Chapter XXIX: ‘love Will Venture in Where Wisdom Aince Has Been.’

Clary was the first to utter a modified congratulation. The result might have been so much worse.

‘Never mind, Miss Janet; a month will soon be over. Everybody knows you meant no harm. It was all that horrid Fenton of Strathdivie, with his ridiculous will. Your friends will come and see you on all the visiting-days.’

‘Lassie,’ said Miss Janet, for she had grown familiar with her young ally, ‘do you think I would demean mysel’ to mak’ a moan, though we’ve been waur tret than thieves and vagabonds--hiz that have paid our taxes, the police-tax among them--every shillin’ to the Queen and country, since the year that my father died? I was only going to tell the judge that there had been word of our great-grandfather being sent to the Tooer of London, for although he was not just out with Prince Charlie, there was no doubt that the Mackinnon of that day waited on the Prince at Shawfield House. It would better have become the Croon to give his descendants lodgings in the Tooer, if so be we were to suffer imprisonment for settin’ wrang richt, than to send us to the common jile.’

‘Oh, Janet,’ Miss Bethia wailed, ‘think of the journey for Meye! They may put irons on us in the jile, but they cannot bring us to the block there.’

‘The block!’ cried Miss Janet. ‘It would be the hangman’s wuddie [gallows].’

‘No, no,’ Clary interposed fearlessly. ‘Why do you frighten your sister, Miss Janet, and slander the powers that be? You will only have to stay in comfortable rooms where you can have books and work and anything you wish, till you come out and return to your own house in St. Mungo’s Square, in the course of four weeks.’

When the Miss Mackinnons had tasted the penalties of modern captivity, had survived the first shock, and found themselves not fatally injured by it, they were heard to say that prisoners did not know what it was to live. If they had learnt to deny themselves, and to fare as ladies and gentlemen had often to fare, they would think little of imprisonment--rather, they would count it, if they had done no wrong of which they ought to repent and be ashamed, a very decent sort of refuge! Certainly folk could not get out when they wanted, but then they did not want to go out in rainy weather--and when did it not rain in the west? There was never a loss without a compensation. As for anything else--bed and board, fuel and light, the sufferers by the law’s severity were bold to complain. It was the innocent people that had to keep up comfortable gaols who were entitled to cry out, and perhaps it was but just that some time or other they should reap the benefit of what they had long contributed to maintain.

Unquestionably the Miss Mackinnons, in the philosophic spirit at which they had arrived, had all the alleviations which could be procured for them in their peculiar circumstances. Among these were the constant visits of Claribel Drysdale, who never missed a visiting-day. She had taken the Miss Mackinnons regularly under her protection. How and why she endured what was so antagonistic to her own taste, nobody could tell. The fact remained that she did it. She knew, as Maggie Craig had known before her, that the eccentric old ladies were come of the cream of old Glasgow; that in reality, some of their objectionable qualities were the growth of the arrogance and irreproachability of their ancient social claims. But then Claribel Drysdale had cared nothing for any cream of Glasgow, old or new; she had appeared to build her hopes and ambitions on a different foundation. Was it that, having been drawn into the use of her finer faculties, she enjoyed the exercise too keenly to be willing to relinquish it, or to consent to forego its reward? Was it that the rage of conquest came over her, conquest of elements the most opposed to those in her own character, conquest of herself as well as of others; a proud determination to show that she was equal to any difficulty, and mistress of it before she had done? Was it simply that deep down in Claribel Drysdale’s calm, strong, well-balanced nature, there was a fountain of self-devotion, and one had unlocked the spring? He possessed other and more evident attractions for her; but was the most potent attraction of all really what was helpless and hopeless in him, which, in place of provoking and repelling her, appealed irresistibly to her strength of purpose, her instinct of ruling, and talent for making the best of things?

Among Clary’s tastes had not been the rustic one of early rising, which had been found in her sister Eppie. Yet Claribel was, at this time, repeatedly the first at the breakfast-table at Drysdale Hall, which, as in all similar establishments, was regulated with a view to the men of the house setting off for business before the idler world was stirring. Clary would make the most unfaltering request for the use of the carriage at an unheard-of hour in the morning. Neither did she make the smallest concealment of her object. She was going to drive in to Glasgow, to the City prison, to see the Miss Mackinnons. She wished to be there as soon as the gates were opened.

Eppie junior marvelled; young Tam stared; Eppie senior looked troubled, but shrank from interfering. Auld Tam was blind. He even glanced up from his ham and egg to express his approbation.

