CHAPTER XXIV
A ROMANCE OF TWO OLD MAIDS AND A STOUT BACHELOR
Came Gavinia, a burgess of the besieged city, along the south shore ofthe Silent Pool. She was but a maid seeking to know what love might be,and as she wandered on, she nibbled dreamily at a hot sweet-smellingbridie, whose gravy oozed deliciously through a bursting paper-bag.
It was a fit night for dark deeds.
"Methinks she cometh to her damn!"
The speaker was a masked man who had followed her--he was sniffingecstatically--since she left the city walls.
She seemed to possess a charmed life. He would have had her in ShovelGorge, but just then Ronny-On's Jean and Peter Scrymgeour turned thecorner.
Suddenly Gavinia felt an exquisite thrill: a man was pursuing her. Sheslipped the paper-bag out of sight, holding it dexterously against herside with her arm, so that the gravy should not spurt out, and ran.Lights flashed, a kingly voice cried "Now!" and immediately a petticoatwas flung over her head. (The Lady Griselda looked thin that evening.)
Gavinia was dragged to the Lair, and though many a time they bumped her,she still tenderly nursed the paper-bag with her arm, or fondly thoughtshe did so, for when unmuffled she discovered that it had been removed,as if by painless surgery. And her captors' tongues were sweeping theirchins for stray crumbs.
The wench was offered her choice of Stroke's gallant fellows, but "Whacarries me wears me," said she, promptly, and not only had he to carryher from one end of the Den to the other, but he must do it whistling asif barely conscious that she was there. So after many attempts (for shewas always willing to let them have their try) Corp of Corp, speakingfor Sir Joseph and the others, announced a general retreat.
Instead of taking this prisoner's life, Stroke made her his tool,releasing her on condition that every seventh day she appeared at theLair with information concerning the doings in the town. Also, her namewas Agnes of Kingoldrum, and, if she said it was not, the plank. Boughtthus, Agnes proved of service, bringing such bags of news that Strokewas often occupied now in drawing diagrams of Thrums and itsstrongholds, including the residence of Cathro, with dotted lines toshow the direction of proposed underground passages.
And presently came by this messenger disquieting rumors indeed. Anotherletter, being the third in six months, had reached the Dovecot,addressed, not to Miss Ailie, but to Miss Kitty. Miss Kitty had beendead fully six years, and Archie Piatt, the post, swore that this wasthe eighteenth, if not the nineteenth, letter he had delivered to hername since that time. They were all in the same hand, a man's, and therehad been similar letters while she was alive, but of these he kept norecord. Miss Ailie always took these letters with a trembling hand, andthen locked herself in her bedroom, leaving the key in such a positionin its hole that you might just as well go straight back to the kitchen.Within a few hours of the arrival of these ghostly letters, tongues werewagging about them, but to the two or three persons who (after passing asleepless night) bluntly asked Miss Ailie from whom they came, she onlyreplied by pursing her lips. Nothing could be learned at the post-officesave that Miss Ailie never posted any letters there, except to twoMisses and a Mrs., all resident in Redlintie. The mysterious letterscame from Australy or Manchester, or some such part.
What could Stroke make of this? He expressed no opinion, but oh, hisface was grim. Orders were immediately given to double the sentinels. Abarrel was placed in the Queen's Bower. Sawdust was introduced atimmense risk into the Lair. A paper containing this writing, "248xho317Oxh4591AWS314dd5," was passed round and then solemnly burned. Nothingwas left to chance.
Agnes of Kingoldrum (Stroke told her) did not know Miss Ailie, but shewas commanded to pay special attention to the gossip of the townregarding this new move of the enemy. By next Saturday the plot hadthickened. Previous letters might have reddened Miss Ailie's eyes for anhour or two, but they gladdened her as a whole. Now she sat crying allevening with this one on her lap; she gave up her daily walk to theBerlin wool shop, with all its romantic possibilities; at the clatter ofthe tea-things she would start apprehensively; she had let a red shawllie for two days in the blue-and-white room.
Stroke never blanched. He called his faithful remnant around him, andtold them the story of Bell the Cat, with its application in the recordsof his race. Did they take his meaning? This Miss Ailie must be watchedclosely. In short, once more, in Scottish history, someone must bell thecat. Who would volunteer?
Corp of Corp and Sir Joseph stepped forward as one man.
"Thou couldst not look like Gavinia," the prince said, shaking his head.
