The Laird of Norlaw; A Scottish Story

Thinking certainly that at so early an hour he himself was the first person astir in Norlaw, Huntley was greatly amazed to find Cosmo—no longer choosing his boyish seat of meditation in the window of the old castle—wandering restlessly about the ruins. And Cosmo did not seem quite pleased to see him; that was still more remarkable. The elder brother could not help seeing again, as in a picture, the delicate fair boy, with his long arms thrust out of the jacket which was too small for him, with his bursts of boyish vehemence and enthusiasm, his old chivalrous championship of the unknown Mary, his tenacious love for the hereditary Norlaw. Huntley had not seen the boy grow up into the man—he had not learned to moderate his protecting love for the youngest child into the steady brotherly affection which should now acknowledge the man as an equal. Cosmo was still “my father’s son,” the youngest, the dearest, the one to be shielded from trouble, in the fancy of the elder brother. Yet, there he stood, as tall as Huntley, his childish delicacy of complexion gone, his fair hair crisp and curled, his dark eyes stormy and full of personal emotions, his foot impatient and restless, the step of a man already burdened with cares of his own. And, reluctant to meet his brother, his closest friend, and once his natural guardian! Huntley thrust his arm into Cosmo’s, and drew him round the other side of the ruins.

“Do you really wish to avoid me?” said the elder brother, with a pang. “What is wrong, Cosmo?—can you not tell me?”

“Nothing is wrong, so far as I am aware,” said Cosmo, with some haughtiness. His first impulse seemed to be to draw away his arm from his brother’s, but, if it was so, he restrained himself, and, instead, walked on with a cold, averted face, which was almost more painful than any act to the frank spirit of Huntley.

“I will ask no more questions then,” said Huntley, with some impatience; “I ought to remember how long I have been gone, and how little you know of me. What is to be done about this Pierrot? So far as I can glean from what my mother says, he will be an unwelcome guest at Melmar. What ground has my mother for supposing him connected with Madame Roche? What sort of a person is Madame Roche? What have you all been doing with yourselves? I have a hundred questions to ask about everybody. Even Patie no one speaks of; if nothing is wrong you are all strangely changed since I went away.”

“I suppose the all means myself; I am changed since you went away,” said Cosmo, moodily.

“Yes, you are changed, Cosmo; I don’t understand it; however, never mind, you can tell the reason why when you know me better,” said Huntley, “but, in the meantime, how is Patie, and where? And what about this Madame Roche?”

“Madame Roche is very well,” said Cosmo, with assumed indifference, “her eldest daughter is married, and has long been deserted by her husband; but I don’t know his name—they never mention it. Madame Roche is ashamed of him; they were people of very good family, in spite of what my mother says—Roche de St. Martin—but I sent you word of all this long ago. It is little use repeating it now.”

“Why should Pierrot be her husband, of all men in the world?” said Huntley; “but if he’s not wanted at Melmar, you had better send the ladies word of your suspicions, and put them on their guard.”

“I have been there this morning,” said Cosmo, slightly confused by his own admission.

“This morning? you certainly have not lost any time,” said Huntley, laughing. “Never mind, Cosmo, I said I should ask nothing you did not want to tell me; though why you should be so anxious to keep her husband away from the poor woman—How have they got on at Melmar? Have they many friends? Are they people to make friends? They seem at least to be people of astonishing importance in Norlaw.”

“My mother,” said Cosmo, angrily, “dislikes Madame Roche, and consequently every thing said and done at Melmar takes an evil aspect in her eyes.”

“My boy, that is not a tone in which to speak of my mother,” said Huntley, with gravity.

“I know it!” cried the younger brother, “but how can I help it? it is true they are my friends. I confess to that; why should they not be my friends? why should I reject kindness when I find it? As for Marie, she is a selfish, peevish invalid, I have no patience with her—but—Madame Roche—”

Cosmo made a full stop before he said Madame Roche, and pronounced that name at last so evidently as a substitute for some other name, that Huntley’s curiosity was roused; which curiosity, however, he thought it best to satisfy diplomatically, and by a round-about course.

“I must see her to-morrow,” he said; “but what of our old friend, Melmar, who loved us all so well? I should not like to rejoice in any man’s downfall, but he deserved it, surely. What has become of them all?”

