"how is the poor child, bridget kennedy? does she fare as she should do?"
"the child is as fine a child, master hector, as if she had been a boy, and a garret, on both sides of the house, and will thrive if her mother will let her. there are mothers that would hinder their bairns in the death-rattle, and there are others that so watch their little ones that the angels of god are displaced from their cradles; and the weary human care haunts and harasses the infant, and stops its growth."
"i am not learned in these matters, bridget. you brought me up; i trust you to rear my children."
"none shall rear them but their mother, master hector; none shall come between her and them. i have ruled long at otter, but i dare not dispute with her there."
"settle it as you like. i did not mean them—i was not thinking of them at all. i asked for their mother. you have experience. is she well—happy as she should be?"
[page 249]"i wish you would not provoke such mistakes, master hector," said bridget, pettishly; "i wish you would find some other name for your wife. you should know best, but is it suitable to term the nursling and the parent by the same title? i am a foolish old woman, but it seems strange to me. your father did not confound them."
"ah! i dare say not. we will find a christian name for the new comer, and end the comedy of errors, since you dislike it, and leslie too, doubtless; for women are nice on these points."
"leslie, what shall we call the baby?" inquired hector garret the next time he stood by his wife's side, wishing to divert her by a pleasant difficulty, and to vary the expression of those large eyes—larger now than ever—which, he knew not why, fascinated him by the intensity of their gaze. "i cause bridget to blunder oddly between you two; so set her at rest by fixing as soon as you can the momentous question."
"i have fixed," answered leslie, quietly.
"i commend your foresight; a man, now, would have left the alternative open to the last."
"mrs. garret's first daughter must be named after mrs. garret's mother," declared bridget, authoritatively.
"no," said leslie, hastily; "i have named her after myself—if you do not object," she added, with a flush, half shame, half pride.
"i? oh, no; do as you will. it will not solve bridget's puzzle; but i am content. leslie is a bonnie name."
leslie compressed her lip.
[page 250]"my mother's name is bonnier," she said, abruptly; "my mother's name is alice."
he started, and gazed at her keenly while she continued, falteringly, but with a stubborn will in her speech:—
"i wish my baby to be mine in everything, particularly as she is a girl. i am neither wise nor clever, nor strong now. i fear i am often peevish; but you will excuse me, because i am a weak, ignorant woman. such defects are not fatal in a mother; hundreds have overcome them for their children. i trust that i will be, if not what a better woman might have been, at least more to my child than any other can be. her mother!—so holy a tie must confer some peculiar fitness. yes; my baby is mine, and must lie on my knees, and learn to laugh in my poor face. and so i wish her to have my name also, that there may be a complete union between us."
hector garret knew now what intelligence had reached his wife, and while the old wound burnt afresh, the shyness of his still but sensitive nature, the pride of the grave strong man, were offended and injured. but with regard to his wife he was only conscious of the petulant, unreasonable, unkind surface; he did not sound her deep resentment and jealousy; he did not dream of the anguish of the secret cry whose outward expression struck upon his vexed ears; he did not hear her inner protest: "i will not have my baby bear his love's name, recall her to him, be a memorial of her—be addressed with fondness as much for the sake of old times as for her own, the innocent!—be brought up to resemble alice, trained to follow [page 251]in her footsteps, until, if i died, my child would be more alice boswell's than mine. never, never!"
hector garret little knew leslie bower; slowly he arrived at the discovery. first a troubled suspicion, then a dire certainty. not the transparent, light-hearted, humble girl, whom a safe, prosperous country home, an honourable position, a kindly regard, left more than satisfied—happy: but the visionary, enthusiastic woman, confiding, but claiming confidence for confidence; tender and true, but demanding like sincerity, constancy, purity, and power of devotion. had he but known her the first! but a man's fate lies in one woman. had he but left her in her girlish sweetness and gaiety; had he never approached her with his cold overtures—his barren, artificial expediency and benevolence! she erred in ignorance and inexperience; but he against the bitter fruit of knowledge, in wilful tampering with truth—reluctantly, misgivingly—selfishly cozening his conscience, hardening himself in unbelief, applying salve to the old vital stab to his independence. he had erred with an egotistical and presumptuous conceit of protecting and defending the young full life which would have found for itself an outlet, and flown on rapid, free, and rejoicing, had he only refrained from diverting its current into a dull, dark, long-drained channel, where it was dammed up, or oozed out sluggishly, gloomily, despairingly—without natural spring-time, sunshine, abundance, gladness, until lost in the great sea.
