Black William
A Princess of Thule
These were strange things to be told to a man, and they were difficult to answer. But out of these revelations – which rather took the form of a cry than of any distinct statement – he formed a notion of Sheila’s position sufficiently exact; and the more he looked at it the more alarmed and pained he grew, for he knew more of her than her husband did. He knew the latent force of character that underlay all her submissive gentleness. He knew the keen sense of pride her Highland birth had given her; and he feared what might happen if this sensitive and proud heart of hers were driven into rebellion by some possibly unintentional wrong. And this high-spirited, fearless, honor-loving girl – who was gentle and obedient, not through any timidity or limpness of character, but because she considered it her duty to be gentle and obedient – was to be cast aside and have her tenderest feelings outraged and wounded for the sake of an unscrupulous, shallow-brained woman of fashion, who was not fit to be Sheila’s waiting-maid. Ingram had never seen Mrs. Lorraine, but he had formed his own opinion of her. The opinion, based upon nothing, was wholly wrong, but it served to increase, if that were possible, his sympathy with Sheila, and his resolve to interfere on her behalf at whatever cost.
“Sheila,” he said, gravely putting his hand on her shoulder as if she were still the little girl who used to run wild with him about the Borva rocks, “you are a good woman.”
He added to himself that Lavender knew little of the value of the wife he had got, but he dared not say that to Sheila, who would suffer no imputation against her husband to be uttered in her presence, however true it might be, or however much she had cause to know it to be true.
“And, after all,” he said in a lighter voice, “I think I can do something to mend all this. I will say for Frank Lavender that he is a thoroughly good fellow at heart, and that when you appeal to him, and put things fairly before him, and show him what he ought to do, there is not a more honorable and straightforward man in the world. He has been forgetful, Sheila. He has been led away by these people, you know, and has not been aware of what you were suffering. When I put the matter before him, you will see it will be all right; and I hope to persuade him to give up this constant idling and take to his work, and have something to live for. I wish you and I together could get him to go away from London altogether – get him to take to serious landscape painting on some wild coast – the Galway coast, for example.”
“Why not the Lewis?” said Sheila, her heart turning to the North as naturally as the needle.
“Or the Lewis. And I should like you and him to live away from hotels and luxuries, and all such things; and he would work all day, and you would do the cooking in some small cottage you could rent, you know.”
“You make me so happy in thinking of that,” she said, with her eyes growing well again.
“And why should he not do so? There is nothing romantic or idyllic about it, but a good, wholesome, plain sort of life, that is likely to make an honest painter of him, and bring both of you some well-earned money. And you might have a boat like this.”
“We are drifting too far in,” said Sheila, suddenly rising. “Shall we go back now?”
“By all means,” he said; and so the small boat was put under canvas again, and was soon making way through the breezy water.
“Well, all this seems simple enough, doesn’t it?” said Ingram.
“Yes,” said the girl, with her face full of hope.
“And then, of course, when you are quite comfortable together, and making heaps of money, you can turn around and abuse me, and say I made all the misery to begin with.”
“Did we do so before when you were very kind to us?” she said in a low voice.
“Oh, but that was different. To interfere on behalf of two young folks who are in love with each other is dangerous, but to interfere between two people who are married – that is a certain quarrel. I wonder what you will say when you are scolding me, Sheila, and bidding me get out of the house? I have never heard you scold. Is it Gaelic or English you prefer?”
“I prefer whichever can say the nicest things to my very good friends, and tell them how grateful I am for their kindness to me.”
“Ah, well, we’ll see.”
When they got back to shore it was half-past one.
“You will come and have some luncheon with us?” said Sheila when they had gone up the steps and into the King’s road.
“Will that lady be there?”
“Mrs. Lorraine? Yes.”
“Then I’ll come some other time.”
“But why not come now?” said Sheila. “It is not necessary that you will see us only to speak about those things we have been talking over?”
“Oh, no, not at all. If you and Mr. Lavender were by yourselves, I should come at once.”
“And are you afraid of Mrs. Lorraine?” said Sheila, with a smile. “She is a very nice lady, indeed: you have no cause to dislike her.”
