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Macleod of Dare, a novel by William Black |
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Chapter 36. The New Tragedy |
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_ CHAPTER XXXVI. THE NEW TRAGEDY His generous, large nature fought hard to find excuses for her. He strove to convince himself that this strange coldness, this evasion, this half-repellent attitude, was but a form of maiden coyness. It was her natural fear of so great a change. It was the result, perhaps, of some last lingering look back to the scene of her artistic triumphs. It did not even occur to him as a possibility that this woman with her unstable sympathies and her fatally facile imagination, should have taken up what was now the very end and aim of his life, and have played with the pretty dream until she grew tired of the toy, and was ready to let her wandering fancy turn to something other and new. He dared not even think of that; but all the same, as he stood at this open window alone, an unknown fear had come over him. It was a fear altogether vague and undefined; but it seemed to have the power of darkening the daylight around him. Here was the very picture he had so often desired that she should see--the wind-swept Atlantic; the glad blue skies with their drifting clouds of summer white; the Erisgeir rocks; the green shores of Ulva; and Colonsay and Gometra and Staffa all shining in the sunlight; with the sea-birds calling, and the waves breaking, and the soft west wind stirring the fuchsia-bushes below the windows of Castle Dare. And it was all dark now; and the sea was a lonely thing--more lonely than ever it had been even during that long winter that he had said was like a grave. And she?--at this moment she was down at the small bridge that crossed the burn. She had gone out to seek her father; had found him coming up through the larch-wood, and was now accompanying him back. They had rested here; he sitting on the weatherworn parapet of the bridge; she leaping over it, and idly dropping bits of velvet-green moss into the whirl of clear brown water below. "I suppose we must be thinking of getting away from Castle Dare, Gerty," said he. "I shall not be sorry," she answered. But even Mr. White was somewhat taken aback by the cool promptitude of this reply. "Well, you know your own business best," he said to her. "It is not for me to interfere. I said from the beginning I would not interfere. But still I wish you would be a little more explicit, Gerty, and let one understand what you mean--whether, in fact, you do mean, or do not mean, to marry Macleod." "And who said that I proposed not to marry him?" said she; but she still leaned over the rough stones and looked at the water. "The first thing that would make me decline would be the driving me into a corner--the continual goading, and reminding me of the duty I had to perform. There has been just a little too much of that here"--and at this point she raised herself so that she could regard her father when she wished--"and I really must say that I do not like to be taking a holiday with the feeling hanging over you that certain things are expected of you every other moment, and that you run the risk of being considered a very heartless and ungrateful person unless you do and say certain things you would perhaps rather not do and say. I should like to be let alone. I hate being goaded. And I certainly did not expect that you, too, papa, would try to drive me into a corner." She spoke with some little warmth. Mr. White smiled. "I was quite unaware, Gerty," said he, "that you were suffering this fearful persecution." "You may laugh, but it is true," said she, and there was a trifle of color in her cheeks. "The serious interests I am supposed to be concerned about! Such profound topics of conversation! Will the steamer come by the south to-morrow, or round by the north? The Gometra men have had a good take of lobsters yesterday. Will the head-man at the Something lighthouse be transferred to some other lighthouse? and how will his wife and family like the change? They are doing very well with a subscription for a bell for the Free Church at Iona. The deer have been down at John Maclean's barley again. Would I like to visit the weaver at Iona who has such a wonderful turn for mathematics? and would I like to know the man at Salen who has the biographies of all the great men of the time in his head?" Miss White had worked herself up to a pretty pitch of contemptuous indignation; her father was almost beginning to believe that it was real. "It is all very well for the Macleods to interest themselves with these trumpery little local matters. They play the part of grand patron; the people are proud to honor them; it is a condescension when they remember the name of the crofter's youngest boy. But as for me--when I am taken about--well, I do not like being stared at