A Strong Necessity: a novel

Front matter

Uniform with "A Strong Necessity," Crown 8vo, Art Linen, Gilt Top, price 6/ each. THE POWER OF THE DOG. By Rowland Grey, Author of " By Virtue of His Office," etc. {Second Edition.) BLACK DIAMONDS. By Maurus Jokai, Author of "'Midst the Wild Carpathians," 44 Pretty Micha.1," etc. (Third Edition.) JUDY A J/ L T. By Mrs. Con ney, Author of " Pegg's Perversity" '* Gold for Dross." etc. (Second Edition.) LADY JEAN'S SON. By Sarah Tytler, Author of " Lady Jean's Vagaries," etc. (Second Edition.) COLOUR SERGEANT No. I COMPANY. By Mrs. Leith Adams, Author of "Bonnie Kate" etc. (Fourth Edition.) THE INN BY THE SHORE. By Florence Warden, Author of " T/ie House on the Marsh," etc. (Fourth Edition.) THE GREEN BOOK. ( A nthorized Edition ) (Fifth Edition.) By Maurus Jokai. MY BONNIE LAD Y By Leslie Keith, " The Chilcotes" " hi (Second Edition. ) Author of "'Lisbeth,' Spite of Herself" etc.

THE WINDS OF MARCH. By George Knight, Author of "Dust in the Balance" " The Circle of the Earth" etc. (Second Edition) A STRONG NECESSITY. By Isabel Don, Author of " Only Clarchen" " Zohrah" " The Story of Holland" etc. JABEZ NUTYARD. By Mrs. Edmonds, Author of Ci Fair Athens" " The Herb of Love " " Amygdala" etc. FORBIDDEN BY LAW. By Major Arthur Griffiths, Author of "Secrets of the Prison House," etc. PRETTY MICHAL. By Maurus J6kai, Author of '" Blaek Diamonds" etc. (Third Edition.) MISS PROVIDENCE. By Dorothea Gerard, Author of "Lady Baby" etc. VALENTINE: A Story of Ideals. By Curtis Yorke, Author of" Hush" etc. THE LTON OF JAN IN A : or, The Last of The Janissaries. By Maurus J<5kai. London : Jarrold & Sons io and ii Warwick Lane E.C. And of all Booksellers A NOVEL BY Isabel Don author of " Only Clarchen," "Zohrah," "The Story of Holland," etc. SANS PtVVL ET iANS REPROCHE LONDON: JARROLD 4 SONS IO AND II WARWICK LANE E.C. 1*97 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Preface

. THE Author of this book died about a year ago, shortly after the preliminary arrangements had been made by her for its publication. This sad circum stance has delayed its appearance, and has necessitated the correction of the proofs by another hand. It may, therefore, happen that this work may see the light in a form somewhat different from what it might have done had the writer herself lived to complete her task. It may be, also, that mistakes have crept in which otherwise would have been detected. If so, I beg the kind indulgence of all readers, and I trust they may derive as much pleasure from its perusal as I have found in the correction of the proofs. JOHN B. DON. Maulesden, Brechin, N.B., September, 1897. CONTENTS. CHAFTbK FACE I. SILVIA - IO II. A FAMILY TEA-PARTY - 2 2 III. DAVIE BLACK - - 39 IV.

FROM MORNING TO EVENING - 53 V. AN AFTERNOON CALL- - 72 VI. WEDDERSPOON - 87 VII. THE HOMEWARD DRIVE - 103 VIII. "gusset and seam" - 116 IX. RETROSPECT - - 1 30 X. A STRANGE UNREST - 1 44 XI. THE SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY - 1 55 XII. SCOTCH COUSINS - 1 72 XIII. AN AFTERNOON WALK - - 1 87 XIV. AN UNWELCOME ENCOUNTER 1 99 XV. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER - - 2IO CONTENTS. CHAPTEE FAG* XVI. SOME OLD LETTERS - 221 XVII. "I CAN PROTECT YOU" - 233 XVIII. MITCHELL'S FARM 244 XIX. "YES, I WILL COME" 256 XX. GOOD-BYE - - 268 XXI. STRUCK DOWN - 280 XXII. GLOOMY DAYS - 288 XXIII. SILVIA SHOWS SPIRIT- 3OI XXIV. A NEW LIFE - 318 XXV. " JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS MEETING " -