"Wha wants him to look like Gavinia?" cried an indignant voice.
"Peace, Agnes!" said Stroke.
"Agnes, why bletherest thou?" said Sir Joseph.
"If onybody's to watch Miss Ailie," insisted the obstinate woman,"surely it should be me!"
"Ha!" Stroke sprang to his feet, for something in her voice, or theoutline of her figure, or perhaps it was her profile, had given him anidea. "A torch!" he cried eagerly and with its aid he scanned her faceuntil his own shone triumphant.
"He kens a wy, methinks!" exclaimed one of his men.
Sir Joseph was right. It had been among the prince's exploits to makehis way into Thrums in disguise, and mix with the people as one ofthemselves, and on several of these occasions he had seen Miss Ailie'sattendant. Agnes's resemblance to her now struck him for the first time.It should be Agnes of Kingoldrum's honorable though dangerous part totake this Gavinia's place.
But how to obtain possession of Gavinia's person? Agnes made severalsuggestions, but was told to hold her prating peace. It could only bedone in one way. They must kidnap her. Sir Joseph was ordered to beready to accompany his liege on this perilous enterprise in ten minutes."And mind," said Stroke, gravely, "we carry our lives in our hands."
"In our hands!" gasped Sir Joseph, greatly puzzled, but he dared ask nomore, and when the two set forth (leaving Agnes of Kingoldrum lookingvery uncomfortable), he was surprised to see that Stroke was carryingnothing. Sir Joseph carried in his hand his red hanky, mysteriouslyknotted.
"Where is yours?" he whispered.
"What meanest thou?"
Sir Joseph replied, "Oh, nothing," and thought it best to slip hishandkerchief into his trouser-pocket, but the affair bothered him forlong afterwards.
When they returned through the Den, there still seemed (to theunpiercing eye) to be but two of them; nevertheless, Stroke re-enteredthe Lair to announce to Agnes and the others that he had left Gaviniabelow in charge of Sir Joseph. She was to walk the plank anon, but firstshe must be stripped that Agnes might don her garments. Stroke was everyinch a prince, so he kept Agnes by his side, and sent down the LadyGriselda and Widow Elspeth to strip the prisoner, Sir Joseph havingorders to stand back fifty paces. (It is a pleasure to have to recordthis.)
The signal having been given that this delicate task was accomplished,Stroke whistled shrilly, and next moment was heard from far below athud, as of a body falling in water, then an agonizing shriek, and thenagain all was still, save for the heavy breathing of Agnes ofKingoldrum.
Sir Joseph (very wet) returned to the Lair, and Agnes was commanded totake off her clothes in a retired spot and put on those of the deceased,which she should find behind a fallen tree.
"I winna be called the deceased," cried Agnes hotly, but she had to doas she was bid, and when she emerged, from behind the tree she was thevery image of the ill-fated Gavinia. Stroke showed her a plan of MissAilie's backdoor, and also gave her a kitchen key (when he producedthis, she felt in her pockets and then snatched it from him), afterwhich she set out for the Dovecot in a scare about her own identity.
"And now, what doest thou think about it a'?" inquired Sir Josepheagerly, to which Stroke made answer, looking at him fixedly.
"The wind is in the west!"
Sir Joseph should have kept this a secret, but soon Stroke heardInverquharity prating of it, and he called his lieutenant before him.Sir Joseph acknowledged humbly that
he had been unable to hide it fromInverquharity, but he promised not to tell Muckle Kenny, of whoseloyalty there were doubts. Henceforth, when the faithful fellow wasMuckle Kenny, he would say doggedly to himself, "Dinna question me,Kenny. I ken nocht about it."
Dark indeed were now the fortunes of the Pretender, but they had onebright spot. Miss Ailie had been taken in completely by the trick playedon her, and thus Stroke now got full information of the enemy's doings.Cathro having failed to dislodge the Jacobites, the seat of war had beenchanged by Victoria to the Dovecot, whither her despatches were nowforwarded. That this last one, of which Agnes of Kingoldrum tried invain to obtain possession, doubled the price on the Pretender's head,there could be no doubt; but as Miss Ailie was a notorious Hanoverian,only the hunted prince himself knew why this should make her cry.
He hinted with a snigger something about an affair he had once had withthe lady.
The Widow and Sir Joseph accepted this explanation, but it made LadyGriselda rock her arms in irritation.
