"But, my dear Miss Lilias, why this warmth?" said the minister. "After all, if the young man wanted you to marry him, it was a compliment, it was no offence. He is a fine young fellow, when all is said; and why so hot about it? It is no offence."
"It is just a——" Here Lilias paused, receiving a warning look from Katie, who had placed herself behind backs, but how gave a little furtive pull to her friend's dress.
"Margaret is very angry," she said, with dignity, "but not so angry as I am. To be away a whole year, and then, when I am so glad to come home, to have this thrown in my face! It is not Philip's fault, it is just Mrs. Stormont, who never would let me alone—and oh! will you tell everybody? You may say out of politeness that it is a mistake, but I say it is all lies, and that is true."
"Whisht, whisht, whisht, my dear!" cried Mrs. Seton. "If you are sure you are sincere——No, no; me doubting! I would never doubt your word, if you are sure you are in earnest, Lilias. I will just tell everybody with pleasure that some mistake has happened—just some mistake. You were old friends, and never thought what meaning was in his mind; or it was his mother who put a wrong interpretation. Yes, yes; you may rely upon me, Lilias: if you are sure, my dear, if you are quite sure that you are sincere!"
Lilias went home alone, in high excitement and anger with all the world, holding her head high, and refusing to pause to speak to the eager cottagers by their doors, who had all a word to say. This mode of treatment was unknown at Murkley, and produced many shakings of the head, and fears that London had made her proud. The wives reminded each other that they had never approved of it. "Why can they no bide at hame? It was never the custom in the auld days," the women said. But Lilias made no response to their looks. She went through the village with an aspect of disdain, carrying her head high; but, before she came to the gates of the old castle, she became aware of Mrs. Stormont's pony-carriage leisurely descending towards the river. With still stronger reason she tossed her head aloft and hurried on. But she was not permitted to escape so easily. Mrs. Stormont made her preparations to alight as soon as the girl was visible, and left her no possibility of escape. She thrust her hand through the unwilling arm of Lilias with confidential tenderness.
"It was you I was looking for," she said. She had not the triumphant look which had been so offensive on her previous visit. Her brow was puckered with anxiety. "My bonnie Lily," she said, "you are angry, and I have done more harm than good. What ails you at my poor laddie, Lilias? Who have we thought upon all this time but only you? When I took all the trouble of yon ball, which was little pleasure to me at my time of life, who was it for but you? Do you think I was wanting to please the Bairnsfaithers and the Dunlops, and all the little gentry about, or even the Countess and Lady Ida? I was wanting to please you: and my Philip——"
"He was wanting to please Katie Seton," said Lilias, with an angry laugh; "and he was quite right, for they were fond, fond of each other."
"Oh, my bonnie pet, what a mistake!" cried Mrs. Stormont, growing red. "Katie Seton! I would not have listened to it for a moment! The Setons would never have been asked but just for civility. Philip to put up with all that little thing's airs, and the vulgar mother! Oh! my darling, do not you be deceived. What said he in London? Was there ever a word of Katie? You would not cast up to him a folly of his youth now that he's a man, and all his heart is set on you?"
"Even if it was so," cried Lilias, "my heart is not set on him; I do not like him—Oh! yes, I like him well enough. He is just a neighbour; but, Mrs. Stormont, nothing more."
"Lilias, Lilias, you don't know what you are doing! Oh! my dear, just think a little. He has never come home; he has taken it sore, sore to heart that you left town like that, and never let him know. How do I know what my boy is doing, left by himself, with a disappointed heart, among all yon terrible temptations? Oh, my lovely Lily, whom I have petted and thought much of all your life, one word from you would bring Philip home!"
"I cannot send him a word," cried Lilias. "Oh, how can you ask me, when, wherever I go, everybody is at me wishing me joy; and, though it is all lies, they make me think shame, and I don't know how to look them in the face; but I am not ashamed—I am just furious!" Lilias cried, with burning blushes. "And then you ask me to send him a word——"
"To bring him home! He is everything I have in the world. Oh! Lilias, you would not be the one to part a mother from her only son; you would not be so hard-hearted as that, my Lily. If he has been wanting in any way, if he has not been so bold in speaking out——"
It was all that Lilias could do to contain herself.
"Do I want him to speak out?" she cried. "I do not want Philip at all, Mrs. Stormont. Will you believe what I tell you? If you want to get him home, let him come back to Katie."
"Put Katie out of your mind," said Mrs. Stormont, sharply. "There is no question of Katie. It is just an insult to me to speak of her at all."
Upon which Lilias threw her head higher still.
"And it is just an insult to me," she cried—"oh, far, far worse! for I am little and young, and not able to say a word, and you are trying to force me into what nobody wants. And Margaret will scold me as if it were my fault."
"You are able to say plenty for yourself, it appears to me," said Mrs. Stormont; and then she changed her tone. "Oh, Lilias, I have always been fond, fond of you, my bonnie dear. I have always said you should have been my child; and now, when there's a chance that you may be mine——What ails ye at my Philip? Where will you find a finer lad? Where will ye get a better son, except just when he loses his judgment with disappointment and love? Oh, my bonnie Lily, he will come back—he will come to his duty and his mother, if you will only send him a word—just a word."
This conversation was interrupted in the strangest way by the sudden apparition of a dog-cart driven at full speed down the road, which Lilias had vaguely perceived approaching with a little flutter of her heart, not knowing at any minute who might appear out of the unseen. When it drew up suddenly at the roadside for a single moment the light wavered in her eyes. But she came to herself again at once as Philip Stormont jumped out and advanced to his mother, whose evident relief and pleasure at the sight of him touched Lilias' heart. The poor lady trembled so that she could scarcely stand. She could do nothing but gaze at her son. She forgot in a moment the half-quarrel, the pathetic plea which she was urging with Lilias. "Oh, my boy, you've come back!" she said, throwing herself upon him. Lilias was far too young to fathom what was in the mother's heart, but she was touched in spite of herself. The change in Mrs. Stormont's face, the disappearance of all the curves in her forehead, the melting of all the hard lines in her face, was like magic to the watching girl. A little awe seized her of the love that worked so profoundly, and which she had made so little account of. It was true love, though it was not the form of true love of which one thinks at eighteen. She withdrew a little from them in the first moment of their meeting with natural delicacy, but did not go away, feeling it would be somewhat cowardly to attempt to escape.
As for Philip, when he had greeted his mother, he turned from her to Lilias with a countenance by no means love-like.
"You played me a pretty trick," he said. "Lucky for me that I went to Cadogan Place first. I might have been at the station now kicking my heels."
"Not for a week, I hope."
"I might have been there all night: and thinking all the time that something must have happened. I did not take it kind," said Philip. His mother was holding his arm, and already making little demonstrations upon it to stop him in these ill-advised complaints; but Philip paid little attention. "I wonder how you would have liked it yourself to be left in the lurch without a word!"
"We were all very sorry," Lilias said, with an air of penitence, and then she added, "when we remembered," with an inclination to laugh, which was all the stronger because of the gravity of the situation a few moments past.
He was somewhat travel-worn, covered with dust, and bearing marks of the fact that he had left London the night before, and had not paused long upon the way. His looks, as he regarded Lilias, were not those of a lover, and as she said the last words he coloured high with not unpardonable resentment.
"I can well believe that you took little pains to remember me at all," he said.
