When the ladies were going into the drawing-room, Mrs. Lorraine put her hand within Sheila’s arm and led her to the entrance to the conservatory. “I hope we shall be friends,” she said.
“I hope so,” said Sheila, not very warmly.
“Until you get better acquainted with your husband’s friends you will feel rather lonely at being left as at present, I suppose.”
“A little,” said Sheila.
“It is a silly thing altogether. If men smoked after dinner I could understand it. But they merely sit, looking at wine they don’t drink, talking a few commonplaces and yawning.”
“Why do they do it, then?” said Sheila.
“They don’t do it everywhere. But here we keep to the manners and customs of the ancients.”
“What do you know about the manners of the ancients?” said Mrs. Kavanagh, tapping her daughter’s shoulder as she passed with a sheet of music.
“I have studied them frequently, mamma,” said the daughter with composure, “in the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens.”
The mamma smiled, and passed on to place the music on the piano. Sheila did not understand what her companion had said; and indeed Mrs. Lorraine immediately turned, with the same calm, fair face and fearless eyes, to ask Sheila whether she would not, by and by, sing one of those Northern songs of which Mr. Lavender had told her.
A tall girl with her back hair tied in a knot and her costume copied from a well-known pre-Raphaelite drawing, sat down to the piano and sang a mystic song of the present day, in which the moon, the stars and other natural objects behaved strangely, and were somehow mixed up with the appeal of a maiden who demanded that her dead lover should be reclaimed from the sea.
“Do you ever go down to your husband’s studio?” said Mrs. Lorraine.
She glanced toward the lady at the piano.
“Oh, you may talk,” said Mrs. Lorraine, with the least expression of contempt in her gray eyes. “She is singing to gratify herself, not us.”
“Yes, I sometimes go down,” said Sheila in as low a voice as she could manage without falling into a whisper, “and it is such a dismal place. It is very hard on him to have to work in a big bare room like that, with the windows half blinded. But sometimes I think Frank would rather have me out of the way.”
“And what would he do if both of us were to pay him a visit?” said Mrs. Lorraine. “I should so like to see the studio! Won’t you call for me some day and take me with you?”
Take her with her, indeed! Sheila began to wonder that she did not propose to go alone. Fortunately, there was no need to answer the question, for at this moment the song came to an end, and there was a general movement and murmur of gratitude.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Lorraine to the lady who had sung the song, and was now returning to the photographs she had left, “thank you very much. I knew some one would instantly ask you to sing that song; it is the most charming of all your songs, I think, and how well it suits your voice, too!”
Then she turned to Sheila again: “How did you like Lord Arthur Redburn?”
“I think he is a very good young man.”
“Young men are never good, but they may be very amiable,” said Mrs. Lorraine, not perceiving that Sheila had blundered on a wrong adjective, and that she had really meant that she thought him honest and pleasant.
“You did not speak at all, I think, to your neighbor on the right; that was wise of you. He is a most insufferable person, but mamma bears with him for the sake of his daughter, who sang just now. He is too rich. And he smiles blandly, and takes a sort of after-dinner view of things, as if he coincided with the arrangements of Providence. Don’t you take coffee? Tea, then. I have met your aunt – I mean Mr. Lavender’s aunt; such a dear old lady she is.”
“I don’t like her,” said Sheila.
“Oh, don’t you really?”
“Not at present, but I shall try to like her.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Lorraine, calmly, “you know she has her peculiarities. I wish she wouldn’t talk so much about Marcus Antoninus and doses of medicine. I fancy I smell calomel when she comes near. I suppose if she were in a pantomime, they’d dress her up as a phial, tie a string around her neck and label her ‘Poison.’ Dear me, how languid one gets in this climate! Let us sit down. I wish I was as strong as mamma.”
They sat down together, and Mrs. Lorraine evidently expected to be petted and made much of by her new companion. She gave herself pretty little airs and graces, and said no more cutting things about anybody. And Sheila somehow found herself being drawn to the girl, so that she could scarcely help taking her hand, and saying how sorry she was to see her so pale and fine and delicate. The hand, too, was so small that the tiny white fingers seemed scarcely bigger than the claws of a bird. Was not that slender waist, to which some little attention was called by a belt of bold blue, just a little too slender for health, although the bust and shoulders were exquisitely and finely proportioned?
