CHAPTER V.

THE REIGN OF MISRULE.

Apart from Peggy’s despair at the separation from her husband, following so close on the death of her mother, the young wife felt as pleased as she could feel that she was to have her cousin Jenny for her helper and counsellor. Peggy had always looked up to Jenny, putting her under a different classification from that bestowed on ordinary servants. Peggy knew how clever and diligent her older, better-instructed kinswoman had proved herself. It had been entirely by her own laudable exertions that she had attained a higher standing, from which she had always been reasonably condescending and indulgent to her little cousin.

The tables were turned now, but it never entered Peggy’s head to be anything save highly gratified that she could be of use to Jenny, while Peggy was grateful in proportion for the services which she was sure Jenny would render her. Jenny, who had lived as an upper servant among ladies, would show Peggy how to behave like a lady, so that she might no longer annoy the laird and affront his mother. And Jenny would speak to the poor, yearning, mourning girl’s hungry heart of the mother whose name had come to be a forbidden word at Drumsheugh, long before Peggy had left off wearing her first crape. Luckie Hedderwick’s memory must be cherished in a measure by Jenny also, since she had known the widow well, and had even been indebted to her in her better days.

Jenny was quite of Peggy’s opinion that she ought to profit by her cousin’s good fortune. But there the thoughts of the kinswomen diverged widely, and ran in two distinct and opposing channels. Jenny Hedderwick was a calculating, unscrupulous young woman, bent on making her own--and that as quickly as might be--out of Peggy’s advantages, and of what Johnnie Fuggie had confidently reckoned, in more senses than one, her relations’ share in them. Johnnie was a forward fool, as obtuse as he was intrusive, but Jenny was worse. She had viewed what was to her Peggy’s utterly unwarrantable exaltation with indignant amazement and disgust, while she had at the same time endeavoured to swallow her jealous vexation, and reap all the benefit she could gain from her cousin’s prosperity without paying any heed to what Peggy might lose in the process.

Jenny did not go the length of hating Peggy, or even of bearing her decided ill-will. She was not worth it in Jenny’s estimation. She was a silly ‘coof,’ who, if one lost sight of her fair face, had not a single claim to rise above her old allies, and was as totally unfitted to do so as a girl could be. All the use she was for, in Jenny’s sharp, mocking estimate, was to serve as available prey for those who had spirit and wit to spoil the new-made lady.

In accomplishing her object Jenny would not dream of being harsh or cruel to young Mrs. Ramsay. She would be as good to Peggy in a half-jeering, contemptuous manner as the girl would permit. Jenny was too astute a schemer as well as too reasonable a mortal for the opposite course of conduct. Indeed, hers was not a harsh or cruel nature, though she was wholly worldly and in many respects unfeeling.

At the same time, Jenny would not take the trouble or undergo the personal mortification of keeping up much of a disguise before Peggy--her own cousin, who had been wont to convoy Jenny and carry her bundle for her in the elder woman’s earlier visits to the Cotton, when Peggy had felt amply rewarded for her trudge and toil by an old riband of Jenny’s or a handful of the ‘sweeties’ which had been her last ‘market fare’--a silly lass, who could not hold up her head in her own house, fill the place she had won, give orders and exact obedience and deference from a laird himself, as Jenny would have done with a high hand in Peggy’s place. But Peggy must ‘pinge’ like a senseless bairn for the poor old mother well out of the way. Who was to stand on ceremony and put herself about to maintain a great show of appearances before such an unmitigated goose?

Accordingly, the very day after the setting out of Drumsheugh and his mother, Jenny--a strapping-enough figure, with a foxy head and steely eyes--proceeded to ‘rake’ through the house, up and down, backwards and forwards, opening cupboards and turning out the contents of drawers; taking an inventory, as it were, of what might be useful to her, with an eye to future raids.

Peggy came upon her cousin standing on a chair, narrowly inspecting the articles of dress put away on the shelves of Mrs. Ramsay’s wardrobe, to which the prowler had found access by means of a key on the bunch which she carried with her ready for action.

‘Eh, Jenny, ye mauna meddle there, nor touch a preen in this room,’ cried Peggy, in the utmost dismay. ‘There’s naething o’ mine there, it’s a’ Mrs. Ramsay’s; this is her room.’

‘Hoot, Peggy,’ said Jenny lightly, in no manner discomposed. ‘Div ye no ken yet a’ the rooms here are yours, and it is only by your will and pleasure that the auld flytin’ wife gets house-room now at Drumsheugh?’

Peggy was in greater distress than before. ‘But, Jenny, you’re sair mista’en; Mrs. Ramsay is Drumsheugh’s leddy-mither. She has the best title to be here, and she is nae randy. She has behaved as I could never have looked for her to behave, as no common woman would have acted. She neither flat nor grat, but took me in as her dochter without a word against it, though we had deceived her--Drumsheugh and me; and she has been gude to me, and patient wi’ me. Oh, Jenny, surely I never said a word to the contrary.’

