SAINT MUNGO’S CITY
A Novel
BY SARAH TYTLER
AUTHOR OF ‘THE BRIDE’S PASS,’ ‘WHAT SHE CAME THROUGH,’ ‘BEAUTY AND THE BEAST,’ ETC.
colophon
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. III.
London
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1884
[All rights reserved]
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAPTER PAGE
XXVII. THE MISS MACKINNONS’ HARMONIOUS LITTLE ARRANGEMENT 1
XXVIII. THE OFFICERS OF JUSTICE IN ST.
MUNGO’S SQUARE--CLARIBEL DRYSDALE
STANDS BY HER COLOURS 19
XXIX. ‘LOVE WILL VENTURE IN WHERE WISDOM AINCE HAS BEEN’ 40
XXX. A HORRIBLE SUSPICION ASSAILS AULD TAM 58
XXXI. THE SUSPICION BECOMES A CERTAINTY 84
XXXII. IN THE BALANCE 111
XXXIII. A DROWNING MAN’S STRAWS 128
XXXIV. AULD TAM ‘FEY’ 150
XXXV. SIR HUGO LAYS HIMSELF AND WILLOUGHBY
COURT AT YOUNG EPPIE’S
FEET 180
XXXVI. THE SEAL TO SIR HUGO’S SUIT 201
XXXVII. A CHARMED SAIL 216
XXXVIII. THE LAST OF RORY OF THE SHELTIES--DR. PETER ON THE SCENT 248
XXXIX. THE SACRIFICE 263
XL. A NEW CALCULATION 292
XLI. ATHOLE MURRAY SKETCHES A MODERN
FUGGEREI--THE MISS MACKINNONS’
ULTIMATUM 317
SAINT MUNGO’S CITY.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE MISS MACKINNONS’ HARMONIOUS LITTLE ARRANGEMENT.
To begin with, something closed the Miss Mackinnons’ lips on this point, and not a word was said among them of the defrauding of Miss Mackinnon and Miss Janet to enrich Miss Bethia, sitting with downcast eyes, wringing the hands hidden in her lap.
At last Miss Janet said, not so much bitterly as with forced gaiety:
‘You are up in the buckle [exalted], Betheye--an heiress; you’ll no be speaking to me and Meye.’
‘Oh, Janet!’ burst out Miss Bethia, breaking down and sobbing with mingled pain and shame. ‘Do you think I would touch the money? I’ll gie it back, every penny, to you and Meye, the moment I’ve got it into my fingers.’
‘But there’s twa and whiles three at a bargain-making,’ said Miss Janet, with wounded pride in her voice. ‘Do you think we would tak’ from anither--though she happened to be our sister--what was ours, but had been wulled awa’ from us?’
‘But that would be cruel!’ protested Miss Bethia, in still greater distress. ‘How could I help it? An ill-kinded man! Gude guide us!’ pausing in horror; ‘to think that I should speak ill of him, and him hardly in the mools. But I never set een on him, never.’
‘You gowk, what does that signify?’ Miss Janet was provoked into treating the heiress with little courtesy.
‘What ails her?’ cried Miss Mackinnon wrathfully. ‘Is she pretendin’ to greet for the man, now that he has left her the maist of his money? I cannot stand such hypocrisy.’
Miss Bethia wept on, regardless of the good fortune, which was misfortune to her, and equally unrestrained by the manner in which her sorrow was misunderstood.
‘What can I do?’ she lamented. ‘I never wanted your shares; I never thocht money would come between me and you and Meye.’
Miss Janet was a little softened.
‘You can do nothing--as long as the paper stands, the money’s yours. But we’re no blaming you, save for being silly--and we’ll tak’ the will for the deed.’
‘Oh, thank you! thank you, Janet!’ said Miss Bethia gratefully. ‘If only Meye and you will not tak’ me for a traitor and hypocrite--and me never to have seen the man!--I’ll no mind so muckle. But is there no way to gie back the money, and share and share alike as we should have done? Why can I not do as I like with my ain, as he did?’
‘You’re fast enough with your ain,’ said Miss Janet, in fresh displeasure. ‘It has not been yours mair than an hour. I’ll tell you what, Betheye,’ the speaker relapsed into a sardonic mood, ‘it’s a’ very weel to say what you’ll do or not do the noo; but it’s as likely as not that the word o’ the sillar will bring some fair-spoken blackguard of a man after you. You’ll marry him fast; then Meye and me will be left in the lurch, and he’ll help you to spend the money that should have been ours.’
‘Never!’ declared Miss Bethia; and she failed to simper as of old, but a dull-red rose in her lined face and spread over it. She had, as she would have said, given up all thought of a man for many a day; but mercenary as were the notions attributed to this man, the sudden revival of the vision brought a shy, guilty sense of gratification, which the next moment covered poor Miss Bethia with confusion and remorse. Would she sacrifice her sisters even for the best man that ever breathed? ‘I wonder at you, Janet!’ she said, so vehemently that there was a suspicion of weakness and fear in the vehemence; ‘an auld maid like me.’
‘There’s nae fules like old anes,’ said Miss Janet jauntily; ‘and you’ll cease to be an auld maid when the scamp has made you a young wife. Ye ken you’ll be young among the mawtrons, though you’re auld among the maidens.’
‘It’s cruel,’ repeated Miss Bethia, with an ominous intensity of distress in the kindling fire of temptation. ‘Oh! I wish I had the horrible money to fling it into the fire, or cast it into Clyde.’
‘What good would that do?’ demanded the matter-of-fact Miss Janet, ‘unless you wanted him to loup in and fish it out.’
Miss Bethia groaned.
‘Stop her greetin’,’ broke in Miss Mackinnon, in greater disgust than before. ‘I canna bide sic false pretences, Betheye; it’s like haudin’ an ingan [onion] to your een. Hoo can ye try sic a trick upon Janet and me?’
‘I wull greet,’ Miss Bethia suddenly turned upon her sisters; ‘I have cause to greet. I thocht my ain sisters liked and trusted me, and I was prood to slave wi’ them and for them; but I find I was mista’en when they’re ready to misdoubt me, for nae faut o’ mine, and to tant me because of the wrongdoing of another.’
Miss Janet was taken aback by this new attitude of Miss Bethia, and the feelings reflected on her face were quickly caught up by her elder sister. They both paused, irresolute what to say next.
