Chapter X: Family Talk

Eneas arrived at the appointed time. He was enough of a gentleman not to keep people waiting, though he was also a male version of that unfortunate princess on whom the lines were written:

‘There was no hurry in her hands,
No hurry in her feet;
For life had brought no joy to her
That she should run to meet,’

As yet, life had brought little joy to Lieutenant Eneas. He was a stranded young fellow, who had to keep a tight hold of the most innocent inclination. He ate the sparse meal of enforced self-denial and petty economy, without any higher aim than to keep himself afloat in an irksome position. He saw no end to his slavery to circumstances, while it was rendering him hopeless and spiritless, though the youth still left in him asserted itself by fits and starts. He might turn his face to the wall and knock under any day. It is men like him who, when sickness comes, though they are or ought to have been in the flush and vigour of their days, make little fight for life.

He was received with open arms, like a conquering hero. But happily he was not overpowered with caresses, for the Miss Mackinnons were of the old tough Scotch fibre that disdained fondling. He was grateful to them for it, and put up with other inconveniences, such as their perpetual satisfaction with his position and crow of exultation over his lot. It was not for him to undeceive them; besides their world was not his world, they would never appreciate his difficulties--he could hardly dignify them by calling them trials.

He had a vague impression that the old grey house looked emptier and more cheerless, as well as more haunted than formerly, and that his aunts were liker scare-crows than they used to be. The young sisters dressed alike now, finding that, as they were very much of one size, they could manage better by borrowing and exchanging articles of dress, so that a presentable suit of clothes might be said to do duty for both ladies so long as only one appeared at a time. This was impossible in the present instance, but it would not strike Eneas if little bits of _déshabillé_ peeped out here and there. The two wore the same arrangement of lace--alas! it was imitation in these latter days--disposed about the gaunt drab heads; the same old-fashioned collars reaching to the shoulders, turned up cuffs, and ‘belts’ round their short waists. But what Miss Bethia had gained in imposing style she had lost in the quality of the materials.

By the time Lieutenant Eneas was established at the foot of the table, and the aroma of a dozen mouse-traps had assailed his delicate nostrils, he felt a good deal exercised by the necessity of divulging a step he had taken. He was half ashamed of its origin, and he was afraid his aunts might suspect and resent the liberty. But there was no retreat.

He had already presented mits, which Lady Semple had suggested as an appropriate gift to old ladies. The offering had met with approval, been received with plaudits indeed; only Miss Janet had failed to remove her gloves, to try her muffles, as she termed them, on her scarred and disfigured hands.

Now he drew a carefully tied up roll of paper from the pocket of his shooting-jacket, and began to unfasten it with awkward shyness.

‘I called in at Lang’s on my way,’ he said, ‘not for lunch, of course; I knew it would be awaiting me here. I wanted something which I sometimes have to breakfast. I don’t know if you are familiar with it, Auntie Janet, but I thought you might like it for a change.’

‘Is’t a coocumber?’ cried Miss Janet.

‘It’s mair like row-chow tobaccy,’ said Miss Bethia.

‘It is a Bologna sausage,’ said Eneas, with a blush. ‘It wants no cooking; if you will make the servant bring a knife and fork and plate, I shall cut you some slices, and you will see how good it is.’

‘I have not tasted it for mony a day,’ exclaimed Miss Mackinnon in her harsh voice, with a hungry gleam in her sharp eyes. ‘The very smell goes about my heart.’

‘It makes my mouth water,’ chimed in Miss Bethia, forgetting herself.

Miss Janet interposed quickly:

‘Betheye, you fetch the plate and knife and fork. Lunch is not a meal of ceremony, and the lass is out of the way. She’s never to be found when she’s wanted,’ she went on, with a touch of the finesse of Caleb Balderstone. ‘There’s sic a cry out now for half-holidays and evenings to the lasses’ sel’s, that maisters and mistresses are ill served.’

Miss Bethia returned with the necessary implements, and with her mind set at rest by the reinforcement to the eatables. She could enjoy the contribution with a clear conscience and a large appetite.

‘It’s most deleeci-ous,’ she prolonged the word while she spoke with her mouth full, and looked with eager invitation at her sisters. ‘Tak’ another slice, Meye. Help yourself, Janet. It was most kind and mindful of you, Eneas, to think of bringing the sausage.’

‘Good heavens!’ thought the Lieutenant, taken aback by the _empressement_ with which his attention to his own comfort had been received, ‘can the poor creatures have become so miserly that they are in danger of starving themselves to make a hoard?’ But he was not quick to take up an idea, and this one--partly fallacious--dropped out of his mind, as he submitted to a process of proud and affectionate ‘heckling’ or cross-questioning as to the prosperous and brilliant course of life he was supposed to lead.

‘And what fine doings have you had of late, Lieutenant?’ began Miss Janet. ‘Here’s the slate and the slate-pencil,’ disengaging them from the wall and putting them into his reluctant hands. ‘Write your news down for Meye, while you tell them to me and your Aunt Betheye.’

