Book: A Noble Life

D >> Dinah Maria Mulock Craik >> A Noble Life




"Mr. Mearns, call Malcolm to me; I must start for Edinburg immediately."

In the interval Lord Cairnforth thought rapidly over what was best to be
done. To go at once to Helen, whatever her misery was, appeared to him
beyond question. To take Mr. Cardross in his present state, or the lad
Duncan, was not desirable: some people, good as they may be, are not the
sort of people to be trusted in calamity. And Helen's other brothers
were out and away in the world, scattered all over Scotland, earning,
diligently and hardly, their daily bread.

There was evidently not a soul to go to her help except himself. Her
brief and formal letter, breaking down into that piteous cry of "help
me," seemed to come out of the very depths of despair. It pierced to
the core of Lord Cairnforth's heart; and yet--and yet--he felt
that strange sense of exultation and delight.

Even Malcolm noticed this.

"Your lordship has gotten gude news," said he. "Is it about Miss Helen?
She's coming home?"

"Yes. We must start for Edinburg at once, and we'll bring her back with
us." He forgot for the moment the sick husband, the newborn baby--
every thing but Helen herself and her being close at hand. "It's only
forty-eight hours journey to Edinburg now. We will travel post; I am
strong enough, Malcolm; set about it quickly, for it must be done."

Malcolm knew his master too well to remonstrate. In truth, the whole
household was so bewildered by this sudden exploit--for the wheels of
life moved slowly enough ordinarily at Cairnforth--that before any
body was quite aware what had happened, the earl and his two necessary
attendants, Malcolm and Mr. Mearns--also Mrs. Campbell--Helen
might want a woman with her--were traveling across country as fast as
the only fast traveling of that era--relays of post-horses day and
night--could carry them.

Lord Cairnforth, after much thought, left Helen's letter behind with
Duncan Cardross, charging him to break the tidings gradually to the
minister, and tell him that he himself was then traveling to Edinburg
with all the speed that, in those days, money, and money alone, could
procure. Oh, how he felt the blessing of riches! Now, whatever her
circumstances were, or might have been once, misery, poverty, could
never afflict Helen more. He was quite determined that from the time he
brought them home, his cousin and his cousin's wife should inhabit
Cairnforth Castle; that, whether Captain Bruce's life proved to be long
or short, worthy or unworthy, he should be borne with, and forgiven
every thing--for Helen's sake.

All the journey--sleeping or waking, day or night--Lord Cairnforth
arranged or dreamed over his plans, until at ten o'clock the second
night he found himself driving along the familiar Princes Street, with
the grim Castle rock standing dark against the moonlight; while beyond,
on the opposite side of what was then a morass, but is now railways and
gardens, rose tier upon tier, like a fairy palace, the glittering lights
of the old town of Edinburg.





Chapter 13

The earl reached Edinburg late at night. Mrs. Campbell entreated him to
go to bed, and not seek out the street where the Bruces lived till
morning.

"For I ken the place weel," said she, when she heard Lord Cairnforth
inquiring for the address Helen had given. "It's ane o' thae high lands
in the New Town--a grand flat wi' a fine ha' door--and then ye
gang up an' up, till at the top flat ye find a bit nest like a bird's
--and the folk living there are as ill off as a bird in winter-time."

The earl, weary as he had been, raised his head at this, and spoke
decisively,

"Tell Malcolm to fetch a coach. I will go there tonight."

"Eh! Couldna ye bide till the morn? Ye'll just kill yourself,' my
lamb," cried the affectionate woman, forgetting all her respect in her
affection; but Lord Cairnforth understood it, and replied in the good
old Scotch, which he always kept to warm his nurse's heart,

"Na, na, I'll no dee yet. Keep your heart content; we'll all soon be
safe back at Cairnforth."

It seemed, in truth, as if an almost miraculous amount of endurance and
energy had been given to that frail body for this hour of need. The
earl's dark eyes were gleaming with light, and every tone of his voice
was proud and manly, as the strong, manly soul, counteracting all
physical infirmities, rose up for the protection for the one creature in
all the world who to him had been most dear.

"You'll order apartments in the hotel, nurse. See that every thing is
right and comfortable for Mrs. Bruce. I shall bring them back at once,
if I can," was his last word as he drove off, alone with Malcolm: he
wished to have no one with him who could possibly be done without.

