A Princess of Thule

CHAPTER XXI.

MEETING AND PARTING

THE appearance of Sheila in Mrs. Lavender’s house certainly surprised Ingram, but the motives which led her to go thither were simple enough. On the morning on which she had left her husband’s house, she and Mairi had been driven up to Euston Square Station before she seemed capable of coming to any decision. Mairi guessed at what had happened with a great fear at her heart, and did not dare to speak of it. She sat, mute and frightened, in a corner of the cab, and only glanced from time to time at her companion’s pale face and troubled and distant eyes.

They were driven in to the station. Sheila got out, still seeming to know nothing of what was around her. The cabman took down Mairi’s trunk and handed it to a porter.

“Where for, miss?” said the man. And she started.

“Where will you be going, Miss Sheila?” said Mairi, timidly.

“It is no matter just now,” said Sheila to the porter, “if you will be so kind as to take charge of the trunk. And how much must I pay the cabman from Notting Hill?”

She gave him the money and walked into the great stone-paved hall, with its lofty roof and sounding echoes.

“Mairi,” she said, “I have gone away from my own home, and I have no home for you or myself either. What are we to do?”

“Are you quite sure, Miss Sheila,” said the girl, dismayed beyond expression, “that you will not go back to your own house? It wass a bad day this day that I wass come to London to find you going away from your own house;” and Mairi began to cry. “Will we go back to the Lewis, Miss Sheila?” she said. “It is many a one there will be proud and pleased to see you again in sa Lewis, and there will be plenty of homes for you there – oh yes, ferry many that will be glad to see you! And it wass a bad day sa day you left the Lewis whatever; and if you will go back again, Miss Sheila, you will neffer hef to go away again, not any more.”

Sheila looked at the girl – at the pretty pale face, the troubled light-blue eyes and the abundant fair-yellow hair. It was Mairi, sure enough, who was talking to her, and yet it was in a strange place. There was no sea dashing outside, no tide running in from the Atlantic. And where was old Scarlett, with her complaints and her petulance and her motherly kindness?

“It is a pity you have come to London, Mairi,” Sheila said, wistfully; “for I have no house to take you into, and we must go now and find one.”

“You will not go back to sa Lewis, Miss Sheila?”

“They would not know me in the Lewis any more, Mairi. I have been too long away, and I am quite changed. It is many a time I will think of going back; but when I left the Lewis I was married, and now – . How could I go back to the Lewis, Mairi? They would look at me. They would ask questions. My father would come down to the quay, and he would say: ‘Sheila, have you come back alone?’ And all the story of it would go about the island, and every one would say I had been a bad wife, and my husband had gone away from me.”

“There is not any one,” said Mairi, with the tears starting to her eyes again – “not from one end of sa island to sa other – would say that of you, Miss Sheila; and there is no one would not come to meet you, and be glad sat you will come again to your own home. And as for going back, I will be ferry glad to go back whatever, for it was you I was come to see, and not any town; and I do not like this town, what I hef seen of it, and I will be ferry glad to go away wis you, Miss Sheila.”

Sheila did not answer. She felt that it was impossible she could go back to her own people with this disgrace upon her, and did not even argue the case with herself. All her trouble now was to find some harbor of refuge into which she could flee, so that she might have quiet and solitude, and an opportunity of studying all that had befallen her. The noise around her – the arrival of travelers, the transference of luggage, the screaming of trains – stunned and confused her; and she could only vaguely think of all the people she knew in London, to see to whom she could go for advice and direction. They were not many. One after the other she went over the acquaintances she had made, and not one of them appeared to her in the light of a friend. One friend she had who would have rejoiced to be of the least assistance to her, but her husband had forbidden her to hold communication with him, and she felt a strange sort of pride, even at this moment, in resolving to obey that injunction. In all this great city that lay around her there was no other to whom she could frankly and readily go. That one friend she had possessed before she came to London: in London she had not made another.