‘I daresay no,’ said Jenny carelessly; ‘she’s your gude-mither--you’re bund to keep her up ahint her back, whatever you may do to her face. But that need not hinder you from taking a look at her gear when you have the chance. It will be a’ yours in the end, for she has no other bairn save Jamie Ramsay, unless the body play you an ill trick, and put it past you in her wull, which is the mair reason that ye should mak’ yoursel’ acquent wi’ what there is for her to leave ahint her.’

‘No, no, Jenny,’ protested Peggy, wringing her hands; ‘come down off that chair. I dinna want to ken what that press hauds so long as it is no mine but hers--Mrs. Ramsay’s, to do what she likes wi’.’

Jenny paid no heed to the prohibition. ‘Look, Peggy,’ she said, pulling out and throwing down a long, lace scarf, so that it fell over Peggy’s head and shoulders, ‘see how you’ll set that. I’m thinking you’ll wear that, or something like it, when you come out o’ your shell and gang wi’ your laird to grand parties.’

But Peggy was not to be betrayed through her vanity. She snatched off the scarf and began to fold it up quickly with trembling fingers. She knit her smooth brows into the semblance of a frown, and set down her foot with a desperate stamp, as an outraged worm will turn on a wanton aggressor. ‘Do you hear me speaking to you, Jenny? Put back Mrs. Ramsay’s things this minute? Let them alane, or I’ll ring for her maid Cunnings.’

Jenny leapt down instantly and cleverly took the first and worst word of accusation: ‘What do you mean, Peggy Ramsay? Am I a thief, think ye, that ye should ca’ in Cunnings or ony other woman to catch me for taking a look about me when I was brocht here to look after you, madam, and see to your belongings, and put you on the richt road to behaving like ane o’ the gentles? I can tell you it will be a long time before you do that, Peggy, my woman, when you begin by wyting your ain mither’s kith and kin for a cantrip, because you have said the word and you are my leddy now, and are not to be contered. Had I ever the name of being licht-fingered, Peggy Ramsay, when I had whole charge of a hantle grander braws than I’m like to see at Drumsheugh? What ill was I doing to the leddy’s claes by just giving them a bit turn and air and proper fauld up, which is beyond Cunnings’s power now that she is ower stiff to mount upon a chair? Has it crossed your mind what folk would think and say gin you ca’ed in ony o’ your servants--_your servants_--Peggy Ramsay, to stop your cuzin from looking over Mrs. Ramsay’s wardrobe? Do you want to brand me as a thief, mem?’

‘Oh! Jenny, Jenny, how can you say sic words!’ cried Peggy, in an agony, willing to fling herself at her cousin’s feet, and beg her pardon a dozen times. ‘You ken that I ken you’re as honest as mysel’. I never dreamt of evening you to sic sin and shame. It would be insulting mysel’ and my mither and a’, as well as you! I niver, niver meant sic a wrang!’

‘Weel, then, Peggy, you’ll better take care what you say, and think twice afore you speak again,’ said Jenny, not so much wrathfully as in delivering the calm warning of a deeply-injured woman. ‘I like you, Peggy, for auld lang syne, and I’ll do my best for you in spite o’ what has happened. But, I’m just flesh and blude after a’, and though you ha’e marriet a laird you maunna try to ride roch shod ower my head, and bleck my gude name!’

‘Jenny, do you still believe I would?’ implored the weeping Peggy, but with an accent of indignant reproach in the pleading, which told Jenny she had gone far enough.

‘Na, I hardly think it,’ Jenny said with a return to reassuring, patronising kindness. ‘But you’re a young lassie and you’re uplifted a bit, nae doubt. Your best friend’s advice to you would be to take tent, and ca’ canny, and dinna lippen to your ain first thochts, till you’re aulder and wiser and less likely to be mista’en.’

Jenny came off the undoubted conqueror in the preliminary sparring, though she showed some wariness in pursuing her victory. She did not again enter old Mrs. Ramsay’s private domain and rummage among her personal possessions before Peggy. Jenny confined herself to what was the common ground of the laird and Peggy.

Cunnings was the next person who interfered with Jenny in her little arrangements. ‘Ye maunna shift the ornaments in the rooms,’ the old servant said with stolid impassiveness, which might have meant anything or nothing to Jenny, whom she caught abstracting an agate patch-box and a pair of silver lazy tongs from the drawing-room--and a gold and tortoise-shell snuff-box, and a shagreen case which might have suited a pair of Moses Primrose’s gross of green spectacles, from the dining-room. ‘Mair by token that flowered pelerine which I heard you borrow from young Mrs. Ramsay that you micht wear it at a friend’s house in Craigie, was sent down by smack frae Lon’on as a gift from the laird to his leddy. It is not my place to interfere wi’ ony favour young Mrs. Ramsay may chuse to grant, but I will tak’ it upon me as an auld servant, weel acquent wi’ the ways of the family, to say that the laird may no tak’ it weel from her to bestow his gift, even in the licht o’ a len’ on anither woman. I’ll also say as a frien’ to baith, that whatever may have been fitting eneuch aince on a time, in the niffer o’ bunches o’ ribands and strings o’ beads and sic worthless troke o’ lasses when you were equals, the fine pelerine, noo shuitable for Drumsheugh’s leddy, is hardly the wear for a young woman even in upper service like you or me, Jenny Hedderwick.’

