The Entail

CHAPTER LVIII

The scene in the parlour of Grippy, after the inquiry, was of the most solemn and lugubrious description. – The Leddy sat in the great chair, at the fireside, in all the pomp of woe, wiping her eyes, and, ever and anon, giving vent to the deepest soughs of sorrow. Mrs. Charles, with her son leaning on her knee, occupied another chair, pensive and anxious. George and Mr. Pitwinnoch sat at the table, taking an inventory of the papers in the scrutoire, and Walter was playfully tickling his adopted daughter on the green before the window, when Mrs. Milrookit, with her husband, the Laird of Dirdumwhamle, came to sympathize and condole with their friends, and to ascertain what would be the pecuniary consequences of the decision to them.

‘Come awa, my dear,’ said the Leddy to her daughter, as she entered the room; – ‘Come awa and tak a seat beside me. Your poor brother, Watty, has been weighed in the balance o’ the Sheriff, and found wanting; and his vessels o’ gold and silver, as I may say in the words o’ Scripture, are carried away into captivity; for I understand that George gets no proper right to them, as I expeckit, but is obligated to keep them in custody, in case Watty should hereafter come to years o’ discretion. Hegh Meg! but this is a sair day for us a’ – and for nane mair sae than your afflicted gude-sister there and her twa bairns. She’ll be under a needcessity to gang back and live again wi’ my mother, now in her ninety-third year, and by course o’ nature drawing near to her latter end.’

‘And what’s to become of you?’ replied Mrs. Milrookit.

‘O I’ll hae to bide here, to tak care o’ every thing; and an aliment will be alloot to me for keeping poor Watty. Hegh Sirs! Wha would hae thought it, that sic a fine lad as he ance was, and preferred by his honest father as the best able to keep the property right, would thus hae been, by decreet o’ court, proven a born idiot?’

‘But,’ interrupted Mrs. Milrookit, glancing compassionately towards her sister-in-law, ‘I think, since so little change is to be made, that ye might just as weel let Bell and her bairns bide wi’ you – for my grandmother’s income is little enough for her ain wants, now that she’s in a manner bedrid.’

‘It’s easy for you, Meg, to speak,’ replied her mother; – ‘but if ye had an experiment o’ the heavy handfu’ they hae been to me, ye would hae mair compassion for your mother. It’s surely a dispensation sair enough, to hae the grief and heart-breaking sight before my eyes of a demented lad, that was so long a comfort to me in my widowhood. But it’s the Lord’s will, and I maun bend the knee o’ resignation.’

‘Is’t your intent, Mr. George,’ said the Laird o’ Dirdumwhamle, ‘to mak any division o’ what lying money there may hae been saved since your father’s death?’

‘I suspect there will not be enough to defray the costs of the process,’ replied George; ‘and if any balance should remain, the house really stands so much in need of repair, that I am persuaded there will not be a farthing left.’

‘’Deed,’ said the Leddy, ‘what he says, Mr. Milrookit, is oure true; the house is in a frail condition, for it was like pu’ing the teeth out o’ the head o’ Watty to get him to do what was needful.’

‘I think,’ replied the Laird o’ Dirdumwhamle, ‘that since ye hae so soon come to the property, Mr. George, and no likelihood o’ any molestation in the possession, that ye might let us a’ share and share alike o’ the gethering, and be at the outlay o’ the repairs frae the rental.’

To this suggestion Mr. George, however, replied, ‘It will be time enough to consider that, when the law expenses are paid.’

‘They’ll be a heavy soom, Mr. Milrookit,’ said the Leddy; ‘weel do I ken frae my father’s pleas what it is to pay law expenses. The like o’ Mr. Pitwinnoch there, and Mr. Keelevin, are men o’ moderation and commonality in their charges – but yon awfu’ folk wi’ the cloaks o’ darkness and the wigs o’ wisdom frae Edinbro’ – they are costly commodities. – But now that we’re a’ met here, I think it would be just as weel an we war to settle at ance what I’m to hae, as the judicious curator o’ Watty – for, by course o’ law and nature, the aliment will begin frae this day.’

‘Yes,’ replied George, ‘I think it will be just as well; and I’m glad, mother, that you have mentioned it. What is your opinion, Mr. Milrookit, as to the amount that she should have?’

