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The Wizard's Son. Volume 3of 3

CHAPTER XVIII

The news that Lord Erradeen, and it was supposed several others – some went so far as to say a party of visitors, others his mother, newly arrived as all the world was aware, and to whom he was showing the old castle, with a young lady who was her companion – had perished in the fire, streamed down the loch nobody knew how, and was known and believed to the end of the country before the evening was over. It came to the party at Birkenbraes as they were sitting down to dinner, some time after everybody had come in from gazing at the extraordinary spectacle of the fire, got up, Mr. Williamson assured his guests, entirely for their amusement. The good man, however, had been much sobered out of that jocose mood by his encounter with the strange visitor whom he had first seen at Kinloch Houran, but had begun to draw a little advantage from that too, and was telling the lady next to him with some pride of Lord Erradeen's relation, a very distinguished person indeed. "I'm thinking in the diplomatic service, or one of the high offices that keep a man abroad all his life. (I would rather for my part live in a cottage at home, but that is neither here nor there.) So as he was leaving and naturally could not trouble the family about carriages just at such a moment, I offered him the boat: and you could see them getting up steam. I find it very useful to have a steam-boat always ready, just waiting at the service of my friends." The lady had replied as in duty bound, and as was expected of her, that it was a magnificent way of serving your friends, which the millionnaire on his side received with a laugh and a wave of his hand, declaring that it was nothing, just nothing, a bagatelle in the way of cost, but a convenience, he would not deny it was a convenience; when that discreet butler who had ushered Lord Erradeen into Katie's private sitting-room, leaned over his master's shoulder with a solemn face, and a "Beg your pardon, sir. They say, sir, that Lord Erradeen has perished in the fire."

"Lord bless us!" said Mr. Williamson, "what is that you say?"

"It is only a rumour, sir, but I hear Kinloch Houran is all in a commotion, and it is believed everywhere. The young lord was seen with some ladies going there in a boat this afternoon, and they say that he has perished in the flames."

Sanderson was fond of fine language, and his countenance was composed to the occasion.

"Lord bless us!" cried Mr. Williamson again. "Send off a man and horse without a moment's delay to find out the truth. Quick, man, and put down the sherry, I'll help myself! Poor lad, poor lad, young Erradeen! He was about this house like one of our own, and no later than yesterday – Katie, do you hear?" he cried, half rising and leaning over the forest of flowers and ferns that covered the table, "Katie! do you hear this terrible news? but it cannot be true!"

Katie had been told at the same moment, and the shock was so great that everything swam in her eyes, as she looked up blanched and terror-stricken in mechanical obedience to her father's cry. "That man will have killed him," she said to herself: and then there came over her mind a horror which was flattering too, which filled her with dismay and pain, yet with a strange sensation of importance. Was it she who was to blame for this catastrophe, was she the cause —

"It seems to be certain," said some one at the table, "that Erradeen was there. He was seen on the battlements with a lady, just before the explosion."

"His mother!" said Katie, scarcely knowing why it was that she put forth this explanation.

"A young lady. There is some extraordinary story among the people that she – had something to do with the fire."

"That will be nonsense," said Mr. Williamson. "What would a lady have to do with the fire? Old stone walls like yon are not like rotten wood. I cannot understand for my part – "

"And there could be no young lady," said Katie. "Mrs. Methven was alone."

"Well, well!" said her father. "I am sorry – sorry for Lord Erradeen; he was just as fine a young fellow – But we will do him no good, poor lad, by letting our dinner get cold. And perhaps the man will bring us better news – there is always exaggeration in the first report. I am afraid you will find that soup not eatable, Lady Mary. Just send it away; there is some fine trout coming."

He was sincerely sorry; but, after all, to lose the dinner would have spared nothing to poor young Erradeen.

