Macleod of Dare by William Black (book club reads TXT) 📕

and dark.

She faced him again, and her eyes were full of fierce indignation and anger; she drew herself up to her full height; she overwhelmed him with taunts, and reproaches, and scorn. That was a splendid piece of acting, seeing that it had never been rehearsed. He stood unmoved before all this theatrical rage.

"Oh yes, you were proud of your name," she was saying, with bitter emphasis; "and I thought you belonged to a race of gentlemen, to whom lying was unknown. And you were no longer murderous and revengeful; but you can take your revenge on a woman, for all that! And you ask me to come and see you, because you are ill! And you have laid a trap--like a coward!"

"And if I am what you say, Gerty," said he, quite gently, "it is the love of you that has made me that. Oh, you do not know!"

She saw nothing of the lines that pain had written on this man's face; she recognized nothing of the very majesty of grief in the hopeless eyes. He was only her gaoler, her enemy.

"Of course--of course," she said. "It is the woman--it is always the woman who is in fault! That is a manly thing, to put the blame on the woman! And it is a manly thing to take your revenge on a woman! I thought, when a man had a rival, that it was his rival whom he sought out. But you--you kept out of the way--"

He strode forward and caught her by the wrist. There was a look in his face that for a second terrified her into silence.

"Gerty," said he, "I warn you! Do not mention that man to me--now or at any time; or it will be bad for him and for you!"

She twisted her hand from his grasp.

"How dare you come near me!" she cried.

"I beg your pardon," said he, with an instant return to his former grave gentleness of manner. "I wish to let you know how you are situated, if you will let me, Gerty. I don't wish to justify what I have done, for you would not hear me--just yet. But this I must tell you, that I don't wish to force myself on your society. You will do as you please. There is your cabin; you have occupied it before. If you would like to have this saloon, you can have that too; I mean I shall not come into it unless it pleases you. And there is a bell in your cabin; and if you ring it, Christina will answer."

She heard him out patiently. Her reply was a scornful, perhaps nervous, laugh.

"Why, this is mere folly," she exclaimed. "It is simple madness. I begin to believe that you are really ill, after all; and it is your mind that is affected. Surely you don't know what you are doing?"

"You are angry, Gerty," said he,

But the first blaze of her wrath and indignation had passed away; and now fear was coming uppermost.

"Surely, Keith, you cannot be dreaming of such a mad thing! Oh, it is impossible! It is a joke: it was to frighten me; it was to punish me, perhaps. Well, I have deserved it; but now--now you have succeeded; and you will let me go ashore, farther down the river."

Her tone was altered. She had been watching his face.

"Oh no, Gerty; oh no," he said. "Do you not understand yet? You were everything in the world to me; you were life itself. Without you I had nothing, and the world might just as well come to an end for me. And when I thought you were going away from me, what could I do? I could not reach you by letters, and letters; and how could I know what the people around you were saying to you? Ah, you do not know what I have suffered, Gerty! And always I was saying to myself that if I could get you away from these people, you would remember the time that you gave me the red rose, and all those beautiful days would come back again, and I would lake your hand again, and I would forget altogether about the terrible nights when I saw you beside me and heard you laugh just as in the old times. And I knew there was only the one way left. How could I but try that? I knew you would be angry, but I hoped your anger would go away. And now you are angry, Gerty, and my speaking to you is not of much use--as yet; but I can wait until I see yourself again, as you used to be, in the garden--don't you remember, Gerty?"

Her face was proud, cold, implacable.

"Do I understand you aright: that you have shut me up in this yacht and mean to take me away?"

"Gerty, I have saved you from yourself!"

"Will you be so kind as to tell me where we are going?"

"Why not away back to the Highlands, Gerty?" said he, eagerly. "And then some day when your heart relents, and you forgive me, you will put your hand in mine, and we will walk up the road to Castle Dare. Do you not think they will be glad to see us that day, Gerty?"

She maintained her proud attitude, but she was trembling from head to foot.

"Do you mean to say that until I consent to be your wife I am not to be allowed to leave this yacht?"

"You will consent Gerty!"