Chapter I. Silvia

Silvia Black had not found life a romance. Worse still, she had not even found it " real and earnest," as she had been assured it was when she learned Long fellow's " Psalm of Life." It only appeared to her dull and trivial ; a tranquil existence hedged in by the respectabilities and the modest comforts of a middle-class household. She could have borne the absence of romance. At the end of the nineteenth century even a maiden of twenty is neither sentimental nor wildly romantic, and has a fairly accurate know ledge of the limitations of the possible, though she may have a modest, unconfessed vision of the hero who must cross her path ; but the lack of all sense of reality in her life was Silvia's trial. She wanted to feel alive. The stir and stress of conflict attracted her. Better pain and suffering, she would argue, than the safe monotony of her present existence.

She envied the factory girls who, if they had to spend long hours in tedious mechanical labour, at least felt they were doing something. They were earning their livelihood, they were helping their families, they were borne along by the current of events, and were not left stranded on the edge of the stream, listless spectators of life like Silvia. She had watched their angry yet animated countenances as they formed a boisterous group in the street during a strike, and though their loud voices and barbaric energy repelled her, she envied their passionate feeling, and wished that she, too, had a share in an exciting and interesting movement. It was terrible to feel her pulses bounding with life and energy, and to be condemned to inaction. Silvia did not delude herself by calling such feelings right.

Her mother said, " they were unreasonable." She wondered what Silvia would be at, she was sure she had everything she needed. But her Aunt Sarah more definitely condemned them as " sinful," adding, " Silvia ought to be ashamed of herself." But Silvia was not ashamed of her feelings. They might be wrong ; on that point the elders were probably right, and her only means of self-defence was to hold her judgment in suspense ; but they were natural. She had not sought for them. They had come of their own accord, and if they were natural there must be some reason for their persistent vitality, though it seemed to Silvia subtle and dangerous to defend them solely on the ground that they were inevitable. Such reasoning would have led her too far, and neither her nature nor her education had invested dangerous speculation with any attraction.

So she submitted to have such impor tunate feelings. In rebellious moods she cherished and encouraged them. When her conscience was more than usually sensitive, she fought against them, generally with but little success, or at best with slight success that provoked a reaction. But all her conflicts were mental. Outwardly she accepted her lot with an acquiescence which was tranquil, if it did not pretend to be cheerful. But the lack of cheerfulness did not strike her parents or her aunts. Their view of life was utilitarian. It was bounded by the necessity of making both ends meet, and the duty and satisfaction of " saving ; " and with their energies absorbed by practical objects, they did not require outward manifestations of cheerfulness themselves, nor expect them in others. That Silvia did her daily SILVIA. 11 duty quietly was sufficient indication that all was well.

Only Miss Annabella Cowan, Silvia's youngest aunt, had a vague fear that her niece was not quite satisfied ; but even to her Silvia was afraid to give expression to her feelings, since the memorable evening, nearly two years ago, when her father had said with his hoarse laugh, that what " Silvia wanted was a lover," a solution of her difficulties that, to his sensitive daughter, appeared little short of insulting. It was not a lover, an ordinary young man who would marry her and condemn her to lead a monotonous, cramped life like her mother's, that Silvia required ; but room to expand, a legitimate field for her super fluous energy, the sensation of living, the joy of playing her part in the great drama of life. To a girl with such aspirations, and with a yearning desire for an ideal higher than that which satisfied her relations, her father's suggestion of a lover would have been ridiculous, so inadequate did it seem, had it not been painful, almost degrading.

