Book: THE TWO DESTINIES

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The question startled me. However, I could honestly answer that,
in this respect at least, I was not like other men.

"To my thinking," I added, "the cat is a cruelly misunderstood
creature--especially in England. Women, no doubt, generally do
justice to the affectionate nature of cats. But the men treat
them as if they were the natural enemies of the human race. The
men drive a cat out of their presence if it ventures upstairs,
and set their dogs at it if it shows itself in the street--and
then they turn round and accuse the poor creature (whose genial
nature must attach itself to something) of being only fond of the
kitchen!"

The expression of these unpopular sentiments appeared to raise me
greatly in the estimation of Miss Dunross.

"We have one sympathy in common, at any rate," she said. "Now I
can amuse you! Prepare for a surprise."

She drew her veil over her face as she spoke, and, partially
opening the door, rang my handbell. Peter appeared, and received
his instructions.

"Move the screen," said Miss Dunross. Peter obeyed; the ruddy
firelight streamed over the floor. Miss Dunross proceeded with
her directions. "Open the door of the cats' room, Peter; and
bring me my harp. Don't suppose that you are going to listen to a
great player, Mr. Germaine," she went on, when Peter had departed
on his singular errand, "or that you are likely to see the sort
of harp to which you are accustomed, as a man of the modern time.
I can only play some old Scotch airs; and my harp is an ancient
instrument (with new strings)--an heirloom in our family, some
centuries old. When you see my harp, you will think of pictures
of St. Cecilia--and you will be treating my performance kindly if
you will remember, at the sam e time, that I am no saint!"

She drew her chair into the firelight, and sounded a whistle
which she took from the pocket of her dress. In another moment
the lithe and shadowy figures of the cats appeared noiselessly in
the red light, answering their mistress's call. I could just
count six of them, as the creatures seated themselves demurely in
a circle round the chair. Peter followed with the harp, and
closed the door after him as he went out. The streak of daylight
being now excluded from the room, Miss Dunross threw back her
veil, and took the harp on her knee; seating herself, I observed,
with her face turned away from the fire.

"You will have light enough to see the cats by," she said,
"without having too much light for _me_. Firelight does not give
me the acute pain which I suffer when daylight falls on my
face--I feel a certain inconvenience from it, and nothing more."

She touched the strings of her instrument--the ancient harp, as
she had said, of the pictured St. Cecilia; or, rather, as I
thought, the ancient harp of the Welsh bards. The sound was at
first unpleasantly high in pitch, to my untutored ear. At the
opening notes of the melody--a slow, wailing, dirgelike air--the
cats rose, and circled round their mistress, marching to the
tune. Now they followed each other singly; now, at a change in
the melody, they walked two and two; and, now again, they
separated into divisions of three each, and circled round the
chair in opposite directions. The music quickened, and the cats
quickened their pace with it. Faster and faster the notes rang
out, and faster and faster in the ruddy firelight, the cats, like
living shadows, whirled round the still black figure in the
chair, with the ancient harp on its knee. Anything so weird,
wild, and ghostlike I never imagined before even in a dream! The
music changed, and the whirling cats began to leap. One perched
itself at a bound on the pedestal of the harp. Four sprung up
together, and assumed their places, two on each of her shoulders.
The last and smallest of the cats took the last leap, and lighted
on her head! There the six creatures kept their positions,
motionless as statues! Nothing moved but the wan, white hands
over the harp-strings; no sound but the sound of the music
stirred in the room. Once more the melody changed. In an instant
the six cats were on the floor again, seated round the chair as I
had seen them on their first entrance; the harp was laid aside;
and the faint, sweet voice said quietly, "I am soon tired--I must
leave my cats to conclude their performances tomorrow."

She rose, and approached the bedside.