as if they thought I was wearing too fine clothes. I don't like being continually placed in a position of inferiority through my ignorance--an old fool of a boatman saying 'Bless me!' when I have to admit that I don't know the difference between a sole and a flounder. I don't want to know. I don't want to be continually told. I wish these people would meet me on my own ground. I wish the Macleods would begin to talk after dinner about the Lord Chamberlain's interference with the politics of burlesque, and then perhaps they would not be so glib. I am tired of hearing about John Maclean's boat, and Donald Maclean's horse, and Sandy Maclean's refusal to pay the road-tax. And as for the drinking of whiskey that these sailors get through--well, it seems to me that the ordinary condition of things is reversed here altogether; and if they ever put up an asylum in Mull, it will be a lunatic asylum for incurable abstainers." "Now, now, Gerty!" said her father; but all the same he rather liked to see his daughter get on her high horse, for she talked with spirit, and it amused him. "You must remember that Macleod looks on this as a holiday-time, and perhaps he may be a little lax in his regulations. I have no doubt it is because he is so proud to have you on board his yacht that he occasionally gives the men an extra glass; and I am sure it does them no harm, for they seem to be as much in the water as out of it." She paid no heed to this protest. She was determined to give free speech to her sense of wrong, and humiliation, and disappointment. "What has been the great event since ever we came here--the wildest excitement the island can afford?" she said, "the arrival of the pedlar! A snuffy old man comes into the room, with a huge bundle wrapped up in dirty waterproof. Then there is a wild clatter of Gaelic. But suddenly, don't you know, there are one or two glances at me; and the Gaelic stops; and Duncan or John, or whatever they call him, begins to stammer in English, and I am shown coarse stockings, and bundles of wool, and drugget petticoats, and cotton handkerchiefs. And then Miss Macleod buys a number of things which I know she does not want; and I am looked on as a strange creature because I do not purchase a bundle of wool or a pair of stockings fit for a farmer. The Autolycus of Mull is not impressive, pappy. Oh, but I forgot the dramatic surprise--that also was to be an event, I have no doubt. I was suddenly introduced to a child dressed in a kilt; and I was to speak to him; and I suppose I was to be profoundly moved when I heard him speak to me in my own tongue in this out of the world place. My own tongue! The horrid little wretch has not an _h_." "Well, there's no pleasing you, Gerty," said he. "I don't want to be pleased; I want to be let alone," said she. But she said this with just a little too much sharpness; for her father was, after all, a human being; and it did seem to him to be too bad that he should be taunted in this fashion, when he had done his best to preserve a wholly neutral attitude. "Let me tell you this, madam," said he, in a playful manner, but with some decision in his tone, "that you may live to have the pride taken out of you. You have had a good deal of flattery and spoiling; and you may find out you have been expecting too much. As for these Macleods here, I will say this--although I came here very much against my own inclination--that I defy any one to have been more kind, and courteous, and attentive than they have been to you. I don't care. It is not my business, as I tell you. But I must say, Gerty, that when you make a string of complaints as the only return for all their hospitality--their excessive and almost burdensome hospitality--I think that even I am bound to say a word. You forget how you come here. You, a perfect stranger, come here as engaged to marry the old lady's only son--to dispossess her--very probably to make impossible a match that she had set her heart on. And both she and her niece--you understand what I mean--instead of being cold, or at least formal, to you, seem to me to think of nothing from morning till night but how to surround you with kindness, in a way that Englishwomen would never think of. And this you call persecution; and you are vexed with them because they won't talk to you about theatres--why, bless my soul, how long it is since you were yourself talking about theatres as if the very word choked you?" "Well, at least, pappy, I never thought you would turn against me," said she, as she put her head partly aside, and made a mouth as if she were about to cry; "and when mamma made you promise to look after Carry and me, I am sure she never thought--" Now this was too much for Mr. White. In the small eyes behind the big gold spectacles there was a quick flash of fire. "Don't be a fool, Gerty!" said he, in downright anger. "You know it is no use your trying to humbug me. If you think the