It had dragged her most sacred feelings into the light, it had exposed her to half-playful teasing, against which she could only defend herself by the assumption of an armour of reserve which, with great strength of will, she had never suffered to be penetrated. She had suppressed every manifestation of feeling. She had stifled her natural desire to give utterance to thoughts that troubled her, and ask for help in the solution of problems with which she could not grapple, lest she should be misunderstood. She never spoke of her feelings even to Nancy Lamont, her one girl friend, because she knew only too well, that to Nancy also they would be incomprehensible. Nancy, too, would probably suggest a lover, as her father had done, so persistently did her mind dwell on love and marriage, and so little did she understand Silvia's indifferent treatment of the young men, who appeared to Miss Lamont suitable admirers.

She was too healthily absorbed in her own affairs to perceive that Silvia's mental attitude was quite unlike her own, and if she had been able to see it, it would only have appeared to her strained and unreal. Even her imperfect comprehension of her friend's character made her pronounce Silvia a "queer girl," and she would not have spent so much time in Silvia's society had she not discovered that her friend's habitual reserve made her the safest of confidantes. Silvia was seated alone in her bedroom one July afternoon. Nancy Lamont had just left her after an interview of two hours' duration, in which she had poured forth the history of her domestic grievances, and of the difficulties caused by the jealousies of two rival suitors. Silvia had listened and sympathised. She had even mildly ventured to give advice, which Nancy had promptly proved was quite unsuited to her case.

She was more than competent to manage her own business, and merely expected a friend to acknowledge her superior wisdom, and the dilemmas in which she was placed by the unreasonable preju dices of other people. Silvia knew that this was all that was expected of her ; but occasionally a trouble some sense of duty led her to overstep the limits that Nancy assigned to friendship, and then the two girls parted coldly, as had been the case this afternoon. Silvia had dutifully accompanied her friend to the street door, but Nancy had scarcely deigned to shake hands when she said good-bye, and had tossed her head defiantly when she saw that Silvia was watching her with a touch of pathetic anxiety. Not that Silvia feared that their friendship was imperilled by Nancy's displeasure. She was too much accustomed to such storms to over-estimate their importance ; but she felt chilled and a little depressed.

She did not entirely trust Nancy's wisdom, in spite of her many protestations ; and the contrast between her friend's exuberant interest in her life, and her own sense of the futility of her meagre existence, struck her more forcibly than ever. Why could she not attach as much importance to the admiration and jealousy of James Arnott and Geordie SILVIA. 13 Fleming? Why? The one question opened up the way to many others, each as unsatisfactory and as difficult to answer, questions which Silvia despised herself too often for asking. Why was she unlike Nancy and other girls of her acquaintance? She was pale and dark, it is true, and had not Nancy's brilliant complexion and bright eyes ; but nobody noticed her, even when Nancy was not present ; and though she did not much care for notice, she wondered both why it was denied her, and why she was indifferent.

Why did she want so much more than other people ? Why was she not satisfied with the schemes for promoting her happiness which had so often been made? Miss Mather, the much-certifi cated and highly-trained teacher, who had spent three months with her aunts in order that she might give them instruction in the latest educational methods, had pitied her for the fate which condemned her to lead a monotonous life in a dull Scotch country town. She had counselled Silvia to take up some special subject of study, and had told her that she ought to be grateful for leisure and power to absorb herself in her favourite pursuit. But Silvia was not intellectual, and had soon found that her zeal for study languished. She disliked both mathematics and philology, the sub jects proposed by Miss Mather, and she did not care even for literature pursued systematically.

Indeed, books only seemed to mock her. They could not give her the sensation of living which she craved, and tormented her because they showed her wide pictures of life, and suggested thoughts which she could not understand, or which seemed to lead to rebellion and discontent. She had soon given up reading except in an idle, desultory manner, which her Aunt Jane said was " highly unsatisfactory, even reprehensible, in a young girl." But Mrs. Black did not approve of study. She had been obliged to read more than she wished when she helped her sisters in their school, so she stoutly defended Silvia. " She was very glad that Silvia did not care for books, and gave her mind to the house, as much mind, that is to say, as a young girl ever gave to anything. They were all idle, foolish creatures."