“We were at the Academy all the morning, and mamma is not a bit tired. Why has not Mr. Lavender anything at the Academy? Oh, I forgot,” she added, with a smile. “Of course, he has been very much engaged. But now I suppose he will settle down to work.”
Sheila wished that this fragile-looking girl would not so continually refer to her husband, but how was any one to find fault with her when she put a little air of plaintiveness into the ordinarily cold gray eyes, and looked at her small hand as much as to say, “The fingers there are very small, and even whiter than the glove that covers them. They are the fingers of a child, who ought to be petted.”
Then the men came in from the dining-room. Lavender looked around to see where Sheila was – perhaps with a trifle of disappointment that she was not the most prominent figure there. Had he expected to find all the women surrounding her and admiring her, and all the men going up to pay court to her? Sheila was seated near a small table, and Mrs. Lorraine was showing her something. She was just like anybody else. If she was a wonderful sea-princess who had come into a new world, no one seemed to observe her. The only thing that distinguished her from the women around her was her freshness of color, and the unusual combination of black eyelashes and dark blue eyes. Lavender had arranged that Sheila’s first appearance in public should be at a very quiet little dinner party, but even here she failed to create any profound impression. She was, as he had to confess to himself again, just like anybody else.
He went over to where Mrs. Lorraine was, and sat down beside her. Sheila, remembering his injunctions, felt bound to leave him there; and as she rose to speak to Mrs. Kavanagh, who was standing by, that lady came and begged her to sing a Highland song. By this time Lavender had succeeded in interesting his companion about something or other, and neither of them had noticed that Sheila had gone to the piano, attended by the young politician who had taken her in to dinner. Nor did they interrupt their talk merely because some one had played a few bars of prelude. But what was this that suddenly startled Lavender to the heart, causing him to look up with surprise? He had not heard the air since he was in Borva, and when Sheila sang
Hark, hark! the horn
On mountain-breezes borne,
Awake, it is morn,
Awake, Monaltrie!
all sorts of reminiscences came rushing in upon him. How often had he heard that wild story of Monaltrie’s flight sung out in the small chamber over the sea, with a sound of the waves outside and a scent of sea-weed coming in at the door and the window! It was from the shores of Borva that young Monaltrie must have fled. It must have been in Borva that his sweetheart sat in her bower and sang, the burden of all her singing being, “Return, Monaltrie!” And then, as Sheila sang now, making the monotonous and plaintive air wild and strange —
What cries of wild despair
Awake the sultry air?
Frenzied with anxious care,
She seeks Monaltrie —
he heard no more of the song. He was thinking of by-gone days in Borva, and of old Mackenzie living in his lonely house there. When Sheila had finished singing he looked at her, and it seemed to him that she was still that beautiful princess whom he had wooed on the shores of the Atlantic. And if those people did not see her as he saw her, ought he to be disappointed because of their blindness?
But if they saw nothing mystic or wonderful about Sheila, they, at all events, were considerably surprised by the strange sort of music she sang. It was not of a sort commonly heard in a London drawing-room. The pathos of its minor chords, its abrupt intervals, startling and wild in their effect, and the slowly subsiding wail in which it closed, did not much resemble the ordinary drawing-room “piece.” Here, at least, Sheila had produced an impression; and presently there was a heap of people around the piano, expressing their admiration, asking questions, and begging her to continue. But she rose. She would rather not sing just then. Whereupon Lavender came to her and said, “Sheila, won’t you sing that wild one about the farewell – that has the sound of the pipes in it, you know?”
“Oh, yes,” she said directly.
Lavender went back to his companion.
“She is very obedient to you,” said Mrs. Lorraine, with a smile.
“Yes, at present,” he said; and he thought meanly of himself for saying it, the moment the words were uttered:
Oh, soft be thy slumbers, by Tigh na-linne’s waters;
Thy late-wake was sung by Macdiarmid’s fair daughters;
But far in Lochaber the true heart was weeping,
Whose hopes are entombed in the grave where thou’rt sleeping.
