Doom Castle

by Neil Munro

  CHAPTER XXXIV -- IN DAYS OF STORM

  In a rigorous privacy of storm that lasted many days after his return,and cut Doom wholly off from the world at large, Count Victor spentwhat but for several considerations would have been--perhaps indeed theyreally were--among the happiest moments of his life. It was good inthat tumultuous weather, when tempests snarled and frosts fettered thecountryside, and the sea continually wrangled round the rock of Doom, tolook out on the inclemency from windows where Olivia looked out too.She used to come and stand beside him, timidly perhaps at first, butby-and-by with no self-consciousness. Her sleeve would touch his,sometimes, indeed, her shoulder must press against his arm and littlestrands of her hair almost blow against his lips as in the narrowapertures of the tower they watched the wheeling birds from the outerocean. For these birds she had what was little less than a passion. Toher they represented the unlimited world of liberty and endeavour; atsight of them something stirred in her that was the gift of all thewandering years of that old Ulysses, her grandfather, to whom thebeckoning lights of ships at sea were irresistible, and though she dotedon the glens of her nativity, she had the spirit that invests every hintof distant places and far-off happenings with magic parts.

  She seemed content, and yet not wholly happy: he could hear hersometimes sigh, as he thought, from a mere wistfulness that had theillimitable spaces of the sea, the peopled isles and all their mysteryfor background. To many of the birds that beat and cried about the placeshe gave names, investing them with histories, recounting humorouslytheir careers. And it was odd that however far she sent them in herfancy--to the distant Ind, to the vexed Pole itself--with joy in theirtravelling, she assumed that their greatest joy was when they foundthemselves at Doom. The world was a place to fare forth in as far as youcould, only to give you the better zest for Doom on your return.

  This pleased her father hugely, but it scarcely tallied with the viewsof one who had fond memories of a land where sang the nightingale in itsseason, and roads were traversable in the wildest winter weather; stillCount Victor was in no mood to question it.

  He was, save in rare moments of unpleasant reflection, supremely happy,thrilling to that accidental contact, paling at the narrow marginswhereby her hair escaped conferring on him a delirium. He could stand ata window all day pretending interest in the monotonous hills and emptysea, only that he might keep her there too and indulge himself uponher eyes. They--so eager, deep, or busied with the matters of herthoughts--were enough for a common happiness; a debauch of it was in thecontact of her arm.

  And yet something in this complacence of hers bewildered him. Here, ifyou please, was a woman who but the other night (as it were) was holdingclandestine meetings with Simon MacTaggart, and loving him to thatextent that she defied her father. She could not but know that thisforeigner had done his worst to injure her in the inner place of heraffections, and yet she was to him more friendly than she had beenbefore. Several times he was on the point of speaking on the subject.Once, indeed, he made a playful allusion to the flautist of the bowerthat was provocative of no more than a reddened cheek and an interludeof silence. But tacitly the lover was a theme for strict avoidance. Noteven the Baron had a word to say on that, and they were numberless thetopics they discussed in this enforced sweet domesticity.

  A curious household! How it found provisions in these days Mungo alonecould tell. The little man had his fishing-lines out continually, hisgun was to be heard in neighbouring thickets that seemed from the islandinaccessible, and when gun and line failed him it was perhaps not whollywanting his persuasion that kain fowls came from the hamlet expresslyfor "her ladyship" Olivia. In pauses of the wind he and Annaplawere to be heard in other quarters of the house in clamantconversation--otherwise it had seemed to Count Victor that Doom wasleft, an enchanted castle, to him and Olivia alone. For the fatherrelapsed anew into his old strange melancholies, dozing over his books,indulging feint and riposte in the chapel overhead, or gazing moodilyalong the imprisoned coast.

  That he was free to dress now as he chose in his beloved tartanentertained him only briefly; obviously half the joy of his formerrecreations in the chapel had been due to the fact that they wereclandestine; now that he could wear what he chose indoors, he pined thathe could not go into the deer-haunted woods and the snowy highwaysin the _breacan_ as of old. But that was not his only distress, CountVictor was sure.

  "What accounts for your father's melancholy?" he had the boldness oneday to ask Olivia.

  They were at the window together, amused at the figure Mungo presentedas with an odd travesty of the soldier's strategy, and all unseen as hefancied, he chased a fowl round the narrow confines of the garden, bentupon its slaughter.

  "And do you not know the reason for that?" she asked, with her humourpromptly clouded, and a loving and pathetic glance over her shoulder atthe figure bent beside the fire. "What is the dearest thing to you?"

  She could have put no more embarrassing question to Count Victor, and itwas no wonder he stammered in his reply.