"I leave you to see the sunset through your window," she said.
"From the coming of the darkness to the coming of breakfast-time,
you must not count on my services--I am taking my rest. I have no
choice but to remain in bed (sleeping when I can) for twelve
hours or more. The long repose seems to keep my life in me. Have
I and my cats surprised you very much? Am I a witch; and are they
my familiar spirits? Remember how few amusements I have, and you
will not wonder why I devote myself to teaching these pretty
creatures their tricks, and attaching them to me like dogs! They
were slow at first, and they taught me excellent lessons of
patience. Now they understand what I want of them, and they learn
wonderfully well. How you will amuse your friend, when he comes
back from fishing, with the story of the young lady who lives in
the dark, and keeps a company of performing cats! I shall expect
_you_ to amuse _me_ to-morrow--I want you to tell me all about
yourself, and how you came to visit these wild islands of ours.
Perhaps, as the days go on, and we get better acquainted, you
will take me a little more into your confidence, and tell me the
true meaning of that story of sorrow which I read on your face
while you were asleep? I have just enough of the woman left in me
to be the victim of curiosity, when I meet with a person who
interests me. Good-by till to-morrow! I wish you a tranquil
night, and a pleasant waking. - Come, my familiar spirits! Come,
my cat children! it's time we went back to our own side of the
house."

She dropped the veil over her face--and, followed by her train of
cats, glided out of the room.

Immediately on her departure, Peter appeared and drew back the
curtains. The light of the setting sun streamed in at the window.
At the same moment my traveling companion returned in high
spirits, eager to tell me about his fishing in the lake. The
contrast between what I saw and heard now, and what I had seen
and heard only a few minutes since, was so extraordinary and so
startling that I almost doubted whether the veiled figure with
the harp, and the dance of cats, were not the fantastic creations
of a dream. I actually asked my friend whether he had found me
awake or asleep when he came into the room!

Evening merged into night. The Master of Books made his
appearance, to receive the latest news of my health. He spoke and
listened absently as if his mind were still pre-occupied by his
studies--except when I referred gratefully to his daughter's
kindness to me. At her name his faded blue eyes brightened; his
drooping head became erect; his sad, subdued voice strengthened
in tone.

"Do not hesitate to let her attend on you," he said. "Whatever
interests or amuses her, lengthens her life. In _her_ life is the
breath of mine. She is more than my daughter; she is the
guardian-angel of the house. Go where she may, she carries the
air of heaven with her. When you say your prayers, sir, pray God
to leave my daughter here a little longer."

He sighed heavily; his head dropped again on his breast--he left
me.

The hour advanced; the evening meal was set by my bedside. Silent
Peter, taking his leave for the night, developed into speech. "I
sleep next door," he said. "Ring when you want me." My traveling
companion, taking the second bed in the room, reposed in the
happy sleep of youth. In the house there was dead silence. Out of
the house, the low song of the night-wind, rising and falling
over the lake and the moor, was the one sound to be heard. So the
first day ended in the hospitable Shetland house.

CHAPTER XX.

THE GREEN FLAG.

"I CONGRATULATE you, Mr. Germaine, on your power of painting in
words. Your description gives me a vivid idea of Mrs. Van
Brandt."

"Does the portrait please you, Miss Dunross?"

"May I speak as plainly as usual?"

"Certainly!"

"Well, then, plainly, I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt."

Ten days had passed; and thus far Miss Dunross had made her way
into my confidence already!

By what means had she induced me to trust her with those secret
and sacred sorrows of my life which I had hitherto kept for my
mother's ear alone? I can easily recall the rapid and subtle
manner in which her sympathies twined themselves round mine; but
I fail entirely to trace the infinite gradations of approach by
which she surprised and conquered my habitual reserve. The
strongest influence of all, the influence of the eye, was not
hers. When the light was admitted into the room she was shrouded
in her veil. At all other times the curtains were drawn, the
screen was before the fire--I could see dimly the outline of her
face, and I could see no more. The secret of her influence was
perhaps partly attributable to the simple and sisterly manner in
which she spoke to me, and partly to the indescribable interest
which associated itself with her mere presence in the room. Her
father had told me that she "carried the air of heaven with her."
In my experience, I can only say that she carried something with
her which softly and inscrutably possessed itself of my will, and
made me as unconsciously obedient to her wishes as if I had been
her dog. The love-story of my boyhood, in all its particulars,
down even to the gift of the green flag; the mystic predictions
of Dame Dermody; the loss of every trace of my little Mary of
former days; the rescue of Mrs. Van Brandt from the river; the
apparition of her in the summer-house; the after-meetings with
her in Edinburgh and in London; the final parting which had left
its mark of sorrow on my face--all these events, all these
sufferi ngs, I confided to her as unreservedly as I have confided
them to these pages. And the result, as she sat by me in the
darkened room, was summed up, with a woman's headlong impetuosity
of judgment, in the words that I have just written--"I don't like
your Mrs. Van Brandt!"