It was nearly midnight when they stood at the foot of the high stair--
six stories high--and Captain Bruce, they learned, was inhabiting the
topmost flat. Malcolm looked at the earl uneasily.

"The top flat! Miss Helen canna be vera well aff, I doubt. Will I gang
up and see, my lord"?

"No, I will go myself. Carry me, Malcolm."

And, in the old childish way, the big Highlander lifted his master up in
his arms, and carried him, flight after flight, to the summit of the
long dark stair. It narrowed up to a small door, very mean and
shabby-looking, from the keyhole of which, when Malcolm hid his lantern,
a light was seen to gleam.

"They're no awa' to their beds yet, my lord. Will I knock?"

Lord Cairnforth had no time to reply, if indeed he could have replied;
for Malcolm's footsteps had been heard from within, and opening the door
with an eager "Is that you, doctor?" there stood before them, in her
very own likeness, Helen Cardross.

At least a woman like enough to the former Helen to leave no doubt it
was herself. But a casual acquaintance would never have recognized her.

The face, once so round and rosy, was sharp and thin; the cheek-bones
stood out; the bright complexion was faded; the masses of flaxen curls
--her chief beauty--were all gone; and the thin hair was drawn up
close under a cap. Her dress, once the picture of neatness, was neat
still, but the figure had become gaunt and coarse, and the shabby gown
hung upon her in forlorn folds, as if put on carelessly by one who had
neither time nor thought to give to appearances.

She was evidently sitting up watching, and alone. The rooms which her
door opened to view were only two, this topmost flat having been divided
in half, and each half made into just "a but and a ben," and furnished
in the meanest fashion of lodgings to let.

"Is it the doctor?" she said again, shading her light and peering down
the dark stair.

"Helen!"

She recognized at once the little figure in Malcolm's arms.

"You--you! And you have come to me--come your own self! Oh,
thank God!"

She leant against the doorway--not for weeping; she looked like one
who had wept till she could weep no more, but breathing hard in heavy
breaths, like sobs.

"Set me down, Malcolm, somewhere--any where. Then go outside."

Malcolm obeyed, finding a broken arm-chair and settling his master
therein. Then, as he himself afterward told the story, though not till
many years after, when nothing he told about that dear master's concerns
could signify any more, he "gaed awa' doun and grat like a bairn."

Lord Cairnforth sat silent, waiting till Helen had recovered herself--
Helen, whom, however changed, he would have known among a thousand. And
then, with his quick observation, he took in as much of her
circumstances as was betrayed by the aspect of the room, evidently
kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom in one; for at the far end, close to
the door that opened into the second apartment, which seemed a mere
closet, was one of those concealed beds so common in Scotland, and on it
lay a figure which occasionally stirred, moaned, or coughed, but very
feebly, and for the most part lay still--very still.

Its face, placed straight on the pillow--and as the fire blazed up,
the sharp profile being reflected in grotesque distinctness on the wall
behind--was a man's face, thin and ghastly, the skin tightly drawn
over the features, as is seen in the last stage of consumption.

Lord Cairnforth had never beheld death--not in any form. But he
felt, by instinct, that he was looking upon it now, or the near approach
to it, in the man who lay there, too rapidly passing into
unconsciousness even to notice his presence--Helen's husband, Captain
Bruce.

The dreadful fascination of the sight drew his attention even from Helen
herself. He sat gazing at his cousin, the man who had deceived and
wronged him, and not him only, but those dearer to him than himself
---the man whom, a day or two ago, he had altogether hated and despised.
He dared do neither now. A heavier hand than that of mortal justice was
upon his enemy. Whatever Captain Bruce was, whatever he had been, he
was now being taken away from all human judgment into the immediate
presence of Him who is at once the Judge and the Pardoner of sinners.

Awe-struck, the earl sat and watched the young man (for he could not be
thirty yet), struck down thus in the prime of his days--carried away
into the other world--while he himself, with his frail, flickering
taper of a life, remained. Wherefore? At length, in a whisper, he
called "Helen!" and she came and knelt beside the earl's chair.

"He is fast going," said she.

"I see that."

"In an hour or two, the doctor said."

"Then I will stay, if I may?"

"Oh yes."

Helen said it quite passively; indeed, her whole appearance as she moved
about the room, and then took her seat by her husband's side, indicated
one who makes no effort either to express or to restrain grief--who
has, in truth, suffered till she can suffer no more.

