After the conversation with Miss Jean which has been reported, Lewis
felt that he had begun the undertaking which brought him to Murkley.
Before this it had been in a vague condition, a thing which might or
might not come to anything. But now he had, to his own consciousness at
least, committed himself. What effect his words might have had on Miss
Jean's mind he was of course unable to tell; but, whatever she might
do, there was now no retreat for him. He had given her to understand
that the aspect in which she appeared to him was one of great interest
and attraction. Having said so much, Lewis felt that it was incumbent
on him to say more; and indeed, there was a sensation of thankfulness
in his mind when he remembered that he had done so, and so made an
end of his own freedom in the matter. He was glad that he had done
this before the evening on which he saw Philip and Katie together,
and recognized in their intercourse a something which was lacking,
and always would be lacking, in his own case. What matter? he said to
himself. He had much, though not all. If Miss Jean became his wife,
he would have the satisfaction of redeeming a wrong for one thing,
and he would not have to blush for the good woman he had chosen. Her
middle-aged calm and propriety indeed suited much better the rôle of
wife, to his thinking, than Katie's youthfulness and levity. He thought
of her as an Englishman thinks of home, as something to return to after
the occupations and excitements of the world. What he looked forward to
was not perhaps a domestic life, but a life in which it would always
be good to come back after every variety of experience and personal
vicissitude to the same calm, smiling presence, the indulgence and
tenderness of one who would never be weary, never impatient, but always
ready to hear what he had to say, and to sympathize and advise.
The more he dwelt upon this idea, the more it pleased him. What he
wanted was not the inseparable companion who would share all his life
with him, but rather that domestic stronghold, that something to return
to. There are always these differences in life. And after a while
Lewis said to himself that he would have the best of it. Kate would
want a great many observances which an elderly bride would not dream
of; she would no doubt insist on knowing and sharing everything--her
husband's thoughts as well as his home, and this was not an ideal which
suited the pupil of Sir Patrick Murray. He had not been used to women,
and they were no necessary part of his life. His mother, so far as
he recollected her, had taken the place which he pleased himself to
think his wife would naturally take. Many women rebel now-a-days at
that ideal of a woman's existence which consists in being always at
home, always ready to receive the wanderer, to kill innumerable fatted
calves, and look out continually for the prodigal's return. Lewis would
be no prodigal, but his idea was to live his own life unfettered, and
to give no very great share in it to any woman. He would go back to her
when tired, when sick or sorry; he would be always tenderly careful of
her and kind. He would surround her, in that home where she should be
always waiting for him, with everything a woman could wish for; but
clearly he meant her to stay there while he should enjoy everything and
come back to be sympathized with. Such an ideal watcher is pleasant to
everybody's thoughts; the mere recollection of the dweller at home,
uncritical, all-believing, to whom one can return, sure of eager
attention, petting, and sympathy in every emergency, is in itself a
consolation. It is the primitive idea of the woman's office.
Lewis meant no disrespect to womankind in adopting it as his idea of
the relations to subsist between himself and his wife; he did not
know any better, and nothing could be more entirely in accord with
the position which Miss Jean, he thought, would naturally take. Few
intending bridegrooms perhaps allot this character at once to their
brides, but Lewis meant no harm; he subdued in himself the softer
thoughts which the sight of Katie and Philip had roused in his mind,
and in the morning was again fully awake to a state of satisfaction
with his own scheme, and ready to proceed with it.
In the pre-occupation of his mind, Adam's fishing had ceased to amuse
him, and he did not want to meet Philip, whose conduct in compromising
Katie, our young man highly disapproved of, even when he felt envious
of his happiness. When he went out, he turned his steps in the opposite
direction, going up the river, past the spot at which he had seen the
lovers, and reaching, by that _détour_ through the wood, the park of
Murkley, and the neighbourhood of the great unfinished palace which
had made him first acquainted with the family history. He had not
returned to visit that memorial of ambition again. Perhaps there was
nobody in the world who could regard it with the same feelings as
those which moved Lewis. Sir Patrick had not left a good name behind
him in the countryside. His tastes had never been those of a Scotch
country-gentleman. The building of this prodigious and pretentious
house had offended all his neighbours, to whom it was almost a personal
offence that he should attempt in this way to excel all their houses
and put himself on so much higher a level. When it turned out that he
was not able to complete what he had begun so ambitiously, a great
deal of bitterness and unfriendly humour exhaled in the pitiless
laughter with which his failure had been received, and there was
nobody about who did not more or less remember it against him--with a
scorn of failure which is very strong in Scotland--that he had thus
attempted a superiority which he was not able to maintain. His own
family contemplated the stately folly with modified feelings. Such a
standing proof of greatness had a certain effect upon their pride; but
the failure was bitter to them, and there was the sense besides that
their money had been wasted in the erection of a monstrosity which
was of use to no one, and of which they could make nothing. To Lewis
alone this great shell spoke eloquently of something which touched
the heart. The dreams of old Sir Patrick's life, its aspirations, its
pride, and hopes, all seemed to him embodied in these walls. The old
man had scarcely spoken of it. It was only after seeing it that Lewis
was able to recall words, incomprehensible at the moment, which he had
now no doubt referred to this proud intention, this ambitious vanity.