"Why not?" I asked.

She answered instantly, "Because you ought to love nobody but
Mary."

"But Mary has been lost to me since I was a boy of thirteen."

"Be patient, and you will find her again. Mary is patient--Mary
is waiting for you. When you meet her, you will be ashamed to
remember that you ever loved Mrs. Van Brandt--you will look on
your separation from that woman as the happiest event of your
life. I may not live to hear of it--but _you_ will live to own
that I was right."

Her perfectly baseless conviction that time would yet bring about
my meeting with Mary, partly irritated, partly amused me.

"You seem to agree with Dame Dermody," I said. "You believe that
our two destinies are one. No matter what time may elapse, or
what may happen in the time, you believe my marriage with Mary is
still a marriage delayed, and nothing more?"

"I firmly believe it."

"Without knowing why--except that you dislike the idea of my
marrying Mrs. Van Brandt?"

She knew that this view of her motive was not far from being the
right one--and, womanlike, she shifted the discussion to new
ground.

"Why do you call her Mrs. Van Brandt?" she asked. "Mrs. Van
Brandt is the namesake of your first love. If you are so fond of
her, why don't you call her Mary?"

I was ashamed to give the true reason--it seemed so utterly
unworthy of a man of any sense or spirit. Noticing my hesitation,
she insisted on my answering her; she forced me to make my
humiliating confession.

"The man who has parted us," I said, "called her Mary. I hate him
with such a jealous hatred that he has even disgusted me with the
name! It lost all its charm for me when it passed _his_ lips."

I had anticipated that she would laugh at me. No! She suddenly
raised her head as if she were looking at me intently in the
dark.

"How fond you must be of that woman!" she said. "Do you dream of
her now?"

"I never dream of her now."

"Do you expect to see the apparition of her again?"

"It may be so--if a time comes when she is in sore need of help,
and when she has no friend to look to but me."

"Did you ever see the apparition of your little Mary?"

"Never!"

"But you used once to see her--as Dame Dermody predicted--in
dreams?"

"Yes--when I was a lad."

"And, in the after-time, it was not Mary, but Mrs. Van Brandt who
came to you in dreams--who appeared to you in the spirit, when
she was far away from you in the body? Poor old Dame Dermody. She
little thought, in her life-time, that her prediction would be
fullfilled by the wrong woman!"

To that result her inquiries had inscrutably conducted her! If
she had only pressed them a little further--if she had not
unconsciously led me astray again by the very next question that
fell from her lips--she _must_ have communicated to _my_ mind the
idea obscurely germinating in hers--the idea of a possible
identity between the Mary of my first love and Mrs. Van Brandt!

"Tell me," she went on. "If you met with your little Mary now,
what would she be like? What sort of woman would you expect to
see?"

I could hardly help laughing. "How can I tell," I rejoined, "at
this distance of time?"

"Try!" she said.

Reasoning my way from the known personality to the unknown, I
searched my memory for the image of the frail and delicate child
of my remembrance: and I drew the picture of a frail and delicate
woman--the most absolute contrast imaginable to Mrs. Van Brandt!

The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dunross
dropped out of it instantly, expelled by the substantial
conclusion which the contrast implied. Alike ignorant of the
aftergrowth of health, strength, and beauty which time and
circumstances had developed in the Mary of my youthful days, we
had alike completely and unconsciously misled one another. Once
more, I had missed the discovery of the truth, and missed it by a
hair-breadth!

"I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary," said Miss Dunross,
"to your portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes my idea of
what a really attractive woman ought to be. How you can have felt
any sorrow for the loss of that other person (I detest buxom
women!) passes my understanding. I can't tell you how interested
I am in Mary! I want to know more about her. Where is that pretty
present of needle-work which the poor little thing embroidered
for you so industriously? Do let me see the green flag!"

She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about me! I
felt a little confused as I answered her.

"I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is somewhere in my
house in Perthshire."

"You have not got it with you?" she exclaimed. "You leave her
keepsake lying about anywhere? Oh, Mr. Germaine, you have indeed
forgotten Mary! A woman, in your place, would have parted with
her life rather than part with the one memorial left of the time
when she first loved!"

She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness--with such
agitation, I might almost say--that she quite startled me.

