Chapter XXII: On the Seashore

"I wish to speak to you of a great secret," said Coquette to Lord Earlshope that morning, "when we shall have the chance. It is very important."

"I shall remember to make the chance," said he, "especially as Lady Drum wants to go round and see Dunstaffnage. You must come with us."

The Minister preferred to remain in the yacht. The fact is, he was composing a sermon on the judgment that befell Jonah; and was engaged in painting a picture of the storm, with powerful colours borrowed from his experiences in Loch Crinan. He was busy with the task; for he hoped to be able to preach the sermon next day--being Sunday--to the small congregation on board. So it was that the others started without him; and drove over in a hired trap by the road which leads past the small Lochan-dhu. In time they arrived at Dunstaffnage, and made their way out to the rocks which there rise over the sea, looking across to Lismore, and Morven, and Kingairloch.

Lady Drum was a brisk and active woman for her age; but she did not care to exert herself unnecessarily. When they had gone up and examined the ruins of the old castle, when they had passed through the small wood, and reached the line of alternate rock and beach fronting the sea, she placed herself upon an elevated peak, and allowed the younger folks to scramble down to the white shingle below. There she saw them both sit down--Lord Earlshope beginning to pitch pebbles carelessly into the sea. She could hear the murmur of their talk, too; but could not distinguish what they said. Apparently there was nothing very important engaging their attention; for they did not even look at each other; and Lord Earlshope was evidently more interested in trying to hit a piece of seaweed which the tide had drifted in to the strand.

"My secret is this," said Coquette. "Do you know that papa and mamma did leave me a good deal of money?"

"I was not aware of it," said Lord Earlshope, making another effort to hit the seaweed.

"Oh, I am very rich--that is to say, not what you English would call rich, but rich in my country. Yet I cannot use the money. What good is it to me? Mamma gave me more jewellery than I need--what am I to do with my money?"

"I don't know much about ladies' expenses," said Earlshope. "But if you want to get rid of this burden of wealth, why not keep horses, or buy a theatre, or----"

"No, no, no," she said. "You do not understand. I mean I have nothing to do with my money for myself. Now, here is my cousin who goes to Glasgow to live by himself in lodgings, perhaps not very pleasant. His father is not rich. He must work hard; and your northern winters are so cold. Very well: how I am to give him money?"

"That is the problem--is it?" said Earlshope. "I might have guessed you did not wish to spend the money on yourself. Well, I don't know. I give it up. If he were a mere lad, you see, you might send him a 20_l._ note now and again, which most of us have found very acceptable at college. But you would insult your cousin if you sent him money bluntly like that. Besides, you would destroy the picturesqueness of his position. Our Scotch colleges are sacred to the poor student; they are not seminaries for the teaching of extravagance and good manners, like the English universities."

"Then you cannot help me?" said Coquette.

"Oh, there are a hundred indirect ways in which you could be of service to him; but you must be careful, and consult with Lady Drum, who is going to Glasgow, and will probably see him there. How fortunate you are to have no care whatever on your mind but the thought of how to do other people good! You are never anxious about yourself; you seem to be surrounded by a sort of halo of comfort and satisfaction; and annoyances that strike against the charmed circle are blunted and fall to the ground."

"That is a very nice and pretty speech," said Coquette, with a smile. "I will soon believe the English are not a barbarous nation if you make such long compliments."

"I wonder," said Lord Earlshope, looking away over the sea, and apparently almost talking to himself, "whether, if I were to tell you another secret, it would annoy you in the least. I do not think it would. How could it matter to you?"

"But what is it?" said Coquette.

"Suppose," said he, throwing another pebble at the bit of seaweed, "that I were to tell you, first, that you had no need to be alarmed; that I did not mean to frighten you with a proposal, or any nonsense of that kind; and then tell you that I had fallen in love with you? Suppose I were to do that, and tell you the history of the thing, it would not trouble you in the least, would it? Why should it, indeed? You are not responsible; you are not affected by the catastrophe; you might be curious to know more about it, even, as something to pass the time."

