A Princess of Thule

She rose and looked wistfully around her, and then turned with a sigh to make her way to the gates. It was with no especial sort of gladness that she thought of returning home. Here, in the great stillness, she had been able to dream of the far island which she knew, and to fancy herself for a few minutes there; now she was going back to the dreary monotony of her life in that square, and to the doubts and anxieties which had been suggested to her in the morning. The world she was about to enter once more seemed so much less homely, so much less full of interest and purpose, than that other and distant world she had been wistfully regarding for a time. The people around her hid neither the joys nor the sorrows with which she had been taught to sympathize. Their cares seemed to her to be exaggeration of trifles – she could feel no pity for them; their satisfaction was derived from sources unintelligible to her. And the social atmosphere around her seemed still and close and suffocating; so that she was like to cry out at times for one breath of God’s clear wind – for a shaft of lightning even – to cut through the sultry and drowsy sameness of her life.

She had almost forgotten the dog by her side. While sitting under the chestnut she had carelessly and loosely wound the leash around his neck in the semblance of a collar, and when she arose and came away she let the dog walk by her side without undoing the leash and taking proper charge of him. She was thinking of far other things, indeed, when she was startled by some one calling to her, “Look out, Miss, or you’ll have your dog shot!”

She turned and caught a glimpse of what sent a thrill of terror to her heart. Bras had sneaked off from her side – had trotted lightly over the breckans, and was now in full chase of a herd of deer which were flying down the slope on the other side of the plantation. He rushed now at one, now at another, the very number of chances presented to him proving the safety of the whole herd. But as Sheila, with a swift flight that would have astonished most town-bred girls, followed the wild chase and came to the crest of the slope, she could see that the hound had at length singled out a particular deer – a fine buck, with handsome horns, that was making straight for the foot of the valley. The herd, that had been much scattered, were now drawing together again, though checking nothing of their speed; but this single buck had been driven from his companions, and was doing his utmost to escape from the fangs of the powerful animal behind him.

What could she do but run wildly and breathlessly on? The dog was now far beyond the reach of her voice. She had no whistle. All sorts of fearful anticipations rushed in on her mind, the most prominent of all being the anger of her father if Bras were shot. How could she go back to Borva with such a tale? and how could she live in London without this companion who had come with her from the far North? Then what terrible things were connected with the killing of deer in a royal park! She remembered vaguely what Mr. Ingram and her husband had been saying; and while these things had been crowding in upon her she felt her strength beginning to fail, while both the dog and the deer had disappeared altogether from sight.

Strange, too, that in the midst of her fatigue and fright, while she still managed to struggle on with a sharp pain at her heart and a sort of mist before her eyes, she had a vague consciousness that her husband would be deeply vexed, not by the conduct or the fate of Bras, but by her being the heroine of so mad an adventure. She knew that he wished her to be serious and subdued and proper, like the ladies whom she met, while an evil destiny seemed to dog her footsteps and precipitate her into all sorts of erratic mishaps and “scenes.” However, this adventure was likely soon to have an end. She could go no further. Whatever had become of Bras, it was in vain for her to think of pursuing him. When she at length reached a broad and smooth road leading through the pasture, she could only stand still and press her two hands over her heart, while her head seemed giddy, and she did not see two men who had been standing on the road close by, until they came up and addressed her.

Then she started and looked around, finding before her two men who were apparently laborers of some sort, one of them having a shovel over his shoulder.

“Beg your pardon, miss, but wur that your dawg?”

“Yes,” she said, eagerly. “Could you get him? Did you see him go by? Do you know where he is?”

“Me and my mate saw him go by, sure enough; but as for getting him – why the keepers’ll have shot him by this time.”

“Oh, no?” cried Sheila, almost in tears, “they must not shoot him. It was my fault. I will pay them for all the harm he has done. Can’t you tell me which way he will go past?”

“I don’t think, miss,” said the spokesman, quite respectfully, “as you can go much furder. If you would sit down and rest yourself, and keep an eye on this ’ere shovel, me and my mate will have a hunt arter the dawg.”

Sheila not only accepted the offer gratefully, but promised to give them all the money she had if only they would bring back the dog unharmed. She made this offer in consequence of some talk between her husband and her father which she had overheard. Lavender was speaking of the civility he had frequently experienced at the hands of Scotch shepherds, and of the independence with which they refused to accept any compensation even for services which cost them a good deal of time and trouble. Perhaps it was to please Sheila’s father, but, at any rate, the picture the young man drew of the venality and the cupidity of the folks in the South was a desperately dark one. Ask the name of a village, have your stick picked up for you from the pavement, get into a cab or get out of it, and directly there was a touch of the cap and an unspoken request for coppers. Then, as the services rendered rose in importance, so did the fees – to waiters, to coachmen, to gamekeepers. These things and many more sank into Sheila’s heart. She heard and believed, and came down to the South with the notion that every man and woman who did you the least service expected to be paid handsomely for it. What, therefore, could she give those two men if they brought back her deerhound but all the money she had?