"Dear Miss Dunross," I remonstrated, "the flag is not lost."

"I should hope not!" she interposed, quickly. "If you lose the
green flag, you lose the last relic of Mary--and more than that,
if _my_ belief is right."

"What do you believe?"

"You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first reading
of your face was wrong--I am afraid you are a hard man."

"Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer me as
frankly as usual. What do I lose in losing the last relic of
Mary?"

"You lose the one hope I have for you," she answered,
gravely--"the hope of your meeting and your marriage with Mary in
the time to come. I was sleepless last night, and I was thinking
of your pretty love story by the banks of the bright English
lake. The longer I thought, the more firmly I felt the conviction
that the poor child's green flag is destined to have its innocent
influence in forming your future life. Your happiness is waiting
for you in that artless little keepsake! I can't explain or
justify this belief of mine. It is one of my eccentricities, I
suppose--like training my cats to perform to the music of my
harp. But, if I were your old friend, instead of being only your
friend of a few days, I would leave you no peace--I would beg and
entreat and persist, as only a woman _can_ persist--until I had
made Mary's gift as close a companion of yours, as your mother's
portrait in the locket there at your watch-chain. While the flag
is with you, Mary's influence is with you; Mary's love is still
binding you by the dear old tie; and Mary and you, after years of
separation, will meet again!"

The fancy was in itself pretty and poetical; the earnestness
which had given expression to it would have had its influence
over a man of a far harder nature than mine. I confess she had
made me ashamed, if she had done nothing more, of my neglect of
the green flag.

"I will look for it the moment I am at home again," I said; "and
I will take care that it is carefully preserved for the future."

"I want more than that," she rejoined. "If you can't wear the
flag about you, I want it always to be _with_ you--to go wherever
you go. When they brought your luggage here from the vessel at
Lerwick, you were particularly anxious about the safety of your
traveling writing-desk--the desk there on the table. Is there
anything very valuable in it?"

"It contains my money, and other things that I prize far more
highly--my mother's letters, and some family relics which I
should be very sorry to lose. Besides, the desk itself has its
own familiar interest as my constant traveling companion of many
years past."

Miss Dunross rose, and came close to the chair in which I was
sitting.

"Let Mary's flag be your constant traveling companion," she said.
"You have spoken far too gratefully of my services here as your
nurse. Reward me beyond my deserts. Make allowances, Mr.
Germaine, for the superstitious fancies of a lonely, dreamy
woman. Promise me that the green
flag shall take its place among the other little treasures in
your desk!"

It is needless to say that I made the allowances and gave the
promise--gave it, resolving seriously to abide by it. For the
first time since I had known her, she put her poor, wasted hand
in mine, and pressed it for a moment. Acting heedlessly under my
first grateful impulse, I lifted her hand to my lips before I
released it. She started--trembled--and suddenly and silently
passed out of the room.

CHAPTER XXI.

SHE COMES BETWEEN US.

WHAT emotion had I thoughtlessly aroused in Miss Dunross? Had I
offended or distressed her? Or had I, without meaning it, forced
on her inner knowledge some deeply seated feeling which she had
thus far resolutely ignored?

I looked back through the days of my sojourn in the house; I
questioned my own feelings and impressions, on the chance that
they might serve me as a means of solving the mystery of her
sudden flight from the room.

What effect had she produced on me?

In plain truth, she had simply taken her place in my mind, to the
exclusion of every other person and every other subject. In ten
days she had taken a hold on my sympathies of which other women
would have failed to possess themselves in so many years. I
remembered, to my shame, that my mother had but seldom occupied
my thoughts. Even the image of Mrs. Van Brandt--except when the
conversation had turned on her--had become a faint image in my
mind! As to my friends at Lerwick, from Sir James downward, they
had all kindly come to see me--and I had secretly and
ungratefully rejoiced when their departure left the scene free
for the return of my nurse. In two days more the Government
vessel was to sail on the return voyage. My wrist was still
painful when I tried to use it; but the far more serious injury
presented by the re-opened wound was no longer a subject of
anxiety to myself or to any one about me. I was sufficiently
restored to be capable of making the journey to Lerwick, if I
rested for one night at a farm half-way between the town and Mr.
Dunross's house. Knowing this, I had nevertheless left the
question of rejoining the vessel undecided to the very latest
moment. The motive which I pleaded to my friends was--uncertainty
as to the sufficient recovery of my strength. The motive which I
now confessed to myself was reluctance to leave Miss Dunross.

