Chapter XXIV: The Death of Fenton of Strathdivie

It was the height of summer, when the most of the inhabitants of Glasgow and its neighbourhood, who had the opportunity, had taken refuge by the water, which is, somehow, the natural element of every true Glaswegian, man or woman, high or low.

The Drysdales were at Lochgoilhead, the Semples of Semple Barns at Oban. Dr. Peter Murray had got a medical substitute to take his post for a fortnight, and was spending the minister’s holiday to his heart’s content with Athole, scrambling after ferns and sea-anemones in Arran. Young Eppie was wearing her Newhaven fishwife’s costume, and looking the loveliest and daintiest little fishwife that ever trod an Arcadian shore. She was learning to spout ‘Lord Ullin’s Daughter,’ without much anxiety as to whether Loch Goyle could be the same ‘dark and stormy water’ which Campbell meant. But there was no Sir Hugo to gaze on the nymph and hang on the accents of the Clydesdale tongue. He had not yet turned up in the course of the Long Vacation. Guy Horsburgh alleged that his friend could not help himself--his heart was in the right place--that is, in Glasgow and its dependencies; but his tutor and his mother had set their hearts on his completing his college course with some credit, and to do so he must give a few weeks to a certain reading-party, which meant work, in Derbyshire. But Derbyshire, or any other shire in the United Kingdom, was little more than a bow-shot off, from which, when he had made the necessary sacrifice, Sir Hugo was certain to present himself within the given number of hours. That might or might not be. There are plenty of allurements for such golden lads as Sir Hugo.

A little fickleness may be excused in them, especially when they are hardly more than major. Some rumour of threatened danger might have reached his friends. They might have taken the alarm, and be moving heaven and earth successfully to keep him in their own circle. If it were so, nobody would object, as Tam Drysdale had said; and least of all young Eppie, who had done all but forget that such a grand young gentleman as an English baronet had ever crossed her blithe path, caught her unawares, caused her to think shame, and made up for it by being good-natured in admiring her singing. Eppie was as happy as usual--as happy as the day was long. She was still at the most joyous age--fancy-free and untouched by care. None missed a recreant lover, whether by compulsion or his own free will, less than she did.

For inevitably there were more defaulters than Sir Hugo. Lochgoilhead, Arran, and Oban may not look far apart on the map, and in the summer season steamboats churn the water of the river continually with so little pause and stay, that the throb of the engines, the grey and white wreaths of the smoke and steam, the foam-bells on the track, are never absent, any more than the near and far shadows of the hills from the landscape. To think of getting out of sight and sound of these harbingers of universal movement, is to imagine that one can sit on certain green lawns, and count a dozen without catching a glimpse of a white butterfly specking the sunny blue air. Still Lochgoilhead, Arran, and Oban are too far apart for the exchange of morning or evening calls. The ‘runs’ of the steamboats do not always answer particular requirements, but keep crossing each other and cutting off the dwellers on one point of the mainland or on one island from the dwellers on another, in the most perplexing and exasperating manner. In truth, the service of steamboats is kept for families coming once for all and taking up their summer quarters, with periodical returns to the city, or for tourists and touring, not for visitors and visiting. These last social features are reserved for settled life in town or country-houses--not nomadic life on the coast. When, in addition to this reservation, some men have business engagements, such as young Tam had, only letting them out of Glasgow at the last moment, once or twice a week, with an obligation to report themselves first to their own people; or when officers have regimental duty, such as was binding on Eneas Mackinnon; and when there are not frank, hospitable invitations sent beforehand for gay bachelors to come down in the end of the week and stay over Sunday in Arran or at Lochgoilhead, the most ardent lover may be safely defied to dance attendance on the object of his affections.

And young Tam was not ardent in pursuing a perverse young woman who was constantly fleeing from him and mocking him. He had his wayward moods like hers; often he set his teeth and said he would have nothing more to do with her, that he despised himself for going after her; not that he meant anything by it--oh no! It was merely regard for Dr. Peter and a determination not to be driven away by her snubs and laughter.