The reports about Miss Ailie's behavior became more and more alarming.She walked up and down her bedroom now in the middle of the night. Everytime the knocker clanked she held herself together with both hands.Agnes had orders not to answer the door until her mistress had keekedthrough the window.
"She's expecting a veesitor, methinks," said Corp. This was his brightday.
"Ay," answered Agnes, "but is't a man-body, or just a woman-body?"
Leaving the rebels in the Lair stunned by Victoria's latest move, we nowreturn to Thrums, where Miss Ailie's excited state had indeed been thetalk of many. Even the gossips, however, had underestimated her distressof mind, almost as much as they misunderstood its cause. You must listennow (will you?) to so mild a thing as the long thin romance of twomaiden ladies and a stout bachelor, all beginning to be old the day thethree of them first drank tea together, and that was ten years ago.
Miss Ailie and Miss Kitty, you may remember, were not natives of Thrums.They had been born and brought up at Redlintie, and on the death oftheir parents they had remained there, the gauger having left them allhis money, which was just sufficient to enable them to live like ladies,if they took tiny Magenta Cottage, and preferred an inexperienced maid.At first their life was very quiet, the walk from eleven to one for thegood of fragile Miss Kitty's health its outstanding feature. When theystrolled together on the cliffs, Miss Ailie's short thick figure,straight as an elvint, cut the wind in two, but Miss Kitty was swayedthis way and that, and when she shook her curls at the wind, it blewthem roguishly in her face, and had another shot at them, as soon asthey were put to rights. If the two walked by the shore (where theyounger sometimes bathed her feet, the elder keeping a sharp eye on landand water), the sea behaved like the wind, dodging Miss Ailie's anklesand snapping playfully at Miss Kitty's. Thus even the elements coulddistinguish between the sisters, who nevertheless had so much in commonthat at times Miss Ailie would look into her mirror and sigh to thinkthat some day Miss Kitty might be like this. How Miss Ailie adored MissKitty! She trembled with pleasure if you said Miss Kitty was pretty, andshe dreamed dreams in which she herself walked as bridesmaid only. Andjust as Miss Ailie could be romantic, Miss Kitty, the romantic, could beprim, and the primness was her own as much as the curls, but Miss Ailieusually carried it for her, like a cloak in case of rain.
Not often have two sweeter women grown together on one stem. What werethe men of Redlintie about? The sisters never asked each other thisquestion, but there were times when, apparently without cause, MissAilie hugged Miss Kitty vehemently, as if challenging the world, andperhaps Miss Kitty understood.
Thus a year or more passed uneventfully, until the one romance of theirlives befell them. It began with the reappearance in Redlintie ofMagerful Tarn, who had come to torment his father into giving him moremoney, but, finding he had come too late, did not harass the sisters.This is perhaps the best thing that can be told of him, and, as if heknew this, he had often told it himself to Jean Myles, without howevertelling her what followed. For something to his advantage did follow,and it was greatly to the credit of Miss Ailie and Miss Kitty, thoughthey went about it as timidly as if they were participating in a crime.Ever since they learned of the sin which had brought this man into theworld their lives had been saddened, for on the same day they realizedwhat a secret sorrow had long lain at their mother's heart. AlisonSibbald was a very simple, gracious lady, who never recovered from theshock of discovering that she had married a libertine; yet she hadpressed her husband to do something for his son, and been greatly painedwhen he refused with a coarse laugh. The daughters were very like her innature, and though the knowledge of what she had suffered increased manyfold their love for her, so that in her last days their passionatedevotion to her was the talk of Redlintie, it did not blind them to whatseemed to them to be their duty to the man. As their father's son, theyheld, he had a right to a third of the gauger's money, and to withholdit from him, now that they knew his whereabouts, would have been a formof theft. But how to give T. his third? They called him T. fromdelicacy, and they had never spoken to him. When he passed them in thestreets, they turned pale, and, thinking of their mother, looked anotherway. But they knew he winked.