So Sheila sang, and it seemed to the people that this ballad was even more strange than its predecessor. When the song was over, Sheila seemed rather anxious to get out of the crowd, and, indeed, walked away into the conservatory to have a look at the flowers.
Yes, Lavender had to confess to himself, Sheila was just like anybody else in this drawing-room. His sea-princess had produced no startling impression. He forgot that he had just been teaching her the necessity of observing the ways and customs of the people around her, so that she might avoid singularity.
On one point, at least, she was resolved she would attend to his counsels; she would not make him ridiculous by any show of affection before the eyes of strangers. She did not go near him the whole evening. She remained for the most part in that half-conservatory, half-ante-room at the end of the drawing-room; and when any one talked to her she answered, and when she was left alone she turned to the flowers. All this time, however, she could observe that Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine were very much engrossed in their conversation; that she seemed very much amused, and he at times a trifle embarrassed; and that both of them had apparently forgotten her existence. Mrs. Kavanagh was continually coming to Sheila and trying to coax her back into the larger room, but in vain. She would rather not sing any more that night. She liked to look at the flowers. She was not tired at all, and she had already seen those wonderful photographs about which everybody was talking.
“Well, Sheila, how did you enjoy yourself?” said her husband, as they were driving home.
“I wish Mr. Ingram had been there,” said Sheila.
“Ingram! He would not have stopped in the place five minutes, unless he could play the part of Diogenes and say rude things to everybody all around. Were you at all dull?”
“A little.”
“Didn’t somebody look after you?”
“Oh, yes; many persons were very kind. But – but – ”
“Well?”
“Nobody seemed to be better off than myself. They all seemed to be wanting something to do; and I am sure they were all very glad to come away.”
“No, no, no, Sheila. That is only your fancy. You were not much interested, that is evident; but you will get on better when know more of the people. You were a stranger – that is what disappointed you – but you will not always be a stranger.”
Sheila did not answer. Perhaps she contemplated, with no great hope or longing, the possibility of her coming to like such a method of getting through an evening. At all events, she looked forward with no great pleasure to the chance of her having to become friends with Mrs. Lorraine. All the way home Sheila was examining her own heart to try to discover why such bitter feelings should be there. Surely that girl was honest; there was honesty in her eyes. She had been most kind to Sheila herself. And was there not at times, when she abandoned the ways and speech of a woman of the world, a singular coy fascination about her that any man might be excused for yielding to, even as any woman might yield to it? Sheila fought with herself, and resolved that she would cast forth from her heart those harsh fancies and indignant feelings that seemed to have established themselves there. She would not hate Mrs. Lorraine.
As for Lavender, what was he thinking of, now that he and his young wife were driving home from their first experiment in society? He had to confess to a certain sense of failure. His dreams had not been realized. Every one who had spoken to him had conveyed to him, as freely as good manners would admit, their congratulations and their praises of his wife. But the impressive scenes he had been forecasting were out of the question. There was a little curiosity about her on the part of those who knew her story, and that was all. Sheila bore herself very well. She made no blunders. She had a good presence, she sang well, and every one could see that she was handsome, gentle and honest. Surely, he argued with himself, that ought to content the most exacting. But, in spite of all argument, he was not content. He did not regret that he had sacrificed his liberty in a freak of romance; he did not even regard the fact of a man in his position having dared to marry a penniless girl as anything very meritorious or heroic; but he had hoped that the dramatic circumstances of the case would be duly recognized by his friends, and that Sheila would be an object of interest and wonder and talk in a whole series of social circles. But the result of his venture was different. There was only one married man the more in London, and London was not disposed to pay any particular heed to that circumstance.
CHAPTER XIII.
BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON
IF Frank Lavender had been told that his love for his wife was in danger of waning, he would have laughed the suggestion to scorn. He was as fond of her and as proud of her as ever. Who knew as well as himself the tenderness of her heart, the delicate sensitiveness of her conscience, the generosity of self-sacrifice she was always ready to bestow? and was he likely to become blind, so that he should fail to see how fair and frank and handsome she was? He had been disappointed, it is true, in his fancies about the impression she would produce on his friends; but what a trifle was that! The folly of those fancies was his own. For the rest, he was glad that Sheila was not so different from the other women whom he knew. He hit upon the profound reflection, as he sat alone in his studio, that a man’s wife, like his costume, should not be so remarkable as to attract attention. The perfection of dress was that you should be unconscious of its presence; might that not be so with marriage? After all, it was better he had not bound himself to lug about a lion whenever he visited people’s houses.