Eneas Mackinnon was not ardent in a hopeless chase which he felt was madness. He made up his mind half-a-dozen times a day to withdraw even from the passive attentions and silent love-making which were all he could presume to offer. But on every occasion that Claribel sailed across his path, he was drawn by the fascination of her strength and sufficiency for what she cared for, as much as by her beauty, to break his resolution and let himself be dashed afresh against the rocks of fortune.

Altogether Clary and Athole, who had never confided in each other, never consulted together, who found themselves two young women abandoned largely to their own company, or the society of their nearest relations, needed all Clary’s _sang froid_ and Athole’s gaiety of heart and devotion to her father, to bear their desertion with anything like the unaffected philosophy and cheerfulness which young Eppie displayed in similar circumstances.

The young ladies paid for their superior rank and refinement, and had less of good fellowship during their holiday than their sisters in the grade beneath them. These lower middle-class girls, not coy or capricious, managed to secure their brief spell of liberty from their situations as nursery governesses, in shops, and milliners’ establishments, at the same time that the young clerks and shopmen, in their train, obtained their breathing-space. All rushed down, with the other members of their families, to Hunter’s Quay, or Sandbank, or Kirn, and were never apart. These primitive young people spent the long summer day till far on in the dusk of the summer night, mostly on the water, in such jovial play--such chattering, singing, laughing, flirting, quarrelling, and agreeing again, as made the very hills of Cowal ring, and formed enough recreation to last through all the working-hours, till the depths of winter, and the daft days--stretching from Hogmanay to Handsel Monday--came again.

There were multitudes, however, who never quitted the dingy precincts of the city. Among these were the Miss Mackinnons. Dr. Peter and Athole had done their best, in vain, to persuade the sisters to go out and keep house at Barley Riggs, in the absence of the owners, as a favour to them. But no invitation to Drysdale Hall had come to the old ladies this year. The omission had drawn forth sundry expressions of surprise from Dr. Peter; and when Athole had hinted at an explanation, he had stared, reddened, and said plainly it was a shabby piece of retaliation, such as he would not easily have believed Tam Drysdale guilty of.

Then Athole pointed out that she was aware the Drysdale Hall baskets of fruit, vegetables, and dairy produce continued to come, as they had done for a year, to St. Mungo’s Square; but Miss Janet began to look dubiously at them, and to ask sharply if there was no card or note among the contents. On this second piece of information, Dr. Peter shook his head, and remarked emphatically _that_ would not do.

The Miss Mackinnons’ excuse for not going out of Glasgow was that Miss Mackinnon was so frail, she was better at home. It had become a ‘thought’ to take her even the short distance to Barley Riggs in a close carriage.

But in place of remaining quiet and composed, like fixtures, in their own house, there was an air of restlessness and expectation about the sisters, from the youngest to the eldest. It could hardly be accounted for by the fact which Miss Bethia had disclosed to Athole Murray. The elder lady had said, with a wistful, frightened look in her eyes, that ill news travelled fast, and they were not easy in their minds about a friend who had been long ailing and was likely to leave them this summer.

Sure enough, the Miss Mackinnons had learnt from some quarter that Fenton of Strathdivie, after many a false alarm, was on his death-bed at last.

The expectant heirs did not speak much to each other of what they had been looking forward to all these years, of what was never out of their thoughts. The Miss Mackinnons were simple women when it comes to that. The subject was too awful--too ghastly--the feverish counting of the failing sands of a human creature’s existence in this world, the breathless waiting till his breath went out, by women--two of them considerably older than the sufferer--that they might join together in parting their portion of the dead man’s possessions, was not an experience to be lightly alluded to.

Miss Janet would say abruptly there was ‘a het glaff [warm air] off the plain-stanes.’ Such warm weather must be very trying--even in the country, where there were grass and cornfields--to sick folk, who could not be expected to stand its exhausting effects.

Miss Bethia would reply below her breath to the vague allusion--‘I wonder how _he_ is; sair spent, puir man, I doubt not.’

And Miss Mackinnon, narrowly watching her sister’s eyes, would hastily utter the imperious appeal, ‘Have you heard word?’