Katie said little during the long meal. Her end of the table, usually so gay, was dull. Now and then she would break in with a little spasmodic excitement, and set her companions talking: then relapse with a strange mingling of grief and horror, and that melancholy elation which fills the brain of one who suddenly feels himself involved in great affairs and lifted to heroic heights. If it was for her – if it was she who was the cause of this calamity – She had dreamed often of finding herself with a high heroic part to fulfil in the world, though it seemed little likely that she would ever realise her dream; but now, Katie said to herself, if this was so, never more should another take the place which she had refused to him. If he had died for her, she would live – for him. She would find out every plan he had ever formed for good and fulfil it. She would be the providence of the poor tenants whom he had meant to befriend. She imagined herself in this poetical position always under a veil of sadness, yet not enough to make her unhappy – known in the county as the benefactor of everybody, described with whispers aside as "the lady that was to have married poor young Lord Erradeen." Katie was profoundly sorry for poor Walter – for the first few minutes her grief was keen; but very soon this crowd of imaginations rushed in, transporting her into a new world. If this were so! Already everybody at table had begun to remark her changed looks, and to whisper that they had been sure there was "something between" Katie and the poor young lord. When the ladies went to the drawing-room they surrounded her with tender cares.

"If you would like to go to your room, my dear, never mind us."

"Oh, never mind us," cried the gentle guests, "we can all understand – "

But Katie was prudent even at this crisis of fate. She reflected that the report might not be true, and that it was premature at least to accept the position. She smiled upon the ladies who surrounded her, and put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"Of course," she said, "I can't help feeling it – every one will feel it on the loch – and we had seen so much of him! But perhaps, as papa says, when the messenger comes back, we may have better news."

The messenger did not come back till late, when the party were about to separate. He had found the greatest difficulty in getting information, for all that was known at Auchnasheen was that the young lord and his mother had gone in the boat from the isle with the ladies, to see the old castle. With the ladies! Katie could not restrain a little cry. She knew what was coming. And he had been seen, the man went on, with Miss Oona on the walls – and that was all that was known. This stroke went to Katie's heart. "Oona!" she cried, with something of sharpness and bitterness in the cry; though in the wail that rose from all around who knew the isle, this tone that broke the harmony of grief was lost. But her little fabric of imaginary heroism fell into the dust: and for the moment the shock of a genuine, if alloyed, sentiment thrown back upon herself, and the secret mortification with which she became conscious of the absurdity of her own self-complacence, kept Katie from feeling the natural pity called forth by such a catastrophe, and the deeper pang which by-and-by awakened her heart to the thought of Oona – Oona no rival, but the friend of her youth, Oona the only companion of her mother, the young and hopeful creature whom everybody loved. To think that she should have indulged a little miserable rivalry – on account of a man for whom she did not care the hundredth part so much as she cared for Oona, before realising this real grief and calamity! Katie's honest little soul was bowed down with shame. She, too, watched that night with many a prayer and tear, gazing from her many-windowed chamber towards the feathery crest of the isle which lay between her and Kinloch Houran. Oh, the desolation that would be there and Oona gone! Oh, the blank upon the loch, and in all the meetings of the cheerful neighbours! Another man on horseback was sent off by break of day for news, and not only from Birkenbraes, but from every house for miles round the messengers hurried. There had been no such excitement in the district for generations.

The news reached the Lodge – Sir Thomas Herbert's shooting-box – early in the morning when the family met at breakfast. The previous night had been occupied with an excitement of their own. Major Antrobus, Sir Thomas's friend, brother in sport and arms, had been from the moment of his arrival a disappointment to Sir Thomas. The first evening Julia had caught him in her toils. She had sung and laughed and talked his heart, so much as remained to him, away. He was the man of all others who, his friends were convinced, was not a marrying man. He had a good estate, a house full of every bachelor comfort, and was useful to those in whom he was interested as only a bachelor can be. Nor was it only to men that he was invaluable as a friend. He had a box at Ascot; he had ways of making the Derby delightful to a party of ladies; he was of infinite use at Goodwood; he knew everybody whom it was well to know. Lady Herbert was almost as inconsolable as her husband at the idea of losing him. And that such a man should be brought by Sir Thomas himself into harm's way, and delivered over to the enemy by the very hands of his friends, was more than flesh and blood could bear. The Herberts saw their mistake before he had been at the Lodge two days. But what could they do? They could not send him away – nor could they send Julia away. Had they done so, that young lady had already made herself friends enough to have secured two or three invitations in a foolishly hospitable country, where everybody's first idea was to ask you to stay with them! Sir Thomas acted with the noble generosity characteristic of middle-aged men of the world in such circumstances. He told his friend, as they smoked their cigars in the evening, a great many stories about Julia, and all she had been "up to" in her chequered career. He described how Lady Herbert had brought her down here, because of some supposed possibility about Lord Erradeen. "But young fellows like that are not to be so easily taken in," Sir Thomas said, and vaunted his own insight in perceiving from the first that there was nothing in it. The major listened, and sucked his cigar, and said nothing; but next day on the way home, when the fire at Kinloch Houran was reddening the skies, took his host aside, and said —

