Lewis woke up next morning a different man. His light-hearted youth
and easy views had gone from him. The musings of the night had only
showed him the position in which he was, without showing him any way
out of it. He had all but pledged himself to one woman, placed himself
at her disposal; and his heart had gone out to another. He felt that
life would not be worth living, nor the world have any charm for him,
unless he could secure Lilias as the companion of his existence. Yet at
the same time he recognized that it was the sister of Lilias to whom so
lightly, thinking, as it now seemed, nothing of it, he had offered that
life as he might have offered a flower. Was there ever a more terrible
dilemma for a young man? And he had not found it out at first. It had
not been till the terrible prose of the minister set the case fully
before him that he had recognized the complication which was so novel,
so strange, yet to him so overwhelming. Love! how could he love this
creature whom he had seen but once, of whom he knew nothing. But even
to ask that question seemed a sort of blasphemy against her, against
the strange and potent sweetness of his own emotion. Knew nothing!
he knew everything; he knew her, the wonder of creation! To see her
was enough. What doubt, what hesitation was possible? "There is none
like her, none;" he was as much convinced of that as if he had watched
all her ways for years. And to think that he had not had the patience
to wait, or any instinct to tell him that she was here! This was the
strange, the incomprehensible thing. It was a fatality. So it had been
ordained in Greek plays and uncompromising tragedy. That everything
which was sweetest should come too late--that one should be on the very
verge of the loveliest road to Paradise, and all unawares should choose
another which led a different way.
Lewis awoke to a sense, no longer of a world enhanced, and made
infinitely sweeter and fairer, by the presence in it of a creature more
beautiful and delightful than he had ever before dreamt of, but of a
universe which had gone suddenly out of joint, where the possibilities
of blessedness were counteracted by malign influences, and fate took
pleasure in turning happiness into trouble: one way and another the
calmly smiling day, the happy commonplace, the matter-of-course
existence had come to an end for him. It was very summary and very
complete. He looked back for a few days, and thought how easily he had
made up his mind about Miss Jean, how calmly he had determined to make
her a present of his existence, with a kind of horror. In reality it
had been a very small part of his existence which he had resolved to
give up to her: but this he did not recollect in the excitement of his
thoughts. He had meant to live as he pleased, always returning between
whiles to the kind, elderly, indulgent wife who, he felt sure, would
require no more of him; but this now seemed a sort of blasphemy to
him, a travesty of the life which a man should wish to live with the
true mate and companion who would share his every thought. He rejected
his former thoughts with a self-disgust that was full of anger. It was
odious to him to know that he had been capable of so thinking. All that
had altered in a moment; not with the first sight of love, and what it
was, in the person of Lilias, but with the first clear perception that
this fair creature was some one's destined bride, but not his. In the
irony of fate not his; revealed to him only after it was too late,
after he had mortgaged his existence and bound himself to a world so
much pettier and poorer than that of which she held the key.