"Oh! Philip, how I have wearied for you," said his mother, anxiously, making a diversion. "We were speaking of you, Lilias and I: and I was going to send a message——"
"You are always so impatient," cried Philip, "pursuing a fellow with telegrams as if he were a thief! Yes, I waited a day or two. There was something I wanted to see. You can see nothing while that confounded season is going on. But I'm tired, mother, and by your leave I'll get home at once."
"You'll excuse him, Lilias," cried Mrs. Stormont, once more with anxiety; "he'll pay his respects to you at a more fitting moment. Yes, my dear boy, certainly we will go home; you can drive me back——"
"I've got a dog-cart from Kilmorley," said Philip; "and a better beast than yours. I'll just go on in that. I'll be there half-an-hour before you."
He took off his hat carelessly to Lilias, who was looking after him almost with as much astonishment as his mother. The two ladies looked at each other as he drove away. Poor Mrs. Stormont, after her agitation and joy, had grown white and troubled. She gazed at Lilias wistfully with deprecating eyes. The situation was ruefully comic, but she did not see it. To have compromised the name of Lilias for Philip's sake—to have compromised Philip by pleading with Lilias: and then to have it proved by both before her eyes how useless were her pains—so broadly, so evidently that she could not pretend to disbelieve it, was hard. She said, quickly, as if with an attempt to convince herself, "He is wearied with his journey; he is dusty, and not fit for a lady's eye." But after that the situation was too strong for her; for a moment there was humility in her tone. "My dear, perhaps I have made a mistake; I will do what I can to put it right," she said. Then the inalienable instinct of defence awoke again. "It is just that he is turned the wrong way with all these slights and disappointments, to be taken up one moment and cast away the next. He'll have taken an ill notion against women. Men are always keen to do that. It's their justification; and there is no doubt," she continued more briskly, nerving her courage, "whatever you may say now, that he got a great deal of encouragement at one time, Lilias. And now he's just turned the wrong way," Mrs. Stormont ended with a sigh, slowly mounting into her pony-carriage. Her old servant sat there motionless as he had sat through all this conversation. "I hope you may never repent your handiwork," she said.
CHAPTER XLIII.
There is something in the unchangeableness of rural scenery, and in the unaltered method and order of a long established and carefully governed household, which gives the sensitive spirit, returning to them after great changes have passed over itself, a sort of shock as of pitiless permanence and a rigid machinery of existence which must triumph over every mere vicissitude of happiness or unhappiness.
After the little incidents of the first days, which after all had had little to do with her own personal history, the absolute unchangedness of Murkley, not a leaf different, every branch drooping in the same line, the same flowers in the garden, the same arrangement of the flower-vases to which Jean was so glad to get back (for she had never been able to arrange the London bouquets to her own satisfaction in those terrible glass things in Cadogan Place), conveyed to Lilias a sense of some occult and secret power of passive authority in existence itself, as separate from any individual will or wish, which appalled her. London and all those wonderful scenes—the lights, the talks, the dances, the intoxication of flattery and delight which had mounted to her head—were all gone like a phantasmagoria. But life, which had been waiting for her just as of old, which had been going on just as of old, while she was flitting through that dream-world, had now taken her in again steadily to its steady routine which admitted no thought of change. It appalled her for the moment; her feet came down, with a power of gravitation over which her impulses seemed to have little or no influence, into the self-same line, upon the self-same path. She tried to laugh sometimes at what everybody called the force of habit, but she was frightened by it. She had acquired a great deal of experience in those six weeks of the season; her memory was full of scenes which flashed upon the inward eye whenever she was by herself, or even when she sat silent in the old rooms where Jean and Margaret were so silent too. And when some one called her, or something from the outer world came in, Lilias felt a momentary giddiness, an inability to arrange her thoughts or to be quite sure where she was, or which was real, the actual world or that other in which the moment before she had been. Her head seemed to turn round when she was spoken to. To feel herself surrounded by a smiling crowd in rooms all splendid with decoration, flowers, and lights, and fine pictures, with music and flattering voices in the air—and then to look up and see Jean's head somewhat paler than usual against the dark wainscot, and Miss Margaret's voice saying, "If you will put on your hat, Lilias, we will go out for our walk—" Which was true? She faltered as she rose up, stumbling among the real. She was afraid of it: it seemed to her to be a sort of ghost of existence from which she could not escape.
And in other respects there was no small agitation in the inner consciousness of Lilias. She had felt that there was much in the air on that last evening which never came to anything. The atmosphere of the place, in which neither he nor she had cared to dance, had tingled with something that had never been said. All those weeks, when she had seen him so often, had produced their natural effect upon the girl. She had never deceived herself, like Margaret, as to the many houses that had suddenly been thrown open to them. Lilias had not forgotten how it had been at the Countess's reception. She remembered the immediate alteration of everything as soon as Lewis had appeared. She had not been allowed to speak to him in the Row, but immediately after all the doors had been thrown open as by magic. She knew very well that this magic was in his hand. And how was it possible for her to believe that it was merely "kindness," as she at first thought? It was kindness, but there was something more. She saw not only the tenderness, but the generosity of his treatment of her with wonder, almost with a little offence at the magnanimity which she found it so difficult to understand. Lewis had brought to her everybody that was best and most attractive. She had looked again and again into eyes, bent upon her with admiration, that might have been the eyes of the hero of her dreams. Six-foot-two of fine humanity, in the Guards, in the Diplomatic Service, or, better still, in no service at all, endowed with the finest of English names and possessing the bluest blood, had exhibited itself before her in the best light again and again. We do not pretend to assert, nor did Lilias believe, that these paladins were all ready to lay their hearts and honours at her feet; but there was one at least who had done so, without even moving her to more than a little tingle of gratified vanity and friendly regret. But from all these tall heroes she had turned to middle-sized Lewis, with his eyes and hair of no particular colour. She had always been aware when he was in the most crowded room. Everybody had talked to her about him, believing her to be his relation. They had all met him abroad; they had all some grateful recollection of his services when they were ill, or where they were strangers; they poured forth praises of him on all sides, till Lilias felt her heart run over. Above even the attractions of six-feet, had been the enthusiasm in her mind for the good and true. She did not indeed want this enthusiasm to turn her thoughts to that first friend, as she had called him in her heart, the first companion who had been of her own choice and discovery, and whose absence had made to her a wonderful blank, of which she felt the effect without fully realizing the cause. But she realized the cause very well now: and felt the day blank indeed in which he had no share.
Also she knew by instinct that something was to have been said to her on that last evening. Was it merely his disappointment at finding his favourite nook under the palms in the conservatory already occupied, which prevented it being said? or was there some other cause? When they left London so abruptly, two days before the appointed time, without seeing Lewis, Lilias had been somewhat disturbed and wistful. She had wondered at it, however, without being greatly cast down: there was no fear, she thought, but that he would soon follow. He would come after them to Murkley. What he had to say would be more fitly said under the shadow of the great house, about which he too, like herself, had dreamed dreams: he could not stay away, she felt sure. And as for Margaret's opposition, that did not appal the young heroine greatly. All it meant was that Margaret wanted a prince of the royal blood for her child, and not even he unless he were handsome and gallant, a youth to please a lady's eye. Lilias felt a little humorous sympathy with Margaret: she felt that it would be hard for herself to give up the idea of a hero. Lewis was not like a hero. He was like a thousand other people, and nobody could identify him, or say, "who is that?" as the owners of great dark eyes, and dark hair, at the top of six-feet-two of stature, are ordinarily remarked upon. Lilias laughed as this thought crossed her mind, and, with a little sympathetic feeling, was sorry for Margaret. For herself she had ceased altogether to think of the other, and she was not afraid that her sister would stand out against Lewis. There would be a struggle: but a struggle in which the happiness of a beloved child is at stake is decided before it has begun. So on the whole, after finding this phantom life more ghostly because there was no Lewis in it, she reflected that when he came it would bloom into reality; and she was satisfied to bear it for a little—until the better time should come.
