The next day Isabel was too much occupied with her project of visiting Ailie at Ardnamore to be open to any argument or dissuasion. She put aside her stepmother’s attempts to move her, with soft obstinacy. ‘She was never a friend of yours that you should be so keen about her now,’ said Jean.
‘She was more to me than you think,’ said Isabel; and her stepmother’s amazement was great.
‘She was liker Margret than you; but far, far different from Margret,’ Jean resumed, after a pause; ‘and you but a gay heedless lassie, no thinking of such things.’
‘But I tell you she was more to me than you thought,’ said Isabel.
This was all that Jean could extract from her; and it gave rise to many marvels in the good woman’s mind and serious anxiety, which she could not express. ‘Eh, if Ailie had anything to do with that English lad,’ was the thought that passed through her mind; ‘eh, if she should be in league with him now!’ But she could not surmount her hesitation about mentioning Stapylton’s name.
Isabel had to leave her child behind, which was a novel thing to her, and very strange it felt to walk away alone through the village and down the other side of the Loch towards the steep lane that led to Ardnamore. When she got to the gate, it was the height of the warm languorous afternoon, and the air and the weariness had soothed her, and brought a languorous feeling into her heart. She was not excited about Ailie, poor girl! Isabel, in her own heart, had made out a story for Ailie, setting her down as a neglected, melancholy wife, with a strange past behind her and a mysterious future before, no doubt; and yet not so much lifted beyond the range of ordinary humanity as she had been in the old days.{229} She expected to be shown into the old-fashioned drawing-room, with its bright windows looking out on the Loch, and to be joined by the mistress of the house, when she had waited a while, and to see Ailie’s attempt to look contented, and to bear herself like the other ladies. As she approached the house, the garden and everything around looked so everyday and ordinary, that all that was extraordinary in Ailie’s story gradually died out of her visitor’s mind. She would be awkward, perhaps, in her new position; she might not even know how to receive Isabel’s visit; but, still, no doubt three years of absence and travel had improved her. And Isabel felt more and more as if she were paying an ordinary visit, when the maid, who was just like other maids, let her into the house, which was precisely like other houses. The deerskin mats at the door, the antlers in the hall, the hats and plaids hanging about, each took something from her interest. She began to forget Ailie, and think only of Mrs. Diarmid of Ardnamore.
The drawing-room was a large, light room, rather low in the roof, furnished with old-fashioned spindle-legged furniture, gilt and painted, and covered with white covers, to preserve the fading damask below. Isabel went in with a little gentle curiosity, seeing no one. She moved a few steps into the room, her eye catching the Indian inlaid work of a set of writing things upon a table, but not perceiving in the whiteness of the room a white figure seated just within the curtains at the bay window, half hidden in the recess. Even when she did perceive her, Isabel stood uncertain, hesitating whether to go forward or to wait quietly apart till Ailie should make her appearance. For surely this was not Ailie—it must be some visitor, some caller—— But a strange sense of recognition stole over her after the first start. She stood in her intense blackness and gazed at the unknown being whose appearance was such a contrast to her own; and then there came at last a faint sound of a voice: ‘Is it you, Isabel?’
‘Oh, is it you, Ailie?’ she cried, and went up to her with something of her old impetuous manner. Yes, it was Ailie, and yet as unlike Ailie as fancy could have imagined. She was sitting against the wall with no appearance of any occupation—her listless hands lying in her lap. She was dressed in dead white, not light muslin, but opaque white stuff, loosely made, or else hanging loosely upon her worn figure. Her face was almost as white as her gown, her blue eyes were dilated and wandering, her fair hair, which once had so much pale gold in it, had lost its lustre. She was like marble, but yet she was not like death. Something of move{230}ment, a thrill of wavering agitation and life, was about her, although she sat as still as if, like the Lady in ‘Comus,’ she had been bound by enchantment into her chair.
‘I did not see you when I came in,’ said Isabel. ‘I only heard of it yesterday; and so you’ve come home?’
