comes backfrom fishing, with the story of the young lady who lives in the dark,and keeps a company of performing cats! I shall expect _you_ to amuse_me_ to-morrow--I want you to tell me all about yourself, and how youcame to visit these wild islands of ours. Perhaps, as the days go on,and we get better acquainted, you will take me a little more into yourconfidence, and tell me the true meaning of that story of sorrow which Iread on your face while you were asleep? I have just enough of the womanleft in me to be the victim of curiosity, when I meet with a person whointerests me. Good-by till to-morrow! I wish you a tranquil night, and apleasant waking.--Come, my familiar spirits! Come, my cat children! it'stime we went back to our own side of the house."
She dropped the veil over her face--and, followed by her train of cats,glided out of the room.
Immediately on her departure, Peter appeared and drew back the curtains.The light of the setting sun streamed in at the window. At the samemoment my traveling companion returned in high spirits, eager to tell meabout his fishing in the lake. The contrast between what I saw and heardnow, and what I had seen and heard only a few minutes since, was soextraordinary and so startling that I almost doubted whether the veiledfigure with the harp, and the dance of cats, were not the fantasticcreations of a dream. I actually asked my friend whether he had found meawake or asleep when he came into the room!
Evening merged into night. The Master of Books made his appearance, toreceive the latest news of my health. He spoke and listened absentlyas if his mind were still pre-occupied by his studies--except when Ireferred gratefully to his daughter's kindness to me. At her name hisfaded blue eyes brightened; his drooping head became erect; his sad,subdued voice strengthened in tone.
"Do not hesitate to let her attend on you," he said. "Whatever interestsor amuses her, lengthens her life. In _her_ life is the breath of mine.She is more than my daughter; she is the guardian-angel of the house. Gowhere she may, she carries the air of heaven with her. When you say yourprayers, sir, pray God to leave my daughter here a little longer."
He sighed heavily; his head dropped again on his breast--he left me.
The hour advanced; the evening meal was set by my bedside. Silent Peter,taking his leave for the night, developed into speech. "I sleep nextdoor," he said. "Ring when you want me." My traveling companion, takingthe second bed in the room, reposed in the happy sleep of youth. Inthe house there was dead silence. Out of the house, the low song of thenight-wind, rising and falling over the lake and the moor, was the onesound to be heard. So the first day ended in the hospitable Shetlandhouse.
CHAPTER XX. THE GREEN FLAG.
"I CONGRATULATE you, Mr. Germaine, on your power of painting in words.Your description gives me a vivid idea of Mrs. Van Brandt."
"Does the portrait please you, Miss Dunross?"
"May I speak as plainly as usual?"
"Certainly!"
"Well, then, plainly, I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt."
Ten days had passed; and thus far Miss Dunross had made her way into myconfidence already!
By what means had she induced me to trust her with those secret andsacred sorrows of my life which I had hitherto kept for my mother'sear alone? I can easily recall the rapid and subtle manner in which hersympathies twined themselves round mine; but I fail entirely to tracethe infinite gradations of approach by which she surprised and conqueredmy habitual reserve. The strongest influence of all, the influence ofthe eye, was not hers. When the light was admitted into the room she wasshrouded in her veil. At all other times the curtains were drawn, thescreen was before the fire--I could see dimly the outline of her face,and I could see no more. The secret of her influence was perhaps partlyattributable to the simple and sisterly manner in which she spoke to me,and partly to the indescribable interest which associated itself withher mere presence in the room. Her father had told me that she "carriedthe air of heaven with her." In my experience, I can only say that shecarried something with her which softly and inscrutably possessed itselfof my will, and made me as unconsciously obedient to her wishes as if Ihad been her dog. The love-story of my boyhood, in all its particulars,down even to the gift of the green flag; the mystic predictions of DameDermody; the loss of every trace of my little Mary of former days; therescue of Mrs. Van Brandt from the river; the apparition of her in thesummer-house; the after-meetings with her in Edinburgh and in London;the final parting which had left its mark of sorrow on my face--allthese events, all these sufferings, I confided to her as unreservedlyas I have confided them to these pages. And the result, as she sat by mein the darkened room, was summed up, with a woman's headlong impetuosityof judgment, in the words that I have just written--"I don't like yourMrs. Van Brandt!"