‘All things considered,’ replied the Laird of Dirdumwhamle, prospectively contemplating some chance of a reversionary interest to his wife in the Leddy’s savings, ‘I think you ought not to make it less than a hundred pounds a year.’

‘A hundred pounds a year!’ exclaimed the Leddy, ‘that’ll no buy saut to his kail. I hope and expek no less than the whole half o’ the rents; and they were last year weel on to four hunder.’

‘I think,’ said George to Mr. Pitwinnoch, ‘I would not be justified to the Court were I to give any thing like that; but if you think I may, I can have no objection to comply with my mother’s expectations.’

‘Oh, Mr. Walkinshaw,’ replied Gabriel, ‘you are no at a’ aware o’ your responsibility, – you can do no such things. Your brother has been found a fatuus, and, of course, entitled but to the plainest maintenance. I think that you will hardly be permitted to allow his mother more than fifty pounds; if, indeed, so much.’

‘Fifty pounds! fifty placks,’ cried the indignant Leddy. ‘I’ll let baith you and the Sheriff ken I’m no to be frauded o’ my rights in that gait. I’ll no faik a farthing o’ a hundred and fifty.’

‘In that case, I fear,’ said Gabriel, ‘Mr. George will be obliged to seek another custodier for the fatuus, as assuredly, Mem, he’ll ne’er be sanctioned to allow you any thing like that.’

‘If ye think sae,’ interposed Mrs. Milrookit, compassionating the forlorn estate of her sister-in-law, – ‘I dare say Mrs. Charles will be content to take him at a very moderate rate.’

‘Megsty me!’ exclaimed the Leddy. ‘Hae I been buying a pig in a pock like that? Is’t a possibility that he can be ta’en out o’ my hands, and no reasonable allowance made to me at a’? Surely, Mr. Pitwinnoch, surely, Geordie, this can never stand either by the laws of God or man.’

‘I can assure you, Mrs. Walkinshaw,’ replied the lawyer, ‘that fifty pounds a-year is as much as I could venture to advise Mr. George to give; and seeing it is sae, you had as well agree to it at once.’

‘I’ll never agree to ony such thing. I’ll gang intil Embro’ mysel, and hae justice done me frae the Fifteen. I’ll this very night consult Mr. Keelevin, who is a most just man, and o’ a right partiality.’

‘I hope, mother,’ said George, ‘that you and I will not cast out about this; and to end all debates, if ye like, we’ll leave the aliment to be settled by Mr. Pitwinnoch and Mr. Keelevin.’

‘Nothing can be fairer,’ observed the Laird of Dirdumwhamle, in the hope Mr. Keelevin might be so wrought on as to insist that at least a hundred should be allowed; and after some further altercation, the Leddy grudgingly assented to this proposal.

‘But,’ said Mrs. Milrookit, ‘considering now the altered state of Watty’s circumstances, I dinna discern how it is possible for my mother to uphold this house and the farm.’

The Leddy looked a little aghast at this fearful intimation, while George replied, —

‘I have reflected on that, Margaret, and I am quite of your opinion; and, indeed, it is my intention, after the requisite repairs are done to the house, to flit my family; for I am in hopes the change of air will be advantageous to my wife’s health.’

The Leddy was thunderstruck, and unable to speak; but her eyes were eloquent with indignation.

‘Perhaps, after all, it would be as well for our mother,’ continued George, ‘to take up house at once in Glasgow; and as I mean to settle an annuity of fifty pounds on Mrs. Charles, they could not do better than all live together.’

All present but his mother applauded the liberality of George. To the young widow the intelligence of such a settlement was as fresh air to the captive; but before she could express her thankfulness, Leddy Grippy started up, and gave a tremendous stamp with her foot. She then resumed her seat, and appeared all at once calm and smiling; but it was a calm betokening no tranquillity, and a smile expressive of as little pleasure. In the course of a few seconds the hurricane burst forth, and alternately, with sobs and supplications, menaces, and knocking of nieves, and drumming with her feet, the hapless Leddy Grippy divulged and expatiated on the plots and devices of George. But all was of no avail – her destiny was sealed; and long before Messrs. Keelevin and Pitwinnoch adjusted the amount of the allowance, which, after a great struggle on the part of the former, was settled at seventy-five pounds, she found herself under the painful necessity of taking a flat up a turnpike stair in Glasgow, for herself and the fatuus.