As he walked round it, he framed to himself an image of the young man,
impulsive, proud, and full of a hundred hasty projects, who had turned
into the old man he knew so well. If he had not been hasty, full of
sudden impulses, would he ever, Lewis asked himself, have taken up the
charge of a friendless orphan, and made himself responsible for the
life of a stranger in whom, save for tender charity and pity, he was in
no way involved?
He thought of himself as another Castle of Murkley. Sir Patrick had
wronged his children for the sake of both; his generosity had been as
rash as his ambition. He had trained and formed his dependent for a
life entirely above his natural prospects, and, if he had left Lewis
in the lurch, the case would have been an exact parallel to that of
the abandoned and uncompleted house. But the old man had done more for
love than he had done for pride, and it was not the part of Lewis at
least to blame him that he had again wronged his family for the sake
of an impulse of his own. But as he roamed round and round this pale,
half-ruined palace, with all its princely avenues and foreign trees,
a great tenderness arose in the young man's heart for his old patron.
What sanguine dreams must have been his while he was rearing these
fine walls--what intentions of liberal life! In Lewis's imagination
the picture rose all illuminated with sympathy and understanding. That
sanguine, hasty mind would never look at all on the other side; failure
would not seem possible to him till it had come. He could imagine him
over his plans, superintending his workmen, elate and dauntless. A
smile came upon his face and tears to his eyes as he realized what
young Sir Patrick in his pride and hope must have been, and what old
Sir Patrick, exiled and disappointed, but still sanguine and prodigal,
was. Lewis was the creation of his old age, as this castle was the
creation of his youth, both of them in their way injustices, but the
one capable of affording no compensation, the other so willing, so
ready, so anxious to atone. This inspired him while he stood gazing
up at the vacant windows of Sir Patrick's folly. It was wonderful to
comprehend how he could ever have believed himself rich enough for such
a habitation. It was a house for a prince: but this idea, which made
most people angry and impatient with the rash and vain man, who had not
paused to count the cost, melted altogether the heart of Lewis. Anyone
but Sir Patrick would have hesitated before taking upon himself the
charge of a young life; any man but Sir Patrick would have trained the
orphan lad to lowlier uses. He had made a son of him, and given him the
happiest, most beautiful life. Dear old Parrain! it had been wrong,
perhaps, but it was not for Lewis to judge. For him there was a greater
privilege left, a more delightful duty--to atone.
He was walking round this silent, shut-up, windowless, and lifeless
mansion, looking up at it with moisture in his eyes, when the sound of
voices suddenly made him aware that he was not the only person thus
occupied. He heard them but vaguely from the other side--voices in
animated talk, but not near enough to hear what they were saying. The
voices were all feminine, and by-and-by he made sure that they were the
ladies of Murkley whom he was about to meet. Presently three figures
became visible round the angle of the great house, one in advance of
the others, walking backward, with a form very unlike that of Miss
Margaret and Miss Jean, apparently gazing up at the walls, a blue veil
flying about her, her head raised, her light figure lightly poised
upon elastic feet, not like the sober attitude of the ladies he knew.
A momentary wonder crossed the mind of Lewis as to this third sister,
whom he had never seen, but he was too much pre-occupied to dwell upon
it. He divined that there was a little commotion among them at the
sight of a stranger. He heard Miss Margaret say something about a veil,
and then there came a protest in a voice full of complaining.
"Oh, Margaret, let my veil alone; there is no sun to spoil anybody's
complexion, is there, Jean?"