For weeks Miss Janet or Miss Bethia had anticipated the coming of the postman on his morning rounds. One or other of the sisters had stolen out when the ringing of the door-bells grew nearer, and been found on the door-step as the man of letters approached, waved a polite but indifferent negative, and passed on in his circuit of the Square, chuckling to himself when his back was turned, and saying, ‘The auld lasses’ day for love-letters is surely gone by.’

It was in the forenoon, however, that Miss Bethia, returning from marketing, and not noticing any change on the outside of the house, stumbled as she entered out of the broad sunshine with which the opened front door had flooded the hall, into the dining-room, where all the blinds were drawn down. She stopped on the threshold with a mingled shiver and thrill, as she saw through the gloom Miss Janet, sitting erect and pale, opposite Miss Mackinnon, who was crouching a little, as if from cold, on a summer day, while on the table between them lay two black-edged letters unopened.

‘We are waiting for you, Betheye,’ said Miss Janet solemnly.

‘Oh, gie me a minute, Janet,’ implored Miss Bethia, dropping into a chair, and speaking as if her own execution were approaching. ‘When did it happen? What is the upshot? I hope none of us will fent. Had we not better have burnt feather and smelling-salts in readiness?’

‘And the doctor, and the minister--I was gaun to say the lawyer, but we have not had a man of business for the last twal years,’ said Miss Janet, provoked to sarcasm. ‘You were aye a frichted hen, Betheye; but we’re not of the fentin’ kind. As to what has happened, and the upshot, I’m gaun to see. I take it for granted that I hae baith your permissions.’

And with that Miss Janet stretched forward a wrinkled hand, that only shook slightly, and appropriated the letters.

The first was a mere intimation of the death.

‘Strathdivie, 15th July.

‘Mr. Archibald Fenton died here this morning at half-past three
o’clock.’

Miss Janet read the announcement without faltering, then handed the card for Miss Mackinnon’s satisfaction.

‘Eh! sirs!’ exclaimed Miss Bethia, by way of decent lamentation. ‘Eh! sirs!’ she repeated after a moment’s pause, not without a little guilty consciousness of hypocrisy. ‘The news will take nobody by surprise. He suffered a deal of sickness, poor felly, but now he’s at his rest.’ It was a statement, not a prayer, yet the assertion, in a softened tone, was somewhat equivalent to the Roman Catholics’ petition, ‘_Requiescat in pace_.’

Miss Janet was already opening the second letter, and drawing herself up when she saw it was from a lawyer’s office; but, as a matter of course, the only fresh intelligence it conveyed, in addition to communicating the fact of Fenton of Strathdivie’s death, in slightly different words, amounted to no more than that the funeral was to be from Strathdivie on the following Thursday, and that the reading of the will would take place on the return of the mourners from the churchyard.

‘That means that we are invited to attend as interested parties,’ said Miss Janet, in a tone of triumph, forgetting the melancholy occasion of the invitation.

‘What will we do?’ asked Miss Bethia helplessly, fanning herself with a corner of her pocket-handkerchief, and feeling instinctively as she did so the impropriety of its not being broad-hemmed.

‘What will we do? We’ll gang, of course,’ said Miss Janet, both asking a question and answering it with the utmost decision. ‘We’re no daft to hang back and decline to claim our legacy, that was left to us in the first place by our great-grandfather when his dochter Jean took her tocher to Fenton of Strathdivie.’

‘But how can we gang?’ retorted Miss Bethia, in her matter-of-factness, still full of doubts and difficulties.

‘On our feet and in the trains to be sure,’ said Miss Janet impatiently.

‘But the murnins.’

‘You cannot have forgotten, Betheye,’ Miss Janet reminded her sister severely, ‘that every stitch we’ve bocht for the last four years has been black, in expectation of this ca’? As for crape and weepers, we’ll surely get credit for them till the will’s administered.’

‘Oh, Janet, you’re makin’ cock-sure,’ said Miss Bethia in a timorous voice, oddly at variance with the masculine word she had used.