CHAPTER LIX

For some time after the decision of Walter’s fatuity, nothing important occurred in the history of the Grippy family. George pacified his own conscience, and gained the approbation of the world, by fulfilling the promise of settling fifty pounds per annum on his sister-in-law. The house was enlarged and adorned, and the whole estate, under the ancient name of Kittlestonheugh, began to partake of that general spirit of improvement which was then gradually diffusing itself over the face of the west country.

In the meantime, Mrs. Charles Walkinshaw, who had returned with her children to reside with their grandmother, found her situation comparatively comfortable; but an acute anxiety for the consequences that would ensue by the daily expected death of that gentlewoman, continued to thrill through her bosom, and chequer the sickly gleam of the uncertain sunshine that glimmered in her path. At last the old lady died, and she was reduced, as she had long foreseen, with her children, to the parsimonious annuity. As it was impossible for her to live in Glasgow, and educate her children, on so small a stipend, there, she retired to one of the neighbouring villages, where, in the family of the Reverend Mr. Eadie, the minister, she found that kind of quiet intelligent society which her feelings and her misfortunes required.

Mrs. Eadie was a Highland lady, and, according to the living chronicles of the region of clans and traditions, she was of scarcely less than illustrious birth. But for the last attempt to restore the royal line of the Stuarts, she would, in all probability, have moved in a sphere more spacious and suitable to the splendour of her pedigree than the humble and narrow orbit of a country clergyman’s wife. Nor in her appearance did it seem that Nature and Fortune were agreed about her destiny; for the former had adorned her youth with the beauty, the virtues, and the dignity, which command admiration in the palace, – endowments but little consonant to the lowly duties of the rural manse.

At the epoch of which we are now speaking she was supposed to have passed her fiftieth year; but something in her air and manner gave her the appearance of being older – a slight shade of melancholy, the pale cast of thought, lent sweetness to the benign composure of her countenance; and she was seldom seen without inspiring interest, and awakening sentiments of profound and reverential respect. She had lost her only daughter about a year before; and a son, her remaining child, a boy about ten years of age, was supposed to have inherited the malady which carried off his sister. The anxiety which Mrs. Eadie, in consequence, felt as a mother, partly occasioned that mild sadness of complexion to which we have alluded; but there was still a deeper and more affecting cause.

Before the ruin of her father’s fortune, by the part he took in the Rebellion, she was betrothed to a youth who united many of the best Lowland virtues with the gallantry and enthusiasm peculiar to the Highlanders of that period. It was believed that he had fallen in the fatal field of Culloden; and, after a long period of virgin widowhood on his account, she was induced, by the amiable manners and gentle virtues of Mr. Eadie, to consent to change her life. He was then tutor in the family of a relation, with whom, on her father’s forfeiture and death, she had found an asylum, – and when he was presented to the parish of Camrachle, they were married.

The first seven years, from the date of their union, were spent in that temperate state of enjoyment which is the nearest to perfect happiness; during the course of which their two children were born. In that time no symptom of the latent poison of the daughter’s constitution appeared; but all around them, and in their prospects, was calm, and green, and mild, and prosperous.

In the course of the summer of the eighth year, in consequence of an often repeated invitation, they went, at the meeting of the General Assembly, to which Mr. Eadie was returned a member, to spend a short time with a relation in Edinburgh, and among the strangers with whom they happened to meet at the houses of their friends were several from France, children and relations of some of those who had been out in the Forty-five.

A young gentleman belonging to these expatrioted visitors, one evening interested Mrs. Eadie, to so great a degree, that she requested to be particularly introduced to him, and, in the course of conversation, she learnt that he was the son of her former lover, and that his father was still alive, and married to a French woman, his mother. The shock which this discovery produced was so violent that she was obliged to leave the room, and falling afterwards into bad health, her singular beauty began to fade with premature decay.

Her husband, to whom she disclosed her grief, endeavoured to soften it by all the means and blandishments in his power; but it continued so long inveterate, that he yielded himself to the common weakness of our nature, and growing peevish at her sorrow, chided her melancholy till their domestic felicity was mournfully impaired.