“But I don’t want to meet her, Sheila, that is all,” he said; and she knew well, by the precision of his manner, that there was no use trying to persuade him further.
He walked along to the hotel with her, meeting a considerable stream of fashionably-dressed folks on the way; and neither he nor she seemed to remember that his costume – a blue pilot jacket, not a little worn and soiled with the salt water, and a beaver hat that had seen a good deal of rough weather in the Highlands – was a good deal more comfortable than elegant. He said to her, as he left her at the hotel: “Would you mind telling Lavender I shall drop in at half-past three, and that I expect to see him in the coffee-room? I shan’t keep him five minutes.”
She looked at him for a moment, and he saw that she knew what this appointment meant, for her eyes were full of gladness and gratitude. He went away pleased at heart that she put so much trust in him. And in this case he should be able to reward that confidence, for Lavender was really a good sort of fellow, and would at once be sorry for the wrong he had unintentionally done, and be only too anxious to set it right. He ought to leave Brighton at once, and London, too. He ought to go away into the country or by the seaside, and begin working hard to earn money and self-respect at the same time; and then, in his friendly solitude, he would get to know something about Sheila’s character, and begin to perceive how much more valuable were these genuine qualities of heart and mind than any social graces such as might lighten up a dull drawing-room. Had Lavender yet learnt to know the worth of an honest woman’s perfect love and unquestioning devotion? Let these things be put before him, and he would go and do the right thing, as he had many a time done before, in obedience to the lecturing of his friend.
Ingram called at half-past three, and went into the coffee-room. There was no one in the long, large room, and he sat down at one of the small tables by the windows, from which a bit of lawn, the King’s road and the sea beyond were visible. He had scarcely taken his seat when Lavender came in.
“Halloo, Ingram! how are you?” he said in his freest and friendliest way. “Won’t you come up-stairs? Have you had lunch? Why did you go to the Ship?”
“I always go to the Ship,” he said. “No, thank you, I won’t go up-stairs.”
“You are a most unsociable sort of brute!” said Lavender frankly. “Will you take a glass of sherry?”
“No, thank you.”
“Will you have a game of billiards?”
“No, thank you. You don’t mean to say you would play billiards on such a day as this?”
“It is a fine day, isn’t it?” said. Lavender, turning carelessly to look at the sunlit road and the blue sea. “By the way, Sheila tells me you and she were out sailing this morning. It must have been very pleasant, especially for her; for she is mad about such things. What a curious girl she is, to be sure! Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know what you mean by curious,” said Ingram, coldly.
“Well, you know, strange – odd – unlike other people in her ways and her fancies. Did I tell you about my aunt taking her to see some friends of hers at Norwood? No? Well, Sheila had got out of the house somehow (I suppose their talking did not interest her), and when they went in search of her they found her in the cemetery, crying like a child.”
“What about?”
“Why,” said Lavender, with a smile, “merely because so many people had died. She had never seen anything like that before; you know the small church-yards up in Lewis, with their inscriptions in Norwegian and Danish and German. I suppose the first sight of all the white stones at Norwood was too much for her.”
“Well, I don’t see much of a joke in that,” said Ingram.
“Who said there was any joke in it?” cried Lavender, impatiently. “I never knew such a cantankerous fellow as you are. You are always fancying I am finding fault with Sheila, and I never do anything of the kind. She is a very good girl indeed. I have every reason to be satisfied with the way our marriage has turned out.”
“Has she?”
The words were not important, but there was something in the tone in which they were spoken that suddenly checked Frank Lavender’s careless flow of speech. He looked at Ingram for a moment with some surprise, and then he said, “What do you mean?”
“Well, I will tell you what I mean,” said Ingram, slowly. “It is an awkward thing for a man to interfere between husband and wife, I am aware – he gets something else than thanks for his pains, ordinarily – but sometimes it has to be done, thanks or kicks. Now, you know, Lavender, I had a good deal to do with helping forward your marriage in the North; and I don’t remind you of that to claim anything in the way of consideration, but to explain why I think I am called on to speak to you now.”
