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A DOZEN WAYS OF LOVE

by

L. DOUGALL

Author of 'Beggars All,' 'The Zeitgeist,' 'The Madonna of a Day,' Etc.







London
Adam And Charles Black
1897





TO

M. S. E.

WITHOUT WHOSE AID, I THINK, MY BOOKS WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN WRITTEN




CONTENTS

PAGE
I. YOUNG LOVE 1

II. A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN 29

III. THRIFT 57

IV. A TAINT IN THE BLOOD 77

V. 'HATH NOT A JEW EYES?' 127

VI. A COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER 141

VII. THE SYNDICATE BABY 169

VIII. WITCHCRAFT 195

IX. THE GIRL WHO BELIEVED IN THE SAINTS 219

X. THE PAUPER'S GOLDEN DAY 237

XI. THE SOUL OF A MAN 251

XII. A FREAK OF CUPID 293




I

YOUNG LOVE


It was after dark on a November evening. A young woman came down the
main street of a small town in the south of Scotland. She was a
maid-servant, about thirty years old; she had a pretty, though rather
strong-featured, face, and yellow silken hair. When she came toward the
end of the street she turned into a small draper's shop. A middle-aged
woman stood behind the counter folding her wares.

'Can ye tell me the way to Mistress Macdonald's?' asked the maid.

'Ye'll be a stranger.' It was evident that every one in those parts knew
the house inquired for.

The maid had a somewhat forward, familiar manner; she sat down to rest.
'What like is she?'

The shopkeeper bridled. 'Is it Mistress Macdonald?' There was reproof in
the voice. 'She is much respectet--none more so. It would be before you
were born that every one about here knew Mistress Macdonald.'

'Well, what family is there?' The maid had a sweet smile; her voice fell
into a cheerful coaxing tone, which had its effect.

'Ye'll be the new servant they'll be looking for. Is it walking ye are
from the station? Well, she had six children, had Mistress Macdonald.'

'What ages will they be?'

The woman knit her brows; the problem set her was too difficult. 'I
couldna tell ye just exactly. There's Miss Macdonald--she that's at home
yet; she'll be over fifty.'

'Oh!' The maid gave a cheerful note of interested understanding. 'It'll
be her perhaps that wrote to me; the mistress'll be an old lady.'

'She'll be nearer ninety than eighty, I'm thinking.' There was a
moment's pause, which the shop-woman filled with sighs. 'Ye'll be aware
that it's a sad house ye're going to. She's verra ill is Mistress
Macdonald. It's sorrow for us all, for she's been hale and had her
faculties. She'll no' be lasting long now, I'm thinking.'

'No,' said the maid, with good-hearted pensiveness; 'it's not in the
course of nature that she should.' She rose as she spoke, as if it
behoved her to begin her new duties with alacrity, as there might not
long be occasion for them. She put another question before she went.
'And who will there be living in the house now?'

'There's just Miss Macdonald that lives with her mother; and there's
Mistress Brown--she'll be coming up most of the days now, but she dinna
live there; and there's Ann Johnston, that's helping Miss Macdonald with
the nursing--she's been staying at the house for a year back. That's all
that there'll be of them besides the servants, except that there's Dr.
Robert. His name is Macdonald, too, ye know; he's a nephew, and he's the
minister o' the kirk here. He goes up every day to see how his aunt's
getting on. I'm thinking he'll be up there now; it's about his time for
going.'

The maid took the way pointed out to her. Soon she was walking up a
gravel path, between trim, old-fashioned laurel hedges. She stood at the
door of a detached house. It was an ordinary middle-class
dwelling--comfortable, commodious, ugly enough, except that stolidity
and age did much to soften its ugliness. It had, above all, the air of
being a home--a hospitable open-armed look, as if children had run in
and out of it for years, as if young men had gone out from it to see the
world and come back again to rest, as if young girls had fluttered about
it, confiding their sports and their loves to its ivy-clad walls. Now
there hung about it a silence and sobriety that were like the shadows of
coming oblivion. The gas was turned low in the hall. The old-fashioned
omnibus that came lumbering from the railway with a box for the new maid
seemed to startle the place with its noise.

In the large dining-room four people were sitting in dreary discussion.
The gas-light flared upon heavy mahogany furniture, upon red moreen
curtains and big silver trays and dishes. By the fire sat the two
daughters of the aged woman. They both had grey hair and wrinkled faces.
The married daughter was stout and energetic; the spinster was thin,
careworn and nervous. Two middle-aged men were listening to a complaint
she made; the one was Robert Macdonald the minister, the other was the
family doctor.