The dying man was not so near death as the doctor had thought, for after
a little he fell into what seemed a natural sleep. Helen leant her head
against the wall and closed her eyes. But that instant was heard from
the inner room a cry, the like of which Lord Cairnforth had never heard
before--the sharp, waking cry of a very young infant.

In a moment Helen started up--her whole expression changed; and when,
after a short disappearance, she re-entered the room with her child, who
had dropped contentedly asleep again, nestling to her bosom, she was
perfectly transformed. No longer the plain, almost elderly woman; she
had in her poor worn face the look--which makes any face young, nay,
lovely--the mother's look. Fate had not been altogether cruel to
her; it had given her a child.

"Isn't he a bonnie bairn?" she whispered, as once again she knelt down
by Lord Cairnforth's chair, and brought the little face down so that he
could see it and touch it. He did touch it with his feeble fingers--
the small soft cheek--the first baby-cheek he had ever beheld.

"It is a bonnie bairn, as you say; God bless it!" which, as she
afterward told him, was the first blessing ever breathed over the child.
"What is its name:" he asked by-and-by, seeing she expected more notice
taken of it.

"Alexander Cardross--after my father. My son is a born Scotsman too
--an Edinburg laddie. We were coming home, as fast as we could, to
Cairnforth. He"--glancing toward the bed--"he wished it."

Thus much thought for her, the dying man had shown. He had been
unwilling to leave his wife forlorn in a strange land. He had come
"fast as he could," that her child might be born and her husband die at
Cairnforth--at least so the earl supposed, nor subsequently found any
reason to doubt. It was a good thing to hear then--good to remember
afterward.

For hours the earl sat in the broken chair, with Helen and her baby
opposite, watching and waiting for the end.

It did not come till near morning. Once during the night Captain Bruce
opened his eyes and looked about him, but either his mind was confused,
or--who knows?--made clearer by the approach of death, for he
evinced no sign of surprise at the earl's presence in the room. He only
fixed upon him a long, searching, inquiring gaze, which seemed to compel
an answer.

Lord Cairnforth spoke:

"Cousin, I am come to take home with me your wife and child. Are you
satisfied?"

"Yes."

"I promise you they shall never want. I will take care of them always."

There was a faint assenting movement of the dying head, and then, just
as Helen went out of the room with her baby, Captain Bruce followed her
with his eyes, in which the earl thought was an expression almost
approaching tenderness. "Poor thing--poor thing! Her long trouble
is over."

These were the last words he ever said, for shortly afterward he again
fell into a sleep, out of which he passed quietly and without pain into
sleep eternal. They looked at him, and he was still breathing; they
looked at him a few minutes after, and he was, as Mr. Cardross would
have expressed it, "away"--far, far away--in His safe keeping with
whom abide the souls of both the righteous and the wicked, the living
and the dead.

Let Him judge him, for no one else ever did. No one ever spoke of him
but as their dead can only be spoken of either to or by the widow and
the fatherless.

Without much difficulty--for, after her husband's death, Helen's
strength suddenly collapsed, and she became perfectly passive in the
earl's hands and in those of Mrs. Campbell--Lord Cairnforth learned
all he required about the circumstances of the Bruce family.

They were absolutely penniless. Helen's boy had been born only a day or
two after their arrival at Edinburg. Her husband's illness increased
suddenly at the last, but he had not been quite incapacitated till she
had gained a little strength, so as to be able to nurse him. But how
she had done it--how then and for many months past she had contrived
to keep body and soul together, to endure fatigue, privation, mental
anguish, and physical weakness, was, according to good Mrs. Campbell,
who heard and guessed a great deal more than she chose to tell, "just
wonderful'." It could only be accounted for by Helen's natural vigor of
constitution, and by that preternatural strength and courage which
Nature supplies to even the saddest form of motherhood.

And now her brief term of wifehood--she had yet not been married two
years--was over forever, and Helen Bruce was left a mother only. It
was easy to see that she would be one of those women who remain such--
mothers, and nothing but mothers, to the end of their days.

"She's ower young for me to say it o' her," observed Mrs. Campbell, in
one of the long consultations that she and the earl held together
concerning Helen, who was of necessity given over almost exclusively to
the good woman's charge; "but ye'll see, my lord, she will look nae mair
at any mortal man. She'll just spend her days in tending that wean o'
hers--and a sweet bit thing it is, ye ken--by-and-by she'll get
blithe and bonnie again. She'll be aye gentle and kind, and no dreary,
but she'll never marry. Puir Miss Helen! She'll be ane o' thae widows
that the apostle tells o'--that are 'widows indeed'."