"I say, all that may be true, you know. I don't know anything about that. Girls, you know, poor things! they've devilish hard lines, when they've got no tin. If she's tried it on, you know, once or twice before, that's nothing to me. That's all their mother's fault, don't you know. She's the jolliest girl I ever met, and no end of fun. With her in the house, you know, a fellow would never be dull, and I can tell you it's precious dull at Antrobus on off days, when all you fellows are away. I say! I've asked her – to be mine, you know, and all that; and she's – going to have me, Tom!"

"Going to have you! Oh, I'll be bound she is! and everything you've got belonging to you!" in the keenness of his annoyance, cried Sir Thomas.

The major, who was somewhat red in the face, and whose figure was not elegant (but what trifles were these, Julia truly said, in comparison with a true heart!), hemmed a little, and coughed, and set his chin into his shirt collar. He stood like a man to his choice, and would have no more said.

"Of course she is – if she's going to have me, you know. Fixtures go with the property," said Major Antrobus, with a hasty laugh. "And, I say, by-gones are by-gones, you know – but no more of them in the future if we're going to be friends."

The men had a quarrel, however, before Sir Thomas gave in – which was stopped fortunately before it went too far by his wife, who met them all smiles with both hands extended.

"What are you talking loud about, you two?" she said. "Major, I'm delighted. Of course I've seen it all along. She'll make you an excellent wife, and I wish you all the happiness in the world."

"Thank you: he don't think so," the major said with a growl.

But after this Sir Thomas perceived that to quarrel with a man for marrying your cousin whom he has met in your house is one of the foolishest of proceedings. He relieved his feelings afterwards by falling upon the partner of his life.

"What humbugs you women are! What lies you tell! You said she would make him an excellent wife."

"And so she will," said Lady Herbert, "a capital wife! He will be twice as happy, but alas! no good at all henceforward," she ended with a sigh.

The excitement of this incident was not over, when to the breakfast-table next morning, where Julia appeared triumphant, having overcome all opposition, the news arrived, not softened by any doubt as if the result was still uncertain, but with that pleasure in enhancing the importance of dolorous intelligence which is common to all who have the first telling of a catastrophe. There was a momentary hush of horror when the tale was told, and then Julia, her expression changed in a moment, her eyes swimming in tears, rose up in great excitement from her lover's side.

"Oh, Walter!" she cried, greatly moved. "Oh that I should be so happy, and he – " And then she paused, and her tears burst forth. "And his mother – his mother!"

She sat down again and wept, while the rest of the party looked on, her major somewhat gloomy, her cousin (after a momentary tribute of silence to death) with a dawning of triumph in his eye.

"You always thought a great deal of young Erradeen, Ju – at least since he has been Lord Erradeen."

"I always was fond of him," she cried. "Poor Walter! poor Walter! Oh, you can weigh my words if you like at such a time, but I won't weigh them. If Henry likes to be offended I can't help it. He has no reason. Oh, Walter, Walter! I was always fond of him. I have known him since I was that high – and his mother, I have always hated her. I have known her since I was that high. If you think such things go for nothing it is because you have no hearts. Harry, if you love me as you say, get your dog-cart ready this moment and take me to that poor woman – that poor, poor woman! His mother – and she has only him in all the world. Harry, take me or not but I will go – "

"You said you hated her, Julia," cried Lady Herbert.