‘We dinna misdoubt you, Betheye,’ said Miss Janet, in a more subdued tone. ‘But you maun grant this has been a shock as well as a hardship to us--the younger to be served out of the elders’ portions--the elder to be dependent on the younger’s generosity, or whatever you like to ca’t.’
‘Oh, it is maist abominable!’ admitted Miss Bethia, with all her heart. ‘But it is no generosity--it’s justice which ocht to be done; and surely I’ll be helped to do’t, though I’ve to get the Queen to back me.’
‘It’s an expensive road to the Queen, though her Majesty is very gude and kind,’ said Miss Janet, not affording any encouragement to the scheme, but refraining from the strong derision she had been practising. The next moment she added: ‘I think there may be an easier plan--it has just flashed upon me--if you’re in earnest, Betheye, as I do not question.’
‘Try me,’ said Miss Bethia, with trembling eagerness.
‘Weel, I apprehend there’s just this parchment binding you doon--I said, as long as the paper stands we’ve but to submit. But what is to hinder us from making awa’ wi’t? The wull concerns nane but oorsel’s and the servants--that dour, sly jaud of a housekeeper and her man. We are perfectly agreed, and we can easily settle wi’ servants; we’ll pay them every bawbee of their legacy, though it’s twice as muckle as it need have been--and that is all they’ll care for. What need is there to keep the paper and fash our heads with it? We’ll tear it up, and think nae mair o’t, while we divide Jean Mackinnon’s money fair among oorsel’s.’
‘The very thing,’ said Miss Bethia, with a great sigh of relief and of lurking regret that the legacy had not been ten thousand or ten hundred. In that case, even the third fraction of it might have constituted her an heiress, with all an heiress’s privileges and trials. She might have been courted, she might have needed to stand firm, to decline to be wooed, to give her suitors a dignified yet amiable dismissal. There was glamour in the prospect, but it was not for Miss Bethia. ‘To destroy the wull,’ she hammered on at Miss Janet’s project, ‘which deals just with the servants, to whom we can make their legacy gude, while we are fully agreed on a fresh division of Jean Mackinnon’s money, is so easy and natural. I wonder it did not occur to us at aince. Let us do it this minute, Janet, before Mr. Mair or ony of the gentlemen come back.’ Miss Bethia was opposed to the least delay. ‘Shall I tak’ out the paper and tear it?’ she cried.
‘On second thochts, it had better be brunt, and then there will be no trouble with the fragments,’ said Miss Janet, gratified with having been the originator of a good idea, and full of importance in putting it into execution. ‘I believe I have heard,’ continued Miss Janet dogmatically, ‘that, when a wull is brunt in this way, the parties interested stand round a can’le, and each holds a corner of the dockiment over the lowe, so as to mak’ sure they’re all consenting to the destruction; then if any wyte [blame] is incurred, it will fa’ on all alike.’
‘But is there ony fear o’ wyte?’ asked Miss Bethia, startled. ‘Maybe, after a’, we had better wait and ask Mr. Mair.’
‘Maybe, after a’, we had better let the wull stand,’ said Miss Janet scornfully, for the resource hit upon had by this time recommended itself thoroughly to her. It would restore her own and Miss Mackinnon’s birthright, by the curl of a flame, if not by the stroke of a pen, and thus immediately wipe out the insult and loss inflicted upon them. And the act would prevent any danger of Miss Bethia’s wavering in her design, or being overborne by the arguments of others.
Not only was the plan Miss Janet’s, and therefore right in her eyes; she was proud of it, and sought to keep it in her own possession, and carry it out independently for herself and her sisters. She enjoyed the notion of astonishing and discomfiting Mr. Mair by her sharpness and promptitude. In fact, Miss Janet had got out her head, and was bent on ‘running her own road.’
‘You ken I did not mean to let the wull stand,’ said Miss Bethia, hurt, and reproachful. ‘But you’ll speak to Mr. Mair after. You’ll tell him what you’ve done with the wull he gave up to you.’
‘I’ll speak to Mair when he speaks to me,’ said Miss Janet, full of refractoriness. ‘What has he, ony mair than his clerk, to do with Fenton of Strathdivie’s wull, that was made on our account? Mair drew it up, as ony ither writer micht have done; but it was not his wull, or yours either, Betheye, as ane micht think, to hear ye speak. You’ve sune learnt to tak’ a great deal upon you. You seem to forget, because you’ve been preferred without reason, that we’re your elders, and Meye’s the head of the hoose.’
‘I dinna forget,’ said Miss Bethia, with a full heart.
Miss Janet went on harshly:
‘If you’re in earnest in makin’ reparation by being willin’ to join Meye and me, in what we’ve had cause to suppose you had fixed to do, ye’ll say no more about it.’
Miss Bethia said no more.
When it was put to Miss Mackinnon whether she would support her sisters in their spirited measure, she replied with hoarse emphasis, ‘Certainly!’ and looked about for a matchbox.
There was a wax taper by the inkstand, and Miss Janet was in such a hurry that she would not wait to ring for a candle, though it seemed doubtful at the first glance whether the little light could effectually consume the two or three broad-margined, widely-written, crackling pages of which the will was composed.
‘We’ll tak’ it leaf by leaf,’ said Miss Janet methodically. ‘There are only three o’ us; but I’ll haud twa corners, while you and Meye can tak’ the other twa, ane each.’
The process was a slow one. Miss Janet and Miss Mackinnon stood unflinchingly, braving the little wreaths of smoke which seemed to rise out of all proportion to the performance, even daring the yellow tongues of flame that darted across the paper, and threatened the bony fingers.
Miss Bethia shook fitfully, disturbing the balance of the arrangement, and shrank nervously from the burning, as if it had been Archie Fenton putting forth fiery fingers to execute vengeance upon her for her contemptuous treatment of his will.
The whole fantastic incident--witnessed under the solemn splendour of a moorland sunset, which shone in through a western window; the three big, gaunt, hard-featured old women, in more or less fixed theatrically tragic attitudes, the right hand extended, grasping the sheet of paper; Miss Janet’s dauntless, impassive face; Miss Mackinnon’s glittering, restless eyes, lit up by an imprisoned spirit; Miss Bethia’s features working with anxiety and dread; the shrivelling, blackening paper; the jets of flame, the smoke--all bore a marvellous, grotesque resemblance to the witches’ incantations of the Middle Ages. Fenton of Strathdivie’s will might have been one of those bonds, written in letters of blood, that sold souls to the foul fiend, and could no more be burnt in fire, which was their natural element, than the devil could perish in his own hell.
