Kitabı oku: «Donal Grant», sayfa 35
CHAPTER LXXXIII.
INSIGHT
Mr. Graeme was a good sort of man, and a gentleman; but he was not capable of meeting Donal on the ground on which he approached him: on that level he had never set foot. There is nothing more disappointing to the generous man than the way in which his absolute frankness is met by the man of the world—always looking out for motives, and imagining them after what is in himself.
There was great confidence between the brother and sister, and as he walked homeward, Mr. Graeme was not so well pleased with himself as to think with satisfaction on the report of the interview he could give Kate. He did not accuse himself with regard to anything he had said, but he felt his behaviour influenced by jealousy of the low-born youth who had supplanted him. For, if Percy could not succeed to the title, neither could he have succeeded to the property; and but for the will or the marriage, perhaps but for the two together, he would himself have come in for that also! The will was worth nothing except the marriage was disputed: annul the marriage, and the will was of force!
He told his sister, as nearly as he could, all that had passed between them.
"If he wanted me to talk to him," he said, "why did he tell me that about Forgue? It was infernally stupid of him! But what's bred in the bone—! A gentleman 's not made in a day!"
"Nor in a thousand years, Hector!" rejoined his sister. "Donal Grant is a gentleman in the best sense of the word! That you say he is not, lets me see you are vexed with yourself. He is a little awkward sometimes, I confess; but only when he is looking at a thing from some other point of view, and does not like to say you ought to have been looking at it from the same. And you can't say he shuffles, for he never stops till he has done his best to make you!—What have you been saying to him, Hector?"
"Nothing but what I have told you; it's rather what I have not been saying!" answered her brother. "He would have had me open out to him, and I wouldn't. How could I! Whatever I said that pleased him, would have looked as if I wanted to secure my situation! Hang it all! I have a good mind to throw it up. How is a Graeme to serve under a bumpkin?"
"The man is not a bumpkin; he is a scholar and a poet!" said the lady.
"Pooh! pooh! What's a poet?"
"One that may or may not be as good a man of business as yourself when it is required of him."
"Come, come! don't you turn against me, Kate! It's hard enough to bear as it is!"
Miss Graeme made no reply. She was meditating all she knew of Donal, to guide her to the something to which she was sure her brother had not let him come; and presently she made him recount again all they had said to each other.
"I tell you, Hector," she exclaimed, "you never made such a fool of yourself in your life! If I know human nature, that man is different from any other you have had to do with. It will take a woman, a better woman than your sister, I confess, to understand him; but I see a little farther into him than you do. He is a man who, never having had money enough to learn the bad uses of it, and never having formed habits it takes money to supply, having no ambition, living in books not in places, and for pleasure having more at his command in himself than the richest—he is a man who, I say, would find money an impediment to his happiness, for he must have a sense of duty with regard to it which would interfere with everything he liked best. Besides, though he does not care a straw for the judgment of the world where it differs from him, he would be sorry to seem to go against that judgment where he agrees with it: scorning to marry any woman for her money, he would not have the world think he had done so."
"Ah, Katey, there I have you! The world would entirely approve of his doing that!"
"I will take a better position then:—he would not willingly seem to have done a thing he himself despises. The man believes himself sent into the world to teach it something: he would not have it thrown in his teeth that, after all, he looks to the main chance as keenly as another! He would starve before he would have men say so—yes, even say so falsely. I am as sure he did not marry lady Arctura for her money, as I am sure lord Forgue, or you, Hector, would have done it if you had had a chance.—There!—My conviction is that the bumpkin sought a fit opening to tell you that the will was to go for nothing, and that no word need be said about the marriage. You know he made you promise not to mention it—only I wormed it out of you!"
"That's just like you women! The man you take a fancy to is always head and shoulders above other men!"
"As you take it so, I will tell you more: that man will never marry again!"
"Wait a bit. Admiration is sometimes mutual: who knows but he may ask you next!"
"If he did ask me, I might take him, but I should never think so much of him!"
"Heroic Kate!"
"If you had been a little more heroic, Hector, you would have responded to him—and found it considerably to your advantage."
"You don't imagine I would be indebted—"
"Hush! Hush! Don't pledge yourself in a hurry—even to me!" said Kate. "Leave as wide a sea-margin about your boat as you may. You don't know what you would or would not. Mr. Grant knows, but you do not."