Up to this moment there had been in the heart of Lewis very little
questioning of fate; he had taken all that came in his way with, on the
whole, a cheering composure. The loss of his parents had been made up
to him in a wonderful way. The loss of Sir Patrick was so completely
natural that there could be no repining in the sorrow, honest sorrow
deeply felt, but without any bitterness, with which his young dependent
mourned him. All this had been legitimate; he had accepted it as
inevitable and necessary. Some natural tears he dropped, but wiped them
soon. He had taken his life in the same unquestioning matter-of-fact
way, almost unconscious of any deeper necessity for satisfaction in it
than that which lay on the surface, the honest discharge of such duties
as he knew, the honest enjoyment of such pleasures as were congenial
to him. He did not know that he wanted anything more. It was not that
Lewis had not heard the murmurings of bitter philosophy in many a tone,
he had heard his old patron discourse upon the deceptions of life, he
had heard Sir Patrick's friends talking, snarling over the lies and
delusions with which, to them, the world was full; but the youth in him
had rebelled, had laughed, had attributed all this to the ill-temper
of age and disappointment, sometimes pitying, always certain that to
him nothing of the kind would ever come. And there had been nothing
in his existence to contradict this easy confidence. Nothing had gone
amiss with him; there had been no occasion for him to rail at fortune,
which had always been so good to him, or to find any delusions in the
brightness of his life. It had been without complications, without
mystery; nothing in it that was not straightforward, until he came to
Murkley; and it seemed to him that the harshest moralist could not
have objected to his innocent little artifice, his adoption of a name
to which he had indeed a good title, even though it was taken up with
intention to deceive. And even the deception had a good reason. It
seemed hard to poor Lewis that coming thus innocently, with intention
to do well, to right wrong, to atone for injury, he should have been
made to suffer. It seemed to him cruel. His imagination did not blame
Providence, which was too far-off and too solemn to be made responsible
for such matters, but he found a little consolation in recalling to his
mind the old snarlings he used to hear, the complaints against fate,
whatever that was. Why, why should such a malign chance have fallen on
him, whose wish was to be just, to be true to everybody? It seemed to
Lewis that he had good reason to complain. To be sure, he did not very
well know against whom his complaint could be directed, but he felt it
all the same.
He was late of getting up; he was slow to go out; he did not care what
he did with himself; sometimes his impulse was to hurry to the Castle,
to take advantage as long as he could of the permission which certainly
had been given him, on the mere chance of perhaps seeing _her_ again.
But what was the use of seeing _her_? It was to Miss Jean his visit
would have to be made. It was she who had been the aim of his devotion;
and at that thought Lewis laid down the hat which he had snatched up,
and threw himself in despair upon his seat. No, better to hurry away,
never to put himself within the reach of her influence again, to do
nothing at least to deepen and increase it. And then he began to say to
himself, what matter? no one but himself should ever know the strong
temptation which had seized him, the enchantment she had exercised
unawares. It would do no harm to any one but himself, if he did see her
once more; and if he suffered for it, there would be compensation in
the sweetness of her presence; he would have had the sunshine at least,
even if the cloud were all the blacker afterwards.
Throughout the whole of this self-discussion it will be seen that the
idea of being unfaithful to his first declared object never occurred
to Lewis. He believed that he had made Miss Jean fully aware of the
proposal he meant to make her. He had told Miss Margaret of it. He
had no doubt that they must have communicated with each other on the
subject, and that the mere fact of his reception at the house was a
proof that he was viewed under the aspect of an accepted lover. And,
this being the case, nothing in the world would have made Lewis flinch
from the position he had assumed. It seemed to him now like going
from the glory of the skies and free air into the dim and shadowed
atmosphere indoors. Lilias would have meant the garden of Eden, the
perennial, never-exhausted idyll of human blessedness. Miss Jean meant
a domestic interior somewhat dull, grey, full of dimness and shadows.
But all the glory and blessedness in the world could not make that
possible which was impossible, as Lewis knew; and what was impossible
was to leave in the lurch the woman he had wooed. That was the one
thing he could not do, however hard the price he had to pay. It did not
come even the length of a discussion in his mind. It was too certain,
too self-evident, for anything of the kind. He made no question about
it. Thus sometimes he jumped up, thinking he would go at once to the
Castle, and linger there till it was time to see her again; sometimes
sat down again, saying to himself why should he do it? why should he
add to his pain? Better to keep that one vision as the only one, a
sort of poem, a revelation for one moment, and no more. In the lives of
the saints such things have been told; how they had seen a celestial
vision, sometimes printing marks in their very flesh, and had seen
no more. Lewis felt that it was perhaps profane to compare with that
supreme sort of revelation his sudden view of the woman whom he could
never forget, who might have made of his life a something glorious
and noble, altogether different from its natural commonplace. It was
profane, but he could not help it: only the highest images could
express what he meant. That mere glimpse of her, attended by so little
self-disclosure on her part, almost without the communication of
words, had it not already made such an impression on his soul as could
never wear out? It had revealed another world to him, it had shown him
what life might be, what it never could be, and with what a strange,
lamentable misconception he had chosen the lower place!