Some word or sign, proceeding from one of the other ladies, made the
speaker turn round, and Lewis had a momentary glimpse of a face which
was very different from that of the other sisters; large, wondering
eyes darted one glance at him, then the unknown turned again and
hurried back to the group, dropping the blue veil in her hurry and
astonishment. It was only a moment, and the sensation in Lewis's mind
was not more than surprise. The glimpse was momentary, his mind was
pre-occupied, and Miss Margaret advanced immediately to meet him,
covering the retreat of the others.
"You are looking at our grandfather's grand castle," Miss Margaret said.
"It is a wonderful place to find here, out in the wilderness; it is
like a palace that has been walking about and has lost its way," Lewis
said, with an attempt to cover the quickened movement of his own pulses
in the surprise of the encounter.
"I would not call this the wilderness," said Miss Margaret, with a
momentary tone of pique. "A great deal of care was taken about the
place before this great barrack was built--it's more like a barrack, in
my opinion, than a palace."
"It is like the Louvre," said Lewis; "it must have been planned by some
one who had travelled, who knew the French renaissance." He felt a
little jealous for the credit of his old friend.
"Oh, as for that," Miss Margaret said, with a wave of her hand,
"knowledge was not wanting, nor taste either. Our grandfather, Sir
Patrick Murray, was a man of great instruction: all the worse for his
descendants. This is how he wasted our substance--and in other ways."
"He was a collector, I suppose?"
"I perhaps don't understand what you call a collector--a gatherer of
costly things that are of no use to any mortal? Oh, he was that, and
more. And there are other ways in which a man can wrong his family;
but it's not a subject that can be interesting to a stranger," Miss
Margaret added, closing her mouth with a certain peremptory firmness,
as if to conclude the discussion. "Yon," she resumed, "was to have
been the great banqueting hall: and the drawing-rooms, you see--there
were to be three of them, the outer and the inner, and the lady's
_bouédwore_--were to occupy the other side; where he was to get the
lady and the banquet Sir Patrick never took thought. He was not a
man to take thought; but he was very well instructed, and knew what
he was doing--from that point of view. If he had known better about
the money, and counted the cost like the man in the Gospel, it would
have been better for them who came after him. But the Murrays were
never careful at counting the cost,"--that air of pride with which
prodigality in a family is always confessed came over Miss Margaret
as she said this, throwing up her head and animating her countenance.
Nobody ever yet made a statement of thrift and carefulness with the
same proud gratification. It is unpleasant to be poor, but Nature is
always more pleased with the lavish than the careful. Lewis suffered
himself to be led round the further side of the building, while she
talked and pointed out the position of the rooms. It was a moment full
of excitement for the young man; he listened eagerly while she spoke
of Sir Patrick, with the strongest sense of that link between them to
which she had not the slightest clue. Nor had he the slightest clue
to the motive which induced her to expatiate upon the building and
lead him round by the other side. The blue veil and the wondering,
youthful face it guarded had not done more as yet than touch his
mind with a momentary suspicion; his interest was engaged, not in
secret questionings about Lilias, as the elder sister thought, but in
recollections and associations of a very different kind.
"Perhaps," he said, following out his own thoughts, "had he waited and
gone more softly there would have been no imprudence."
"Waiting and going softly are not in our nature: no: I'm but a woman,
with little money, and very seriously brought up--and with my youth
past, and no motive; but if I were to let myself go--even now!"
A sudden flush came over her face, her eyes shone, and then Lewis
perceived that Miss Margaret, if she had not made up her mind to be
elderly and homely, would still be a handsome and imposing personage,
whom the society he had known would have admired and followed. He
thought that if she had been Sir Patrick's companion his _salon_ might
have been very different. With this view he could not help gazing at
her with a great curiosity, wondering how she would have filled that
place, and thinking what a pity that this, which would have ruined his
own prospects, had not been.
She looked at him quickly, meeting his gaze, and her eyes fell
momentarily under it.
"You think me an old fool," she said, "and no wonder. Imprudence--that
is always folly when it takes the power of beginning what you cannot
finish--would be worse folly than ever in a person like me; but, you
see, I never let myself go."
"That is not what I was thinking," said Lewis. "I was
thinking--wondering, though I had no right--why you did not go to him
when he was old."
"Go to him--to whom?" she cried, astonished.
"Ah! pardon! I have met Sir Patrick--abroad."