"Mr. Grant again!—Well!"
"Well!—we shall see!"
And they soon did. For that same evening Donal called, and asked to see Miss Graeme.
"I am sorry my brother is gone down to the town," she said.
"It was you I wanted to see," he answered. "I wish to speak openly to you, for I imagine you will understand me better than your brother. Perhaps I ought rather to say—I shall be better able to explain myself to you."
There was that in his countenance which seemed to seize and hold her—a calm exaltation, as of a man who had outlived weakness and was facing the eternal. The spirit of a smile hovered about his mouth and eyes, embodying itself now and then in a grave, sweet, satisfied smile: the man seemed full of content, not with himself, but with something he would gladly share.
"I have been talking with your brother," he said, after a brief pause.
"I know," she answered. "I am afraid he did not meet you as he ought. He is a good and honourable man; but like most men he needs a moment to pull himself together. Few men, Mr. Grant, when suddenly called upon, answer from the best that is in them."
"The fact is simply this," resumed Donal: "I do not want the Morven property. I thank God for lady Arctura: what was hers I do not desire."
"But may it not be your duty to take it, Mr. Grant?—Pardon me for suggesting duty to one who always acts from it."
"I have reflected, and do not think God wants me to take it. Because she is mine, ought I of necessity to be enslaved to all her accidents? Must I, because I love her, hoard her gowns and shoes?"
Then first Miss Graeme noted that he never spoke of his wife as in the past.
"But there are others to be considered," she replied. "You have made me think about many things, Mr. Grant! My brother and I have had many talks as to what we would do if the land were ours."
"And yours it shall be," said Donal, "if you will take it as a trust for the good of all whom it supports. I have other work to do."
"I will tell my brother what you say," answered Miss Graeme, with victory in her heart—for was it not as she had divined?
"It is better," continued Donal, "to help make good men than happy tenants. Besides, I know how to do the one, and I do not know how to do the other. There would always be a prejudice against me too, as not to the manner born. But if your brother should accept my offer, I hope he will not think me interfering if I talk sometimes of the principles of the relation. Things go wrong, generally, because men have such absurd and impossible notions about possession. They call things their own which it is impossible, from their very nature, ever to possess or make their own. Power was never given to man over men for his own sake, and the nearer he that so uses it comes to success, the more utter will prove his discomfiture. Talk to your brother about it, Miss Graeme. Tell him that, as heir to the title, and as head of the family, he can do more than any other with the property, and I will gladly make it over to him without reserve. I would not be even partially turned aside from my own calling."
"I will tell him what you say. I told him he had misunderstood you. I saw into your generous thought."
"It is not generous at all. My dear Miss Graeme, you do not know how little of a temptation such things are to me! There are some who only care to inherit straight from the first Father. You may say the earth is the Lord's, and therefore a part of that first inheritance: I admit it; but such possession as this in question would not satisfy me in the least. I must inherit the earth in a far deeper, grander, truer way than calling the land mine, before I shall count myself to have come into my own. I want to have all things just as the maker of me wants me to have them.—I will call on you again to-morrow; I must now go back to the earl. Poor man, he is sinking fast! but I believe he is more at peace than he has ever been before!"
Donal took his leave, and Miss Graeme had plenty to think of till her brother's return: if she felt a little triumphant, it may be pardoned her.
He was ashamed, and not a little humbled by what she told him. He did not wait for Donal to come to him, but went to the castle early the next morning. Nor was he mistaken in trusting Donal to believe that it was not from eagerness to retrace in his own interest the false step he had taken, but from desire to show his shame of having behaved so ungenerously: Donal received him so as to make it plain he did not misunderstand him, and they had a long talk. Graeme was all the readier for his blunder to hear what Donal had to say, and Donal's unquestionable disinterestedness was endlessly potent with Graeme. Their interview resulted in Donal's thinking still better of him than before, and being satisfied that, up to his light, the man was honest—which is saying much—and thence open to conviction, and both sides of a question. But ere it was naturally over, Donal was summoned to the earl.
After his niece's death, no one would do for him but Donal; nobody could please him but Donal. His mind as well as his body was much weaker. But the intellect, great thing though it be, is yet but the soil out of which, or rather in which, higher things must grow, and it is well when that soil is not too strong, so to speak, for the most gracious and lovely of plants to root themselves in it. When the said soil is proud and unwilling to serve, it must be thinned and pulverized with sickness, failure, poverty, fear—that the good seeds of God's garden may be able to root themselves in it; when they get up a little, they will use all the riches and all the strength of the stiffest soil.
