sheila we know. He left the house, taking it for granted that there would be no trouble when he returned. Perhaps he reproached himself for having spoken so sharply, but Sheila was really very thoughtless in such matters. At two o’clock everything would be right. Sheila must see how it would be impossible to introduce a young Highland serving-maid to two fastidious ladies and the son of a great Conservative peer.

Lavender met his three friends once more, and walked up to the house with them, letting them in, indeed, with his own latch-key. Passing the dining-room, he saw that the table was laid there. This was well. Sheila had been reasonable.

They went up-stairs to the drawing-room. Sheila was not there. Lavender rang the bell, and bade the servant tell her mistress she was wanted.

“Mrs. Lavender has gone out, sir,” said the servant.

“Oh, indeed!” he said, taking the matter quite coolly. “When?”

“A quarter of an hour ago, sir. She went out with the – the young lady who came this morning.”

“Very well. Let me know when luncheon is ready.”

Lavender turned to his guests, feeling a little awkward, but appearing to treat the matter in a light and humorous way. He imagined that Sheila, resenting what he had said, had resolved to take Mairi away and find her lodgings elsewhere. Perhaps that might be done in time to let Sheila come back to receive his guests.

Sheila did not appear, however, and luncheon was announced.

“I suppose we may as well go down,” said Lavender, with a shrug of his shoulders. “It is impossible to say when she may come back. She is such a good-hearted creature that she would never think of herself or her own affairs in looking after this girl from Lewis.”

They went down stairs and took their places at the table.

“For my part,” said Mrs. Lorraine, “I think it is very unkind not to wait for poor Mrs. Lavender. She may come in dreadfully tired and hungry.”

“But that would not vex her so much as the notion that you had waited on her account,” said Sheila’s husband, with a smile; and Mrs. Lorraine was pleased to hear him sometimes speak in a kindly way of the Highland girl whom he had married.

Lavender’s guests were going somewhere after luncheon, and he had half-promised to go with them, Mrs. Lorraine stipulating that Sheila should be induced to come also. But when luncheon was over and Sheila had not appeared, he changed his intention. He would remain at home. He saw his three friends depart, and went into the study and lit a cigar.

How odd the place seemed. Sheila had left no instructions about the removal of those barbaric decorations she had placed in the chamber; and here around him seemed to be the walls of the old-fashioned little room at Borvapost, with its big shells, its peacocks’ feathers, its skins and stuffed fish, and masses of crimson bell-heather. Was there not, too, an odor of peat-smoke in the air? – and then his eyes caught sight of the plate that still stood on the windowsill, with the ashes of the burned peat on it.

“The odd child she is!” he thought, with a smile, “to go playing at grotto-making, and trying to fancy she was up in Lewis again! I suppose she would like to let her hair down again, and take off her shoes and stockings, and go wading along the sand in search of shell-fish.”