He was still in this uncertain condition, walking to the window now and
then, looking out vaguely, pacing about the room, pausing to look at
himself in the dingy mirror on the mantelpiece, taking up his hat and
putting it down again, not able to decide what he should do, when his
attention was caught by the sound of steps coming up the stairs, and
the voice of Janet directing some one to come "This way, sir, this way."
"Our young gentleman took a walk yestreen, ower long, and lost his
way, so he's no out this morning, which is just very lucky," Janet was
saying.
Lewis threw down his hat with an impatient exclamation. It was
Stormont, no doubt, he who could do what he pleased, who had taken his
own way and satisfied himself, though not as Lewis would have done:
or perhaps the minister who had laughed and spoken of the queen of
beauty and love as a "poor little thing." There sprang up in his mind
immediately a sort of hatred of them both as thus problematically
preventing him from seeing her again: for he no sooner felt that he
could not do it than it seemed to him he had made up his mind to do it,
and was in the very act of sallying forth. But it was neither Stormont
nor the minister who was shown in by Janet. She opened the door, and
put her head in first with a certain caution.
"This'll be yon gentleman," she said, and made a sort of interrogative
pause, as much as to say no one should enter did Lewis disapprove. Then
she opened the door wider, and added, "A gentleman to see you, Mr.
Murray," in a louder voice.
To say that Janet paused after this for a moment to satisfy herself
what sort of greeting passed between them, and whether or not she
had done well to introduce the stranger, is scarcely necessary. She
stood with the door in her hand, and the most sympathetic curiosity
in her mind: but when she saw the newcomer hurry forward with a sort
of chuckling laugh, holding out his hand and exclaiming, in familiar
accents, "So this is you! It was just borne in upon me that it must be
you," Janet withdrew well pleased.
"It's a' just as it should be," she said to Adam, who had lingered
to see the result. "I'll no say our young lad is pleased: but it's a
friend, it's no a spy nor a sheriff's officer."
"It's a writer from Edinburgh," said Adam; "I've seen him in the
Parliament house."
"Hoot awa' with your Parliament house!" cried Janet. "It's ten years
since you were in Edinburgh, and how can ye mind if he's a writer or
no? Besides, I told ye, he's no feared for ony writer; he asked me,
bless the callant! what a writer was?"
Adam was more sceptical, having, as he thought, more knowledge of the
world. "Ye may ken the thing and no ken the name," he said.
But even he shouldered his rood and stalked away with a relieved mind;
for Lewis had so moved the household at the 'Murkley Arms,' and even
the village itself, in his favour, that the writer would have fared
badly who had meant mischief to the kind and friendly visitor who had
conciliated everybody. Janet, considering all the circumstances, was of
opinion that, after the greeting she had seen, it would be natural and
desirable to put in hand certain preparations for luncheon of a more
than usually elaborate kind.
But if his humble friends were consoled, Lewis was taken entirely by
surprise. He said, "Mr. Allenerly!" in a tone between astonishment and
dismay.
"It is just me," said the lawyer, "and I had a moral conviction it was
you I should find, though no one knew the name of Grantley----"
"Hush!" cried Lewis in alarm, raising his hand.
"It is not a nice thing in any circumstances," said the newcomer, "for
a man to disown his own name."
There was an impulse of anger in Lewis' mind not at all natural to him.
"It is with no evil intention, and it is no case of disowning my name.
My kind god-father, my patron--you are free to call him what you
will--wished it to be so. I have adopted his suggestion, that is all."
"But here, of all places in the world!" cried Mr. Allenerly--"it is
the imprudence I am thinking of. You have a good right to it, if you
please--but here! Have they not put you through your catechism to know
what Murrays you were of? That would be the first thing they would
do----"
"Miss Margaret has done so, I allow."