'It's no use Robina's telling me that I must coax my mother to eat, as
if I hadn't tried that'--the voice became shrill--'I've begged her, and
prayed her, and reasoned with her.'

'No, no, Miss Macdonald--no, no,' said the doctor soothingly. 'You've
done your best, we all understand that; it's Mistress Brown that's
thinking of the situation in a wrong light; it's needful to be plain and
to say that Mistress Macdonald's mind is affected.'

Robina Brown interposed with indignation and authority.

'My mother has always had her right mind; she's been losing her memory.
All aged people lose their memories.'

The minister spoke with a meditative interest in a psychological
phenomenon. 'Ay, she's been losing it backwards; she forgot who we were
first, and remembered us all as little children; then she forgot us and
your father altogether. Latterly she's been living back in the days when
her father and mother were living at Kelsey Farm. It's strange to hear
her talk. There's not, as far as I know, another being on this wide
earth of all those that came and went to Kelsey Farm that is alive now.'

Miss Macdonald wiped her eyes; her voice shook as she spoke; the
nervousness of fatigue and anxiety accentuated her grief. 'She was
asking me how much butter we made in the dairy to-day, and asking if the
curly cow had her calf, and what Jeanie Trim was doing.'

'Who was Jeanie Trim?' asked the minister.

'How should I know? I suppose she was one of the Kelsey servants.'

'Curious,' ejaculated the minister. 'This Jeanie will have grown old and
died, perhaps, forty years ago, and my aunt's speaking of her as if she
was a young thing at work in the next room!'

'And what did you say to Mistress Macdonald?' the doctor asked, with a
cheerful purpose in his tone.

'I explained to her that her poor head was wandering.'

'Nay, now, but, Miss Macdonald, I'm thinking if I were you I would tell
her that the curly cow had her calf.'

'I never'--tearfully--'told my mother a falsehood in my life, except
when I was a very little girl, and then'--Miss Macdonald paused to wipe
her eyes--'she spoke to me so beautifully out of the Bible about it.'

The married sister chimed in mournfully, 'How often have I heard my
mother say that not one of her children had ever told her a lie!'

'Yes, yes, but----' There was a tone in the doctor's voice as if he
would like to have used a strong word, but he schooled himself.

'It's curious the notion she has got of not eating,' broke in the
minister. 'I held the broth myself, but she would have none of it.'

In the next room the flames of a large fire were sending reflections
over the polished surfaces of massive bedroom furniture. The wind blew
against this side of the house and rattled the windows, as if angry to
see the picture of luxury and warmth within. It was a handsome stately
room, and all that was in it dated back many a year. In a chintz
arm-chair by the fireside its mistress sat--a very old lady, but there
was still dignity in her pose. Her hair, perfectly white, was still
plentiful; her eye had still something of brightness, and there was upon
the aged features the cast of thought and the habitual look of
intelligence. Beside her upon a small table were such accompaniments of
age as daughter and nurse deemed suitable--the large print Bible, the
big spectacles and caudle cup. The lady sat looking about her with a
quick restless expression, like a prisoner alert to escape; she was tied
to her chair--not by cords--by the failure of muscular strength; but
perhaps she did not know that. She eyed her attendant with bright
furtive glances, as if the meek sombre woman who sat sewing beside her
were her jailer.

The party in the dining-room broke up their vain discussion, and came
for another visit of personal inspection.

'Mother, this is the doctor come to see you. Do you not remember the
doctor?'

The old lady looked at all four of them brightly enough. 'I haena the
pleasure of remembering who ye are, but perhaps it will return to me.'
There was restrained politeness in her manner.

The doctor spoke. 'It's a very bad tale I'm hearing about you to-day,
that you've begun to refuse your meat. A person of your experience,
Mistress Macdonald, ought to know that we must eat to live.' He had a
basin of food in his hand. 'Now just to please me, Mistress Macdonald.'

The old dame answered with the air that a naughty child or a pouting
maiden might have had. 'I'll no eat it--tak' it away! I'll no eat it.
Not for you, no--nor for my mither there'--she looked defiantly at her
grey-haired daughter--'no, nor for my father himself!'

'Not a mouthful has passed her lips to-day,' moaned Miss Macdonald. She
wrung excited hands and stepped back a pace into the shadow; she felt
too modest to pose as her mother's mother before the curious eyes of the
two men.

The old lady appeared relieved when the spinster was out of her sight.
'I don't know ye, gentlemen, but perhaps now my mither's not here, ye'll
tell me who it was that rang the door-bell a while since.'

The men hesitated. They were neither of them ready with inventions.