He spoke with the most absolute indifference; and so preoccupied was he that he did not even look at his companion. The first start of surprise had given way to a mute and apprehensive fear; her face was quite pale; and she did not know that her two hands were tightly clasped in her lap, as if to keep them from trembling.

"Such is the fact, however," he continued, just as if he were describing to her some event of yesterday, of which he had been an interested spectator. "You cannot be nearly so surprised as I am; indeed, I don't suppose you would think anything about it, unless you considered it as a misfortune which has happened to me; and then you will, I hope without laughing, give me the benefit of your sympathy. Yet I am not very wretched, you see; and you--you are no more affected by it than if you were the moon, and I, according to the Eastern saying, one of the hundred streams looking up to you. I am afraid I have been experimenting on myself, and deserve the blow that has fallen. I have been flying my kite too near the thunder-cloud; and what business had a man of my age with a kite?"

He spoke without any bitterness. It was a misfortune, and to be accepted.

"I am very sorry," she said, in a low voice.

"No!--why sorry?" he said. "I fancied I was more philosophical than I am. I think my first sentiment towards you was merely idle curiosity. I wished to see how so rare an exotic would flourish when transplanted to our bleak Scotch moors. Then you allowed me to make your acquaintance; and I believed myself filled with the most paternal solicitude about your welfare. Sometimes I had doubts--sometimes I made experiments to solve them. If I were to tell you how I fought against the certainty that I had become the victim of an affection, foolish, hopeless, unreasoning, you would, perhaps, understand why I think it better to tell you frankly so much as I have done, by way of explanation. You might also be amused, perhaps, if you cared for recondite studies. To me it has been very odd to find that, after I had dissected every sensation and analysed every scrap of emotion I have ever experienced, another being has sprung into existence by the very side of my lecture-table. That other being is also I--looking with contempt at my own anatomical experiments. And there is yet a third I--now talking to you--who looks as a spectator upon both the anatomist and the spectral being who has escaped his knife. Do you understand all this?"

A stone fell close beside them; and Coquette's heart leaped at the sound. It had been pitched down by Lady Drum as a signal that she was impatient.

"Yes, I understand it all," said Coquette, still in the same low voice, "but it is very dreadful."

"Then it is not amusing," said Lord Earlshope, offering his hand to raise her up. "I beg your pardon for boring you with a psychological conundrum. You are not vexed about my having mentioned it at all?"

"Oh, no," said Coquette; but the beach, and the sea, and the far mountains, seemed insecure and wavering; and she would fain have had Lady Drum's arm to lean upon.

"How could you be vexed, indeed, except by the dulness of the story?" said Lord Earlshope, cheerfully. "You may consider, if you like, that you never heard my confession. It cannot affect you; nor need it, indeed, in the slightest degree, affect our relations with each other. Do you agree with me?"

"_Oui_--yes, I mean--it will be quite the same between us as before," said Coquette.

"You will not find me torture you with the jealousies of a lover. I shall not scowl when you write a letter without showing me the address. I shall not even be angry if you enclose flowers in it. We shall be to each other, I hope, the friends we have always been; until I have quite recovered my equanimity. And you will not make me the butt of your ridicule during the process?"

"I shall always be very sorry that this has happened," said Coquette.

"Why, of course!" said her companion. "Didn't I say so? You are sorry, because it is my misfortune. In return, when you fall in love--perhaps with your handsome cousin, let us say, who means, I know, to come back crowned with laurels in order to win for himself a pretty wife somewhere down in Ayrshire--I will do my best to become sorry for you. But then, in your case, why should anybody be sorry? To fall in love is not always a misfortune--at least, I hope there are some who do not find it so."

For the first time he spoke sadly; and the expression of his face conveyed that he was thinking of some distant time. When Coquette and her companion rejoined Lady Drum, they were both unusually silent. As for the young girl, indeed, she was anxious to get once more into the waggonette, and have the horses' heads turned towards Oban. In the rumble of the wheels along the road there was not much occasion to talk; and very little indeed of the beautiful scenery, on that culm and bright autumn morning, did Coquette see as they passed over the neck of land towards Oban Bay.