Chapter XXV: Coquette's Presentiments

It was impossible that this condition of affairs could last. A far less observant man than Earlshope was bound to perceive the singular change which had fallen over Coquette's manner. Hitherto she had appeared to him to be the very personification of joyousness--to live a graceful, happy, almost unthinking life, in an atmosphere of tender emotions and kindly sentiments, which were as the sunshine and the sea-breezes to her. Why should this young creature, with the calm and beautiful face, whose dark eyes showed a perfect serenity and placidity of soul, be visited with the rougher passions, the harsher experiences, which befall less fortunate people? That was not her _rôle_. It was her business to be happy--to be waited upon--to be pleased. She had but to sit on deck, in her French costume of dark-green tartan and black lace, with a book lying open but unread on her knee, with her hand inside Lady Drum's arm, with the clear light of the sea and the clouds shining in her face and in the darkness of her eyes, and leave troubles and cares and vexations to those born under a less fortunate star.

All that was over. Coquette was _distraite_, restless, miserable. The narrow limits of the yacht were a prison to her. She was silent and reserved, and seemed merely to wait with a resigned air for the end of the voyage. Had the Whaup been there, she would probably have entered into confidences with him, or even relieved the blank monotony by quarrelling with him. As it was, she listened to Lady Drum and Lord Earlshope talking, without adding a syllable to the conversation; and, while she dutifully waited on her uncle, and arranged his books and papers for him, she went about in a mute way, which he took as a kindly observance of his wish not to be disturbed during his hours of study.

"What has become o' your blithe spirits, Catherine?" he asked on the Monday morning as they were leaving Tobermory Bay. "I do not hear ye sing to yourself now? Yet I am told by Lady Drum that the voyage has done ye a world o' good."

"Oh, I am very well, uncle," she said, eagerly. "I am very well, indeed; and whenever you please to go back to Airlie, I shall be glad to go too."

"That is good news," said the Minister, cheerfully, "good news. And we maun see about getting home again; for I am anxious to hear how young Mr. Pettigrew acquitted himself yesterday, and I would fain hope there is no dissension among my people this morning, such as the enemy is anxious to reap profit by."

"Have you an enemy, uncle?" said Coquette.

"We have all an enemy," answered the Minister, so impressively that his niece looked alarmed--"an enemy who is ever watchful to take advantage o' our absence, or our thoughtlessness, who goeth about like a raging lion, seeking whom he may devour."

"But is he in Airlie?" asked Coquette, who was still puzzled.

"Why, your uncle means the devil," said Lady Drum, gaily, as she entered the saloon, "who is in Airlie as elsewhere--especially when there's whisky afoot and the Pensioner is asked to bring out his fiddle. Come up the stairs, both o' ye, and see the wonderfu' places we are passing. I'm thinking we have got to the end o' the lochs and the islands at last, and there is nothing left for us but to go straight out into the sea. I hope it'll deal gently wi' us," added Lady Drum, with an involuntary shiver.

When they went on deck--Coquette keeping close by her uncle, as if she feared being addressed by a stranger--it was clear that the good weather which had so far accompanied them showed no signs of breaking. Over the blue western sea there was but the roughness of a slight breeze, which was only sufficient to fill the _Caroline's_ sails; while the jagged coast of the mainland, with the mountains of Ardnamurchan and Moidart, lay steeped in a faint mist under the morning sunlight.

Lord Earlshope was surprised to hear the Minister talk of returning immediately.

"We must, at all events, show Miss Cassilis the wonders of Loch Scavaig and Coruisk," he said, "even though you should have to go over to-morrow to Broadford, and catch the steamer there. We shall make Loch Scavaig this evening if the wind holds."

"I hope the wind will play no tricks with us," said Lady Drum. "I shall never forget what I suffered in this very place when I first went to Skye many years ago--indeed, when Sir Peter and I were just married."

"You might wait a couple of months without catching such a chance as we have to-day," said Earlshope. "But to return to this question of your stay. Don't you mean to visit the Spar Cave, and go up Glen Sligachan, and ascend the Quiraing?"

It was with a dull sense of pain that Coquette heard the reply. The Minister said there was no absolute hurry--that his niece would probably like to visit those wild and romantic scenes, of which she must have heard and read. Coquette accepted her fate mutely; but she took the opportunity of saying, a few minutes afterwards, to Lady Drum--

"I hope we shall not remain long in this place--this wild island. It must be horrible and ghastly, from what they say."

