Kitabı oku: «The Entail», sayfa 12

CHAPTER XXXIV

There are times in life when every man feels as if his sympathies were extinct. This arises from various causes; sometimes from vicissitudes of fortune; sometimes from the sense of ingratitude, which, like the canker in the rose, destroys the germ of all kindness and charity; often from disappointments in affairs of the heart, which leave it incapable of ever again loving; but the most common cause is the consciousness of having committed wrong, when the feelings recoil inward, and, by some curious mystery in the nature of our selfishness, instead of prompting atonement, irritate us to repeat and to persevere in our injustice.

Into one of these temporary trances Claud had fallen when his wife left him; and he continued sitting, with his eyes riveted on the ground, insensible to all the actual state of life, contemplating the circumstances and condition of his children, as if he had no interest in their fate, nor could be affected by any thing in their fortunes.

In this fit of apathy and abstraction, he was roused by the sound of some one approaching; and on looking up, and turning his eyes towards the path which led from the house to the bench where he was then sitting, he saw Walter coming.

There was something unwonted in the appearance and gestures of Walter, which soon interested the old man. At one moment he rushed forward several steps, with a strange wildness of air. He would then stop and wring his hands, gaze upward as if he wondered at some extraordinary phenomenon in the sky; but seeing nothing, he dropped his hands, and, at his ordinary pace, came slowly up the hill.

When he arrived within a few paces of the bench, he halted and looked with such an open and innocent sadness that even the heart of his father, which so shortly before was as inert to humanity as case-hardened iron, throbbed with pity, and was melted to a degree of softness and compassion, almost entirely new to its sensibilities.

‘What’s the matter wi’ thee, Watty?’ said he, with unusual kindliness. The poor natural, however, made no reply, – but continued to gaze at him with the same inexpressible simplicity of grief.

‘Hast t’ou lost ony thing, Watty?’ – ‘I dinna ken,’ was the answer, followed by a burst of tears.

‘Surely something dreadfu’ has befallen the lad,’ said Claud to himself, alarmed at the astonishment of sorrow with which his faculties seemed to be bound up.

‘Can t’ou no tell me what has happened, Watty?’

In about the space of half a minute, Walter moved his eyes slowly round, as if he saw and followed something which filled him with awe and dread. He then suddenly checked himself, and said, ‘It’s naething; she’s no there.’

‘Sit down beside me, Watty,’ exclaimed his father, alarmed; ‘sit down beside me, and compose thysel.’

Walter did as he was bidden, and stretching out his feet, hung forward in such a posture of extreme listlessness and helpless despondency, that all power of action appeared to be withdrawn.

Claud rose, and believing he was only under the influence of some of those silly passions to which he was occasionally subject, moved to go away, when he looked up, and said, —

‘Father, Betty Bodle’s dead! – My Betty Bodle’s dead!’

‘Dead!’ said Claud, thunderstruck.

‘Aye, father, she’s dead! My Betty Bodle’s dead!’

‘Dost t’ou ken what t’ou’s saying?’ But Walter, without attending to the question, repeated, with an accent of tenderness still more simple and touching, —

‘My Betty Bodle’s dead! She’s awa up aboon the skies, yon’er, and left me a wee wee baby;’ in saying which, he again burst into tears, and rising hastily from the bench, ran wildly back towards the Divethill House, whither he was followed by the old man, where the disastrous intelligence was confirmed, that she had died in giving birth to a daughter.

Deep and secret as Claud kept his feelings from the eyes of the world, this was a misfortune which he was ill prepared to withstand. For although in the first shock he betrayed no emotion, it was soon evident that it had shattered some of the firmest intents and purposes of his mind. That he regretted the premature death of a beautiful young woman in such interesting circumstances, was natural to him as a man; but he felt the event more as a personal disappointment, and thought it was accompanied with something so like retribution, that he inwardly trembled as if he had been chastised by some visible arm of Providence. For he could not disguise to himself that a female heir was a contingency he had not contemplated; that, by the catastrophe which had happened to the mother, the excambio of the Plealands for the Divethill would be rendered of no avail; and that, unless Walter married again, and had a son, the re-united Kittlestonheugh property must again be disjoined, as the Divethill would necessarily become the inheritance of the daughter.