"And so I did: and what does that matter? Shall I keep away from her for that – when I am the only one that has known him all his life – that knew him from a child? Harry – "

"I have ordered the dog-cart, my dear; and you are a good woman, Julia. I thought so, but with all your dear friends and people hang me if I knew."

Julia gave him her hand: she was crying without any disguise.

"Perhaps I haven't been very good," she said, "but I never was hard-hearted, and when I think upon that poor woman among strangers – "

"By Jove, but this is something new," cried Sir Thomas; "the girl that liked young men best without their mothers, Antrobus, hey?"

"Oh hush, Tom," cried his wife; "and dear Julia, be consistent a little – that you're sorry for your old – friend (don't laugh, Tom; say her old flame if you like, but remember that he's dead, poor fellow), that we can understand. Major Antrobus knows all that story. But this fuss about the mother whom you never could bear. Oh that is a little too much! You can't expect us to take in that!"

Julia turned upon her relations with what at bottom was a generous indignation. "If you don't know," she said, "how it feels to hear of another person's misfortune, when you yourself are happier than you deserve – and if you don't understand that I would go on my knees to poor Mrs. Methven to take one scrap of her burden off her! oh all the more because I never liked her – But what is the use of talking, for if you don't understand, nothing I could say would make you understand. And it does not matter to me now," cried Julia, less noble feelings breaking in, "now I have got one who is going to stand by me, who knows what I mean, and will put no bad motive – "

The real agitation and regret in her face gave force to the triumph with which she turned to her major, and taking his arm swept out of the room. He, too, had all the sense of dignity which comes from fine feeling misunderstood, and felt himself elevated in the scale of humanity by his superior powers of understanding. Lady Herbert, who remained behind, was saved by the humour of the situation from exploding, as Sir Thomas did. To think that the delicacy of the major's perceptions should be the special foundation of his bride's satisfaction was, as she declared with tears of angry laughter, "too good!"

But the second and better news arrived before Julia could set out on her charitable mission. Perhaps it was better that it should end so: for though the first outburst of feeling had been perfectly genuine and sincere, the impulse might have been alloyed by less perfect wishes before she had reached Kinloch Houran. And it is doubtful in any case whether her ministrations, however kind, would have been acceptable to Walter's mother. As it was, when she led her major back, Julia was too clever not to find a medium of reconciliation with her cousins, who by that time had come to perceive how ludicrous any quarrel open to the world would be. And so peace was established, and Julia Herbert's difficulties came in the happiest way to an end.

CHAPTER XIX

The miseries of the night's imprisonment were soon forgotten. Oona, elastic in youthful health, recovered in a few days, she said in a few hours, from its effects, and the keen reality of the after events dimmed in her mind the mystery of that extraordinary moment which appeared now like a dream, too wonderful to be true, too inexplicable and beyond experience to come into natural life at all. They spoke of it to each other with bated breath, but not till some time after their rescue, when the still higher excitement of their near approach to death – a thing which reveals the value and charm of life as nothing else does – had somewhat subsided in their minds. But their recollections were confused, they could not tell how; and as Walter had never been sure after they were over, whether the terrible conflicts which he had gone through were not conflicts between the better and worse parts of his own nature, without any external influence, so they asked each other now whether the mysterious chamber, the burning lamp, the strange accessories of a concealed and mysterious life, were dreams of disordered fancy, or something real and actual. They could not explain these things to each other, neither could they understand what it was that made the throwing down of the light of such vital importance. Was it common fire, acting after the ordinary laws of nature and finding ready fuel in the dry wood and antique furniture? or was it something more mystic, more momentous? They gave little explanation to questioners, not so much because they were unwilling, as because they were unable; and when they discussed it between themselves became more and more confused as the days went on. It became like a phantasmagoria, sometimes suddenly appearing in all the vivid lines of reality, sometimes fading into a pale apparition which memory could scarcely retain.