“He is a poor writer again,” said Cosmo, shortly, “and Joanna—it was Joanna who brought Desirée here.”

“Who is Desirée?” asked Huntley.

“I ought to say Miss Roche,” said Cosmo, blushing to his hair. “Joanna Huntley and she were great friends at school, and after the change she was very anxious that Joanna should stay. She is the youngest, and an awkward, strange girl—but, why I can not tell, she clings to her father, and is a governess or school-mistress now, I believe. Yes, things change strangely. They were together when I saw them first.”

“They—them! you are rather mysterious, Cosmo. What is the story?” asked his brother.

“Oh, nothing very remarkable; only Des—Miss Roche, you know, came to Melmar first of all as governess to Joanna, and it was while she was there that I found Madame Roche at St. Ouen. When I returned, my mother,” said Cosmo, with a softening in his voice, “brought Desirée to Norlaw, as you must have heard; and it was from our house that she went home.”

“And, except this unfortunate sick one, she is the only child?” said Huntley. “I understand it now.”

Cosmo gave him a hurried jealous glance, as if to ask what it was he understood, but after that relapsed into uncomfortable silence. They went on for some time so, Cosmo with anger and impatience supposing his elder brother’s mind to be occupied with what he had just told him; and it was with amazement, relief, but almost contempt for Huntley’s extraordinary want of interest in matters so deeply interesting to himself, that Cosmo heard and answered the next question addressed to him.

“And Dr. Logan is dead,” said Huntley, with a quiet sorrow in his voice, which trembled too with another emotion. “I wonder where Katie and her bairns are now?”

“Not very far off; somewhere near Edinburgh. I think Lasswade. Mr. Cassilis’ mother lives there,” said Cosmo.

“Mr. Cassilis! I had forgotten him,” said Huntley, “but he does not live at Lasswade?”

“They say he would be glad enough to have Katie Logan in Edinburgh,” said Cosmo, indifferently; “they are cousins—I suppose they are likely to be married;—how do I know? Well, only by some one telling me, Huntley! I did not know you cared.”

“Who said I cared?” cried Huntley, with sudden passion. “How should any one know any thing about the matter—eh? I only asked, of course, from curiosity, because we know her so well—used to know her so well. Not you, who were a child, but we two elder ones. My brother Patie—I hear nothing of Patie. Where is he then? You must surely know.”

“He is to come to meet you to-morrow,” said Cosmo, who was really grieved for his own carelessness. “Don’t let me vex you, Huntley. I am vexed myself, and troubled; but I never thought of that, and may be quite wrong, as I am often,” he added, with momentary humility, for Cosmo was deeply mortified by the sudden idea that he had been selfishly mindful of his own concerns, and indifferent to those of his brother. For the time, it filled him with self-reproach and penitence.

“Never mind; every thing comes right in time,” said Huntley; but this piece of philosophy was said mechanically—the first common-place which occurred to Huntley to vail the perturbation of his thoughts.

Just then some sounds from the house called their attention there. The Mistress herself stood at the open door of Norlaw, contemplating the exit of the Frenchman, who stood before her, hat in hand, making satirical bows and thanking her for his night’s lodging. In the morning sunshine this personage looked dirtier and more disreputable than on the previous night. He had not been at all particular about his toilette, and curled up his moustache over his white teeth, the only thing white about him, with a most sinister sneer, while he addressed his hostess; while she, in the meantime, in her morning cap and heavy black gown, and clear, ruddy face, stood watching him, as perfect a contrast as could be conceived.

“I have the satisfaction of making my adieux, madame,” cried Pierrot; “receive the assurance of my distinguished regard. I shall bring my wife to thank you. I shall tell my wife what compliments you paid her, to free her from her unworthy spouse and bestow your son. She will thank you—I will thank you. Madame, from my heart I make you my adieux!”

“It’s Sabbath morning,” said the Mistress, quietly; “and if you find your wife—I dinna envy her, poor woman! you can tell her just whatever you please, and I’ll no’ cross you; though it’s weel to see you dinna ken, you puir, misguided heathen, that you’re in another kind of country frae your ain. You puir Pagan creature! do you think I would ware my Huntley on a woman that had been another man’s wife? or do you think that marriage can be broken here? but it’s no’ worth my while parleying with the like of you. Gang your ways and find your wife, and be good to her, if it’s in you. She’s maybe a silly woman that likes ye still, vagabone though ye be—she’s maybe near the end of her days, for onything you ken. Go away and get some kindness in your heart if ye can—and every single word I’ve said to you you can tell ower again to your wife.”