Towards the close of the strange proceeding there was a slight creaking of the door and rustling of something behind it, which caused Miss Bethia to look round in fresh terror; but the trifling noise ceased almost instantly. The charred fragments of the will dropped on the floor, and were carefully collected by Miss Janet in the fire-shovel and deposited in the empty grate. Another match was lit and applied to them, and she was soon warranted in the triumphant announcement:
‘There’s naethin’ left but white aiss [ashes], let Mair or wha like mak’ what they can oot o’t. We’ve snapped our fingers at Fenton o’ Strathdivie, in what was his ain hoose, too.’
‘Oh! wheesht, Janet, wheesht!’ implored the appalled Miss Bethia.
But Miss Janet did not heed her younger sister.
‘We’re free to do what we like wi’ our ain,’ she proclaimed exultingly.
Indeed, the Miss Mackinnons were not disturbed in their harmonious little arrangement, either on that night or before their departure next morning.
Mr. Mair, in his character of host, sat later over the funeral dinner than was prudent, with regard to catching the train by which he could reach that night the bosom of his family, in the market-town where he practised as a solicitor. He left in such a hurry that he declined a parting interview with Mrs. Todd, and contented himself with sending his clerk to fetch the desk from the study, and take leave for him of the Miss Mackinnons. Indeed, Mr. Mair had not been very favourably impressed by the ladies. He considered rightly that he had done all in his power for their comfort, and as a poor return, he had been forced to bear a considerable amount of rudeness from Miss Janet. He was a long-suffering man, but endurance has its limits.
The ladies, on their part, had not thought of leaving Strathdivie the very day after the funeral, but had rather meditated an indefinite stay--a sort of taking possession till their claims were settled, with the deliberate investigation of that ‘stoucherie’ [collection of goods in an old family house], all or part of which they had fondly hoped would have fallen to their share. But the sisters were compelled to understand that the place and everything it contained belonged to the late owner’s New Zealand cousins, among whose property the women had no excuse for prowling, however natural their regretful curiosity. At the same time they had every reason to distrust any prolonged civilities from Mrs. Todd, the housekeeper, who was again mistress of the situation, having been appointed by the lawyer to continue in her former place till the term should bring a new tenant to the old house.
And Miss Janet, in spite of her supreme confidence in her own powers, was a little doubtful what step to take next in the acquirement of the money, the division of which she had already altered in a summary fashion. It might be necessary for the sisters again to have that respectable family adjunct--a man of business; and if so, the sooner they applied to him the better on all these counts. Miss Janet and Miss Mackinnon filled Miss Bethia’s heart with thankfulness, by deciding to quit Strathdivie the following forenoon.
But another person was before the Miss Mackinnons. Mrs. Todd, in her new mourning, accompanied by her canny lout of a husband, in his Sunday suit, had slipped out of the house, leaving a deputy in charge, by break of day. Ten minutes afterwards, the late Fenton of Strathdivie’s confidential servant might have been seen at the little railway station, starting on a journey by the early Parliamentary train.
In the course of the day, Mr. Mair appeared again on the scene--not coming quietly by train this time, but driving in hot haste across the country, arriving at Strathdivie to find the birds flown, if he came in search of the Miss Mackinnons, who had departed for Glasgow a quarter of an hour before. The lawyer was in an excited, disturbed frame of mind when he heard that the ladies were gone. He turned the head of his reeking horse without giving it either rest or refreshment, saying to himself:
‘There is nothing for it but an application to the fiscal; and I doubt if I’ll come out clear in the business. I should not have been so careless; but who would have thought the old beldames were capable of such a trick? But, good Heavens! to think what will be the upshot, and how the wretched old women will be served for their desperate deed!’
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE OFFICERS OF JUSTICE IN ST. MUNGO’S SQUARE--CLARIBEL DRYSDALE STANDS BY HER COLOURS.
The Miss Mackinnons, arriving at home towards the close of the day, required more than the following night’s rest to restore them to their normal condition. They felt as if they had gone on a long and perilous expedition, and encountered many exciting adventures. The journey had not been altogether fruitless, and there was at the end of it that happy restoration to the grey old house in St. Mungo’s Square, which caused Miss Bethia to cry out fondly, ‘Eh! hame is kindly,’ and Miss Janet to sniff the thick air as if it were her own special property. She gloried in the reek. Still, it could not be expected that the travellers would at once master the shocks and fatigue of so unusual an experience. The ladies were not in trim for visitors, which was unfortunate, since they had for their share that day, not only the Lieutenant, who had started from Oban on hearing the news of Fenton of Strathdivie’s death, but, of all people in the world, Claribel Drysdale.
Clary had come up to town from Lochgoilhead, unattended by any other member of the family except young Tam, on his way to his office. She had meant to do a little shopping, remain for the night in the house of friends of the Drysdales, and sail back again next day. She had taken it into her head, for some reasons known only to herself, to call, for the first time in her life, on the Miss Mackinnons, knowing nothing of their recent absence, or, for that matter, of Fenton of Strathdivie, and believing Eneas Mackinnon to be still with the Semples at Oban. Could it be that Clary, so calm and cool and sufficient for herself in all circumstances, had simply pined for her absent lover, who was not to be thought of as a husband for her, and, yearning to have tidings of him, had suddenly conceived the idea of calling on his old grand-aunts, the indigent gentlewomen who were her father’s protégées?
Anyhow, there was Claribel behaving herself very graciously, looking a wonderful specimen of youth and beauty, in an expensively quiet and suitable walking-dress; a hat with hardly any trimming, from Paris; sober gloves and boots, also from Paris; a little exquisite embroidery on the collar and cuffs of her gown. She formed a striking figure among the others in the dull, dingy room, and won golden opinions from its usual occupants. Yet one would have thought that Claribel, with her natural and acquired elegance, was too well regulated a person in everything, had too high and at the same time too conventional a standard to meet the Miss Mackinnons’ views; that she would not be smart or bouncing, or, on the other hand, deferential enough for those her seniors. However, they were paying her homage not merely with ulterior motives on their grand-nephew’s account, or because of some regard for what her father, Tam Drysdale, had done for them first and last. It was principally because this well-assured, courteous, composed example of maidenhood--maidenhood among the upstart, wealthy, influential ‘dirt’ of modern trade, that Miss Janet was wont to despise--took the old lady by surprise--took away her breath in some occult manner, and rendered her nearly subdued, and almost well-bred.