But when day followed day, and the better time did not come, a curious blight, like the atmospheric greyness which agricultural people call by that name, crept slowly over her, she could scarcely tell how. The earth looked as if a perpetual east-wind were blowing, yet as if there was no air to breathe; the skies were all overcast, the trees seemed to dry up and grow grey like everything else: and a certain air of consciousness, a perception that this was so, seemed to come into the house. Lilias perceived vaguely, as she went about with a heart growing heavier and a dull wonder which went through everything, that everybody was sorry for her. Why were they sorry for her? Jean said, "My poor darling!" and petted her as if she had been ill. Old Simon even put on a look of sympathy. In Margaret's eyes, there was something the girl had never seen there before. Anger, compunction, pity—which was it? All of these feelings were in it. Sometimes she would turn away as if she could not bear the sight of Lilias, sometimes would be so tender to her that the girl could have wept for herself. Why? for Margaret had never made an exhibition of the adoration with which she regarded her little sister, and it was only at some crisis that Lilias was allowed to suspect how dear she was. They studied all her little tastes, watched her steps, devoted themselves to please her: every one of which indications showed Lilias more and more that they were aware of something of which she was not aware, some reason why she should be unhappy. And she became unhappy to fulfil the necessities of the position. There was something which was being hid from her; what was it? Was it that he was only amiable and kind after all, and had merely wished to be serviceable, without any other feeling? But, if that was so, Margaret would be glad, not sorry; and how could they know that this would make any difference to her, Lilias? But, if not that, what could it be? And every day for many days she had expected to see him, when she walked down to the water-side, or wandered about New Murkley. She had thought that she would meet him round every corner, that Adam at the 'Murkley Arms' would be seen with his cart going for "the gentleman's" luggage, and Janet hanging the curtains and selecting the finest trout. It seemed so natural that he should come back. It seemed so certain that he must somehow seek the opportunity of telling that tale that had been left untold.
And as the time passed on, day following slowly after day, and he came not, Lilias felt that some explanation was necessary. There must be an explanation. What was it? That Margaret had sent him away? Margaret's eyes looked as if she had sent him away. Was it possible that he could have taken his dismissal from any one but herself? Then it was that Lilias had hot fits and cold fits of suppressed unhappiness. Sometimes she would be angry with Margaret for rejecting, and with Lewis for allowing himself to be rejected, and then would fall into a dreamy sadness, saying to herself that it was always so, and that this was the way of the world. But of all these troubles she said not a word, being too proud to signify to any one that her heart was engrossed by one who had not given her his. There were moments indeed in which she was tempted to throw herself upon Jean's sympathetic bosom: but then she recollected that Jean's story, such as it was, had been one of mutual love, whereas hers could only be that of an unfortunate attachment, words which made Lilias flame with resentment and shame. No, she must just pine and wait until he made some sign, or shake it all indignantly off, and make up her mind to think of it no more.
This was the state of affairs one afternoon when the next event in this history occurred. They were all seated together in the drawing-room, Jean, as usual, working at her table-cover, Margaret from behind her book casting wistful looks now and then at Lilias, who for her part was seated in one of the windows, in the recess, with her head relieved against the light, doing nothing. She had a book, it is true, but was not looking at it; her mind had turned inward. She was pondering her own story, which was more interesting than any romance. Margaret gave many glances at her as she sat, with her delicate profile and her fair locks, against the afternoon light. The post was late, and Simon brought the bag into the drawing-room, moving them all to a little excitement. Margaret opened it and took out its sole contents, a large blue envelope containing a bulky enclosure.
"There is nothing for either of you," she said, "but something of the nature of business from Mr. Allenerly for me." Then the little flutter of disappointed expectation calmed down, and silence fell again over the room, broken only by the sound of the torn paper and breaking seal, as Margaret opened her parcel. It was a law-document of some sort, bulky and serious. Margaret looked at it, and gave a sharp, sudden cry, which startled the others. The crackling of the paper as she unfolded it seemed to make a noise of disproportionate importance in the stillness of the room; for a law-paper, what could that mean but mere business and money? it could affect nobody's well-being. But the paper, they saw, trembled in Margaret's hands. She could not contain herself as she turned it over. She burst forth into strange exclamations.
"It is only just: it is only right: it is no more than ought to be done: it is the right thing: no more——" But after a while, she added, as if the words were forced from her—"It is not everybody that would have done it. I will not deny him the praise."
"What is it, Margaret? What is it?" Jean said.
Margaret made no immediate reply. She turned over the pages, which were many, with hands that shook, and much crackling and rustling of the paper.
"I cannot read it," she said; "I cannot see to read it. It makes my head go round. Oh, no, it is no more than justice—it is just the right thing; no more—no more——"
"Margaret, it is something far, far out of the ordinary, or you would not cry out like that."
"Yes, it is out of the ordinary; but then the first thing, the wrong doing, was out of the ordinary. This is no more—oh, not the least more—than he ought to have done from the first."
She was so much agitated that her voice shook as well as her hands, and Jean got up, throwing aside her work, and came to her sister's side. Lilias rose too, she did not know why, and stood watching them with an interest she could not explain to herself. Matters of business were not of any interest to her generally. All the law-papers in the world, in ordinary circumstances, would not have drawn her for a moment from a book, or out of the dreamy moods which she called thinking. But she rose now, full of an indefinable anxiety. When Jean had looked anxiously over her sister's shoulder, peering at the paper with wondering eyes for a few minutes, she too cried out with a quavering voice, and threw up her hands.
"What does it mean? What does it mean, Margaret? That he wills it back to her, is that what it says?"
"More than that! There's the letter that explains. He gives it back, every penny of the money, as he received it. It is a great thing to do. I am not grudging him the praise."
"Grudging him!—it is everything he has—it is all his living. Margaret! You will not let her take it—everything he has?"
"Jean, be silent—he had no right to a shilling. It was hers by nature and every law. I will not deny that, as soon as he saw his duty, he has done it like a man."
"His duty?—but it is everything! and he was son and daughter both to the old man. It is all his living: and neither you nor me ever thought what was our duty to our father's father. Margaret! Oh! it is more than justice this—more than justice! You will not let Lilias strip him of every shilling that he has!"
This impassioned dialogue, quick and breathless, gave Lilias a kind of half-enlightenment, kindling the instinct within her. She came forward with a quick, sudden movement.
"If it concerns me, what is it?" she said.
"There would have been no need to tell her, if you could but have held your tongue," cried Margaret to Jean, vehemently, "and now she will insist to hear all."
"It is her right to hear everything," cried Jean, as eagerly. The gentle woman was transformed. She was turned into a powerful opponent, a determined champion. Her face was pale, but she was firmer than Margaret herself.