And then, somehow, his fancies went back to the old time when he had first seen and admired her wild ways, her fearless occupations by sea and shore, and the delight of active work that shone on her bright face and in her beautiful eyes. How lithe and handsome her figure used to be in that blue dress, when she stood in the middle of the boat, her head bent back, her arms upstretched and pulling at some rope or other, and all the fine color of exertion in the bloom of her cheeks! Then the pride with which she saw her little vessel cutting through the water! – how she tightened her lips with a joyous determination as the sheets were hauled close, and the gunwale of the small boat heeled over so that it almost touched the hissing and gurgling foam! – how she laughed at Duncan’s anxiety as she rounded some rocky point, and sent the boat spinning into the clear and smooth waters of the bay! Perhaps, after all, it was too bad to keep the poor child so long shut up in a city. She was evidently longing for a breath of sea air, and for some brief dash of that brisk, fearless life on the sea-coast that she used to love. It was a happy life, after all; and he had himself enjoyed it when his hands and face got browned by the sun, when he grew to wonder how any human being could wear black garments and drink foreign wines and smoke cigars at eighteenpence a piece, so long as frieze coats, whisky and a brier-root pipe were procurable. How one slept up in that remote island, after all the laughing and drinking and singing of the evening were over! How sharp was the monition of hunger when the keen sea air blew about your face on issuing out in the morning! and how fresh and cool and sweet was that early breeze, with the scent of Sheila’s flowers in it! Then the long, bright day at the river-side, with the black pools rippling in the wind, and in the silence of the rapid whistle of the silken line through the air, with now and then the “blob” of a big salmon rising to a fly further down the pool! Where was there any rest like the rest of the mid-day luncheon, when Duncan had put the big fish, wrapped in rushes, under the shadow of the nearest rock, when you sat down on the warm heather and lit your pipe, and began to inquire where you had been bitten on hands and neck by the ferocious “clegs” while you are too busy in playing a fifteen-pounder to care? Then, perhaps, as you were sitting there in the warm sunlight, with all the fresh scents of moorland around, you would hear a light footstep on the soft moss; and, turning around, here was Sheila herself, with a bright look in her pretty eyes, and a half blush on her cheek, and a friendly inquiry as to the way the fish had been behaving. Then the beautiful, strange, cool evenings on the shores of Loch Roag, with the wild, clear light still shining in the Northern heavens, and the sound of the waves getting to be lonely and distant; or, still later, out in Sheila’s boat, with the great yellow moon rising up over Suainabhal and Mealasabhal into a lambent vault of violet sky; a pathway of quivering gold lying across the Loch; a mild radiance glittering here and there on the spars of the small vessel, and out there the great Atlantic lying still and distant as in a dream. As he sat in this little room and thought of all these things, he grew to think he had not acted quite fairly to Sheila. She was so fond of that beautiful island life, and she had not even visited the Lewis since her marriage. She should go now. He would abandon the trip to the Tyrol, and as soon as arrangements could be made they would together start for the North, and some day find themselves going up the steep shore to Sheila’s home, with the old King of Borva standing in the porch of the house, and endeavoring to conceal his nervousness by swearing at Duncan’s method of carrying the luggage.

Had not Sheila’s stratagem succeeded? That pretty trick of hers in decorating the room so as to resemble the house at Borvapost had done all that she could have desired. But where was she?

Lavender rose hastily and looked at his watch. Then he rang the bell, and a servant appeared. “Did not Mrs. Lavender say when she would return?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“You don’t know where she went?”

“No, sir. The young lady’s luggage was put in the cab, and they drove away without leaving any message.”

He scarcely dared confess to himself what fears began to assail him. He went up-stairs to Sheila’s room, and there everything appeared to be in its usual place, even to the smallest article on the dressing-table. They were all there, except one. That was a locket, too large and clumsy to be worn, which some one had given her years before she left Lewis, and in which her father’s portrait had been somewhat rudely set. Just after their marriage Lavender had taken out this portrait, touched it up a bit into somewhat of a better likeness, and put it back; and then she had persuaded him to have a photograph of himself colored and placed on the opposite side. This locket open, and showing both portraits, she had fixed on to a small stand, and in ordinary circumstances it always stood on one side of her dressing-table. The stand was there, the locket was gone.

He went down-stairs again. The afternoon was drawing on. A servant came to ask him at what hour he wished to dine; he bade her wait till her mistress came home and consult her. Then he went out.

It was a beautiful, quiet afternoon, with a warm light from the West shining over the now yellowing trees of the squares and gardens. He walked down toward Notting Hill Gate Station, endeavoring to convince himself that he was not perturbed, and yet looking somewhat anxiously at the cabs that passed. People were now coming out from their business in the city by train and omnibus and hansom; and they seemed to be hurrying home in very good spirits, as if they were sure of the welcome awaiting them there. Now and again you would see a meeting – some demure young person, who had been furtively watching the railway station, suddenly showing a brightness in her face as she went forward to shake hands with some new arrival, and then tripping briskly away with him, her hand on his arm. There were men carrying home fish in small bags, or baskets of fruit – presents to their wives, doubtless, from town. Occasionally an open carriage would go by, containing one grave and elderly gentleman and a group of small girls – probably his daughters, who had gone into the city to accompany their papa homeward. Why did these scenes and incidents, cheerful in themselves, seem to him somewhat saddening as he walked vaguely on? He knew, at least, that there was little use in returning home. There was no one in that silent house in the square. The rooms would be dark in the twilight. Probably dinner would be laid, with no one to sit down at the table. He wished Sheila had left word where she was going.

