The Portent and Other Stories. George MacDonald
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think well, spelling is altogether secondary.”
“Thank you; I will try,” she said, and left the room. Next day, she brought me an old ballad, written tolerably, but in a school-girl’s hand. She had copied the antique spelling, letter for letter.
“This is quite correct,” I said; “but to copy such as this will not teach you properly; for it is very old, and consequently old-fashioned.”
“Is it old? Don’t we spell like that now? You see I do not know anything about it. You must set me a task, then.”
This I undertook with more pleasure than I dared to show. Every day she brought me the appointed exercise, written with a steadily improving hand. To my surprise, I never found a single error in the spelling. Of course, when, advancing a step in the process, I made her write from my dictation, she did make blunders, but not so many as I had expected; and she seldom repeated one after correction.
This new association gave me many opportunities of doing more for her than merely teaching her to spell. We talked about what she copied; and I had to explain. I also told her about the writers. Soon she expressed a desire to know something of figures. We commenced arithmetic. I proposed geometry along with it, and found the latter especially fitted to her powers. One by one we included several other necessary branches; and ere long I had four around the schoolroom table—equally my pupils. Whether the attempts previously made to instruct her had been insufficient or misdirected, or whether her intellectual powers had commenced a fresh growth, I could not tell; but I leaned to the latter conclusion, especially after I began to observe that her peculiar remarks had become modified in form, though without losing any of their originality. The unearthliness of her beauty likewise disappeared, a slight colour displacing the almost marbly whiteness of her cheek.
Long before Lady Alice had made this progress, my nightly struggles began to diminish in violence. They had now entirely ceased. The temptation had left me. I felt certain that for weeks she had never walked in her sleep. She was beyond my power, and I was glad of it.
I was, of course, most careful of my behaviour during all this period. I strove to pay Lady Alice no more attention than I paid to the rest of my pupils; and I cannot help thinking that I succeeded. But now and then, in the midst of some instruction I was giving Lady Alice, I caught the eye of Lady Lucy, a sharp, common-minded girl, fixed upon one or the other of us, with an inquisitive vulgar expression, which I did not like. This made me more careful still. I watched my tones, to keep them even, and free from any expression of the feeling of which my heart was full. Sometimes, however, I could not help revealing the gratification I felt when she made some marvellous remark—marvellous, I mean, in relation to her other attainments; such a remark as a child will sometimes make, showing that he has already mastered, through his earnest simplicity, some question that has for ages perplexed the wise and the prudent. On one of these occasions, I found the cat eyes of Lady Lucy glittering on me. I turned away; not, I fear, without showing some displeasure.
Whether it was from Lady Lucy’s evil report, or that the change in Lady Alice’s habits and appearance had attracted the attention of Lady Hilton, I cannot tell; but one morning she appeared at the door of the study, and called her. Lady Alice rose and went, with a slight gesture of impatience. In a few minutes she returned, looking angry and determined, and resumed her seat. But whatever it was that had passed between them, it had destroyed that quiet flow of the feelings which was necessary to the working of her thoughts. In vain she tried: she could do nothing correctly. At last she burst into tears and left the room. I was almost beside myself with distress and apprehension. She did not return that day.
Next morning she entered at the usual hour, looking composed, but paler than of late, and showing signs of recent weeping. When we were all seated, and had just commenced our work, I happened to look up, and caught her eyes intently fixed on me. They dropped instantly, but without any appearance of confusion. She went on with her arithmetic, and succeeded tolerably. But this respite was to be of short duration. Lady Hilton again entered, and called her. She rose angrily, and my quick ear caught the half-uttered words, “That woman will make an idiot of me again!” She did not return; and never from that hour resumed her place in the schoolroom.
The time passed heavily. At dinner she looked proud and constrained; and spoke only in monosyllables.
For two days I scarcely saw her. But the third day, as I was busy in the library alone, she entered.
“Can I help you, Mr. Campbell?” she said.
I glanced involuntarily towards the door.
“Lady Hilton is not at home,” she replied to my look, while a curl of indignation contended with a sweet tremor of shame for the possession of her lip.—“Let me help you.”
“You will help me best if you sing that ballad I heard you singing just before you came in. I never heard you sing before.”
“Didn’t you? I don’t think I ever did sing before.”
“Sing it again, will you, please?”
“It is only two verses. My old Scotch nurse used to sing it when I was a little girl-oh, so long ago! I didn’t know I could sing it.”
She began without more ado, standing in the middle of the room, with her back towards the door.
Annie was dowie, an’ Willie was wae:
What can be the matter wi’ siccan a twae?
For Annie was bonnie’s the first o’ the day,
And Willie was strang an’ honest an’ gay.
Oh! the tane had a daddy was poor an’ was proud;
An’ the tither a minnie that cared for the gowd.
They lo’ed are anither, an’ said their say—
But the daddy an’ minnie hae pairtit the twae.
Just as she finished the song, I saw the sharp eyes of Lady Lucy peeping in at the door.
“Lady Lucy is watching at the door, Lady Alice,” I said.
“I don’t care,” she answered; but turned with a flush on her face, and stepped noiselessly to the door.
“There is no one there,” she said, returning.
“There was, though,” I answered.
“They want to drive me mad,” she cried, and hurried from the room.
The next day but one, she came again with the same request. But she had not been a minute in the library before Lady Hilton came to the door and called her in angry tones.
“Presently,” replied Alice, and remained where she was.
“Do go, Lady Alice,” I said. “They will send me away if you refuse.”
She blushed scarlet, and went without another word.
She came no more to the library.
CHAPTER XII. Confession
Day followed day, the one the child of the other. Alice’s old paleness and unearthly look began to reappear; and, strange to tell, my midnight temptation revived. After a time she ceased to dine with us again, and for days I never saw her. It was the old story of suffering with me, only more intense than before. The day was dreary, and the night stormy. “Call her,” said my heart; but my conscience resisted.
I was lying on the floor of my room one midnight, with my face to the ground, when suddenly I heard a low, sweet, strange voice singing somewhere. The moment I became aware that I heard it I felt as if I had been listening to it unconsciously for some minutes past. I lay still, either charmed to stillness, or fearful of breaking the spell. As I lay, I was lapt in the folds of a waking dream.
I was in bed in a castle, on the seashore; the wind came from the sea in chill eerie soughs, and the waves fell with a threatful tone upon the beach, muttering many maledictions as they rushed up, and whispering cruel portents as they drew back, hissing and gurgling, through the million narrow ways of the pebbly ramparts; and I knew that a maiden in white was standing