"Why not?" I asked.
She answered instantly, "Because you ought to love nobody but Mary."
"But Mary has been lost to me since I was a boy of thirteen."
"Be patient, and you will find her again. Mary is patient--Mary iswaiting for you. When you meet her, you will be ashamed to remember thatyou ever loved Mrs. Van Brandt--you will look on your separation fromthat woman as the happiest event of your life. I may not live to hear ofit--but _you_ will live to own that I was right."
Her perfectly baseless conviction that time would yet bring about mymeeting with Mary, partly irritated, partly amused me.
"You seem to agree with Dame Dermody," I said. "You believe that our twodestinies are one. No matter what time may elapse, or what may happen inthe time, you believe my marriage with Mary is still a marriage delayed,and nothing more?"
"I firmly believe it."
"Without knowing why--except that you dislike the idea of my marryingMrs. Van Brandt?"
She knew that this view of her motive was not far from being the rightone--and, womanlike, she shifted the discussion to new ground.
"Why do you call her Mrs. Van Brandt?" she asked. "Mrs. Van Brandt isthe namesake of your first love. If you are so fond of her, why don'tyou call her Mary?"
I was ashamed to give the true reason--it seemed so utterly unworthy ofa man of any sense or spirit. Noticing my hesitation, she insisted on myanswering her; she forced me to make my humiliating confession.
"The man who has parted us," I said, "called her Mary. I hate him withsuch a jealous hatred that he has even disgusted me with the name! Itlost all its charm for me when it passed _his_ lips."
I had anticipated that she would laugh at me. No! She suddenly raisedher head as if she were looking at me intently in the dark.
"How fond you must be of that woman!" she said. "Do you dream of hernow?"
"I never dream of her now."
"Do you expect to see the apparition of her again?"
"It may be so--if a time comes when she is in sore need of help, andwhen she has no friend to look to but me."
"Did you ever see the apparition of your little Mary?"
"Never!"
"But you used once to see her--as Dame Dermody predicted--in dreams?"
"Yes--when I was a lad."
"And, in the after-time, it was not Mary, but Mrs. Van Brandt who cameto you in dreams--who appeared to you in the spirit, when she was faraway from you in the body? Poor old Dame Dermody. She little thought,in her life-time, that her prediction would be fullfilled by the wrongwoman!"
To that result her inquiries had inscrutably conducted her! If she hadonly pressed them a little further--if she had not unconsciously ledme astray again by the very next question that fell from her lips--she_must_ have communicated to _my_ mind the idea obscurely germinating inhers--the idea of a possible identity between the Mary of my first loveand Mrs. Van Brandt!
"Tell me," she went on. "If you met with your little Mary now, whatwould she be like? What sort of woman would you expect to see?"
I could hardly help laughing. "How can I tell," I rejoined, "at thisdistance of time?"
"Try!" she said.
Reasoning my way from the known personality to the unknown, Isearched my memory for the image of the frail and delicate child of myremem
brance: and I drew the picture of a frail and delicate woman--themost absolute contrast imaginable to Mrs. Van Brandt!
The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dunross droppedout of it instantly, expelled by the substantial conclusion which thecontrast implied. Alike ignorant of the aftergrowth of health, strength,and beauty which time and circumstances had developed in the Mary ofmy youthful days, we had alike completely and unconsciously misled oneanother. Once more, I had missed the discovery of the truth, and missedit by a hair-breadth!
"I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary," said Miss Dunross, "toyour portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes my idea of what a reallyattractive woman ought to be. How you can have felt any sorrow forthe loss of that