She leaned towards the doctor, strangely excited. 'Was it Mr. Kinnaird?'
she whispered.

The doctor supposed her to be frightened. 'No, no,' he said in cheerful
tones; 'you're mistaken--it wasn't Kinnaird.'

She leaned back pettishly. 'Tak' away the broth; I'll no' tak' it!'

The discomfited four passed out of the room again. The women were
weeping; the men were shaking their heads.

It was just then that the new servant passed into the sick-room, bearing
candles in her hands.

'Jeanie, Jeanie Trim,' whispered the old lady. The whisper had a
sprightly yet mysterious tone in it; the withered fingers were put out
as if to twitch the passing skirt as the housemaid went by.

The girl turned and bent a look--strong, helpful, and kindly--upon this
fine ruin of womanhood. The girl had wit 'Yes, ma'am?' she answered
blithely.

'I'll speak with ye, Jeanie, when this woman goes away; it's her that my
mither's put to spy on me.'

The nurse retired into the shadow of the wardrobe.

'She's away now,' said the maid.

'Jeanie, is it Mr. Kinnaird?'

'Well, now, would you like it to be Mr. Kinnaird?' The maid spoke as we
speak to a familiar friend when we have joyful news.

'Oh, Jeanie Trim, ye know well that I've longed sair for him to come
again!'

The maid set down her candles, and knelt down by the old dame's knee,
looking up with playful face.

'Well, now, I'll tell ye something. He came to see ye this afternoon.'

'Did he, Jeanie?' The withered face became all wreathed with smiles; the
old eyes danced with joy. 'What did ye say to him?'

'Oh, well, I just said'--hesitation--'I said he was to come back again
to-morrow.'

'My father doesn't know that he's been here?' There was apprehension in
the whisper.

'Not a soul knows but meself.'

'Ye didna tell him I'd been looking for him, Jeanie Trim?'

'Na, na, I made out that ye didna care whether he came or not.'

'But he wouldna be hurt in his mind, would he? I'd no like him to be
affronted.'

'It's no likely he was affronted when he said he'd come back to-morrow.'

The smile of satisfaction came again.

'Did he carry his silver-knobbed cane and wear his green coat, Jeanie?'

'Ay, he wore his green coat, and he looked as handsome a man as ever I
saw in my life.'

The coals in the grate shot up a sudden brilliant flame that eclipsed
the soft light of the candles and set strange shadows quivering about
the huge bed and wardrobe and the dark rosewood tables. The winsome
young woman at her play, and the old dame living back in a tale that was
long since told, exchanged nods and smiles at the thought of the
handsome visitor in his green coat. The whisper of the aged voice came
blithely--

'Ay, he is that, Jeanie Trim; as handsome a man as ever trod!'

The maid rose, and passing out observed the discarded basin of broth.

'What's this?' she said. 'Ye'll no be able to see Mr. Kinnaird to-morrow
if ye don't take yer soup the night.'

'Gie it to me, Jeanie Trim; I thought he wasna coming again when I said
I wouldna.'

The nurse slipped out of the shadow of the wardrobe and went out to tell
that the soup was being eaten.

'Kinnaird,' repeated the minister meditatively. 'I never heard my aunt
speak the name.'

'Kinnaird,' repeated the daughters; and they too searched in their
memories.

'I can remember my grandfather and my grandmother--the married daughter
spoke incredulously--'there was never a gentleman called Kinnaird that
any of the family had to do with. I'm sure of that, or I'd have as much
as heard the name.'

The minister shook his head, discounting the certainty.

'Maybe John will remember the name; your father, and your grandfather
too, had great talks with him when he was a lad. I'll write a line and
ask him. Poor William or Thomas might have known, if they had lived.'

William and Thomas, grey-haired men, respected fathers of families, had
already been laid by the side of their father in the burying-ground.
John lived in a distant country, counting himself too feeble now to
cross the seas. The daughters, the younger members of this flock, were
passing into advanced years. The mother sat by her fireside, and smiled
softly to herself as she watched the dancing flame, and thought that her
young lover would return on the morrow.

The days went on.

'I cannot think it right to tamper with my mother in this false way.'
The spinster daughter spoke tearfully.

'Would you rather see Mistress Macdonald die of starvation?' The doctor
spoke sharply; he was tired of the protest. The doctor approved of the
new maid. 'She's a wise-like body,' he said; 'let her have her way.'

'Don't you know us, mother?' the daughters would ask patiently, sadly,
day by day. But she never knew them; she only mistook one or the other
of them at times for her own mother, of whom she stood in some awe.