"What is it?" cried Lilias, coming forward. It seemed to her that she was on the edge of some great change, she could not tell what. Her steps were a little uncertain, her looks a little wild. Strange fancies and tremors touched her mind, she anticipated she knew not what. She put out her hand for the papers. "If it concerns me, will you let me see it?" she said.
"You would not understand," said Margaret, with a quiver of her lips. "It is a law-paper; it is what they call a deed of gift. It is giving you back, Lilias, all your old grandfather died possessed of. It is a wonderful thing. He it was all left to—was perhaps not so ill a person as we thought——"
"Ill!—he was never ill—he is just honour itself," cried Miss Jean, "and righteousness and truth."
"I'm not grudging him his due. The person's name is Lewis Grantley that was your grandfather's companion, and got all his money. His conscience has troubled him. I will say nothing against him. At the last he has done justice and given it all back."
"Is it only about money, then, after all?" Lilias said, with a disappointed tone; then she looked again upon her sisters, in whose agitation she read something further. "There is more than that!" she cried.
"Jean, will you hold your tongue! Do you understand what I am saying to you, Lilias? All your grandfather's money, which has rankled at our hearts since ever he died. Money!" said she—"it's a great fortune. It makes you a great heiress—it restores the Murrays to their right place—it makes wrong right. It is more than money, twenty times more; it's family credit, it's restoration, it's your fit place. By the time you come of age, with good guiding—listen to me, Lilias—you'll be able to have your palace, to reign like a princess, to be just a queen in your own country. Is it wonderful if it goes to my heart? It is more than money—it is just new life for the family and for you."
"And in the mean time," said Miss Jean, who had been kept down almost by physical force, Margaret grasping her by the arm and keeping her back—"in the mean time, he that gives it—which he has no right to do, for it was willed to him and intended for him by the man that owned it all, and who was just as well able to judge as any of us—he will go out into the world penniless; he will have to earn his bread, he does not know where; he will have to give up everything that makes life pleasant. And he has not the up-bringing for it, poor lad. He has lain in the soft and drunk of the sweet all his life. It will be far harder to him to give up than for us to do without it, that have never had it. If you hear the one side, you must hear the other, Lilias."
Lilias, thus suddenly elevated into a judge, gazed at them both with eyes in which wonder soon gave place to a higher sentiment. It had never happened to her in her life before to be appealed to thus. Margaret took up the word almost before Jean had finished. They contended before her unconsciously like two advocates. She drew a chair towards her, and sat down facing them, listening, a strange tumult of different feelings in her mind. By this time the meaning of what Margaret had said had begun to penetrate her intelligence. A great fortune, a palace restored, a reign like a princess—Lilias was not insensible to such hopes; but what was all this about a man who would go out friendless upon the world?
"Stop a little," she said, "Margaret and Jean." The crisis had given to Lilias an extreme dignity and calm. "There is one thing that I have first to hear. The man that you are speaking of, that has done this, who is he? Do I know him?" Lilias said.
They both returned the look with a sort of awe, and both were afraid. They could not tell what might come of it; they had known her from her cradle, and trained her to everything she knew, and yet, in the first great emergency of her life, they neither of them knew what she would do. They looked at her taking her first step alone in the world with a troubled wonder. It was beyond them; they tried to influence the new adventuress amid all these anomalies of existence, but, having said what was in them of their own, were silent, afraid to reveal the one fact upon which all hung, the one thing that must decide all. They did not know how she would take it; they had no clue to the mysteries of that heart which had opened into womanhood before their eyes, nay, under their wings, taking warmth from them. Then Margaret spoke.
"It is right and fit," she said, "that Lilias should be the judge. I would have taken it in my own hand, and saved her the pain and the problem; but sooner or later she would have to know. Lilias, the man that is your grandfather's heir is one that we are all acquainted with. He came among us, I will not say with treachery, with what he thought a good meaning. I will allow him all that. We thought very ill of him, me in particular. I believed him a lickspittle, a creature that had fawned to the old man, and got round him. Perhaps I was altogether mistaken: I will acknowledge to you that I was mistaken in many things. And now he has at last seen what was the root of the whole matter—he has seen that from beginning to end the inheritance was clearly yours. I am not denying that it is a great thing to do. Now that he sees it, he gives it you back out of—I will allow it—a good heart. Here is the gift to you."
Lilias waved the paper away; her voice was hoarse and weak.
"You don't say who it is. Oh! what do I care for all that? Who is he, who is he, this man—"
"You must have divined it. He is just the young man you have known, both here and in London, under the name of Murray, to which I always said he had no right."
Upon this Lilias jumped up in a sudden access of excited feeling; her blue eyes flashed, her fair hair shone against the light behind her like a nimbus. She said not a word, nor left time for such in the lightning speed of her movements, but, snatching the paper suddenly out of Margaret's astonished hands, tore it across and yet across with the action of a fury. Then she flung the fragments into her sister's lap, and stamped her foot upon the ground.
"How dares he, how dares he," she cried, "send that to me! Oh! it is to you, Margaret! and you would traffic in it; but it must come to me in the end. Send him back his rags, if you please, or put them in the fire, or do what you like with them. But never, never more," cried Lilias, "let them be named to me! Me take his money from him!—I would sooner die! And if you do it, Margaret," she cried, advancing closer, shaking her little fist in her sister's face, "if you do it, I will just disown it the moment I am old enough. Oh, how dared he, how dared he send that to me!" Then the height of her excitement dropped, her tone changed, she began to cry like a child. "So that is what he has been doing, that! instead of coming—and me that wanted him so!" Lilias cried, piteously, her lips quivering. She who had been a dignified judge of the highest morals, and an impassioned actor in one of the gravest difficulties of life within the last ten minutes, sank down a little sobbing girl, struck with the keen barb of a child's disappointment, that infinite sharpness of despair which is to last for ever. To think that he should have been occupied with matters like this and not come to her! She was barely eighteen. The great and the small were still confused in her mind. "And me that wanted him so!" she repeated, with that little piteous quiver of her lips, and a sob coming at intervals.
The two ladies sat and gazed at her without a word to say. They exchanged a look. If there was a little subdued triumph in the soft eyes of Jean, they were not for that the less bewildered. Lilias had solved the whole question, not by the tearing up of the paper, which was so easily renewed again, but all unconsciously by that childlike, piteous complaint. Margaret, in the look which she cast upon her sister, acknowledged it as much as Jean did. There was nothing more to say.
CHAPTER XLIV.
"My dear Sir,
"Your packet and enclosure were duly received by me, and I think it right, having perhaps misjudged the young man, to begin by telling you that I am now willing to allow I may have been prejudiced, and that there was more to be said than I thought perhaps upon his side of the question. We are all very dour and set upon our own way in this family. Ladies like my sister Jean and me have many lessons to bring down our pride, besides the gift of a judgment not so swayed by personal circumstances as a man's. But Sir Patrick had ever had his own way, and it had no doubt become a law to him. And it may be as you say, that we that were his nearest kin made little effort to gain his confidence. We were led to believe it would have been of little use. In all that, it is just possible we may have been mistaken; and, though I cannot for a moment allow any justification of his unnatural act in passing over Lilias (though unacquainted with her, which is the only excuse, but that too was his own blame), yet I will avow that to make some provision for a companion that had been so attentive, as I am informed Mr. Grantley was, giving up his entire time to him, was no more than what was just. You will see that in admitting so much as this, I am going far, farther than I ever thought to do; but his action in the matter being so honourable, and you speaking so well of him, I am ready to make this concession. The deed you enclosed to me is no more than justice, according to my sentiments. I honour the young man for having strength of mind to do it, but I think it was his duty to do it, and my only surprise is that, being capable of that sacrifice now, he should not have done it sooner, and thus remedied the wrong before further harm could arise. Few persons, however, divine just the right moment for an effort of this kind, and I am very willing for my part to give the young man his due.
