“OH yes, I am very fanciful, I know I am; but if Harry would only be content, and let me be happy while I can,” said I, trying, but without success, to gulp down my tears.
“Mrs. Langham, my dear, the Captain canna be content, and it stands to reason,” said Mrs. Saltoun; “and being anxious, as a good man should, to provide for his wife and his bairn, will no take him away an hour sooner than if he were a reckless ne’er-do-weel, that cared neither for the tane nor the tither. Be reasonable, and let him speak. He’s young and you’re young; and you’re neither o’ ye that wise but ye might thole mending. It’s a real, discreet, sensible thing o’ the young gentleman to try his very utmost for a home for his wife if he has to go away.”
“If you have taken his side I shall give up speaking,” said I. “What do I care for home, or anything else, if he is away?”
“But you care for the Captain’s peace of mind, Mrs. Langham, my dear,” said Mrs. Saltoun; “that’s far different. Maybe the truest love of a’ would make itself content to be left in splendour for the sake of a comfortable thought to them that’s going on a far different road. I wouldna say but the thought o’ your safety would lighten mony an hour of danger. Mony’s the strange thing I’ve seen in my life; but eh! when ye have them that ye maybe mayna have lang, gie them their will! Let him have his ain way, and gang in wi’ him if ye can. There’s mony a young wife like you would die cheerful, or do ony hard thing in the world for her husband, but canna see her way just to do that. Gie him his will! I was ower late learning that mysel’.”
The very tone in which my good old lady spoke plunged me deeper and deeper into my agony of alarm and terror. I did not take her words for what they meant. I went aside to draw terrifying inferences from her tone and the sound of her voice. She thought he would go, I concluded—perhaps she had heard already that marching orders had come—she thought that he would never come back again, if he did leave me. Anxiety and fear seized hold upon me so forcibly that I never stopped to{91} think that Mrs. Saltoun had no means of knowing, any more, or even so much as I knew, and that she could not possibly be better informed on this point than I was.
“And now tell me about your family, Mrs. Langham, my dear. I’ve come across half the folk in the country, I might venture to say, one time and another. I was on the continent for three years with my old gentleman,” said Mrs. Saltoun; “it’s just astonishing to say such a thing, but if you’ll believe me, a person gets better acquaint with their own country folk, that is, meaning the higher ranks o’ life, in foreign parts than at home. It’s maybe just a glance and away, that’s true; but them that has good memories minds.”
“And were you really abroad?” said I, feeling a little interested in spite of all my trouble; “and who was your old gentleman?—not——”
“No, no, nobody belonging to me. I had the charge of his house and his young family, that he had no business to have at his age; an auld fuil of a man that had married a young wife, and lost her, and was left, past seventy, with four young bairns. Mortimer? wasn’t that your name, my dear? Eh? I mind of a Miss Mortimer made a great steer among a’ the English one season; and among mair than the English by bad fortune. She was counted a great beauty; but I canna say she was like you.”
“No, indeed, not likely!” cried I.
“I would rather have your face than hers though,” said kind Mrs. Saltoun. “Bless me, now I think of it, that was a very strange story. There was a Count somebody that followed her about like her shadow. Except her beauty, I canna say I ever had much of an opinion of her. She was very heartless to her servants, and, for all the admirers she had, I think her greatest admirer was herself; but between you and me, my dear, men are great fools; she had ay a train after her. To be sure she was said to be a great fortune as well. I canna think but that poor Count was badly used. Counts are no a’ impostors, like what we think them here. He was a real handsome gentleman, that one. He was with her wherever she went for a year and more. Some folks said they were to be married, and more said they were married already. That was ay my opinion;—when, what do you think, all at once he disappeared from her, and for a while she flirted about more than ever; and then she went suddenly off and home with her father. I would like to hear the rights o’ that story. When a woman’s a witch,—and I canna think a great beauty without a{92} heart is onything else—most other women take a great interest in finding her out. Fools say it’s for envy; but it’s no for envy, my dear. You see beauty doesna blind a woman; we can ay see what’s going on underhand.”
“And what became of her?” said I.
“That is just what I never heard. That is the worst of meeting in with folk abroad; you see them once, and you, maybe, never see them a’ your days again,” said Mrs. Saltoun. “To be sure, you commonly hear of them, one way or other; but I never heard of the beautiful Miss Mortimer again. It’s five-and-twenty years ago, if it’s a day, and she was far from young then. That poor Count—I canna mind his name—was a good five years, if no more, younger than the witch that kept him at her call. I took a real spite against that woman; for you see she was just at the over-bloom, and yet took a’ the airs of a young queen. I wouldna wonder in the least but, after a’, she was married and wouldna own to it. There was nae heart in her.”
“But if she was married, how could she help herself?” said I.
“That is what I canna tell,” said Mrs. Saltoun; “there’s wheels within wheels, especially in foreign parts. Maybe the Count wasna a grand eno............