The drawing-room in Moray Place seemed in the partial gloom very large and lofty. It must be remembered that Walter was accustomed only to the comparatively small rooms of an English country town where there was nobody who was very rich—and the solid, tall Edinburgh houses were imposing to him. There was no light but that which came from a blazing fire, and which threw an irregular ruddy illumination upon everything, but no distinct vision. He saw the tall windows indefinitely draped, and looking not unlike three colossal women in abundant vague robes standing against the wall. In a smaller room behind, which opened from this, the firelight was still brighter, but still only partially lit up the darkness. It showed, however, a table placed near the fire, and glowing with bright reflections from its silver and china; and just beyond that, out of the depths of what looked like an elongated easy-chair, a piece of whiteness, which was a female countenance. Walter, confused at his entrance, made out after a moment that it was a lady, half reclining on a sort of invalid chaise longue, who raised herself slightly to receive him, with a flicker of a pair of white, attenuated hands. “You are very welcome, Lord Erradeen,” she said, in a sweet, feeble voice. “Will you excuse my rising—for I’m a great invalid—and come and sit down here beside me? I have been looking for you this half-hour past.” The hand which she held out to him was so thin that he scarcely felt its light pressure. “If you have no objection,” said Miss Milnathort, “we will do with the firelight for a little longer. It is my favourite light. My brother sent me word I was to expect you, and after your cold walk you will be glad of a cup of tea.” She did not pause for any reply, but went on, drawing the table towards her, and arranging everything with the skill of an accustomed hand. “I am just a cripple creature,” she said. “I have had to learn to serve myself in this way, and Robert is extraordinarily thoughtful. There is not a mechanical convenience invented but I have it before it is well out of the brain that devised it; and that is how I get on so well with no backbone to speak of. All this is quite new to you,” she said, quickly shaking off one subject and taking up another, with a little swift movement of her head.
“Do you mean—Edinburgh, or——”
“I mean everything,” said the lady. “Edinburgh will be just a bit of scenery in the drama that is opening upon you, and here am I just another tableau. I can see it all myself with your young eyes. You can scarcely tell if it is real.”
“That is true enough,” said Walter, “and the scenery all turns upon the plot so far: which is what it does not always do upon the stage.”
“Ay!” said Miss Milnathort, with a tone of surprise, “and how may that be? I don’t see any particular significance in Holyrood. It is where all you English strangers go, as if Edinburgh had no meaning but Queen Mary.”
“We did not go to Holyrood. We went to Lord Methven’s Lodging, as I hear it is called: which was highly appropriate.”
“Dear me,” said the lady, “do you mean to tell me that John Bannatyne had that sense in him? I will remember that the next time Robert calls him an auld foozle. And so you saw the lodging of Methven? I have never seen it myself. Did it not make your heart sick to see all the poverty and misery in that awful street? Oh yes, I’m told it’s a grand street: but I never have the heart to go into it. I think the place should die with the age that gave it birth.”
This was a sentiment so entirely unlike what Walter had expected to hear, that for the moment it took from him all power of reply. “That would be hard upon antiquity,” he said at length, “and I don’t know what the artists would say, or our friend Mr. Bannatyne.”
“He would have me burnt for a witch,” the invalid said with a sweet little laugh; and then she added, “Ah, it is very well to talk about art; but there was great sense in that saying of the old Reformers, ‘Ding down the nest, and the crows will flee away.’”
“I expected,” said Walter, “to find you full of reverence for the past, and faith in mysteries and family secrets, and—how can I tell?—ghosts perhaps.” He laughed, but the invalid did not echo his laugh. And this brought a little chill and check to his satisfaction. The sense that one has suddenly struck a jarring note is highly uncomfortable when one is young. Walter put back his chair a little, not reflecting that the firelight revealed very little of his sudden blush.
“I have had no experience in what you call ghosts,” she said, gravely. “I cannot, to tell the truth, see any argument against them, except just that we don’t see them; and I think that’s a pity, for my part.”
