Out in the Forty-Five Part 19

Mr Cameron was to stay the night at the manse, and to go on in the morning to his own home, which is about fourteen miles further. Flora carried me off to her chamber, where she and I were to sleep, and we changed our travelling dresses, and had a good wash, and then came down to supper. During the evening Mr Cameron said, laughingly,--

"Well, my fair maid who objects to the South, have you digested the Iberii?"

"I think I have remembered all you told us, Sir," said I; "but if you please, I am very sorry, but I am afraid we do come from the South. Our family, I mean. My father's father, I believe, belonged Wilts.h.i.+re; and his father, who was a captain in the navy, was a Courtenay of Powderham, whatever that means. My sister f.a.n.n.y knows all about it, but I don't understand it--only I am afraid we must have come from the South."

Mr Cameron laughed, and so did my Uncle Drummond and Flora.

"Don't you, indeed, young lady?" said the first. "Well, it only means that you have half the kings of England and France, and a number of emperors of the East, among your forefathers. Very blue blood indeed, Miss Caroline. I do not see how, with that pedigree, you could be anything but a Tory. Mr Courtenay is rather warm that way, I understand."

"Oh, Father is as strong as he can be," said I. "I should not dare to talk of the Elector of Hanover by any other name if he heard me."

"Well, you may call that gentleman what you please here," said Mr Cameron; "but I usually style him King George."

"Nay, Sandy, do not teach the child to disobey her father," said my Uncle Drummond. "The Fifth Command is somewhat older than the Brunswick succession and the Act of Settlement."

"A little," said Mr Cameron, drily.

"Little Cary," said my uncle, softly, turning to me, "do you know that you are very like somebody?"

"Like whom, Uncle?" said I.

"Somebody I loved very much, my child," he answered, rather sadly; "from whom Angus has his blue eyes, and Flora her smile."

"You mean Aunt Jane," said I, speaking as softly as he had done, for I felt that she had been very dear to him.

"Yes, my dear," he replied; "I mean my Jeannie. You are very like her.

I think we shall love each other, Cary."

I thought so too.

Mr Cameron left us this morning. To-day I have been exploring with Flora, who wants to go all over the house and garden and village--speaks of her pet plants as if they were old friends, and shakes hands with everyone she meets, and pats every dog and cat in the place. And they all seem so glad to see her--the dogs included; I do not know about the cats. As we went down the village street, it was quite amusing to hear the greetings from every doorway.

"Atweel, Miss Flora, ye've won hame!" said one.

"How's a' wi' ye, my bairn?" said another.

"A blessing on your bonnie e'en, my la.s.sie!" said a third.

And Flora had the same sort of thing for all of them. It was, "Well, Jeannie, is your Maggie still in her place?" or, "I hope Sandy's better now?" or, "Have you lost your pains, Isabel?" She seemed to know all about each one. I was quite diverted to hear it all. They all appeared rather shy with me, only very kindly; and when Flora introduced me as "her cousin from England," which she did in every cottage, they had all something kind to say: that they hoped I was well after my journey, or they trusted I should like Scotland, or something of that sort. Two told me I was a bonnie la.s.sie. But at last we came to a shut door--most were open--and Flora knocked and waited for an answer. She said gravely to me,--

"A King's daughter lies here, Cary, waiting for her Father's chariot to take her home."

A fresh-coloured, middle-aged woman came to the door, and I was surprised to hear Flora say, "How is your grandmother, Elsie?"

"She's mickle as ye laft her, Miss Flora, only weaker; I'm thinkin'

she'll no be lang the now. But come ben, my bonnie la.s.sie; you're as welcome as flowers in May. And how's a' wi' ye?"

Flora answered as we were following Elsie down the chamber and round a screen which boxed off the end of it. Behind the screen was a bed, and on it lay, as I thought, the oldest woman on whom I ever set my eyes.

Her face was all wrinkled up, yet there was a fresh colour in her cheeks, and her eyes, though much sunk, seemed piercingly bright.

"Ye're come at last," she said, in a low clear voice, as Flora sat down on the bed, and took the wrinkled brown hand in hers.

"Yes, dear Mirren, come at last," said she. "I'm very glad to get home."

"Ay, and that's what I'll be the morn."

"So soon, Mirren?"

"Ay, just sae soon. I askit Him to let me bide while ye came hame. I ay thocht I wad fain see ye ance mair--my Miss Flora's lad's la.s.sie.

He's gi'en me a' that ever I askit Him--but ane thing, an' that was the vara desire o' my heart."

"You mean," said Flora, gently, "you wanted Ronald to come home?"