"Who will have the property now?" he asked one day. "Is the factor anywhere in the running?"
"Title and property both will be his," answered Donal.
"And my poor Davie?" said the earl, with wistful question in the eyes that gazed up in Donal's face. "Forgue, the rascal, has all my money in his power already."
"I will see to Davie," replied Donal. "When you and I meet, my lord—by and by, I shall not be ashamed."
The poor man was satisfied. He sent for Davie, and told him he was always to do as Mr. Grant wished, that he left him in his charge, and that he must behave to him like a son.
Davie was fast making acquaintance with death—but it was not to him dreadful as to most children, for he saw it through the face and words of the man whom he most honoured.
CHAPTER LXXXIV.
MORVEN HOUSE
In the evening Donal went again to the home-farm. Finding himself alone in the drawing-room, he walked out into the old garden.
"Thank God," he said to himself, "if my wife should come here some sad, sweet night, with a low moon-crescent, and a gently thinking wind, and wander about the garden, it will not be to know herself forgotten!"
He went up and down the grassy paths. Once again, all as long ago—for it seemed long now—he was joined by Miss Graeme.
"I couldn't help fancying," she said as she came up to him, "that I saw lady Arctura walking by your side.—God forgive me! how could I be so heartless as mention her!"
"Her name will always be pleasant in my ears," returned Donal. "I was thinking of her—that was how you felt as if you saw her! You did not really see anything, did you?"
"Oh, no!"
"She is nearer me than that," said Donal. "She will be with me wherever I am; I shall never be sad. God is with me, and I do not weep that I cannot see him: I wait; I wait."
Miss Graeme was in tears.
"Mr. Grant," she said, "she is gone a happy angel to heaven instead of a pining woman! That is your doing! God bless you!—You will let me think of you as a friend?"
"Always; always: you loved her."
"I did not at first; I thought of her only as a poor troubled creature! Now I know there was more life in her trouble than in my content. I came not only to love her, but to look up to her as a saint: if ever there was one, it was she, Mr. Grant. She often came here after I showed her that poem. She used to walk here alone in the twilight. That horrid Miss Carmichael! she was the plague of her life!"
"She was God's messenger—to buffet her, and make her know her need of him. Be sure, Miss Graeme, not a soul can do without him."
Here Mr. Graeme joined them.
"I do not think the earl will last many days," said Donal. "It would be well, it seems to me, at once upon his death to take possession of the house in the town. It is the only property that goes with the title. And of course you would at once take up your abode in the castle! You will find in the earl's papers many proofs, I imagine, that his son has no claim. I would have a deed of gift drawn up, but would rather you seemed to come in by natural succession. We are not bound to tell the world everything; we are only bound to be able without shame to tell it everything. And then I shall have a favour to ask: Morven House, down in the town, is of no great use to you: let me rent it of you. I should like to live there and have a school, with Davie for my first pupil. When we get another, we will try to make a man of him too. We will not care so much about making a great scholar, or a great anything of him, but a true man. We will try to help the whole man of him into the likeness of the one man."
Here Mr. Graeme broke in.
"You will never make a living that way!" he said.
Donal opened his eyes and looked at him. Like one convicted and ashamed, the eyes of the man of business fell before those of the man of God.
"Ah," said Donal, "you have not an idea, Mr. Graeme, on how little I could live!—Here, you had better take the will," he added, pulling it from his pocket.
Mr. Graeme hesitated.
"If you would rather not, I will keep it. I would throw it in the fire, but either you or I must keep it for a time as against all chances."
Mr. Graeme took it.
That night the earl died.
Donal wrote to Percy that his father was dead. Two days after, he appeared. The new earl met him in the hall.
"Mr. Graeme," said Percy,—
"I am lord Morven, Mr. Graeme," returned his lordship.
The fellow said an evil word, turned on his heel, and left them to bury his father without him.
The funeral over, the earl turned to Donal and looked him in the face: they walked back to the castle arm in arm, and from that moment were as brothers.
Earl Hector did nothing of importance without consulting Donal, and Donal had the more influence both with landlord and tenants that he had no interest in the property.
