A Dozen Ways Of Love - Lily Dougall (good books to read in english .txt) 📗

set aside, with a wave of his hand, husband, children, and friends, dead and living?

Whatever might be the psychical aspects of the case, one thing was certain, that the influence of Kinnaird--Kinnaird alone of all those who had entered into relations with the lady--was useful at this time to come between her and the distressing symptoms that would have resulted from the mania of self-starvation. For some months longer she lived in comfort and good cheer. This clear memory of her youth was oddly interwoven with the forgetful dulness of old age, like a golden thread in a black web, like a tiny flame on the hearth that shoots with intermittent brilliancy into darkness. She was always to see her lover upon the morrow; she never woke to the fact that 'to-day' lasted too long, that a winter of morrows had slipped fruitless by.

The interviews between Jeanie Trim and Kinnaird were not monotonous. All else was monotonous. December, January, February passed away. The mornings and the evenings brought no change outwardly in the sick-room, no change to the appearance of the fine old face and still stately figure, suggested no variety of thought or emotion to the lady's decaying faculties; but at the hours when she sat and contentedly ate the food that the maid brought her, her mental vision cleared as it focused upon the thought of her heart's darling. It was she whose questions suggested nearly all the variations in the game of imagination which the young woman so aptly played.

'Was he riding his black mare, Jeanie Trim?'

'I didna see the beast. He stood on his feet when he was tapping at the door.'

'Whisht! Ye could tell if he wore his boots and spurs, an' his drab waistcoat, buttoned high?'

'Now that ye speak of it, those were the very things he wore.'

'It'd be the black mare he was riding, nae doubt; he'll have tied her to the gate in the lane.' Or again: 'Was it in the best parlour that ye saw him the day? He'd be drinking tea wi' my mither.'

'That he was; and she smiling tae him over the dish of tea.'

'Ay, he looks fine and handsome, bowing to my mither in the best parlour, Jeanie Trim. Did ye notice if he wore silk stockings?'

'Fine silk stockings he wore.'

'And his green coat?'

'As green and smart as a bottle when ye polish, it with a cloth.'

'Did ye notice the fine frills that he has to his shirt? I've tried to make my father's shirts look as fine, but they never have the same look.' The hands of the old dame would work nervously, as if eager to get at the goffering-irons and try once more. 'An' he'd lay his hat on the floor beside him; it's a way he has. Did my mither tell him that I was ailing? His eyes would be shining the while. Do ye notice how his eyes shine, Jeanie?'

'Ay, do I; his eyes shine and his hair curls.'

'Ye're mistaken there, his hair doesna curl, Jeanie Trim--ye've no' obsairved rightly; his hair is brown and straight; it's his beard and whiskers that curl. Eh! but they're bonny! There's a colour and shine in the curl that minds me of the lights I can see in the old copper kettle when my mither has it scoured and hung up on the nail; but his hair is plain brown.'

'He's a graun' figure of a man!' cried the blithe maid, ever sympathetic.

'Tuts! What are ye saying, Jeanie! He's no' a great size at all; the shortest of my brithers is bigger than him! Ye might even ca' him a wee man; it's the spirit that he has wi' it that I like.'

Thus, by degrees, touch upon touch, the portrait of Kinnaird was painted, and whatever misconceptions they might form of him were corrected one by one. There was little incident depicted, yet the figure of Kinnaird was never drawn passive, but always in action.

'Did my father no' offer to send him home in the spring-cart? It's sair wet for him to be walking in the wind and the rain the day.' Or: 'He had a fine bloom on his cheeks, I'll warrant, when he came in through this morning's bluster of wind.' Or again: 'He'll be riding to the hunt with my father to-day; have they put their pink coats on, Jeanie Trim?'

The relations between Kinnaird and the father and mother appeared to be indefinite rather than unfriendly. There were times, it is true, when he came round by the dairy and gave private messages to Jeanie Trim, but at other times he figured as one of the ordinary guests of a large and hospitable household. No special honour seemed to be paid him; there was always the apprehension in the love-sick girl's heart that such timely attentions as the offer of proper refreshment or of the use of the spring-cart might be lacking. The parents were never in the daughter's confidence. She always feared their interference. There was no beginning to the story, no crisis, no culmination.

'Now tell me when ye first saw Mr. Kinnaird?' asked the maid.

But to this there was no answer. It had not been love at first sight, its small beginnings had left no impression; nor was there ever any mention of a change in the relation, or of a parting, only that suggestion of a long and weary waiting, given in the beginning of this phase of memory, when she refused to touch her food, and said she was 'sair longing' to see him again.