To this, as it was a view of the subject equally new to him, Walter made no reply.
“Take you care, Lord Erradeen,” she resumed hastily, “not to let yourself be persuaded to adopt that sort of nomenclature.” There was a touch of Scotch in her accent that naturalised the long word, and made it quite in keeping. “Conclude nothing to be a ghost till you cannot account for it in any other way. There are many things that are far more surprising,” she said; then, shaking off the subject once more with that little movement of her head, “You are not taking your tea. You must have had a tiring day after travelling all night. That is one of the modern fashions I cannot make up my mind to. They tell me the railway is not so wearying as the long coach journeys we used to make in the old time.”
“But you—can scarcely remember the old coach journeys? Why, my mother——”
“Very likely I am older than your mother; and I rarely budge out of this corner. I have never seen your mother, but I remember Captain Methven long long ago, who was not unlike the general outline of you, so far as I can make out. When the light comes you will see I am an old woman. It is just possible that this is why I am so fond of the firelight,” she said with a laugh; “for I’m really very young though I was born long ago. Robert and me, we remember all our games and plays in a way that people that have had children of their own never do. We are just boy and girl still, and I’ve known us, after a long talk, forget ourselves altogether, and talk of papa and mamma!” She clapped her hands together at this, and went into a peal of genuine laughter, such as is always infectious. Walter laughed too, but in a half-embarrassed, half-unreal way. All was so strange to him, and this curious introduction into a half-seen, uncomprehended world the most curious of all.
“I would like to know a little about yourself,” she resumed after a moment. “You were not in the secret that it was you who were the kin? It was strange your father should have left you in the dark.”
“I can’t remember my father,” said Walter, hastily.
“That makes little difference; but you were always a strange family. Now you, Robert tells me, you’re not so very much of an Erradeen—you take after your mother’s side. And I’m very very glad to hear it. It will perhaps be you, if you have the courage, that will put a stop to—many things. There are old rhymes upon that subject, but you will put little faith in old rhymes; I none at all. I believe they are just made up long after the occasion, just for the sake of the fun, or perhaps because some one is pleased with himself to have found a rhyme. Now that one that they tell me is in the Canongate—that about ‘Live, Me’even—’”
“I thought you said you didn’t know it?”
“I have never seen it; but you don’t suppose I am ignorant of the subject, Lord Erradeen? Do you know I have been here stretched out in my chair these thirty years? and what else could I give my attention to, considering all things? Well, I do not believe in that. Oh, it’s far too pat! When a thing is true it is not just so terribly in keeping. I believe it was made up by somebody that knew the story just as we do; probably a hundred years or more after the event.”
Walter did not say that he was quite unacquainted with the event. His interest perhaps, though he was not aware of it, was a little less warm since he knew that Miss Milnathort was his mother’s contemporary rather than his own; but he had come to the conclusion that it was better not to ask any direct questions. The light had faded much, and was now nothing more than a steady red glow in place of the leaping and blazing of the flames. He scarcely saw his entertainer at all. There were two spots of brightness which moved occasionally, and which represented her face and the hands which she had clasped together (when they were not flickering about in incessant gesture) in her lap. But there was something altogether quaint and strange in the situation. It did not irritate him as the men had done. And then she had the good sense to agree with him in some respects, though the mélange of opinions in her was remarkable, and he did not understand what she would be at. There was an interval of quiet in which neither of them said anything, and then a large step was audible coming slowly up-stairs, and through the other drawing room.
“Here is Robert,” the invalid said with a smile in her voice. It was nothing but a tall shadow that appeared, looming huge in the ruddy light.
“Have you got Lord Erradeen with you, Alison? and how are you and he getting on together?” said old Milnathort’s voice.
Walter rose hastily to his feet with a feeling that other elements less agreeable were at once introduced, and that his pride was affronted by being discussed in this easy manner over his head.
