There was an impulse of anger in Lewis' mind not at all natural to him.
"It is with no evil intention, and it is no case of disowning my name. My kind god-father, my patron—you are free to call him what you will—wished it to be so. I have adopted his suggestion, that is all."
"But here, of all places in the world!" cried Mr. Allenerly—"it is the imprudence I am thinking of. You have a good right to it, if you please—but here! Have they not put you through your catechism to know what Murrays you were of? That would be the first thing they would do——"
"Miss Margaret has done so, I allow."
"Miss Margaret! By my conscience, you have got far ben already! And she never found you out? and you have got footing there?"
A pleasurable sense of success soothed the exasperation and pain in the young man's mind.
"It was for that I came here," he said.
"I just guessed as much. I said to my wife, 'He's of the romantic sort; he'll be after little Lilias, take my word for it, as soon as he hears of her existence.' And so you've done it! Well, Mr. Murray, if that's what I am to call you, I congratulate you—that is, if you get clear of Miss Margaret. She's grand at a cross-examination, as I have good reason to know. If you satisfied her——"
"I think I satisfied her—I go there—I was going now, if you had not come," said Lewis, playing with his hat, which was on the table. It seemed to him that to get rid of this visitor was the best, and, indeed, only thing he wished for. "After little Lilias!" The words rang and tingled through his head; he did not wish to be asked any questions, for already he felt as if his countenance must betray him; he could not laugh as his visitor did. It was impossible for him even to respond with a smile. And that fixed gravity was something which had never before been seen on Lewis's face.
Mr. Allenerly cast a curious look upon him, and then he in turn put down his hat upon the table and drew forward a chair.
"You have made your way in what seems a surprising manner," he said, "but you do not seem very cheery about it. You will excuse me if I am pressing—it is a thing I should have been keen to push on, if I had not known that things of this kind must come of themselves; and, if you will pardon me for saying so, I wanted to know more of you before I would have put you in the way of Miss Lilias, poor thing. She is very young, and the first that comes has a great chance with a young girl. But her sisters have very high notions; they are ambitious for her, I have always heard, and whether they would have the sense to see that a bird in the hand is worth two, or any number, in the bush——"
"I cannot let you continue in a mistake," said Lewis, pale and grave. "It is not as you think; the thing is different——"
He paused, and Mr. Allenerly paused too, and looked at him with a doubtful air.
"Do you mean," he said, "to tell me that you, a young man from foreign parts, that knows neither England nor Scotland—a young man that is your own master, going where you please—do you mean to say that you come here to a small Scotch village, and settle down in a country public-house (for it's little better) for weeks with no object? I have a respect for you, Mr. Grantley, but I cannot swallow that."
"I did not say so," said Lewis, with a gravity that was exaggerated, and full of the dignified superiority of offended youth; but he could not defend himself from those impulses of imprudence which were natural to him. "It is not necessary, I suppose," he said, "that my object should be exactly as you have stated. There are three sisters——"
Mr. Allenerly made no reply at first, but gazed at him with astonished eyes. Then he suddenly burst into a peal of laughter.
"This is too good a joke," he said, "you rogue, you deceiver! Do you think it's a fair thing to play off your fun upon your man of business? None o' that—none o' that! No, but that's the best joke I've heard this year or more. I must tell my wife of that. There's three sisters, says he! Lord! but that beats all."
"I am at a loss," said Lewis, more dignified than ever, "to understand the cause of your mirth; but, when you have had it out, perhaps you will let me inform you of the real state of affairs."
"That is just what I am ready to do," the lawyer said, in his turn offended, "more than ready. The ladies are my clients, Mr.——"
"It was my godfather's desire that my name should be Murray."
"Then Murray be it!" cried the writer, with vehemence. "What have I to do with your name? If it comes to that, ye may call yourself royal Stuart, or Louis XVI., or anything ye please, for me."
"Don't let us quarrel, Mr. Allenerly; you have been very kind to me," said Lewis, suddenly struck with the absurdity of this discussion. He laughed as he held out his hand. "Come," he said, "do not be so hot, and I will tell you. But why should you laugh? I have paid my court to the second of the two sisters. She is a lady whom I respect very much. She is sweet and good. A laugh I cannot endure upon her account. I have endeavoured to do what I could to please her. I hope I may have—a little—succeeded," Lewis said. The supernatural gravity and dignity had gone out of his face; instead of these, there came a smile which had some pathos in it. There was a slight quiver in his sensitive mouth. It was not vanity, but a certain sorrowful pleasure, a sort of compassionate satisfaction which was in the smile; it checked the lawyer's laugh more effectually than any big words could have done. But he looked with great and growing surprise into the young man's face.
"Miss Jean?" he said, almost timidly, with a sudden sense of something that lay behind.
"Miss Jean," Lewis said, with a little affirmative nod several times repeated. "She loves music very much. She has a fine and tender soul. I think no one knows what she is. They think her only gentle and weak."
"That is true—that is true. She is a good woman; but——"
"I will confess to you," said Lewis, "I heard that there were three, and it troubled me. I had thought there would be one who was the heir after your English way. I was in much trouble what to do. Then it was evident that this good Miss Jean was she whom I could have most access to, and I loved her on account of the music; but I did not know," he added, ingenuously, with a sigh, "I will acknowledge it to you—I did not know that the other lady was young; I did not know she was—what I found her yesterday. Ah! I saw her only yesterday for the first time."
Mr. Allenerly, who had jumped up in great interest and excitement, and had been pacing about the room all this time, here came up to Lewis and struck him on the shoulder.
"You are neither Scotch nor English," he said, "but you're a fine fellow; I would say that before the world. You came here to restore the money to them in a real generous way without thinking of yourself; but cheer up, my lad! Miss Jean has nothing to do with it. It is Lilias that is the heir. What do I mean? I will soon tell you what I mean. Margaret and Jean have a small estate in the south country that was their mother's. They have nothing to do with Murkley. Boys are always looked for, and little thought was taken for them. But when the general married his second wife, the Castle and a bit of the old land, too little, far too little, was put in the marriage settlement—and Lilias is the heir of that—Lilias the little one, the young one, the bonnie one. You are in greater luck than you thought."
"Then it will be no restoration at all," said Lewis, his face growing longer and paler with disappointment and dismay.
"Not if you persevere in your present fancy—but that is just nonsense—you must turn your thoughts into another channel."
"You speak," said Lewis, "as if one's thoughts were like a stream of water. That is not to be considered at all; it is too late."
"Then it is all settled——Has Miss Jean—the Lord preserve us—accepted ye?" Mr. Allenerly said.
"Does that matter?" said Lewis. "I have laid my homage at her feet; it is for her to take, if she will."
"But—" cried the lawyer, in dismay, "don't ye see that all will be spoiled? that your very purpose will be balked—that everything will go wrong? If it is not settled beyond remedy, you must just do what many a man has done before. You must draw back before it is too late——"
"Draw back—and leave a lady insulted——You forget"—the young man spoke with much dignity—"that, though I am not a Murray, I am a gentleman," Lewis said.
CHAPTER XVI.