  "The dearest," he repeated. "Ah! well--well--the dearest, MademoiselleOlivia; _ma foi!_ there are so many things."

  "Yes, yes," she said impatiently, "but only one or two are at theheart's core." She saw him smile at this, and reddened. "Oh, how stupidI am to ask that of a stranger! I did not mean a lady--if there is alady."

  "There _is_ a lady," said Count Victor, twisting the fringe of her shawlthat had come of itself into his fingers as she turned.

  A silence followed; not even he, so versed in all the evidence of loveor coquetry, could have seen a quiver to betray her even if he hadthought to look for it.

  "I am the one," said she at length, "who will wish you well in that; butafter her--after this--this lady--what is it that comes closest?"

  "What but my country!" cried he, with a surging sudden memory of France.

  "To be sure!" she acquiesced, "your country! I am not wondering at that.And ours is the closest to the core of cores in us that have not perhapsso kind a country as yours, but still must love it when it is mostcruel. We are like the folks I have read of--they were the Greeks whotravelled so far among other clans upon the trade of war, and bound toburst in tears when they came after strange hills and glens to thesight of the same sea that washed the country of their infancy.'Tha-latta!'--was it not that they cried? When I read the story first inschool in Edinburgh, I cried, myself, 'Lochfinne!' and thought I heardthe tide rumbling upon this same rock. It is for that; it is because wemust be leaving here my father is sad."

  Here indeed was news

  "Leaving!" said Count Victor in astonishment.

  "It is so. My father has been robbed; his people have been foolish; itis not a new thing in the Highlands of Scotland, Count Victor. You mustnot be thinking him a churl to be moping and leaving you to my poorentertainment, for it is ill to keep the pipes in tune when one isdrying tears."

  "Where will you go?" asked Count Victor, disturbed at the tidings andthe distress she so bravely struggled to conceal.

  "Where? indeed!" said Olivia. "That I cannot tell you yet. But the worldis wide, and it is strange if there is any spot of it where we cannotfind some of our own Gaelic people who have been flitting for ageneration, taking the world for their pillow. What is it that shallnot come to an end? My sorrow! the story on our door down there hasbeen preparing me for this since ever I was a bairn. Mygreat-great-grandfather was the wise man and the far-seeing when hecarved it there--'Man, Behauld the End of All, Be nocht Wiser than theHiest. Hope in God!'" She struggled courageously with her tears thatcould not wholly be restrained, and there and then he could havegathered her into his arms. But he must keep himself in bounds and twistthe fringes of her shawl.

  "Ah, Olivia," said he, "you will die for the sight of home."

  At that she dashed her hand across her eyes and boldly faced him,smiling.

  "That would be a shameful thing in a Baron's daughter," said she. "No,indeed! when we must rise and go away, here is the woman who will go
bravely! We live not in glens, in this house nor in that, but in thehearts that love us, and where my father is and friends are to be made,I think I can be happy yet. Look at the waves there, and the snow andthe sea-birds! All these are in other places as well as here."

  "But not the same, but not the same! Here I swear I could live contentmyself."

  "What!" said she, smiling, and the rogue a moment dancing in her eyes."No, no, Count Victor, to this you must be born like the stag in thecorrie and the seal on the rock. We are a simple people, and a poorpeople--worse fortune!--poor and proud. Your world is different fromours, and there you will have friends that think of you."

  "And you," said he, all aglow in passion but with a face of flint, "youare leaving those behind that love you too."

  This time he watched her narrowly; she gave no sign.

  "There are the poor people in the clachan there," said she; "some ofthem will not forget me I am hoping, but that is all. We go. It is goodfor us, perhaps. Something has been long troubling my father more thanthe degradation of the clans and all these law pleas that Petullo hasnow brought to the bitter end. He is proud, and he is what is common inthe Highlands when the heart is sore--he is silent. You must not thinkit is for myself I am vexing to leave Doom Castle; it is for him. Look!do you see the dark spot on the side of the hill yonder up at Ardno?That is the yew-tree in the churchyard where my mother, his wife, lies;it is no wonder that at night sometimes he goes out to look at thehills, for the hills are over her there and over the generations of hispeople in the same place. I never knew my mother, _mothruaigh!_ but heremembers, and it is the hundred dolours (as we say) for him to part.For me I have something of the grandfather in me, and would take theseven bens for it, and the seven glens, and the seven mountain moors, ifit was only for the sake of the adventure, though I should always liketo think that I would come again to these places of hered-ity."

