Chapter XXXV

SIR HUGO LAYS HIMSELF AND WILLOUGHBY COURT AT YOUNG EPPIE’S FEET.

Guy Horsburgh threw up his last futile attempt to restrain Sir Hugo, to keep him back from a declaration of his sentiments before he had got time to cool, or before any aristocratic friend or batch of friends could interfere in his interests. Sir Hugo was of age; he was his own master, he could go his own way, as he showed every inclination to do. For the rest, Lady Willoughby must see to it, though Guy had first brought her son to Glasgow.

After all, the result was not so deplorable or so unexampled as it might have been. Sir Hugo was going to ally himself with trade; but so had earls and marquises before him. He was on the eve of proposing to marry one of the loveliest, sweetest girls in the West of Scotland, with a large fortune, if auld Tam cleared himself, as he certainly would, from the reverses of bad times. Sir Hugo might go farther and fare worse. Lady Willoughby might have an infinitely less satisfactory daughter-in-law thrust upon her. The whole Willoughby race might have reason to bless the day which had sent Sir Hugo to woo and win a fair and good Glasgow heiress.

Unquestionably Sir Hugo thought so. He was in the seventh heaven of young love--worthy as it was ardent, unlikely to be balked, and yet not so certain of its crowning success as to lack the stimulus of doubt and difficulty, the excitement of the chase. Would young Eppie Drysdale quit her country and her people, leave father and mother--though it was in the Bible that it could and should be done--for him, to go where he went, to dwell where he dwelt, to make his people, with their different ways, her people and her ways, till nothing but death should part her and him?

The gossips of St. Mungo had little doubt of the answer. They had lately wavered a little in their long-standing conviction of auld Tam’s luck. He was known to be ‘bitten’ by more than one of the unfortunate traders who were succumbing on all sides to the ebb of the tide of trade. It was generally rumoured that his only son and elder daughter were about to make inferior matches. But the news of the probable engagement of Tam’s younger daughter--a mere schoolgirl--to a grand young English baronet, with a ‘Court’ to take her to, quite restored the balance of her father’s reputation for good fortune. Tam Drysdale knew what he was about, and he would keep at the top of the tree in spite of contradictions such as fell to the lot of the most prosperous of men. Young Eppie Drysdale ‘Lady Willoughby of Willoughby Court!’ Auld Tam might have been the Lord Provost and his daughter not fared so well.

That was the summer of life for some of the family at Drysdale Hall, though they were also the days in which little Eppie awoke to find herself a woman, to relinquish reluctantly her bright care-free girlhood, to realize her lot of merging her life in that of another, and being ready to sacrifice herself for him. If ever there were idyls enacted in modern times, that suit of Sir Hugo’s, under the blatant auspices of trade, was one of them. He was so young, generous, and devoted; she was so simple and so sweet, so unworldly in her coming promotion, so unmoved by it, so genuinely humble, still so tenderly attached to all that she was nevertheless preparing to give up. Her nature, in place of being hardened and tarnished by the gain which came to her--as it must have come to every true woman in her circumstances--tempered by loss, was deepened and purified. All who had eyes to see stood still to look on and be moved by the domestic drama, when Eppie clung closer than ever to her father and mother, and spent upon them her most winsome wiles at the very time that she was singing ‘My love she’s but a lassie yet,’ and ‘What ails this heart o’ mine?’ every evening to Sir Hugo, hanging entranced upon her words. She did not so much as forget once poor deaf little Willie Finlay, or Beardie, or Whitebreeks, when the time came that Sir Hugo sought, with many excuses and apologies, almost to live at Drysdale Hall, when he was a miserably restless and discontented fellow if he was half a day out of the presence of its younger daughter in which he basked, when he haunted her and all connected with her like an exacting ghost. If he could not quite say of her that he

‘Gat her down by yonder knowe,
Smiling on a broomy knowe,
Herding ae wee lamb and ewe,
For her puir mammy;’

he could aver that he found her continually going on some errand of filial affection or human kindness. He called himself thrice blessed when she suffered him to meet her father with her, in her company to wait upon her mother, to do young Tam’s bidding, to find something Clary wanted, to choose a picture-book for Willie Finlay, to take a warm jacket to Willie’s consumptive cousin Maggie, to carry bones to Beardie and knobs of sugar to Whitebreeks.