It was a hard thing to wait here in the greatest doubt and uncertainty while the afternoon was visibly waning. She began to grow afraid. Perhaps the men had stolen the dog, and left her with this shovel as a blind. Her husband must have come home, and would be astonished and perplexed by her absence. Surely, he would have the sense to dine by himself, instead of waiting for her; and she reflected with some glimpse of satisfaction that she had left everything connected with dinner properly arranged, so that he should have nothing to grumble at.

“Surely,” she said to herself as she sat there, watching the light on the grass and the trees getting more and more yellow – “surely I am very wicked or very wretched to think of his grumbling in any case. If he grumbles, it is because I will attend too much to the affairs of the house, and not amuse myself enough. He is very good to me, and I have no right to think of his grumbling. And I wish I cared to amuse myself more – to be more of a companion to him; but it is so difficult among all those people.”

The revery was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the grass behind, and she turned quickly to find the two men approaching her, one of them leading the captive Bras by the leash. Sheila sprang to her feet with a great gladness. She did not care even to accuse the culprit, whose consciousness of guilt was evident in his look and in the droop of his tail. Bras did not once turn his eyes to his mistress. He hung down his head, while he panted rapidly, and she fancied she saw some smearing of blood on his tongue and on the side of his jaw. Her fears on this head were speedily confirmed.

“I think, miss, as you’d better take him out o’ the Park as soon as may be, for he’s got a deer killed close by the Robin Hood Gate, in the trees there; and if the keepers happen on it afore you leave the Park, you’ll get into trouble.”

“Oh, thank you!” said Sheila, retaining her composure bravely, but with a terrible sinking of the heart, “and how can I get to the nearest railway station?”

“You’re going to London, miss?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose the nearest is Richmond, but it would be quieter for you – don’t you see, miss – if you was to go along to the Roehampton Gate and go to Barnes.”

“Will you show me the gate?” said Sheila, choosing the quieter route at once.

But the men themselves did not at all like the look of accompanying her and this dog through the Park. Had they not already condoned a felony, or done something equally dreadful, in handing to her a dog that had been found keeping watch and ward over a slain buck? They showed her the road to the Roehampton Gate, and then they paused before continuing on their journey.

The pause meant money. Sheila took out her purse. There were three sovereigns and some silver in it, and the entire sum, in fulfillment of her promise, she held out to him who had so far conducted the negotiations.

Both men looked frightened. It was quite clear that either good feeling or some indefinite fear of being implicated in the killing of the deer caused them to regard this big bribe as something they could not meddle with; and at length, after a pause of a second or two, the spokesman said with great hesitation, “Well, miss, you kept your word, but me and my mate – well, if so be as it’s the same to you – ’d rather have summut to drink your health.”

“Do you think it is too much?”

The man looked at his neighbor, who nodded.

“It was only for ketchin’ of a dawg, miss, don’t you see?” he remarked slowly, as if to impress upon her that they had had nothing to do with the deer.

“Will you take this, then?” and she offered them half a crown each.

Their faces lightened considerably; they took the money, and with a formal expression of thanks moved off, but not before they had taken a glance around to see that no one had been a witness of this interview.

And so Sheila had to walk away by herself, knowing that she had been guilty of a dreadful offence, and that at any moment she might be arrested by the officers of the law. What would the old King of Borva say if he saw his only daughter in the hands of two policemen? and would not all Mr. Lavender’s fastidious and talkative and wondering friends pass about the newspaper report of her trial and conviction? A man was approaching her. As he drew near her heart failed her, for might not this be the mysterious George Ranger himself, about whom her husband and Mr. Ingram had been talking? Should she drop on her knees at once and confess her sins, and beg him to let her off? If Duncan were with her, or Mairi, or even old Scarlett Macdonald, she would not have cared so much, but it seemed so terrible to meet this man alone.

However, as he drew near he did not seem a fierce person. He was an old gentleman, with voluminous white hair, who was dressed all in black, and carried an umbrella on this warm and bright afternoon. He regarded her and the dog in a distant and contemplative fashion, as though he would probably try to remember some time after that he had really seen them; and then he passed on. Sheila began to breathe more freely. Moreover, here was the gate, and once she was in the high road, who could say anything to her? Tired as she was, she still walked rapidly on; and, in due time, having had to ask the way once or twice, she found herself at Barnes Station.