And Mrs. Campbell, who herself was one of the number, heaved a sigh--
perhaps for Helen, perhaps for herself, and for one whose very name was
now forgotten; who had gone down to the bottom of Loch Beg when the
Earl's father was drowned, and never afterward been seen, living or
dead, by any mortal eye.

The earl gave no answer to his good nurse's gossip. He contented
himself with making all arrangements for poor Helen's comfort, and
taking care that she should be supplied with every luxury befitting not
alone Captain Bruce's wife and Mr. Cardross's daughter, but the "cousin"
of the Earl of Cairnforth. And now, whenever he spoke of her, it was
invariably and punctiliously as "my cousin."

The baby too--Mrs. Campbell's truly feminine soul was exalted to
infinte delight and pride at being employed by the earl to procure the
most magnificent stock of baby clothes that Edinburg could supply. No
young heir to a peerage could be appareled more splendidly than was,
within a few days, Helen's boy. He was the admiration of the whole
hotel; and when his mother made some weak resistance, she received a
gentle message to the effect that the Earl of Cairnforth begged, as a
special favor, to be allowed to do exactly as he liked with his little
"cousin".

And every morning, punctual to the hour, the earl had himself taken up
stairs into the infantile kingdom of which Mrs. Campbell was installed
once more as head nurse, where he would sit watching with an amused
curiosity, that was not without its pathos, the little creature so
lately come into the world--to him, unfamiliar with babies, such a
wondrous mystery. Alas! A mystery which it was his lot to behold--as
all the joys of life--from the outside.

But, though life's joys were forbidden him, its duties seemed to
accumulate daily. There was Mr. Cardross to be kept patient by the
assurance that all was well, and that presently his daughter and his
grandchild would be coming home. There was Alick Cardross, now a young
clerk in the office of Menteith & Ross, to be looked after, and kept
from agitating his sister by any questionings; and there was a tribe of
young Menteiths always needing assistance or advice--now and then
something more tangible than advice. Then there were the earl's
Edinburg friends, who thronged round him in hearty welcome as soon as
ever they heard he was again in the good old city, and would willingly
have drawn him back again into that brilliant society which he had
enjoyed so much.

He enjoyed it still--a little; and during the weeks that elapsed
before Helen was able to travel, or do any thing but lie still and be
taken care of, he found opportunity to mingle once more among his former
associates. But his heart was always in that quiet room which he only
entered once a day, where the newly-made widow sat with her orphan child
at her bosom, and waited for Time, the healer, to soothe and bind up the
inevitable wounds.

At last the day arrived when the earl, with his little cortege of two
carriages, one his own, and the other containing Helen, her baby, and
Mrs. Campbell, quitted Edinburg, and, traveling leisurely, neared the
shores of Loch Beg. They did not come by the ferry, Lord Cairnforth
having given orders to drive round the head of the loch, as the easiest
and most unobtrusive way of bringing Helen home. Much he wondered how
she bore it--the sight of the familiar hills--exactly the same--
for it was the same time of year, almost the very day, when she had left
Cairnforth; but he could not inquire. At length, after much thought,
during the last stage of the journey, he bade Malcolm ask Mrs. Bruce if
she would leave her baby for a little and come into the earl's carriage,
which message she obeyed at once.

These few weeks of companionship, not constant, but still sufficiently
close, had brought them back very much into their old brother and sister
relation, and though nothing had been distinctly said about it, Helen
had accepted passively all the earl's generosity both for herself and
her child. Once or twice, when he had noticed a slight hesitation of
uneasiness in her manner, Lord Cairnforth had said, "I promised him, you
remember," and this had silenced her. Besides she was too utterly worn
out and broken down to resist any kindness. She seemed to open her
heart to it--Helen's proud, sensitive, independent heart--much as
a plant, long dried up, withered, and trampled upon, opens itself to the
sunshine and the dew.

But now her health, both of body and mind, had revived a little; and as
she sat opposite him in her grave, composed widowhood, even the disguise
of the black weeds could not take away a look that returned again and
again, reminding the earl of the Helen of his childhood--the bright,
sweet, wholesome-natured, high-spirited Helen Cardross.