Still, there was something. He found himself a good deal alone. Sheila did not seem to care much for going into society; and, although he did not much like the notion of going by himself, nevertheless one had certain duties towards one’s friends to perform. She did not even care to go down to the Park of a forenoon. She always professed her readiness to go, but he fancied it was a trifle tiresome for her; and so, when there was nothing particular going on in the studio, he would walk down through Kensington Gardens himself, and have a chat with some friends, followed generally by luncheon with this or the other party of them. Sheila had been taught that she ought not to come so frequently to that studio. Bras would not lie quiet. Moreover, if dealers or other strangers should come in, would they not take her for a model? So Sheila stayed at home; and Mr Lavender, after having dressed with care in the morning – with very singular care, indeed, considering that he was going to his work – used to go down to his studio to smoke a cigarette. The chances were that he was not in the humor for working. He would sit down in an easy-chair and kick his heels on the floor for a time, watching, perhaps, the sunlight come in through the upper part of the windows and paint yellow squares on the opposite wall. Then he would go out, and lock the door behind him, leaving no message whatever for those crowds of importunate dealers, who, as Sheila fancied, were besieging him with offers in one hand and purses of gold in the other.
One morning, after she had been in-doors for two or three days, and had grown hopelessly tired of the monotony of watching that sunlit square, she was filled with an unconquerable longing to go away, for however brief a space, from the sight of houses. The morning was sweet, and clear, and bright, white clouds were slowly crossing a fair blue sky, and a fresh and cool breeze was blowing in at the open French windows.
“Bras,” she said, going down stairs and out into the small garden, “we are going into the country.”
The great deerhound seemed to know, and rose and came to her with great gravity, while she clasped on the leash. He was no frisky animal to show his delight by yelping and gamboling, but he laid his long nose in her hand, and slowly wagged the down-drooping curve of his shaggy tail; and then he placidly walked by her side up into the hall, where he stood awaiting her.
She would go along and beg of her husband to leave his work for a day, and go with her for a walk down to Richmond Park. She had often heard Mr. Ingram speak of walking down, and she remembered that much of the road was pretty. Why should not her husband have one holiday?
“It is such a shame,” she had said to him that morning as he left, “that you will be going into that gloomy place, with its bare walls and chairs, and the windows so that you cannot see out of them!”
“I must get some work done somehow, Sheila,” he said, although he did not tell her that he had not finished a picture since his marriage.
“I wish I could do some of it for you,” she said.
“You! All the work you’re good for is catching fish and feeding ducks and planting things in gardens. Why don’t you come down and feed the ducks in the Serpentine?”
“I should like to do that,” she answered. “I will go any day with you.”
“Well,” he said, “you see, I don’t know until I get along to the studio whether I can get away for the forenoon; and then if I were to come back here, you would have little or no time to dress. Good-bye, Sheila.”
“Good-bye,” she said to him; giving up the Serpentine without much regret.
But the forenoon had turned out so delightful that she thought she would go along to the studio, and hale him out of that gaunt and dingy apartment. She should take him away from town; therefore, she might put on that rough, blue dress in which she used to go boating in Loch Roag. She had lately smartened it up a bit with some white braid, and she hoped he would approve.
Did the big hound know the dress? He rubbed his head against her arm and hand when she came down, and looked up and whined almost inaudibly.
“You are going out, Bras, and you must be a good dog and not try to go after the deer. Then I will send a very good story of you to Mairi; and when she comes to London after the harvest is over, she will bring you a present from the Lewis, and you will be very proud.”
She went out into the square, and was, perhaps, a little glad to get away from it, as she was not sure of the blue dress and the small hat with its sea-gull’s feather being precisely the costume which she ought to wear. When she got into the Uxbridge road she breathed more freely, and in the lightness of her heart she continued the conversation with Bras, giving that attentive animal a vast amount of information, partly in English, partly in Gaelic, which he answered only by a low whine or a shake of his shaggy head.