Then he bethought himself the way in which they had parted, and of the sense of fear that had struck him the moment he left the house, that after all he had been too harsh with the child. Now, at least, he was ready to apologize to her. If only he could see Sheila coming along in one of those hansoms – if he could see, at any distance, the figure he knew so well walking toward him on the pavement – would he not instantly confess to her that he had been wrong, even grievously wrong, and beg her to forgive him? She should have it all her own way about going up to Lewis. He would cast aside this society life he had been living, and to please her he would go in for any sort of work or amusement of which she approved. He was so anxious, indeed, to put these virtuous resolutions into force that he suddenly turned and walked rapidly back to the house, with the wild hope that Sheila might have already come back.

The windows were dark, the curtains were yet drawn, and by this time the evening had come on and the lamps in the square had been lit. He let himself into the house by his latch-key. He walked into all the rooms and up to Sheila’s room; everything remained as he had left it. The white cloth glimmered in the dusk of the dining-room, and the light of the lamp outside in the street touched here and there the angles of the crystal and showed the pale colors of the glasses. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked in the silence. If Sheila had been lying dead in that small room up-stairs, the house could not have appeared more silent and solemn.

He could not bear this horrible solitude. He called one of the servants and left a message for Sheila, if she came in in the interval, that he would be back at ten o’clock: then he went out, got into a hansom and drove down to his club in St. James’ Street.

Most of the men were dining: the other rooms were almost deserted. He did not care to dine just then. He went into the library: it was occupied by an old gentleman who was fast asleep in an easy-chair. He went into the billiard-rooms, in the vague hope that some exciting game might be going on: there was not a soul in the place, the gases were down, and an odor of stale smoke pervaded the dismal chambers. Should he go to the theatre? His sitting there would be a mockery while this vague and terrible fear was present to his heart. Or go down to see Ingram, as had been his wont in previous hours of trouble? He dared not go near Ingram without some more definite news about Sheila. In the end he went out into the open air, as if he were in danger of being stifled, and, walking indeterminately on, found himself once more at his own house.

The place was still quite dark; he knew before entering that Sheila had not returned, and he did not seem to be surprised. It was now long after their ordinary dinner hour. When he went into the house he bade the servants light the gas and bring up dinner; he would himself sit down at this solitary table, if only for the purpose of finding occupation and passing this terrible time of suspense.

It never occurred to him, as it might have occurred to him at one time, that Sheila had made some blunder somewhere and been unavoidably detained. He did not think of any possible repetition of her adventures in Richmond Park. He was too conscious of the probable reason of Sheila’s remaining away from her own home; and yet from minute to minute he fought with that consciousness, and sought to prove to himself that, after all, she would soon be heard driving up to the door. He ate his dinner in silence, and then drew a chair up to the fire and lit a cigar.

For the first time in his life he was driven to go over the events that had occurred since his marriage, and to ask himself how it had all come about that Sheila and he were not as they once had been. He recalled the early days of their friendship at Borva; the beautiful period of their courtship; the appearance of the young wife in London, and the close relegation of Sheila to the domestic affairs of the house, while he had chosen for himself other companions, other interests, other aims. There was no attempt at self-justification in these communings, but an effort, sincere enough in its way, to understand how all this had happened. He sat and dreamed there before the warmth of the fire, with the slow and monotonous ticking of the clock unconsciously acting on his brain. In time the silence, the warmth, the monotonous sound, produced their natural effects, and he fell fast asleep.

He awoke with a start. The small silver-toned bell on the mantelpiece had struck the hour of twelve. He looked around, and knew that the evil had come upon him, for Sheila had not returned, and all his most dreadful fears of that evening were confirmed. Sheila had gone away and left him. Whither had she gone?

Now there was no more indecision in his actions. He got his hat, plunged into the cold night air, and finding a hansom, bade the man drive as hard as he could go down to Sloane Street. There was a light in Ingram’s windows, which were on the ground floor; he tapped with his stick on one of the panes – an old signal that had been in constant use when he and Ingram were close companions and friends. Ingram came to the door and opened it; the light of a lamp glared in on his face. “Halloo, Lavender!” he said, in a tone of surprise.