Such was the state in which Mrs. Charles Walkinshaw found Mrs. Eadie at their first acquaintance; and the disappointments and shadows which had fallen on the hopes of her own youth, soon led to an intimate and sympathetic friendship between them, the influence of which contributed at once to alleviate their reciprocal griefs, and to have the effect of reviving, in some degree, the withered affections of the minister. The gradual and irremediable progress of the consumption which preyed on his son, soon, however, claimed from that gentle and excellent man efforts of higher fortitude than he had before exerted, and from that inward exercise, and the sympathy which he felt for his wife’s maternal solicitude, Mrs. Walkinshaw had the satisfaction, in the course of a year, to see their mutual confidence and cordiality restored. But in the same period the boy died; and though the long foreseen event deeply affected his parents, it proved a fortunate occurrence to the widow. For the minister, to withdraw his reflections from the contemplation of his childless state, undertook the education of James, and Mrs. Eadie, partly from the same motives, but chiefly to enjoy the society of her friend, proposed to unite with her in the education of Mary. ‘We cannot tell,’ said she to Mrs. Walkinshaw, ‘what her lot may be; but let us do our best to prepare her for the world, and leave her fortunes, as they ever must be, in the hands of Providence. The penury and obscurity of her present condition ought to be no objection to bestowing on her all the accomplishments we have it in our power to give. How little likely was it, in my father’s time, that I should have been in this comparative poverty, and yet, but for those acquirements, which were studied for brighter prospects, how dark and sad would often have been my residence in this sequestered village!’

CHAPTER LX

In the meantime, the fortunes of George, whom we now regard as the third Laird of Grippy, continued to flourish. The estate rose in value, and his mercantile circumstances improved; but still the infirmities of his wife’s health remained the same, and the want of a male heir was a craving void in his bosom, that no prosperity could supply.

The reflections, connected with this subject, were rendered the more afflicting, by the consideration, that, in the event of dying without a son, the estate would pass from his daughter to James, the son of his brother Charles – and the only consolation that he had to balance this was a hope that, perhaps, in time he might be able to bring to pass a marriage between them. Accordingly, after a suspension of intercourse for several years, actuated by a perspective design of this kind, he, one afternoon, made his appearance in his own carriage, with his lady and daughter, at the door of Mrs. Charles’ humble dwelling, in the village of Camrachle.

‘I am afraid,’ said he, after they were all seated in her little parlour, the window of which was curtained without with honeysuckle and jessamine – and the grate filled with flowers; – ‘I am afraid, my dear sister, unless we occasionally renew our intercourse, that the intimacy will be lost between our families, which it ought to be the interest of friends to preserve. Mrs. Walkinshaw and I have, therefore, come to request that you and the children will spend a few days with us at Kittlestonheugh, and if you do not object, we shall invite our mother and Walter to join you – you would be surprised to hear how much the poor fellow still dotes on the recollection of your Mary, as Betty Bodle, and bewails, because the law, as he says, has found him guilty of being daft, that he should not be allowed to see her.’

This visit and invitation were so unexpected, that even Mrs. Charles, who was of the most gentle and confiding nature, could not avoid suspecting they were dictated by some unexplained purpose; but adversity had long taught her that she was only as a reed in the world, and must stoop as the wind blew. She, therefore, readily agreed to spend a few days at the mansion-house, and the children, who were present, eagerly expressing a desire to see their uncle Walter, of whose indulgence and good nature they retained the liveliest recollection, it was arranged that, on the Monday following, the carriage should be sent for her and them, and that the Leddy and Walter should also be at Kittlestonheugh to meet them.

In the evening after this occurrence, Mrs. Charles went to the manse, and communicated to the minister and Mrs. Eadie what had happened. They knew her story, and were partly acquainted with the history of the strange and infatuated Entail. Like her, they believed that her family had been entirely cut off from the succession, and, like her too, they respected the liberality of George, in granting her the annuity, small as it was. His character, indeed, stood fair and honourable with the world; he was a partner in one of the most eminent concerns in the royal city; his birth and the family estate placed him in the first class of her sons and daughters, that stately class who, though entirely devoted to the pursuit of lucre, still held their heads high as ancestral gentry. But after a suspension of intercourse for so long a period, so sudden a renewal of intimacy, and with a degree of cordiality never before evinced, naturally excited their wonder, and awakened their conjectures. Mrs. Eadie, superior and high-minded herself, ascribed it to the best intentions. ‘Your brother-in-law,’ said she, ‘is feeling the generous influence of prosperity, and is sensible that it must redound to his personal advantage with the world to continue towards you, on an enlarged scale, that friendship which you have already experienced.’

