Doom Castle
Page 35
CHAPTER XXXV -- A DAMNATORY DOCUMENT
Mungo took the coat into the castle kitchen, the true arcanum of Doom,where he and Annapla solved the domestic problems that in lateryears had not been permitted to disturb the mind of the master or hisdaughter. An enormous fireplace, arched like a bridge, and poorly enoughfed nowadays compared with its gluttony in those happier years of hiscontinual bemoaning, when plenty kept the spit perpetually at work, ifit were only for the good of the beggars who blackened the road fromthe Lowlands, had a handful of peat in its centre to make the yawningorifice the more pathetic to eyes that had seen the flames leap there.Everywhere the evidence of the old abundant days--the rusting spititself, the idle battery of cuisine, long rows of shining covers.Annapla, who was assumed to be true tutelary genius of these things, butin fact was beholden to the martial mannikin of Fife for inspiration andaid with the simplest of ragouts, though he would have died sooner thanbe suspected of the unsoldierly art of cookery,--Annapla was in one ofher trances. Her head was swathed mountainously in shawls; her wild,black, lambent eyes had the look of distant contemplation.
"Lord keep 's!" said Mungo, entering, "what are ye doverin' on noo?Wauken up, ye auld bitch, and gie this coat a dight. D'ye ken wha's ochtit? It belangs to a gentleman that's no' like noo to get but this same,and the back-o'-my-haun'-to-ye oot o' Doom Castle."
She took the coat and brushed it in a lethargy, with odd, unintelligiblechanting.
"Nane o' your warlock canticles!" cried Mungo. "Ye gied the lassie tothe man that cam' withouten boots--sorrow be on the bargain! And if it'scast-in' a spell on the coat ye are, I'll raither clean't mysel'."
With that he seized the garment from her and lustily applied himself.
"A bonny-like hostler-wife ye'll mak'," said he. "And few'll come toMungo Byde's hostelry if his wife's to be eternally in a deevilishdwaam, concocting Hielan' spells when she should be stirring at thebroth. No' that I can blame ye muckle for a want o' the up-tak in whatpertains to culinairy airts; for what hae ye seen here since ye cam' awafrae the rest o' the drove in Arroquhar but lang kail, and oaten brose,and mashlum bannocks? Oh! sirs, sirs!--I've seen the day!"
Annapla emerged from her trance, and ogled him with an amusingadmiration.
"And noo it's a' by wi't; it's the end o' the auld ballant," went on thelittle man. "I've kept auld Doom in times o' rowth and splendour,and noo I'm spared to see't rouped, the laird a dyvour and a namelesswanderer ower the face o' the earth. He's gaun abroad, he tells me, andsettles to sit doon aboot Dunkerque in France. It's but fair, maybe, thatwhaur his forbears squandered he should gang wi' the little that's tothe fore. I mind o' his faither gaun awa at the last hoved up, a fairJeshurun, his een like to loup oot o' his heid wi' fat, and comin'back a pooked craw frae the dicing and the drink, nae doot amoung thescatter-brained white cockades. Whatna shilpit man's this that Leevie'sgotten for her new jo? As if I dinna see through them! The tawpie's taenthe gee at the Factor because he played yon ploy wi' his lads frae theMaltland barracks, and this Frenchy's ower the lugs in love wi' her, Ican see as plain as Cowal, though it's a shameless thing to say't. He'sgotten gey far ben in a michty short time. Ye're aye saying them thatcome unsent for should sit unserved; but wha sent for this billy oot o'France? and wha has been sae coothered up as he has since he cam' here?The Baron doesnae ken the shifts that you and me's been put to for tosave his repitation. Mony a lee I tauld doon there i' the clachan tosoother them oot o' butter and milk and eggs, and a bit hen at times;mony a time I hae gie'n my ain dinner to thae gangrel bodies fraeGlencro sooner nor hae them think there was nae rowth o' vivers whaurthey never wer sent awa empty-haunded afore. I aye keepit my he'rt upwi' the notion that him doon-bye the coat belangs to wad hae made amatch o't, and saved us a' frae beggary. But there's an end o' that,sorry am I. And sorry may you be; ye auld runt, to hear't, for he'sbeen the guid enough friend to me; and there wad never hae been the RedSodger Tavern for us if it wasnae for his interest in a man that has ayekep' up the airmy."
Annapla seemed to find the dialect of Fife most pleasing and melodious.She listened to his monologue with approving smiles, and sitting on astool, cowered within the arch, warming her hands at the apology for aflame.
"Wha the deevil could hae tauld her it was the lad himsel' was here thatnicht wi' his desperate chiels frae the barracks? It couldna' be you,for I didna' tell ye mysel' for fear ye wad bluitter it oot and spoilhis chances. She kent onyway, and it was for no ither reason she gie'dhim the route, unless--unless she had a notion o' the Frenchman frae thefirst glisk o' him. There's no accoontin' for tastes; clap a bunnet on atawtie-bogle, wi' a cock to the ae side that's kin' o' knowin', and onywoman'll jump at his neck, though ye micht pap peas through the placewhaur his wame should be. The Frenchy's no' my taste onyway; and noo,there's Sim! Just think o' Sim gettin' the dirty gae-bye frae a glaikitlassie hauf his age; and no' his equal in the three parishes, wi' a legto tak' the ee o' a hal dancin'-school, and auld Knapdale's moneycomin' till him whenever Knapdale's gane, and I'm hearin' he's in thedeid-thraws already. Ill fa' the day fotch the Frenchy! The race o'them never brocht ocht in my generation to puir Scotland worth a bodle,unless it micht be a new fricassee to fyle a stamach wi'. I'm fair bateto ken what this Coont wants here. 'Drimdarroch,' says he, but that'sfair rideeculous, unless it was the real auld bauld Drimdarroch, andthat's nae ither than Doom. I winna wonder if he heard o' Leevie ereever he left the France."