The same week he left the castle, and took possession of Morven House. The people said Mr. Grant had played his cards well: had they known what he had really done, they would have called him a born idiot.
Davie, to whom no calamity could be overwhelming so long as he had Mr. Grant, accompanied him gladly, more than content to live with him till he went to college, whither the earl wished to send him. Donal hindered rather than sped the day. When it came, the earl would have had him go too, but Donal would not.
"I have done what I can," he said. "It is time he should walk alone."
It was soon evident that the boy would not disgrace him. There is no certainty as to how deep any teaching may have gone—as to whether it has reached the issues of life or not, until a youth is left by himself, and has to choose and refuse companions: the most promising youths are often but promisers.
With the full concurrence of Miss Graeme, Donal had persuaded mistress Brookes—easy persuasion where the suggestion was enough!—to keep house for him. They went together, and together unlocked the door of Morven House.
Mistress Brookes said the place was in an awful state. There was not much, to be sure, for the mason to do, but for the carpenter! It had not been touched for generations! He must go away, and stay away till she summoned him!
Donal gladly went home to his hills, and took Davie with him. He told his father and mother, sir Gibbie and his lady, the things that had befallen him, and every one approved heartily of what he had done. His mother took his renunciation of the property as a matter of course. All agreed it should not be spoken of. When they returned to Auchars, sir Gibbie and lady Galbraith went with them, and staid for some weeks. The townsfolk said he was but a poor baronet that could not speak mortal word.
Lord Morven and Miss Graeme had done their best to make the house what they thought Donal would like. But in the castle they kept for him the rooms lady Arctura had called her own. There he gathered the books, and a few other of the more immediately personal possessions of his wife—her piano for one—upon which he taught himself to play a little; and thither he betook himself often on holidays, and always on Sunday evenings. What went on then I leave to the imagination of the reader who knows that alone one may meet many, sitting still may travel far, and silent make the universe hear.
Lord Morven kept Larkie for Davie. The last I heard of Davie was that he was in India, an officer in the army, beloved of his men, and exercising a most beneficial influence on his regiment. The things he had learned he had so learned that they went out from him, finding new ground in which to root and grow. In his day and generation he helped the coming of the kingdom of truth and righteousness, and so fulfilled his high calling.
It was some time before Donal had any pupils, and he never had many, for he was regarded as a most peculiar man, with ideas about education odd in the extreme. It was granted, however, that, if a boy stayed, or rather if he allowed him to stay with him long enough, he was sure to turn out a gentleman: that which was deeper and was the life of the gentleman, people seldom saw—would seldom have valued if they had seen. Most parents would like their children to be ladies and gentlemen; that they should be sons and daughters of God, they do not care!
The few wise souls in the neighbourhood know Donal as the heart of the place—the man to go to in any difficulty, in any trouble or apprehension.
Miss Carmichael grew by degrees less talkative, and less obtrusive of her opinions. After some years she condescended to marry a farmer on lord Morven's estate. Their only child, a thoughtful boy, and a true reader, sought the company of the grave man with the sweet smile, going often to his house to ask him about this or that. He reminded him of Davie, and grew very dear to him. The mother discovering that, as often as he stole away, it was to go to the master—everybody called him the maister—scolded and forbade. But the prohibition brought such a time of tears and gloom and loss of appetite, and her husband so little shared her prejudices against the master, that she was compelled to recall it, and the boy went and went as before. When he was taken ill, and on his deathbed, nobody could make him happy but the master; he almost nursed him through the last few days of his short earthly life. But the mother seemed not to like him any the better—rather to regard him as having deprived her of some of her rights in the love of her boy.
Donal is still a present power of heat and light in the town of Auchars. He wears the same solemn look, the same hovering smile. They say to those who can read them, "I know in whom I have believed." It is the God who is the Father of the Lord that he believes in. His life is hid with Christ in God, and he has no anxiety about anything. The wheels of the coming chariot, moving fast or slow to fetch him, are always moving; and whether it arrive at night, or at cock-crowing, or in the blaze of noon, is one to him. He is ready for the life his Arctura knows. "God is," he says, "and all is well." He never disputes, rarely seeks to convince. "I will let what light I have shine; but disputation is smoke. It is to no profit!—And I do like," he says, "to give and to get the good of things!"