But the minister, who, from his humbler birth, and the necessity which it imposed on him to contemplate the movements of society from below, together with that acquired insight of the hidden workings of the heart, occasionally laid open in the confessional moments of contrition, when his assistance was required at the death-beds of his parishioners, appeared to entertain a different opinion.

‘I hope his kindness proceeds,’ said he, ‘from so good a source; but I should have been better satisfied had it run in a constant stream, and not, after such an entire occultation, burst forth so suddenly. It is either the result of considerations with respect to things already past, recently impressed upon him in some new manner, or springs from some sinister purpose that he has in view; and therefore, Mrs. Walkinshaw, though it may seem harsh in me to suggest so ill a return for such a demonstration of brotherly regard, I would advise you, on account of your children, to observe to what it tends.’

In the meantime, George, with his lady and daughter, had proceeded to his mother’s residence in Virginia Street, to invite her and Walter to join Mrs. Charles and the children.

His intercourse with her, after her domiciliation in the town had been established, was restored to the freest footing; for although, in the first instance, and in the most vehement manner, she declared, ‘He had cheated her, and deprived Walter of his lawful senses; and that she ne’er would open her lips to him again,’ he had, nevertheless, contrived to make his peace, by sending her presents, and paying her the most marked deference and respect; lamenting that the hard conditions of his situation as a trustee did not allow him to be in other respects more liberal. But still the embers of suspicion were not extinguished; and when, on this occasion, he told her where he had been, and the immediate object of his visit, she could not refrain from observing, that it was a very wonderful thing.

‘Dear keep me, Geordie!’ said she, ‘what’s in the wind noo, that ye hae been galloping awa in your new carriage to invite Bell Fatherlans and her weans to Grippy?’

George, eager to prevent her observations, interrupted her, saying, —

‘I am surprised, mother, that you still continue to call the place Grippy. You know it is properly Kittlestonheugh.’

‘To be sure,’ replied the Leddy, ‘since my time and your worthy father’s time, it has undergone a great transmogrification; what wi’ your dining-rooms, and what wi’ your drawing-rooms, and your new back jams and your wings.’

‘Why, mother, I have but as yet built only one of the wings,’ said he.

‘And enough too,’ exclaimed the Leddy. ‘Geordie, tak my word for’t, it’ill a’ flee fast enough away wi’ ae wing. Howsever, I’ll no objek to the visitation, for I hae had a sort o’ wis to see my grandchilder, which is very natural I shou’d hae. Nae doot, by this time they are grown braw bairns; and their mother was ay a genty bodie, though, in a sense, mair for ornament than use.’

Walter, who, during this conversation, was sitting in his father’s easy chair, that had, among other chattels, been removed from Grippy, – swinging backward and forwards, and occasionally throwing glances towards the visitors, said, —

‘And is my Betty Bodle to be there?’

‘O yes,’ replied George, glad to escape from his mother’s remarks; ‘and you’ll be quite delighted to see her. She is uncommonly tall for her age.’

‘I dinna like that,’ said Walter; ‘she should na hae grown ony bigger, – for I dinna like big folk.’

‘And why not?’

‘’Cause ye ken, Geordie, the law’s made only for them; and if you and me had ay been twa wee brotherly laddies, playing on the gowany brae, as we used to do, ye would ne’er hae thought o’ bringing yon Cluty’s claw frae Enbro’ to prove me guilty o’ daftness.’

‘I’m sure, Watty,’ said George, under the twinge which he suffered from the observation, ‘that I could not do otherwise. It was required from me equally by what was due to the world and to my mother.’

‘It may be sae,’ replied Walter; ‘but, as I’m daft, ye ken I dinna understand it;’ and he again resumed his oscillations.

After some further conversation on the subject of the proposed visit, in which George arranged that he should call on Monday for his mother and Walter in the carriage, and take them out to the country with him, he took his leave.