  And through all this never a hint of Simon Mac-Taggart! Could there beany other conclusion than the joyous one--it made his heart bound!--thatthat affair was at an end? And yet how should he ascertain the truthabout a matter so close upon his heart? He put his pride in his pocketand went down that afternoon with the Chamberlain's coat in his hands.There was a lull in the wind, and the servitor was out of doors caulkingthe little boat, the argosy of poor fortunes, which had been drawn upfrom the menacing tides so that its prow obtruded on the half-heartedprivacy of the lady's bower. Deer were on the shore, one sail was on theblue of the sea, a long way off, a triumphant flash of sun lit up theinnumerable glens. A pleasant interlude of weather, and yet Mungo was inwhat he called, himself, a tirravee. He was honestly becoming impatientwith this undeparting foreigner, mainly because Annapla was day by daythe more insistent that he had not come wading into Doom without bootsentirely in vain, and that her prediction was to be fulfilled.

  "See! Mungo," said the Count, "the daw, if my memory fails me not,had his plumes pecked off him, but I seem fated to retain my borrowedfeathers until I pluck myself. Is it that you can have them at the firstopportunity restored to our connoisseur in _contes_--your friend theChamberlain? It comes to occur to me that the gentleman's wardrobe maybe as scanty as my own, and the absence of his coat may be the reason,more than my unfortunate pricking with a bodkin, for his inexplicableabsence from--from--the lady's side."

  Mungo had heard of the duel, of course; it was the understanding in Doomthat all news was common property inasmuch as it was sometimes almostthe only thing to pass round.

  "Humph!" said he. "It wasna' sae ill to jag a man that had a woundalready."

  "Expiscate, good Master Mungo," said Count Victor, wondering. "Whatwound already? You speak of the gentleman's susceptible heart perhaps?"

  "I speak o' naethin' o' the kind, but o' the man's airm. Ye ken fine yegied him a push wi' your whinger that first night he cam' here wi'his fenci-ble gang frae the Maltland and play-acted Black Andy o'Arroquhar."

  "The devil!" cried Count Victor. "I wounded somebody, certainly, buttill now I had no notion it might be the gentleman himself. Well, let medo him the justice to say he made rather pretty play with his weaponon the sands, considering he was wounded. And so, honest Mungo, thegarrison was not really taken by surprise that night you found yourselfplucked out like a periwinkle from your wicket? As frankness is infashion, I may say that for a while I gave you credit for treason to thehouse, and treason now it seems to have been, though not so black as Ithought. It was MacTaggart who asked you to open the door?"

  "Wha else? A bonny like cantrip! Nae doot it was because I tauld himAnnapla's prophecy aboot a man with the bare feet. The deil's buckie! Yekent yersel' brawly wha it was."

  "I, Master Mungo! Faith, not I!"

  Mungo looked incredulous.

  "And what ails the ladyship, for she kent? I'll swear she kent the nextday, though I took guid care no' to say cheep."

  "I daresay you are mistaken there, my good Mungo."

  "Mistaken! No me! It wasna a' thegither in a tantrum o' an ordinar' kindshe broke her tryst wi' him the very nicht efter ye left for the innsdoon by. At onyrate, if she didna' ken then she kens noo, I'll warrant."

  "Not so far as I am concerned, certainly."

  Mungo looked incredulous. That any one should let go the chance ofconveying so rare a piece of gossip to persons so immediately concernedwas impossible of belief. "Na, na," said he, shaking his head; "she hasevery word o't, or her faither at least, and that's the same thing. Butshoon or nae shoon, yon's the man for my money!"

  "Again he has my felicitations," said Count Victor, with a good humourunfailing. Indeed he could afford to be good-humoured if this were true.So here was the explanation of Olivia's condescension, her indifferenceto her lover's injury, of which her father could not fail to haveapprised her even if Mungo had been capable of a miracle and held histongue. The Chamberlain, then, was no longer in favour! Here was joy!Count Victor could scarce contain himself. How many women would havebeen flattered at the fierceness of devotion implied in a lover'sreadiness to commit assassination out of sheer jealousy of asupposititious rival in her affections? But Olivia--praise _le bonDieu!_--was not like that.

  He thrust the coat into Mungo's hands and went hurriedly up to his roomto be alone with his thoughts, that he feared might show themselvesplainly in his face if he met either the lady or her father, and therefor the first time had a memory of Cecile--some odd irrelevance of amemory--in which she figured in a masque in a Paris garden. Good God!that he should have failed to see it before; this Cecile had been anactress, as, he told himself, were most of her sex he had hithertoencountered, and 'twas doubtful if he once had touched her soul. Oliviahad shown him now, in silences, in sighs, in some unusual _aura_ ofsincerity that was round her like the innocence of infancy, that whathe thought was love a year ago was but its drossy elements. Seeking thefirst woman in the eyes of the second, he had found the perfect loverthere!