To the world in general the fact of a great fire, a thing unfortunately not very rare in the records of ancient houses, became after a while a very simple piece of history; and the wonderful escape of Lord Erradeen and Miss Forrester, and their subsequent betrothal and marriage, a pretty piece of natural romance. The tower, now preserving nothing more than a certain squareness in its mass of ruins, showed traces of two rooms that might have been, but everything was destroyed except the stones, and any remains that might have withstood the action of the fire were buried deep under the fallen walls; nor could any trace be found of concealed passages or any way of descent into the house from that unsuspected hiding-place. One thing was certain, however, that the being who had exercised so strange an influence on a year of his life never appeared to Walter more. There were moments in which he felt, with a pang of alarm, that concentration of his thoughts upon himself, that subtle direction and intensification of his mind, as if it had suddenly been driven into a dialogue with some one invisible, which had been the worst of all the sufferings he had to bear; but these, after the first terror, proved to be within the power of his own efforts to resist and shake off, and never came to any agonising crisis like that which he had formerly passed through. His marriage, which took place as soon as circumstances would permit, ended even these last contentions of the spirit. And if in the midst of his happiness he was sometimes tortured by the thought that the change of his life from the evil way to the good one had all the results of the most refined selfishness, as his adversary had suggested, and that he was amply proving the ways of righteousness to be those of pleasantness, and godliness to be great gain, that thought was too ethereal for common use, and did not stand the contact of reality. Mr. Cameron, to whom he submitted it in some moment of confidence, smiled with the patience of old age upon this overstrained self-torment.

"It is true enough," the minister said, "that the right way is a way of pleasantness, and that all the paths of wisdom are peace. But life has not said out its last word, and ye will have to tread them one time or other with bleeding feet, or all is done – if the Lord has not given you a lot apart from that of other men. And human nature," the old man said, not without a little recollection of some sermon, at which he smiled as he spoke, "is so perverse, that when trouble comes, you that are afraid of your happiness will be the first to cry out and upbraid the good Lord that does not make it everlasting. Wait, my young man, wait – till perhaps you have a boy at your side that will vex your heart as children only can vex those that love them – wait till death steps into your house, as step he must – "

"Stop!" cried Walter, with a wild sudden pang of that terror of which the Italian poet speaks, which makes all the earth a desert —

 
"Senza quella
Nova, sola, infinita,
Felicitá che il suo pensier figura."
 

He never complained again of being too happy, or forgot that one time or other the path of life must be trod with bleeding feet.

"But I'll not deny," said the minister, "that to the like of you, my young lord, with so much in your power, there is no happier way of amusing yourself than just in being of use and service to your poor fellow-creatures that want so much and have so little. Man!" cried Mr. Cameron, "I would have given my head to be able to do at your age the half or quarter of what you can do with a scratch of your pen! – and you must mind that you are bound to do it," he added with a smile.