‘Aye—I’ve come home.’
‘And you’ve seen your own people again after all,’ said Isabel, trying to adopt a tone of congratulation.
‘Aye—I’ve seen my own folk.’
‘And I am very glad you are back,’ said Isabel, ‘home is the best. But I never heard till yesterday, when I came back too. How glad they would all be! And I hope you were glad too—I hope you were pleased yourself?’
Ailie made no answer. She turned her head half away, and gazed again over the Loch. A little almost imperceptible nod of her head was the only indication she gave of having heard. And Isabel began to grow nervous in spite of herself.
‘Will you not speak to me, Ailie? are you not pleased to see me? I thought you would be pleased—and I would not lose a day. And you must have heard,’ said Isabel, a little affronted as well as amazed at the indifference shown her, and instinctively producing her highest claim to consideration, ‘what dreadful trouble I have had since you went away.’
The word seemed to catch Ailie’s ear without any that followed or preceded it. ‘Trouble!’ she said vaguely, ‘what can your trouble be in comparison with mine?’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ cried Isabel, with violent youthful compunction, ‘you know I have heard nothing. Oh, Ailie, don’t sit there and look so sad—tell me about it—was it your child?’
Ailie turned upon her her great wandering, dilated eyes: ‘My child?’
‘I did not know,’ said Isabel, almost crying, ‘I thought you might have lost—a child—when you said your trouble was worse than mine.’
‘My trouble is worse than any trouble on earth,’ said Ailie; ‘and oh to come back here to look on the same place night and day as I knew in my dreams. I think my heart will burst—it’s broken long, long ago,’ she added, turning away from Isabel, with a sudden pathos in her voice. It seemed a confession of unhappiness so open and undisguised, that Isabel was driven to her wits’ end, not knowing what to do or say.
‘Oh, Ailie!’ she said—‘oh, Ailie, you should not say that now—I told you, you should not marry him——’
‘Marry him!’ said Ailie, with a faint wonder stealing{231} over her face. ‘We are meaning different things, you and me. Aye—I thought I was wedded to the Lord; I thought He was sending me forth to do His will. Oh, woman! what is your bairn or your man to that? And it was not that I deceived myself,’ she continued, rising into vehemence; ‘I never deceived myself. There was His promise, clear as the sun in the skies. Could I no see all the wonders of the latter days? I saw them in myself; I spoke in power; I rose up off my bed that might have been my dying bed—and a’ to be betrayed, and casten down, and deceived!’
‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, wringing her hands, ‘what are you speaking of—what do you mean?’
For the moment Ailie made no answer. She never turned her head to one side or the other—but gazed before her into the air, seeing nothing. ‘Your Margret was right,’ she said, after a pause. ‘It’s sweetest to die—oh, it’s fine to die. Christ died, Isabel. We say it’s for us you know, and so it is for us, but He had to do it. Nae miracle saved Him; that’s what your Margret said.’
‘But He saved you,’ said Isabel, in her awe, under her breath.
At these words Ailie burst into a few sudden, violent tears—a momentary paroxysm which she seemed totally incapable of controlling. ‘Whiles I think it was some devil,’ she said.
‘Oh, Ailie,’ cried Isabel, ‘this is not you that is speaking—not you that was always so good!’
‘That is another thing,’ said Ailie, without any apparent sense of reproof, ‘whiles that is what I think; that it’s no me, but some ill spirit in me. And though I think I’m sitting here, I may be with your Margret in Heaven, throwing my gold crown before His feet. Oh, if it was but that! Sometimes at night the Lord sends such thoughts like dew—if it is the Lord. But then comes the awfu’ morning, Isabel Diarmid, and I open my eyes, and my heart cries out—He has broken His word.’
‘Ailie! Ailie!’