'Surely ye've not forgotten Ann Johnston, ma'am?' the nurse would ask,
carefully tending her old mistress.

The force of long habit had made the old lady patient and courteous, but
no answering gleam came in her face.

'Ye know who I am?' the new maid would cry in kindly triumph.

'Oh, ay, I know you, Jeanie Trim.'

'And now, look, I brought you a fine cup of milk, warm from the byre.'

'Oh, I canna tak' it; I'm no thinking that I care about eating the day.'

'Well, but I want to tell ye'--with an air of mystery. 'Who d'ye think's
downstairs? It's Mr. Kinnaird himself.'

'Did he come round by the yard to the dairy door?'

'That he did; and all to ask how ye were the day.'

The sparkle of the eye returned, and the smile that almost seemed to
dimple the wrinkled cheek.

'And I hope ye offered him something to eat, Jeanie; it's a long ride he
takes.'

'Bread and cheese, and a cup of milk just like this.'

'What did he say? Did he like what ye gave him?'

'He said a sup of milk sudna cross his lips till you'd had a cupful the
like of his; so I brought it in to ye. You'd better make haste and take
it up.'

'Did he send ye wi' the cup, Jeanie Trim?'

'Ay, he did that; and not a bit nor sup will he tak till ye've drunk it
all, every drop.'

With evident delight the cup was drained.

'Ye told him I was ailing and couldna see him the day, Jeanie?'

'Maybe ye'll see him to-morrow.' The maid stooped and folded the white
shawl more carefully over the dame's breast, and smiled in protective
kindly fashion. She had a good heart and a womanly, motherly touch,
although many a mistress had called her wilful and pert.

There were times when the minister came and sat himself behind his
aunt's chair to watch and to listen. He was a meditative man, and wrote
many an essay upon modern theology, but here he found food for
meditation of another sort.

There was no being in the world that he reverenced as he had reverenced
this aged lady. In his childhood she had taught him to lisp the measures
of psalm and paraphrase; in his youth she had advised him with shrewdest
wisdom; in his ministerial life she had been to him a friend, always
holding before him a greater spiritual height to be attained, and
now---- He thought upon his uncle as he had known him, a very reverent
elder of the kirk, a man who had led a long and useful life, and to whom
this woman had rendered wifely devotion. He thought upon his cousins, in
whose lives their mother's life had seemed unalterably bound up. He
would at times emerge from his corner, and, sitting down beside the
lady, would take her well-worn Bible and read to her such passages as he
knew were graven deep upon her heart by scenes of joy or sorrow, parting
or meeting, or the very hours of birth or death, in the lives that had
been dearer to her than her own. He was not an emotional man, but yet
there was a ringing pathos in his voice as he read the rhythmic words.
At such times she would sit as if voice and rhythm soothed her, or she
would bow her head solemnly at certain pauses, as if accustomed to agree
to the sentiment expressed. Heart and thought were not awake to him, nor
to the book he read, nor to the memories he tried to arouse. The fire of
the lady's heart sprang up only for one word, that word a name, the name
of a man of whose very existence, it seemed, no trace was left in all
that country-side.

The minister would retreat out of the lady's range of vision; and so
great did his curiosity grow that he instigated the maid to ask certain
questions as she played at the game of the old love-story in her
sprightly, pitying way.

'Now I'll tell ye a thing that I want to know,' said the maid, pouring
tea in a cup. 'What's his given name? Will ye tell me that?'

'Is it Mr. Kinnaird ye mean?'

'It's Mr. Kinnaird's christened name that I'm speering for.'

'An' I canna tell ye that, for he never told it to me. It'd be no place
of mine to ask him before he chose to speak o' it himsel'.'

'Did ye never see a piece of paper that had his name on it, or a card,
maybe?'

'I dinna mind that I have, Jeanie. He's a verra fine gentleman; it's
just Mr. Kinnaird that he's called.'

'What for will ye no let me tell the master that he comes every day?'

'Ye must no tell my father, Jeanie Trim'--querulously. 'No, no; nor my
mither. They'll maybe be telling him to bide away.'

'Why would they be telling him to bide away?'

'Tuts! How can I tell ye why, when I dinna ken mysel'? Why will ye fret
me? I'll tak' no more tea. Tak' it away!'

'I tell ye he'll ask me if ye took it up. He's waiting now to hear that
ye took a great big piece of bread tae it. He'll no eat the bread and
cheese I've set before him till ye've eaten this every crumb.'

'Is that sae? Well, I maun eat it, for I wouldna have him wanting his
meat.'

The meal finished, the maid put on her most winsome smile.