When Sir Hugo thought of Eppie’s relations to her homely father and mother, he contrasted them with what he had read, but declined manfully to believe, of ‘girls of the period.’ These daughters at ease were said to despise, in place of honouring, their fathers and mothers; to blush--not alone for the faults of the girls’ progenitors, but for harmless peculiarities and rusticities which ought to have been sacred--might even have been dear--to the children of the perpetrators. Such girls were freely represented as rebelling against the lawful authority of their parents, and hating them with a hideous unnatural hatred. Sir Hugo was too good a fellow, too sensible and manly, to have much faith in the general existence of these unwomanly young women, and undisciplined, undutiful heroines. But he recalled what he had seen of a very different order of girls living under the same roof with their fathers and mothers, yet practically apart from them, divided from them by a host of half-real, half-artificial obligations, trained to separate interests, occupations, and goals. Then his heart grew full, and he thanked God fervently that he had been shown another description of girl, another description of daughter--how true, how tender! one whom he could give to his own good mother, and know that he was rewarding her for all her care and affection where he was concerned, by bestowing on her--whether she knew it at first, or not, she would live to know it--the best of children.

It was as if the world had grown young again this autumn at Drysdale Hall, and many who got a glimpse of scenes enacted in Paradise were touched by them, and became for the moment softened men and women. It was not only auld Tam and his Eppie who were thus affected--young Tam, with his dash of cynicism in his very philanthropy and his Radical views, did not accuse Sir Hugo of narrow arrogance and assumption, but was indulgent to him. Even young Tam was susceptible, shame-facedly, of a good deal of wondering half-humorous gratification at the idea of his sister, wild little Eppie, becoming Lady Willoughby. He secretly read up the English county history, which expatiated on the dignity and local benefactions of the Willoughbys, and on the antiquarian and architectural glories of the Lincolnshire Court. Insensibly Tam’s bearing altered a little towards his young sister. It was not only softer, with a lurking, wistful affection in anticipation of losing her--a creature so deservedly dear to the family; it had a certain instinctive respect for the girl who was so soon to achieve matronly honours, who had made a slave of a fellow with wit and independence in his own line, like Sir Hugo, so that he stooped from his class and defied their censure, in seeking a city girl for the future mistress of his home.

And all the time she to whom this subtle tribute was paid thought hardly at all, unless it were with fear and trembling, of rank such as Sir Hugo owned, and social position like that to which he would raise her.

Claribel had foreseen young Eppie’s conquest from the beginning, and accepted it fully. Now, in the engrossment of her own very different engagement to Eneas Mackinnon, tacitly allowed by her father, without a word spoken, Clary not only welcomed her sister’s higher fortunes--she found leisure and energy to try to prepare Eppie for them. It was not by polishing her manners, for, since these had their share in captivating Sir Hugo, Clary wisely left off attempting to improve upon them, deciding that they had their charm for ancient gentility. It was in gently opening Eppie’s eyes to what the future held for her, and accustoming her to the change which awaited her.

Claribel had taken great pleasure in presiding over Eppie’s toilet lately, and in insisting that her particular style and taste should have every advantage which high art and accomplished modistes could give them.

‘I don’t wish you to be anything save yourself, Eppie dear,’ said Clary. ‘I do not know that you could be greatly improved, and I am certain I should never be forgiven if I destroyed your identity. Somebody’s indignation would pursue me for the rest of my days. But there are various kinds of simplicity, and you ought to deal in the most perfect kind, which unites nature and art. You are bound to use the allowance that my father makes to each of us, which, as you have just grown up, you have entered upon so lately, you little chit. But to use it as the giver intended is not to spend the greater part of it in presents to him and my mother, which you know they do not require, though they may be pleased by your thinking of them in that way, and in gifts to servants and children and poor people. You ought to learn to have your dress, your _tout ensemble_, according to your station, or harm will come of it. That reminds me, when I came out I got my choice of any set of jewels short of diamonds, like mother’s, that I preferred, and I took corals. What will you have? Not topazes--they are pink, but you must not be all pink. I should have opals if I were you, Eppie; they suit any colour, and they would not be too much for you.’