Lavender was at once a little frightened and a little irritated. He half guessed what might be coming, from the slow and precise manner in which Ingram talked. That form of speech had vexed him many a time before, for he would rather have had any amount of wild contention and bandying about of reproaches than the calm, unimpassioned and sententious setting forth of his shortcomings to which this sallow little man was, perhaps, too much addicted.
“I suppose Sheila has been complaining to you, then?” said Lavender, hotly.
“You may suppose what absurdities you like,” said Ingram, quietly; “but it would be a good deal better if you would listen to me patiently, and deal in a common sense fashion with what I have got to say. It is nothing very desperate. Nothing has happened that is not of easy remedy, while the remedy would leave you and her in a much better position, both as regards your own estimation of yourselves and the opinion of your friends.”
“You are a little roundabout, Ingram,” said Lavender, “and ornate. But I suppose all lectures begin so. Go on.”
Ingram laughed: “If I am too formal it is because I don’t want to make mischief by any exaggeration. Look here! A long time before you were married I warned you that Sheila had very keen and sensitive notions about the duties that people ought to perform, about the dignity of labor, about the proper occupations of a man, and so forth. These notions you may regard as romantic and absurd, if you like, but you might as well try to change the color of her eyes as attempt to alter any of her beliefs in that direction.”
“And she thinks that I am idle and indolent because I don’t care what a washerwoman pays for her candles?” said Lavender, with impetuous contempt. “Well, be it so. She is welcome to her opinion. But if she is grieved at heart because I can’t make hob-nailed boots, it seems to me that she might as well come and complain to myself, instead of going and detailing her wrongs to a third person, and calling for his sympathy in the character of an injured wife.”
For an instant the dark eyes of the man opposite him blazed with a quick fire, for a sneer at Sheila was worse than an insult to himself; but he kept quite calm, and said, “That, unfortunately, is not what is troubling her.”
Lavender rose abruptly, took a turn up and down the empty room, and said, “If there is anything the matter, I prefer to hear it from herself. It is not respectful to me that she should call in a third person to humor her whims and fancies.”
“Whims and fancies!” said Ingram, with that dark light returning to his eyes. “Do you know what you are talking about? Do you know that while you are living on the charity of a woman you despise, and dawdling about the skirts of a woman who laughs at you, you are breaking the heart of a girl who has not her equal in England? Whims and fancies! Good God, I wonder how she ever could have – ”
He stopped, but the mischief was done. These were not prudent words to come from a man who wished to step in as a mediator between husband and wife; but Ingram’s blaze of wrath, kindled by what he considered the insufferable insolence of Lavender in thus speaking of Sheila, had swept all notions of prudence before it. Lavender, indeed, was much cooler than he was, and said, with an affectation of carelessness, “I am sorry you should vex yourself so much about Sheila. One would think you had had the ambition yourself, at some time or other, to play the part of husband to her; and doubtless then you would have made sure that all her idle fancies were gratified. As it is, I was about to relieve you from the trouble of further explanation by saying that I am quite competent to manage my own affairs, and that if Sheila has any complaint to make she must make it to me.”
Ingram rose, and was silent for a moment.
“Lavender,” he said, “it does not matter much whether you and I quarrel – I was prepared for that, in any case – but I ask you to give Sheila a chance of telling you what I had intended to tell you.”
“Indeed, I shall do nothing of the sort. I never invite confidence. When she wishes to tell me anything she knows I am ready to listen. But I am quite satisfied with the position of affairs as they are at present.”
“God help you, then!” said his friend, and went away, scarcely daring to confess to himself how dark the future looked.
PART VIII
CHAPTER XVI.
EXCHANGES
JUST as Frank Lavender went down stairs to meet Ingram, a letter which had been forwarded from London was brought to Sheila. It bore the Lewis postmark, and she guessed it was from Duncan, for she had told Mairi to ask the tall keeper to write, and she knew he would hasten to obey her request at any sacrifice of comfort to himself. Sheila sat down to read the letter in a happy frame of mind. She had every confidence that all her troubles were about to be removed, now that her good friend Ingram had come to her husband; and here was a message to her from her home, that seemed, even before she read it, to beg of her to come thither light-hearted and joyous. This was what she read:
“Borvapost, the Island of Lewis,“the third Aug., 18 —.