‘It’s very gude of you, Clary, to think of the auld leddies in the trouble, in which there is no disgrace--none to forbid your going among them, even without your mither, at this hour. Still, it is very mindful and pretty of you, my dear.’

‘Not at all,’ said Claribel, turning her handsome face, unmoved in its clear paleness, on her father; ‘I go to please myself. I have taken the Miss Mackinnons under my care. They are my old ladies now.’

Plenty of people were remarking significantly on Miss Drysdale’s extraordinary attentions to three old, unattractive women, the victims of their idiotic conceit and silliness. Mrs. Drysdale well knew this, though she could not bring herself to transfer the knowledge to a quarter from which it might be energetically acted upon. Ill-natured tongues even went so far as to say that Lady Semple was enough a woman of the world to keep herself out of the entanglement. She had shown a little kindliness on her own account to the Miss Mackinnons because they had really become objects of pity, and her son had been in the same regiment and on intimate terms with young Mackinnon. But she had taken care never to accompany Claribel Drysdale to the gaol--Claribel Drysdale, who had been so particular and had not thought any man in Glasgow fit for her! She must have been engaged beforehand to the nephew--a penniless officer. Why had auld Tam Drysdale permitted it? Why did he not interfere now and put a stop to the engagement, when it was almost certain that Mr. Mackinnon must leave the army, and no longer retain his claim to as much as a subaltern’s rank and a starvation income? A fine end to Claribel Drysdale’s proud pretensions!

But auld Tam was possessed by another idea, and saw nothing of what was passing before his very eyes.

The last time Clary drove, before women like her were to be seen abroad, to that strange destination for a girl in the upper classes, and waited in the carriage till the time to enter, she caught a glimpse of Eneas Mackinnon, with a similar intention, standing where he could best escape observation. Even from the little she could see of him, she could judge that he looked ill and dejected. The next moment she alighted and walked towards him, coming up behind him and making him turn, startled by the quiet mention of his name--‘Mr. Mackinnon.’

He shook hands with her in silence, colouring highly as he did so.

‘Why don’t you say “well met”?’ she rallied him.

‘Well met here!’ he exclaimed with more desperate sadness than bitterness, for he was hardly ever a bitter man.

‘Yes; why not here, when it is for the last time? Your aunts will be free in three days.’

‘Well, I suppose for their sakes I ought to rejoice,’ he said with an effort; ‘as I should thank you for your great kindness to them.’

‘No, indeed; no thanks. I told my father that already this morning. I come to please myself. I have taken the old ladies under my wing.’

He looked at her wistfully, but when he spoke again he had dropped her out of the conversation.

‘I ought not to grudge them their release, poor old souls,’ he said slowly. ‘They brought me up, and have always cared for me a hundred times more than I deserve, and I have not been able to do anything for them. I know now, though I was a dolt at the time, that when my aunt Bethia had fever, the whole family might have died of starvation, but for the help which your father and Dr. Murray gave them. I may well forgive the most egregious of their blunders--of course they did not know the mischief they were doing to themselves or any other person. But they have put the finishing-touch to my disadvantages--to the gross mistake which stranded me in the army--not that I have any reason to suppose I could have done much good in any other profession. I had better walk into the Clyde at once, and save myself and my friends further trouble which will be ill repaid.’

‘You--a soldier!’ she said, in her low distinct voice.

‘I shall not be a soldier much longer,’ he declared. ‘Why should I bring a slur upon the service to which I have been a small gain at the best, by continuing in it after the pass to which my people have brought themselves and me?’ and he looked up at the prison walls. ‘This is a little incident in my family history which will not be forgotten.’

‘Don’t seek that it should be forgotten--a foolish, I grant you very foolish, but perfectly guileless mistake of three old ladies--why, it was a thing innocent children might have done. I wish your brother officers may have nothing worse to reveal in the histories of their families,’ she said fearlessly.

‘You are too good,’ he told her again. ‘But the very absurdity of the affair will perpetuate its memory. I do not wish to blame anybody, I do not wish to crave pity from you; but it is the last straw which breaks the camel’s back.’

‘Then the camel should get somebody else to help to bear it.’

‘Who would?’ he asked quickly. ‘I have nothing to offer in return but the miserable pittance of a lieutenant in a marching regiment, which I can only make pay my own expenses by scraping and saving. Miss Drysdale, you can’t tell what a manager I am,’ he said, with a little bitterness this time; ‘how I save up my stores and make my old clothes do double duty, like an old woman. What would the rich young Glasgow fellows think if they saw behind the scenes? They have a tolerably accurate knowledge, indeed, that I am impecunious, but wouldn’t they laugh awfully at my dodges?’