General Murray, the only son of Sir Patrick, had, like his father before him, married at a very early age, so that his eldest daughter was not more than twenty-two years younger than himself, and he was, when he married for the second time a wife younger than Margaret, a man but little over forty, in the prime of his life and strength, as handsome as he had ever been, and attractive enough to take any girl's fancy. The second wife had been poor, but she had been noble, and the entail of the old hereditary estate, upon which stood at once the old Castle and the new unfinished palace, was broken in order that it might be secured to the children of Lady Lilias, whether sons or daughters. Who could doubt that so young and blooming a bride, out of a well-conditioned family, would bring both in abundant measure to the old house? Margaret and Jean, the two daughters of the first marriage, were left in the south country in possession of their mother's little estate when their father began life for the second time. They felt themselves a little injured, shut out of their natural rights, as was natural, and held themselves aloof from the new ménage, which was established joyously in the old Castle with every augury of happiness. But when, no more than a year after, the blooming young wife was carried to the church-yard, and a second poor little Lilias left in her stead, the two sisters flew, with many a compunction and self-reproach, to the infant's cradle. Margaret especially, who, though she was young, was already disposed to believe that everything went wrong when she was absent, reproached herself bitterly for not being on the spot to watch over her father's wife. It would not have happened had she been there, she felt convinced, and this perfectly visionary self-blame no doubt helped to give a certain bias to her already peculiar character. "I must do my best for the daughter. I did not do it for the mother," she acquired a habit of saying when any other career was suggested to her. She did not feel quite sure that she was not her father's elder sister, so confusing were their relations. He was broken down with grief and disappointment, and she took charge of him at once, and of his home. It would perhaps be going too far to say that this was the reason why she did not marry. Had any great love arisen in her heart, no doubt Margaret would, like other people, have considered it her duty to obey its dictates; but, when suitors to whom she was indifferent came, Miss Murray metaphorically pushed them aside out of her path, with a curt intimation that she had no time to think of such nonsense. Miss Jean, who was of a sentimental turn, had not so easily escaped the common dangers of youth, but she did so in a more romantic way, poor lady, by loving, unfortunately, a young hero who had not a penny, and who died in an obscure Indian battle when she was a little more than twenty. This was shortly after the time when the infant Lilias was thrown upon her sisters' hands, and it was enough to determine the celibacy of the gentle young woman, who was indeed an old maid born: an old maid more tender and indulgent than any mother, an old maid who is still young, and can enter into the troubles of childhood and youth not only by recollection of her own, but in the sense of actual understanding and fellowship as one who had herself never thrown quite behind her the state of youth or even childhood. The more perfectly developed are apt to smile at this arrested being, but there is nothing in the world more delightful, tender, and sweet.
Between these two, Lilias' childhood had been passed. Her father was less at home than ever after this destruction of his hopes. He held some military appointments, and saw a good deal of service. In the intervals, when he returned to Scotland, his young daughter adored and made a playmate of him, his elder daughter kept him in order. Never was a man taken better care of; when the breach with Sir Patrick happened, the ladies stood by him with all the determined partisanship of women. He was living with them then on their little estate of the south, in the little feminine house called Gowanbrae, which had been their mother's, and where they had taken the baby after her mother's death. So long as they had that independent house, which they preferred, what was the Castle of Murkley to them? When Sir Patrick died, they "came north," as they expressed it, with the general, to show Lilias her home, and to acquaint her at first hand with those glories of the family which they pretended to scorn, but were in reality very proud of.
"All that money might have been in your pocket if your grandfather had been a man of sense," Miss Margaret said, pointing to the bleached walls of the unfinished palace.
But Jean and Lilias had both a wondering awe and admiration for folly which was so magnificent. Lilias was sixteen when she saw it first. She uttered a great cry of admiration and delight.
"I should like to save up every penny and finish it and live in it," she cried.
Her father shook his handsome white head: but Miss Margaret "had no patience with such nonsense," as she said.
"Live in it!—what income do you think you would require to live in it? The Queen has not so grand a house," said the elder sister, with the pride that aped indignation, "except perhaps Windsor Castle and the palace in London. Taymouth is not much bigger. You would want fifty thousand a year at the very least penny. All we have for the whole family on both sides would not so much as furnish it."
"Unless," said the general, with a laugh, "you make a great match, my little Lily, and get your duke to do it for you—or perhaps a Glasgow man would do?"
"A child of our bringing up would not be likely to demean herself so far, I hope," said Miss Margaret, with emphasis.
"A Glasgow man!" cried Miss Jean with a quaver of horror. "No, no, Lilias will never come down to that."
The general liked to gibe at his daughters; perhaps, though they were his daughters, he was not without some of that contempt for them which men of all ages feel towards unmarried women.
"I have seen some fine fellows at Glasgow," he said, "and rolling in money. I will look out for one, and bring him for your inspection, Lilias. But, Meg and Jean, you must not prejudice my candidate—you must let the child choose."
"Do, papa—it will be fun!" cried Lilias.
Miss Margaret had a high idea of her father's rights. She would not make any direct protest, as Jean was anxious to do, but she took her little sister aside when they returned home.
"My dear," she said, "gentlemen say many things that women-folk do not agree in, and papa is fond of his joke. You must not suppose that is all in earnest, that way he has of talking."
Lilias was "as quick as a needle," her sisters said. She made a momentary pause, and then said, with a laugh,
"About the Glasgow man?"
"About any man," cried Miss Margaret. "My darling, gentlemen will be gentlemen, even when they are your father. They think those sort of pleasantries just innocent, but they are not pretty for a girl; you must remember that. Jean and I have never let you hear anything of the kind. A girl, above all things, Lilias, must be unspotted from the world."
"Unspotted from the world!" the girl repeated, with a half-startled look at her sister; and then she added, with a little emotion, "Oh, what bonnie words, Margaret!"
"Yes, they are bonnie words; and they are better than bonnie, for you know where they come from. Look at Jean, if you want to know the meaning of them. You are just our child—we would like you to be like that. Papa says nothing that is not worth your attention, but he likes his joke, and when all's said he's a gentleman, Lilias, not like you and me."