‘And what for no?’ demanded Miss Janet, with all her old audacious spirit. ‘Are we not come of the blude of our ain great-grandfather? Did not his dochter Jean marry Fenton of Strathdivie? and failin’ the Fentons, was not a share of Strathdivie cleared from debt by her portion to come back to the Mackinnons? It’s as plain as a pikestaff.’

‘And what are we to do with Meye?’ Miss Bethia started another obstacle.

‘You may ask hersel’,’ suggested Miss Janet, still with unshaken confidence. ‘I think I ken her answer beforehand.’

‘Meye,’ Miss Janet wrote, ‘I say we should start the morn for Strathdivie--what do you think?’

‘I’ll go,’ replied Miss Mackinnon, without a second’s hesitation.

‘Hear to her, Betheye,’ said Miss Janet, with a mixture of pride and reproach, ‘and her weel up among her seventies, and as deaf as a door-nail, and has not had a breath of wind blow on her this year. Are you not ashamed of yoursel’?’

‘I would do onything,’ said Miss Bethia meekly; ‘but should we not wait for the Lieutenant? It is his business as well as ours. He micht gang in our stead; or if that would not serve, he micht be our convoy and protection.’

‘We’ll wait nane,’ said Miss Janet, in her high-handed way. ‘How are we to write and hear word back again in time from Oban? He was not to be at the Barracks for a week. If we do not gang when we’re bidden, how do we ken that some other claimant may not slip into our shoon? Legacies do not go a-begging. There will be plenty of corbies and gleds [ravens and kites] to pike for Fenton of Strathdivie’s leavin’s.’

‘That’s the very reason we should be careful,’ said Miss Bethia eagerly, ‘not to rin into terrible expense without assurance.’

‘What do you ca’ assurance, Betheye Mackinnon? You may do what you like, but for mysel’ I ken I do not come into an inheritance ilka day. I would go to Strathdivie though I were to walk berfit [bare-footed] every step of the gate, though I were to beg my way from farm-toon to farm-toon. You’ll say next that we have not waited long, and that we have no need o’ the siller.’ She ended almost fiercely in her exasperation. Then she began again: ‘I believe you’re feared like a bairn--you’re fingie [coward] enough of travellin’ to a house where a coffin and a corp’ are lyin’--a woman of your years! As if they could harm you; as if our presence were not the last mark of respect to him that’s awa’; as if, gin he were to hant us, he couldna as lief come here as gang yonder--here, where we’re bund to admit his wa’ga’in’ [departure] has been sair wearied for.’

‘Oh! Janet, haud your tongue, for mercy’s sake, and let us do what you judge best! I never wanted to gang conter to you,’ cried Miss Bethia, collapsing utterly before these scornful reproaches and gruesome threats.

Accordingly the Miss Mackinnons prepared for an extraordinary exodus on the following day. First, they set their house in order, toiling for the next six hours, putting aside and locking up everything that could be locked up, and packing a trunk in common. They found an old washerwoman, and placed her in charge of the bare walls and the tables and chairs, loading her with instructions for the careful preservation of other people’s property. Not content with this, the old ladies charged the policeman on the beat, the postman, and a mechanic they knew, who crossed St. Mungo’s Square as he went to and from his day’s work, to have an eye on Jenny in her employers’ interests.

Then, giddy with excitement, and all but spent with fatigue, the indefatigable old women turned again to the packing of the common trunk. Miss Bethia especially brought to it all manner of incongruous articles of apparel that would have filled half a dozen trunks. She excused herself for this bulky plaid, or that old gown or bonnet, which had not been seen for years, on the plea that the travellers could not tell how long they would stay. Strathdivie was in a moorland district, and they might feel the change of climate in the country; and while it was necessary to prepare for seeing company, particularly at a time like this, ladies might also wear up such old dresses as their owners could not appear in so long as they remained in town.

It was well that exhaustion brought some amount of sleep, though the sleepers’ dreams could not but have been uncanny.

By dawn of day the whole party were again astir, preparing to start for the railway station an hour before the train was due. Miss Janet, who had all the practical ability that was now to be found among the sisters, had borrowed a time-table and copied out the stages of the journey.