ways of this house are too poor and mean for your grand notions of state--if you think he has not enough money, and you are not likely to have fine dinners and entertainments for your friends--if you are determined to break off the match--why, then do it! but, I tell you, don't try to humbug me!" Miss White's pathetic attitude suddenly vanished. She drew herself up with much dignity and composure, and said, "At all events, sir, I have been taught my duty to you; and I think it better not to answer you." With that she moved off toward the house; and Mr. White, taking to whistling, began to do as she had been doing--idly throwing bits of moss into the rushing burn. After all, it was none of his business. But that evening, some little time before dinner, it was proposed they should go for a stroll down to the shore; and then it was that Miss White thought she would seize the occasion to let Macleod know of her arrangements for the coming autumn and winter. Ordinarily, on such excursions, she managed to walk with Janet Macleod--the old lady of Castle Dare seldom joined them--leaving Macleod to follow with her father; but this time she so managed it that Macleod and she left the house together. Was he greatly overjoyed? There was a constrained and anxious look on his face that had been there too much of late. "I suppose Oscar is more at home here than in Bury Street, St. James's?" said she, as the handsome collie went down the path before them. "No doubt," said he, absently: he was not thinking of any collie. "What beautiful weather we are having," said she, to this silent companion. "It is always changing, but always beautiful. There is only one other aspect I should like to see--the snow time." "We have not much snow here," said he. "It seldom lies in the winter." This was a strange conversation for two engaged lovers it was not much more interesting than their talk--how many ages ago?--at Charing Cross station. But then, when she had said to him, "_Ought we to take tickets?_" she had looked into his face with those appealing, innocent, beautiful eyes. Now her eyes never met his. She was afraid. She managed to lead up to her announcement skilfully enough. By the time they reached the shore an extraordinarily beautiful sunset was shining over the sea and the land, something so bewildering and wonderful that they all four stopped to look at it. The Atlantic was a broad expanse of the palest and most brilliant green, with the pathway of the sun a flashing line of gold coming right across until it met the rocks, and there was a jet black against the glow. Then the distant islands of Colonsay, and Staffa, and Lunga, and Fladda lying on this shining green sea, appeared to be of a perfectly transparent bronze; while nearer at hand the long ranges of cliffs were becoming a pale rose-red under the darkening blue-gray sky. It was a blaze of color such as she had never even dreamed of as being possible in nature; nothing she had as yet seen in these northern latitudes had at all approached it. And as she stood there, and looked at those transparent islands of bronze on the green sea, she said to him,-- "Do you know, Keith, this is not at all like the place I had imagined as the scene of the gloomy stories you used to tell me about the revenges of the clans. I have been frightened once or twice since I came here, no doubt, by the wild sea, and the darkness of the cathedral, and so forth; but the longer I stay the less I see to suggest those awful stories. How could you associate such an evening as this with a frightful tragedy? Do you think those people ever existed who were supposed to have suffocated, or slaughtered, or starved to death any one who opposed their wishes?" "And I do not suppose they troubled themselves much about fine sunsets," said he. "That was not what they had to think about in those days." "Perhaps not," said she, lightly; "but, you know, I had expected to find a place from which I could gain some inspiration for tragedy--for I should like to try, once for all--if I _should_ have to give up the stage--whether I had the stuff of a tragic actress in me. And, you know, in that case, I ought to dress in black velvet, and carry a taper through dungeons, and get accustomed to storms, and gloom, and thunder and lightning." "We have no appliances here for the education of an actress--I am very sorry," said he. "Now, Keith, that is hardly fair," said she, with a smile. "You know it is only a trial. And you saw what they said of my _Juliet_. Oh, did I tell you about the new tragedy that is coming out?" "No, I do not think you did," said he. "Ah, well, it is a great secret as yet; but there is no reason why you should not hear of it." "I am not anxious to hear of it," said he, without any rudeness. "But it concerns me," she said, "and so I must tell you. It is written by a brother of Mr. Lemuel, the artist I have often spoken to you about. He is by profession