Lilias gave her sister a kiss, throwing her arms round her neck. Margaret would say, "Hoot!" or "Toot!" when thus embraced, but yet she liked it. "I understand," the girl said. But when she was by herself she laughed a little at her old sister's delicacy. She did not think there was any particular harm in the general's joke. It seemed to her in her childish self-sufficiency that she understood papa (who certainly was a man, there could be no doubt of it) better than Margaret and Jean did. She was not herself a bit shocked. She thought, on the whole, she would like to have the Glasgow man up to be looked at; it would be fun. And then the girl asked herself, with a blush, whether fun of this sort was incompatible with keeping yourself "unspotted from the world." She repeated these words over and over to herself for some time after. Yes, Margaret was right; when you looked at Jean, you could understand what that meant. Margaret herself was of much more consequence than Jean, but she was not so unspotted from the world. Lilias had in her mind a sense of the pure and perfect thing which it was her sister's ideal she herself should be, mingled oddly with a little soft derision of those sisters of which she was ashamed. They were old maids. She felt as if there might be a larger life which would not be afraid of any touch from without, and yet would be stainless: and then she grew red with indignation at herself for presuming to smile at Margaret and Jean. A lily, like her name, all sweetness and fragrance and purity, holding itself high, aloof from every soil—she understood that: that was what they wanted her to be. Her heart swelled with a touching humility, yet visionary emotion, desiring to attain, yet wondering how she could be supposed capable of so sweet a perfection; and then she laughed a little gentle laugh, which, it is to be feared, was at some little peculiarities of theirs. Was it quite impossible that the fun should be had in addition? She did justice to the ideal, but——
The general thought his lily perfect, whatever she pleased to do, and the girl knew this very well, and had a little disdain for his judgment, though she adored himself. She had thus grown already into an independent creature, with a judgment of her own, bringing them all secretly to the bar, and forming her opinion in a way which bewildered these elder people who had brought her up. She was not an echo of any one of them, as at her age she might have been expected to be. She was all herself, and took nothing now for granted. To be sure, it was chiefly Margaret who noticed this. The general was not given to analysis of character, and thought his child the perfection of everything a girl ought to be, and Miss Jean was much of the same frame of mind, though a breath of anxiety would ruffle her soul from time to time. The household on the whole was unanimous enough in the worship of Lilias. As for their father, he was something of a trouble to the ladies. The sense that he was a gentleman, a being she understood but imperfectly, gave Miss Jean a certain embarrassment in his presence. She played all her music to him with a wondering doubt, which she never solved, as to whether he liked it, or if it was a bore to him, and felt that papa was far younger than herself, and that there was no telling with so handsome a man what was the next step he might take. Margaret felt him with still more force to be her junior, and kept his house much as she might have done for a widowed nephew—that was the kind of relationship which would have been natural between them. They sometimes speculated between themselves whether there was any chance that he might marry again. He was only sixty, very young-looking, in reality very young; as active as he had ever been, a man who could ride all day, and, if need were, dance all night as if he had been twenty. "I never see the like of him wherever I go," Miss Margaret said. But then he had nothing to settle, he was himself but a life-renter in Murkley, and the fortune that had always been expected from old Sir Patrick had gone to the dogs—or, at least, to a stranger.
The subject of these questions solved them all very summarily one winter evening by dying. He had not been ill. He had a slight cold—that, and nothing more. He had taken a hot drink to please Margaret, and had put his feet in hot water when he went to rest. But the next morning he was found dead in his bed. It was a very great shock to his children; but perhaps, when the shock was over, Margaret and Jean felt, though they would have thought it dreadful to say so, that an embarrassing charge was removed from them, and that perhaps it was for the best. For Lilias, who was the chief object of their thoughts, it was scarcely to be doubted that it was for the best. There would be no longer any contention, any struggle in her life. Not that there had ever been a struggle. Margaret was too judicious and the general too good-natured for that; but still, an element so out of accord with all the principles of her education as her father, with his free and easy ways, his experiences of the camp and the world, was perhaps—better away. Margaret put it in the right way, in the only permissible way, when she said, "Providence is inscrutable. A young man, comparatively speaking, and younger in his ways than any of us. And oh, so like to live! Nobody would have thought but that he would see us all out. It is a terrible loss to us, especially to Lilias. She was bound up in him, poor thing—perhaps more bound up in him than was good for her—and a gentleman is always an interruption to education. Poor thing! we must just put her back to her work as soon as she is able. It will be the best thing to take off her thoughts."
As for Lilias, she did not want anything to take off her thoughts. For three months nearly she cultivated everything that could make her think of him, and keep up the sombre current. She retired to her own room, and would stay there for hours, weeping, and keeping herself in the atmosphere of affliction. At the end of that time the monotony of sorrow began to press severely upon her young mind, and she was glad to take to her lessons for a change; and thus gradually it came about that she grew light-hearted again by unnoticed stages. When she thought of dear papa now, it was sometimes with a little guilty sense that she had forgotten him, partly with a half-fictitious representation to herself that it was "far better" for him. Perhaps, indeed, it was so: but few of us are fully able to believe that death is an advantage. And it was very hard to realize that it would be an advantage to the general. He had liked his life in Murkley so much; everything (except the want of the money) had suited him so well. He liked his newspaper, his fishing when the weather permitted, his old friends, his native place. To think of him as denuded of all these things, and living under such different conditions, was dreadfully difficult. And it seemed hard upon him to be shut out of the house of his fathers so long, and to have so short a time to enjoy it in—to be Sir George only for a year, just to be permitted to take possession, to settle down: and then in a moment to have to resign it all for a condition in which he would no longer be Sir George, or derive any gratification from the possession of Murkley. But such thoughts as these were not the sort of thoughts that she ought to entertain, Lilias knew.
And so time went on, and the summer came back again, and happiness returned to the girl's heart. The bonds of subjection to her sisters was drawn a little closer, but it was so tender a tyranny that she never resented it. It was a little hard, indeed, to be shut out from all the innocent little parties at which Katie Seton figured, who was younger than she; but then there was that reserved for her which would never be in Katie Seton's power. And when the clouds of grief had blown away from her sky, and she began to realize herself as the lady of Murkley, it cannot be denied that there was many a flutter in the heart of Lilias. Had Murkley been the great estate it ought to have been, and had she been a rich heiress, she probably would not have been half so much in love with her own position. There was a romance in it that charmed the imagination. An heiress of poverty, with her little old house, which was half as old as the Murrays—and what a thing that was to say!—her tiny little estate, which, though there was so little of it, was the original estate, land that had been in the hands of the Murrays since the Jameses reigned in Scotland; her great name and her small possessions delighted the girl. It did not occur to her to think that Margaret and Jean came before herself in the honours of the family. They were no competitors of hers—they were aunts rather than sisters—they were their mother's children, the Miss Murrays of Gowanbrae, in Dumfriesshire; whereas she was Lilias Murray of Murkley. It was a curious position. She was like a young princess whose youth had been confided to the care of two old ladies of honour closely connected with the royal house, yet not altogether belonging to it. Naturally Miss Margaret at forty looked an old lady to the little princess of seventeen. They had done their best all their lives to impress upon her the greatness of her position, and she took it in most innocently, most sincerely. It is so natural for a young creature to feel herself the central point, the most interesting figure, especially when this has been impressed upon her all her life. She recognized it fully, yet with a naturalness and sweet submission to the powers, which were over her, yet all subservient to her interests, which took every undesirable element out of this faith. It gave Lilias unbounded material for dreams, and it gave her a youthful visionary dignity, which, perhaps, had it been analyzed, would have been found to be a little absurd by close critics, but which was very pretty in the girl, who was so perfectly sincere in her fancy. She formed endless plans as to what she was to do with that romantic palace, which was hers, yet which was nobody's. Of course the first thing was to fit it up as it was meant to be fitted up, and live in it with graceful magnificence, holding a maiden court. And Lilias would dream of vast sums coming into her hands, of treasures found in some old chest or secret nook in the old house, of far-off, unknown cousins, who would send fabulous sums from afar to restore Murkley to its greatness. It is so easy to imagine benefactors of this kind—a novel-writer can invent them without giving himself or herself the least trouble, much more the imagination of a girl. Lilias was as indifferent to wealth as it was possible to be. A single gold piece all her own, to do what she pleased with, especially if she might spend it without putting down the items of her expenditure in a note-book, was wealth to the young creature: but she knew just so much as to know that it would require what she vaguely called, following the phraseology of her sister, "thousands" to complete the great house which her grandfather had left unfinished. If it ever should happen that she could do that! In the long summer evenings, especially when her sisters had gone out, and she was left alone, she would dream out whole histories of how the money might be supplied. What romances these would have made had she written them down! She would figure forth to herself a stranger arriving suddenly some evening in the gloaming—it was always in the gloaming, in the uncertainty of light which suits women—not a handsome or interesting stranger, not the tall hero, with dark eyes and curling hair, who, Lilias felt assured, was the only man she would ever "care for," but a shabby stranger, a man one would never look twice at, with all the appearance of a nobody. Margaret and Jean were never rude to any one: they would receive him very politely, and request him to come in to the fire, if it was winter—and somehow it was always winter in these imaginations. Then he would open his story to them, how he was a man who had been much indebted to "the late Murkley," or to old Sir Patrick; or who was a cousin-german of the old baronet, though perhaps the ladies had never heard of him; how he had hoped and struggled to pay his debt, but had never been able (this was to try them, and Lilias felt sure all along that she for one would know better). But Margaret and Jean would believe the story fully. They would be very sorry for him; they would try immediately to think what they could do for him. If he professed to be a relation, they would trace out his claim and satisfy themselves, and then they would put all their resources at his disposal.