Which would have been rather hard, however, though the Mistress did not know it. The wanderer knew English better than a Frenchman often does, but his education had been neglected—he did not know Scotch—a fact which did not enter into the calculations of Mrs. Livingstone.

“Adieu, comrade!” cried Pierrot, waving his hand to Huntley; “when I see you again you shall behold a milor, a nobleman; be happy with your amiable parent. I go to my wife, who adores me. Adieu.”

“And it’s true,” said the Mistress, drawing a long breath as the strange guest disappeared on the road to Kirkbride. “Eh, sire, but this world’s a mystery! it’s just true, so far as I hear; she does adore him, and him baith a mountebank and a vagabone! it passes the like of me!”

And Cosmo, looking after him too, thought of Cameron. Could that be the husband for whom Marie had pined away her life?

CHAPTER LXVII

It was Sabbath morning, but it was not a morning of rest; though it was Huntley’s first day at home, and though it did his heart good to see his mother, the young man’s heart was already astray and pre-occupied with his own thoughts; and Cosmo, full of subdued but unrecoverable excitement, which his mother’s jealous eye only too plainly perceived, covered the face of the Mistress with clouds. Yet a spectator might have supposed that breakfast-table a very centre of family love and harmony. The snow-white cloth, the basket of brown oat-cakes and white flour scones, of Marget’s most delicate manufacture, the great jug full of rich red June roses, which made a glory in the midst, and the mother at the head of her table, with those two sons in the bloom of their young manhood, on either side of her, and the dress of her widowhood throwing a certain, tender, pathetic suggestion into her joy and their love. It was a picture had it been a picture, which no one could have seen without a touching consciousness of one of the most touching sides of human life. A family which at its happiest must always recall and commemorate a perpetual lack and vacancy, and where all the affections were the deeper and tenderer for that sorrow which overshadowed them; the sons of their mother, and she was a widow! But, alas, for human pictures and ideals! The mother was restless and dissatisfied, feeling strange interests crowding in to the very hour which should be peculiarly her own; the young men were stirred with the personal and undisclosed troubles of their early life. They sat together at their early meal, speaking of common matters, eating daily bread, united yet separate, the peace of the morning only vailing over a surface of commotion, and Sabbath in every thing around save in their hearts.

“It’s a strange minister—you’ll miss the old man, Huntley,” said the Mistress; “but you’ll write down your thanksgiving like a good bairn, and put an offering in the plate; put your name, say, ‘Huntley Livingstone returns thanks to God for his safe home-coming.’ There would have been nae need for that if Dr. Logan had been to the fore; he aye minded baith thanks and supplications; and I’ll never forget what petitions he made in his prayer the last Sabbath you were at hame. You’re early stirring, Cosmo—it’s no’ time yet for the kirk.”

“I am going to Melmar, mother,” said Cosmo, in a low voice.

The Mistress made no answer; a flush came over her face, and her brow contracted, but she only said, as if to herself:—

“It’s the Sabbath day.”

“I went there this morning, to warn them of this man’s arrival,” said Cosmo, with excitement, “saying what you thought. I did not see any of them; but Marie has one of her illnesses. They have no one to support them in any emergency. I must see that he does not break in upon them to-day.”

The Mistress still made no answer. After a little struggle with herself, she nodded hastily.

“If ye’re a’ done, I’ll rise from the table. I have things to do before kirk-time,” she said at length, pushing back her chair and turning away. She had nothing to say against Cosmo’s resolution, but she was deeply offended by it—deeply, unreasonably, and she knew it—but could not restrain the bitter emotion. To be absent from the kirk at all, save by some overpowering necessity, was an offense to all her strong Scottish prejudices—but it was an especial breach of family decorum, and all the acknowledged sentiment and punctilio of love, to be absent to-day.