There was Eneas, by far the most uncomfortable of the party, in some degree consoled by what in its turn amazed him--that is to say, the unexpectedly commonplace civility of his kinswomen.
Neither could the Lieutenant altogether resist a throb of what he knew, at the bottom of his heart, to be idiotic hope occasioned by Claribel’s voluntary uninvited presence in St. Mungo’s Square--Claribel with her innate refinement and dignity, sitting apparently happy, and at her ease, among his queer, plain old aunts. Was it for his sake? Could it be for his sake? Yet, if it were so, how could he--penniless, without the most distant prospect of rising to any purpose in his profession--propose to accept gratefully, and repay richly, such rare generous devotion?
A ring at the door-bell--not loud, but prolonged, as if delivered from weighty considerations--startled the party, and Miss Bethia vanished to perform the office of the servant who had never been replaced.
‘Tradesmen are very forward and pushing for orders,’ remarked Miss Janet. ‘Does not your mammaw find it so, Miss Drysdale?’
‘Well, we’re rather out of the way of shop-boys in the country; and my mother is so fond of marketing when she gets the opportunity, that she never complains,’ answered Clary, with a pleasant laugh.
At that moment Miss Bethia looked in with a face grown pale, a dazed look, and a paper in her hand.
‘Will you come here and speak, Eneas?’
She summoned him mysteriously. He rose slowly to grant her request.
‘What is’t, Betheye? Speak out. What’s a’ the hullaballoo?’ demanded Miss Janet, her imperious curiosity, together with her clear conscience, getting the better of her late decorous politeness.
Thus adjured, Miss Bethia did not know how to refuse replying. Besides, she, too, was destitute of any serious apprehension, and regarded the affair--which no doubt had given her a little fright, in spite of its absurdity--as a foolish mistake.
‘It’s twa shirra-officers, I think, come in a cab, sayin’ they have a warrant for us.’
‘A warrant!’ cried Eneas, horrified; ‘an arrest for debt, you mean? I had no idea of this. Yes, I will speak to the men, of course,’ he continued, in some agitation. ‘But I must see you out first, Miss Drysdale. This--this misfortune, of which I had no conception, is not a thing for you to be mixed up with.’
‘Don’t mind me, Mr. Mackinnon,’ said Clary, still mistress of herself, though she looked startled. ‘I shall go in a minute, if you wish it; but can I be of no use? My father is not in town, but my brother is at the office. Could he do nothing?’
‘Debt!’ shrieked Miss Janet, who had been struck dumb by the unfounded accusation. ‘We do not owe a sillar saxpence. We never did, when we were near starvation--ladies though we were: that you did not ken of, Eneas, you that have evened us to debt!’
‘I have no wish to intrude,’ the civil enough, but grave-sounding voice of the constable spoke from the hall. The speaker followed the voice with his person, punctiliously removing his hat as he entered the room, but making good his entrance. ‘I must come in to do my duty. I had better explain this is not an arrest for debt; it is a warrant from the fiscal to take the three auld leddies before a magistrate.’
The outrage was so inconceivable that Miss Janet laughed aloud, while Miss Bethia’s vague terror returned, and Miss Mackinnon appealed helplessly:
‘Wha is he? The drummer? But whaur’s his drum? Did we lose onything yesterday, Janet--Betheye?’
‘What on earth is the pretence for this extraordinary proceeding? There must be some huge blunder,’ insisted Eneas. ‘These are my aunts--the Miss Mackinnons--who have lived here for more than half a century. They are well known in Glasgow--hundreds will speak to their respectability. Good heavens! who has doubted it?’
‘I have nothing to say against it, sir,’ answered the inflexible servant of the law. ‘I presumed these were the Miss Mackinnons, and I have a warrant to take them up.’
‘On what charge?’
‘The charge I am ready to tell you. It is the wilful and malicious burning of the will of the late Archibald Fenton of Strathdivie, at Strathdivie, on the 11th of this month, by May Mackinnon, Janet Mackinnon, and Elizabeth or Bethia Mackinnon. I have to caution the prisoners against saying anything.’
‘The thing is preposterous,’ protested the Lieutenant. ‘It is true my aunts have just returned from Strathdivie, where they went for the funeral of their relative, but you may as well accuse them of setting fire to his house as of burning his will. What do you say, Aunt Janet?’ asked Eneas almost cheerfully, his confidence re-established by the incredibility of the charge.
‘That we brunt it, sure enough, and what for no?’ demanded the undaunted woman. ‘The wull had no concern with onybody save oursel’s, unless it were a couple of servants. Archie Fenton had got out his spite at me and Meye by making an eldest dochter--or, as some say, an eldest son--of Betheye, who would not lend hersel’ to sic treachery, so we agreed among oursel’s to turn the tables upon the man by burning the wull and dividing the money fair. We’ll see that the servants have their legacy, which is mair than ane of them deserves--an impident hizzie--but that’s neither here nor there. Now what have you to say against it, Lieutenant? There’s no fraud or wrang done; it was to prevent wrang; neither law nor gospel can object to that. I cannot tell what the man means. I suppose the writer body was angered at not getting a job. But I’ve explained,’ ended Miss Janet, in perfect assurance that her explanation was satisfactory.
Miss Mackinnon and Miss Betheye were equally convinced. Miss Betheye was again shaking off her alarm, and feeling some amount of complacency for the part she had played in the matter.
‘I would not have touched a farthing of what should have been Meye’s and Janet’s,’ she added her version of the story; ‘and as long as the wull was there, they wouldna tak’ their ain from me, at my pleasure, and me the youngest. There was nothing for it but to destroy the paper, which had only to do with our business, and mak’ a new settlement.’
As for Miss Mackinnon, she darted her hawk’s glance all around, and actually chuckled.
Eneas Mackinnon stood the picture of despair.
‘How could you be so mad?’ he broke out, with passion that was strange in the man. ‘I thought even old women had more sense.’
Claribel Drysdale touched him on the arm, and drew him a little aside.
‘Don’t you see, your aunts meant no harm,’ she whispered; ‘it was an accident. Don’t undeceive them yet. It would be barbarous. I’ll go with them to the magistrate.’