But these confidences were suddenly interrupted. She had got down to Addison Terrace, and was contentedly looking at the trees and chatting to the dog, when by accident her eyes happened to light on a brougham that was driving past. In it – she beheld them both clearly for a brief second – were her husband and Mrs. Lorraine so engaged in conversation that neither of them saw her. Sheila stood on the pavement for a couple of minutes absolutely bewildered. All sorts of wild fancies and recollections came crowding in upon her – reasons why her husband was unwilling that she should visit his studio, why Mrs. Lorraine never called on her, and so forth, and so forth. She did not know what to think for a time; but presently all this tumult was stilled, and she had resolved her doubts and made up her mind as to what she should do. She would not suspect her husband – that was the one sweet security to which she clung. He had made use of no duplicity; if there were duplicity in the case at all he could not be the author of it. The reasons for his having of late left her so much alone were the true reasons. And if this Mrs. Lorraine should amuse him and interest him, who ought to grudge him this break in the monotony of his work? Sheila knew that she herself disliked going to those fashionable gatherings to which Mrs. Lorraine went, and to which Lavender had been accustomed to go before he was married. How could she expect him to give up all his old habits and pleasures for her sake? She would be more generous. It was her own fault that she was not a better companion for him, then, to think hardly of him because he went to the Park with a friend instead of going alone?
Yet there was a great bitterness and grief in her heart as she turned and walked on. She spoke no more to the deerhound by her side. There seemed to be less sunlight in the air, and the people and carriages passing were hardly so busy and cheerful and interesting as they had been. But all the same, she would go to Richmond Park, and by herself; for what was the use in calling in at the studio? and how could she go back home and sit in the house, knowing that her husband was away at some flower-show or morning concert, or some such thing, with that young American lady?
She knew no other road to Richmond than that by which they had driven shortly after her arrival in London; and so it was that she went down and over Hammersmith Bridge, and around by Mortlake, and so on by East Sheen. The road seemed terribly long. She was an excellent walker, and in ordinary circumstances would have done the distance without fatigue; but when at length she saw the gates of the Park before her, she was at once exceedingly tired and almost faint from hunger. Here was the hotel in which they had dined; should she enter? The place seemed very grand and forbidding; she had scarcely even looked at it as she went up the steps with her husband by her side. However, she would venture, and accordingly she went up into the vestibule, looking rather timidly about. A young gentleman, apparently not a waiter, approached her and seemed to wait for her to speak. It was a terrible moment. What was she to ask for? and could she ask it of this young man? Fortunately, he spoke first, and asked her if she wished to go into the coffee-room, and if she expected any one.
“No, I do not expect any one,” she said; and she knew that he would perceive the peculiarity of her accent; “but if you will be kind enough to tell me where I may have a biscuit – ”
It occurred to her that to go into the Star and Garter for a biscuit was absurd; and she added, wildly, “or anything to eat.”
The young man obviously regarded her with some surprise, but was very courteous, and showed her into the coffee-room and called a waiter to her. Moreover, he gave permission for Bras to be admitted into the room, Sheila promising that he would lie under the table and not budge an inch. Then she looked around. There were only three persons in the room – one, an old lady seated by herself in a far corner, the other two being a couple of young folks too much engrossed with each other to mind any one else. She began to feel more at home. The waiter suggested various things for lunch, and she made her choice of something cold. Then she mustered up courage to ask for a glass of sherry. How she would have enjoyed all this as a story to tell to her husband but for that incident of the morning! She would have gloried in her outward bravery, and made him smile with a description of her inward terror. She would have written about it to the old man in Borva, and bid him consider how she had been transformed, and what strange scenes Bras was now witnessing.
But all that was over. She felt as if she could no longer ask her husband to be amused by her childish experiences; and as for writing to her father, she dared not write to him in her present mood. Perhaps some happier time would come. Sheila paid her bill. She had heard her husband and Mr. Ingram talking about tipping waiters, and knew that she ought to give something to the man who had attended on her. But how much? He was a very august-looking person, with formally-cut whiskers and a severe expression of face. When he had brought back the change to her she timidly selected a half-crown and offered it to him. There was a little glance of surprise; she feared she had not given him enough. Then he said “Thank you!” in a vague and distant fashion, and she knew that she had not given him enough. But it was too late. Bras was summoned from under the table, and again she went out into the fresh air.