Miss Margaret turned upon him, and made a close and, as Lewis thought,
suspicious inspection of his face.
"If you met Sir Patrick abroad, you must have seen that he had no need
of his natural family, nor wish for them. There was no place for us
there. Perhaps you have not heard that he withdrew his property from
his family and gave it to one that was not a drop's blood to him--a
creature that had stolen into a silly old man's favour? But no, that
would not be known abroad," she added, with a long-drawn breath. Lewis
felt himself shrink from her eye; he made a step backward, with a sense
of guilt which in all the many discussions of the subject had never
affected him before.
"No," he said, with an involuntary tone of apology, "no, it was not
known, I think, that he had--any relations----"
Miss Margaret turned on him again with indignation more scathing than
before.
"Not known that he had relations!" then she paused, and gave vent
to a little laugh, "that must have been by persons who were very
ignorant--by people out of society themselves," she said.
To this Lewis made no reply. What could he say? It was true that he had
no standing in society himself, and he now perceived that he had been
guilty of one of his usual imprudences in drawing the attention of a
mind much more keen than Miss Jean's, and able to put things together,
to himself and his antecedents. After a moment she resumed.
"I am speaking too strongly perhaps to you, a stranger. It was perhaps
not to be expected--abroad--that everybody should know the Murrays of
Murkley. That is just one of the evils of that life abroad, that it is
lost sight of who you belong to. In your own country everybody knows.
If you put a friendly person, in the place of your flesh-and-blood,
the whole country cries out; but among strangers, who thinks or cares?
No, no, I was wrong there; I ask your pardon. In Scotland, or even in
England, Sir Patrick Murray's relations would be as well known as the
Queen's, but not abroad--that was his safeguard, and I forgot. Poor,
silly old man!" Miss Margaret said, after a pause, with energy, "he was
little to me. I have scarcely seen him all my days, and Lilias never at
all."
It seemed to Lewis that in this, perhaps, there was some explanation
and apology for the unfortunate position of affairs; but he was so glad
to escape from further questions that he did not attempt to follow the
subject further. They had by this time come round the other corner
of the building, and he perceived that the two other ladies had not
waited for Miss Margaret, but were already half-way along the broad and
well-kept drive which led from the unfinished palace to the old house.
The blue veil fluttering in advance caught his eye, and he said, more
with the desire to divert his companion from the previous subject than
out of any special interest in this,
"Your sister, whom I have not seen, is the youngest?"
Here Miss Margaret, with a little start, recalled herself to a
recollection which had temporarily dropped from her mind. She fixed him
with her eye.
"Yes, she is the youngest," she replied. And what of that? her tone
seemed to say.
"I had made one of the ridiculous mistakes strangers make," he said,
very conciliatory, his reason for this being, however, totally
different from the one she attributed to him. "I had supposed--you will
say I had no right to suppose anything, but one guesses and speculates
in spite of one's self--I had supposed that Miss Lilias was the eldest,
and in bad health; whereas by the glimpse I had she is----"
"Quite young," said Miss Margaret, taking the words out of his
mouth--"that is, quite young in comparison with Jean and me: but not so
strong perhaps as might be desired, and an anxious and careful charge
to us. Are you staying long here?"
"That will depend upon--various matters," Lewis said. "It is your
sister Miss Jean whom I have had the pleasure to see most. You will
pardon me if I say to you that I find a great attraction in her
society. It is presumptuous perhaps on my part, but it is thought right
where I have been brought up that one should say this when it occurs,
without delay, to the family----"
Miss Margaret looked at him with eyes of unfeigned astonishment.
"Say--what?" she asked, pausing to survey him once more. Was the young
man out of his senses? she said to herself.
"I mean," said Lewis, with that smile with which he assured everybody
that he was anxious to please them, "that in all other countries but
England things are so. The head of the family is consulted first before
a man will dare to speak to a lady; I understand it is not so here."
"And you mean to speak to me as the head of the family?" said Miss
Margaret. "Well, perhaps you are not far wrong; but my sister Jean and
I are equals--there is no superior between us. The only thing is, that
being a sweet and submissive creature, a better woman than I will ever
be, she leaves most things in my hands."
"That was my idea," Lewis said.