he had viewed but the soft silken bud, whose deep cup was drunk with dew,—its subtle, spicy fragrance pervad[page 252]ing, lingering after the leaves were drooping and the bloom fled, but its rich, royal hues were yet to come. in his blind coarse blundering, he had mistaken the bud for the flower, the portal for the church; he had entered with heedless, profane foot, and blighted the blossom and rifled the altar. for the leaves had been unclosed, the gates unbarred under his neglect; and leslie, with a noble woman's frankness, generosity, and meekness—that true meekness which oftenest cleaves and melts the ringing metal of a high spirit—leslie had begun to love him, to fix her heart upon him, to grow to him—stolid, sardonic statue that he was!—until that shock exposed his flaws and wrenched her from her hold. better to be thus rudely dissevered, perhaps, than to waste her womanliness, puny and pale from its vague bald nourishment, on a fraud and a farce.
hector garret awoke from his delusion, from his scholarly reveries, his active enterprise. "he that provideth not for his own house is worse than an infidel." so he watched leslie: he saw her rise up with her thoughtful face, very individual it appeared now, and go up and down carrying her baby. he was aware that she was appropriating it as her treasure; that she was saying to herself some such words—"silver and gold have i none, but this is my pearl beyond price; she will be enough for me; she must be so; i will make her so. she and i will waste no more silly tears on hard, changeable men. they are not like us, little daughter; they pass us by, or they love us once with fierce desire; and when satiated or balked, they turn to us again to please their eye, flatter their ear, vary their leisure; to anatomize and torture like [page 253]other favourites of an hour. we will have none of them, save to do our duty. we will live for each other."
not that she deprived him of his rights as a father; she was too magnanimous to be unjust, and she would not have balked that puppet, to whose service she consecrated herself, of one privilege which any pangs of hers could purchase.
she presented their child to him with a serious stateliness, as if it was so very solemn a ceremony that its performance emancipated her from ordinary emotion; she came and consulted him on the small questions that concerned its welfare with the same absorbing care. if he came near her when she bore the child in her arms, she offered it to him immediately: she was righteous as well as valiant—yes, very valiant. he contemplated her stedfastness with wonder. after the blow which overcame her, when a compensation was given her—a blessing to atone for the gall in her cup, she accepted it and cherished it, and set herself to be grateful for it and worthy of it immediately. the fortitude which, after the involuntary, inevitable rebellion, would permit no more idle repining, the decent pride that hid its own disease and bore it bravely, even the sternness that set its teeth against reaction—he recognised them all; it was studying the reflection of his own lofty features in the fragile, quivering flesh of a girl.
what is often proposed, rarely practised, leslie did. she changed her ways: with what travail of spirit, what heart-sickness she alone could tell. it is no common slight or safe influence that causes a revulsion in the whole [page 254]bodily system; it is no skin-deep puncture that bleeds inwardly; it is no easy lesson that the disciple lays to heart; but leslie surmounted and survived it. she had escaped her responsibilities, and slumbered at her post. she would do so no longer. she belonged now, after little leslie, to her household, and its members might yet be the better for her, and hector garret should respect—not pity her. she vindicated her matronhood suddenly and straightforwardly, but with a sedateness and firmness that was conclusive of her future power; she had much to acquire, but she would gain something every day and every hour, until otter should own no abler mistress. then for her child, she would teach herself that she might instruct her daughter, so that if she proved inquiring and meditative like her father, she need not soon weary of her simple mother, and turn altogether to a more enlightened and profound instructor. surely there was some knowledge that a woman could best store up and dispense, some gift wherein the vigorous and well-trained man did not bear the universal palm? leslie strove to cultivate her talents; for these, in her position, there was scarcely a choice of fields, but she had eminently the power of observation, and her sharpened motives supplied the defects of her early education. leslie became a naturalist—the most original and untrammelled of naturalists, for she proceeded upon that foundation of anecdotal and experimental acquaintance with herb and tree, insect, bird, and beast, and even atmospheric phenomena, whose unalloyed riches are peculiar to rustic and isolated genius.
hector garret observed this growing taste, and appre[page 255]ciated it. leslie had ceased to apologize for her stupidity, and to be shy of his scrutiny. when he found her procuring and preserving this or that specimen, or noting down a primitive fact, if he asked an explanation he had one directly.