‘Oh! don’t speak about it, Clary,’ cried Eppie, half-radiant, half-shrinking. ‘I think father has a good deal to do with his money this year. I am sure he looks duller than he used to look. I can scarcely ever get him to make fun and laugh, as I once could-I heard Tam and Dr. Peter speaking of bad trade.’

‘What has a baby like you to do with bad trade?’ demanded Claribel incredulously. ‘Do you think what we spend makes any difference to our father? What the whole house spends is a drop in the ocean of his business outlay. It would be another thing if one of us married a poor man, a man with a small settled income, which could never become much larger--like an officer’s pay,’ added Clary, with a meaning smile; ‘then that foolish woman must cut her gown according to her cloth.’

‘And wouldn’t she be happy to do it if it were for her man’s sake!’ cried Eppie, blushing very red and taking Clary aback by a sudden hug, which hid Eppie’s blushes.

‘Oh, my gown, Eppie!’ protested Clary.

‘What about your gown?’ replied Eppie recklessly, returning to the main point. ‘Oh, I like you for it, Clary; and I am so glad to see that father is beginning to take to the Lieutenant.’

‘Is he? I am not sure,’ said Claribel, with unwonted indecision. ‘My father has puzzled me lately. All the same, child, I am very thankful that you are not going to follow my example. One disinterested goose is enough in a family. I did not mean to be that goose, but Fate and Eneas Mackinnon have been too strong for me. Fancy poor dear Eneas being too strong for anybody! But there are those who overcome by lack of strength--if passive endurance is lack of strength. I am strong enough in the common, vulgar way, for both: I believe I have been wasted in the family for want of somebody to take care of, you are all so well off and independent. I first found my mission when the old Miss Mackinnons suffered me to look after them. But don’t let us forget what we are talking about--you must have your opals, Eppie.’

‘They are things that should belong to a grand lady. It would fike me to take care of them.’

‘But you are going to be a grand lady, little woman; and if you are not able to keep opals, what are you to do with diamonds? I have no doubt old Lady Willoughby has family diamonds which will pass to her son’s wife.’

‘She is not old,’ cried Eppie, staunch as ever in maintaining the earthly immortality of her seniors. ‘He says he remembers her looking so young and pretty, in spite of her widow’s cap. She was not twenty-three when his father died,’ explained Eppie shyly and softly. ‘She will wear her diamonds as long as she lives--who has such a good right? who would take them from her?--and she will leave them to whom she likes. I’m sure he would say so. But oh, it is all nonsense!’ broke off Eppie, in trepidation. ‘I wish you would not speak about it, Clary. He has never speered me; and do you think I could bear to go away from father and mother and all of you at Drysdale Hall, where I’ve been so happy? It would just kill me.’

‘You would come alive again and live for him,’ said Claribel, with smiling faith. ‘He has not asked you in so many words to be his wife. Perhaps as you are so young, though he is young himself, he may choose to put the question to my father first. But I know he has talked to you by the hour of his home, and how you would like it, and what you would do there. As he is a gentleman and not an adventurer, true and not false, you will have it in your power to be the mistress of Willoughby Court, and you will not send him away--such a nice fellow as he is--disconsolate. I wonder if you will condescend to receive a poor officer and his wife some day at your fine place, Eppie?’

The suggestion was too much for Eppie in the highly-wrought state of her feelings. What was she, that she should ever live to patronize Clary and the Lieutenant? The bare idea smote her with affront and distress, so that she burst into hysterical tears, and had to be coaxed and scolded back into composure.