Annapla began to drowse at the fire. He saw her head nod, and came roundwith the coat in his hand to confirm his suspicion that she was about tofall asleep. Her eyes were shut.
"Wauken up, Luckie!" he cried, disgusted at this absence ofappreciation. "What ails the body? Ye're into your damnable dwaam again.There's them that's gowks enough to think ye're seein' Sichts, when it'sneither mair nor less than he'rt-sick laziness, and I was ance ane o'them mysel'. Ye hinnae as muckle o' the Sicht as wad let ye see whenLeevie was makin' a gowk o' ye to gar ye hang oot signals for her auldjo. A bonny-like brewster-wife ye'll mak', I warrant!" He tapped her,not unkindly, on the head with the back of his brush, and brought her toearth again.
"Are ye listenin', ye auld runt?" said he. "I'm goin' doon to thetoon i' the aifternoon wi' this braw coat and money for Monsher's innaccoont, and if ye're no' mair wide-awake by that time, there's deil thecries'll gae in wi' auld MacNair."
The woman laughed, not at all displeased with herself nor with her roughadmirer, and set to some trivial office. Mungo was finished with thecoat; he held it out at arm's length, admiring its plenitude of lace,and finally put off his own hodden garment that he might try on theChamberlain's.
"God!" said he, "it fits me like an empty ale-cask. I thocht the Coontlooked gey like a galo-shan in't, but I maun be the bonny doo mysel'.And I'm no that wee neither, for it's ticht aboot the back."
Annapla thought her diminutive admirer adorable; she stood raptly gazingon him, with her dish-clout dripping on the floor.
"I wonder if there's no' a note or twa o' the New Bank i' the pouches,"said Mungo, and began to search. Something in one of the pockets rustledto the touch, and with a face of great expectancy he drew forth whatproved to be a letter. The seal was broken, there was neither an addressnor the superscription of the writer; the handwriting was a faintItalian, betokening a lady--there was no delicate scrupulosity about thedomestic, and the good Mungo unhesitatingly indulged himself.
"It's no' exactly a note," said he, contracting his brows above thedocument. Not for the first time Annapla regretted her inability toread, as she craned over his shoulder to see what evidently created muchastonishment in her future lord.
"Weel, that bates a'!" he cried when he had finished, and he turned,visibly flushing, even through his apple-red complexion, to see Annaplaat his shoulder.
"It's a guid thing the Sicht's nae use for English write," said he,replacing the letter carefully in the pocket whence it had come."This'll gae back to himsel', and naebody be nane the wiser o't forMungo Byde."
For half an hour he busied himself with aiding Annapla at thepreparation of dinner, suddenly become silent as a consequence of whatthe letter had revealed to him, and then he went out to prepare his boatfor his trip to town.
Annapla did not hesitate a moment; she fished out the letter and hurriedwith it to her master, less, it must be owned, from a desire to informhim, than from a womanly wish to share a secret that had apparently beenof the greatest interest to Mungo.
Doom took it from her hands in an abstraction, for he was whelmed withthe bitter prospect of imminent farewells; he carelessly scanned thesheet with half-closed eyes, and was well through perusing it beforehe realised that it had any interest. He began at the beginning again,caught the meaning of a sentence, sat bolt upright in the chairwhere Annapla had found him lolling, and finished with eagerness andastonishment.
Where had she got this? She hesitated to tell him that it had beenpilfered from the owner's pocket, and intimated that she had picked itup outside.
"Good woman," said he in Gaelic, "you have picked up a fortune. It wouldhave saved me much tribulation, and yourself some extra work, if you hadhappened to pick it up a month ago!"
He hurried to Olivia.
"My dear," he said, "I have come upon the oddest secret."
His daughter reddened to the roots of her hair, and fell to tremblingwith inexplicable shame. He did not observe it.
"It is that you have got out of the grip of the gled. Yon person was aneven blacker villain than I guessed."
"Oh!" she said, apparently much relieved, "and is that your secret? Ihave no wonder left in me for any new display of wickedness from SimonMacTaggart."
"Listen," he said, and read her the damnatory document. She flushed, shetrembled, she well-nigh wept with shame; but "Oh!" she cried at the end,"is he not the noble man?"
"The noble man!" cried Doom at such an irrelevant conclusion. "Are youout of your wits, Olivia?"
She stammered an explanation. "I do not mean--I do notmean--this--wretch that is exposed here, but Count Victor. He has knownit all along."
"H'm," said Doom. "I fancy he has. That was, like enough, the cause ofthe duel. But I do not think it was noble at all that he should keepsilent upon a matter so closely affecting the happiness of your wholelife."
Olivia saw this too, when helped to it, and bit her lip. It was,assuredly, not right that Count Victor, in the possession of suchsecrets as this letter revealed, should allow her to throw herself awayon the villain there portrayed.
"He may have some reason we cannot guess," she said, and thought of onethat made her heart beat wildly.
"No reason but a Frenchman's would let me lose my daughter to a scampout of a pure punctilio. I can scarcely believe that he knew all that isin this letter. And you, my dear, you never guessed any more than I thatthese attacks under cover of night were the work of Simon MacTaggart."
"I must tell you the truth, father," said Olivia. "I have known it sincethe second, and that it was that turned me. I learned from the buttonthat Count Victor picked up on the stair, for I recognised it as his. Iknew--I knew--and yet I wished to keep a doubt of it, I felt it so, andstill would not confess it to myself that the man I loved--the manI thought I loved--was no better than a robber." "A robber indeed! Ithought the man bad; I never liked his eye and less his tongue, that wasever too plausible. Praise God, my dear, that he's found out!"