Chapter XLVII: An Apparition

Coquette had never got accustomed to the depressing stillness and gloom of the Sabbath as it was kept at Airlie; and on this, the first morning of what seemed to be the beginning of a new era of her life, she almost feared what she would have to encounter. She dreaded the death-like silence of the neighbourhood; the sombre procession of the people to church; the sharp, imperative jangle of the bell; and then the long, drowsy, monotonous day spent indoors, with the melancholy sound of Leezibeth reading aloud to herself in the kitchen. Once, as she lay ill, she talked to Leezibeth about the pleasant Sundays she had learnt to love in her youth--the cheerful gathering of friends and acquaintances at the small church in the early morning--the mysterious music--the solemn lights in the recesses of the building: then out into the clear air again, and home to meet all manner of relatives and friends who had come to spend a quiet holiday. Against all this, Leezibeth naturally protested strongly; and even warmed into poetic language, as elderly Scotchwomen will, who have been familiar all their life with the picturesque phraseology of the Bible.

"It is the day set apart," she said; "it is the day of the Lord; and He walks about on that day, and looks on what He has made, as it was efter a new creation."

"And are you afraid of Him," said Coquette, as she lay half-dreaming on the sofa; "are you afraid of Him, that you all keep indoors on that day, and scarce speak to each other, and let no sound be heard?"

On this particular morning the whole world was steeped in gloom. The storm had so far abated that the trees no longer bent before the wind, and there was no rain; but overhead and stretching far to the horizon was a pall of thick, lurid, steel-blue cloud; and the mountains of Arran threw sombre shadows deep down into the cold grey of the sea. The fir woods near at hand seemed almost black; those on the slopes going southward lay as a series of dusky and indistinguishable patches on the misty greys and greens of the landscape. The road going across the moor had been washed red; and the rapid and drumly stream had overflown its narrow banks.

The boys were in their Sunday clothes, and were secretly caressing in their pockets during the time of family worship the presents Coquette had brought them from Glasgow. Leezibeth was particular that Coquette should put on thick boots, as the roads were so wet; and by-and-by, after much hurrying, and whispering, and admonition, they all set out for church.

It was a cheerless day, cold and damp; and the wind had a raw feeling about it. The cracked bell of the old church was pealing out its summons, and up from Airlie came the struggling and solemn procession of people, seemingly afraid to speak to each other, nearly all of them dressed in stiff and ungainly black garments. Fortunately for Coquette, she was overtaken by an old friend of hers; and she welcomed him gladly; for she knew that he would talk to her even to the church door. It was the Pensioner.

"And I wass told you would pe pack, Miss Cassilis," said Neil, "and richt glad was I to hear't; and how is that you will like Glasgow?"

"I did like it very much," said Coquette.

"Oh, it is sa grand place--but you will need to know where to go for sa goot whisky before you will go to Glasgow."

Coquette hinted that she had not discovered the pet public-house that Neil evidently had in his mind's eye; whereupon the old Highlandman was profuse and earnest in his apologies--he had not "meant it was for sa likes o' her to think o' a public-house," and so forth.

Just at this moment, when the party from the Manse had nearly reached the path across the moor to the church, and were therefore on the point of joining the slow stream of people that came up from the village, the noise of a carriage was heard behind them. Instantly all the faces of the people were turned. Such a sound had rarely indeed been heard at Airlie on a Sunday morning; and there was a manifest lingering on the moorland road to see who this might be that was outraging the solemn and decorous gravity of the Sabbath.

Coquette, the Pensioner, Leezibeth, and the boys, stepped to one side, to let the carriage pass. But it had not passed them when the loud voice of a woman was heard ordering the driver to stop. The vehicle, indeed, halted close by the party from the Manse; and Coquette found to her astonishment and dismay that she was confronted by the woman who had walked up to Lord Earlshope and herself in the Park.

"What! The little Spanish princess!" cried the woman, with her bold, black eyes fixed on the girl with a look of impudent merriment. "So this is where you come from, is it? Here, won't you shake hands with me?"

She sat round in the carriage, and put her hand over the side. Coquette shrank back a step, and inadvertently caught hold of Neil's arm.

"She is afraid of me," said the woman in the carriage to her companion--another woman, less gaudily dressed, who sat opposite her. "She cuts me! Our country beauties are proud! But you were not born and bred in this desolate hole, were you?" she added, addressing Coquette.

The girl was too much alarmed to reply. The whole scene was visible to the people, who made no pretence of walking on to the church, but stopped and stared at the strange spectacle of a bold, red-faced, impudent woman addressing the Minister's niece, and breaking the stillness of the Sabbath morning with her loud talking and her indecent laughter.

The scene only lasted for a couple of seconds, however. The Pensioner walked boldly up to the side of the carriage, and said--

"What is it you will want wis sa Minister's niece?"

For reply, he got a handful of raisins and almonds tossed into his face; and then, with another shriek of laughter, in which her companion joined, the woman called aloud to her coachman--

"Drive on to Earlshope."

"To Earlshope!" whispered the villagers among themselves; and then they looked at Coquette, who, pale and yet apparently self-possessed, had crossed into the path with Leezibeth, and was already walking slowly towards the church.

For an instant or two the Pensioner stood looking at the retreating carriage, his whole frame trembling with rage at the insult he had received. Of the rapid Gaelic he uttered there and then it was fortunate the villagers could overhear or understand but little. Then, with a proud and dignified air, he drew up his shoulders, and marched in military fashion after Coquette, whom he overtook.

"Earlshope! Earlshope!" said the old man, puffing and snorting with indignation. "It will be no Earlshope she will see sa day. Oh, I will know all apout it. We wass warned--and when his lordship did ride away this morning, his last words was apout this leddy that might be for coming to look at sa house."

"Was Lord Earlshope here this morning?" said Coquette, quickly.

The Pensioner was startled to find what he had done. In his indignation, he had told not only what he knew himself, but also that which had been given him as a profound secret by the housekeeper. Never in his life before had he been so indiscreet; and in his perplexity and consternation he made wild and desperate efforts to recover the ownership of these mysteries.

"No, no, no!" he said, hurriedly, and with every token of vexation. "It will pe all nonsense that sa woman has put into my head. His lordship at Earlshope? He hassna been sare for many and many's sa day, as sure as I will pe porn!"

The Pensioner gave this last assurance with a downcast head and in a sort of anxious whisper; for they were now near the church door, where outspoken lies might be dangerous cattle to deal with. Coquette's calm eyes looked at the old man, and saw his perturbation. She perceived that he had unintentionally revealed a secret. Lord Earlshope had left the neighbourhood only that morning; and with that, and this wild escapade of his wife, to think over--even if she had nothing of her own to trouble her mind--she entered the small building. For a moment she could not help reflecting that if, instead of listening to the harsh psalm-singing, she could have gone away and knelt down all by herself in one of the small, twilight recesses in a certain little chapel on the Loire, she would have been happy. It would have been to her like bending down once more at her mother's knee.