"There is, however, I am grieved to say, some difference of opinion in this respect among us, always so united as we have been: and it is in accordance with a desire on the part of my sisters that I have to request you will inform Mr. Grantley that his deed is inadmissible, but that we all think it might be possible to come to some better understanding by a personal interview. If, therefore, he will come here when it is convenient to him, we will receive him. He will be stopping in London, no doubt, till the end of the season; but, having so many friends, we cannot but think it more than likely that he will be coming North to the moors about the 12th or sooner. He will no doubt find his old quarters in the 'Murkley Arms' at his disposal, and a personal conference would redd up many matters that we cannot allow to remain as they are. You will therefore have the kindness to represent this to him. I retain the paper in the mean time, but a glance at it, with the commentaries that have been made upon it in this family, will let him see at once that it is a thing which we could never accept nor think of. You will perhaps say to him, in sending this message, that I Margaret Murray of Gowanbrae (not of Murkley), respect his reasoning and approve his action, which I should in all likelihood have accepted without further comment, if it had been me only that was concerned. But I will not go against the sense of the family, and I desire that he should be acquainted with our determination.
"I hope you are returned in good health, and none the worse for your London diversions. It seems to me that I have long arrears of sleeping to make up, which is hard to do, seeing no person can sleep more than the time they are used to, whatever the occasion may be. You will make our compliments to Mrs. Allenerly and the young people, who, I hope, are all in good health and giving you satisfaction.
"I remain, my dear Mr. Allenerly,
"Your faithful servant,
"Margaret Murray (of Gowanbrae)."
Miss Margaret was, on the whole, pleased with the construction of this letter. She smiled somewhat grimly to herself as she re-read her sentence about the deed and the commentaries upon it. The one emphatic commentary upon it was that of Lilias, and nothing could be more conclusive. It lay torn in six pieces in Margaret's desk. It was impossible to express an opinion more decisively. There had been a pause of consternation after Lilias' self-betrayal. But the look the sisters exchanged over her was one in which volumes were expressed. Margaret's eyes were dim with trouble and astonishment. To her, as to so many parents and caretakers, the young creature who had grown up at her side was still a child. She had been vaguely alarmed about her, afraid in the abstract lest she should love unwisely, prepared in the abstract for suitors and "offers." But it had not occurred to her that it was possible for Lilias, unassisted, uncompanioned, to leap by herself into the greatest of decisions, and to entertain anything like a passion in that youthful bosom. In some mysterious way, her fears had never settled upon Lewis at all. She had seen her child surrounded by other and more brilliant competitors for her favour. He, discouraged, no doubt, by her own refusal to consider his claims, had been too generous, too magnanimous, she thought, for a lover. And they had parted with him without any harm done. Lilias had been cheerful enough on the journey, not like a girl who had left her heart behind. She had not drooped even when they reached home, though something dreamy, something languid, had appeared in her. Margaret had been entirely re-assured in this respect. But in a moment all this fabric of consolation went to the winds. She looked at Jean with wonder and dismay unspeakable, and met her eyes in which there was a subdued satisfaction mingled with surprise. But there was no time to resent that glimmer of triumph. The chief thing was that not the faintest possibility remained between them of doubt or uncertainty. Without a conflict the question was decided. Margaret might struggle as she pleased, it was a foregone conclusion. The eyes of the sisters said to each other, "This being so, then——"
There was no more to be said. Even Margaret, who would have stood to the death under any other circumstances, felt the arms drop out of her hands. What could be done against Lilias, against that sob, so ungrammatical, so piteous? "And me that wanted him so!"
Long and troubled were the conferences held between Margaret and Jean thereafter. One of the questions discussed was whether Lilias herself should be called and examined on the subject, but this both decided was a thing not to be done.
"To open her heart to you and me when they have never opened their hearts to one another," Miss Jean said. "Could we ask it, Margaret?"
"You think you are further ben in such subjects than I am," said Margaret. "But who thinks of asking it? Would I profane her thoughts, the infant that she is? No me! Deep though I regret it, and hard though I take it, she shall never think shame to look me in the face, whatever happens."
"It is not just that she would think shame," said Jean, the better informed.
But this expedient was rejected unanimously. They sat together till late in the night discussing the subject in all its branches. It is curious how easy of acceptance a decision becomes which may have been resisted and struggled against with might and main, as soon as it is seen beyond all question to be inevitable. Margaret on that morning would have declared that a marriage between Lilias Murray and her supplanter was a thing she would die to prevent. But, after her little sister's self-betrayal, the impossibility shifted and changed altogether, and Margaret found that the one thing which she would die to prevent, was not Lilias' marriage, but Lilias' unhappiness. The change was instantaneous.
"This being so, then——"
It was all over. There was no longer any ground upon which to struggle and resist.