‘Oh, dinna speak! He has broken His word. I gave up all for it—all! I thought first I was to serve Him my own way, a single lass. But, Isabel, you mind? I wouldna maintain my way in the face of His word. I gave up all! And he wiled me out to the world with false hopes. And He’s broken His own word. He’s done nought—nought—nought, that He said!’
‘Are ye speaking of Mr. John?’ said Isabel, driven to her wits’ end. ‘Oh, Ailie, is it him you mean?’
‘I mean the Lord,’ said Ailie, folding her hands together, and pressing them to her breast.{232}
And then there was a pause. Isabel, to whom this sounded like blasphemy, drew a step or two apart, full of agitation and alarm. But Ailie was not excited. She did not even change her attitude, but sat still with her eyes vaguely fixed on the world without, and the Loch which lay so bright in the sunshine. She gazed, but she saw nothing—her mind’s eye was turned inward; and to the young creature full of life, and all its movements, who stood by her, this abstracted woman was a marvel past all comprehension. Was she unhappy in her home? was it in the want of love that had frozen her? was it grief or loss, or some bereavement of which Isabel knew nothing? She broke the silence at last with timid inquiries, which sounded like a prayer.
‘But, Ailie,’ she asked, faltering at every word, ‘you have had no grief—in your life? You have still your husband? There has been no—death—nor—trouble? You’ve been—happy?—as much as folk are in this world?’
‘Happy!’ It did not sound like an answer, but only like an echo of the other voice, and another pause followed. ‘It was God’s will I sought and nothing else,’ she said at last. ‘Was it me to think of marrying or giving in marriage? It was my meat and my drink to do His will. Oh, Isabel Diarmid! it’s your man and your bairn you think of—but no me. What I was thinking on was a world lying in darkness—a’ bonnie and bright outside—like that—and a’ miserable and perishing within—and He promised He would mend it a’. Go forth and preach, He said, and I’ll come again and the holy angels, and bring in a new Heaven and a new earth. And there was the word in my ain mouth for a testimony. What was I that I should speak in power if it hadna been Him that did it?—and now all my hope is gone. The Lord Himself has broken His word. What do I care if the earth should tumble to pieces this moment! The minister is but dead, Isabel, and you’ll find him in Heaven; but I’m disappointed in my God,’ cried Ailie, suddenly hiding her face in her hands; ‘and Him I’ll never find again, neither in Heaven nor earth.’
This tragical outcry was so bitter and full of anguish, that Isabel stopped short in the protestations that rose to her lips. And yet the very thought of thus reproaching God made her tremble, as if it must bring down fire from Heaven. ‘Oh, Ailie,’ she faltered, ‘it is not for me to teach you; but oh, I dare not stand and hear you judging God!’
A low moan came from Ailie’s breast. She shook her head sadly. Her great eyes turned to Isabel’s for a moment with the anguish of a dumb creature in pain.{233} She was far beyond tears. ‘There’s nae power nor voice in me now,’ she said, ‘to teach or to speak. He’s taken His gifts away, as well as the hope. I canna burst out and cry, “Oh, why tarry the wheels of His chariot?” It’s all gone—all gone! spirit, and power, and life, and hope!’
Isabel was too much bewildered and overwhelmed to reply. ‘Oh, Ailie, have you no child?’ she cried, at last finding no other words that would come.
She had but asked the question, when the door opened, and Mr. John came suddenly in. When he saw Isabel he paused, and the same softened look which had come over his face in the steamer at the sight of her again gleamed over it.
‘You have come to see her?’ he said, and looked from the young widow in her deep mourning to his marble-white wife in her snowy cold dress with the strangest look of comparison. It seemed to the man as if the fate that might have been his and that which was really his thus stood together in visible contact. Isabel had grown more and more like her sister without knowing it. And now when her heart was so touched with sorrow, and wonder, and compassion, and all the depths of her nature moving in her eyes, it might have been Margaret herself who stood there, looking with infinite pity, striving vainly to understand the woman who was John Diarmid’s wife.
‘She is changed,’ he said, following with his eyes Isabel’s anxious look............