"Not if I were to be shut up here for a thousand years!" she exclaimed, with another burst of passion. "Oh, you will pay for this dearly! I thought it was madness--mere folly; but if it is true, you will rue this day! Do you think we are savages here? Do you think we have no law?"

"I do not care for any law," said he, simply. "I can only think of the one thing in the world. If I have not your love, Gerty, what else can I care about?"

"My love!" she exclaimed. "And this is the way to earn it, truly! My love! If you were to keep me shut up for a thousand years, you would never have it! You can have my hatred, if you like, and plenty of it, too!"

"You are angry, Gerty!" was all he said.

"Oh, you do not know with whom you have to deal!" she continued, with the same bitter emphasis. "You terrified me with stories of butchery--the butchery of innocent women and children; and no doubt you thought the stories were fine; and now you too would show you are one of the race by taking revenge on a woman. But if she is only a woman, you have not conquered her yet! Oh, you will find out before long that we have law in this country, and that it is not to be outraged with impunity. You think you can do as you like, because you are a Highland master, and you have a lot of slaves round you!"

"I am going on deck now, Gerty," said he, in the same sad and gentle way. "Shall I send Christina to you?"

For an instant she looked bewildered, as if she had not till now comprehended what was going on; and she said, quite wildly,--

"Oh no, no, no, Keith; you don't mean what you say! You cannot mean it! You are only frightening me! You will put me ashore--and not a word shall pass my lips. We cannot be far down the river, Keith. There are many places where you could put me ashore, and I could get back to London by rail. They won't know I have ever seen you. Keith, you will put me ashore now?"

"And if I were to put you ashore now, you would go away, Gerty, and I should never see you again--never, and never. And what would that be for you and for me, Gerty? But now you are here, no one can poison your mind: you will be angry for a time; but the brighter days are coming--oh yes, I know that: if I was not sure of that, what would become of me? It is a good thing to have hope--to look forward to the glad days: that stills the pain at the heart. And now we two are together at last, Gerty! And if you are angry, the anger will pass away; and we will go forward together to the glad days."

She was listening in a sort of vague and stunned amazement. Both her anger and her fear were slowly yielding to the bewilderment of the fact that she was really setting out on a voyage, the end of which neither she nor any one living could know.

"Ah, Gerty," said he, regarding her with a strange wistfulness in the sad eyes, "you do not know what it is to me to see you again! I have seen you many a time--in dreams; but you were always far away, and I could not take your hand. And I said to myself that you were not cruel; that you did not wish any one to suffer pain. And I knew if I could only see you again, and take you away from these people, then your heart would be gentle, and you would think of the time when you gave me the red rose, and we went out in the garden, and all the air round us was so full of gladness that we did not speak at all. Oh yes; and I said to myself that your true friends were in the North; and what would the men at Dubh-Artach not do for you, and Captain Macallum too, when they knew you were coming to live at Dare; and I was thinking that would be a grand day when you came to live among us; and there would be dancing, and a good glass of whiskey for every one, and some playing on the pipes that day! And sometimes I did not know whether there would be more of laughing or of crying when Janet came to meet you. But I will not trouble you any more now, Gerty; for you are tired, I think; and I will send Christina to you. And you will soon think that I was not cruel to you when I took you away and saved you from yourself."

She did not answer; she seemed in a sort of trance. But she was aroused by the entrance of Christina, who came in directly after Macleod left. Miss White stared at this tall white-haired woman, as if uncertain how to address her; when she spoke, it was in a friendly and persuasive way.

"You have not forgotten me, then, Christina?"

"No, mem," said the grave Highland woman. She had beautiful, clear, blue-gray eyes, but there was no pity in them.

"I suppose you have no part in this mad freak?"

The old woman seemed puzzled. She said, with a sort of serious politeness,--

"I do not know, mem. I have not the good English as Hamish."

"But surely you know this," said Miss Gertrude White, with more animation, "that I am here against my will? You understand that, surely? That I am being carried away against my will from my own home and my friends? You know it very well; but perhaps your master has not told you of the risk you run? Do you know what that is? Do you think there are no laws in