Part 64 (1/2)
Without noticing this threat, Mr. Butler replied, ”That he had not attended to the risk of ill-usage which the poor woman might undergo at the hands of the rabble, and that he would give her the necessary admonition in private, instead of bringing her before the a.s.sembled session.”
”This,” Duncan said, ”was speaking like a reasonable shentleman;” and so the evening pa.s.sed peaceably off.
Next morning, after the Captain had swallowed his morning draught of Athole brose, and departed in his coach and six, Mrs. Butler anew deliberated upon communicating to her husband her sister's letter. But she was deterred by the recollection, that, in doing so, she would unveil to him the whole of a dreadful secret, of which, perhaps, his public character might render him an unfit depositary. Butler already had reason to believe that Effie had eloped with that same Robertson who had been a leader in the Porteous mob, and who lay under sentence of death for the robbery at Kirkcaldy. But he did not know his ident.i.ty with George Staunton, a man of birth and fortune, who had now apparently rea.s.sumed his natural rank in society. Jeanie had respected Staunton's own confession as sacred, and upon reflection she considered the letter of her sisteras equally so, and resolved to mention the contents to no one.
On reperusing the letter, she could not help observing the staggering and unsatisfactory condition of those who have risen to distinction by undue paths, and the outworks and bulwarks of fiction and falsehood, by which they are under the necessity of surrounding and defending their precarious advantages. But she was not called upon, she thought, to unveil her sister's original history--it would restore no right to any one, for she was usurping none--it would only destroy her happiness, and degrade her in the public estimation. Had she been wise, Jeanie thought she would have chosen seclusion and privacy, in place of public life and gaiety; but the power of choice might not be hers. The money, she thought, could not be returned without her seeming haughty and unkind.
She resolved, therefore, upon reconsidering this point, to employ it as occasion should serve, either in educating her children better than her own means could compa.s.s, or for their future portion. Her sister had enough, was strongly bound to a.s.sist Jeanie by any means in her power, and the arrangement was so natural and proper, that it ought not to be declined out of fastidious or romantic delicacy. Jeanie accordingly wrote to her sister, acknowledging her letter, and requesting to hear from her as often as she could. In entering into her own little details of news, chiefly respecting domestic affairs, she experienced a singular vacillation of ideas; for sometimes she apologised for mentioning things unworthy the notice of a lady of rank, and then recollected that everything which concerned her should be interesting to Effie. Her letter, under the cover of Mr. Whiterose, she committed to the post-office at Glasgow, by the intervention of a paris.h.i.+oner who had business at that city.
The next week brought the Duke to Roseneath, and shortly afterwards he intimated his intention of sporting in their neighbourhood, and taking his bed at the Manse; an honour which he had once or twice done to its inmates on former occasions.
Effie proved to be perfectly right in her autic.i.p.ations. The Duke had hardly set himself down at Mrs. Butler's right hand, and taken upon himself the task of carving the excellent ”barn-door chucky,” which had been selected as the high dishes upon this honourable occasion, before he began to speak of Lady Staunton of Willingham, in Lincolns.h.i.+re, and the great noise which her wit and beauty made in London. For much of this Jeanie was, in some measure, prepared--but Effie's wit! that would never have entered into her imagination, being ignorant how exactly raillery in the higher rank resembles flippancy among their inferiors.
”She has been the ruling belle--the blazing star--the universal toast of the winter,” said the Duke; ”and is really the most beautiful creature that was seen at court upon the birth-day.”
The birthday! and at court!--Jeanie was annihilated, remembering well her own presentation, all its extraordinary circ.u.mstances, and particularly the cause of it.
”I mention this lady particularly to you, Mrs. Butler,” said the Duke, ”because she has something in the sound of her voice, and cast of her countenance, that reminded me of you--not when you look so pale though--you have over-fatigued yourself--you must pledge me in a gla.s.s of wine.”
She did so, and Butler observed, ”It was dangerous flattery in his Grace to tell a poor minister's wife that she was like a court-beauty.”
”Oho, Mr. Butler,” said the Duke, ”I find you are growing jealous; but it's rather too late in the day, for you know how long I have admired your wife. But seriously, there is betwixt them one of those inexplicable likenesses which we see in countenances, that do not otherwise resemble each other.”
”The perilous part of the compliment has flown off,” thought Mr. Butler.
His wife, feeling the awkwardness of silence, forced herself to say, ”That, perhaps, the lady might be her countrywoman, and the language might have made some resemblance.”
”You are quite right,” replied the Duke. ”She is a Scotch-woman, and speaks with a Scotch accent, and now and then a provincial word drops out so prettily, that it is quite Doric, Mr. Butler.”
”I should have thought,” said the clergyman, ”that would have sounded vulgar in the great city.”
”Not at all,” replied the Duke; ”you must suppose it is not the broad coa.r.s.e Scotch that is spoken in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, or in the Gorbals. This lady has been very little in Scotland, in fact she was educated in a convent abroad, and speaks that pure court-Scotch, which was common in my younger days; but it is so generally disused now, that it sounds like a different dialect, entirely distinct from our modern _patois._”
Notwithstanding her anxiety, Jeanie could not help admiring within herself, how the most correct judges of life and manners can be imposed on by their own preconceptions, while the Duke proceeded thus: ”She is of the unfortunate house of Winton, I believe; but, being bred abroad, she had missed the opportunity of learning her own pedigree, and was obliged to me for informing her, that she must certainly come of the Setons of Windygoul. I wish you could have seen how prettily she blushed at her own ignorance. Amidst her n.o.ble and elegant manners, there is now and then a little touch of bashfulness and conventual rusticity, if I may call it so, that makes her quite enchanting. You see at once the rose that had bloomed untouched amid the chaste precincts of the cloister, Mr. Butler.”
True to the hint, Mr. Butler failed not to start with his
”Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis,” etc.,
while his wife could hardly persuade herself that all this was spoken of Effie Deans, and by so competent a judge as the Duke of Argyle; and had she been acquainted with Catullus, would have thought the fortunes of her sister had reversed the whole pa.s.sage.
She was, however, determined to obtain some indemnification for the anxious feelings of the moment, by gaining all the intelligence she could; and therefore ventured to make some inquiry about the husband of the lady his Grace admired so much.
”He is very rich,” replied the Duke; ”of an ancient family, and has good manners: but he is far from being such a general favourite as his wife.
Some people say he can be very pleasant--I never saw him so; but should rather judge him reserved, and gloomy, and capricious. He was very wild in his youth, they say, and has bad health; yet he is a good-looking man enough--a great friend of your Lord High Commissioner of the Kirk, Mr.
Butler.”
”Then he is the friend of a very worthy and honourable n.o.bleman,” said Butler.