'Now and I'll tell ye what I'll do; I'll go back to Mr. Kinnaird, and
I'll tell him ye sent yer _love_ tae him.'

'Ye'll no do sic a thing as that, Jeanie Trim!' All the dignity and
authority of her long womanhood returned in the impressive air with
which she spoke. 'Ye'll no do sic a thing as that, Jeanie Trim! It's no
for young ladies to be sending sic messages to a gentleman, when he
hasna so much as said the word "love."'

Had he ever said the word 'love,' this Kinnaird, whose memory was a
living presence in the chamber of slow death? The minister believed that
he had not. There was no annal in the family letters of his name,
although other rejected suitors were mentioned freely. Had he told his
love by look or gesture, and left it unspoken, or had look and gesture
been misunderstood, and the whole slight love-story been born where it
had died, in the heart of the maiden? 'Where it had died!'--it had not
died. Seventy years had passed, and the love-story was presently
enacting itself, as all past and all future must for ever be enacting to
beings for whom time is not. Then, too, where was he who, by some means,
whether of his own volition or not, had become so much a part of the
pulsing life of a young girl that, when all else of life passed from her
with the weight of years, her heart still remained obedient to him?
Where was he? Had his life gone out like the flame of a candle when it
is blown? Or, if he was anywhere in the universe of living spirits, was
he conscious of the power which he was wielding? Was it a triumph to
him to know that he had come, gay and debonair, in the bloom of his
youth, into this long-existing sanctuary of home, and set aside, with a
wave of his hand, husband, children, and friends, dead and living?

Whatever might be the psychical aspects of the case, one thing was
certain, that the influence of Kinnaird--Kinnaird alone of all those who
had entered into relations with the lady--was useful at this time to
come between her and the distressing symptoms that would have resulted
from the mania of self-starvation. For some months longer she lived in
comfort and good cheer. This clear memory of her youth was oddly
interwoven with the forgetful dulness of old age, like a golden thread
in a black web, like a tiny flame on the hearth that shoots with
intermittent brilliancy into darkness. She was always to see her lover
upon the morrow; she never woke to the fact that 'to-day' lasted too
long, that a winter of morrows had slipped fruitless by.

The interviews between Jeanie Trim and Kinnaird were not monotonous. All
else was monotonous. December, January, February passed away. The
mornings and the evenings brought no change outwardly in the sick-room,
no change to the appearance of the fine old face and still stately
figure, suggested no variety of thought or emotion to the lady's
decaying faculties; but at the hours when she sat and contentedly ate
the food that the maid brought her, her mental vision cleared as it
focused upon the thought of her heart's darling. It was she whose
questions suggested nearly all the variations in the game of imagination
which the young woman so aptly played.

'Was he riding his black mare, Jeanie Trim?'

'I didna see the beast. He stood on his feet when he was tapping at the
door.'

'Whisht! Ye could tell if he wore his boots and spurs, an' his drab
waistcoat, buttoned high?'

'Now that ye speak of it, those were the very things he wore.'

'It'd be the black mare he was riding, nae doubt; he'll have tied her to
the gate in the lane.' Or again: 'Was it in the best parlour that ye saw
him the day? He'd be drinking tea wi' my mither.'

'That he was; and she smiling tae him over the dish of tea.'

'Ay, he looks fine and handsome, bowing to my mither in the best
parlour, Jeanie Trim. Did ye notice if he wore silk stockings?'

'Fine silk stockings he wore.'

'And his green coat?'

'As green and smart as a bottle when ye polish, it with a cloth.'

'Did ye notice the fine frills that he has to his shirt? I've tried to
make my father's shirts look as fine, but they never have the same
look.' The hands of the old dame would work nervously, as if eager to
get at the goffering-irons and try once more. 'An' he'd lay his hat on
the floor beside him; it's a way he has. Did my mither tell him that I
was ailing? His eyes would be shining the while. Do ye notice how his
eyes shine, Jeanie?'

'Ay, do I; his eyes shine and his hair curls.'

'Ye're mistaken there, his hair doesna curl, Jeanie Trim--ye've no'
obsairved rightly; his hair is brown and straight; it's his beard and
whiskers that curl. Eh! but they're bonny! There's a colour and shine in
the curl that minds me of the lights I can see in the old copper kettle
when my mither has it scoured and hung up on the nail; but his hair is
plain brown.'

'He's a graun' figure of a man!' cried the blithe maid, ever
sympathetic.

'Tuts! What are ye saying, Jeanie! He's no' a great size at all; the
shortest of my brithers is bigger than him! Ye might even ca' him a wee
man; it's the spirit that he has wi' it that I like.'

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