“Honored Mrs. Lavender: – It waz Mairi waz sayin that you will want me to write to you, bit I am not good at the writin whatever, and it was 2 years since I was written to Amerika, to John Ferkason that kept the tea-shop in Stornoway, and was trooned in coming home the very last year before this. It waz Mairi will say you will like a letter as well as any one that waz goin to Amerika, for the news and the things, and you will be as far away from us as if you waz living in Amerika or Glaska. But there is not much news, for the lads they hev all pulled up the boats, and they are away to Wick, and Sandy McDougal that waz living by Loch Langavat, he will be going too, for he waz up at the sheilings when Mrs. Paterson’s lasses was there with the cows, and it waz Jeanie the youngest and him made it up, and he haz twenty-five pounds in the bank, which is a good thing too mirover for the young couple. It waz many a one waz sayin when the cows and the sheep waz come home from the sheilings that never afore waz Miss Sheila away from Lock Roag when the cattle would be swimmin across the loch to the island; and I will say to many of them verra well you will wait and you will see Miss Sheila back again in the Lews, and it wazna allwas you would lif away from your own home where you waz born and the people will know you from the one year to the next. John McNichol of Habost he will be verra bad three months or two months ago, and we waz thinkin he will die, and him with a wife and five bairns too, and four cows and a cart, but the doctor took a great dale of blood from him, and he is now verra well whatever, though wakely on the legs. It would hev been a bad thing if Mr. McNichol was dead, for he will be verra good at pentin a door, and he has between fifteen pounds and ten pounds in the bank at Stornoway, and four cows, too, and a cart, and he is a ferra religious man, and has great skill o’ the psalm-tunes, and he toesna get trunk now more as twice or as three times in the two weeks. It was his dochter Betsy, a verra fine lass that waz come to Borvabost, and it waz the talk among many that Alister-nan-each he waz thinkin of making up to her, but there will be a great laugh all over the island, and she will be verra angry and say she will not have him, no, if his house had a door of silfer to it, for she will have no one that toesna go to the Caithness fishins wi the other lads. It waz blew verra hard here the last night or two or three. There is a great deal of salmon in the rivers; and Mr. Mackenzie he will be going across to Grimersta the day after to-morrow, or the next day before that, and the English gentlemen have been there more as two or three weeks, and they will be getting verra good sport whatever. Mairi she will be writen a letter to you to-morrow, Miss Sheila, and she will be telling you all the news of the house. Mairi was sayin she will be goin to London when the harvest was got in, and Scarlett will say to her that no one will let her land on the island again if she toesna bring you back with her to the island and to your own house. If it waz not too much trouble, Miss Sheila, it would be a proud day for Scarlett if you waz send me a line or two lines to say if you will be coming to the Lews this summer or before the winter is over whatever. I remain, Honored Mrs. Lavender, your obedient servant,
“Duncan Macdonald.”
“This summer or winter,” said Sheila to herself, with a happy light on her face: “why not now?” Why should she not go down stairs to the coffee-room of the hotel and place this invitation in the hand of her husband and his friend? Would not its garrulous simplicity recall to both of them the island they used to find so pleasant? Would not they suddenly resolve to leave London and its ways and people, even this monotonous sea out there, and speed away Northwardly till they came in sight of the great and rolling Minch, with its majestic breadth of sky and its pale blue islands lying far away at the horizon? Then the happy landing at the Stornoway – her father and Duncan and Mairi all on the quay – the rapid drive over to Loch Roag, and the first glimpse of the rocky bays and clear water and white sand about Borva and Borvabost! And Sheila would once more – having cast aside this cumbrous attire that she had to change so often, and having got out that neat and simple costume that was so good for walking or driving or sailing – be proud to wait upon her guests, and help Mairi in her household ways, and have a pretty table ready for the gentlemen when they returned from the shooting.
Her husband came up the hotel stairs and entered the room. She rose to meet him, with the open letter in her hand.
“Sheila,” he said (and the light slowly died away from her face), “I have something to ask of you.”
She knew by the sound of his voice that she had nothing to hope; it was not the first time she had been disappointed, and yet this time it seemed especially bitter somehow. The awakening from these illusions was sudden.