“We are getting on fine, Robert. He is just as agreeable as you say, and I have great hopes will be the man. But you are late, and it will soon be time for dinner. I would advise you to show our young gentleman to his room, and see that he’s comfortable. And after dinner, when you have had your good meal, we’ll have it all out with him.”
“I am thinking, Alison, that there is a good deal we must go over that will be best between him and me.”
“That must be as you please, Robert, my man,” said the lady, and Walter felt like a small child who is being discussed over his head by grown-up persons, whom he feels to be his natural enemies. He rose willingly, yet with unconscious offence, and followed his host to his room, inwardly indignant with himself for having thus impaired his own liberty by forsaking his inn. The room however was luxuriously comfortable, shining with firelight, and a grave and respectable servant in mourning, was arranging his evening clothes upon the bed.
“This is Symington,” said Mr. Milnathort, “he was your late cousin’s body-servant. The late Lord Erradeen gave him a very warm recommendation. There might be things perhaps in which he would be of use.”
“Thanks,” said Walter, impulsively. “I have a man coming. I am afraid the recommendation is a little too late.”
This unfortunately was not true; but the young man felt that to allow himself to be saddled with a sort of governor in the shape of the late lord’s servant was more than could be required of him; and that he must assert himself before it was too late.
“You will settle that at your pleasure, my lord,” said old Milnathort, and he went away shutting the door carefully, his steady, slow step echoing along the passage. The man was not apparently in the least daunted by Walter’s irritation. He went on mechanically, lightly brushing out a crease, and unfolding the coat with that affectionate care which a good servant bestows upon good clothes. Walter longed to have brought his old coat with him that everything should not have been so distressingly new.
“That will do,” he said, “that will do. It is a pity to give you so much trouble when, as I tell you, I have another man engaged.”
“It is no trouble, my lord; it is a pleasure. I came out of attachment to the family. I’ve been many years about my late lord. And however ye may remind yourself that you are but a servant, and service is no heritage, yet it’s not easy to keep yourself from becoming attached.”
“My good man,” said Walter, half impatient, half touched, “you never saw me in your life before. I can’t see how you can have any attachment to me.”
Symington had a long face, with a somewhat lugubrious expression, contradicted by the twinkle of a pair of humorous, deep-set eyes. He gave a glance up at Walter from where he stood fondling the lappels of the new coat.
“There are many kinds of attachments, my lord,” he said oracularly; “some to the person and some to the race. For a number of years past I have, so to speak, just identified myself with the Erradeens. It’s not common in England, so far as I can hear, but it’s just our old Scots way. I will take no other service. So, being free, if your lordship pleases, I will just look after your lordship’s things till the other man comes.”
Walter perceived in a moment by the way Symington said these words that he had no faith whatever in the other man. He submitted accordingly to the ministrations of the family retainer, with a great deal of his old impatience, tempered by a sense of the humour of the situation. It seemed that he was never to have any control over himself. He had barely escaped from the tutelage of home when he fell into this other which was much more rigid. “Poor mother!” he said to himself, with an affectionate recollection of her many cares, her anxious watchfulness; and laughed to himself at the thought that she was being avenged.
Mr. Milnathort’s table was handsome and liberal; the meal even too abundant for the solitary pair who sat alone at a corner of the large table, amid a blaze of light. Miss Milnathort did not appear.
“She never comes down. She has never sat down at table since she had her accident, and that is thirty years since.”
There was something in Mr. Milnathort’s tone as he said this that made Walter believe that her accident too had something to do with the family. Everything tended towards that, or sprang from it. Had he been to the manner born, this would no doubt have seemed to him natural enough; but as it was he could not keep himself from the idea either that he was being laughed at, or that some design was hidden beneath this constant reference. The dinner, however, went off quietly. It was impossible to discuss anything of a private character in the presence of Milnathort’s serious butler, and of the doubly grave apparition of Symington, who helped the other to wait.
Walter had never dined so solemnly before. It must be added, however, that he had seldom dined so well. It was a pity that he was so little knowing in this particular. Mr. Milnathort encouraged him through the repast by judicious words o............