‘Impossible!’ he exclaimed. ‘What would your father think? You are an angel of goodness, but---- ’
‘No, no,’ she said, with a faint smile; ‘I am not very good. I am only an idle girl up in town for a day, and I have nothing particular to do when nearly all my friends are away.’
‘But your father---- ’
‘My father has the greatest respect for your aunts as worthy representatives of one of the old Glasgow families. He would be glad that I should do anything for them in an awkward dilemma.’
‘I know I ought not to allow it,’ he began to hesitate; ‘it would be very unpleasant for you; and where would be the use?’
‘The magistrate may be an acquaintance of mine, or he may know my name--my father has some influence. Go for my brother, and try what he can do. You must not seek to prevent me from accompanying the Miss Mackinnons, if the men will let me, and I think we can manage that. There is no other woman to go with them, and they may break down when they learn the truth.’
Eneas stood and looked at Claribel like a man struck dumb and fascinated. He had always guessed that she was wise and capable, but he had never known what she could do when there was a call for the exercise of her powers. He obeyed her--nay, Miss Janet obeyed her, after she had cried out violently that the magistrate might come to her--she would not stir a foot to go to him. Let them put a finger on her if they daured. The Lieutenant would take care of that, though he had to send for his swurd to strike a blow for his aunties, and for social order in their persons.
‘But we are all going, Miss Janet,’ said Claribel calmly. ‘All we ladies are going. You will not refuse to accompany your sisters and me.’
‘Weel, if you are proposin’ to mak’ a ploy o’t,’ yielded Miss Janet doubtfully, ‘if you want to tak’ a ride through the streets to see the toon--only you can do that ony day from your mammaw’s carriage.’
‘But I have not you or the other Miss Mackinnons to bear me company,’ said Clary promptly.
‘Nor Eneas here,’ said Miss Janet, falling into the trap. ‘There will be room for him on the dickie.’
‘No,’ said Claribel, with the same clear decision that was apt to carry everything before it at home and abroad. ‘He is going for my brother, to help to put an end to this little difficulty; but they will join us immediately.’
By sheer force of character, and by taking the lead--a proceeding unlooked for and extraordinary where her age and sex were concerned, but warrantable when there was no one else to stand in the breach--since the man entitled to act was stupefied and sick to the bottom of his soul with affront and dismay--Clary grasped the situation, controlled the other actors in it, and did the best that could be done under the circumstances. She gave Eneas a hint of what he was to try to do in another brief aside.
‘You know, Mr. Mackinnon’--she allowed him credit for knowledge which had not yet come to him--‘your aunts must not be detained a moment longer than can be helped. Somebody must find bail for them. Oh! it will be very easy--my father, if he could be got in time, Dr. Peter Murray--oh! dozens of people will be willing.’
He departed instantly to fulfil her behests. He had not her quick, practical brain, her unfaltering self-reliance, her moral courage; but he had, at least, the merit of appreciating them when he found them. He was ready to worship her, to make her his guiding star, to be twice the man with her that he would have been without her.
All Glasgow rang with the news when it was noised abroad that the Miss Mackinnons, of St. Mungo’s Square, had been taken before a magistrate on a charge of felony. Some laughter, but far more horror and pity, were called forth. As Claribel Drysdale had said, dozens of citizens were willing to be bail for the unfortunate ladies. They were not detained more than an hour, during which Miss Janet was so smoothed down and held in check by Clary’s peculiar tact and firmness, that the chief offender refrained from adding to her foolish vindication of her heinous misdemeanour the fresh offence of gratuitously insulting the magistrate.
The Miss Mackinnons were at home again without having incurred much harm. The misfortune was that the business could not rest there. The case, on the face of it, must be sent for trial. No exercise of interest on the ladies’ behalf could prevent the necessity for them to take their places where other offenders had stood before them, in the public court, and run the risk of a sentence which, to old women, born and bred as they had been, was all but synonymous with death. Tam Drysdale was at his wits’ end, and with many another kindly Glasgow man, full of Glasgow spirit, was willing to spare neither time, trouble, nor expense to help his townswomen in the strait into which their ignorance and rashness had brought them. The best counsel would be got, every available witness procured, and every extenuating circumstance receive a full hearing, as if the old Virginian Mackinnon were still making Glasgow ‘trim’le’ at the wag of his finger.
Tam made no objection to Claribel’s remaining in town, and going often to St. Mungo’s Square. He was proud to think that one of his daughters had shown such presence of mind, and been able to prove her loyalty to ladies in adversity. If it was any comfort to them for Clary to call on them, to do what she could to cheer and counsel them, they were heartily welcome to the comfort, so far as he and mother were concerned. Clary was only a girl, but the Miss Mackinnons might listen to less sensible encouragement and advice, though he said it who, perhaps, should not say it.
For any delicate reason why Claribel ought not to be conspicuously mixed up with the Mackinnons and their affairs, auld Tam could dismiss it without another consideration. He was entirely of opinion that this calamity to the whole Mackinnon family would knock on the head the wildest pretensions of the ‘offisher lad’ to Clary’s favour. He could never be so base--Tam had almost said--even if she would listen to him, as to propose to connect himself with the Drysdales, after the fellow’s aunts had rubbed shoulders with the hulks, and after what he--Tam Drysdale--was striving to do to avert the catastrophe. The thing was clean out of the question.
Stout-hearted as Miss Janet was, the trial hanging over her, with the restlessness of Miss Mackinnon, the lamentations of Miss Bethia, the stern remonstrances and injunctions of the lawyers, broke her down, comparatively. While she still stuck to the point that she and her sisters had meant no ill and were morally entitled to pursue the course they had adopted, she ceased to indulge in hectoring. Nay, on the great day when she had to face judge, jury, and crowded court, she was brought to the extreme length of not speaking till she was spoken to. And when Miss Janet was tamed, all were tamed, though Miss Mackinnon struggled painfully with her infirmity, and Miss Bethia looked well-nigh distracted.
Claribel Drysdale was present, but she did not sit near the old ladies. That place was for their agitated, handsome nephew from the Barracks. But it was she who had suggested to him to take it, and it was she who had induced Lady Semple to come with Dick and express her sympathy with her son’s friend. Moreover, Claribel admitted that she was in the Court at once to maintain the spirits of her singular charge, and to do what she could to keep them in order.