To which Miss Jane Cowan would reply : " That it was very true, and if that was the mother's opinion, of course her aunt could do nothing to remedy a state of matters which she considered very lamentable." " Of course not, and, after all, my girl is my girl," Mrs. Black would conclude with unwonted independence of spirit. Silvia had therefore been allowed to read or not, as she pleased, and had the satisfaction of knowing that she had done her duty when she had performed the household tasks assigned to her by her mother. These were numerous but trifling. They trespassed on much of the leisure for which Miss Mather had almost envied her, but they absorbed neither thought nor energy. Housekeeping was the one interest which circumstances and disposition had left Mrs. Black, and though she expected Silvia's entire sympathy, she would not entrust any important matter to a "feckless girl."

It was Mrs. Black who made the pudding ; Silvia's task was to pick the currants, and it was scarcely strange that her interest in her work was languid enough to excite her mother's indignation. " She had expected a daughter to be more of a comfort than hers was ever likely to be," was a plaint to which habit had made Silvia indifferent. She could not always be penitent, though, at times, she would rouse herself to discuss the expense of butcher's meat, or the delinquencies of the maid-of-all-work, with as much zeal as her mother demanded. More frequently there was a secret sympathy between Silvia and that much-tried, if rather impertinent, addition to their household. But Silvia's mind had strayed that afternoon very far from domestic matters. She had ceased to try to answer importunate questions, and had abandoned herself to an impossible vision of a suture which would satisfy her desires— a future in which she was SILVIA. 15 to have power to see the world, while her energies were to be absorbed by some great object, the greater and the more absorbing, in that it was absolutely vague.

She had lifted a book from the table, but it lay unopened on her lap, and though her eyes were fixed on the grey houses opposite, she saw nothing. It was not often that she dared indulge in such delicious reverie ; but when Nancy left her, she felt that she required some little self-indulgence — some visionary attempt to restore the self-respect that had been damped by Nancy's complacent assertion of her own superiority. Generally Silvia was only amused by such complacency, but that day some of Nancy's shafts had struck home. No girl likes a friend to insinuate that, though "a lover would add to her happiness, she is too unattractive to possess one," especially when that friend is the elated recipient of the attentions of two eligible suitors. Nancy's elation was a token of gratified vanity rather than of love, and Silvia knew that even if she could tolerate the rival admirers, such coquetting, mingled with a prudent resolve to make a good marriage, could not satisfy her.

No ; it was love itself that would induce her to contemplate marriage, such love as she had read of but had never seen ; such a lover as fortunate maidens had sometimes adored, but who would never be found in her limited sphere. It was a pure vision of love that she had formed, so pure and so ideal, that she never spoke of it, and believed that it had nothing to do with the real life that she must lead. Yet this purity of vision did not prevent annoyance at Nancy's insinuations — insinuations, moreover, that were not true. Silvia had recently begun to suspect that if she were only a little less indifferent, she might win a lover more ardent than Nancy's self satisfied adorers, and it was to banish the unwelcome recollection of that dark, passionate face, as well as to enable her to forget her annoyance, that she had allowed herself to dream a day-dream, which would only make her real life more dull and tedious when she awoke.

She was roused from her vision by her mother's voice. ' " Silvia ! " Mrs. Black called out impatiently. " Are you not coming ? Have you forgotten that we are to take tea with your aunts ? " Silvia started up in dismay. " I did not know it was so late," she returned. " But don't wait for me. I can run after you." " And arrive all hot and out of breath, looking a perfect fright, and vexing your aunts ! " was the fretful response; while a louder and harsher voice shouted, " Be quick, Silly 1 What have you been doing all this time?" Silvia flushed slightly. Her name was her one cherished possession. It distinguished her from the Maries and Lizzies of her acquaintance. It had been chosen for her while her mother still dared, in secret, to nourish a remnant of romance, although her father's brother, Sylvester, had been the excuse for the name.

Mrs. Black had insisted that it should be spelt Silvia, moved by some faint recollection of Shakespeare's heroine, and by a more definite memory of the far past days, when she had sung " Who is Silvia?" in a sweet, untrained voice, which had been much admired. Nobody admired such relics of a voice as she possessed when Silvia was born, and all romance had been crushed out of Mrs. Black's colour less life and bounded mind long before Silvia was old enough to appreciate the name, which had been selected while her mother still hoped her baby would be an element of joy in the house, and could weave bright visions for that daughter's future. She looked back on these visions now with the contempt born of her actual experience, and, notwithstanding her maternal affection, found as little joy in Silvia as in anything else.