“Keep us a’ patient!” cried Marget, in an indignant undertone, when Mrs. Livingstone was out of hearing; for Marget, on one pretense or other, kept going and coming into the dining-parlor the whole morning, to rejoice her eyes with the sight of Huntley. “Some women come into this world for nae good reason but to make trouble. To speak to the Mistress about an emergency! Whaever supported her in her troubles but the Almighty himsel’ and her ain stout heart? I dinna wonder it’s hard to bear! Some gang through the fire for their ain hand, and no’ a mortal nigh them—some maun have a haill houseful to bear them up. Weel, weel, I’m no’ saying any thing against it—it’s kind o’ you, Mr. Cosmo—but you should think, laddie, before you speak.”

“She is not like my mother,” said Cosmo, somewhat sullenly.

“Like your mother!” cried Marget, with the utmost contempt. “She would smile a hantle mair, and ca’ ye mair dears in a day than my Mistress in a twelvemonth; but would she have fought and struggled through her life for a thankless man and thankless bairns—I trow no! Like your mother! She was bonnie when she was young, and she’s maybe, bonnie now, for onything I ken; but she never was wordy to tie the shoe upon the foot of the Mistress of Norlaw!”

“Be silent!” cried Cosmo, angrily; and before Marget’s indignation at this reproof could find itself words, the young man had hurried out from the room and from the house, boiling with resentment and a sense of injury. He saw exactly the other side of the question—his mother’s jealous temper, and hard-heartedness and dislike to the gentle and tender Madame Roche—but he could not see how hard it was, after all, for the honest, faithful heart, which grudged no pain nor hardship for its own, to find their love beguiled away again and again—or even to suppose it was beguiled—by one who had never done any thing to deserve such affection.

And Cosmo hurried on through the narrow paths to Melmar, his heart a-flame with a young man’s resentment, and impatience, and love. He scarcely could tell what it was which excited him so entirely. Not, certainly, the vagabond Pierrot, or any fears for Marie; not even the displeasure of his mother. He would not acknowledge to himself the eager, jealous fears which hurried him through those flowery bye-ways where the blossoms of the hawthorn had fallen in showers like summer snow, and the wild roses were rich in the hedgerows. Huntley!—why did he fear Huntley? What was the impulse of unfraternal impatience which made him turn with indignant offense from every thought of his brother? Had he put it into words, he would have despised himself; but he only rushed on in silence through the silent Sabbath fields and bye-ways to the house of Madame Roche.

It is early, early yet, and there is still no church bell ringing through the silence of the skies to rouse the farms and cottages. The whole bright summer world was as silent as a dream—the corn growing, the flowers opening, the sun shining, without a whisper to tell that dutiful Nature carried on her pious work through all the day of rest. The Tyne ran softly beneath his banks, the Kelpie rushed foaming white down its little ravine, and all the cool burns from among the trees dropped down into Tyne with a sound like silver bells. Something white shone upon the path on the very spot where Desirée once lay, proud and desolate, in the chill of the winter night, brooding over false friendship and pretended love. Desirée now is sitting on the same stone, musing once more in her maiden meditation. The universal human trouble broods even on these thoughts—not heavily—only like the shadow that flits along the trees of Tyne—a something ruffling the white woman’s forehead, which is more serious than the girl’s was, and disquieting the depths of those eyes which Cosmo Livingstone had called stars. Stars do not mist themselves with tender dew about the perversities of human kind as these eyes do; yet let nobody suppose that these sweet drops, lingering bright within the young eyelids, should be called tears.

Tears! words have so many meanings in this world! it is all the same syllable that describes the child’s passion, the honey-dew of youth, and that heavy rain of grief which is able sometimes to blot out both the earth and the skies.

So, after a fashion, there are tears in Desirée’s eyes, and a great many intermingled thoughts floating in her mind—thoughts troubled by a little indignation, some fear, and a good deal of that fanciful exaggeration which is in all youthful trials. She thinks she is very sad just now as she sits half in the shade and half in the sunshine, leaning her head upon her hand, while the playful wind occasionally sprinkles over her those snowy drops of spray from the Kelpie which shine on her hair; but the truth is that nothing just now could make Desirée sad, save sudden trouble, change, or danger falling upon one person—that one person is he who devours the way with eager, flying steps, and who, still more disturbed than she is, still knows no trouble in the presence of Desirée; and that is Cosmo Livingstone.