A certain sense of awe, very different from any former experience on leaving home, was lent to the departure, from the indefinite duration of the stay at Strathdivie--together with what were to the women the tremendous issues involved in the visit. The starting took place early in the morning, before even Miss Janet’s and Miss Bethia’s time of rising. It was as if they were fleeing, unknown to the sleepers around them, from the long reign of poverty and privation by which they had been well-nigh overborne, as if the news were too good to be true, and something terrible must befall the maiden ladies on their strange journey to the house of the dead. He had never invited them to be his guests during his lifetime--he had, indeed, as was shrewdly suspected, nourished a strong, not unnatural, prejudice against those Mackinnons he had known. It was, Miss Bethia said to herself with a sob in her throat, as if they might never come back to the house in which they had been born, where they had dwelt from youth to age, which they had never failed to honour. It was dear to them from many causes--from their intimate familiarity with every flower on the wall-papers, every crack in the ceilings--from such joys as had come to them--from the sufferings they had bravely faced under its roof. It was their own house and their father’s house, which they were to bequeath to Eneas.

Miss Janet’s daring expenditure had not reached the pitch of calling a cab. The grey morning was only mildly threatening rain, as it so often does in the humid west, and had not settled down into steady wet. St. Mungo’s Square was not above ten minutes’ walk from the particular railway station where there were trains which led, by several changes and a corresponding number of halts, to within a quarter of a mile of Strathdivie.

The ladies went on foot, Miss Janet giving her arm to Miss Mackinnon, and a porter--by whom Miss Bethia was appointed to walk that she might keep her eye upon him without a moment’s intermission--shouldering the trunk.

Emile Souvestre in one of his tales has an account of two sisters who had led a peculiarly simple and retired life, having been, from the force of circumstances, kept not only in drudgery, but in tutelage, till they were far advanced in middle age. Then they were suddenly set free, and began doubtfully to look about them, and take the holidays which the women had missed in their youth. The graceful and not unsubtle French writer--whom it is the fashion to set aside, because of his modesty and purity, for the hurried perusal of heedless schoolgirls--describes with delicate touches and fine sympathy the tender pathos of the situation--the clinging helplessness of the pair who should long ago have been the helpers of others--the stammering timidity of the grey-headed women who ought by rights to have faced the world half a century before.

There was some parallel between this case and that of the Miss Mackinnons when they set out for Strathdivie in order to come into their kingdom. True, there was no trace of timidity where Miss Janet was concerned, and the explanation was rather that powers which had once existed had fallen into disuse, and former knowledge had become forgotten, than that the Scotch ladies had never gone abroad among their contemporaries, or mingled with the world on their own account. On the other hand, the nature of this errand, so different from the mere pursuit of pleasure late in the day by the French sisters, was, in itself, tragical and overpowering.

The three ladies had a look of blinking owls, as the Miss Mackinnons stood on the platform, keeping guard over their trunk, waiting for their train, while they interfered with the traffic, got in the way of the porters and other passengers, and were more than once heartily anathematized. Even Miss Janet made mistakes, dropped tickets, miscounted her money, and entered into hopeless altercations, trotting backward and forward as fast as her stiffened limbs would let her, till she was thoroughly put out and agitated.

When the group were seated in a third-class carriage--for they were not yet in possession of the reversion of Jean Mackinnon’s tocher--- various rough jests and not too civil remarks were made by the by-standers on ‘the party out of the ark that had ta’en the road, forgetting that they had left Noehey behind them.’ Happily the jeering personalities fell as flat on Miss Janet’s and Miss Bethia’s hearing ears, as on the sealed organs of Miss Mackinnon, seated between the two, for the better execution of any pantomime that might convey to her what was passing beyond her range of vision. The younger sisters never dreamt that the talk applied to themselves.

‘Wha are they speaking about, Janet?’ asked Miss Bethia calmly.

‘Dear kens,’ answered Miss Janet, with the same coolness. ‘But I dinna heed; I’ve a great deal to think about, Betheye.’

‘Nae doubt, Janet,’ and the subject dropped.

The complete imperturbability of the objects of the ridicule not only blunted the words, it gradually shut the mouths of the thoughtless mockers.