WHEN Rob Glen accepted the offer that Randal made him and agreed to the conditions, it was done partly in despite, partly in impatience, partly because the novelty tempted him, in the state of discouragement and irritation which Margaret’s troubled response had thrown him into. He had not ceased to be “in love” with her, nor was the impassioned letter he had addressed to her really false, notwithstanding his constant confidential interviews with Jeanie, which would have been the direst offence to Margaret had they been known, or had she really cared for him as he supposed and hoped her to do. Had she been within reach, Rob would have been really as much in love with Margaret as ever; but he was angry and hurt by her indifference, and humiliated, he who had won so much love in his day, that she did not receive his letter with pleasure. Even if she had seen the inexpediency or impossibility of continuing the correspondence, he could not forgive her that she had no word of thanks to send him for the letter, which might have made a girl happy, no breathing of soft response to its impassioned strain. He was pleased to punish her, to revenge himself by the hasty pledge not to write again. Yes, he would punish her. Next time she received one of these letters it should be after months of weary waiting, when she would thank him as she ought.
It was absolutely impossible for Rob to realize that it would be a relief to Margaret not to hear from him at all. The idea was incredible. Never before in all his experience had he met with a girl who was quite insensible to his wooing, and Margaret, who was so young, so artless! She might be afraid to snatch that painful joy; the perils of a clandestine correspondence might alarm instead of exciting her; but that she should not like it, was beyond all Rob’s acquaintance with human nature, and altogether incredible to him. And thus he would punish her. Edinburgh too would no doubt be more cheerful than the farm in the depth of winter, when his mother’s ill-humor and the absence of all amusement would aggravate the short days and long, cold nights, in which even a stroll with Jeanie was no longer practicable. Mrs. Glen, too, looked favorably on the idea. It would “pass the time.” “And you’ll be in the way of seeing a good kind of folk,” his mother said; “plenty of gentry is aye about thae lawyers’ offices. They’re in want o’ siller, or they’re wanting to get rid o’ their siller; and I wouldna lose a chance of a good acquaintance. Then, when the time comes, and when you set up in your ain house with your lady-wife, you’ll no be without friends.”
“Friends made in an Edinburgh writer’s office, of what use will they be in the heart of England?” said Rob, with lofty superiority; but he was not displeased by the suggestion. He no more thought it possible that, with his talents, he could fail to “win forward,” as his mother said, than he thought it possible that Margaret could really be indifferent to such a glowing composition as the love-letter he had sent her. The only thing in the whole matter that he felt any reluctance about was, how he was to break it to Jeanie, whose sweetness, as his confidential friend and adviser, had been very soothing and consolatory to him. As the decision had to be made at once, there was not even much time in which to break it to Jeanie. He strolled past her father’s cottage in the high toun on one of the nights when Margaret lay at her worst in a haze of fever, with her life apparently hanging on a thread. But none of all the little knot of people at the Kirkton, whose lives were tangled with hers, were as yet aware of anything that had occurred to her. Rob went slowly past the little window, all glowing with fire-light, where John Robertson sat tired with his work, while Jeanie put away the cups and saucers after their tea. By-and-by it would be necessary to light “the candle,” for he had still a job to finish before bedtime; but what did they want with the candle when they were at their tea? Fire-light was quite enough for the scanty meal and the conversation which went on, not without a divided attention on Jeanie’s part; for she could not but think that she heard a step outside which she knew.
“I think I will run out for two or three minutes and see Katie Dewar, when you are settled to your work, faither,” Jeanie said; “she is always complaining, and it’s a fine night,” she added, with a little compunction, looking out through the uncurtained window. The sense of deceiving, however, was not at all strong or urgent in her, for such little deceits about a lover’s meeting are leniently dealt with in Jeanie’s sphere.
“You’ll no be very long, Jeanie.” Her father had a sufficiently good notion of what was going on, and, as he was quite unconscious of any complication in Rob Glen’s affections, and quite confident in his daughter’s purity and goodness, it did not disturb him much. “Mind that it’s a cold night, and dinna loiter about.”
“I’ll no be very long, faither.” Jeanie threw a shawl round her, but left her pretty head, with its golden-brown curling hair, uncovered. If it was very cold it was always easy to throw a fold of the shawl over her head. She went out, with her heart beating—not altogether with pleasure. To be with him was still a kind of happiness, and it was better even to be the confidant of his engagement with another—which Rob had so cunningly implied would never have existed had Jeanie’s presence hereabouts been known—than to have nothing at all to do with him. She stole along, half flying, in the shadow of the houses, and finally came out into the cold moonlight, at the corner beyond the little square, where she could see some one waiting. Poor Jeanie! her pleasure and her sadness, and the mixture of the sweet with the bitter which was in these interviews, had become a kind of essential elixir to her life.
“Jeanie,” he said, after their first greetings were over, “I am going away.”
“Going away!” She had to grasp at his arm to support herself. “Ay,” she said, drearily, after a pause, “nae doubt; I aye kent that was how it would have to be.”
“I only knew it myself yesterday,” he said; “I have not lost a moment in telling you. How did you know that this was how it would be?”
“Oh, I kent it,” she said, holding her hands clasped to support herself; “it was easy to divine—it was no such a mystery. Weel, Maister Glen, ye’ll go to her ye’ve chosen, and ye’ll be—real happy with her. She’s bonnie, and she’s good, and she’ll give ye more, far more, than the like of us could give you. I wish ye luck with a’ my heart. Ay, a’ my heart! baith her and you.”
Jeanie withdrew a step from his side as she spoke, and her voice took something of the soft wail of the dove in the inflections and modulations which mark the native tongue of Fife. It was in a kind of soft cadence that she spoke—too soft to be tragic, but pitiful and wailing, the most pathetic of utterances. Jeanie did not rebel—it was natural, it was right; but the blow went to her heart.
“My foolish Jeanie,” he said; “what are you thinking of? Do you think it is Margaret that has sent for me? Do you think she is going to acknowledge me all at once, and that all our troubles are over? No, my dear; you are too simple and too good, my bonnie Jeanie. It is not that. Margaret takes no notice of me. I am going to Edinburgh—to a situation, not for ease, not very far away—and not to her, Jeanie. You must not give me up so soon.”
He put his arm round her, and drew her close to him; and Jeanie, though full of better resolutions, was weak with the shock she had just received. She was thankful to lean against him for a moment.
“No that—not to her? when she could settle a’ if she pleased. Eh, Rob, ladies are no like—they’re no like—”
“You, Jeanie? No; who is like you? Always kind—whatever happens, always ready to forgive. What is that in the Bible, ‘Suffereth long, and is kind.’ I think that must have been made for you.”
“Oh!” said Jeanie—like Margaret, in the soft long breath of that ejaculation—“we shouldna quote Scripture, you and me! for what we are doing is a’ wrang. Oh, Rob, it’s a’wrang! You that are troth-plighted to another lass—though she is a lady—and me, that—”
“Yes, you that—what of you, Jeanie? not pledged, you must not say so, to another man.”
“And if I was,” she cried, “what would you have to do with it? it would be but justice. Na, na, that’s no what I’m meaning, as weel ye ken. My heart has never had room but for ane. No—me that should ken better. Oh, dinna, dinna, I canna have it! Me that should have kent better was what I meant to say.”
“Why should you know better? How can we tell what will happen in three years? And till three years are over nothing is settled,” he said, with a secret thrill of anxiety and pain in his heart to remember that this, unlike much that he said, was altogether true.
“It’s true,” she said, shaking her head. “My heart’s that heavy I can think of nothing but harm; we may a’ be dead in three years; and oh, I wish it might be over with me!”
“I cannot have you speak like this,” he said. “I am going to Edinburgh—you don’t seem to care to hear—to a situation Randal Burnside has offered me. I don’t know that I will stay in it long. Very likely it will only be a stepping-stone to something better. I will see you when I come back, which will be often, Jeanie; and indeed I think you might come over to see your friends in Edinburgh—you must have friends in Edinburgh—and see me.”
“I’ll not do that,” said Jeanie, decidedly.
“You’ll not do that? I don’t think that is quite kind. But never mind, I will come home—often—on Saturday, like Randal Burnside.”
“Will you be in the same line as Maister Randal, Rob?”
“I think not just the same line. He pleads, you know, Jeanie, in the Parliament House, before the judges, and I will have to manage cases before they get there. It is a very important business. Failing what I was brought up to—the pulpit, and all that I was trained for— I think my people will be more pleased with the law than anything else. It is always respectable; it is one of the learned professions. I will not deny that it is a very good opening, Jeanie.”
“And when do you go away?”
“This week,” he said. “I don’t want to lose any more time; I have lost all my summer. It would have been better for me if I had never come home. I would have missed you, Jeanie; but then I might have avoided other things that can never be got rid of now.”
“Oh!” she said, her heart wrung with the suggestion, pleased with the regret, wounded with the comparison; “I wonder if you would say just the same of me to her as of her to me?”
“How could I, when you are so little like each other?” he said. “But, Jeanie, let us think of ourselves; let us not bring in her, or any one. My bonnie Jeanie, when I come back I shall always find you here?”
“I canna tell—the cobbling’s no just a grand trade, and what will feed ane does not aye serve two. I think I will maybe take a new place—at the New-Year.”
“But not to take you from the Kirkton, Jeanie—not to take you away from me?”
“If it was to take me far, far away—to London, or to America, or New Zealand, where so many are going—and I wish my faither would think of it,” she said, softly. “Oh! I’ve great reason to pray, ‘Lead me not into temptation,’ for I would be far, far better away.”
“You are not like yourself to-night, Jeanie. Why should you lecture me to-night, just when you have to say good-bye to me—good-bye for a little while?”
“It would be far, far better if it was good-bye forever,” she said; “but eh, Rob, I canna understand mysel’. I would be glad if it was me that was to go—ay would I. I would go to New Zealand, if my faither would but come, the morn; but when it’s you, a’ my strength fails me, my heart goes sinking away from me, my head begins to turn round. I know it’s right, but I canna bide it, Rob!”
“My poor little Jeanie,” he said, caressingly. “And I cannot bide it, if you speak of what a man likes; but it is better for me that I should not be wasting my time. I should be doing some work that will be worth a man’s while. What is money, Jeanie? I shall have plenty of money. But I ought to be known, I ought to think of my name.”
“Oh, that’s true,” she said. “I know well you’re no a lad to spend your life in a quiet country place. And that just shows me more and more the difference between you and me, Rob. I shouldna call you Rob— I should say Maister Glen.”
“Will you write to me, Jeanie? That was why we lost sight of each other. I did not know where you were; but now I will often send you a letter, and then, on the Saturdays, I will probably come over with Randal Burnside.”
“Rob, Mr. Randal is a gentleman, and so will you be a gentleman. No, oh no; you and me should say farewell. I’ll aye think upon you. I’ll pray for you night and morning; but dinna speak about you and me. We’re like the twa roads at Earl’s-ha’ that creep thegither under the trees, and then pairt, ane west, the ither east. Oh, Rob!” said Jeanie, with streaming eyes, “no good will ever come of this. Let us summon up a good courage and pairt. Here we should pairt. No, I’ll no grudge you a kiss, for it will be the last. It’s a’ been meesery and confusion, but if we pairt the warst will be past. Say Farewell, and God bless you, Jeanie!—and ah! with all my heart, I’ll say the same to you.”
“You are trembling so that you can scarcely stand,” he said. “Do you think I will let you leave me like this? I cannot part from you, Jeanie, and why should I? It would break my heart.”
“It has broken mine,” said Jeanie, fervently; “but rather a broken heart as a false life. Rob, Rob, hand me nae longer, but let me gang to my faither. I’m safe when I’m with him.”
But it was not for a long hour after this that Jeanie returned to her father, conducted as near as he could venture to go by her lover, who grew more and more earnest the more he was resisted. She went in very softly, with a flushed and glowing cheek, stealing into the cottage not to disturb the solitary inmate who sat working on by the light of his dim candle.
“Is that you, Jeanie?” he said, placidly; “and how is Katie Dewar, poor body?” This question went to the bottom of her guilty heart.
“I’ll no tell you a lie, faither; I wasna near Katie Dewar. It’s a fine night, and the moon shining; I gaed down the road, and then a little up the road, and then—”
“Oh, ay, my lass, I ken weel what that means,” he said; “but I can trust my Jeanie, the Lord be praised for it. I’m just done with my job, and it’s been a lang job. When the supper’s ready I’ll blow out the candle, and then if you’ve onything to tell me—”
“I have naething to tell you,” she cried. But as they sat together over their supper, which was of “stoved” potatoes, a savory dish unknown to richer tables, Jeanie pressed upon her father once more with incomprehensible energy and earnestness the idea of New Zealand, which had already two or three times been talked of between them before.
Rob, however, left her with little alarm as to New Zealand. He was deeply gratified by that attachment to himself which made her ready to put up with everything, even the bond which bound him to another; and the struggle in Jeanie’s mind between what she wished and what she thought right, which ended in the triumph of himself, Rob, over all other powers and arguments, was very sweet and consolatory to him. It healed the wounds of his amour propre. If Margaret did not give him the devotion he deserved, Jeanie gave him a devotion which he did not hesitate to confess he had not deserved, and this reconciled him to himself. The maid made up for the short-comings of the mistress, and perhaps Jeanie’s simple worship even gave a little license to Margaret as to the great lady, from whom, in her ladyhood and greatness, the same kind of love was not to be expected. She had things in her power to bestow more substantial than Jeanie’s tenderness, and with these she had vowed in due time to crown this favorite of fortune. Rob was a sort of Sultan in his way, and liked the idea of getting from these two women the best they had. He went away from Stratheden a few days after, with his heart quite soft and tender to his Jeanie. He would not forget her this time. He would write to her and say to her what he could not say to Margaret. He would keep a refuge for himself in her soft heart, whatever happened. And, indeed, who could tell what might happen in three years?