And yet it was necessary to do something, for who could tell but that her husband might come to this station in search of her? Mairi’s anxiety, too, was increasing every moment, insomuch that she was fairly trembling with excitement and fatigue. Sheila resolved that she would go down and throw herself on the tender mercies of that terrible old lady in Kensington Gore. For one thing, she instinctively sought the help of a woman in her present plight; and perhaps this harshly-spoken old lady would be gentle to her when all her story was told. Another thing that prompted this decision was a sort of secret wish to identify herself even yet with her husband’s family – to prove to herself, as it were, that they had not cast her off as being unworthy of him. Nothing was farther from her mind at this moment than any desire to pave the way for reconciliation and reunion with her husband. Her whole anxiety was to get away from him, to put an end to a state of things which she had found to be more than she could bear. And yet if she had had friends in London called respectively Mackenzie and Lavender, and if she had been equally intimate with both, she would at this moment have preferred to go for help to those bearing the name of Lavender.

There was doubtless something strangely inconsistent in this instinct of wifely loyalty and duty in a woman who had just voluntarily left her husband’s house. Lavender had desired her not to hold communication with Edward Ingram; even now she would respect his wish. Lavender would prefer that she should in any great extremity go to his aunt for assistance and counsel; and to his aunt, despite her own dislike of the woman, she would go. At this moment, when Sheila’s proud spirit had risen up in revolt against a system of treatment that had become insufferable to her, when she had been forced to leave her home and incur the contemptuous compassion of friends and acquaintances, if Edward Ingram himself had happened to meet her, and had begun to say sharp things of Lavender, she would have sharply recalled him to a sense of discretion that one must use in speaking to a wife of her husband.

The two homeless girls got into another cab, and were driven down to Kensington Gore. Sheila asked if she could see Mrs. Lavender. She knew that the old lady had had another bad fit; but she was supposed to be recovering rapidly. Mrs. Lavender would see her in her bedroom, and so Sheila went up. The girl could not speak.

“Yes, I see it – something wrong about that precious husband of yours,” said the old lady, watching her keenly. “I expected it. Go on. What is the matter?”

“I have left him,” Sheila said, with her face very pale, but no sign of emotion about the firm lips.

“Oh, good gracious, child! Left him? How many people know it?”

“No one but yourself and a young Highland girl, who has come up to see me.”

“You came to me, first of all?”

“Yes.”

“Have you no other friends to go to?”

“I considered that I ought to come to you.”

There was no cunning in the speech; it was the simple truth. Mrs. Lavender looked at her hard for a second or two, and then said, in what she meant to be a kind way: “Come here, and sit down, child, and tell me all about it. If no one else knows it there is no harm done. We can easily patch it up before it gets abroad.”

“I did not come to you for that, Mrs. Lavender,” said Sheila, calmly. “That is impossible; that is all over. I have come to ask you where I can get lodgings for my friend and myself.”

“Tell me all about it first, and then we’ll see whether it can’t be mended. Mind, I am on your side, though I am your husband’s aunt. I think you’re a good girl; a bit of a temper, you know, but you manage to keep it quiet ordinarily. You tell me all about it, and you’ll see if I haven’t means to bring him to reason. Oh, yes, oh, yes, I’m an old woman, but I can find some means to bring him to reason.” And she laughed an odd, shrill laugh.

A hot flush came over Sheila’s face. Had she come to this old woman only to make her husband’s degradation more complete? Was he to be intimidated into making friends with her by a threat of the withdrawal of that money that Sheila had begun to detest? And this was what her notions of wifely duty had led to!

“Mrs. Lavender,” she said, with the proud lips very proud indeed, “I must say this to you before I tell you anything. It is very good of you to say you will take my side, but I did not come to you to complain. And I would rather not have any sympathy from you if it only means that you will speak ill of my husband. And if you think you can make him do things because you give him money, perhaps that is true at present, but it may not always be true, and you cannot expect me to wish it to continue. I would rather have my present trouble twenty times over than see him being brought over to any woman’s wishes.”

Mrs. Lavender stared at her. “Why, you astonishing girl, I believe you are still in love with that man!”