Jenny snuffed the air with her upturned nose, and her eyes shot out an ominous flash, but she thanked Cunnings with the greatest apparent friendliness and respect. She had taken the accurate measure of the older woman in her strength and weakness, for such natures as Jenny’s seldom fail to gauge the flaws of their neighbours. Accordingly in the week following this incident, Jenny betrayed symptoms of falling into an ailing state of health, languished, and stood clearly in need of the ale-saps and bread-berry, the white wine, whey possets, and warm drinks for which Peggy, in her anxiety and affection, furnished abundant materials; while Cunnings prepared the food and drink for the threatened invalid, disinterestedly to begin with.

There are various curious old legends and traditions of all countries and ages--travesties, like the swallowing of the pomegranate seeds by Proserpine--of the sacred record of the eating of the apple in Paradise--which illustrate the danger of tasting forbidden fruit. If a man or woman who hesitates is apt to be lost, the weak individual who prees and prees as Rab and Allan preed the famous peck o’ maut which Willie brewed, till nothing of the peck remains, is still more likely to become the victim of a fatal appetite. Within a month poor old Cunnings had fallen lower before her mortal enemy, and disgraced herself more irretrievably than she had done in the whole course of her long service. She had been so helpless in her degradation that she could not ‘bite a finger’ in the customary phrase, though why the wretched sinner should seek to accomplish such a useless performance in the circumstances has not been explained. She had been seen in this state, and had been put to bed, the guilty woman, like an innocent baby, by one of the more compassionate of the mocking under-servants, to whom Cunnings ought to have served as an example while she ruled over them. She knew it all--the extent of her transgression, the shame of it, the degree to which she had exposed herself. She was down in the mire, and did not believe she could ever rise again and free herself from its defilement, while her infatuated base propensity was tempting her to lie and wallow in the dirt, so that she could gratify the horrible craving. She shrank from poor Peggy, who, in place of challenging and denouncing her housekeeper, was fit to break her heart over Cunnings’s lamentable breakdown.

Cunnings was terrified to meet her old mistress. She became the bond-slave of Jenny Hedderwick, who had led the older woman into temptation and was now prepared to feed her vice, so that it might serve Jenny’s evil ends.

There never was so thorough a moral ruin effected in so short a time. The truth is that a man liable to Cunnings’s sin might have indulged in it, succumbed so far, and still have continued true to the trust reposed in him and to one half of his better antecedents. He might have escaped a complete collapse, and saved his integrity and honour. But it is a well-known melancholy instance of psychological difference between men and women that, whereas there remains a reservation and some power of resistance, even of retaining a few of the finer traits of character in the drunken man, in the case of the woman, in whom reason is weaker and passion stronger, an indulgence in an excess of intoxicating drink is prone to open the flood-gates to all corruption, and to produce a complete demoralisation of the individual.

There was no further hope or help for Peggy from Cunnings.

Jenny, triumphing in an unhallowed victory over all obstacles, sought to get Peggy too in her power, as she had got Cunnings. And Peggy had no defence from Jenny’s wily stratagems and bold, fierce assaults, except God’s grace and her own good intentions. She was not wise, but she had grown up pious and dutiful, faithful and tender of conscience as of heart. It remained to be seen whether God and goodness alone would suffice to protect Peggy from Jenny, the flesh, and the devil--all the evil influences to which her husband’s thoughtlessness and Mrs. Ramsay’s mistake had given her over.

Balcairnie could not interfere or come to Peggy’s rescue, though he was in a position to be soon aware of the mischief which was going on. Balcairnie was, to a great extent, gagged, if not tongue-tied. He was not one of those impulsive, inconsiderate male-friends who figure in so many stories, and by way of helping the women, for whom the men are supposed to have some regard, rush rashly into the breach, indulge in a great deal of foolish Platonic philandering, and precipitate the wrong they have been solicitous to avert. The Scotch yeoman was a man of another sort. He possessed straightforward honesty and common sense approaching to sagacity in his slowness and solidity of intellect. He was further endowed with some of the delicacy of feeling and action in which those fine gentlemen of fiction are often curiously deficient. He knew perfectly well that it was not in his honorary office of farm-manager to go much about the young Lady of Drumsheugh and attempt to control her in her domestic concerns. To do so would be to draw down upon both the strongly-flavoured gossip of the country side. It would be to take a liberty which not even his intimacy with his laird could freely warrant, and which Drumsheugh, easy-going as he was, might very possibly resent. In that case Balcairnie would have played beautifully into Jenny Hedderwick’s hands.

No, he was aware from the beginning that he must stand at a distance, and only come forward if matters went utterly amiss so as to forebode a grand catastrophe.