But before this serene course of life began which Walter found too happy, there was an interval of anxiety and pain. Mrs. Methven did not escape, like the rest, from the consequences of the night's vigil. She got up indeed from her faint, and received with speechless thanksgiving her son back from the dead, as she thought, but had herself to be carried to his room in the old castle, and there struggled for weeks in the grips of fever, brought on, it was said, by the night's exposure. But this she would not herself allow. She had felt it, she said, before she left her home, but concealed it, not to be hindered from obeying her son's summons. If this was true, or invented upon the spur of the moment to prove that in no possible way was Walter to blame, it is impossible to say. But the fever ran very high, and so affected her heart, worn and tired by many assaults, that there was a time when everything was hushed and silenced in the old castle in expectation of death. By-and-by, however, that terror gave place to all the innocent joys of convalescence – soft flitting of women up and down, presents of precious flowers and fruits lighting up the gloom, afternoon meetings when everything that could please her was brought to the recovering mother, and all the loch came with inquiries, with good wishes, and kind offerings. Mrs. Forrester, who was an excellent nurse, and never lost heart, but smiled, and was sure, in the deepest depth, that all would "come right," as she said, took the control of the sick-room, and recovered there the bloom which she had partially lost when Oona was in danger. And Oona stole into the heart of Walter's mother, who had not for long years possessed him sufficiently to make it bitter to her that he should now put a wife before her. Some women never learn this philosophy; and perhaps Mrs. Methven might have resisted it, had not Oona, her first acquaintance on the loch, her tenderest nurse, won her heart. To have the grim old house in which the secret of the Methvens' fate had been laid up, and in which, even to indifferent lookers-on, there had always been an atmosphere of mystery and terror, thus occupied with the most innocent and cheerful commonplaces, the little cares and simple pleasures of a long but hopeful recovery, was confusing and soothing beyond measure to all around. The old servants, who had borne for many years the presence of a secret which was not theirs, felt in this general commotion a relief which words could not express. "No," old Symington said, "it's not ghosts nor any such rubbitch. I never, for my part, here or elsewhere, saw onything worse than myself; but, Miss Oona, whatever it was that you did on the tap of that tower – and how you got there the Lord above knows, for there never was footing for a bird that ever I saw – it has just been blessed. 'Ding down the nests and the craws will flee away.' What am I meaning? Well, that is just what I canna tell. It's a' confusion. I know nothing. Many a fricht and many an anxious hour have I had here: but I am bound to say I never saw anything worse than mysel'."

"All yon is just clavers," said old Macalister, waving his hand. "If ye come to that there is naething in this life that will bide explaining. But I will not deny that there is a kind of a different feel in the air which is maybe owing to this fine weather, just wonderful for the season; or maybe to the fact of so many leddies about, which is a new thing here – no that I hold so much with women," he added, lest Oona should be proud, "they are a great fyke and trouble, and will meddle with everything; but they're fine for a change, and a kind of soothing for a little whilie at a time, after all we've gone through."

Before the gentle régime of the sick-room was quite over, an unusual and unexpected visitor arrived one morning at Loch Houran. It was the day after that on which Mrs. Methven had been transferred to Auchnasheen, and a great festival among her attendants. She had been brought down to the drawing-room very pale and shadowy, but with a relaxation of all the sterner lines which had once been in her face, in invalid dress arranged after Mrs. Forrester's taste rather than her own, and lending a still further softness to her appearance, not to be associated with her usual rigid garb of black and white. And her looks and tones were the most soft of all, as, the centre of everybody's thoughts, she was led to the sofa near the fire and surrounded by that half-worship which is the right of a convalescent where love is. To this pleasant home-scene there entered suddenly, ushered in with great solemnity by Symington, the serious and somewhat stern "man of business" who had come to Sloebury not much more than a year before with the news of that wonderful inheritance so unexpected and unthought of, which had seemed to Mrs. Methven, as well as to her son, the beginning of a new life. Mr. Milnathort made kind but formal inquiries after Mrs. Methven's health, and offered his congratulations no less formally upon her recovery.

"I need not say to you that all that has happened has been an interest to us that are connected with the family beyond anything that I can express. I have taken the liberty," he added, turning to Walter, "to bring one to see you, Lord Erradeen, who has perhaps the best right of any one living to give ye joy. I told her that you would no doubt come to her, for she has not left her chamber, as you know, for many a year; but nothing would serve her but to come herself, frail as she is – "

"Your sister!" Walter cried.

"Just my sister. I have taken the liberty," Mr. Milnathort repeated, "to have her carried into the library, where you will find her. She has borne the journey better than I could have hoped, but it is an experiment that makes me very anxious. You will spare her any – emotion, any shock, that you can help?"

The serious face of the lawyer was more serious than ever: his long upper lip trembled a little. He turned round to the others with anxious self-restraint.

"She is very frail," he said, "a delicate bit creature all her life – and since her accident – "

He spoke of this, as his manner was, as if it had happened a week ago.

Walter hurried away to the library, in which he found Miss Milnathort carefully arranged upon a sofa, wrapped up in white furs instead of her usual garments, a close white hood surrounding the delicate brightness of her face. She held out her hands to him at first without a word; and when she could speak, said, with a tremble in her voice: