CHAPTER VIII
A NOCTURNAL VISIT
Kirstie had many causes of distress. More and more as we grow old--andyet more and more as we grow old and are women, frozen by the fear ofage--we come to rely on the voice as the single outlet of the soul. Onlythus, in the curtailment of our means, can we relieve the straitened cryof the passion within us; only thus, in the bitter and sensitive shynessof advancing years, can we maintain relations with those vivaciousfigures of the young that still show before us and tend daily to becomeno more than the moving wall-paper of life. Talk is the last link, thelast relation. But with the end of the conversation, when the voicestops and the bright face of the listener is turned away, solitude fallsagain on the bruised heart. Kirstie had lost her "cannie hour at e'en";she could no more wander with Archie, a ghost if you will, but a happyghost, in fields Elysian. And to her it was as if the whole world hadfallen silent; to him, but an unremarkable change of amusements. And sheraged to know it. The effervescency of her passionate and irritablenature rose within her at times to bursting point.
This is the price paid by age for unseasonable ardours of feeling. Itmust have been so for Kirstie at any time when the occasion chanced; butit so fell out that she was deprived of this delight in the hour whenshe had most need of it, when she had most to say, most to ask, and whenshe trembled to recognise her sovereignty not merely in abeyance butannulled. For, with the clairvoyance of a genuine love, she had piercedthe mystery that had so long embarrassed Frank. She was conscious, evenbefore it was carried out, even on that Sunday night when it began, ofan invasion of her rights; and a voice told her the invader's name.Since then, by arts, by accident, by small things observed, and by thegeneral drift of Archie's humour, she had passed beyond all possibilityof doubt. With a sense of justice that Lord Hermiston might have envied,she had that day in church considered and admitted the attractions ofthe younger Kirstie; and with the profound humanity and sentimentalityof her nature, she had recognised the coming of fate. Not thus would shehave chosen. She had seen, in imagination, Archie wedded to some tall,powerful, and rosy heroine of the golden locks, made in her own image,for whom she would have strewed the bride-bed with delight; and now shecould have wept to see the ambition falsified. But the gods hadpronounced, and her doom was otherwise.
She lay tossing in bed that night, besieged with feverish thoughts.There were dangerous matters pending, a battle was toward, over the fateof which she hung in jealousy, sympathy, fear, and alternate loyalty anddisloyalty to either side. Now she was reincarnated in her niece, andnow in Archie. Now she saw, through the girl's eyes, the youth on hisknees to her, heard his persuasive instances with a deadly weakness, andreceived his overmastering caresses. Anon, with a revulsion, her temperraged to see such utmost favours of fortune and love squandered on abrat of a girl, one of her own house, using her own name--a deadlyingredient--and that "didna ken her ain mind an' was as black's yourhat." Now she trembled lest her deity should plead in vain, loving theidea of success for him like a triumph of nature; anon, with returningloyalty to her own family and sex, she trembled for Kirstie and thecredit of the Elliotts. And again she had a vision of herself, the dayover for her old-world tales and local gossip, bidding farewell to herlast link with life and brightness and love; and behind and beyond, shesaw but the blank butt-end where she must crawl to die. Had she thencome to the lees? she, so great, so beautiful, with a heart as fresh asa girl's and strong as womanhood? It could not be, and yet it was so;and for a moment her bed was horrible to her as the sides of the grave.And she looked forward over a waste of hours, and saw herself go on torage, and tremble, and be softened, and rage again, until the day cameand the labours of the day must be renewed.
Suddenly she heard feet on the stairs--his feet, and soon after thesound of a window-sash flung open. She sat up with her heart beating. Hehad gone to his room alone, and he had not gone to bed. She might againhave one of her night cracks; and at the entrancing prospect, a changecame over her mind; with the approach of this hope of pleasure, all thebaser metal became immediately obliterated from her thoughts. She rose,all woman, and all the best of woman, tender, pitiful, hating the wrong,loyal to her own sex--and all the weakest of that dear miscellany,nourishing, cherishing next her soft heart, voicelessly flattering,hopes that she would have died sooner than have acknowledged. She toreoff her nightcap, and her hair fell about her shoulders in profusion.Undying coquetry awoke. By the faint light of her nocturnal rush, shestood before the looking-glass, carried her shapely arms above her head,and gathered up the treasures of her tresses. She was never backward toadmire herself; that kind of modesty was a stranger to her nature; andshe paused, struck with a pleased wonder at the sight. "Ye daft auldwife!" she said, answering a thought that was not; and she blushed withthe innocent consciousness of a child. Hastily she did up the massiveand shining coils, hastily donned a wrapper, and with the rushlight inher hand, stole into the hall. Below stairs she heard the clock tickingthe deliberate seconds, and Frank jingling with the decanters in thedining-room. Aversion rose in her, bitter and momentary. "Nesty tipplingpuggy!" she thought; and the next moment she had knocked guardedly atArchie's door and was bidden enter.
Archie had been looking out into the ancient blackness, pierced here andthere with a rayless star; taking the sweet air of the moors and thenight into his bosom deeply; seeking, perhaps finding, peace after themanner of the unhappy. He turned round as she came in, and showed her apale face against the window-frame.
"Is that you, Kirstie?" he asked. "Come in!"
"It's unco late, my dear," said Kirstie, affecting unwillingness.
"No, no," he answered, "not at all. Come in, if you want a crack. I amnot sleepy, God knows!"
She advanced, took a chair by the toilet-table and the candle, and setthe rushlight at her foot. Something--it might be in the comparativedisorder of her dress, it might be the emotion that now welled in herbosom--had touched her with a wand of transformation, and she seemedyoung with the youth of goddesses.
"Mr. Erchie," she began, "what's this that's come to ye?"
"I am not aware of anything that has come," said Archie, and blushed,and repented bitterly that he had let her in.
"O, my dear, that'll no dae!" said Kirstie. "It's ill to blend the eyesof love. O, Mr. Erchie, tak' a thocht ere it's ower late. Ye shouldna beimpatient o' the braws o' life, they'll a' come in their saison, likethe sun and the rain. Ye're young yet; ye've mony cantie years afore ye.See and dinna wreck yersel' at the outset like sae mony ithers! Haepatience--they telled me aye that was the owercome o' life--haepatience, there's a braw day coming yet. Gude kens it never cam' to me;and here I am, wi' nayther man nor bairn to ca' my ain, wearying a'folks wi' my ill tongue, and you just the first, Mr. Erchie!"
"I have a difficulty in knowing what you mean," said Archie.
"Weel, and I'll tell ye," she said. "It's just this, that I'm feared.I'm feared for ye, my dear. Remember, your faither is a hard man,reaping where he hasna sowed and gaithering where he hasna strawed. It'seasy speakin', but mind! Ye'll have to look in the gurley face o'm,where it's ill to look, and vain to look for mercy. Ye mind me o' abonny ship pitten oot into the black and gowsty seas--ye're a' safestill, sittin' quait and crackin' wi' Kirstie in your lown chalmer; butwhaur will ye be the morn, and in whatten horror o' the fearsometempest, cryin' on the hills to cover ye?"
"Why, Kirstie, you're very enigmatical to-night--and very eloquent,"Archie put in.
"And, my dear Mr. Erchie," she continued, with a change of voice, "yemaunna think that I canna sympathise wi' ye. Ye maunna think that Ihavena been young mysel'. Lang syne, when I was a bit lassie, no twentyyet----" She paused and sighed. "Clean and caller, wi' a fit like thehinney bee," she continued. "I was aye big and buirdly, ye maununderstand; a bonny figure o' a woman, though I say it thatsuldna--built to rear bairns--braw bairns they suld hae been, and grandI would hae likit it! But I was young, dear, wi' the bonny glint o'youth in my e'en, and little I dreamed I'd ever be tellin
' ye this, anauld, lanely, rudas wife! Weel, Mr. Erchie, there was a lad cam'courtin' me, as was but naetural. Mony had come before, and I would naneo' them. But this yin had a tongue to wile the birds frae the lift andthe bees frae the foxglove bells. Deary me, but it's lang syne. Folkhave dee'd sinsyne and been buried, and are forgotten, and bairns beenborn and got merrit and got bairns o' their ain. Sinsyne woods have beenplantit, and have grawn up and are bonny trees, and the joes sit intheir shadow; and sinsyne auld estates have changed hands, and therehave been wars and rumours of wars on the face of the earth. And hereI'm still--like an auld droopit craw--lookin' on and craikin'! But, Mr.Erchie, do ye no think that I have mind o' it a' still? I was dwallingthen in my faither's house; and it's a curious thing that we were whilestrysted in the Deil's Hags. And do ye no think that I have mind of thebonny simmer days, the lang miles o' the bluid-red heather, the cryin'o' the whaups, and the lad and the lassie that was trysted? Do ye nothink that I mind how the hilly sweetness ran about my hairt? Ay, Mr.Erchie, I ken the way o' it--fine do I ken the way--how the grace o' Godtakes them, like Paul of Tarsus, when they think it least, and drivesthe pair o' them into a land which is like a dream, and the world andthe folks in 't are nae mair than clouds to the puir lassie, and heevennae mair than windle-straes, if she can but pleesure him! Until Tamdee'd--that was my story," she broke off to say, "he dee'd, and I wasnaat the buryin'. But while he was here, I could take care o' mysel'. Andcan yon puir lassie?"