"Ay, I wanted him to come hame frae the far country!" said old Mirren with a sigh. "I'd ha'e likit weel to see him come hame to Abbotscliff-- vara weel. But I longed mickle mair to see him come hame to the Father's house. It's no for his auld minnie to see that. But if it's for the Lord to see some ither day, I'm content. And He has gi'en me sae monie things that I ne'er askit Him wi' ane half the longing that I did for that, I dinna think He'll say me nay the now."

"Is He with you, Mirren dear?"

I could not imagine how Flora thought Mirren was to know that. But she answered, with a light in those bright eyes,--

"Ay, my doo. 'His left haun is under my heid, and His richt haun doth embrace me.'"

I sat and listened in wonder. It all sounded so strange. Yet Flora seemed to understand. And I had such an unpleasant sense of being outside, and not understanding, as I never felt before, and I did not like it a bit. I knew quite well that if Father had been there, he would have said it was all stuff and cant. But I did not feel so sure of my Aunt Kezia. And suppose it were not cant, but was something unutterably real,--something that I ought to know, and must know some day, if I were ever to get to Heaven! I did not like it. I felt that I was among a new sort of people--people who lived, as it were, in a different place from me--a sort of whom I had never seen one before (that did not come from Abbotscliff) except my Aunt Kezia, and there were differences between her and them. My Uncle Drummond and Flora, and Mr Keith, and this old Mirren, and I thought Helen Raeburn and Mr Cameron, all belonged this new sort of people. The one who did not seem to belong them was Angus. Yet I did not like Angus nearly so well as the rest. And yet he belonged my sort of people. It was a puzzle altogether, and not a pleasant puzzle. And how anybody was to get out of the one set into the other set, I could not tell at all.

Stop! I did know one other person at Brocklebank who belonged this new sort of people. It was Ephraim Hebblethwaite. He was not, I thought-- well, I don't know how to put it--he did not seem so far on the road as the others; only he was on that road, and not on this road. And then it struck me, too, whether old Elspie, and perhaps Sam, were not on the road as well. I ran over in my mind, as I was walking back to the manse with Flora, who was very silent, all the people I knew; and I could not think of one other who might be on Flora's road. Father and my sisters, Esther Langridge, the Catteralls, the Bracewells, Cecilia--oh dear, no!--Mr Digby, Mr Bagnall (yet they were parsons), Mr Parmenter--no, not one. At all the four I named last, my mind gave a sort of jump as if it were quite astonished to be asked the question. But where did the roads lead? Flora and her sort, I felt quite sure, were going to Heaven. Then where were Angus and I and all the rest going?

And I did not like the answer at all.

But I felt that the two roads led in opposite ways, and they could not both go to one place.

As we walked up the path to the manse, Helen came out to meet us.

"My la.s.sie," she said to Flora, "there's Miss Annas i' the garden, and Leddy Monksburn wad ha'e ye gang till Monksburn for a dish o' tea, and Miss Cary wi' ye."

Flora's face lighted up.

"Oh, how delightful!" she said. "Come, Cary--come and see Annas Keith."

I was very curious to see Annas, and I followed willingly. Under the old beech at the bottom of the garden sat a girl-woman--she was not either, but both--in a gown of soft camlet, which seemed as if it were part of her; I do not mean so much in the fit of it, as in the complete suitableness of it and her. Her head was bent down over a book, and I could not see her face at first--only her hair, which was neither light nor dark, but had a kind of golden s.h.i.+mmer. Her hat lay beside her on the seat. Flora ran down the walk with a glad cry of "Annas!" and then she stood up, and I saw Annas Keith.

A princess! was my first thought. I saw a tall, slight figure, a slender white throat, a pure pale face, dark grey eyes with black lashes, and a soul in them. Some people have no souls in their eyes, Annas Keith has.

Yet I could not have said then, and I cannot say now, when I try to recall her picture in my mind's eye, whether Annas Keith is beautiful.

It does not seem the right word to describe her: and yet "ugly" would be much further off. She is one of those women about whose beauty or want of beauty you never think unless you are trying to describe them, and then you cannot tell what to say about it. She takes you captive.

There is a charm about her that I cannot put into words. Only it is as different from the spell that Cecilia Osborne threw over me (at first) as light differs from darkness. The charm about Annas feels as if it lifted me higher, into a purer air. Whenever I had been long with Cecilia, my mind felt soiled, as if I had been breathing bad air.

When Flora introduced me, Miss Keith turned and kissed me, and I felt as if I had been presented to a queen.

"We want to know you," she said. "All Flora's friends are our friends.

You will come, both of you?"