The judges were in their seats. The jury were sworn in. The Miss Mackinnons had surrendered to their friends’ bail, and pled guilty; the case was argued in earnest on both sides. It was no mere form or piece of mockery for as simple and ridiculous a transgression as ever the law laid hold of. On the one hand were ranged the insubordination of the proceeding, the aggravation of its committal by persons of birth, education, and mature years, its evil as a precedent. On the other hand were marshalled the absence of criminal intent on the part of the offenders, their stupid but honest ignorance of the law, their frank and full admission of what they had done the moment the question was put to them, with the crowning extenuation that they had not devised wrong to any human being by their lawless act; they had merely agreed among themselves to divide, as they judged, more fairly the money which had come to them by right. The law might say that this was a lame defence, but what right-minded man could refuse to admit its cogency?
All unseemly demonstrations of curiosity and amusement were put down while the verdict was in suspense. As a matter of fact there could only be one--that of guilty--to which indeed the Miss Mackinnons had pled. The question was, what would be the relative mildness or severity of the sentence the judge must deliver? The trespass against authority had been as audacious as trespass could be; but in consideration of the freedom from malice, and the sex and age of the trespassers, justice was tempered with mercy.
One month’s imprisonment, without hard labour, in Glasgow Gaol, was awarded to the three Miss Mackinnons.
‘My lord---- ’ said Miss Janet, recovering from her dumbness and stumbling to her feet. But she was denied a last protest. She and her sisters were surrounded and hurried out of Court.
CHAPTER XXIX.
‘LOVE WILL VENTURE IN WHERE WISDOM AINCE HAS BEEN.’
Clary was the first to utter a modified congratulation. The result might have been so much worse.
‘Never mind, Miss Janet; a month will soon be over. Everybody knows you meant no harm. It was all that horrid Fenton of Strathdivie, with his ridiculous will. Your friends will come and see you on all the visiting-days.’
‘Lassie,’ said Miss Janet, for she had grown familiar with her young ally, ‘do you think I would demean mysel’ to mak’ a moan, though we’ve been waur tret than thieves and vagabonds--hiz that have paid our taxes, the police-tax among them--every shillin’ to the Queen and country, since the year that my father died? I was only going to tell the judge that there had been word of our great-grandfather being sent to the Tooer of London, for although he was not just out with Prince Charlie, there was no doubt that the Mackinnon of that day waited on the Prince at Shawfield House. It would better have become the Croon to give his descendants lodgings in the Tooer, if so be we were to suffer imprisonment for settin’ wrang richt, than to send us to the common jile.’
‘Oh, Janet,’ Miss Bethia wailed, ‘think of the journey for Meye! They may put irons on us in the jile, but they cannot bring us to the block there.’
‘The block!’ cried Miss Janet. ‘It would be the hangman’s wuddie [gallows].’
‘No, no,’ Clary interposed fearlessly. ‘Why do you frighten your sister, Miss Janet, and slander the powers that be? You will only have to stay in comfortable rooms where you can have books and work and anything you wish, till you come out and return to your own house in St. Mungo’s Square, in the course of four weeks.’
When the Miss Mackinnons had tasted the penalties of modern captivity, had survived the first shock, and found themselves not fatally injured by it, they were heard to say that prisoners did not know what it was to live. If they had learnt to deny themselves, and to fare as ladies and gentlemen had often to fare, they would think little of imprisonment--rather, they would count it, if they had done no wrong of which they ought to repent and be ashamed, a very decent sort of refuge! Certainly folk could not get out when they wanted, but then they did not want to go out in rainy weather--and when did it not rain in the west? There was never a loss without a compensation. As for anything else--bed and board, fuel and light, the sufferers by the law’s severity were bold to complain. It was the innocent people that had to keep up comfortable gaols who were entitled to cry out, and perhaps it was but just that some time or other they should reap the benefit of what they had long contributed to maintain.
Unquestionably the Miss Mackinnons, in the philosophic spirit at which they had arrived, had all the alleviations which could be procured for them in their peculiar circumstances. Among these were the constant visits of Claribel Drysdale, who never missed a visiting-day. She had taken the Miss Mackinnons regularly under her protection. How and why she endured what was so antagonistic to her own taste, nobody could tell. The fact remained that she did it. She knew, as Maggie Craig had known before her, that the eccentric old ladies were come of the cream of old Glasgow; that in reality, some of their objectionable qualities were the growth of the arrogance and irreproachability of their ancient social claims. But then Claribel Drysdale had cared nothing for any cream of Glasgow, old or new; she had appeared to build her hopes and ambitions on a different foundation. Was it that, having been drawn into the use of her finer faculties, she enjoyed the exercise too keenly to be willing to relinquish it, or to consent to forego its reward? Was it that the rage of conquest came over her, conquest of elements the most opposed to those in her own character, conquest of herself as well as of others; a proud determination to show that she was equal to any difficulty, and mistress of it before she had done? Was it simply that deep down in Claribel Drysdale’s calm, strong, well-balanced nature, there was a fountain of self-devotion, and one had unlocked the spring? He possessed other and more evident attractions for her; but was the most potent attraction of all really what was helpless and hopeless in him, which, in place of provoking and repelling her, appealed irresistibly to her strength of purpose, her instinct of ruling, and talent for making the best of things?
Among Clary’s tastes had not been the rustic one of early rising, which had been found in her sister Eppie. Yet Claribel was, at this time, repeatedly the first at the breakfast-table at Drysdale Hall, which, as in all similar establishments, was regulated with a view to the men of the house setting off for business before the idler world was stirring. Clary would make the most unfaltering request for the use of the carriage at an unheard-of hour in the morning. Neither did she make the smallest concealment of her object. She was going to drive in to Glasgow, to the City prison, to see the Miss Mackinnons. She wished to be there as soon as the gates were opened.
Eppie junior marvelled; young Tam stared; Eppie senior looked troubled, but shrank from interfering. Auld Tam was blind. He even glanced up from his ham and egg to express his approbation.
‘It’s very gude of you, Clary, to think of the auld leddies in the trouble, in which there is no disgrace--none to forbid your going among them, even without your mither, at this hour. Still, it is very mindful and pretty of you, my dear.’
‘Not at all,’ said Claribel, turning her handsome face, unmoved in its clear paleness, on her father; ‘I go to please myself. I have taken the Miss Mackinnons under my care. They are my old ladies now.’