As for Lilias, she escaped to her room as soon as she had come to herself and realized what had happened. The girl was two or three different creatures in these days. She was a child ready to cry, ready to commit herself on a sudden provocation, and a woman able to stand upon the edge of the new world which she contemplated with an astonished comprehension of its loftiness and greatness, and to meet its higher requirements with a spirit as high. She felt able to judge in her own small person, with an ideal sense of youthful detachment from all sophistications, the greater question, and at the same time unable to bear the smallest contrarieties without a burst of superficial emotion, anger, or despair. Her development was but half accomplished. Nobody understood this, neither did she herself understand it. She escaped from the observation of her sisters with a sense of impatience, which did not for some time deepen into the sense of having betrayed herself. That indeed scarcely came at all. There was so much else to think of. She went to her own room, and threw herself down upon the sofa, with her heart beating and her head throbbing, every pulse sounding, she thought, in her ears in the excitement that possessed her. So that was what he had been doing! Not lingering, as disappointment had begun to picture him, in London among his fine friends, dancing, talking, as if Lilias had never been; but employing his time, his thoughts, in transferring to her his fortune, all he had in the world. Lilias tingled with impatience, with a desire to clench her small fist in his face, as she had done to Margaret, and ask him how dared he, how dared he! While underneath, in her growing soul, there diffused itself that ennobling satisfaction in the consciousness of a nobleness in him, which enables women to bear all the strokes of fate, the loss of their heroes, of their sons, joyful that their beloved have done well. By degrees this higher sentiment swallowed up everything else in her. She sat up, and put back her ravelled hair, and held her head high. There had been an injustice, and, at the cost of everything he had, he had set it right. He had gone beyond all duty, all necessity, and despoiled himself of everything, not, the letter said, "for love, but for justice." She was a girl in love, and it may be supposed would rather have believed that her lover had done something partially wrong for love than altogether right for justice; but those who think so have no knowledge of the ideal of youth. Her heart swelled and rose with this thought. She felt that happiness, that glory of approval which is the very crown of love. The colour came to her cheeks. She jumped up with that elastic bound which was natural to her, and stood in the middle of the room with her head high, smiling at him through the distance and the unknown, approving him. At that moment she felt with pride that the tie between them was not a mere empty liking, a natural attraction towards youth and pleasant qualities, or that still less profound but more enthralling charm of beauty, which so often draws two young creatures together. Lewis had no beauty. There were hundreds of others more gifted than he; but which of them all could have done this, "not for love, but for justice!" She began to go deep into it, this great action, and to set it forth and enhance it to herself in every way. He had but to have come to her, to have spoken to her as he had meant to do (she knew) that evening, when those two nobodies, those two fools, had taken possession of the corner under the palm-trees, and she would have accepted him, and this justice would have been done in a roundabout way, not for justice, but for love. But when it came to the point (oh! yes, oh! yes, it was something more than the foolish couple under the palms) his mind had felt that this was inadequate, he had shut his mouth in spite of himself and given over his hopes, and determined that it must be justice and not love. The other would have been the happier way: all this waiting, and suspense, and the separation, and those lingering days without him would have been spared; but this was the better! Lilias felt herself grow taller, grander, in her approval of everything; he had done what was right, not what was pleasant. The growing weariness, the gathering doubt, the film which had seemed to be rising between them, were all made desirable, noble by this issue. He would not have made her suffer, oh, not a day's suspense, if he could have helped it; but it was inevitable, it was better thus——
And now—Lilias caught her breath a little, and laughed for pleasure, and blushed for shy shamefacedness. She would have liked to write herself, and send him the torn up deed, and say, "What folly! is not thine mine, and mine thine?" but she remembered with a blush that she could not, that it would be "unwomanly," that word with which Margaret had scared her all her life, that she must wait now till he came to set everything right. The waiting brought a little pang with it not altogether to be chased away. "Of course he will come at once," she said to herself. But when there is distance, and separation, and all the chances of the unknown between you and the person whom you love, the "of course" has always a quaver in it. This was all. Her happy excitement, her satisfaction, her triumph in his excellence, would have made her perhaps too confident of every blessedness, but for this one faint note of uncertainty which just trembled through it, and made it perhaps more exquisite, though Lilias did not think so. The waiting, which she thought the only pain in the matter, was the perfume, the flavour of the whole.
Next day, Margaret wrote to Mr. Allenerly the letter above recorded; by the time she did so, her mind had worked out the subject. She had grudged the great match which it had always been on the cards that Lilias might make; but, at all events, it was not a long-leggit lad who had taken her eye, to be a disappointment and vexation to all her future life.
"He is not a fool," she said, "that is a great thing, for a fool is the most unmanageable of all the creatures on this earth; and he has plenty of resources, he will not be on her hands for ever: and he must have a kind nature, or he would never have taken such care of yon old man. And he cannot be much heeding about money for its own sake; and he must have a strong sense of justice. And on the whole, though I have set my face against him, I have always liked him," Margaret said, with a sigh.
"He has just the tenderest heart and the best disposition that ever was," cried Jean.
"Oh! yes, no doubt you will speak well of him: for he is in love with you too," said Margaret.
"Oh! Margaret, that is what I like in him—he has no jealousy, as small creatures have. He is just as fond as he can be of those that like her best. He is in love with us all three."
Upon this Margaret shook her head.
"Not with me—that would be beyond nature—for I have scorned him and denied him."
"Nevertheless," said Miss Jean, with the firmness that necessity had developed in her, "he is in love with us all three."
The next morning there was a very different kind of scene in Mr. Allenerly's office, where the excellent writer read Miss Margaret's letter with a grin that was somewhat cynical.
"They may try as they like," he said to himself, "they will not get him now. I said he was hasty, I said he was premature, but he would not be guided by me." He stretched out his hand for the newspaper which lay on one side of his table with his morning letters, and ran his finger down a line of small paragraphs: then shook his head when he had found the one he wanted, and, drawing his paper towards him, replied at once as follows:—
"My dear Madam,
"Your communication I would have had much pleasure in forwarding to my client, Mr. Lewis Grantley, sometimes calling himself Murray, but I regret that that is not now in my power. You will easily understand that, after despoiling himself of everything he had, it was no longer possible for him to live like a gentleman, doing nothing, in an expensive place like London. His friends were all very kind, but he has a great deal of sense for so young a man, and saw that in that there was nothing to trust to. So he took advantage of his opportunities, and struck when the iron was hot. He had little difficulty in getting an appointment as secretary to Sir Andrew Morton, the new Governor of the Pharaway Islands. He was in good spirits, comparatively speaking, and said the Governor was an old friend, and that he had every hope of getting on well and enjoying the post—which I make no doubt he will, being one of the people that always fall on their feet: which no doubt is greatly due to his being of a very friendly kind of nature himself.
"It is a long voyage, and he did not expect to arrive till September; but, any way, I will forward to him your letter, and he will no doubt reply in good time. The appointment was either for two or three years. It was strongly on his mind to go to Murkley before he left, but there were delays about preparing the deed, for which I, I am afraid, am partly responsible, and I discouraged him, remembering that you would not hear of it. I imagine, by the tone of your letter, that you may have more or less changed your mind; but, unfortunately, it is too late.
"If I hear anything of Mr. Murray during his voyage, I will let you know. I am none the worse, I thank you kindly, for my London diversions. I avoided late hours and hot rooms, which play the mischief with the constitution. My wife warmly reciprocates your kind messages, and I remain, my dear Miss Murray,
"Your obedient servant to command,
"A. Allenerly."
This letter fell like a thunderbolt on Murkley. They had anticipated not only no such obstacle, but no obstacle at all. They had thought that Lewis would arrive by the next train, throwing aside all his engagements, too happy to be called upon to appear before them and explain all that he intended and wished. Margaret for a time was absolutely silenced by the news; it fell upon her like a stone. Fortunately she was alone when it came, and was not besieged by the anxious looks of the others, which would have been more than she could bear. After she had fully realized it, she sent for Jean and communicated the news to her.
"It will kill Lilias," Jean said.
"Lilias is not such a poor creature," cried Margaret, though her very soul was quaking. "My poor Jean, I do not want to put you in mind of your trouble—but you did not die."
"Ah! but it was different, very different," said Jean. "You cannot put me in mind, Margaret, of what I never forget. It was settled between us, and we understood each other; that takes the bitterness out of it."
"Some people would say that put the bitterness into it," said Margaret.
"Ah! but they would be ignorant folk; we were belonging the one to the other; now Lilias, poor thing! has nothing to lean upon. She is just nothing to him. If he were to die——"
"God forgive you for such thoughts! He is a young lad, and healthy, and well-conditioned. Why should he die?"
"Others have done it before him," Miss Jean said; "but, living or dying, she will feel that there is nothing in it. She has no right to him nor he to her. It will just kill her."
"Hold your tongue, Jean, hold your tongue," Margaret cried in dismay.
