CHAPTER XXVI.

THE THREESOME

Whether or not I was to be so much blamed, or rather perhaps pitied, I

must leave others to judge. My shrewdness (of which I have a good deal,

too) seems not so great with the ladies. No doubt, at the moment when I

awaked her, I was thinking a good deal of the effect upon James More;

and similarly when I returned and we were all sat down to breakfast, I

continued to behave to the young lady with deference and distance; as I

still think to have been most wise. Her father had cast doubts upon the

innocence of my friendship; and these, it was my first business to

allay. But there is a kind of an excuse for Catriona also. We had

shared in a scene of some tenderness and passion, and given and

received caresses: I had thrust her from me with violence; I had called

aloud upon her in the night from the one room to the other; she had

passed hours of wakefulness and weeping; and it is not to be supposed I

had been absent from her pillow thoughts. Upon the back of this, to be

awaked, with unaccustomed formality, under the name of Miss Drummond,

and to be thenceforth used with a great deal of distance and respect,

led her entirely in error on my private sentiments; and she was indeed

so incredibly abused as to imagine me repentant and trying to draw off!

The trouble betwixt us seems to have been this: that whereas I (since I

had first set eyes on his great hat) thought singly of James More, his

return and suspicions, she made so little of these that I may say she

scarce remarked them, and all her troubles and doings regarded what had

passed between us in the night before. This is partly to be explained

by the innocence and boldness of her character; and partly because

James More, having sped so ill in his interview with me, or had his

mouth closed by my invitation, said no word to her upon the subject. At

the breakfast, accordingly, it soon appeared we were at cross purposes.

I had looked to find her in clothes of her own: I found her (as if her

father were forgotten) wearing some of the best that I had bought for

her, and which she knew (or thought) that I admired her in. I had

looked to find her imitate my affectation of distance, and be most

precise and formal; instead I found her flushed and wild-like, with

eyes extraordinary bright, and a painful and varying expression,

calling me by name with a sort of appeal of tenderness, and referring

and deferring to my thoughts and wishes like an anxious or a suspected

wife.

But this was not for long. As I behold her so regardless of her own

interests, which I had jeopardised and was now endeavouring to recover,

I redoubled my own coldness in the manner of a lesson to the girl. The

more she came forward, the farther I drew back; the more she betrayed

the closeness of our intimacy, the more pointedly civil I became, until

even her father (if he had not been so engrossed with eating) might

have observed the opposition. In the midst of which, of a sudden, she

became wholly changed, and I told myself, with a good deal of relief,

that she had took the hint at last.

All day I was at my classes or in quest of my new lodging; and though

the hour of our customary walk hung miserably on my hands, I cannot say

but I was happy on the whole to find my way cleared, the girl again in

proper keeping, the father satisfied or at least acquiescent, and

myself free to prosecute my love with honour. At supper, as at all our

meals, it was James More that did the talking. No doubt but he talked

well if anyone could have believed him. But I will speak of him

presently more at large. The meal at an end, he rose, got his great

coat, and looking (as I thought) at me, observed he had affairs abroad.

I took this for a hint that I was to be going also, and got up;

whereupon the girl, who had scarce given me greeting at my entrance,

turned her eyes upon me wide open with a look that bade me stay. I

stood between them like a fish out of water, turning from one to the

other; neither seemed to observe me, she gazing on the floor, he

buttoning his coat: which vastly swelled my embarrassment. This

appearance of indifference argued, upon her side, a good deal of anger

very near to burst out. Upon his, I thought it horribly alarming; I

made sure there was a tempest brewing there; and considering that to be

the chief peril, turned towards him and put myself (so to speak) in the

man’s hands.

“Can I do anything for _you_, Mr. Drummond?” says I.

He stifled a yawn, which again I thought to be duplicity. “Why, Mr.

David,” said he, “since you are so obliging as to propose it, you might

show me the way to a certain tavern” (of which he gave the name) “where

I hope to fall in with some old companions in arms.”

There was no more to say, and I got my hat and cloak to bear him

company.

“And as for you,” say he to his daughter, “you had best go to your bed.

I shall be late home, and _Early to bed and early to rise_, _gars bonny

lasses have bright eyes_.”

Whereupon he kissed her with a good deal of tenderness, and ushered me

before him from the door. This was so done (I thought on purpose) that

it was scarce possible there should be any parting salutation; but I

observed she did not look at me, and set it down to terror of James

More.

It was some distance to that tavern. He talked all the way of matters

which did not interest me the smallest, and at the door dismissed me

with empty manners. Thence I walked to my new lodging, where I had not

so much as a chimney to hold me warm, and no society but my own

thoughts. These were still bright enough; I did not so much as dream

that Catriona was turned against me; I thought we were like folk

pledged; I thought we had been too near and spoke too warmly to be

severed, least of all by what were only steps in a most needful policy.

And the chief of my concern was only the kind of father-in-law that I

was getting, which was not at all the kind I would have chosen: and the

matter of how soon I ought to speak to him, which was a delicate point

on several sides. In the first place, when I thought how young I was I

blushed all over, and could almost have found it in my heart to have

desisted; only that if once I let them go from Leyden without

explanation, I might lose her altogether. And in the second place,

there was our very irregular situation to be kept in view, and the

rather scant measure of satisfaction I had given James More that

morning. I concluded, on the whole, that delay would not hurt anything,

yet I would not delay too long neither; and got to my cold bed with a

full heart.

The next day, as James More seemed a little on the complaining hand in

the matter of my chamber, I offered to have in more furniture; and

coming in the afternoon, with porters bringing chairs and tables, found

the girl once more left to herself. She greeted me on my admission

civilly, but withdrew at once to her own room, of which she shut the

door. I made my disposition, and paid and dismissed the men so that she

might hear them go, when I supposed she would at once come forth again

to speak to me. I waited yet awhile, then knocked upon her door.

“Catriona!” said I.

The door was opened so quickly, even before I had the word out, that I

thought she must have stood behind it listening. She remained there in

the interval quite still; but she had a look that I cannot put a name

on, as of one in a bitter trouble.

“Are we not to have our walk to-day either?” so I faltered.

“I am thanking you,” said she. “I will not be caring much to walk, now

that my father is come home.”

“But I think he has gone out himself and left you here alone,” said I.

“And do you think that was very kindly said?” she asked.

“It was not unkindly meant,” I replied. “What ails you, Catriona? What

have I done to you that you should turn from me like this?”

“I do not turn from you at all,” she said, speaking very carefully. “I

will ever be grateful to my friend that was good to me; I will ever be

his friend in all that I am able. But now that my father James More is

come again, there is a difference to be made, and I think there are

some things said and done that would be better to be forgotten. But I

will ever be your friend in all that I am able, and if that is not all

that . . . . if it is not so much . . . . Not that you will be caring!

But I would not have you think of me too hard. It was true what you

said to me, that I was too young to be advised, and I am hoping you

will remember I was just a child. I would not like to lose your

friendship, at all events.”

She began this very pale; but before she was done, the blood was in her

face like scarlet, so that not her words only, but her face and the

trembling of her very hands, besought me to be gentle. I saw, for the

first time, how very wrong I had done to place the child in that

position, where she had been entrapped into a moment’s weakness, and

now stood before me like a person shamed.

“Miss Drummond,” I said, and stuck, and made the same beginning once

again, “I wish you could see into my heart,” I cried. “You would read

there that my respect is undiminished. If that were possible, I should

say it was increased. This is but the result of the mistake we made;

and had to come; and the less said of it now the better. Of all of our

life here, I promise you it shall never pass my lips; I would like to

promise you too that I would never think of it, but it’s a memory that

will be always dear to me. And as for a friend, you have one here that

would die for you.”

“I am thanking you,” said she.

We stood awhile silent, and my sorrow for myself began to get the upper

hand; for here were all my dreams come to a sad tumble, and my love

lost, and myself alone again in the world as at the beginning.

“Well,” said I, “we shall be friends always, that’s a certain thing.

But this is a kind of farewell, too: it’s a kind of a farewell after

all; I shall always ken Miss Drummond, but this is a farewell to my

Catriona.”

I looked at her; I could hardly say I saw her, but she seemed to grow

great and brighten in my eyes; and with that I suppose I must have lost

my head, for I called out her name again and made a step at her with my

hands reached forth.

She shrank back like a person struck, her face flamed; but the blood

sprang no faster up into her cheeks, than what it flowed back upon my

own heart, at sight of it, with penitence and concern. I found no words

to excuse myself, but bowed before her very deep, and went my ways out

of the house with death in my bosom.

I think it was about five days that followed without any change. I saw

her scarce ever but at meals, and then of course in the company of

James More. If we were alone even for a moment, I made it my devoir to

behave the more distantly and to multiply respectful attentions, having

always in my mind’s eye that picture of the girl shrinking and flaming

in a blush, and in my heart more pity for her than I could depict in

words. I was sorry enough for myself, I need not dwell on that, having

fallen all my length and more than all my height in a few seconds; but,

indeed, I was near as sorry for the girl, and sorry enough to be scarce

angry with her save by fits and starts. Her plea was good; she had been

placed in an unfair position; if she had deceived herself and me, it

was no more than was to have been looked for.

And for another thing she was now very much alone. Her father, when he

was by, was rather a caressing parent; but he was very easy led away by

his affairs and pleasures, neglected her without compunction or remark,

spent his nights in taverns when he had the money, which was more often

than I could at all account for; and even in the course of these few

days, failed once to come to a meal, which Catriona and I were at last

compelled to partake of without him. It was the evening meal, and I

left immediately that I had eaten, observing I supposed she would

prefer to be alone; to which she agreed and (strange as it may seem) I

quite believed her. Indeed, I thought myself but an eyesore to the

girl, and a reminder of a moment’s weakness that she now abhorred to

think of. So she must sit alone in that room where she and I had been

so merry, and in the blink of that chimney whose light had shone upon

our many difficult and tender moments. There she must sit alone, and

think of herself as of a maid who had most unmaidenly proffered her

affections and had the same rejected. And in the meanwhile I would be

alone some other place, and reading myself (whenever I was tempted to

be angry) lessons upon human frailty and female delicacy. And

altogether I suppose there were never two poor fools made themselves

more unhappy in a greater misconception.

As for James, he paid not so much heed to us, or to anything in nature

but his pocket, and his belly, and his own prating talk. Before twelve

hours were gone he had raised a small loan of me; before thirty, he had

asked for a second and been refused. Money and refusal he took with the

same kind of high good nature. Indeed, he had an outside air of

magnanimity that was very well fitted to impose upon a daughter; and

the light in which he was constantly presented in his talk, and the

man’s fine presence and great ways went together pretty harmoniously.

So that a man that had no business with him, and either very little

penetration or a furious deal of prejudice, might almost have been

taken in. To me, after my first two interviews, he was as plain as

print; I saw him to be perfectly selfish, with a perfect innocency in

the same; and I would hearken to his swaggering talk (of arms, and “an

old soldier,” and “a poor Highland gentleman,” and “the strength of my

country and my friends”) as I might to the babbling of a parrot.

The odd thing was that I fancy he believed some part of it himself, or

did at times; I think he was so false all through that he scarce knew

when he was lying; and for one thing, his moments of dejection must

have been wholly genuine. There were times when he would be the most

silent, affectionate, clinging creature possible, holding Catriona’s

hand like a big baby, and begging of me not to leave if I had any love

to him; of which, indeed, I had none, but all the more to his daughter.

He would press and indeed beseech us to entertain him with our talk, a

thing very difficult in the state of our relations; and again break

forth in pitiable regrets for his own land and friends, or into Gaelic

singing.

“This is one of the melancholy airs of my native land,” he would say.

“You may think it strange to see a soldier weep, and indeed it is to

make a near friend of you,” says he. “But the notes of this singing are

in my blood, and the words come out of my heart. And when I mind upon

my red mountains and the wild birds calling there, and the brave

streams of water running down, I would scarce think shame to weep

before my enemies.” Then he would sing again, and translate to me

pieces of the song, with a great deal of boggling and much expressed

contempt against the English language. “It says here,” he would say,

“that the sun is gone down, and the battle is at an end, and the brave

chiefs are defeated. And it tells here how the stars see them fleeing

into strange countries or lying dead on the red mountain; and they will

never more shout the call of battle or wash their feet in the streams

of the valley. But if you had only some of this language, you would

weep also because the words of it are beyond all expression, and it is

mere mockery to tell you it in English.”

Well, I thought there was a good deal of mockery in the business, one

way and another; and yet, there was some feeling too, for which I hated

him, I think, the worst of all. And it used to cut me to the quick to

see Catriona so much concerned for the old rogue, and weeping herself

to see him weep, when I was sure one half of his distress flowed from

his last night’s drinking in some tavern. There were times when I was

tempted to lend him a round sum, and see the last of him for good; but

this would have been to see the last of Catriona as well, for which I

was scarcely so prepared; and besides, it went against my conscience to

squander my good money on one who was so little of a husband.