Nancy Stair Part 9

THE DAFT DAYS

We came back to Scotland in July, 1786, and one day, late in the month, Nancy came in to tell me that she intended having a birthday party that same evening.

"Whose?" said I.

"Mine," she answered.

"It's all very well, but your birthday is not in July----"

"I never fancied March to be born in," she replied imperturbably, "and I've changed it."

"And who are you going to bid to the feast of your adopted birthday?"

"You," she said, "and Sandy, and Jamie Henderlin, for he's back from Germany, and I want to hear him play."[3]

[3] After Jamie Henderlin became famous for his violin playing it was noised abroad that I alone was his patron. But the truth of the matter is that Sandy shared with me the expense of his German studies.

It is altogether hopeless to set in cold words the charm of her as she stood before me that morning in her white frock, her hair in a bunch of curls on top of her head and some posies in her hand. I have seen many pretty women in my time, some few handsome ones, but Nancy Stair is the only one I ever saw who deserved to be described as beautiful. The fas.h.i.+on-prints of the day were full of her, and I have one account before me, printed at the very time of which I write, 1786:

"Miss Stair," it reads, "is just back from London, where for two years she has studied her voice with Trebillini.

"Her beauty is bewildering; her gowns the acme of elegance and feminine grace; her wit, her eyes, her lips, the toast of the town. Her songs, a second printing of which is being clamored for, are being read over the Three Kingdoms, with a letter from his Royal Majesty, George III, on the fly-leaf commending them. When it is known that she is to attend service at St. Giles the clubs are emptied and half the beaux of the town may be found on their knees where they can have a view of her. The greatest statesmen and lawyers of the day are her intimate friends, and the crowds follow her in admiration when she drives through the streets."

A good picture, but scant, for there is not a word in it of her heart, the kindest and bravest that ever beat in woman's breast, nor her great love and tenderness to all created things.

On the afternoon of this dinner I fixed my mind definitely upon a matter upon which I had been pondering for some time. Coming in from the bank about five, I called Nancy to me, and handed her the box I carried.

"Is it a present for me?" she asked, her face aglow.

"A present for you, Little Flower, from the proudest father in the world."

As I spoke she opened the casket and her eyes fell on the gems of which I have already written--the ornaments of the ladies of Stair for hundreds of years gone by--but for none, save one, so fair as she. I would have sold Stair itself, if need be, to give her such joy. The emerald necklace, which had been a year in the making, a brooch of the same stones, with diamonds glittering in flower cl.u.s.ters, I found, were the ones she liked the best, and she brought a mirror to sit beside me as she tried them all, one by one, upon her hair, her neck, and arms, demanding that Dame d.i.c.kenson and Huey be brought to look at her.

And a curious thing fell, that, as she was engaged with the jewels, a note was brought from Mr. Pitcairn, which she read without interest, saying after;

"Does he think I care anything about 'Lorimer _vs._ The Crown' with a necklace like this?" and I fell to wondering, with some dismay, what Hugh would think concerning her masculine mind if he had heard the speech.

We were awaiting a summons to the meal that evening when Nancy entered; a new Nancy, and one so wondrous to behold that Sandy and I started at the sight of her. She wore a gown of yellow crepe embroidered in gold, low and sleeveless, with a fold in the back, after the fas.h.i.+on of the ladies of Watteau, and a long train falling far behind. Her hair was gathered high and dressed with jewels which sparkled as well upon her throat and hands. The thing that marked her most, an alluring touchableness, was doubly present as she came toward us, laughing, with a profound courtesy.

"My Lord Stair and Mr. Carmichael, you who have had the raising of me, how do you like the work of your hands?"

"Ye can not throw us off our guard by braw clothes, Lady," Sandy responded, with a laugh, "for we know you only too well, and to our distress of mind and pocket. Ye're a spoiled bit, in spite of the severe discipline your father and I have reared ye by. Here's a thing I got from a peddler-body for ye," he ended.

She opened the morocco case which he handed her, to find a necklet of pearls with diamonds clasping them, and the tears came into her eyes as she kissed him for the gift.

"I can not thank ye enough!--never, in all my life--for all ye've done for me, Sandy. I love you," she says, "and well you know it; and with that we'll go to dinner. I go with Jamie," she added, slipping her arm through his, "for ye must learn that genius ever goes before wealth and t.i.tles," and with a laugh she and Jamie Henderlin went out before us.

After dinner we sat outside for a while, Sandy and I smoking, as Nancy and Jamie talked of the outer world and the celebrities of London and Paris. The lamps from the little settlement on the burn twinkled through the trees, while farther off the lights from the town of Edinburgh shone soft and silvery beneath the glimmering moon. We could hear the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the cows in the long lane down by the Holm and the bells of the old Tron deaving our ears by striking the hour of eight.

There is little use, with Jamie playing to the greatest people of the world at the moment of my writing, for me to tell the surprise and delight we had in his music; or the new joy that Sandy felt in Nancy's singing, it being the first time he had heard her voice for over two years.