In the mean time there was no appearance of anything killing Lilias. She had come out of the dreamy state of expectation that had been growing upon her into a cheerful energy. On this particular morning she was as sunny as the day. She had been seen to look at the list of trains, but it was too soon as yet to expect that he could come from London. She did not speak of him or make any reference to what she looked for; but when their daily walk led through the village, Lilias lingered opposite the 'Murkley Arms' with an intuition which unhappily brought its own fulfilment. Adam, with his creel over his shoulder, came up as usual with his slow, lumbering tread, and Margaret was too much interested in the trout not to cross the road to look at them. He was turning them over for her inspection when Janet appeared at the door as usual. Lilias thought that she had always been fond of Janet; she said to herself that it was for that reason she had been anxious to assure her that all the fable about Philip Stormont was untrue. She was glad now to see her honest face, and it made her heart beat to think that perhaps Janet might have some news. She responded to her "Good day, Miss Lilias," by holding out her hand, an honour which the good woman received as if this little country girl had been a princess, curtseying as she touched it and making her little compliment.
"I am aye blithe to see ye passing; and ye are no looking white and shilpit, as I feared, but just in grand health, and like a rose after your season in London. Miss Margaret has always taken such good care of you. Lady Eeda she is just like a ghost. They've come hame, maybe you'll have heard."
"Lady Ida stays longer and goes out more than we did," said Lilias; "but everybody," she added, with a little natural wile, "is leaving London now."
"Oh ay, we'll soon be in August, and you'll no keep the gentlemen after that," said Janet, with true appreciation. "It makes more stir in the countryside, but it's little it does for us, and I'm wae, wae for my gentleman that was here in the last year; ye may mind upon him, Miss Lilias. I never could tell what brought him here. It wasna for the fishing, for he was no hand at that, but as pleasant-spoken and as good-hearted a lad as ever stepped. There was one of his portmanteaus aye left here, and I hoped to have him back; but we had word to send it to him a week since."
"And is that why you are wae? But perhaps there may be no occasion for it, Janet," said Lilias, with a smile. "We saw him in London, and I think he meant to come back."
"Eh, Miss Lilias, that would have been a good hearing; but maybe you do not hear that he has lost his siller, poor lad—some o' thae banks, I suppose," said Janet. "It's a braw thing to have nae siller and nae trouble with the losing o't."
"I think that is a mistake too," said Lilias, her fair face glowing with pleasure. "He has not lost so much as he thought."
"Well, Miss Lilias, no doubt you'll have ways of kennin'. I only judge by his letter, and that was very doun. My heart was wae for him when I read it, and they sailed yesterday. I hope he got his things in time."
"Sailed!—yesterday!" Lilias echoed, with a wondering face.
"And, losh me!" cried Janet, "they say it's away among the cannibals. If they sent the sodgers to shoot them down, I would think nothing o't—for them that feed upon their neighbours' flesh, Lord bless us! they're fit for nothing better—but a fine, peaceable young gentleman, with none of those warlike ways, what would they pit the like of him forrit for, just to fa' a victim——"
"Lilias, it is time we were going home," said Margaret, turning round quickly and surveying the blanched countenance and wondering eyes aghast of her companion.
"Ye are just frichtening the ladies," said Adam; "there's nae mair danger among the cannibals than at hame. They're no cannibal now; do you think that could last, in the face of steam-engines and a' that, and advancin' civileezation and British rule? But the ladies they have mair sense. There's no such things now-a-days. We a' eat ane anither, but it's in a mair modest way."
"I have no more time to speak to you, Adam; but ye'll just take that trout up to the cook; and come away, Lilias—you have walked too far, your face is just the colour of wax," said Margaret, anxiously drawing her sister's arm within her own.
"It is not the walk—did you hear that, Margaret?"
"Did I hear what? I just heard that woman Janet havering, as she always does."
"She said he sailed yesterday." Lilias made a pause and looked into her sister's face. "Is it true?"
"Where would he sail to, I would like to know?" Margaret said; then, with a sudden pressure of the girl's arm, "And supposing it were true? It was what I would have done in his place, if it had been me."
Lilias' young figure swayed upon her arm, the light went out of her eyes. She walked on mechanically for a few minutes, sustained by Margaret, not seeing where she went. In those minutes everything was dark to her, the out-door world, the inner horizon. Blackness came up without and within, and covered earth and heaven. First disappointment, and that terrible prolongation of suspense, the hope deferred that maketh the heart sick; then an overwhelming sense of uncertainty, of insecurity, of the earth failing beneath her feet. All had seemed so easy before. To tear a piece of paper, to write a letter, what more simple? But perhaps now what had seemed so easy might be impossible—impossible! He might never have loved her, he might never come back at all; it might be all a delusion. Lilias did not swoon or lose consciousness; on the contrary, she remembered everything, saw everything in the darkness like a horrid dream; her heart throbbed, her blood all rushed to the brain to reinforce it, to give strength for the emergency; all round her there was nothing but blackness. The sun was shining full upon her, but where she was it was night.
All that Margaret saw outside was that Lilias said nothing, that she clung to her arm, that she stumbled a little in walking, as if she did not see any little obstacles in the way, and hurried on as if she were pursued, bending her head, her feet twisting with a sort of headlong impulse. She did not know what to think; she said, with a quaver of profound anxiety in her voice,
"My darling, where are you going so fast, Lilias, my bonnie dear?"
These words penetrated the gloom, and brought Lilias in some degree to herself. The darkness quivered and opened up. She slackened her steps, leaning still more closely on her sister's arm, and gradually the common day came back in widening circles, and she began to see the light and the trees. The crisis had been terrible, but her heart already rallied.
"What do you say—about going fast? Do you mean the ship?" she said.
"My bonnie dear!" was all Margaret's reply. And she held the girl up with her strong arm, half carrying her, and hurrying her on the road towards home. Margaret thought she was going to faint and fall, not seeing that she was in fact recovering from the blow.
"Do not hold me so tight, Margaret; you are hurting me. Yes, I was walking fast—I forgot: for I want to be home, home. Oh! never mind me, Margaret; I am just a little giddy, but I am better." Lilias freed her arm almost with impatience. "Why should you support me? Has anything happened to me?" she said.
Then Margaret, who was always mistress, sank into humility.
"My darling, I don't know that anything has just—happened; but you are not strong, and you are worried. I would like to get you home."
"I am going home," said Lilias, with dignity.
There was so much noise in her head still, as if all the wheels of her being were working and turning, that she had not much power of speech. But she walked with a certain stateliness, rejecting all aid. And Margaret, who had been sovereign all her life and directed everybody, accompanied little Lilias in the height and greatness of her passion, without saying a word, with a pathetic humility, wondering at her as the people of Camelot wondered at Elaine.
CHAPTER XLV.