‘The rich young Glasgow fellows,’ she said, with scorn, ‘would half empty their purses to be like you in some respects, and they would do well to make the little sacrifice. But I know more of the rich young Glasgow girls. I suppose you would say we were very extravagant; at least, so Lady Semple tells me. We would give more for a lace flounce, or a fur trimming, than would keep a poor, respectable middle-class family for a year. And it is not all in bad taste, some of us dress tolerably well--confess it, Mr. Mackinnon,’ she demanded--gaily for Clary, who was generally too dignified to be gay.

‘Your dress, like everything else about you, is perfection; and that’s what drives poor devils to destruction,’ he muttered, half-piqued, half-puzzled.

‘I have always liked to dress well, and to dress in a way that becomes a rich man’s daughter; but do you suppose I should care to do it if--if I were a poor man’s wife? Don’t you see it would no longer be in keeping? It is not so much the dress as the sense of fitness I mind.’

‘But you would not be in your right place as a poor man’s wife,’ he said in agitation; ‘no penniless wretch of a subaltern would presume.’

‘We were not talking of subalterns,’ she said demurely; ‘and as for presumption, could it be presumption if the person most concerned did not think so?’

‘Claribel!’ he said.

‘Eneas!’ she answered.

‘It would be dishonourable in me to take advantage of your generosity.’ He struggled to act up to his conception of the character of a gentleman. ‘I can hardly keep myself--we should have to be dependent on your father. He would never consent. I have felt before now that he desired to hold me at arm’s length--that you might have nothing to say to me, though lately he has not thought it worth his while to use such precautions. He has been a good friend to my poor old aunts in their trouble; but I have sunk fathoms in his estimation, socially.’

She listened without contradicting him; indeed, she admitted candidly:

‘I don’t say you are wrong. My father has a greater respect for the old than for the young Mackinnons. He does not think you are a match for a Drysdale.’ It was plain speaking, and he winced. She went on--‘But when I marry, it will be I who marry, and not my father. No one knows that better than he, and he is good and kind, as well as clever and successful. He is respected for more than his wealth and social position. I am sure he could not be utterly inconsistent if he tried.’

‘I have no doubt your father is all you say,’ said the Lieutenant, but in anything rather than an assured tone.

‘He’s not a small tyrant,’ insisted Claribel. ‘He is neither unfair nor cruel. He may disapprove, but he will not long dispute my right of choice, or refuse me a daughter’s portion, when he is convinced that I am in earnest.’

‘I trust you are right,’ he said nervously; ‘but it seems too splendidly good news to be true; I cannot believe it. I fear I must be taking a mean advantage of your---- ’

‘Simplicity,’ she finished his sentence for him with a laugh. ‘No, don’t treat me as a simpleton, and please don’t distress yourself on my account, as if I had become your prey--for it is really too good of you. I have always known what I was about--always seen and taken what suited me best; and if I find, on mature consideration, that you suit me--why need you object? You don’t really, else I should not have said what I have--I should not be here at all, I dare say.’

‘Object!’ he exclaimed, in a tone which carried conviction with it.

‘There is one advantage of being come of the people,’ she proceeded calmly. ‘Have you never observed how much the rich Glasgow girls manage their own lives and settle their fortunes? I am not a great admirer of the causes which have led to such a result, but I have always claimed my independence, and prized it, and my father would be the last to seek to deprive me of it.’

‘I hope you are right,’ he said emphatically.

‘I am right,’ she told him; ‘neither my father nor my mother are, even in theory, aristocratic parents. They would never dream of coercing their children--at least, not their daughters. I am not certain whether my father might not have been tempted to use indirect influence where my brother was concerned, to get him to enter the business, my father’s heart was so set upon it. But that is quite another thing from interfering with his daughters in what is their affair. If my father is not altogether willing, I don’t think your aunts will find fault,’ she said, with a womanly archness that was both wonderful and charming in Clary.

‘No, indeed; but how shall I ever thank you?’

‘By believing and trusting me. Don’t you see that will be your duty and privilege henceforth?’

Thus, in the raw morning, in that doleful place, where miserable men and women were wont to meet and part, two hearts went together and sang their song of joy, as if they had been in Eden. At the gate of Glasgow Gaol, Claribel Drysdale, the proudest girl in Glasgow, plighted her troth and resigned her liberty--if that could be called resigning, which was in fact taking Eneas Mackinnon under her protection, and determining to make the most of him, as of herself, in all time to come.