“Oh, my good dog!” she said to him, as they together walked up to the gates and into the Park, “this is a very extravagant country. You have to pay half-a-crown to a servant for bringing you a piece of cold pie, and then he looks as if he were not paid enough. And Duncan, who will do everything about the house, and will give us all our dinners, it’s only a pound a week he will get, and Scarlett has to be kept out of that. And wouldn’t you like to see poor old Scarlett again?”
Bras whined, as if he understood every word.
“I suppose now she is hanging out the washing on the gooseberry bushes, and you know the song she always used to sing then? Don’t you know that Scarlett carried me about long before you were born, for you are a mere infant compared with me? And she used to sing to me:
“Ged’ bheirte mi’ bho’n bhas so,
Mho Sheila bheag òg!”
And that is what she is singing just now in the garden; and Mairi she is bringing the things out of the washing house. Papa is over in Stornoway this morning, arranging his accounts with the people there; and perhaps he is down at the quay, looking at the Clansman, and wondering when she is to bring me into the harbor. The castle is all shut up, you know, with cloths over all the wonderful things, and the curtains all down, and most of the shutters shut. Do you think papa has got my letter in his pocket, and does he read it over and over again, as I read all his letters to me over and over again? Ah-h! You bad dog!”
Bras had forgotten to listen to his mistress in the excitement of seeing in the distance a large herd of deer under certain trees. She felt by the leash that he was trembling in every limb with expectation, and straining hard on the collar. Again and again she admonished him in vain, until she had at last to drag him away down the hill, putting a small plantation between him and the herd. Here she found a large umbrageous chestnut tree, with a wooden seat around its trunk, and so she sat down in the green twilight of the leaves, while Bras came and put his head in her lap. Out beyond the shadow of the tree all the world lay bathed in sunlight, and a great silence brooded over the long undulations of the Park, where not a human being was within sight. How strange it was, she fell to thinking, that within a short distance there were millions of men and women, while here she was absolutely alone? Did they not care, then, for the sunlight and the trees and the sweet air? Were they so wrapped up in those social observances that seemed to her so barren of interest?
“They have a beautiful country here,” she said, talking in a rambling and wistful way to Bras, and scarcely noticing the eager light in his eyes, as if he were trying to understand. “They have no rain and no fog; almost always blue skies, and the clouds high up and far away. And the beautiful trees they have, too! you never saw anything like that in the Lewis, not even at Stornoway. And the people are so rich and beautiful in their dress, and all the day they have only to think how to enjoy themselves and what new amusements is for the morrow. But I think they are tired of having nothing to do; or, perhaps, you know, they are tired because they have nothing to fight against – no hard weather and hunger and poverty. They do not care for each other as they would if they were working on the same farm, and trying to save up for the Winter; or if they were going out to the fishing, and very glad to come home again from Caithness to find all the old people very well and the young ones ready for a dance and a dram, and much joy and laughing and telling of stories. It is a very great difference there will be in the people – very great.”
Bras whined: perhaps he understood her better now that she had involuntarily fallen into something of her old accent and habit of speech.
“Wouldn’t you like, Bras, to be up in Borva again – only for this afternoon? All the people would come running out; and it is little Ailasa, she would put her arms around your neck; and old Peter McTavish, he would hear who it was, and come out of his house groping by the wall, and he would say, ‘Pless me! iss it you, Miss Sheila, indeed and mirover? It iss a long time since you hef left the Lewis.’ Yes it is a long time – a long time; and I will be almost forgotten what it is like sometimes when I try to think of it. Here it is always the same – the same houses, the same soft air, the same still sunlight, the same things to do and places to see – no storms shaking the windows or ships running into the harbor, and you cannot go down to the shore to see what has happened, or up the hill to look how the sea is raging. But it is one day we will go back to the Lewis – oh, yes, we will go back to the Lewis!”