Sheila said nothing.

“Is it true?” she said.

“I suppose a woman ought to love her husband,” Sheila answered.

“Even if he turns her out of the house?”

“Perhaps it is she who is to blame,” Sheila, said, humbly, “Perhaps her education was wrong, or she expects too much that is unreasonable, or perhaps she has a bad temper. You think I have a bad temper, Mrs. Lavender, and might it not be that?”

“Well, I think you want your own way, and doubtless you expect to have it now. I suppose I am to listen to all your story, and I must not say a word about my own nephew. But sit down and tell me all about it, and then you can justify him afterward, if you like it.”

It was probably, however, the notion that Sheila would try to justify Lavender all through that put the old lady on her guard, and made her, indeed, regard Lavender’s conduct in an unfairly bad light. Sheila told the story as simply as she could, putting everything down to her husband’s advantage that was possible, and asking for no sympathy whatsoever. She only wanted to remain away from his house; and by what means could she and this young cousin of hers find cheap lodgings where they could live quietly and without much fear of detection?

Mrs. Lavender was in a rage, and as she was not allowed to vent it on the proper object, she turned upon Sheila herself. “The Highlanders are a proud race,” she said sharply. “I should have thought that rooms in this house, even with the society of a cantankerous old woman, would have been tolerated for a time.”

“It is very kind of you to make the offer,” Sheila said, “but I do not wish to have to meet my husband or any of his friends. There is enough trouble without that. If you could tell me where to get lodgings not far from this neighborhood, I would come to see you sometimes at such hours as I know he cannot be here.”

“But I don’t understand what you mean. You won’t go back to your husband, although I could manage that for you directly – you won’t hear of negotiations, or of any prospect of your going back – and yet you won’t go home to your father.”

“I cannot do either,” Sheila said.

“Do you mean to live in these lodging always?”

“How can I tell?” said the girl, piteously. “I only wish to be away, and I cannot go back to my papa, with all this story to tell him.”

“Well, I didn’t want to distress you,” said the old woman. “You know your own affairs best. I think you are mad. If you would calmly reason with yourself, and show to yourself that in a hundred years, or less than that, it won’t matter whether you gratified your pride or no, you would see that the wisest thing you can do now is to take an easy and comfortable course. You are in an excited and nervous state at present, for example; and that is destroying so much of the vital portion of your frame. If you go into these lodgings and live like a rat in a hole, you will have nothing to do but to nurse these sorrows of yours, and find them grow bigger and bigger while you grow more and more wretched. All that is mere pride and sentiment and folly. On the other hand, look at this. Your husband is sorry you are away from him; you may take that for granted. You say he was merely thoughtless; now he has got something to make him think, and would, without doubt, come and beg your pardon if you gave him a chance. I write to him, he comes down here, you kiss and make good friends again, and to-morrow morning you are comfortable and happy again.

“To-morrow morning!” said Sheila sadly. “Do you know how we should be situated to-morrow morning? The story of my going away would become known to his friends; he would go among them as though he had suffered some disgrace, and I the cause of it. And though he is a man, and would soon be careless of that, how could I go with him amongst his friends, and feel that I had shamed him? It would be worse than ever between us; and I have no wish to begin again what ended this morning – none at all, Mrs. Lavender.”

“And do you mean to say that you intend to live permanently apart from your husband?”

“I do not know,” said Sheila, in a despairing tone. “I cannot tell you. What I feel is that, with all this trouble, it is better that our life as it was in that house should come to an end.”

Then she arose. There was a tired look about the face, as if she were too weary to care whether this old woman would help her or no. Mrs. Lavender regarded her for a moment, wondering, perhaps, that a girl so handsome, fine-colored, and proud-eyed should be distressing herself with imaginary sentiments, instead of taking life cheerfully, enjoying the hour as it passed, and being quite assured of the interest and liking and homage of every one with whom she came in contact. Sheila turned to the bed once more, about to say that she had troubled Mrs. Lavender too much already, and that she would look after these lodgings. But the old woman apparently anticipated as much, and said, with much deliberation, that if Sheila and her companion would only remain one or two days in the house, proper rooms should be provided for them somewhere. Young girls could not venture into lodgings without strict inquiries being made. Sheila should have suitable rooms, and Mrs. Lavender would see that she was properly looked after and that she wanted for nothing. In the meantime she must have some money.