By-and-by the train came in; Bras was committed to the care of the guard, and she found herself alone in a railway carriage for the first time in her life. Her husband had told her that whenever she felt uncertain of her whereabouts, if in the country, she was to ask for the nearest station and get a train to London; if in town she was to get into a cab and give the driver her address. And, indeed, Sheila had been so much agitated and perplexed during this afternoon that she acted in a sort of mechanical fashion, and really escaped the nervousness which otherwise would have attended the novel experience of purchasing a ticket and arranging about the carriage of a dog in the break-van. Even now, when she found herself traveling alone, and shortly to arrive at a part of London she had never seen, her crowding thoughts and fancies were not about her own situation, but about the reception she would receive from her husband. Would he be vexed with her? Or pity her? Had he called with Mrs. Lorraine to take her somewhere, and found her gone? Had he brought home some bachelor friends to dinner, and been chagrined to find her not in the house?

It was getting dusk when the slow four-wheeler approached Sheila’s home. The hour for dinner had long gone by. Perhaps her husband had gone away somewhere looking for her, and she would find the house empty.

But Frank Lavender came to meet his wife in the hall, and said, “Where have you been?”

She could not tell whether there was anger or kindness in his voice, and she could not well see his face. She took his hand and went into the dining-room, which was also dusk, and standing there told him all her story.

“This is too bad, Sheila,” he said, in atone of deep vexation. “By Jove! I’ll go and thrash the dog within an inch of his life.”

“No,” she said, drawing herself up; and for one brief second – could he have but seen her face – there was a touch of old Mackenzie’s pride and firmness about the ordinarily gentle lips. It was but for a second. She cast down her eyes and said, meekly, “I hope you won’t do that, Frank. The dog is not to blame. It was my fault.”

“Well, really, Sheila,” he said, “you are very thoughtless. I wish you would take some little trouble to act as other women act, instead of constantly putting yourself and me in the most awkward positions. Suppose I had brought any one home to dinner, now? And what am I to say to Ingram? for, of course, I went direct to his lodgings when I discovered that you were nowhere to be found. I fancied some mad freak had taken you there; and I should not have been surprised. Indeed, I don’t think I should be surprised at anything you do. Do you know who was in the hall when I came in this afternoon?”

“No,” said Sheila.

“Why, that wretched old hag who keeps the fruit-stall. And it seems you gave her and all her family tea and cake in the kitchen last night.”

“She is a poor woman,” said Sheila, humbly.

“A poor old woman!” he said, impatiently. “I have no doubt she is a lying old thief, who would take an umbrella or a coat, if only she could get the chance. It is really too bad, Sheila, you having all those persons about you, and demeaning yourself by attending on them. What must the servants think of you?”

“I do not heed what any servants think of me,” she said.

She was now standing erect, with her face quite calm.

“Apparently not,” he said, “or you would not go and make yourself ridiculous before them.”

Sheila hesitated for a moment, as if she did not understand; and then she said, as calmly as before, but with a touch of indignation about the proud and beautiful lips, “And if I make myself ridiculous by attending to poor people, it is not my husband who should tell me so.”

She turned and walked out, and he was too surprised to follow her. She went up stairs to her own room, locked herself in and threw herself on the bed. And then all the bitterness of her heart rose up as if in a flood – not against him, but against the country in which he lived, and the society which had contaminated him, and the ways and habits which seemed to create a barrier between herself and him, so that she was a stranger to him, and incapable of becoming anything else. It was a crime that she should interest herself in the unfortunate creatures round about her, that she should talk to them as if they were not human beings like herself, and have a great sympathy with their small hopes and aims; but she would not have been led into such a crime if she had cultivated from her infancy upward a consistent self-indulgence, making herself the centre of a world of mean desires and petty gratifications. And then she thought of the old and beautiful days up in the Lewis, where the young English stranger seemed to approve of her simple ways and her charitable work, and where she was taught to believe that in order to please him she had only to continue to be what she was then.