Lilias delighted in making up the dialogues which would be appropriate to the occasion. She would picture to herself how Jean would clasp her hands and cry, "Bless me!" as the stranger piled up his agony; and how Margaret would say,
"Of course you will stay here till you hear of something better. We are not rich, unfortunately because of divisions in the family, which you shall hear about further on, but for the moment that's neither here nor there. And we have little influence; for we have lived out of the world, having our young sister to bring up, and being fond of the country; but what can be done, we will do."
Lilias pictured herself as sitting silent, seeing the dessous des cartes, and convinced in her own mind that all the time this shabby old fellow was a millionnaire, like so many people who have figured in old plays and novels, and, after a few scenes of this description, there would come a crisis, and he would throw off his disguise, and produce a pocket-book with "thousands" in it, and tell them that for all his life it had been his ambition to see New Murkley finished, and the family raised to its old grandeur. "I have neither kith nor kin but yourselves," the old gentleman always said, "and all I have shall be yours; only be as kind to me now I am rich as you were when I was poor."
It was not quite so easy to manage this scene as the first one; for Lilias could not quite assure herself that Margaret's displeasure at being taken-in might not overbalance the satisfaction of receiving so unexpected an advantage. But it ended by her own intervention and a vague tableau of happiness and union. How often she went over this story! She became, in imagination, much attached to this old cousin. She seemed to know him better than any one about her. She would even make investigations into his life abroad, and get him to tell her stories of the things that had happened to him. Sometimes he would have lost his wife and an only child; sometimes he would be an old bachelor, always faithful to the memory of some grand-aunt whose portrait was in the library. It was a lady of the time of Queen Anne whom Lilias had hit upon as the beloved of this old gentleman, but what did a century or so matter! She never found the mistake out.
This was her favourite way of finishing New Murkley, and restoring the family. But now and then, it cannot be denied, that there would gleam across her mind a recollection of her father's suggestion. A Glasgow man! In novels it was generally a Manchester man who took this part. Lilias supposed they were about the same, but her mind did not play with this idea. It flashed across her, and made her blush or made her indignant. It did not attract her as the old relation did. There is something in heiress-ship which changes a girl's feeling in this respect; the idea of getting everything from a lover, from a husband, was not pleasant to her. If she ever married, and this idea was not one that the girl did more than contemplate furtively for a moment, it would be without any thought of advantage. But the old cousin was a delightful romance. And there were other expedients besides this which now and then came in to vary the matter when she was tired of elaborating her first fancy; people whose fortunes had been founded on some help given by a Murray would step in; or even there might be boxes of treasure found in the old cellars, or buried in the ghost's walk. Who can ever tell what may happen? At seventeen everything is possible.
CHAPTER XVII.
Her sisters were as great visionaries in the concerns of Lilias as she was herself, but in a different way. They had no hope of any old cousin coming in from Australia or India with a pocket-book in which there should be "thousands." Margaret and Jean knew all the possible cousins of the family, and were aware that there was no one who could be expected to appear in this accidental way. But for all that they too had their dreams. So far as themselves were concerned, they had for a long time given up that exercise. It is doubtful, indeed, whether Margaret ever had indulged in it, and Jean's visions had come to an end very sadly, as has been said. But the new castle of Murkley had taken hold of their imaginations as of their little sister's. It was their grandfather's folly which they had condemned all this time, but they were but women when all is said, and the sight of it had an effect upon their fancy which contradicted reason. Nothing could be more absurd, or even wicked, than to weight an old Scotch, almost Highland, estate in that ridiculous way, even if the money of the family had not been separated from it, which was the climax of all. But at the same time, if that grand house, that palace, could ever have been inhabited, what glory to the race, what illustration to the name of Murray! Margaret, to whom her young sister was as the apple of her eye, beheld in imagination Lilias the queen of that noble and beautiful place, sweeping through the fine suites of rooms, entertaining all the great people. To see anything so young, and slight, and ethereal the mistress of all this would be so pretty, so touching, would appeal to all hearts. Margaret was as fond of picturing this to herself as Lilias was of the aged cousin from Australia. Her fancy was captivated by it: but how to make it possible? There was not money enough in the family to furnish those fine rooms, and, if they were furnished, how were they to be lived in? She counted over on her fingers the number of servants it would require to keep them in order. As high as a groom of the chambers, and as low as the scullery maids, Margaret went. She smiled at herself, you may be sure, a hundred times when she caught herself at it. But, notwithstanding, the very next morning when she was outwardly occupied with her housekeeping, and her mind, therefore, it might be supposed, too busy to heed what her fancy was doing, lo! she would be at it again. A groom of the chambers would be necessary; there would be footmen, so many; and, as for housemaids, a regiment would be necessary, for Lilias no doubt would insist upon filling the rooms with nick-nacks which take so long to dust. Margaret pretended to care nothing for nick-nacks herself, but she furnished those great noble rooms in her imagination with everything that befitted them, and never counted the cost. When you have nothing at all to do this with, it is easier than when you have almost enough to do it. In one case the imagination may have its swing, in the other it must be sternly repressed. She saw in her mind's eye the great façade of that palace, no longer windowless, staring blankly into the daylight and night, but lighted up in every chamber, shining through the woods, and the rooms all full of fine company, and little Lilias the mistress of all. That last particular was a constant delight. She laughed to herself at the thought with the tender ridicule of a great longing. That little thing! It was just nonsense, but how sweet to think of!—and things as unlikely have happened, she said to herself. There was one way still in which miracles happened every day. It was the way which she had forbidden her little sister to look, which she had been so displeased and provoked with her father for suggesting. Certainly Lilias must never be allowed to think of it; Lilias must be kept unspotted from the world. But Lilias' seniors, Lilias' guardians, there were things which might be permitted to them.