‘But unfortunately there is very little to tell,’ said Eneas, endeavouring to rouse himself to call to mind and retail a little information that would be agreeable to his hearers. ‘I was at Semple Barns for three days last week. There were private theatricals at the Hepburns’ on Tuesday, and a dinner and dance later in the evening at the Gilhaizes’ on Thursday.’

‘You’re coming on. If three ploys in a week are not enough to serve you, you’re ill to serve,’ said Miss Bethia gaily.

‘But they were not great ploys,’ Eneas felt driven to defend himself. ‘The acting at the Hepburns’ was wretched, and the dinner at the Gilhaizes’ the most stupid affair I have taken part in for an age. Semple Barns was well enough. Lady Semple is good-natured, and Sir James not past tolerating; besides, young Semple’s my greatest chum in the regiment. No, no claret, thanks, Aunt Bethia; I never indulge in it to luncheon; I prefer a glass of ale. Don’t mind it to-day; I see you do not have it at hand--another time,’ he murmured. ‘Shall I pour you out some claret? No? Have you joined the Blue Ribbon Army? for I don’t suppose that you swill beer like a drayman or a sub.’

‘My dear, that’s a fell-like comparison, as well as a low-lifed expression.’

Miss Janet did not hesitate to rebuke her favourite, but she spoke less sharply than usual.

‘No; we’re no Gude Templars,’ remarked Miss Bethia, ‘but we find we’re as well without wine--it’s heating for the blude. We jist keep the claret-joog as a finish to the table.’

‘I hope you explain the nature of the case to your visitors,’ said Eneas seriously. ‘You know there is a prejudice against decanted wine which has stood about. Suppose some unlucky fellow who holds the prejudice were to help himself, not knowing the state of matters!’

‘Hoots! we dinna want ony of your mess-table fikes here.’ Miss Janet dismissed the scruple lightly. ‘For my part, I think wine is all the better after it has ta’en with the decanter; though it had little chance to do that when it gaed like ditch-water in the hoose. The tappet-hen was not supposed to stand still, ony mair than the shelty,’ referring to the merry titles for the old jugs which travelled unceasingly round hospitable Scotch tables, with wine, spirits, or punch.

‘Wha were a’ at Semple Barns?’ asked Miss Mackinnon, who had been conning her slate.

‘Only the family, with the addition of Miss Drysdale of Drysdale Hall.’

‘And what’s she like?’

‘Upon my word, auntie, that is a posing question,’ he answered with a laugh. ‘It is not always easy to describe a young lady; and when one has to write the description on a slate, which all who run may read, the task is still more ticklish. But here goes,’ and he wrote in one of the scrawling hands of the nineteenth century, which he was sufficiently good-natured to struggle to render legible:

‘Miss Drysdale is a very handsome girl, with quite good manners, only a little brusque or haughty--I am not sure which. They say she will have a large fortune.’

Miss Janet and Miss Bethia, even Miss Mackinnon, screwed up their faces and looked at each other. One fortune had come already from Drysdale Haugh to the Mackinnons. Why not a second? True, the first had not brought great luck, but that might be because it was not big enough, or because poor Maggie Craig had not all the advantages ascribed to Miss Drysdale.

For a wonder, the Lieutenant chanced to notice and interpret the exchange of glances, and made an effort to put his foot on the folly at once. He was so annoyed at the necessity that he grew red while he said, with assumed carelessness: ‘She is a great deal at Semple Barns. The Semples may have an eye on her for Semple, but I don’t think it will ever come to a match. He’s not a bad fellow, but it is a poor baronetcy; and what with her looks and her tin, I should say she would look higher.’

‘Set her up!’ Miss Janet employed her favourite adjuration. ‘Tam Drysdale’s dochter, and her mother are o’ the Mercers that had a pauchel [small farm] and a meal-mill some gate near Partick. But it makes me sick, laddie, to hear tell of Drysdale Haugh and Drysdale Ha’, as I’ve been telt Tam Drysdale has nick-named the auld farmhoose. I kenned the place well enough before you were born; and it seems aye as if it should all be yours in richt of your mither, whatever power she gave your father to dispose of her property.’

‘I wish it were,’ he said, smothering a yawn; ‘but, as you are aware, if wishes were horses beggars would ride; and since the place was sold before I was born, I am afraid I have not the shadow of a title to complain.’

‘It is very queer and hard though to us, who can look back and mind your father and mother’s marriage in this very hoose,’ said Miss Bethia, echoing her sister’s sentiments, ‘after all the speak that was made about her land and the works that Tam Drysdale’s coining money out of.’

‘And every care was taken,’ said Miss Janet, condescending to offer solemn assurance of her share in the precautions. ‘I mind, as if it were yesterday, giving Kate Carstairs her congy in the drawing-room, in order to see to the signing of the contract in this room’--looking round, as if the few sticks of furniture which were left would find a voice, and testify to the watchfulness employed in vain.

There was no rapping diablerie heard from the old mahogany, neither did any subtle instinct tell Miss Janet that, in the language of children when they approach a hidden secret, she was ‘as hot as fire’ at that moment.

‘Did your father never speak of his marriage contract?’ she inquired in perfect unconsciousness, getting, if possible, hotter still.