She rather despised the pretty name which its owner alone was left to admire. It was this secret satisfaction which made Silvia so much dislike the abbreviation " Silly," which had been the occasion of rough, almost heartless humour in her childhood. It SILVIA. 17 would have been better to have been called Jemima, after her mother, or plain Betsy Black, like her grand mother, than to be known as " Silly." " I wish he wouldn't ! He knows how I hate it," she said to herself impatiently, when her father a second time called, " Silly, Silly ! " It was a rude awakening from a day-dream, and a tea-party at the aunts' was a poor exchange for the visions in which she had been indulging. Such a tea-party was tolerable if Silvia went alone. She sometimes even enjoyed a quiet conversation with her Aunt Annabella ; but a family tea, with both her parents present, was a function which only took place once or twice a year, and to these more solemn occasions Silvia looked forward with dread.

She hurried over her toilette, exchanging her morning frock for her Sunday dress, and scarcely even looking in the glass when she arranged her hair. The result of such indifference to her appearance was shown in her mother's exclamation as Silvia ran downstairs. " What have you been about ? Your brooch is all crooked ! " Airs. Black was standing at the dining-room door, the short train of her best black silk dress gathered in a bunch under her shawl and supported by one hand, while the other held the basket which contained her cap. If she had belonged to the fashionable world, a cap would have been considered an unnecessary addition to the toilette of a woman between fifty and sixty years of age, whose dark hair was still abundant, and might have been dressed in the latest mode ; but in Mrs. Black's circle a cap was thought "matronly" and becoming, while the fabrica tion of elaborately airy structures of lace and ribbon was her favourite occupation.

She was a tall, large boned woman, with a sallow complexion rendered more sallow by heavy black hair brushed smoothly over her forehead, and a long face with a wide moutli and massive but well-formed nose. Her small dark j_ eyes had long since lost all their lustre ; they were dull and expressionless when in repose, but were characterised by a strange, half-frightened look when she was anxious or startled. Yet she had been hand some once, " better looking than Silvia," the aunts said ; but that was so long ago that she had few traces of vanity left. Her satisfaction in a peculiarly gay cap, or her critical estimate of Silvia's personal charms alone showed that she still preserved a remnant of her youthful self-complacency. It was this critical spirit that made her repeat impatiently, " Yes, it is very crooked.

I wish you were tidier, Silvia. Girls in my time thought more of a neat appearance and looked better." " I can put it straight when we get to the aunts, as father is waiting," Silvia replied. " Yes, that will do, he is very impatient," said Mrs. Black, with the startled expression in her eyes at the mention of her husband's name, which Silvia failed to notice, because it was so habitual. She gathered her black silk skirt more tightly in her hand as she slowly descended the long flight of stone steps that led to the front door, for Mr. Black being a bank agent, and the lower story of the square stone house, in which he had lived since his marriage, was occupied by the offices of the Bank of Caledonia, which he repre sented in the small manufacturing town of Lochton. The bank agent had left the door open, and was standing in the stone-paved road which was the private approach to the dwelling-house.

He was apparently contemplating the stunted shrubs which bordered the flagged passage that led to the bank door; but an impatient motion of his broad shoulders and the frown that darkened his brow revealed his displeasure. He turned round fiercely when he heard footsteps. "What is the meaning of this?" he said angrily to Silvia. " Surely an idle huzzy like you has no need to keep a man waiting." " I am very sorry," Silvia began, while her mother SILVIA. 19 exclaimed timidly, "John ! " an exclamation which her husband silenced by a look before which his wife quailed. "There is no use saying anything," John Black continued. " I know what it means when girls get gossiping together ; but come on now. I wish the evening were over." He walked on with bent head, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, heedless that only with an effort could his wife keep pace with his long strides.