At last, looking red in one street, and white in another, but resolutein all, they took their business to the office of Mr. John McLean, thewriter, who had once escorted Miss Kitty home from a party withoutanything coming of it, so that it was quite a psychological novel inseveral volumes. Now Mr. John happened to be away at the fishing, and areckless maid showed them into the presence of a strange man, who was noother than his brother Ivie, home for a year's holiday from India, andnaturally this extraordinary occurrence so agitated them that Miss Ailiehad told half her story before she realized that Miss Kitty was tittingat her dress. Then indeed she sought to withdraw, but Ivie, with thealarming yet not unpleasing audacity of his sex, said he had heardenough to convince him that in this matter he was qualified to take hisbrother's place. But he was not, for he announced, "My advice to you isnot to give T. a halfpenny," which showed that he did not evenunderstand what they had come about.
They begged permission to talk to each other behind the door, andpresently returned, troubled but brave. Miss Kitty whispered "Courage!"and this helped Miss Ailie to the deed.
"We have quite made up our minds to let T. have the money," she said,"but--but the difficulty is the taking it to him. Must we take it inperson?"
"Why not?" asked Ivie, bewildered.
"It would be such a painful meeting to us." said Miss Ailie.
"And to him," added simple Miss Kitty.
"You see we have thought it best not to--not to know him," said MissAilie, faintly.
"Mother--" faltered Miss Kitty, and at the word the eyes of both ladiesbegan to fill.
Then, of course, Mr. McLean discovered the object of their visit, andpromised that his brother should take this delicate task off theirhands, and as he bowed them out he said, "Ladies, I think you are doinga very foolish thing, and I shall respect you for it all my life." Atleast Miss Kitty insisted that respect was the word, Miss Ailie thoughthe said esteem.
That was how it began, and it progressed for nearly a year at a ratethat will take away your breath. On the very next day he met Miss Kittyin High Street, a most awkward encounter for her ("for, you know, Ailie,we were never introduced, so how could I decide all in a moment what todo?"), and he raised his hat (the Misses Croall were at their window andsaw the whole thing). But we must gallop, like the friendship. He bowedthe first two times, the third time he shook hands (by a sort ofprovidence Miss Kitty had put on her new mittens), the fourth, fifth,and sixth times he conversed, the seventh time he--they replied thatthey really could not trouble him so much, but he said he was going thatway at any rate; the eighth time, ninth time, and tenth time the figuresof two ladies and a gentleman might have been observed, etc., and eitherthe eleventh or twelfth time ("Fancy our not being sure, Ailie"--"It hasall come so quickly, Kitty") he took his first
dish of tea at MagentaCottage.
There were many more walks after this, often along the cliffs to alittle fishing village, over which the greatest of magicians oncestretched his wand, so that it became famous forever, as all the worldsaw except himself; and tea at the cottage followed, when Ivie askedMiss Kitty to sing "The Land o' the Leal," and Miss Ailie sat by thewindow, taking in her merino, that it might fit Miss Kitty, cutting hersable muff (once Alison Sibbald's) into wristbands for Miss Kitty'sastrakhan; they did not go quite all the way round, but men are blind.
Ivie was not altogether blind. The sisters, it is to be feared, calledhim the dashing McLean, but he was at this time nearly forty years old,an age when bachelors like to take a long rest from thinking ofmatrimony, before beginning again. Fifteen years earlier he had been inlove, but the girl had not cared to wait for him, and, though in Indiahe had often pictured himself returning to Redlintie to gaze wistfullyat her old home, when he did come back he never went, because the housewas a little out of the way. But unknown to him two ladies went, to whomhe had told this as a rather dreary joke. They were ladies he esteemedvery much, though having a sense of humor he sometimes chuckled on hisway home from Magenta Cottage, and he thought out many ways of addinglittle pleasures to their lives. It was like him to ask Miss Kitty tosing and play, though he disliked music. He understood that it is a hardworld for single women, and knew himself for a very ordinary sort ofman. If it ever crossed his head that Miss Kitty would be willing tomarry him, he felt genuinely sorry at the same time that she had notdone better long ago. He never flattered himself that he could beaccepted now, save for the good home he could provide (he was not theman to blame women for being influenced by that), for like most of hissex he was unaware that a woman is never too old to love or to be loved;if they do know it, the mean ones among them make a jest of it, at which(God knows why) their wives laugh. Mr. McLean had been acquainted withthe sisters for months before he was sure even that Miss Kitty was hisfavorite. He found that out one evening when sitting with an old friend,whose wife and children were in the room, gathered round a lamp andplaying at some child's game. Suddenly Ivie McLean envied his friend,and at the same moment he thought tenderly of Miss Kitty. But thefeeling passed. He experienced it next and as suddenly when arriving atBombay, where some women were waiting to greet their husbands.