Is it necessary to say that what Miss Margaret thought of was a great marriage? Such a thing is always possible at eighteen. Not a Glasgow man, according to her father's profane suggestion. It was a proof the General had never thought of it seriously, or he never would have said that. Glasgow men at the most were last resources, things upon which a woman who had outstayed her time might fall back. But a young girl in the bloom and glory of her youth, of an old family, with a little historical estate, General Sir George Murray's daughter—to be sure, nobody could be in earnest who put her within the reach of a Glasgow man. Margaret imagined the lover for her with a much more clear perception of what was needful than Lilias possessed. Lilias had never gone further than to imagine a handsome giant, six-foot-two at least, with wonderful dark eyes and crisp hair. But Margaret was far more circumstantial. She planned a paladin. She gave him every charm that the most fastidious could demand. It seemed to her better that he should not have a peerage; for then the race of Murray would be engulfed, and heard no more of. A commoner would do better, but then a commoner of pretensions, such as would make half the peerage look pale. She laid on fine qualities with a liberal hand; for it cost her nothing. While she was about it, she might as well make her young lover perfect. She even, though with a slight contempt of the addition, made him an amateur of music to please Jean. Why should any gift be left out? And he should come all unawares, and find Lilias blooming like a flower, and woo her—as heroes woo their heroines no longer—with a humility and faithful service and reverential devotion such as belonged to the chivalrous age; and, after having pined a little, and despaired, and considered himself all unworthy, would be raised into paradise again, and receive her hand, and, in giving his, give with it wealth enough to do everything that was wanted. It would be well that he should be a man without a great family castle of his own, otherwise perhaps he would not take to Murkley, and spend so much upon it. In her leisure moments, as she moved about the house, Margaret would employ herself in elaborating this young man, in adding to him yet another and another perfection. She would sit, while Lilias read her histories, listening to the calm young voice stumbling a little over the dates, and afraid of a reprimand, and never hear the blunder because of some new attraction she was conferring upon the lover of Lilias, the hero who was coming. Now and then, when thus employed in the girl's presence, Margaret would come to herself with a sense of the humour of the situation, and laugh out suddenly without any reason.
"What are you laughing at, Margaret?" Jean would ask.
And her sister would reply.
"At Pussy there, with all your fine silks. It will be the cat that will finish your tablecover;" which sent both her companions off in dismay to collect the skeins of silk, and left her free to pursue her occupation, though not without a slight sense of treachery in carrying on a manufacture so important to Lilias in her presence without a word of warning. Thus if the girl had her dreams, the elder sister was not far behind; and Margaret had no less warmth of imagination at forty than Lilias had at seventeen. They were both possessed by one master thought, though in a different way. Margaret all the time would scoff at New Murkley, and call it a great ruckle of stones, and wonder what Sir Patrick could be thinking when he planned it.
"He never could have lived in it," she would say. "Twenty servants would never be known in it: and to keep up a place like that on a limited income would just be purgatory, or worse."
"I wish we were rich," Lilias would say. "I would soon show you if it was a ruckle of stones. It is a beautiful palace! If there was glass in all the windows, and satin curtains, and grand carved chairs, and a grand gentleman, quite different from Simon, to open the door——"
"And a pumpkin coach, and a cat for the coachman, and two fine mice with good long tails for the footmen behind the carriage, to carry Cinderella off to the ball," Margaret would say, grimly.
Upon which Jean would step in and interpose.
"Dear Margaret, you must not abash her in her bit little fancies! Dear me, why should she not live to make something of it? It would make a grand hospital. To give our fine air, and quiet, and healing to poor sick folk would be a fine thing to do: and you would get a blessing with the rest."
"A hospital!" cried Lilias, in dismay; and then a flush of shame flew over her to think she had never thought of that. She flung her arms about her sister and gave her a kiss. "It is you that think of the best things," she said, and remembered what Margaret had said about the one who was unspotted from the world.
This Jean took very sedately, not seeing anything wonderful in it, and would then enter into details which chilled both the elder and the younger dreamer. Nevertheless, when Lilias was at church, or when she was pensive, or when she grew tired of inventing the old Australian cousin, and wanted something more definite, she turned back to this idea of the hospital with a slightly subdued sense of power. If that old man should never turn up—if nothing should happen—if she should be intended by Providence to live like Margaret and Jean all her life, which was perhaps a somewhat depressing idea, notwithstanding her love and admiration for her sisters—why, then there was this idea to fall back upon. She would make it a hospital. She would become a benefactor of her kind; she would devote herself to it like a sister of charity. There were moods and moments when this was a thing which pleased the imagination of the dreaming girl. But Margaret rejected the hospital with disdain and almost anger. She took Jean to task for the suggestion when they were alone.
"Can you not see," she said, "that to put Quixotic fancies into a young head is just criminal? They come quick enough of themselves. Next to having everything your heart can desire, what's so enticing as to give up everything at her age? You have never grown any older or any wiser yourself, my dear. I know that well enough, and I like you, perhaps, all the better. But Lilias is not like us. She is Murray of Murkley. If it had been me at her age, my word but I would have made you all stand about! But it's better as it is. She will marry, which most likely I never would have done, for I'm perhaps too much of a man myself to be troubled with gentlemen. She'll marry and raise up the old house."
To this Jean consented plaintively, yet with a little excitement.
"But who will she marry?" Jean asked; "and, if she were married to-morrow, where are they to get the money to restore New Murkley? He would be for selling it, far more likely."
Margaret had often been made to perceive before this that Jean, though she was not clever, by dint of approaching a new subject simply from a natural point of view, often threw unexpected light upon it. This was the case now. A burst or flood of illumination of the most disagreeable kind suddenly burst upon her with these words.
"Sell it!" she cried, with a kind of horror—"bless me! I never thought of that."
"Or suppose it was some person from England, that would think nothing of spending thousands——"
This was how Miss Jean always spoilt a point when she had made one. Her sister laughed.
"No person from England would spend thousands on what was not his own. As for letting it, that's out of the question in its present state. But there's truth in what you say. A man might want to sell it rather than be at the expense of finishing it. I'm glad you've put me upon my guard, for that must not be. You see," said Margaret, feeling a relief in explaining herself now that the question was broached, "as Lilias is sure to marry, my mind has been greatly exercised upon the subject. She must not marry just the first comer."
"If the first comer was the man that took her heart, poor thing—" said Jean. Her face, always so soft, grew softer at the touch of this sympathetic emotion. Lilias, who had been a child hitherto, suddenly appeared to her in a new light. It had been her own experience that the first comer was the hero.
"We must take care of her heart," said Margaret, curtly. "I will have her betrayed into no sentiment. He must satisfy me before I will let her so much as think of him. No, I'm not a mercenary person; for myself or you I would never have thought twice. Had I been a marrying woman myself, I would just have followed the drum as soon as anything else, and kept my man on his pay."
Jean did not say anything, but there came a little moisture into the corners of her eyes, and her hands clasped each other with that clasp which is eloquent, which tells of renunciation, yet of the sense of what might have been. And a sudden remorse overwhelmed her sister.
"I am just like a brute beast," she cried, "with no feeling in me. But Lilias, you will see, my dear, is different. The family depends upon her. She must marry, not for money—the Lord forbid!—but he must have plenty. I will insist upon that. I would not give her to a man that was nobody, or that was vulgar or beneath her, or that was old, or with any imperfection, not for all the gold that ever came out of the bowels of the earth. He must be a fine fellow in himself, or he shall not have Lilias; but he must have a good fortune too."
Jean looked at her sister with a little shake of her head.
"It would be far better," she said; "but you never can be certain of anything. She will make her own choice, Margaret, without thinking of either you or me."
"She cannot make her choice till she sees somebody to choose from," said Margaret, "and that will be my business. She shall see nobody that would not answer. I take that in hand."
Jean still shook her gentle head. She remembered very well where she had first seen her lieutenant—on St. Mary's Loch with a party of strangers. It was as unexpected as if he had dropped from the skies. In this respect she had an experience of which Margaret was destitute.
"How can you guard against accident?" she said. "She might see somebody—out of the window. You never can tell how these things may happen."