Auld Tam and his Eppie were stirred to the very depths of their natures, when the destiny of their darling was wrought out before their eyes. Many a time Mrs. Drysdale, even while her motherly eyes glistened with pride and joy, withdrew to ‘greet’ (weep) in secret over the relinquishment of her child. To think that little Eppie, who had always been as fondly faithful to her earliest ties as when she was a toddling child, who had never been three months absent from home, or a week away from her father and mother since she was born, should

‘Aye be awa’,’

and in the very greatness of her marriage parted from them by barriers to which the Cheviots and the Tweed were nothing; to remember that if she had waited for some years, and married in an ordinary fashion a moderately thriving manufacturer or merchant in her father’s circle, she might have been settled near Drysdale Hall--she might have seen her whole family two or three times a week as a matter of course--these considerations ought to have been a cure for ambition. But the mother was equal to the offering up of her very heart’s blood for the object of her love. Being sure of ‘Sir Hughie,’ as Mrs. Drysdale believed herself, that he was a fine lad who would be good to young Eppie, the mother would not stand as an obstacle in the daughter’s path. She would be ready when the time came to do more than cut off a right hand and pluck out a right eye. So that little Eppie might be a grand lady, loved and honoured in a higher sphere, then big Eppie, who had borne her and delighted in her young charms, would be content with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table, with passing glimpses of her bairn, and more or less distant reports of her dignity and happiness.

Auld Tam was not so sure either of his child or of himself. Young Eppie would be safe, though there should be a storm and downfall--that was one good thing which had tempted him. But could he endure to think that she would go where she might be looked down on, instead of made much of--scorned in place of cherished? Her little rustic ways, with love lying at their root, though ‘Sir Hugie’ had not minded them, or had gone so far as to be captivated by them, for a change, in these his red-hot love days, might look different in his eyes when the ways had lost their novelty, and marriage had cooled his passion and restored his judgment. Trifles like these sometimes made mischief between man and wife.

Tam Drysdale could ill stand the thought of his innocent, loving lassie being mortified and ‘lichtlied’ (slighted). He would come bound that she would never ‘lichtly’ her mother and him in her turn--it was not in her constant, gentle heart. But she might be taught to ‘think shame’ for those who had been first with her--whom, until now, in her guilelessness and goodness, she had well-nigh worshipped.

That was a prospect which auld Tam had difficulty in facing. He did not doubt ‘Sir Hugie’ in so far as that he meant well and was an honourable and kindly-disposed young gentleman. But Tam Drysdale had heard that like should mate with like, and he could not pretend to say that his bairn--bonnie and dear as she was to him--ought to be reckoned a fit match for a real gentleman--a titled gentleman of solid acres and long descent. And if in the time to come ‘Sir Hugie’ should be further disappointed in what he might conceive he had a right to expect--should have reason to say that he had not been candidly and honestly dealt with--could auld Tam be certain that the disappointment and the offence would not be visited on a blameless victim? The retaliation might not be open, but indirect and half unconscious, partly concealed from the very person who was guilty of the meanness of using such weapons, so as to be less easy to challenge and denounce; but the undeserved punishment would fall on the tender heart, already writhing under a sense of the failure of those it had once exalted.

To Tam’s other heavy troubles was added yet this one more grave perplexity, whether in promoting young Eppie’s great marriage he was not really wronging her, his pet lamb, worst of all, and cruelly risking her best chance of happiness.

When all else was said, a quivering note of interrogation was added to what went before--Had the business not gone too far to be stopped? Was it possible for him still to draw back? Poor auld Tam! he was pulled two ways and torn in different directions, till he hovered on the verge of distraction.

Little wonder that Tam Drysdale, towards the end of Sir Hugo’s courtship, looked, as often as not, heavy and displeased on what was evidently approaching its legitimate conclusion. He caused the bystanders to exclaim in a high key among themselves--What would the man be at?--was there no end to his ambition? Did he seek dukes for his daughters? or was it a mere feint of indifference and scanty approval, unworthy of auld Tam’s character for sincerity?