The vexation of this was, however, alleviated, when he reflected on the pliancy of Walter’s character, and he comforted himself with the idea that, as soon as a reasonable sacrifice of time had been made to decorum, he would be able to induce the natural to marry again. Shall we venture to say, it also occurred in the cogitations of his sordid ambition, that, as the infant was prematurely born, and was feeble and infirm, he entertained some hope it might die, and not interfere with the entailed destination of the general estate? But if, in hazarding this harsh supposition, we do him any injustice, it is certain that he began to think there was something in the current of human affairs over which he could acquire no control, and that, although, in pursuing so steadily the single purpose of recovering his family inheritance, his endeavours had, till this period, proved eminently successful, he yet saw, with dismay, that, from the moment other interests came to be blended with those which he considered so peculiarly his own, other causes also came into operation, and turned, in spite of all his hedging and prudence, the whole issue of his labours awry. He perceived that human power was set at naught by the natural course of things, and nothing produced a more painful conviction of the wrong he had committed against his first-born, than the frustration of his wishes by the misfortune which had befallen Walter. His reflections were also embittered from another source; by his parsimony he foresaw that, in the course of a few years, he would have been able, from his own funds, to have redeemed the Divethill without having had recourse to the excambio; and that the whole of the Kittlestonheugh might thus have been his own conquest, and, as such, without violating any of the usages of society, he might have commenced the entail with Charles. In a word, the death of Walter’s wife and the birth of the daughter disturbed all his schemes, and rent from roof to foundation the castles which he had been so long and so arduously building. But it is necessary that we should return to poor Walter, on whom the loss of his beloved Betty Bodle acted with the incitement of a new impulse, and produced a change of character that rendered him a far less tractable instrument than his father expected to find.

CHAPTER XXXV

The sorrow of Walter, after he had returned home, assumed the appearance of a calm and settled melancholy. He sat beside the corpse with his hands folded and his head drooping. He made no answer to any question; but as often as he heard the infant’s cry, he looked towards the bed, and said, with an accent of indescribable sadness, ‘My Betty Bodle!’

When the coffin arrived, his mother wished him to leave the room, apprehensive, from the profound grief in which he was plunged, that he might break out into some extravagance of passion, but he refused; and, when it was brought in, he assisted with singular tranquillity in the ceremonial of the coffining. But when the lid was lifted and placed over the body, and the carpenter was preparing to fasten it down for ever, he shuddered for a moment from head to foot; and, raising it with his left hand, he took a last look of the face, removing the veil with his right, and touching the sunken cheek as if he had hoped still to feel some ember of life; but it was cold and stiff.

‘She’s clay noo,’ said he. – ‘There’s nane o’ my Betty Bodle here.’

And he turned away with a careless air, as if he had no further interest in the scene. From that moment his artless affections took another direction; he immediately quitted the death-room, and, going to the nursery where the infant lay asleep in the nurse’s lap, he contemplated it for some time, and then, with a cheerful and happy look and tone, said, – ‘It’s a wee Betty Bodle; and it’s my Betty Bodle noo.’ And all his time and thoughts were thenceforth devoted to this darling object, in so much that, when the hour of the funeral was near, and he was requested to dress himself to perform the husband’s customary part in the solemnity, he refused, not only to quit the child, but to have any thing to do with the burial.

‘I canna understand,’ said he, ‘what for a’ this fykerie’s about a lump o’ yird? Sho’elt intil a hole, and no fash me.’

‘It’s your wife, my lad,’ replied his mother; ‘ye’ll surely never refuse to carry her head in a gudemanlike manner to the kirk-yard.’

‘Na, na, mother, Betty Bodle’s my wife, yon clod in the black kist is but her auld bodice; and when she flang’t off, she put on this bonny wee new cleiding o’ clay,’ said he, pointing to the baby.