"And you wanted to speak to me of something that concerned Jean? Well,
there could be to me no more interesting subject: though what a young
man like you that might be her son, and a stranger, can have to say to
me about Jean----"
Lewis paused. He had not considered how awful it was to confront the
keen, inquiring eyes of the head of the family, who looked him, he
thought, through and through, and who, if he submitted his over-candid
countenance for long to her inspection, would probably end by reading
everything that was in him both what he meant to show and what he
wished to conceal.
"Perhaps," he said, "I am premature. What I would have said was to ask
if--I may come again? What further I wish will remain till later. If
Miss Murray will afford to me the happiness of coming, or recommending
myself so far as I can----"
"You speak," said Miss Margaret, somewhat grimly, and with a laugh, "as
if you were wanting to come wooing to our house. Now speak out, and
tell me to whom. I'll allow there's good in your foreign notions, if
you give me this warning; and I will warn you in your turn, my young
friend."
"I hope you will pardon my ignorance, if I do wrong," said Lewis. "It
is your sister, Miss Jean, whom I have seen most. I have not known
before such a woman. There is to me a charm--which I cannot explain. If
I might see her--if it might be permitted to me to recommend myself----"
Miss Margaret had been gazing at him with eyes of such astonishment
that he was disconcerted by the look. He came to a somewhat confused
pause, and stood silent before her, with something of the air of
a culprit on his trial. Then she cried out suddenly, "Jean!" and
burst into a resounding laugh, which seemed to roll forth over all
the landscape, and return from the tops of the trees. There is no
more crushing way of receiving such a suggestion. The young man
stood before her, silent, his face flushed, his eyes cast down for
the moment. At length, being a sanguine youth, and too entirely
good-humoured himself to impute evil intentions to anyone, he began to
recover. He looked up at her with a deprecating smile.
"I amuse you, it seems----" he said.
"Amuse me!" said Miss Margaret, with another peal of laughter; and then
she dried her eyes, and recovered her composure. "Mr. Murray--if your
name is Murray--" she said; "if you mean this for a joke--but I will
not do you that injustice; I see you mean it in earnest. It is very
unexpected. Do you think you have had time enough to consider whether
this is a wise resolution? Do you remember that she is twice your age?
No, no, I would not advise you to go that length," Miss Margaret said.
"The question is, if you will forbid me," said Lewis; "if you will say
I must not come."
"Ay! And what would you do then?"
"I think," he said, with a little hesitation, "I should then adopt the
English way. I should submit my cause to your sister herself. But then
there would be no deception, you would know."
He met her with such an open look that Miss Margaret was disarmed.
"You are a strange young man," she said, "with a strange taste for
a young man: but I think you're honest: or else you are a terrible
deceiver--and, if your meaning is what you say, you have no motive,
that I can see, to deceive."
"I have told you my motive," said Lewis. "I speak the truth."
She looked at him again with her searching eyes.
"Perhaps you think we are rich?" she said.
"I have heard, on the contrary, that----"
She waved her hand. It was not necessary that he should say poor.
"Perhaps you think--but I cannot attempt to fathom you," she said. "You
are a very strange young man. Jean! have you considered that she's
twice your age? I have no right to interfere. I will not forbid you
the house. But she will never take you, or any like you; she has more
sense," Miss Margaret cried.
To this Lewis only answered with a bow and a smile, in which perhaps
there was something of the conqueror; for indeed it did not occur to
him, as a contingency to be taken into consideration, that she might
refuse him. They walked on together for some time in silence, for
Miss Margaret was too much confused and excited to speak, and Lewis
had no more to say to her, feeling that it was only justice to the
sister he had chosen that she should have the first and the best of the
plea. It might be ten minutes after, and they were in sight of the old
house, within which the two figures before them had disappeared, when
Miss Margaret suddenly stopped short, and turned upon him with a very
serious and indeed threatening countenance.
"Young man," she said, in a low and passionate voice, "if you should
prove to be making a mask of my sister for other designs, if it should
be putting forward one to veil a deeper design upon another, then look
you to yourself--for I'll neither forgive you, nor let you slip out of
my hands."
Lewis met this unexpected address with sincere astonishment.
"Pardon me, but I do not know what deeper design I could have. What is
it that I could do to make you angry?" he said.
She looked at him once more from head to foot, as if his shoes or the
cut of his coat (which was somewhat foreign) could have enlightened her
as to his real motives: and then she said,
"I will take upon me to give you useful information. In the mornings I
am mostly occupied. You will find my sister Jean by herself before one
o'clock, and nobody to interfere."