"this pale flower, and that with the green flowers and the great leaves, are lady's-smock and lady's-mantle; they say they are named after the virgin, but i think adam must have named them in the garden.—bridget tells me that the irish believe the fairies sleep in these bells.—this is the plant of whose root cats are so fond that they burrow about it and nibble it, and as it does not hurt them, i have dug up a bit for our puss—little leslie looks after her already.—i have been writing down the day when the swallows twittered at the window, to compare with their arrival next summer. peggy barbour saw a double nest with one hole last year; it must have been an old pair and a young maintaining a joint roof-tree.—yes, of course, these are jay's feathers."
another resource which leslie found within hector garret's perception was that of music. she had been endowed with a flexible, melodious voice, and as soon as she had use for them, she gathered by magic a host of ditties, blithe or sad, stirring or soothing, from the romantic fervour of 'charlie, he's my darling,' to the pathos of 'drummossie moor,' or the homely, biting humour of 'tibbie fowler,' to carol to the accompaniment of the ancient spinet, in order to cheer or lull the child.
hector garret would move to his study-window, and open it softly, in the gloaming hour when the purple sunset [page 256]was on the sea, and the bats abroad from the old chimneys, to listen to his wife in the room above singing to her child. he did not hear her music otherwise: if he had solicited it, she would have complied, with a little surprise, but he did not seek the indulgence.
the alteration in leslie which matured her unexpectedly from a girl to a woman affected powerfully both the arbiters of her destiny. bridget kennedy, from a tyrant, was fairly transformed into her warmest and most faithful adherent. there was something high and great in the wild old woman, that could thus at once confess her error, admit greatness in any form in another, and succumb to it reverently. truly, bridget kennedy was like fire to the weak and foolish, a scourge and a grizzly phantom; to the brave and capable, a minister fearless, fond, and untiring to her last breath.
it was very strange to hector garret to be sensible of bridget's lapse from his side,—to hear the present mistress, the subdued diligent woman, canonized to the level of the grand, glad lady of otter to whom bridget had been so long fanatically loyal. he said to himself that the child had helped to effect it, the precious descendant, the doted-on third generation; but he was uncertain. he himself was so impressed with the patient woman he had formed out of the lively girl, so tortured by a conviction that he had gagged and fettered her—that her limbs were cramped and benumbed, her atmosphere oppressive, her life self-denying—that he could bear it no longer.
"god forgive me, leslie, for the wrong i have done you!" he confessed one night with a haggard, remorseful [page 257]face, when she stood, constrained and pensive, on his joyless hearth.
she looked up quickly, and laughed a dry laugh. "you are dreaming," she replied. "how much larger otter is than the glasgow house! it was a mere cupboard in comparison. how much pleasanter the fields and hills and sands than the grimy, noisy streets where my head ached and my eyes were weary. and little leslie is a thousand times dearer than my own people, or any companions that i ever possessed. hush! hush! i hear her cry; don't detain me, unless for anything i can do for you—because nothing keeps me from leslie."
the coals of fire were heaped upon his head: there could be no reparation.
why was hector garret not resigned? it was a cruel mistake, but it might have been worse, for hearts are deceitful, and what is false and baneful is apt to prove an edge-tool. here was permanent estrangement, comfortless formality, cold, compulsory esteem; but there was no treachery in the household, no malignant hate, no base revenge.
but hector garret would not rest: he had far less or far more energy than his wife; he walked his lands a moody, harassed man. the turmoil and distraction of his youth seemed recalled; he lost his equanimity; his regular habits faded from him. leslie could no longer count on his prolonged absence, his short stated visits; he would be with her at any time within doors or without—to exchange a word or look, and go as he came, to return as unaccountably and inconsistently. it vexed leslie; she [page 258]tried not to see it; it made her curious, anxious; and what had she to do with hector garret's flushed cheek and shining eye? some anniversary, some combination of present associations and past recollections—a tendency to fly from himself, besetting at times the most self-controlled—might have caused this change in his appearance. ah! better twist and untwist the rings of little leslie's fair hair, and dress and undress her as she had done her doll; better examine the shell cracked by the yellow-hammer, and count the spots on the broad, brown leaf of the plane, than perplex herself with so uncongenial a difficulty. but the difficulty pursued her nevertheless, and baffled and bewitched her as it has done wiser people.
the master and mistress of otter were spectators of the harvest home, the plentiful feast, the merry dance in the spacious barn where their share of the fruits of the earth was about to be garnered. leslie stood in her complimentary, gay gala ribbons, with her fingers meeting upon her wedding-ring, looking composedly and with interest on the buxom women and stalwart men, the loving lads and lasses, the cordial husbands and wives. hector garret, however, scarcely tarried to reply to his health and prosperity drunk in a flowing bumper, but broke from the scene as if its good was his evil, its blessing his curse.
in the parish church where leslie had exhibited her bridal finery she now listened to the clergyman, and bent her head in penitence and worship, and was disturbed by hector garret's gesture of restlessness and attitude of care.
when the new moon was rising in the sky, leslie would bid the little one look up and clap her hands, while hector [page 259]paced up and down unquiet and dissatisfied. then she would carry the child off to her cradle pillow, and coming back would stand and look at the moon, while he was close to her, murmuring "leslie! leslie!" but she would turn upon him pale and cold as the moon above her, and would address him, "see, yonder is a ship doubling earlscraig point and steering into the otter sea."