Plenty of people were remarking significantly on Miss Drysdale’s extraordinary attentions to three old, unattractive women, the victims of their idiotic conceit and silliness. Mrs. Drysdale well knew this, though she could not bring herself to transfer the knowledge to a quarter from which it might be energetically acted upon. Ill-natured tongues even went so far as to say that Lady Semple was enough a woman of the world to keep herself out of the entanglement. She had shown a little kindliness on her own account to the Miss Mackinnons because they had really become objects of pity, and her son had been in the same regiment and on intimate terms with young Mackinnon. But she had taken care never to accompany Claribel Drysdale to the gaol--Claribel Drysdale, who had been so particular and had not thought any man in Glasgow fit for her! She must have been engaged beforehand to the nephew--a penniless officer. Why had auld Tam Drysdale permitted it? Why did he not interfere now and put a stop to the engagement, when it was almost certain that Mr. Mackinnon must leave the army, and no longer retain his claim to as much as a subaltern’s rank and a starvation income? A fine end to Claribel Drysdale’s proud pretensions!
But auld Tam was possessed by another idea, and saw nothing of what was passing before his very eyes.
The last time Clary drove, before women like her were to be seen abroad, to that strange destination for a girl in the upper classes, and waited in the carriage till the time to enter, she caught a glimpse of Eneas Mackinnon, with a similar intention, standing where he could best escape observation. Even from the little she could see of him, she could judge that he looked ill and dejected. The next moment she alighted and walked towards him, coming up behind him and making him turn, startled by the quiet mention of his name--‘Mr. Mackinnon.’
He shook hands with her in silence, colouring highly as he did so.
‘Why don’t you say “well met”?’ she rallied him.
‘Well met here!’ he exclaimed with more desperate sadness than bitterness, for he was hardly ever a bitter man.
‘Yes; why not here, when it is for the last time? Your aunts will be free in three days.’
‘Well, I suppose for their sakes I ought to rejoice,’ he said with an effort; ‘as I should thank you for your great kindness to them.’
‘No, indeed; no thanks. I told my father that already this morning. I come to please myself. I have taken the old ladies under my wing.’
He looked at her wistfully, but when he spoke again he had dropped her out of the conversation.
‘I ought not to grudge them their release, poor old souls,’ he said slowly. ‘They brought me up, and have always cared for me a hundred times more than I deserve, and I have not been able to do anything for them. I know now, though I was a dolt at the time, that when my aunt Bethia had fever, the whole family might have died of starvation, but for the help which your father and Dr. Murray gave them. I may well forgive the most egregious of their blunders--of course they did not know the mischief they were doing to themselves or any other person. But they have put the finishing-touch to my disadvantages--to the gross mistake which stranded me in the army--not that I have any reason to suppose I could have done much good in any other profession. I had better walk into the Clyde at once, and save myself and my friends further trouble which will be ill repaid.’
‘You--a soldier!’ she said, in her low distinct voice.
‘I shall not be a soldier much longer,’ he declared. ‘Why should I bring a slur upon the service to which I have been a small gain at the best, by continuing in it after the pass to which my people have brought themselves and me?’ and he looked up at the prison walls. ‘This is a little incident in my family history which will not be forgotten.’
‘Don’t seek that it should be forgotten--a foolish, I grant you very foolish, but perfectly guileless mistake of three old ladies--why, it was a thing innocent children might have done. I wish your brother officers may have nothing worse to reveal in the histories of their families,’ she said fearlessly.
‘You are too good,’ he told her again. ‘But the very absurdity of the affair will perpetuate its memory. I do not wish to blame anybody, I do not wish to crave pity from you; but it is the last straw which breaks the camel’s back.’
‘Then the camel should get somebody else to help to bear it.’
‘Who would?’ he asked quickly. ‘I have nothing to offer in return but the miserable pittance of a lieutenant in a marching regiment, which I can only make pay my own expenses by scraping and saving. Miss Drysdale, you can’t tell what a manager I am,’ he said, with a little bitterness this time; ‘how I save up my stores and make my old clothes do double duty, like an old woman. What would the rich young Glasgow fellows think if they saw behind the scenes? They have a tolerably accurate knowledge, indeed, that I am impecunious, but wouldn’t they laugh awfully at my dodges?’
‘The rich young Glasgow fellows,’ she said, with scorn, ‘would half empty their purses to be like you in some respects, and they would do well to make the little sacrifice. But I know more of the rich young Glasgow girls. I suppose you would say we were very extravagant; at least, so Lady Semple tells me. We would give more for a lace flounce, or a fur trimming, than would keep a poor, respectable middle-class family for a year. And it is not all in bad taste, some of us dress tolerably well--confess it, Mr. Mackinnon,’ she demanded--gaily for Clary, who was generally too dignified to be gay.
‘Your dress, like everything else about you, is perfection; and that’s what drives poor devils to destruction,’ he muttered, half-piqued, half-puzzled.
‘I have always liked to dress well, and to dress in a way that becomes a rich man’s daughter; but do you suppose I should care to do it if--if I were a poor man’s wife? Don’t you see it would no longer be in keeping? It is not so much the dress as the sense of fitness I mind.’
‘But you would not be in your right place as a poor man’s wife,’ he said in agitation; ‘no penniless wretch of a subaltern would presume.’
‘We were not talking of subalterns,’ she said demurely; ‘and as for presumption, could it be presumption if the person most concerned did not think so?’
‘Claribel!’ he said.
‘Eneas!’ she answered.
‘It would be dishonourable in me to take advantage of your generosity.’ He struggled to act up to his conception of the character of a gentleman. ‘I can hardly keep myself--we should have to be dependent on your father. He would never consent. I have felt before now that he desired to hold me at arm’s length--that you might have nothing to say to me, though lately he has not thought it worth his while to use such precautions. He has been a good friend to my poor old aunts in their trouble; but I have sunk fathoms in his estimation, socially.’
She listened without contradicting him; indeed, she admitted candidly:
‘I don’t say you are wrong. My father has a greater respect for the old than for the young Mackinnons. He does not think you are a match for a Drysdale.’ It was plain speaking, and he winced. She went on--‘But when I marry, it will be I who marry, and not my father. No one knows that better than he, and he is good and kind, as well as clever and successful. He is respected for more than his wealth and social position. I am sure he could not be utterly inconsistent if he tried.’