"There is no such thing as accident," said Margaret, with equal assurance and rashness. Was there ever a more foolhardy speech? "For those that keep their eyes about them as I will do, the things that can happen are always foreseen. Whom could she see out of the window? A tourist! Do you think our Lilias is likely to lose her heart to a tourist? No, no, there will be no risks run. I know all that is at stake. She shall see nobody that would not do."
Jean shook her head still: but she said, with humility: "You are far wiser than I am, and have more sense, and understand the world——"
"But you think you know better than I do all the same? That's very natural. In ordinary cases you would be right, and, if anybody said to me what I'm saying to you, I would think as you do. I would think there's a bragging idiot that knows nothing about human nature. But then I know what I'm capable of myself. Oh! you may shake your head, but there are not many that can watch over their children as I will watch over Lilias. Mothers have divided interests; they have their husbands to consider, and other bairns to distract them. You, my bonnie Jean, you had nobody at all to look after you, for I was not old enough."
"I am glad I had nobody to look after me, Margaret."
"I know that. You are glad of your heart-break, you innocent creature. We'll say nothing about that. But you would not like Lilias to have the same? Well, I will not brag—but if care and watching can find the right man, and bring him forward and no other——You don't know, Jean," said Margaret, abruptly, with a little broken laugh, which was her symbol of emotion, "what that bit creature is to me. She is just the apple of my eye."
"And to me too," Jean said: but so low that perhaps her sister, being moved beyond her wont, did not hear. For Miss Jean had the tenderest delicacy of soul, and would not put forth any claim that might have seemed to detract from the preeminence of Margaret's. Margaret had done far more for Lilias than she herself would do. Margaret had been the referee in everything. She had settled every particular of the girl's life. In the time of governesses she had managed them, and made everything go smoothly. She had watched over her health, she had managed her property, even, in the time of the General, taking all trouble out of his hands, as if she had been the factor instead of a daughter of the house. And now she was reading history with Lilias, and making an accomplished woman of the little girl. What were Jean's pettings and soothings, her little bit of music, her tenderness that never failed, in comparison with this? She drew back into the shadow, and respected her sister's warmer passion of motherhood. And she prayed that Margaret's cares might be successful, that no misfortune might befall her, that she might have the desire of her heart. Oh, how few people have that! but you are encouraged, Miss Jean thought to herself, to pray for it, because in the psalmist's days he did; not only what is good for you, and what is for God's glory,—such as no doubt is the first object of prayer,—but for your heart's desire. There are people who think that your heart's desire must naturally be bad for you. But Miss Jean was not one of those, neither was King David. She prayed that Margaret might have her wish. It is to be doubted whether Margaret herself had courage to do this, for she felt her own wish to be somewhat worldly. To ask from heaven a man with plenty of money to marry Lilias might have been a very honest proceeding, but not a very spiritual one. To be sure a parent or guardian is very well entitled to desire such a blessing: but to ask for it direct from God would have been a bold step. To the profane it would, no doubt, have appeared a somewhat grotesque devotion. She did not venture to do it; but Jean, who entered into no such niceties, asked with a devout simplicity that Margaret might have the desire of her heart.
Margaret, meanwhile, cast her eyes about her. Nobody in the neighbourhood was at all admissible. They were indeed dangers in her way, and nothing else. The idea of Philip Stormont made her blood run cold. A long-legged lad, with his mother's jointure to pay, and next to nothing besides. That he should be brought within sight of Lilias, or any like him, was mortal peril: and she knew that Philip was just the kind of well-looking hound (as she said) who might take a young girl's fancy. It was this, as much as concern for her complexion, which made her impose upon Lilias that blue veil: and it was this which made her so sternly determined never to take her little sister to any of the parties at the manse, where such dangers were likely to abound.
She avoided skilfully any explanation on this subject, but the natural objections of Lilias to being left behind were not to be got rid of without an equivalent. It was in this difficulty that Margaret had propounded the scheme which had been developing in her mind, and placed before the dazzled eyes of Lilias the glorious prospect which has been already referred to. That she should be taken to London, presented at court, and see society at its fountain-head, had been a prospect which took away the girl's breath, and made Jean's blood run cold. Such a privilege had not been possessed by either of the elder sisters. But then neither of them had been the reigning Murray of Murkley, the heiress and representative of the family. The little complaints to which the young creature had been tempted to give vent were all silenced by this expedient; how could she complain when this was the cause of her seclusion, when she was debarred from the little country amusements only that she should have those great and noble ones, and enter the world like a heroine, like a great lady? Lilias had been filled with awe at the prospect, as well as with delight and pride. She had not said a word more about Katie Seton and the little festivities at the manse. But Jean had ventured upon a faltering and awe-stricken remonstrance. London! And the expense of it! How was it to be done?
"You may leave that to me," Margaret said.
"Oh, Margaret," cried Jean, "it's not that I would interfere. You know I would never interfere; but where will you get the money? And do you think it will not be putting fancies in Lilias' head? It's like that dream of living in New Murkley. She will never be able to do it. Even if she had gotten my grandfather's money——"
"She has not gotten my grandfather's money," said Margaret. "You may leave the question of money to me."
"And so I will, and so I will," said Jean. "But oh, do you not think that all that grandeur, and fashion, and luxury which we cannot keep up will be bad for her. It will be just a glimpse, and then all done."
"Unless there should come something of it; and then it need not be all done," Margaret said, oracularly.
"What could come of it?" cried Miss Jean, opening wide her gentle eyes.
But Miss Margaret, bidding her ask no questions, if she did not understand, left her in her wondering. What could come of it? Margaret could not be thinking of a place at court for Lilias, as she was only a girl, poor thing; and even places at court are not things to make anybody's fortune. What could Margaret mean? But Jean had not the smallest inkling of what her sister's intentions could be.
As for Margaret, as soon as she had fully formed this determination in her own mind, her thoughts took a new impulse. She had thought over the question a great deal, but the new plan was struck out in a moment as by an inspiration. Her first idea had been Edinburgh, the metropolis of her youth, and the assemblies there which had been all the gaiety she had ever herself known. But Margaret had heard that Edinburgh was not all it once was, and the assemblies no longer the dazzling scenes they had been in her day. Besides, she reflected that there her choice would be very limited. She did not want a young advocate or legal functionary for Lilias. Many unexceptionable young men there were in these categories with good names and good blood. But this did not content her ambition. She wanted something greater, something more than an eligible parti or a good match. Such words were vulgar in comparison with the high ideal in her mind. She wanted the highest and best of all things for Lilias—a perfect lover, a husband worthy to be the prop and support and restorer of the house of Murray. She knew very well that she would not be easily satisfied. Wealth would not be enough, nor good looks, nor a good name. She wanted all together, and she wanted something more. A fool, if he were a prince, would not have done for her, nor a man of genius unless he had been a true lover, putting Lilias above all women.