She did not answer, so he said, in the same measured voice: “I have to ask that you will have henceforth no communication with Mr. Ingram; I do not wish him to come to the house.”
She stood for a moment, apparently not understanding the meaning of what he said. Then, when the full force of this decision and request came upon her, a quick color sprang to her face, the cause of which, if it had been revealed to him in words, would have considerably astonished her husband. But that moment of doubt, of surprise, and of inward indignation, was soon over. She cast down her eyes and said, meekly: “Very well, dear.”
It was now his turn to be astonished, and mortified as well. He could not have believed it possible that she should so calmly acquiesce in the dismissal of one of her dearest friends. He had expected a more or less angry protest, if not a distinct refusal, which would have given him an opportunity for displaying the injuries he conceived himself to have suffered at their hands. Why had she not come to himself? This man Ingram was presuming upon his ancient friendship, and on the part he had taken in forwarding the marriage up at Borva. He had always, moreover, been somewhat too much of a schoolmaster, with his severe judgments, his sententious fashion of criticising and warning people, and his readiness to prove the whole world wrong in order to show himself to be right. All these and many other things Lavender meant to say to Sheila so soon as she had protested against his forbidding Ingram to come any more to the house. But there was no protest. Sheila did not even seem surprised. She went back to her seat by the window, folded up Duncan’s letter, and put it in her pocket; and then she turned to look at the sea.
Lavender regarded her for a moment, apparently doubting whether he should himself prosecute the subject; then he turned and left the room.
Sheila did not cry or otherwise seek to compassionate herself. Her husband had told her to do a certain thing, and she would do it. Perhaps she had been imprudent in having confided in Mr. Ingram, and if so, it was right that she should be punished. But the regret and pain that lay deep in her heart were that Ingram should have suffered through her, and that she had no opportunity of telling him that, though they might not see each other, she would never forget her friendship for him, or cease to be grateful to him for his unceasing and generous kindness to her.
Next morning Lavender was summoned to London by a telegram which announced that his aunt was seriously ill. He and Sheila got ready at once, left by a forenoon train, had some brief luncheon at home, and then went to see the old lady in Kensington Gore. During their journey Lavender had been rather more kind and courteous toward Sheila than was his wont. Was he pleased that she had so readily obeyed him in this matter of giving up about the only friend she had in London, or was he moved by some visitation of compunction? Sheila tried to show that she was grateful for his kindness, but there was that between them which could not be removed by chance phrases or attentions.
Mrs. Lavender was in her own room. Paterson brought word that she wanted to see Sheila first alone; so Lavender sat down in the gloomy drawing-room by the window, and watched the people riding or driving past, and the sunshine on the dusty green trees in the Park.
“Is Frank Lavender below?” said the thin old woman, who was propped up in bed, with some scarlet garment around her, that made her resemble more than ever the cockatoo of which Sheila had thought on first seeing her.
“Yes,” said Sheila.
“I want to see you alone. I can’t bear him dawdling about a room and staring at things, and saying nothing. Does he speak to you?”
Sheila did not wish to enter into any controversy about the habits of her husband, so she said: “I hope you will see him before he goes, Mrs. Lavender. He is very anxious to know how you are, and I am glad to find you looking so well. You do not look like an invalid at all.”
“Oh, I’m not going to die yet,” said the little dried old woman, with the harsh voice, the staring eyes, and the tightly twisted gray hair. “I hope you didn’t come to read the Bible to me; you wouldn’t find one about, in any case, I should think. If you like to sit down and read the sayings of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, I should enjoy that; but I suppose you are too busy thinking what dress you’ll wear at my funeral.”
“Indeed, I was thinking of no such thing,” said Sheila, indignantly, but feeling all the same that the hard, glittering, expressionless eyes were watching her.
“Do you think I believe you?” said Mrs. Lavender. “Bah! I hope I am able to recognize the facts of life. If you were to die this afternoon, I should get a black silk, trimmed with crape, the moment I got on my feet again, and go to your funeral in the ordinary way. I hope you will pay me the same respect. Do you think I am afraid to speak of these things?”
“Why should you speak of them?” said Sheila, despairingly.