"I asked you to come to me in the carriage," said he, after they had
spoken a while about ordinary things. "Before we reach home, I think we
ought to have a little talk upon some few matters which we have never
referred to as yet. Are you able for this?"

"Oh yes, but--I can't--I can't!" and a sudden expression of
trouble and fear darkened the widow's face. "Do not ask me any
questions about the past. It is all over now; it seems like a dream--
as if I had never been away from Cairnforth."

"Let it be so then, Helen, my dear," replied the earl, tenderly.
"Indeed, I never meant otherwise. It is far the best."

Thus, both at the time and ever after, he laid, and compelled others to
lay, the seal of silence upon those two sad years, the secrets of which
were buried in Captain Bruce's quiet grave in Grayfriars' church-yard.

"Helen," he continued, "I am not going to ask you a single question; I
am only going to tell you a few things, which you are to tell your
father at the first opportunity, so as to place you in a right position
toward him, and whatever his health may be, to relieve his mind entirely
both as to you and Boy."

"Boy" the little Alexander had already begun to be called. "Boy" par
excellence, for even at that early period of his existence he gave
tokens of being a most masculine character, with a resolute will of his
own, and a power of howling till he got his will which delighted Nurse
Campbell exceedingly. He was already a thorough Cardross--not in the
least a Bruce; he inherited Helen's great blue eyes, large frame, and
healthy temperament, and was, in short, that repetition of the mother in
the son which Dame Nature delights in, and out of which she sometimes
makes the finest and noblest men that the world ever sees.

"Boy has been wide awake these two hours, noticing every thing," said
his mother, with a mother's firm conviction that this rather imaginative
fact was the most interesting possible to every body. "He might have
known the loch quite well already, by the way he kept staring at it."

"He will know it well enough by-and by," said the earl, smiling. "You
are aware, Helen, that he and you are permanently coming home."

"To the Manse? yes! My dear father! he will keep us there during his
life time. Afterward we must take our chance, my boy and I."

"Not quite that. Are you not aware--I thought, from circumstances,
you must have guessed it long ago--that Cairnforth Castle, and my
whole property, will be yours sometime?"

"I will tell you no untruth, Lord Cairnforth. I was aware of it. That
is, he--I mean it was suspected that you had meant it once. I found
this out--don't ask me how--shortly after I was married; and I
determined, as the only chance of avoiding it--and several other
things--never to write to you again; never to take the least means of
bringing myself--us--back to your memory."

"Why so?"

"I wished you to forget us, and all connected with us, and to choose
some one more worthy, more suitable, to inherit your property."

"But, Helen, that choice rested with myself alone," said the earl,
smiling. "Has not a man the right to do what he likes with his own?"

"Yes, but--oh," cried Helen, earnestly, "do not talk of this. It
caused me such misery once. Never let us speak of it again."

"I must speak of it," was the answer, equally earnest. "All my comfort
--I will not say happiness; we have both learned, Helen, not to count
too much upon happiness in this world--but all the peace of my future
life, be it short or long, depends upon my having my heart's desire in
this matter. It is my heart's desire, and no one shall forbid it. I
will carry out my intentions, whether you agree to them or not. I will
speak of them no more, if you do not wish it, but I shall certainly
perform them. And I think it would be far better if we could talk
matters out together, and arrange every thing plainly and openly before
you go home to the Manse, if you prefer the Manse, though I could have
wished it was to the Castle."

"To the Castle!"

"Yes. I intended to have brought you back from Edinburgh--all of
you," added the earl, with emphasis, "to the Castle for life!"

Helen was much affected. She made no attempt either to resist or to
reply.

"But now, my dear, you shall do exactly what you will about the home you
choose--exactly what makes you most content, and your father also.
Only listen to me just for five minutes, without interrupting me. I
never could bear to be interrupted, you know."

Helen faintly smiled, and Lord Cairnforth, in a brief, business-like
way, explained how, the day after his coming of age, he had
deliberately, and upon what he--and Mr. Menteith likewise--
considered just grounds, constituted her, Helen Cardross, as his sole
heiress; that he had never altered his will since, and therefore she now
was, and always would have been, and her children after her, rightful
successors to the Castle and broad acres of Cairnforth.

"The title lapses," he added: "there will be no more Earls of
Cairnforth. But your boy may be the founder of a new name and family,
that may live and rule for generations along the shores of our loch, and
perhaps keep even my poor name alive there for a little while."

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