While he thus made a settlement which quite pleased him in his affairs of the heart, the other part of his life was not quite so satisfactory. The position which he took in the office of Randal’s uncle in Edinburgh was naturally that of a beginner, and he did not “win forward” as he had hoped. When clients came, they preferred to see the principal of the office, and instead of making acquaintance among the gentry, Rob found that all he had to do with them was opening the door to them when they came in, or showing them the way out when they left the office.
He did not say much about this, nor did he reveal his discontent to Randal, having sufficient good-sense to learn by experience, and perceiving that this was indeed quite natural and the only thing to be expected, as soon as circumstances had impressed it upon him. But struggles with reason and circumstances of this kind, if they invariably end in an increase of hardly acquired knowledge, and are thus, perhaps, instructive in the highest degree, are not pleasant. And Rob having made no advance in “position,” and having no important work confided to him, but only, as was natural, the most elementary and routine business, soon became heartily sick of the office and of himself. He returned more hotly to his former hopes, as he felt the folly of this, and soon began to be conscious of the utter incongruity between his prospects and his present position. He tried to console himself like any child, by imagining to himself scenes of delightful revenge for all those “spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes.” When he was Margaret’s husband, and the possessor of her fortune, he planned to himself how he too would become a client of the employers who now treated him so coolly. What piece of business would he intrust to them? He would make them buy in Earl’s-hall if it ever came to be sold. He would consult them about the investment of the long accumulations of Margaret’s minority. But in the mean time, while these grandeurs were not his, the office became more and more irksome to him.
He had lost the habit of work during those idle months at home, where love-making had been his only serious occupation, and indeed he had never had the habits of work necessary here, the routine of certain hours and clearly defined duties, which the more free and less regular work of education is in general so little akin to. He had not been what is called idle in his studies; but then these are always vague, and a young man may make up the defective work of the day at night or at odd moments, which a clerk in an office never can do. After a while, Rob had become so entirely disgusted with the humbleness of his position and the character of his work—so deeply impressed by the incongruity of his present with the future he looked forward to—and so indignantly conscious of powers within him which were capable of something better than this, that he threw up the situation which it had taken Randal no small trouble to get for him, and, without warning, suddenly set out for London, carrying with him his sketches and some slight and frothy literary essays which he had written, with the full intention of becoming a painter and an author, and taking the world by storm. The payment of three months’ salary had given him the means for this; and he felt that it was the only way, and that he had known all along it was the only way, to acquire for himself fame and fortune. He had by this time heard of Margaret’s illness, and of her absence; but even had he thought of doing so, he had no means of following her into the expense and mystery of that unknown world which the ignorant know as “abroad.” Indeed, to do him justice, he went to London with no intention of molesting Margaret, but only with a very fixed determination of making himself known—of coming to some personal glory or profit which should make up to him for the personal failure of the past. Rob had been in London for about a month on that eventful day when Randal Burnside, who was in town upon business, had met him in the Exhibition. They had met not without a certain friendliness; and Randal, curious to know what he was doing, and still more curious to ascertain how much he knew about Margaret, and if he was keeping his promise in respect to her, had engaged Rob to dine with him, and had parted from him only a few minutes before he met Margaret herself.
Meantime Rob, having finished his inspection of the pictures, and convinced himself that there were many there much inferior to his own, though he could find no purchasers for them, was issuing somewhat moodily forth, when a slight figure in black hurrying down the steps before him, and clinging closely to the arm of a man whom he thought he had seen before, yet did not recognize, caught his eye. He stood and looked after them while the carriage was called, his curiosity awakened he could scarcely tell why. He had followed them down to the pavement, and had just reached it when Aubrey put Margaret into the carriage; and all at once a vision of that well-known face, all tremulous and eager, avoiding, as he thought, his suddenly excited gaze, rose before him. In another moment the carriage was dashing along more quickly than is usual in the streets of London. Rob stood with a gasp gazing after it, and did not come to himself till it was too late to attempt the frantic expedient of jumping into a hansom and rushing after it. He did so when he realized what it was that had happened; but by this time it was too late, and he had not remarked the appearance of the carriage, but only the face in it. Margaret! The sight put sudden fire into his veins. He must see her; he must claim her. It was irrational and monstrous that a girl who was his promised wife should be entirely separated from him. Whether it was her own will or that of her friends, he would not submit to it any more.