"It is the most desolate and awful place it is possible to imagine," said Lady Drum; "a place that reminds you o' a world that had long ago suffered a judgment-day, and been burnt up wi' fire. For days after I saw it first I used to dream about it--the black and still water and the twisted rocks, and the stillness. It would be fearfu' to be left alone there--at night--wi' the sound o' the burns running in the darkness."

Coquette shuddered.

"I will not go ashore," she said. "There is no reason for our going ashore, if we must return at once to Airlie."

So the day wore on, and the stately _Caroline_, with her bow coquettishly dipping to the waves, drew gradually away towards the north, passing the broad mouth of the Sound of Sleat, and coming in view of the tall cliffs of Canna, beyond the mountains of Rum Island. They were now close by the southern shores of Skye. Coquette became more and more disturbed. It seemed to her that she was being taken to some gloomy prison, from which no escape was possible. Lady Drum continued to describe the sombre and desolate appearance of the place they were going to, until these pictures produced the most profound effect on the girl's imagination. The _Caroline_ seemed to go forward through the water with a relentless persistency; and Coquette, as the afternoon approached, and as she saw more and more clearly the dark outlines of the shores towards which they were tending, gave way to an unreasoning, despairing terror.

Lady Drum was amazed.

"You are not afraid o' rocks and water?" she-said.

"Afraid of them? No," said the girl. "I am afraid of the place--I know not why--and of our remaining there. I would rather be away; I would rather be going back. It is a presentiment I have: I cannot understand it, but it makes me tremble."

"That is foolish," said Lady Drum. "You have not been yourself since your cousin left."

"I wish he were here now," murmured Coquette.

"He would laugh you out of your fears," said the elderly lady, in a cheerful way. "Come, rouse yourself up and dismiss those gloomy fancies of yours. We shall see you to-morrow on a little Highland pony, going round such precipices as are fit to take your breath away; and you will be as light-hearted and as careless as if you were in my drawing-room at Castle Cawmil with an open piano before you. By the way, you have not played us anything since your cousin left us at Oban."

"I cannot play just now," said Coquette, sitting calm and cold, with her eyes fixed with a vague apprehensiveness on the coast they were drawing near.

"What a strange creature you are," said Lady Drum, affectionately. "You are either all fire, and light, and sunshine, or as deep and morose as a well on a dark day. There is Lord Earlshope, who, I am certain, thinks he has offended you; and he keeps at a distance, and watches ye in a penitent fashion, as if he would give his ears to see you laugh again; I think I maun explain to him that it is no his fault----"

"No, no, no, Lady Drum!" exclaimed Coquette, in a low voice. "You must not speak to him."

"Hoity, toity! Is he to believe that I have quarrelled wi' him as well; and are we a' to put the man in irons in his own yacht?"

"Please don't tell him anything about me," pleaded Coquette.

"But look at him at this moment," said Lady Drum, with sudden compassion; "look at him up at the bow there--standing all by himself--without a human being taking notice o' him--looking helplessly at nothing, and doubtless wondering whether he will get a word addressed to him at dinner. Is it fair, my young lady, to serve a man in that fashion in his own yacht?"

"You may go and speak to him," said Coquette, eagerly. "Yes, you must speak to him--but not about me. He does not want to talk about me; and you would only put wrong things into his head. Please go, Lady Drum, and talk to him."

"And what for should it rest on an old woman like me to amuse a young man? What for am I to talk to him, and ye sitting here as mute and as mum as a mouse?"

"Because--because----" said Coquette, with hesitation, "because I think I am afraid of this island. I am not angry with him--with anybody--but I--I----. Oh, Lady Drum!" she suddenly exclaimed, "won't you persuade them to come away from this place at once, instead of remaining for days? I cannot do it--I cannot remain. I will go away by myself, if they will let me take the steamer."

She spoke quite wildly; and Lady Drum looked at her with some alarm.

"I cannot understand a bit o' this," she said, gravely. "What for have ye a fear o' an island? Or is it that ye are so anxious to follow your cousin?"

"I cannot tell you what it is," said Coquette, "for I cannot explain in your language. It is a presentiment--a terror--I do not know; I only know that if we remain in this island long----"

She trembled so violently as she spoke that Lady Drum feared the girl had been attacked by some nervous fever. Her face, too, was pale; and the dark and beautiful eyes were full of a strange lustre, obviously the result of great excitement.

At this moment some order of the skipper recalled the eyes of Coquette from looking vaguely over the sea towards the south; and as she turned her face to the bow, Lady Drum felt the hand that held hers tighten its grasp, for the _Caroline_ was slowly creeping in under the shadow of the black Coolins.