The Leddy, after some further remonstrance, was disconcerted by the pertinacity with which he continued to adhere to his resolution, and went to beg her husband to interfere.

‘Ye’ll hae to gang ben, gudeman,’ said she, ‘and speak to Watty. – I wis the poor thing hasna gane by itsel wi’ a broken heart. He threeps that the body is no his wife’s, and ca’s it a hateral o’ clay and stones, and says we may fling’t, Gude guide us, ayont the midden for him. – We’ll just be affrontit if he’ll no carry the head.’

Claud, who had dressed himself in the morning for the funeral, was sitting in the elbow-chair, on the right side of the chimney-place, with his cheek resting on his hand, and his eyelids dropped, but not entirely shut, and on being thus addressed, he instantly rose, and went to the nursery.

‘What’s t’ou doing there like a hussy-fellow?’ said he. ‘Rise and get on thy mournings, and behave wiselike, and leave the bairn to the women.’

‘It’s my bairn,’ replied Watty, ‘and ye hae naething, father, to do wi’t. – Will I no tak care o’ my ain baby – my bonny wee Betty Bodle?’

‘Do as I bid thee, or I’ll maybe gar thee fin’ the weight o’ my staff,’ cried the old man sharply, expecting immediate obedience to his commands, such as he always found, however positively Walter, on other occasions, at first refused; but in this instance he was disappointed; for the widower looked him steadily in the face, and said, —

‘I’m a father noo; it would be an awfu’ thing for a decent grey-headed man like you, father, to strike the head o’ a motherless family.’

Claud was so strangely affected by the look and accent with which this was expressed, that he stood for some time at a loss what to say, but soon recovering his self-possession, he replied, in a mild and persuasive manner, —

‘The frien’s expek, Watty, that ye’ll attend the burial, and carry the head, as the use and wont is in every weel-doing family.’

‘It’s a thriftless custom, father, and what care I for burial-bread and services o’ wine? They cost siller, father, and I’ll no wrang Betty Bodle for ony sic outlay on her auld yirden garment. Ye may gang, for fashion’s cause, wi’ your weepers and your mourning strings, and lay the black kist i’ the kirk-yard hole, but I’ll no mudge the ba’ o’ my muckle tae in ony sic road.’

‘T’ou’s past remede, I fear,’ replied his father thoughtfully; ‘but, Watty, I hope in this t’ou’ll oblige thy mother and me, and put on thy new black claes; – t’ou kens they’re in a braw fasson, – and come ben and receive the guests in a douce and sober manner. The minister, I’m thinking, will soon be here, and t’ou should be in the way when he comes.’

‘No,’ said Watty, ‘no, do as ye like, and come wha may, it’s a’ ane to me: I’m positeeve.’

The old man, losing all self-command at this extraordinary opposition, exclaimed, —

‘There’s a judgment in this; and, if there’s power in the law o’ Scotland, I’ll gar thee rue sic dourness. Get up, I say, and put on thy mournings, or I’ll hae thee cognost, and sent to bedlam.’

‘I’m sure I look for nae mair at your hands, father,’ replied Walter simply; ‘for my mither has often telt me, when ye hae been sitting sour and sulky in the nook, that ye would na begrudge crowns and pounds to make me compos mentis for the benefit of Charlie.’

Every pulse in the veins of Claud stood still at this stroke, and he staggered, overwhelmed with shame, remorse, and indignation, into a seat.

‘Eh!’ said the Leddy, returning into the room at this juncture, ‘what’s come o’er you, gudeman? Pity me, will he no do your bidding?’

‘Girzy Hypel,’ was the hoarse and emphatic reply, ‘Girzy Hypel, t’ou’s the curse o’ my life; the folly in thee has altered to idiotical depravity in him, and the wrong I did against my ain nature in marrying thee, I maun noo, in my auld age, reap the fruits o’ in sorrow, and shame, and sin.’

‘Here’s composity for a burial!’ exclaimed the Leddy. ‘What’s the matter, Watty Walkinshaw?’

‘My father’s in a passion.’