“Because it does you good to contemplate the worst that can befall you, and if it does not happen you may rejoice. And it will happen. I know I shall be lying in this bed, with half a dozen of you around about trying to cry, and wondering which will have the courage to turn and go out of the room first. Then there will be the funeral day, and Paterson will be careful about the blinds, and go about the house on her tip-toes, as if I were likely to hear! Then there will be a pretty service up in the cemetery, and a man who never saw me will speak of his dear sister departed; and then you’ll all go home and have your dinner. Am I afraid of it?”
“Why should you talk like that?” said Sheila, piteously. “You are not going to die. You distress yourself and others by thinking of those horrible things.”
“My dear child, there is nothing horrible in nature. Everything is part of the universal system which you should recognize and accept. If you had but trained yourself now, by the study of philosophical works, to know how helpless you are to alter the facts of life, and how it is the best wisdom to be prepared for the worst, you would find nothing horrible in thinking of your own funeral. You are not looking well.”
Sheila was startled by the suddenness of the announcement: “Perhaps I am a little tired with the traveling we have done to-day.”
“Is Frank Lavender kind to you?”
What was she to say with those two eyes scanning her face? “It is too soon to expect him to be anything else,” she said, with an effort at a smile.
“Ah! So you are beginning to talk in that way? I thought you were full of sentimental notions of life when you came to London. It is not a good place for maturing such things.”
“It is not,” said Sheila, surprised into a sigh.
“Come nearer. Don’t be afraid I shall bite you. I am not so ferocious as I look.”
Sheila rose and went closer to the bedside, and the old woman stretched out a lean and withered hand to her: “If I thought that that silly fellow wasn’t behaving well to you – ”
“I will not listen to you,” said Sheila, suddenly withdrawing her hand, while a quick color leapt to her face – “I will not listen to you if you speak of my husband in that way.”
“I will speak of him any way I like. Don’t get into a rage. I have known Frank Lavender a good deal longer than you have. What I was going to say is this, that if I thought he was not behaving well to you, I would play him a trick. I would leave my money, which is all he has got to live on, to you; and when I died he would find himself dependent on you for every farthing he wanted to spend.”
And the old woman laughed, with very little of the weakness of an invalid in the look of her face. But Sheila, when she had mastered her surprise and resolved not to be angry, said calmly, “Whatever I have, whatever I might have, that belongs to my husband, not to me.”
“Now you speak like a sensible girl,” said Mrs. Lavender. “That is the misfortune of a wife, that she cannot keep her own money to herself. But there are means by which the law may be defeated, my dear. I have been thinking it over – I have been speaking of it to Mr. Ingram; for I have suspected for some time that my nephew, Mr. Frank, was not behaving himself.”
“Mrs. Lavender,” said Sheila, with a face too proud and indignant for tears, “you do not understand me. No one has the right to imagine anything against my husband and to seek to punish him through me. And when I said that everything I have belongs to him, I was not thinking of the law – no – but only this: that everything I have, or might have, would belong to him, as I myself belong to him, of my own free will and gift; and I would have no money or anything else that was not entirely his.”
“You are a fool.”
“Perhaps,” said Sheila, struggling to repress her tears.
“What if I were to leave every farthing of my property to a hospital? Where would Frank Lavender be then?”
“He could earn his own living without any such help,” said Sheila, proudly; for she had never yet given up the hope that her husband would fulfill the fair promise of an earlier time, and win great renown for himself in striving to please her, as he had many a time vowed he would do.
“He has taken great care to conceal his powers in that way,” said the old woman, with a sneer.
“And if he has, whose fault is it?” the girl said, warmly. “Who has kept him in idleness but yourself? And now you blame him for it. I wish he had never had any of your money – I wish he were never to have any more of it.”
And then Sheila stopped, with a terrible dread falling over her. What had she not said? The pride of her race had carried her so far, and she had given expression to all the tumult of her heart; but had she not betrayed her duty as a wife, and grievously compromised the interests of her husband? And yet the indignation in her bosom was too strong to admit of her retracting those fatal phrases and begging forgiveness. She stood for a moment irresolute, and she knew that the invalid was regarding her curiously, as though she were some wild animal, and not an ordinary resident in Bayswater.
