_ 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."
Helen did not speak. Probably she too, with her clear common sense, saw the wisdom of the thing. For as, as the earl said, he had a right to choose his own heir--and as even the world would say, what better heir could he choose than his next of kin--Captain Bruce's child? What mother could resist such a prospect for her son? She sat, her tears flowing, but still with a great light in her blue eyes, as if she saw far away in the distance, far beyond all this sorrow and pain, the happy future of her darling--her only child.
"Of course, Helen, I could pass you over, and leave all direct to that young man of yours, who is, if I died intestate, my rightful heir. But I will not--at least, not yet. Perhaps, if I live to see him of age, I may think about making him take my name, as Bruce-Montgomerie. But meanwhile I shall educate him, send him to school and college, and at home he shall be put under Malcolm's care, and have ponies to ride and boats to row. In short, Helen," concluded the earl, looking earnestly in her face with that sad, fond, and yet peaceful expression he had, "I mean your boy to do all that I could not do, and to be all that I ought to have been. You are satisfied?"
"Yes--quite. I thank you. And I thank God."
A minute more, and the carriage stopped at the wicket-gate of the Manse garden.
There stood the minister, with his white locks bared, and his whole figure trembling with agitation, but still himself--stronger and better than he had been for many months.
"Papa! papa!" And Helen, his own Helen, was in his arms.
"Drive on," said Lord Cairnforth, hurriedly; "Malcolm, we will go straight to the Castle now."
And so, no one heeding him--they were too happy to notice any thing beyond themselves--the earl passed on, with a strange smile, not of this world at all, upon his quiet face, and returned to his own stately and solitary home. _