an architect; but if this play should turn out to be as fine as some people say it is, he ought to take to dramatic writing. In fact, all the Lemuels--there are three brothers of them, you know--are like Michael Angelo and Leonardo--artists to the finger-tips, in every direction--poets, painters, sculptors, and all the rest of it. And I do think I ought to feel flattered by their choice in asking me to play the heroine; for so much depends on the choice of the actress--" "And you are still to act?" said he, quickly, though he spoke in a low voice, so that those behind should not hear. "Surely I explained to you?" said she, in a pleasant manner. "After all, lifelong habits are not so easily cast aside; and I knew you would be generous, and bear with me a little bit, Keith." He turned to her. The glow of the sunset caught his face. There was a strange, hopeless sadness in his eyes. "Generous to you?" said he. "You know I would give you my life if that would serve you. But this is worse than taking my life from me." "Keith, Keith!" said she, in gentle protest, "I don't know what you mean. You should not take things so seriously. What is it, after all? It was as an actress that you knew me first. What is the difference of a few months more or less? If I had not been an actress, you would never have known me--do you recollect that? By the way, has Major Stuart's wife got a piano?" He turned and stared at her for a second, in a bewildered way. "Oh yes," said he, with a laugh, "Mrs. Stuart has got a piano; she has got a very good piano. And what is the song you would sing now, sweetheart? Shall we finish up and have done with it, with a song at the end? That is the way in the theatre, you know--a dance and a song as the people go. And what shall our song be now? There was one that Norman Ogilvie used to sing." "I don't know why you should talk to me like that, Keith," said she, though she seemed somewhat frightened by this fierce gayety. "I was going to tell you that if Mrs. Stuart had a piano I would very gladly sing one or two songs for your mother and Miss Macleod when we went over there to-morrow. You have frequently asked me. Indeed, I have brought with me the very songs I sung to you the first time I saw you--at Mrs. Ross's." Instantly his memory flew back to that day--to the hushed little room over the sunlit gardens--to the beautiful, gentle, sensitive girl who seemed to have so strange an interest in the Highlands--to the wonderful thrill that went through him when she began to sing with an exquisite pathos, "A wee bird cam' to our ha' door," and to the prouder enthusiasm that stirred him when she sang, "I'll to Lochiel, and Appin, and kneel to them!" These were fine, and tender, and proud songs. There was no gloom about them--nothing about a grave, and the dark winter-time, and a faithless lost love. This song of Norman Ogilvie's that he had gayly proposed they should sing now? What had Major Stuart, or his wife, or any one in Mull to do with "Death's black wine?" "I meant to tell you, Keith," said she, somewhat nervously, "that I had signed an engagement to remain at the Piccadilly Theatre till Christmas next. I knew you wouldn't mind--I mean, you would be considerate, and you would understand how difficult it is for one to break away all at once from one's old associations. And then, you know, Keith," said she, shyly, "though you may not like the theatre, you ought to be proud of my success, as even my friends and acquaintances are. And as they are all anxious to see me make another appearance in tragedy, I really should like to try it; so that when my portrait appears in the Academy next year, people may not be saying, 'Look at the impertinence of that girl appearing as a tragic actress when she can do nothing beyond the familiar modern comedy!' I should have told you all about it before, Keith, but I know you hate to hear any talk about the theatre; and I sha'n't bore you again, you may depend on that. Isn't it time to go back now? See! the rose-color is away from Ulva now; it is quite a dark purple." He turned in silence and led the way back. Behind them he could faintly hear Mr. White discoursing to Janet Macleod about the manner in which the old artists mixed their own pigments. Then Macleod said, with a great gentleness and restraint, "And when you go away from here, Gertrude, I suppose I must say good-by to you; and no one knows when we shall see each other again. You are returning to the theatre. If that is your wish, I would not try to thwart it. You know best what is the highest prize the world can give you. And how can I warn you against failure and disappointment? I know you will be successful. I know the people will applaud you, and your head will be filled with their praises. You are going forward to a new triumph, Gerty; and the first step you will take will be on my heart." _ |
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