‘I have no doubt your father is all you say,’ said the Lieutenant, but in anything rather than an assured tone.
‘He’s not a small tyrant,’ insisted Claribel. ‘He is neither unfair nor cruel. He may disapprove, but he will not long dispute my right of choice, or refuse me a daughter’s portion, when he is convinced that I am in earnest.’
‘I trust you are right,’ he said nervously; ‘but it seems too splendidly good news to be true; I cannot believe it. I fear I must be taking a mean advantage of your---- ’
‘Simplicity,’ she finished his sentence for him with a laugh. ‘No, don’t treat me as a simpleton, and please don’t distress yourself on my account, as if I had become your prey--for it is really too good of you. I have always known what I was about--always seen and taken what suited me best; and if I find, on mature consideration, that you suit me--why need you object? You don’t really, else I should not have said what I have--I should not be here at all, I dare say.’
‘Object!’ he exclaimed, in a tone which carried conviction with it.
‘There is one advantage of being come of the people,’ she proceeded calmly. ‘Have you never observed how much the rich Glasgow girls manage their own lives and settle their fortunes? I am not a great admirer of the causes which have led to such a result, but I have always claimed my independence, and prized it, and my father would be the last to seek to deprive me of it.’
‘I hope you are right,’ he said emphatically.
‘I am right,’ she told him; ‘neither my father nor my mother are, even in theory, aristocratic parents. They would never dream of coercing their children--at least, not their daughters. I am not certain whether my father might not have been tempted to use indirect influence where my brother was concerned, to get him to enter the business, my father’s heart was so set upon it. But that is quite another thing from interfering with his daughters in what is their affair. If my father is not altogether willing, I don’t think your aunts will find fault,’ she said, with a womanly archness that was both wonderful and charming in Clary.
‘No, indeed; but how shall I ever thank you?’
‘By believing and trusting me. Don’t you see that will be your duty and privilege henceforth?’
Thus, in the raw morning, in that doleful place, where miserable men and women were wont to meet and part, two hearts went together and sang their song of joy, as if they had been in Eden. At the gate of Glasgow Gaol, Claribel Drysdale, the proudest girl in Glasgow, plighted her troth and resigned her liberty--if that could be called resigning, which was in fact taking Eneas Mackinnon under her protection, and determining to make the most of him, as of herself, in all time to come.
CHAPTER XXX.
A HORRIBLE SUSPICION ASSAILS AULD TAM.
What was auld Tam about, that he could permit his eldest daughter, his ‘edicate, handsome, tochered lass,’ to throw herself away on a cool beggar of a penniless soldier--a man without the brains to keep his old relations from a deed which had landed them in Glasgow Gaol, and awakened the mingled laughter and pity of the whole city, the whole country? The very monstrousness of such a conjecture, the very audacity of Eneas Mackinnon’s continuing to have hopes and claims, served to put Tam off his guard. He never dreamt that any precautions were necessary after the Miss Mackinnons had done for themselves and their grand-nephew effectually.
There was more than magnanimity and good feeling in Tam’s exertions on the old ladies’ behalf--there was a certain serious conviction that in making them, all danger from that quarter was over. And auld Tam would have been right if he had not left Clary out of his calculations--if he had not failed to make allowance for a tenacity of purpose and power of getting her own way by bending everything and everybody, including the chief obstacles to her will, and the very persons who ought to have had the deciding vote, to do her bidding.
With Clary to overrule circumstances and constrain Eneas Mackinnon to follow her lead, Tam ought never to have been sure of what might or might not happen. But in addition to his false security in the persuasion that the ‘offisher lad’ would not have the face any longer to look at Clary, and that the girl herself had listened to reason and was actuated by motives of mere philanthropy, Tam Drysdale’s attention was suddenly violently distracted and held fast in another direction. A crowd of interests of greater importance--nay, of vital moment--pressed upon him, till the question of Clary and her settlement in life dwindled into a drop in the bucket, a speck on the horizon.
On the very day that Claribel’s future was settled at the gaol-door, her father had gone to the office of a solicitor named Greig, who had been employed in the Miss Mackinnons’ case, whose bill auld Tam had taken it upon him to discharge. The bill was not longer than he had expected, and he was not the man to grudge it, so that he was in a placid enough frame of mind. Having come a little distance, he felt inclined to tarry a moment and talk at his ease, particularly as the owner of the office was an exceptionally pleasant old gentleman, possessed of a good deal of curious professional information, beyond what was of a private and confidential nature, which he had no objection to air for the benefit of his clients.
‘As I told you, Mr. Drysdale,’ said Mr. Greig--a stout, bald-headed man who sat facing his visitor, slightly flourishing a pencil and laying down the law, which was in a manner his own property--‘the ladies may be thankful they got off as they did. It is an old story, the contract which gave them a claim on Strathdivie. I’m not quite clear that Fenton might not have disputed it; you see, there was a certain power vested in the Fentons, which was in itself something of a flaw. But marriage contracts are, like the marriages they represent, not things to parry with. They are about as bad as trusteeships; and I consider that it must be a most extraordinary will which gives more trouble and brings more grist to the lawyer’s mill, than these two other devices of the enemy.’
‘Do you say so, sir?’ answered Tam, who did not at the moment care much about the statement, but who had a shrewd, intelligent man’s general desire to receive trustworthy information on any subject, not to say on one which cropped up periodically in most family histories. ‘I had no marriage contract, for the very good reason that I had little enough to settle on my wife when I got her. But after a man has made some money, and has dochters belonging to him, it may be as well for him to ken what is necessary on the subject. Now that I come to think of it, I have a marriage settlement which came accidentally into my possession not very long syne.’ Some feeling of delicacy and not of craftiness prevented auld Tam from saying whose marriage settlement it was. He only added, after an instant, while the lawyer listened as if he were on the alert for what might concern himself, ‘I had almost forgotten the existence of the paper, in place of putting it into the hands of the person who has most richt to it.’
‘Then this is a most fortuitous conversation,’ said Mr. Greig briskly. ‘Take my advice, sir, and do not let the grass grow on your forwarding the deed to its proper destination. You are not aware what weighty issues may hang on its contents.’
‘Houts, Mr. Greig!’ exclaimed Tam, a little impatiently. ‘It has not to do with any living creature. Both of the contracting parties are dead, after having cleverly disposed of what they contracted for, mair than twenty years syne.’