There was no great gulf of time between that period and this; but what had not happened in the interval? She had not changed – at least she hoped she had not changed. She loved her husband with her whole heart and soul; her devotion was as true and constant as she herself could have wished it to be when she dreamed of the duties of a wife in the days of her maidenhood. But all around her was changed. She had no longer the old freedom – the old delight in living from day to day – the active work, and the enjoyment of seeing where she could help and how she could help the people around her. When, as if by the same sort of instinct that makes a wild animal retain in captivity the habits which were necessary to its existence when it lived in freedom, she began to find out the circumstances of such unfortunate people as were in her neighborhood, some little solace was given to her; but these people were not friends to her, as the poor folk of Borvapost had been. She knew, too, that her husband would be displeased if he found her talking with a washerwoman over her family matters, or even advising one of her own servants about the disposal of her wages; so that, while she concealed nothing from him, these things nevertheless had to be done exclusively in his absence. And was she in so doing really making herself ridiculous? Did he consider her ridiculous? Or was it not merely the false and enervating influences of the indolent society in which he lived that had poisoned his mind, and drawn him away from her as though into another world?

Alas! if he were in this other world, was not she quite alone? What companionship was there possible between her and the people in this new and strange land into which she had ventured? As she lay on the bed, with her head hidden down in the darkness, the pathetic wail of the captive Jews seemed to come and go through the bitterness of her thoughts, like some mournful refrain: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.” She almost heard the words, and the reply that rose up in her heart was a great yearning to go back to her own land, so that her eyes were filled with tears in thinking of it, and she lay and sobbed there in the dusk. Would not the old man living all by himself in that lonely island be glad to see his little girl back again in the old house? And she would sing to him as she used to sing, not as she had been singing to those people whom her husband knew, “For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” And she had sung in the strange land, among the strange people, with her heart breaking, with thoughts of the sea and the hills, and the rude and sweet and simple ways of the old by-gone life she had left behind her.

“Sheila!”

She thought it was her father calling to her, and she rose with a cry of joy. For one wild moment she fancied that outside were all the people she knew – Duncan and Scarlett and Mairi – and that she was once more at home, with the sea all around her, and the salt, cold air.

“Sheila, I want to speak to you.”

It was her husband. She went to the door, opened it, and stood there penitent and with downcast face.

“Come, you must not be silly,” he said, with some kindness in his voice. “You have had no dinner. You must be hungry.”

“I do not care for any; there is no use troubling the servants when I would rather lie down,” she said.

“The servants! You surely don’t take so seriously what I said about them, Sheila? Of course you don’t need to care what the servants think. And in any case they have to bring up dinner for me, so you may as well come and try.”

“Have you not had dinner?” she said timidly.

“Do you think I could sit down and eat with the notion that you might have tumbled into the Thames or been kidnapped, or something?”

“I am very sorry,” she said, in a low voice, and in the gloom he felt his hand taken and carried to her lips. Then they went down stairs in the dining-room, which was now lit up by a blaze of gas and candles.

During dinner, of course, no very confidential talking was possible, and, indeed, Sheila had plenty to tell of her adventures at Richmond. Lavender was now in a more amiable mood, and was disposed to look on the killing of the roebuck as rather a good joke. He complimented Sheila on her good sense in having gone in at the Star and Garter for lunch; and altogether better relations were established between them.

But when dinner was finally over, and the servants dismissed, Lavender placed Sheila’s easy-chair for her as usual, drew his own near hers, and lit a cigarette.

“Now, tell me, Sheila,” he said, “were you really vexed with me when you went up stairs and locked yourself in your room? Did you think I meant to displease you or say anything harsh to you?”

“No, not any of those things,” she said calmly; “I wished to be alone – to think over what had happened. And I was grieved by what you said, for I think you cannot help looking at many things not as I will look at them. That is all. It is my bringing up in the Highlands, perhaps.”

“Do you know, Sheila, it sometimes occurs to me that you are not quite comfortable here? And I can’t make out what is the matter. I think you have a perverse fancy that you are different from the people you meet, and that you cannot be like them, and all that sort of thing. Now, dear, that is only a fancy. There need be no difference if you only will take a little trouble.”

“Oh, Frank!” she said, going over and putting her hand on his shoulder, “I cannot take that trouble. I cannot try to be like those people. And I see a great difference in you since you have come back to London, and you are getting to be like them and say the things they say. If I could only see you, my own darling, up in the Lewis again, with rough clothes on and a gun in your hand, I should be happy. You were yourself up there, when you were helping us in the boat, or when you were bringing home the salmon, or when we were all together at night in the little parlor, you know – ”

“My dear, don’t get excited. Now sit down and I will tell you all about it. You seem to have the notion that people lose all their finer sentiments simply because they don’t, in society, burst into raptures over them. You mustn’t imagine all those people are selfish and callous merely because they preserve a decent reticence. To tell you the truth, that constant profession of noble feelings you would like to see would have something of ostentation about it.”