‘No,’ answered Eneas, a little impatiently; ‘how should he? You forget he died when I was little more than an infant.’

‘I wonder what became o’t,’ reflected Miss Janet. ‘Dauvit Milne wound up the auld Milnes’ business, so that there was little gudewill o’t to sell; and the lad Dalgleish gaed aff to the ends of the earth after that silly thing, Tina Carstairs, had drawn up with him. It’s all very well for her Auntie Kate to call him a judge, and say they’re riding in their carriage out yonder. There’s naebody to contradict her. But I’m thinking, Eneas, your father got the contract into his ain hands.’

‘I dare say he did,’ said Eneas indifferently. ‘The man of business would see it was all right; and if it had been of the least consequence, we should have heard more of it.’

‘I’ll hae a look among the family papers,’ said Miss Janet. She had hardly a moral doubt after all, that, though she might have forgotten the circumstance, the document must have been committed to her keeping.

‘Do you know, auntie, I never was at Drysdale Haugh.’ The Lieutenant made a little change in the subject. ‘I have only seen it--the house, I mean, which looks a jolly place from a distance.’

‘To think it was your mother’s property!’ exclaimed Miss Bethia, with another groan, letting the hands, with the knitting she had already taken up, drop in her lap.

‘But it is only fair to remember,’ said Eneas, with that exasperating manly element of justice which so often acts like a cold douche on women’s emotions, ‘that, as I have heard you say, my mother, or rather my grandmother, was no blood relation to the old owner of the farm; it was by favour he left it to her, and she must have been considered an interloper by the man’s relations. It will only seem to them righteous retribution that lands and works are lost to her descendants, and restored to his.’

‘Nonsense, Eneas!’ said Miss Janet tartly. ‘Auld Drysdale brocht your grandmother up, and came bound to leave her his gear; forbye, he had no near relation. This Tam Drysdale is only the son of a cousin, a ragamuffin that the auld man would never have seen in his road.’

‘Well, it is clear that I should never have made a dyer and calico-printer like this Drysdale,’ persisted Eneas. ‘Sir James Semple says he is a remarkable man, and has not his superior among the Glasgow magistrates. The son is good form, and a bit of a scholar, and, strange to say, of a Radical. I have told you what the eldest daughter is like. Will you be horrified to hear me say that I am going with Dick Semple to call on the Drysdales one of these days? I have a little curiosity to see what might have been mine.’

‘The curiosity is very natural,’ said Miss Janet, speaking most tolerantly, ‘but I’m not sure whether proper pride might not have slipped in and forbidden you to set a foot within that door, if you had not been an offisher, upsides with the best in the land, fit to ca’ the king your brither. Horrified! No, Lieutenant, by no manner of means,’ declared Miss Janet, smoothing down her ruffled plumes, and yielding to mercenary motives. ‘Gang the very first opportunity--you have our full consent--and bring us word of all the new-fangled doings.’

‘We do not ken a single body that can tell us,’ put in Miss Bethia, ‘except Athole Murray, Dr. Peter’s dochter, and she beats about the buss as gin we would be hurt by the purse-proud grandeur,’ forgetting that she had no objection to avail herself once more of the source of that grandeur on her kinsman’s behoof.

Eneas was smiling his languid smile behind his reddish-brown beard. He had not meant to ask his aunts’ consent to pay a morning call. Neither had he the smallest intention of becoming a reporter of the magnificence of the fortunate dyer and calico-printer, thus nourishing idiotic fancies, or calling forth fresh jeremiads on his loss of what had never been his, and perhaps ought not to have been his mother’s.

Still the young man did his best to render himself agreeable to the women who had brought him up, each of whom held him as the apple of her eye. He was too well intentioned not to feel a certain remorse because he was not able to do more for them--were it only to entertain a warmer feeling where they were concerned. He meant to please Miss Bethia when he told her that he had been speaking to Lady Semple, who was fond of Scotch music, of the reels that seemed to be his aunt’s private property. He wished her to play one, of which he whistled a bar, to see if he were right in the idea he had given Lady Semple of the tune.

But Miss Bethia did not offer to move, and looked put out, until Miss Janet came to her aid, and informed him that the piano was in need of tuning.

‘Why, it was out of tune the last time I was here--you should not let it stand in that state, or has it got too bad to be put in order?’

‘That’s just it,’ said Miss Bethia, with a peculiar tone in her voice. ‘That’s the way o’t. The instrument is growing auld--like its mistress. It is the worse of the wear, and so is my music. I’m feared I’ve had no time for practising of late, and the noise fashes Meye--no that she hears it--that’s just the vexation,’ she hastened to add, to hide the stumble she had made; ‘she cannot bide to see my hands moving, and no a sound to catch her ear. Na, Lieutenant, you maun tak’ to new pianies and new players.’

He had never heard Miss Bethia hint at growing old before, or fail to receive any compliment to her playing as if it were not less than its due. Her manner gave him a small shock. ‘I wonder what it all means?’ he puzzled himself to make out, as he descended the stair and passed out into the square.