What was the secret of her power over me? What emotion, what
passion, had she awakened in me? Was it love?

No: not love. The place which Mary had once held in my heart, the
place which Mrs. Van Brandt had taken in the after-time, was not
the place occupied by Miss Dunross. How could I (in the ordinary
sense of the word) be in love with a woman whose face I had never
seen? whose beauty had faded, never to bloom again? whose wasted
life hung by a thread which the accident of a moment might snap?
The senses have their share in all love between the sexes which
is worthy of the name. They had no share in the feeling with
which I regarded Miss Dunross. What _was_ the feeling, then? I
can only answer the question in one way. The feeling lay too deep
in me for my sounding.

What impression had I produced on her? What sensitive chord had I
ignorantly touched, when my lips touched her hand?

I confess I recoiled from pursuing the inquiry which I had
deliberately set myself to make. I thought of her shattered
health; of her melancholy existence in shadow and solitude; of
the rich treasures of such a heart and such a mind as hers,
wasted with her wasting life; and I said to myself, Let her
secret be sacred! let me never again, by word or deed, bring the
trouble which tells of it to the surface! let her heart be veiled
from me in the darkness which veils her face!

In this frame of mind toward her, I waited her return.

I had no doubt of seeing her again, sooner or later, on that day.
The post to the south went out on the next day; and the early
hour of the morning at which the messenger called for our letters
made it a matter of ordinary convenience to write overnight. In
the disabled state of my hand, Miss Dunross had been accustomed
to write home for me, under my dictation: she knew that I owed a
letter to my mother, and that I relied as usual on her help. Her
return to me, under these circumstances, was simply a question of
time: any duty which she had once undertaken was an imperative
duty in her estimation, no matter how trifling it might be.

The hours wore on; the day drew to its end--and still she never
appeared.

I left my room to enjoy the last sunny gleam of the daylight in
the garden attached to the house; first telling Peter where I
might be found, if Miss Dunross wanted me. The garden was a wild
place, to my southern notions; but it extended for some distance
along the shore of the island, and it offered some pleasant views
of the lake and the moorland country beyond. Slowly pursuing my
walk, I proposed to myself to occupy my mind to some useful
purpose by arranging beforehand the composition of the letter
which Miss Dunross was to write.

To my great surprise, I found it simply impossible to fix my mind
on the subject. Try as I might, my thoughts persisted in
wandering from the letter to my mother, and concentrated
themselves instead--on Miss Dunross? No. On the question of my
returning, or not returning, to Perthshire by the Government
vessel? No. By some capricious revulsion of feeling which it
seemed impossible to account for, my whole mind was now absorbed
on the one subject which had been hitherto so strangely absent
from it--the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt!

My memory went back, in defiance of all exercise of my own will,
to my last interview with her. I saw her again; I heard her
again. I tasted once more the momentary rapture of our last kiss;
I felt once more the pang of sorrow that wrung me when I had
parted with her and found myself alone in the street. Tears--of
which I was ashamed, though nobody was near to see them--filled
my eyes when I thought of the months that had passed since we had
last looked on one another, and of all that she might have
suffered, must have suffered, in that time. Hundreds on hundreds
of miles were between us--and yet she was now as near me as if
she were walking in the garden by my side!

This strange condition of my mind was matched by an equally
strange condition of my body. A mysterious trembling shuddered
over me faintly from head to foot. I walked without feeling the
ground as I trod on it; I looked about me with no distinct
consciousness of what the objects were on which my eyes rested.
My hands were cold--and yet I hardly felt it. My head throbbed
hotly--and yet I was not sensible of any pain. It seemed as if I
were surrounded and enwrapped in some electric atmosphere which
altered all the ordinary conditions of sensation. I looked up at
the clear, calm sky, and wondered if a thunderstorm was coming. I
stopped, and buttoned my coat round me, and questioned myself if
I had caught a cold, or if I was going to have a fever. The sun
sank below the moorland horizon; the gray twilight trembled over
the dark waters of the lake. I went back to the house; and the
vivid memory of Mrs. Van Brandt, still in close companionship,
went back with me.

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