"Do you want to hear some of my own verses?" she asked him at length.

"Mr. Thomson has been kind enough to set some of them to music." And then she sang, for the first time to my hearing, those two songs of hers which were afterward whistled, sung, hummed, or shouted by every one in Scotland, from the judge on the bench to the caddie on the streets:

Soutar Sandy, Wed wi' Mandy On a Monday morning,

and the set of three double verses, since published in the Glasgow Sentinel, "The Maid wi' the Wistfu' Eye,"[4] which, as I hope for Heaven, Rab Burns told me one night at Creech's he envied her for having written.

[4] Poems by Nancy Stair, Pailey Edition, pages 44, 67.

Suddenly, as she was looking over the music, she began to hum, and Dame d.i.c.kenson and I exchanged a look of strange remembrance, as, with no accompaniment whatever, and as though the thought had just seized her, she poured forth her soul and her voice together in that old gipsy tune--Marian's song, as I have always called it:

"Love that is life Love that is death, Love that is mine--"

changed at the last into:

"Love that is wrong, Love that is strong, Love that is death--"

and as we listened, taken out of ourselves by her beauty and the tragedy of her voice, a figure came from the gloom into the light of the doorway, and a gay voice cried:

"Shall I be arrested for trespa.s.s, Lord Stair?" and to our amazement Danvers Carmichael stood before us.

I had never seen the lad since the day it was determined to make an Oxford man of him, instead of following out his father's wishes and fetching him home to our own University, and the surprise I felt at sight of him, a grown man and a monstrous fine one, gave me something of a jolt in my mind at the rapid pa.s.sing of the years.

He was tall and handsome, with bright, brave ways, a distinguished carriage, and a delightful speaking voice. His face was clean shaven, showing a chin heavy but with fine lines, and lips which curved back complacently over teeth of singular whiteness. His mouth denoted pride as well as obstinacy, which, taken with the brooding look in the eye, gave me the impression of a nature both jealous and pa.s.sionate. One of his greatest charms, and I felt it on the instant of our meeting, was a gay but una.s.sertive manner, possible only to those who have had a secured position from birth. I noted as well a fine sense in his relation to others, and believe that if he had come a-begging we would have known him to be gently born. He wore high boots, a broad hat, and a handsome riding suit of light cloth, with a cloak hanging from one shoulder. He carried himself with jauntiness and surety; gave one's hand a hearty grip, and, to sum it all up, was one of the finest men I have ever seen, and a son of whom even Sandy Carmichael had a right to be proud, in spite of the fact that he was a man of fas.h.i.+on and something of a dandy. He had as well a certain romantic appearance and a glance which made young girls drop their eyes before him and set old ladies to talking of their first loves.

"When Dand Carmichael goes up High Street I never saw a woman looking down it," Bob Blake said of him once, which sums it all up very well.

Upon being asked by his father as to the suddenness of his appearance among us, he said with a laugh:

"I came with some men to Leith, and the Leith fly set me down at the door of The Star and Garter by the Tron church about an hour ago. I asked mine host of the inn if I could get a horse from him to ride to Arran House; upon which he told me that there would be no use in my going to Arran as Mr. Carmichael was from home, being bid to dinner at Lord Stair's; that it was the eighteenth birthday of Mistress Nancy Stair, and that Jamie Henderlin had come from Germany with his violin the week before and was to play at Stair House after the dinner; that the Lord Stair, who was a fond father, had but this afternoon given the family jewels to Mistress Nancy, and that one ruby alone would buy the inn; that Mr. Carmichael had brought a present for her of a pearl necklace with diamonds in it of great value; that Mistress Nancy Stair, who was the handsomest girl in three kingdoms, had a yellow gown, a great deal of which lay on the floor, the stuff of which he understood had come from France; that Dame d.i.c.kenson had made a birthday cake, and there was a salmon for the dinner with egg sauce, and that eggs were uncommon high and the tax on whisky a thing not to be borne. There were some other trifling details he mentioned," he said with a wave of his hand and a laugh, "which have unfortunately escaped my memory."

There was much real humor in his relation of the inn gossip, and the brightness of his presence caused a gayer air to our small festivity.

Our talk brought Nancy to the door, where she stood in a shaft of light looking down at us.

"What are you laughing about?" she cried.

At the sound of her voice Danvers sprang to his feet and went toward her with outstretched hand, but at the sight of her beauty or her jewels, I know not which, he changed his mind and made a sweeping bow instead.

"And this," he said, "is the Miss Nancy of whom I have heard so much----"

"Sandy's apt to mention me," she answered demurely.

"He never did you justice," he responded, with a smile toward his father. "In all but this he's the best parent in the world, but he's fallen short in the matter of letting me know about you."

"If ye'd stayed in ye're own country ye'd have known," retorted Sandy, from behind his pipe.

"I have been away too long," Dand answered him, but the look was at Nancy.