Claud started from his seat, and, with fury in his eyes, and his hands clenched, rushed across the room towards the spot where Walter was sitting, watching the infant in the nurse’s lap. In the same moment, the affectionate natural also sprang forward, and placed himself in an attitude to protect the child. The fierce old man was confounded, and turning round hastily, quitted the room, wringing his hands, unable any longer to master the conflicting feelings which warred so wildly in his bosom.

‘This is a pretty-like house o’ mourning,’ said the Leddy; ‘a father and a son fighting, and a dead body waiting to be ta’en to the kirk-yard. O Watty Walkinshaw! Watty Walkinshaw! many a sore heart ye hae gi’en your parents, – will ye ne’er divaul till ye hae brought our grey hairs wi’ sorrow to the grave? There’s your poor father flown demented, and a’ the comfort in his cup and mine gane like water spilt on the ground. Many a happy day we hae had, till this condumacity o’ thine grew to sic a head. But tak your ain way o’t. Do as ye like. Let strangers carry your wife to the kirk-yard, and see what ye’ll mak o’t.’

But notwithstanding all these, and many more equally persuasive and commanding arguments, Walter was not to be moved, and the funeral, in consequence, was obliged to be performed without him. Yet still, though thus tortured in his feelings, the stern old man inflexibly adhered to his purpose. The entail which he had executed was still with him held irrevocable; and, indeed, it had been so framed, that, unless he rendered himself insolvent, it could not be set aside.

CHAPTER XXXVI

For some time after the funeral of Mrs. Walter Walkinshaw, the affairs of the Grippy family ran in a straight and even current. The estrangement of the old man from his first-born suffered no describable increase, but Charles felt that it was increasing. The old Leddy, in the meanwhile, had a world of cares upon her hands in breaking up the establishment which had been formed for Walter at the house on the Divethill, and in removing him back with the infant and the nurse to Grippy. And scarcely had she accomplished these, when a letter from her daughter, Mrs. Milrookit, informed her that the preparations for an addition to the ‘sma’ family’ of Dirdumwhamle were complete, and that she hoped her mother could be present on the occasion, which was expected to come to pass in the course of a few weeks from the date.

Nothing was more congenial to the mind and habits of the Leddy, than a business of this sort, or, indeed, any epochal domestic event, such as, in her own phraseology, was entitled to the epithet of a handling. But when she mentioned the subject to her husband, he objected, saying, —

‘It’s no possible, Girzy, for ye ken Mr. and Mrs. Givan are to be here next week with their dochter, Miss Peggy, and I would fain hae them to see an ony thing could be brought to a head between her and our Geordie. He’s noo o’ a time o’ life when I would like he were settled in the world, and amang a’ our frien’s there’s no a family I would be mair content to see him connected wi’ than the Givans, who are come o’ the best blood, and are, moreover, o’ great wealth and property.’

‘Weel, if e’er there was the like o’ you, gudeman,’ replied the Leddy, delighted with the news; ‘an ye were to set your mind on a purpose o’ marriage between a goose and a grumphie, I dinna think but ye would make it a’ come to pass. For wha would hae thought o’ this plot on the Givans, who, to be sure, are a most creditable family, and Miss Peggy, their dochter, is a vera genty creature, although it’s my notion she’s no o’ a capacity to do meikle in the way o’ throughgality. Howsever, she’s a bonny playock, and noo that the stipend ye alloo’t to Watty is at an end, by reason of that heavy loss which we all met wi’ in his wife, ye’ll can weel afford to help Geordie to keep her out in a station o’ life; for times, gudeman, are no noo as when you and me cam thegither. Then a bein house, and a snod but and ben, was a’ that was lookit for; but sin genteelity came into fashion, lads and lasses hae grown leddies and gentlemen, and a Glasgow wife saullying to the kirk wi’ her muff and her mantle, looks as puckered wi’ pride as my lord’s leddy.’

Claud, who knew well that his helpmate was able to continue her desultory consultations, as long as she could keep herself awake, here endeavoured to turn the speat of her clatter into a new channel, by observing, that hitherto they had not enjoyed any great degree of comfort in the marriages of their family.