The household at Kelsey Farm had flourished in the palmy days of agriculture. Hunters had been kept and pink coats worn, and the mother, of kin with the neighbouring gentry, had kept her carriage to ride in. There had been many pleasures, no doubt, for the daughter of such a house, but only one pleasure remained fixed on her memory, the pleasure of seeing Kinnaird's eyes shining upon her. These days of the lady's youth had happened at a time when religion, if strong, was a sombre thing; and to those who held the pleasures of life in both hands, it was little more than a name and a rite. So it came to pass that no religious sentiment was stirred with the thought of this old joy and succeeding sorrow.

The minister never failed to read some sacred texts when he sat beside her; and when he found himself alone with the old dame, he would kneel and pray aloud in such simple words as he thought she might understand. He did it more to ease his own heart because of the love he bore her than because he supposed that it made any difference in the sight of God whether she heard him or not. He was past the prime of life, and had fallen into pompous and ministerial habits of manner, but in his heart he was always pondering to find what the realities of life might be; he seldom drew false conclusions, although to many a question he was content to find no answer. He wore a serious look--people seldom knew what was passing in his mind; the doctor began to think that he was anxious for the safety of the old dame's soul.

'I am not without hope of a lucid interval at the end,' he said; 'there is wonderful vitality yet, and it's little more than the power of memory that is impaired.'

At this hope the daughters caught eagerly. They were plain women, narrow and dull, but their mother had been no ordinary woman; her power of love had created in them an affection for her which transcended ordinary filial affection. They had inherited from her such strong domestic feelings that they felt her defection from all family ties for the sake of the absent father and brothers, felt it with a poignancy which the use and wont of those winter months did not seem to blunt.

No sudden shock or fit came to bring about the end. Gradually the old dame's strength failed. There came an hour in the spring time--it was the midnight hour of an April night--when she lay upon her bed, sitting up high against white pillows, gasping for the last breaths that she would ever draw. They had drawn aside the old-fashioned bed-curtains, so that they hung like high dark pillars at the four posts. They had opened wide the windows, and the light spring wind blew through the room fresh with the dews of night. Outside, the moon was riding among her clouds; the night was white. The budding trees shook their twigs together in the garden. Inside the room, firelight and lamplight, each flickering much because of the wind, mingled with the moonlight, but did not wholly obscure its misty presence. They all stood there--the minister, the doctor, the grey-haired daughters sobbing, looking and longing for one glance of recognition, the nurse, and the new maid.

They all knelt, while the minister said a prayer.

'She's looking differently now,' whispered the home-keeping daughter. She had drawn her handkerchief from her eyes, and was looking with awed solicitude at her mother's face.

'Yes, there's a change coming,' said the married daughter; her large bosom heaved out the words with excited emotion.

'Speak to her of my father--it will bring her mind back again,' they appealed to the minister, pushing him forward to do what they asked.

The minister took the lady's hands in his, and spoke out clearly and strongly in her ear; but he spoke not, at first, of husband or children, but of the Son of God.

Memories that had lain asleep so long seemed slowly to awaken for one last moment.

'You know what I am saying, auntie?' The minister spoke strongly, as to one who was deaf.

There was a smile on the handsome old face.

'Ay, I know weel: "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shallna want ... though I walk through the valley o' the shadow of death."'

'My uncle, and Thomas, and William have gone before you, auntie.'

'Ay'--with a satisfied smile--'they've gone before.'

'You know who I am?' he said again.

She knew him, and took leave of him. She took leave of each of her daughters, but in a calm, weak way, as one who had waded too far into the river of death to be much concerned with the things of earth.

The doctor pressed her hand, and the faithful nurse. The minister, feeling that justice should be done to one whose wit had brought great relief, bid the maid go forward.

She was weeping, but she spoke in the free, caressing way that she had used so long.

'Ye know who I am, ma'am?'

The dying eyes looked her full in the face, but gave no recognition.

'It's Jeanie Trim.'

'Na, na, I remember a Jeanie Trim long syne, but you're not Jeanie Trim!'

The maid drew back discomfited.

The minister began to repeat a psalm that she loved. The daughters sat on the bedside, holding her hands. So they waited, and she seemed to follow the meaning of the psalm as it went on, until suddenly----

She turned her head feebly towards a space by the bed where no one stood. She drew her aged hands from her daughters', and made as if to stretch them out to a new-comer. She smiled.

'Mr. Kinnaird!' she murmured; then she died.

'You might have thought that he was there himself,' said the daughters, awestruck.

And the minister said