At the gate, however, he paused. " I will forbid Nancy Lamont the house unless you learn to behave better," he remarked, looking askance at Silvia, who returned his glance with some amazement She was accustomed to her father's indifference, but not to his displeasure or active interference. Mr. Black understood her look. " You need not be surprised. I am your father, and have as good a right to manage you as Mrs. Black here," he resumed, closing the iron gate with an angry jerk. Then Silvia understood that there had been an altercation between her father and mother, and that she had been the cause of their quarrel. She wondered what they had been discus sing, but could not imagine that it was any subject that could seriously affect her. It was only lately that she had begun to suspect that their coldly indifferent manner in public was, in private, exchanged for a more hostile attitude.

The discovery had made her uncomfortable ; but she had still a child's desire to believe that there could be no serious breach between her parents, and attributed the quarrels, of which she had somehow gained a vague knowledge, to her father's violent temper and her mother's failure to manage him well when he was in one of his moods. An invitation to spend the evening with the aunts was sufficient to account for an open display of bad temper, and Silvia concluded that some small offence on her part had been made the excuse for strife ; but, in spite of this conclusion, she felt restless and uneasy as she walked by her mother's side in the silence that was only too common when both parents were present. From time to time she looked curiously at her father, but his face was no indication of his thoughts.

He was gazing blankly at the ground, though his brow was still contracted by an angry frown. Like his wife, he was tall and dark, but he had the florid complexion and burly frame of a countryman. In appearance he was a healthy farmer, as became his father's son, but his sedentary occupation had made him stout and unwieldy. Silvia knew him as a stern, rather gloomy father ; while in the town of Lochton no man was more respected than the austere bank agent, who, though the son of Robert Black, a small farmer, and of Betsy Strachan, who had been Baillie Arnott's servant before her marriage, had been accepted as a responsible burgess when he became agent for the Bank of Caledonia, and married old Dr. Cowan's eldest daughter. His marriage alone would have made John Black a member of the aristocracy of Lochton ; but his wife and he had from the first " kept them selves to themselves," as the saying went, though they were perhaps the more respected that they mixed little in Lochton society.

Their small income would not have allowed them to do so with dignity, and it would not have " been proper " for a Cowan to appear amongst " new-risen folk," as were too many of the Lochton families, unless she could " take her place with the best." But this proud isolation made a dull home for Silvia, gossips said, though she was the less pitied, in that she was considered a plain, uninteresting girl, with no tastes that resembled those of her neighbours. How she came to be what she was, furnished matter for speculation amongst members of the few households who knew the Blacks sufficiently well to discuss their only child. She was not like her father or mother, though she was tall and had dark hair. " She was so slight, that it was surprising that John Black and his wife should be SILVIA. 21 the parents of such a strip of a girl."

And probably Silvia would have been a greater favourite could she have been pronounced a " decided Cowan," for the Cowans were well known and understood. But instead of " taking after kent folk," she had inherited the slight figure, the graceful but dignified bearing, and the exquisitely beautiful, melancholy questioning eyes of some remote ancestor who had not belonged to Lochton. As it was, Nancy Lamont was not the only person who considered her a " queer girl," and Mrs. Black herself, who had heard the verdict and deemed it not unjust, did not hesitate to mourn over Silvia's deficiencies. It was this unavailing regret that her daughter had not a bright complexion, brown hair, and an obviously cheerful manner, that prompted the querulous remark: "Silvia had less colour than ever," with which Mrs. Black broke a silence that had become oppressive.

" I wish she would go about more like Nancy Lamont. She keeps too much to herself," the mother added. " She owes her complexion to you, madam," John Black returned with a sneer, as he held open Miss Cowan's garden-gate. " And, at least, she can hold her dress out of the mud, which is more than her mother does." Mrs. Black lifted the offending garment still higher, utterly unconscious that its new elevation added to that grotesqueness of appearance which had excited her husband's contemptuous comment. She could afford to be indifferent, for her sister's little maid had opened the door with an alacrity which showed that the guests had been expected for some time, and she was obliged to forget her husband's disol -asure, and to devote her whole mind to the social duties of the evening.