“It is kind of you,” said the girl, blushing hotly, “but I do not require it.”

“Oh, I suppose we are too proud,” said the old woman. “If we disapprove of our husband taking money, we must not do it either. Why, child, you have learnt nothing in London. You are a savage yet. You must let me give you something for your pocket, or what are you to do? You say you have left everything at home. Do you think hairbrushes, for example, grow on trees; that you can go into Kensington Gardens and stock your rooms?”

“I have some money – a few pounds – that my papa gave me,” Sheila said.

“And when that is done?”

“He will give me more.”

“And yet you don’t wish him to know you have left your husband’s house! What will he make of these repeated demands for money?”

“My papa will give me anything I want without asking any questions.”

“Then he is a bigger fool than I expected. Oh, don’t get into a temper again. Those sudden shocks of color, child, show me that your heart is out of order. How can you expect to have a regular pulsation if you flare up at anything one may say? Now go and fetch me your Highland cousin.”

Mairi came into the room in a very timid fashion, and stared with her big, light-blue eyes into the dusky recess in which the little old woman sat up in bed. Sheila took her forward: “This is my cousin Mairi, Mrs. Lavender.”

“And are you ferry well, ma’am?” said Mairi, holding out her hand very much as a boy pretends to hold out his hand to a tiger in the Zoological Gardens.

“Well, young lady,” said Mrs. Lavender, staring at her, “and a pretty mess you have got us into?”

“Me!” said Mairi, almost with a cry of pain. She had not imagined before that she had anything to do with Sheila’s trouble.

“No, no, Mairi,” her companion said, taking her hand, “it was not you. Mrs. Lavender, Mairi does not understand our way of joking in London. Perhaps she will learn before she goes back to the Highlands.”

“There is one thing,” said Mrs. Lavender, observing that Mairi’s eyes had filled the moment she was charged with bringing trouble on Sheila – “there is one thing you people from the Highlands seem never disposed to learn, and that is to have a little control over your passions. If one speaks to you a couple of words, you either begin to cry or go off into a flash of rage. Don’t you know how bad that is for the health?”

“And yet,” said Sheila with a smile – and it seemed so strange to Mairi to see her smile – “we will not compare badly in health with the people about us here.”

Mrs. Lavender dropped the question, and began to explain to Sheila what she advised her to do. In the meantime both the girls were to remain in her house. She would guarantee their being met by no one. When suitable rooms had been looked out by Paterson, they were to remove thither. The whole situation of affairs was at once perceived by Mrs. Lavender’s attendant, who was given to understand that no one was to know of young Mrs. Lavender’s being in the house. Then the old woman, much contented with what she had done, resolved that she would reward herself with a joke, and sent for Edward Ingram.

When Sheila, as already described, came into the room, and found her old friend there, the resolution she had formed went clean out of her mind. She forgot entirely the ban that had been placed on Ingram by her husband. But after her first emotion on seeing him was over, and when he began to discuss what she ought to do, and even to advise her in a diffident sort of way, she remembered all that she had forgotten, and was ashamed to find herself sitting there and talking to him as if it were in her father’s house at Borva. Indeed, when he proposed to take the management of her affairs into his own hands, and to go and look at certain apartments that Paterson had proposed, she was forced, with great heart-burning and pain, to hint to him that she could not avail herself of his kindness.

“But why?” he asked, with a stare of surprise.

“You remember Brighton,” she answered, looking down. “You had a bad return for your kindness to me then.”

“Oh, I know,” he said carelessly. “And I suppose Mr. Lavender wished you to cut me after my impertinent interference. But things are very much changed now. But for the time he went North, he has been with me nearly every hour since you left.”