It may be imagined that the quest on which she was setting out was not an easy one. She followed it in her thoughts through many an imaginary scene. Miss Margaret was a very sensible woman; there was nobody better able to guide the affairs of her family. She was not easily taken-in nor given to deceiving herself; yet, when in her imagination she went into the world of London and society there, no dream was ever more wildly unlike reality than were her thoughts. She evolved these scenes from her own consciousness, and moved about among them with a progress as purely visionary as that of Una or of Britomart. Like the one, she was in search of a true knight; like the other, ready to face all enchanters and overcome all perils; but the world into which she was about to launch was as little like the world of her fancy as was the court of Gloriana or the woods of Broceliande.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The only thing which had shaken Lilias in the virginal calm of her thoughts was the example of little Katie Seton, a younger girl than herself, and whose system of education had been so different. While Lilias had been kept under the wing of her sisters, apart from any encounter, Katie had been introduced to everything their little world contained of wild sensation and adventure. She had entered upon the agitations of love-making almost as soon as she was in her teens, and her sixteenth birthday was scarcely past when she appeared one afternoon, as Lilias put away her books, evidently in all the excitement of some great news to communicate, which Miss Margaret's presence kept in, though Katie was bursting with it. Miss Margaret, as was natural, stayed in the school-room, which was still the special haunt of Lilias, much longer than was usual. It was a rainy day, and no walk was possible. Is it from perversity and desire to interfere with the pleasures of the young—pleasures now out of their own reach—that the elder people will linger and keep girls and boys on the rack when they have things to say to each other not intended for elder ears? Katie thought so as she sat biting her lips, hardly able to keep still, brimming over with her news; and Lilias, who divined that there was something unusual, almost was tempted to think so too, as Miss Margaret considered over the book-shelves, looking for she did not know what, and opened all the drawers to find an old exercise-book which was of no interest at the moment.
"Oh! if you will just leave it to me, I will find it, Margaret," Lilias cried.
"You would find it the easier for knowing what it is," said Margaret, grimly, "which is almost more than I do myself. I will know it by head-mark when I see it."
"Let me turn out the drawer," cried Katie, officiously.
Miss Margaret looked at the girl with humorous perversity.
"What nonsense are you plotting between you?" she said. "Katie, your eyes are just leaping out of your head, and you have not been still a moment since you came into this room, every flounce in motion——"
"Could anybody help it?" cried Katie. "Such a day!—and me just wanting Lilias to come out and see the garden. The lilacs are all out, and everything so sweet: and now this pouring rain will spoil them all. I am just like to cry," said Katie, the corners of her mouth drooping. But Miss Margaret knew very well it was not for the lilacs or the rain, but for excitement and impatience, that Katie was like to cry.
"Well, well," she said, "I suppose you must have your bits of secrets at your age; there will be no great harm in them. I will find my book another time. But mind you don't stay too long in this room, which is cold when there is no sun, but come into the drawing-room to your tea. You will find me there, and Jean—and sense," said Miss Margaret, with her back turned to them, calmly selecting a book from the shelves—"if you should happen to stand in any need of that last——"
"Oh, no, no!" cried Katie, when at last Miss Margaret went away, running to shut the door after her, and make sure at least of being alone with her friend, "we stand in no need of that. Oh, Lilias!" she said, rushing up to her companion and flinging her arms round her with such vehemence that the slight girl swayed with the sudden shock.
"What is it, Katie!" Lilias cried. "What is it? Tell me, but do not knock me down."
"Oh, it is you that are sense," cried Katie, with a sort of fury, pushing her friend into the big chair, and falling down herself at the side of it, with her arms on Lilias' knee. There was a degree of violence in these preliminaries; for Katie, though full of a woman's secret, was still half girl, half boy in her early development, as the sister of many brothers is apt to be. Lilias, so much more delicate and dainty, took hold of the hands which had numberless scratches upon them, nails cut to the quick, and other indications of having been put to boyish uses, and held them in her own white fingers closely clasped.
"I am as anxious to hear as you are to tell," she said. "Quick, quick, tell me! What is the matter? Have they sent him away?"
"Oh, Lily! Something far more wonderful. There is no knowing what they may do. They will do something dreadful—they will do anything to part us. Oh, Lily! you'll never, never tell anybody, not even Miss Jean—not a word! I'll never, never speak to you all my life, if you tell upon me now!"
"I tell upon you! Did I ever tell upon you?" said Lilias, indignant. "That about Robbie Bairnsfather was found out. It was never me."
"I know you will not tell," said Katie. "You are just my own Lily. You will never say a word. Lilias! I'm——oh, can't you guess? We are—engaged—It is quite true. Look," the girl cried, with a glowing countenance, opening a button of her boddice and drawing forth from under it a little ring, attached to a ribbon. Her hand trembled, though it was the hand of a tom-boy. Her face shone; tears were in the eyes which were, as Miss Margaret said, "leaping out of her head."
"Engaged!" cried Lilias. "Oh, you gave me such a fright. When I saw the ring, I thought you were going to say you were—married. Let me get my breath."
"Married!" Katie said, with a certain contempt. To be married would be the prose of the transaction. She felt herself upon a higher, more ethereal altitude. "That would be nothing," she said. "There would be no secret then. Oh, Lily, isn't it wonderful? This is a ring that is his very own, that an old lady gave him when he was a boy. Look at it! It's all turquoise, and turquoise means happiness. He put it on my finger, but I dare not wear it on my finger, for mamma would be sure to notice. She notices everything. Old people," said Katie, aggrieved, "pretend to wear spectacles, and all that, as if they couldn't see: but nothing escapes them! I can't put a pin in my collar, but mamma will see it. 'Katie, Katie!' she always says; and I know in a moment what it is. Oh, but she would say, 'Katie, Katie!' twice as loud, if she saw this! So I wear it round my neck: but I may put it on here," Katie said. "Look, Lilias! Isn't it bonnie? I always wanted a ring, but I never thought I would get the engaged ring the very first of all."
There was a little triumph in Katie's tone. Not only was Lilias far, very far, from being the proud possessor of an "engaged" ring, but she had scarcely been allowed "to speak to a gentleman"—a thing Mrs. Seton thought the worst policy—in all her life.
"But never mind the ring. Tell me about—what happened," said Lilias. "You have not even told me who it is."
"Oh!" cried Katie, red with indignation, "who could it be but him? I am sure I have never said a word, or even thought of anybody but him for—for ages," she added, with a little vagueness, sinking from the assumed superiority of her former tone.
"Well, dear," said Lilias, soothingly, "but then, you know, there was Mr. Dunlop."
"I never cared a bit about him. He was only just in the way. You have to let a gentleman speak to you when he is in your way."
"I suppose so," said Lilias, with a faint sigh. Such an experience had never happened to herself. "But how was I to know? And it is not very long since—but it is Philip? Oh, yes, I supposed so all along, especially as it is such a secret. If it had been Mr. Dunlop it would have been no secret—or Robbie—or—"
"I wish you would not speak such nonsense. I never, never thought—it was only just for fun. I never in all my life cared for anybody but him! Oh, never; you may say what you please, but it's only me that can know."
"That is true," said Lilias, with gentle conviction. "But tell me how it happened, and when—and what he said, and what you said. It will be like a story, but only far, far more interesting," Lilias said.
"It was not like a story at all," said Katie, with some indignation. "Am I that kind of person? We just happened to meet down by the waterside. Oh yes, I am fond of walking there; and the boys were after a water-rat, as they always are, and the little girls were somewhere—I am sure I never can tell where they go. Mamma scolds me when they tear their frocks, but is it likely I can run into all their hiding holes with them at my age?"
"And then?" said Lilias, conducting her penitent skilfully over this obstacle.