Sheila only sighed. “I do not wish them to be altered,” she said by and by, with her eyes growing pensive; “all I know is, that I could not live the same life. And you – you seemed to be happier up in the Highlands than you have ever been since.”

“Well, you see, a man ought to be happy when he is enjoying a holiday in the country along with the girl he is engaged to. But if I had lived all my life killing salmon and shooting wild duck, I should have grown up an ignorant boor, with no more sense of – ”

He stopped for he saw that the girl was thinking of her father.

“Well, look here, Sheila. You see how you are placed – how we are placed, rather. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to get to understand those people you look askance at, and establish better relations with them, since you have got to live among them? I can’t help thinking you are too much alone, and you can’t expect me to stay in the house always with you. A husband and wife cannot be continually in each other’s company, unless they want to grow heartily tired of each other. Now, if you would only lay aside those suspicions of yours, you would find the people just as honest and generous and friendly as any other sort of people you ever met, although they don’t happen to be fond of expressing their goodness in their talk.”

“I have tried, dear – I will try again,” said Sheila.

She resolved that she would go down and visit Mrs. Lavender next day, and try to be interested in the talk of such people as might be there. She would bring away some story about this or the other fashionable woman or noble lord, just to show her husband that she was doing her best to learn. She would drive patiently around the Park in that close little brougham, and listen attentively to the moralities of Marcus Aurelius. She would make an appointment to go with Mrs. Lavender to a morning concert: and she would endeavor to muster up courage to ask any ladies who might be there to lunch with her on that day, and go afterward to this same entertainment. All these things, and many more, Sheila silently vowed to herself she would do, while her husband sat and expounded to her his theories of the obligations which society demanded of its members.

But her plans were suddenly broken asunder.

“I met Mrs. Lorraine accidentally to-day,” he said.

It was his first mention of the young American lady. Sheila sat in mute expectation.

“She always asks very kindly after you.”

“She is very kind.”

He did not say, however, that Mrs. Lorraine had more than once made distinct propositions, when in his company, that they should call in for Sheila, and take her out for a drive or to a flower show, or some such place, while Lavender had always some excuse ready.

“She is going to Brighton to-morrow, and she was wondering whether you would care to run down for a day or two.”

“With her?” said Sheila, recoiling from such a proposal, instinctively.

“Of course not. I should go. And then, at last, you know, you would see the sea, about which you have been dreaming for ever so long.”

The sea! There was a magic in the very word that could, almost at any moment, summon tears to her eyes. Of course she accepted right gladly. If her husband’s duties were so pressing that the long-talked-of journey to Lewis and Borva had to be repeatedly and indefinitely postponed, here at least would be a chance of looking again at the sea – of drinking in the freshness and light and color of it – of renewing her old and intimate friendship with it that had been broken off for so long by her stay in this city of perpetual houses and still sunshine.

“You can tell her you will go when you see her to-night at Lady Mary’s. By the way, isn’t it time for you to begin to dress?”

“Oh, Lady Mary’s!” repeated Sheila mechanically, who had quite forgotten about her engagement for that evening.

“Perhaps you are too tired to go,” said her husband.

She was a little tired, in truth. But surely, just after her promises, spoken and unspoken, some little effort was demanded of her; so she bravely went to dress, and in about three-quarters of an hour was ready to drive down to Curzon Street. Her husband had never seen her look so pleased before in going out to any party. He flattered himself that his lecture had done her some good. There was fair common sense in what he had said, and although, doubtless, a girl’s romanticism was a pretty thing, it would have to yield to the actual requirements of society. In time he should educate Sheila.

But he did not know what brightened the girl’s face all that night, and put a new life into the beautiful eyes, so that even those who knew her best were struck by her singular beauty. It was the sea that was coloring Sheila’s eyes. The people around her, the glare of the candles, the hum of talking and the motion of certain groups dancing over there in the middle of the throng – all were faint and visionary, for she was busily wondering what the sea would be like the next morning, and what strange fancies would strike her when once more she walked on sand and heard the roar of waves. That, indeed, was the sound that was present in her ears while the music played and the people murmured around her. Mrs. Lorraine talked to her, and was surprised and amused to notice the eager fashion in which the girl spoke of their journey of the next day. The gentleman who took her in to supper found himself catechised about Brighton in a manner which afforded him more occupation than enjoyment. And when Sheila drove away from the house at two in the morning she declared to her husband that she had enjoyed herself extremely, and he was glad to hear it; and she was particularly kind to himself in getting him his slippers, and fetching him that final cigarette which he always had on reaching home; and then she went off to bed to dream of ships and flying clouds and cold winds, and a great and beautiful blue plain of waves.