‘Watty’s,’ said he, ‘ye see, has in a manner been waur than nane; for a’ we hae gotten by’t is that weakly lassie bairn; and the sumph himsel is sae ta’en up wi’t, that he’s a perfect obdooracy to every wis o’ mine, that he would tak another wife to raise a male-heir to the family.’

‘I’m sure,’ replied the Leddy, ‘it’s just a sport to hear you, gudeman, and your male-heirs. What for can ye no be content wi’ Charlie’s son?’

The countenance of Grippy was instantaneously clouded, but in a moment the gloom passed, and he said, —

‘Girzy Hypel, t’ou kens naething about it. Will na Watty’s dochter inherit the Divethill by right o’ her father, for the Plealands, and so rive the heart again out o’ the Kittlestonheugh, and mak a’ my ettling fruitless? Noo, what I wis is, that Geordie should tak a wife to himsel as soon as a possibility will alloo, and if he has a son, by course o’ nature, it might be wised in time to marry Watty’s dochter, and so keep the property frae ganging out o’ the family.’

‘Noo, gudeman, thole wi’ me, and no be angry,’ replied the Leddy; ‘for I canna but say it’s a thing past ordinar that ye never seem to refleck, that Charlie’s laddie might just as weel be wised to marry Watty’s dochter, as ony son that Geordie’s like to get; and over and moreover, the wean’s in the world already, gudeman, but a’ Geordie’s are as trouts in the water; so I redde you to consider weel what ye’re doing, and gut nae fish till ye catch them.’

During this speech, Claud’s face was again overcast; the harsh and agonizing discord of his bosom rudely jangled through all the depths of his conscience, and reminded him how futile his wishes and devices might be rendered either by the failure of issue, or the birth of daughters. Every thing seemed arranged by Providence, to keep the afflicting sense of the wrong he had done his first-born constantly galled. But it had not before occurred to him, that even a marriage between the son of Charles and Walter’s daughter could not remedy the fault he had committed. The heirs-male of George had a preference in the entail; and such a marriage would, in no degree, tend to prevent the Kittlestonheugh from being again disjoined. In one sentence, the ambitious old man was miserable; but rather than yet consent to retrace any step he had taken, he persevered in his original course, as if the fire in his heart could be subdued by adding fresh piles of the same fuel. The match which he had formed for George was accordingly brought to what he deemed a favourable issue; for George, possessing but little innate delicacy, and only eager to become rich, had no scruple in proposing himself, at his father’s suggestion, to Miss Peggy Givan; and the young lady being entirely under the control of her mother, who regarded a union with her relations, the Grippy family, as one of the most desirable, peaceably acquiesced in the arrangement.

Prior, however, to the marriage taking place, Mr. Givan, a shrewd and worldly man, conceiving, that, as George was a younger son, his elder brother married, and Walter’s daughter standing between him and the succession to the estate, – he stipulated that the bridegroom should be settled as a principal in business. A short delay in consequence occurred between the arrangement and the solemnization; but the difficulty was overcome, by the old man advancing nearly the whole of his ready money as a proportion of the capital which was required by the house that received George into partnership. Perhaps he might have been spared this sacrifice, for as such he felt it, could he have brought himself to divulge to Mr. Givan the nature of the entail which he had executed; but the shame of that transaction had by this time sunk so deep, that he often wished and tried to consider the deed as having no existence.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Milrookit had become the mother of a son; the only occurrence which, for some time, had given Claud any unalloyed satisfaction. But it also was soon converted into a new source of vexation and of punishment; for Leddy Grippy, ever dotingly fond of Walter, determined, from the first hour in which she heard of the birth of Walkinshaw Milrookit, as the child was called, to match him with her favourite’s Betty; and the mere possibility of such an event taking place filled her husband with anxiety and fear; the expressions of which, and the peevish and bitter accents that he used in checking her loquacity on the subject, only served to make her wonderment at his prejudices the more and more tormenting.