The following winter was very dreary and long. It began early; the 12th itself, the beginning of the season, the day of days in the North, rained from morning to night. It never ceased raining through all the shooting season. The rain ran into every crevice, into the holes in the rocks, which were usually as dry as the sun could make them, and the heather grew out of a bog, and the foot sank in the treacherous greenness all over the moors. There was little encouragement to tourists, and not much to sportsmen, and women were kept indoors and exhausted all their resources, and quarrelled, and were miserable. If there had been perpetual bickering in the old Castle of Murkley, there would have been nothing surprising in it. The ladies were not happy; they were in a state of painful suspense and uncertainty. They neither knew what the future was, nor when it should cease to be the future, and become an astonishing present, changing all their life. In the strange and dreary days which had succeeded their discovery of Lewis' departure, there had been a kind of pause in existence altogether. The unaccustomed contrariety of events, the impossibility of doing anything but waiting, the inclination to upbraid each other, the uneasy desire at heart to blame somebody, was like a stimulating poison in all their veins. They stood, as it were, at bay against fate, and in the silence, and with the keen perception they had that nothing could be done, were tempted to turn their arms against each other, and make themselves thoroughly miserable. There was a moment indeed when this seemed inevitable. Margaret had only the impatience of unhappiness to warrant her in assailing Jean, but there was a certain reason in the instinctive impulse with which the others turned upon Margaret, murmuring in their hearts that it was she who was in fault. She it was (though neither of them knew how entirely it was she) who had sent the hero of their thoughts away. But for her, the dilemma might have been met with natural ease, and the problem solved. It was she who had stood in every one's way. Her pride, her hard-heartedness, her ambition for Lilias, even the temporary obtuseness and self-conceit (that such epithets should ever have been applied to Margaret!) which prevented her from seeing as the others did what Lewis had done for them, had brought matters to this crisis. It was her doing from first to last. She was herself fully aware of this, and the consciousness was as irritating as it was terrible. She alone had ordained her child's unhappiness, had taken the responsibility upon herself. When Lilias was seen wandering about her old haunts, trying to accomplish her old duties with a pale and abstracted countenance, retiring within herself, she who had been so simple and child-like, and crushed under the weight of an uncertainty which made her heart sick, Margaret was nearly beside herself. She irritated the suffering girl by her anxious solicitude. She would scarcely allow her the solace of quiet, the last right which a spirit in trouble has, of at least reconciling itself to its trouble unobserved, and without interruption. Margaret pursued Lilias with anxious questions what ailed her? though she knew so well, to the bottom of her heart, what the ailment was. Had she a headache? What was the matter that she could not eat her dinner? Why did it weary her to walk?
"I must get the doctor to you," Margaret said, devoured by alarm lest the delicate spirit should affect her slight body, and harm come of it before their eyes.
"Oh, if you would but let her alone! Can you not see that it's the heart that ails her, and nothing else?" Miss Jean would say.
"Hold your peace about hearts. Do you think I am not as unhappy about what has happened as any person; but I am not going to stand by and see her digestion a wreck as well as——" And Margaret would almost weep in misery, in impatience, in impotence, till poor Jean's heart was almost broken with the impossibility of binding up her sister's, and making her believe that all would be well. For to this, after a while, her desire to upbraid Margaret turned—a desire to console and soothe her. It was her fault, poor Margaret! that was the issue at last to which Jean's sympathetic passion came.
Lilias, who was the most deeply involved, went through an alarming crisis; for some days she said nothing, averted her looks, shut herself up as much as possible, would accept no comfort, nor open her heart to any one. And in this moment, when the girl suddenly found herself before the impossible and understood that nothing—nothing which any one could do could change the fact, could break the silence, could make it possible for her to have any communication with him to whom she had so much to say—that even a hundred chances might arise to keep her from any communication with him for ever, a cloud of utter darkness, and of that sickness of the heart which accompanies the blank of disappointment, took possession of her being. It was against all the habits of her life. Hitherto she had but appealed to Margaret, and all had gone right. Even in the present case there had been an end of all opposition, as soon as it had been made apparent to Margaret what was in her heart: and for a moment it had appeared as if everything was to be well. But not Margaret nor any one could pierce the silence of the seas, and bring back a reply. No one could stop the ship swiftly speeding to the other side of the world. No one could shorten the inevitable time, blank and dark and eventless, which must pass before any word could be heard across those silent seas. And who was to speak the word? And how could any one answer for it, that Lewis, repulsed and sent away, would listen, or that he would undo all his plans, and come? or that he had not changed his mind? He had never said those final words which cast down all walls between two hearts. Lilias had been sure he meant to say them; but he had not done so. And who could tell now if they ever would be said? and who could invite him to say them? To write to him would be to do so. In the retirement of her own room she had written to him again and again to tell him how she had treated his paper, and what she thought of it, her admiration, her pain, and her impatience of his "justice." But not one of those letters ever found its way to the post. What were they, when she looked at them again, but invitations, every one? She tore them to pieces, as she had torn the deed, and at last recognized with such a schooling of her heart as is inconceivable at first to the young disciple of life, the unaccustomed sufferer and unwilling learner, that she could do nothing, that there was nothing to be done but to wait, the hardest expedient of all.
Thus it was Lilias, the youngest, the softest, the one whom the others would have died to save, who had to bear the worst, and to bear it in most loneliness of spirit. After a while the others consulted over it, and in their anxious watch over her, and mutual discussion of every aspect of her face and mind, found a sort of occupation in their distress. And both of them secretly sent out a messenger, a letter—an effort to confront the impossible, and overcome it, which brought them immediate consolation. Lilias could neither write, nor could she, in her shy and delicate youth, unveil her heart to her sisters, or communicate the absorbed and endless preoccupation with which her thoughts were centered on this one subject. She "thought shame,"—which is different from being ashamed—which is the reverence, the respect which a pure nature has for the new and wonderful passion that is in her veins, as well as her shrinking from a subject which she had never learned to discuss, and which, till it had been made into reality by communication with the person beloved, is beyond disclosure. They talked to each other about her, but Lilias could not talk to them or to any one, any more than she could write to him. She was dumb. She could do nothing, say nothing. Sooner or later, in one way or another, almost every woman has to go through this ordeal. Poor little Lilias met it unprepared.
It is wrong to say, however, that the letters which were sent were sent secretly. Margaret, when she recovered from her abasement as the cause of all this trouble, and began to recollect again that she was the head of the family, made no mystery of her proceedings. It is possible that even Lilias knew, though she had no positive information. Margaret wrote, inclosing to Lewis his torn deed, and commentary on the facts of the case.
"You would have done well to see us before you put the ocean between us, with such a grand question as this to settle," she wrote. "I know not for how long you are to be absent, or what may be your mind as to other matters, but I would press, as far as it may be allowable, the necessity of personal explanations before any other steps are taken."
It was thought by Margaret's audience, now consisting of Jean alone, that this letter was very dignified, very moving, and certain to effect its purpose.
"He will be back by the next ship after he gets that," she said.
"How can we tell," said Margaret, "what his engagements may be? He may not be able to leave his post. He has now gotten himself a master; and who can tell if he will be able at any inducement, to set himself free?"
"There is nobody that could resist that," Miss Jean said; but, notwithstanding her confidence in Margaret's letter, she herself, all secretly and trembling at her own boldness, trembling too with a sense of guilt at the falsity of it, the treachery to her sister, the idea of taking any step which she could not disclose, "took up her pen," as she described it, and wrote a long letter too, a letter which was full of details, and far more touching than Margaret's. But it was not so dignified, perhaps, nor was it at all ambiguous in its phrases, but said, "come home" in so many words, and promised all that heart of lover could desire.
And then a great pause fell upon the agitated household. It was to a distant, newly-established colony that Lewis had gone, and in those days there were not steamboat services to all the world, to shorten time and distance; nothing but a sailing ship was likely to carry his letter all the way, and not for a long time could any answer be expected. It has almost gone out of our habitudes now to wait weeks or months for an answer, and even then this old penalty of separation had been much modified; but still there was a long time to wait before they could hope for any response, and the autumn days closed down darkly over the house which had been interrupted in all its innocent habits by the invasion of this new life. Margaret made a speech to her little sister upon the expediency of resuming all the occupations of old.