Kirstie, her eyes shining with unshed tears, stretched out her handtowards him appealingly; the bright and the dull gold of her hairflashed and smouldered in the coils behind her comely head, like therays of an eternal youth; the pure colour had risen in her face; andArchie was abashed alike by her beauty and her story. He came towardsher slowly from the window, took up her hand in his and kissed it.
"Kirstie," he said hoarsely, "you have misjudged me sorely. I havealways thought of her, I wouldna harm her for the universe, my woman!"
"Eh, lad, and that's easy sayin'," cried Kirstie, "but it's nane saeeasy doin'! Man, do ye no comprehend that it's God's wull we should beblendit and glamoured, and have nae command over our ain members at atime like that? My bairn," she cried, still holding his hand, "think o'the puir lass! have pity upon her, Erchie! and O, be wise for twa! Thinko' the risk she rins! I have seen ye, and what's to prevent ithers? Isaw ye once in the Hags, in my ain howf, and I was wae to see yethere--in pairt for the omen, for I think there's a weird on theplace--and in pairt for pure nakit envy and bitterness o' hairt. It'sstrange ye should forgather there tae! God! but yon puir, thrawn, auldCovenanter's seen a heap o' human natur' since he lookit his last on themusket-barrels, if he never saw nane afore," she added, with a kind ofwonder in her eyes.
"I swear by my honour I have done her no wrong," said Archie. "I swearby my honour and the redemption of my soul that there shall none be doneher. I have heard of this before. I have been foolish, Kirstie, but notunkind, and, above all, not base."
"There's my bairn!" said Kirstie, rising. "I'll can trust ye noo, I'llcan gang to my bed wi' an easy hairt." And then she saw in a flash howbarren had been her triumph. Archie had promised to spare the girl, andhe would keep it; but who had promised to spare Archie? What was to bethe end of it? Over a maze of difficulties she glanced, and saw, at theend of every passage, the flinty countenance of Hermiston. And a kind ofhorror fell upon her at what she had done. She wore a tragic mask."Erchie, the Lord peety you dear, and peety me! I have buildit on thisfoundation"--laying her hand heavily on his shoulder--"and buildit hie,and pit my hairt in the buildin' of it. If the hale hypothec were tofa', I think, laddie, I would dee! Excuse a daft wife that loves ye, andthat kenned your mither. And for His name's sake keep yersel' fraeinordinate desires; hand your heart in baith your hands, carry it cannyand laigh; dinna send it up like a bairn's kite into the collieshangieo' the wunds! Mind, Maister Erchie dear, that this life's a'disappointment, and a mouthfu' o' mools is the appointed end."
"Ay, but Kirstie, my woman, you're asking me ower much at last," saidArchie, profoundly moved, and lapsing into the broad Scots. "Ye'reasking what nae man can grant ye, what only the Lord of heaven can grantye if He see fit. Ay! And can even He? I can promise ye what I shalldo, and you can depend on that. But how I shall feel--my woman, that islong past thinking of!"
They were both standing by now opposite each other. The face of Archiewore the wretched semblance of a smile; hers was convulsed for a moment.
"Promise me ae thing," she cried, in a sharp voice. "Promise me ye'llnever do naething without telling me."
"No, Kirstie, I canna promise ye that," he replied. "I have promisedenough, God kens!"
"May the blessing of God lift and rest upon ye, dear!" she said.
"God bless ye, my old friend," said he.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 19 Page 24