"And then—oh, well, nothing particular. He happens often to be that way himself. It is the prettiest walk. I was rather glad to see him coming; for, you know, neither the boys nor the girls are just companions for me. And then I asked him when he was going away, and he said would I be sorry? and I said, oh yes, I would be sorry; for he was always somebody to speak to. And he said, was that all? And I said, oh, you know that we danced the same step, and that was always nice. And then he said—oh, just nonsense; that I was always nice, or something like that; and then he said he would never go away, if he could help it. And I said, what was he going for, then? And he said, because he was too fond of somebody that never thought upon him. Of course I knew well enough what he meant, but I pretended to be very sorry, and said, who could that be?"
Katie made a very pretty picture as she told her story. She was leaning her elbows on Lilias' lap, and playing with the long chain which Lilias, after the fashion of the time, wore to her watch, and which was the object of Katie's warmest admiration. She was twisting this in her fingers, tying knots in it, occupying her eyes with it, and escaping her friend's gaze, though she sometimes paused for a moment and gave a glance upward. Her little blooming face was in a glow of colour and excitement, ready to laugh, ready to cry. As for Lilias, she was full of attention, bending forward, her face following every variation of her friend's.
"But," Lilias said, "I thought it was not he that wanted to go away, but Mrs. Stormont that was sending him."
"Oh," cried Katie, "I wish you would not insist upon everything like a printed book. I am telling you what he said—I was never saying it was all true. They never tell exactly the truth," Katie interrupted herself to say, with conviction. "There is always a little more—or just a little twist to make you believe——But you can understand that, if you have any sense. I said—who could that be? and he said, 'Oh, Katie!' just like mamma."
"And then?" cried Lilias, breathless.
"Oh, there was nothing particular then," said Katie, all one blush, "but just nonsense, you know; and fancy, he had been carrying this about all the time, always wanting to give it to me! He just put it on, and then we were engaged," Katie said.
"Oh, Katie, what a terrible thing to happen! And then did you just go home as usual, and never say a word?"
"What could I say? I would not tell mamma for all the world. She would want to make a business of it, and tell Mrs. Stormont, and get it all settled. She would want us to be married; but I don't want to be married—I want to have my fun."
"Oh, Katie!"
"Everybody says 'Oh, Katie!'" said the girl, plaintively; "but that does not make any difference. It is not dreadful at all—it is very nice. I belong to him, and he belongs to me; he tells me everything, and I tell him everything. But we don't want to make a fuss; we are quite happy as we are. Mrs. Stormont would just go daft, you know. She knows quite well that is what it is coming to—oh, I can see it in her eyes! I think she would like to send me to prison, if she could, to get me out of Philip's way."
"But, Katie, if you think that——"
"Oh, it does not make any difference to me; perhaps I would do the same myself. There's our Robbie, if he wanted to be married, I would think he was mad, and mamma would be—I don't know what mamma wouldn't do. I suppose it's natural. Everybody wants their own people to do well for themselves, and I have no money, not a penny. Mrs. Stormont would have been quite pleased, Lilias, if it had been you."
"Me!" said Lilias, with a blush, but a slight erection of her head; she laughed to carry off the slight shock of offence. "But that would not have done at all," she said.
"Oh, no, it is just the same thing; you are too good, and I'm not good enough. If it had been you, Miss Margaret would have tried to have him sent to prison; and perhaps, when there is somebody found grand enough for you, Lilias, his folk will not be pleased. That is always the way," said the shrewd Katie, shaking her head; "but it happens, all the same. Isn't it bonnie?" she added, returning to the former subject, and holding up her hand with the ring on it. "Turquoise is the right thing for an engaged ring; but, when your one comes, never let him give you an opal, Lilias—that is such bad luck."
"Oh! if anyone were to come—as you say: I should think of something else than rings," Lilias said, and blushed at the thought. It seemed to her a little breach of modesty even to speak of any such incident. When, in the fulness of time, it came, with a strange and wonderful event! but not to be profaned by anticipation. Her heart gave a throb, then left the subject in silence. "But it will have to be known some time," she said.
Katie shrugged her little shoulders.
"It will not be through me," she said. "They say a girl can't keep a secret, but just you try me. He can do what he likes, but I will never tell—never, not if I were to be put on the rack."
"But, Katie, do you think it is right? To live at home and see your father and mother every day, and not tell them—you could not do it!"
"Just you try me," said Katie. "Do you think in the persecuting days I would have told where they were hidden—or Prince Charlie?" cried the girl, with pardonable confusion. "Never!—I would never have minded either the thumbscrew or the boot."
"But I don't think this is the same," said Lilias, doubtfully. "You will be always seeing him, meeting him, and they will not know; and you will have secrets, and he will tell you things, and you will tell him things, and yet at home they will not know."
"That is just the fun of it," Katie cried.
"Oh, I cannot see any fun in that. And it will be so difficult; you will forget, you will say something when you do not intend——"
"Not me," cried Katie. "I hope I have my wits about me. I will never betray him; whoever is not true, I will always be true."
Lilias was somewhat staggered by this view of the subject, but she was not convinced. She shook her head.
"I could not do it," she said.
"Oh, you! No, you could not do it; but then you could not do any of it," cried Katie. "You have been brought up by old maids; you are never let speak to a gentleman at all; it never could happen to you," she cried, with a little triumph.
And Lilias, for her part, had to allow to herself, with a certain sense of humiliation, that Katie was right. It never would happen to her. No Orlando would ever be able to hang verses on the trees at Murkley, even no Philip meet her out walking by the river-side, and woo her in Katie's artless way. She wondered how it ever could be permitted to happen at all—or would it never happen, and she herself live and die without any other experience, like Jean and Margaret? Her heart fluttered in her maiden bosom with the strangeness of the question. She did not believe in the depths of her heart that it never could happen. In some miraculous way, as it happened to the ladies of romance, it would come to her. But it would be very different from Katie's story—everything about it would be different. The news roused her mind and affected her dreams in spite of herself. That night, in her maiden sleep, never interrupted heretofore by such visions, she dreamed that some one took her hand and put a ring upon it—a big blob of blue, far bigger than Katie's turquoise, which changed as she looked at it into the strange changing tints of an opal. She thought it very strange that she should dream of this just after Katie's disquisition on the subject. The two things did not present themselves to Lilias' mind under the semblance of cause and effect. But it vexed her that she could not in the least make out who it was that put the ring upon her hand. She was not destitute of jewellery as Katie was, though Miss Margaret discouraged ornaments; but she had neither a turquoise nor an opal in her stones.
And there were other ways in which Katie's story affected Lilias. She could not help thinking of the meetings of the lovers. She had herself gone sometimes when she was younger, with Katie to the walk by the water-side, when the boys went after water-rats or rabbits, and the little girls made "little housies" in the sand of the old quarry. In those days Lilias and Katie strolled up and down, superior to the children, talking of a hundred things. Lilias knew how it would all be. She went out herself into the Ghost's Walk, where it was always permitted her to walk when she pleased, and thought wistfully, with a little sigh, of the water-side and all its freedom, the children busy, their voices softened in the distance, and the two in the centre of the landscape, whose whispering would be—something different. What it would be, Lilias did not know. In the very secretest corner of her imagination little broken dialogues had gone on between herself and—another. But they had been too secret, too vague even to come into the legitimate and acknowledged land of visions in which the old Australian cousin had played so large a part. Katie's story dismissed that benevolent old man with his full purse from Lilias' imagination, and brought those far less perfect germs of dreaming into prominence instead.