Before he went away the two gentlewomen knew that he was not to speak.They did not tell each other what was in their minds. Miss Kitty was sobright during those last days, that she must have deceived anyone whodid not love her, and Miss Ailie held her mouth very tight, and ifpossible was straighter than ever, but oh, how gentle she was with MissKitty! Ivie's last two weeks in the old country were spent in London,and during that time Miss Kitty liked to go away by herself, and sit ona rock and gaze at the sea. Once Miss Ailie followed her and would havecalled him a--
"Don't, Ailie!" said Miss Kitty, imploringly. But that night, when MissKitty was brushing her hair, she said, courageously, "Ailie, I don'tthink I should wear curls any longer. You know I--I shall bethirty-seven in August." And after the elder sister had become calmagain. Miss Kitty said timidly, "You don't think I have been unladylike,do you, Ailie?"
Such a trifle now remains to tell. Miss Kitty was the better businesswoman of the two, and kept the accounts, and understood, as Miss Ailiecould not understand, how their little income was invested, and evenknew what consols were, though never quite certain whether it was theirfall or rise that is matter for congratulation. And after the ship hadsailed, she told Miss Ailie that nearly all their money was lost, andthat she had known it for a month.
"And you kept it from me! Why?"
"I thought, Ailie, that you, knowing I am not strong--that you--wouldperhaps tell him."
"And I would!" cried Miss Ailie.
"And then," said Miss Kitty, "perhaps he, out of pity, you know!"
"Well, even if he had!" said Miss Ailie.
"I could not, oh, I could not," replied Miss Kitty, flushing; "it--itwould not have been ladylike, Ailie."
Thus forced to support themselves, the sisters decided to keep schoolgenteelly, and, hearing that there was an opening in Thrums, theysettled there, and Miss Kitty brushed her hair out now, and with a twistand a twirl ran it up her fingers into a net, whence by noon some of ithad escaped through the little windows and was curls again. She and MissAilie were happy in Thrums, for time took the pain out of the affair ofMr. McLean, until it became not merely a romantic memory, but, with theletters he wrote to Miss Kitty and her answers, the great quiet pleasureof their lives. They were friendly letters only, but Miss Kitty wrotehers out in pencil first and read them to Miss Ailie, who had beentaking notes for them.
In the last weeks of Miss Kitty's life Miss Ailie conceived a passionateunspoken hatred of Mr. McLean, and her intention was to write and tellhim that he had killed her darling. But owing to the illness into whichshe was flung by Miss Kitty's death, that unjust letter was neverwritten.
But why did Mr. McLean continue to write to Miss Kitty?
Well, have pity or be merciless as you choose. For several years Mr.McLean's letters had been the one thing the sisters looked forward to,and now, when Miss Ailie was without Miss Kitty, must she lose themalso? She never doubted, though she may have been wrong, that, if Ivieknew of Miss Kitty's death, one letter would come in answer, and thatthe last. She could not tell him. In the meantime he wrote twice askingthe reason of this long silence, and at last Miss Ailie, whosehandwriting was very like her sister's, wrote him a letter which wasposted at Tilliedrum and signed "Katherine Cray." The thing seemsmonstrous, but this gentle lady did it, and it was never so difficult todo again. Latterly, it had been easy.
This last letter of Mr. McLean's announced to Miss Kitty that he wasabout to start for home "for good," and he spoke in it of coming toThrums to see the sisters, as soon as he reached Redlintie. Poor MissAilie! After sleepless nights she trudged to the Tilliedrum post-officewith a full confession of her crime, which would be her welcome home tohim when he arrived at his brother's house. Many of the words werewritten on damp blobs. After that she could do nothing but wait for thestorm, and waiting she became so meek, that Gavinia, who loved herbecause she was "that simple," said sorrowfully:
"How is't you never rage at me now, ma'am? I'm sure it keepit youlightsome, and I likit to hear the bum o't."
"And instead o' the raging I was prigging for," the soft-hearted maidtold her friends, "she gave me a flannel petticoat!" Indeed, Miss Ailiehad taken to giving away her possessions at this time, like a woman whothought she was on her death-bed. There was something for each of herpupils, including--but the important thing is that there was a gift forTommy, which had the effect of planting the Hanoverian Woman (to whom hemust have given many uneasy moments) more securely on the BritishThrone.