No; there is no love-tale to tell but that which has been told already; all those preliminaries are over; the Kelpie saw them pledge their faith to each other, while there still were but a sprinkling of spring leaves on those trees of June. Desirée; the name that caught the boy’s fancy when he was a boy, and she unknown to him—the heroine of his dreams ever since then, the distressed princess to whom his chivalry had brought fortune—how could the young romance end otherwise? but why, while all was so natural and suitable, did the young betrothed meet here?

“I must tell your mother! I must speak to her to-day! I owe it both to myself and Huntley,” cried Cosmo. “I can not go away again with this jealous terror of my brother in my heart; I dare not, Desirée! I must speak to her to-day.”

“Terror? and jealous? Ah, then, you do not trust me,” said Desirée, with a smile. Her heart beat quicker, but she was not anxious; she held up her hand to the wind till it was all gemmed with the spray of the waterfall, and then shook it over the head of Cosmo, as he half sat, half knelt by her side. He, however, was too much excited to be amused; he seized upon the wet hand and held it fast in his own.

“I did not think it possible,” said Cosmo. “Huntley, whom I supposed I could have died for, my kind brother! but it makes me frantic when I think what your mother has said—what she intends. Heaven! if he himself should think of you!”

“Go, you are rude,” said Desirée; “if I am so good as you say, he must think of me; but am I nothing then,” she cried, suddenly springing up, and stamping her little firm foot, half in sport, half in anger; “how do you dare speak of me so? Do you think mamma can give me away like a ring, or a jewel? Do you think it will be different to me whether he thinks or does not think of Desirée? You make me angry, Monsieur Cosmo; if that is all you come to tell me, go away!”

“What can I tell you else?” cried Cosmo. “I must and will be satisfied. I can not go on with this hanging over me. Do you remember what you told me, Desirée, that Madame Roche meant to offer you—you! to my brother? and you expect me to have patience! No, I am going to her now.”

“Then it is all over,” cried Desirée, “all these sunny days—all these dreams! She will say no, no. She will say it must not be—she will forbid me meeting you; but if you do not care, why should I?” exclaimed the little Frenchwoman, rapidly. “Nay, you must do what you will—you must be satisfied. Why should you care for what I say? and as for me I shall be alone.”

So Desirée dropped again upon her stone seat, and put her face down into her hands, and shed a few tears; and Cosmo, half beside himself, drew away the hands from her face, and remonstrated, pleaded, urged his claim.

“Why should not you acknowledge me?” said the young lover. “Desirée, long before I ventured to speak it you knew where my heart was—and now I have your own word and promise. Your mother will not deny you. Come with me, and say to Madame Roche—”

“What?” said Madame Roche’s daughter, glancing up at him as he paused.

But Cosmo was in earnest now:—

“What is in your heart!” he said breathlessly. “You turn away from me, and I can not look into it. What is in your heart, whether it is joy, or destruction, I care not,” cried the young man suddenly, “I must know my fate.”

Desirée raised her head and looked at him with some surprise and a quick flush of anger:—

“What have I done that you dare doubt me?” she cried, clapping her hands together with natural petulance. “You are impatient—you are angry—you are jealous—but does all that change me?”

“Then come with me to Madame Roche,” said the pertinacious lover.

Desirée had the greatest mind in the world to make a quarrel and leave him. She was not much averse now and then to a quarrel with Cosmo, for she was a most faulty and imperfect little heroine, as has been already confessed in these pages; but in good time another caprice seized her, and she changed her mind.

“Marie is ill,” she said softly, in a tone which melted Cosmo; “let us not go now to trouble poor mamma.”

“Marie! I came this morning to warn her, or rather to warn Madame Roche,” said Cosmo, recalled to the ostensible cause of his visit. “A Frenchman, called Pierrot, came home with Huntley—”

But before he could finish his sentence, Desirée started up with a scream at the name, and seizing his arm, in her French impatience overwhelmed him with terrified questions:—

“Pierrot? quick! speak! where is he? does he seek Marie? is he here? quick, quick, quick, tell me where he is! he must never come to poor Marie! he must not find us—tell me, Cosmo! do you hear?”

“He spent last night at Norlaw—he seeks his wife,” said Cosmo, when she was out of breath; at which word Desirée sprang up the path with excited haste:—

“I go to tell mamma,” she said, beckoning Cosmo to follow, and in a few minutes more disappeared breathless within the open door of Melmar, leaving him still behind.