"Miss Margaret! By my conscience, you have got far ben already! And she
never found you out? and you have got footing there?"
A pleasurable sense of success soothed the exasperation and pain in the
young man's mind.
"It was for that I came here," he said.
"I just guessed as much. I said to my wife, 'He's of the romantic sort;
he'll be after little Lilias, take my word for it, as soon as he hears
of her existence.' And so you've done it! Well, Mr. Murray, if that's
what I am to call you, I congratulate you--that is, if you get clear
of Miss Margaret. She's grand at a cross-examination, as I have good
reason to know. If you satisfied her----"
"I think I satisfied her--I go there--I was going now, if you had
not come," said Lewis, playing with his hat, which was on the table.
It seemed to him that to get rid of this visitor was the best, and,
indeed, only thing he wished for. "After little Lilias!" The words
rang and tingled through his head; he did not wish to be asked any
questions, for already he felt as if his countenance must betray him;
he could not laugh as his visitor did. It was impossible for him even
to respond with a smile. And that fixed gravity was something which had
never before been seen on Lewis's face.
Mr. Allenerly cast a curious look upon him, and then he in turn put
down his hat upon the table and drew forward a chair.
"You have made your way in what seems a surprising manner," he said,
"but you do not seem very cheery about it. You will excuse me if I am
pressing--it is a thing I should have been keen to push on, if I had
not known that things of this kind must come of themselves; and, if you
will pardon me for saying so, I wanted to know more of you before I
would have put you in the way of Miss Lilias, poor thing. She is very
young, and the first that comes has a great chance with a young girl.
But her sisters have very high notions; they are ambitious for her, I
have always heard, and whether they would have the sense to see that a
bird in the hand is worth two, or any number, in the bush----"
"I cannot let you continue in a mistake," said Lewis, pale and grave.
"It is not as you think; the thing is different----"
He paused, and Mr. Allenerly paused too, and looked at him with a
doubtful air.
"Do you mean," he said, "to tell me that you, a young man from foreign
parts, that knows neither England nor Scotland--a young man that is
your own master, going where you please--do you mean to say that you
come here to a small Scotch village, and settle down in a country
public-house (for it's little better) for weeks with no object? I have
a respect for you, Mr. Grantley, but I cannot swallow that."
"I did not say so," said Lewis, with a gravity that was exaggerated,
and full of the dignified superiority of offended youth; but he could
not defend himself from those impulses of imprudence which were natural
to him. "It is not necessary, I suppose," he said, "that my object
should be exactly as you have stated. There are three sisters----"
Mr. Allenerly made no reply at first, but gazed at him with astonished
eyes. Then he suddenly burst into a peal of laughter.
"This is too good a joke," he said, "you rogue, you deceiver! Do you
think it's a fair thing to play off your fun upon your man of business?
None o' that--none o' that! No, but that's the best joke I've heard
this year or more. I must tell my wife of that. There's three sisters,
says he! Lord! but that beats all."
"I am at a loss," said Lewis, more dignified than ever, "to understand
the cause of your mirth; but, when you have had it out, perhaps you
will let me inform you of the real state of affairs."
"That is just what I am ready to do," the lawyer said, in his turn
offended, "more than ready. The ladies are my clients, Mr.----"
"It was my godfather's desire that my name should be Murray."
"Then Murray be it!" cried the writer, with vehemence. "What have I
to do with your name? If it comes to that, ye may call yourself royal
Stuart, or Louis XVI., or anything ye please, for me."
"Don't let us quarrel, Mr. Allenerly; you have been very kind to me,"
said Lewis, suddenly struck with the absurdity of this discussion. He
laughed as he held out his hand. "Come," he said, "do not be so hot,
and I will tell you. But why should you laugh? I have paid my court
to the second of the two sisters. She is a lady whom I respect very
much. She is sweet and good. A laugh I cannot endure upon her account.
I have endeavoured to do what I could to please her. I hope I may
have--a little--succeeded," Lewis said. The supernatural gravity and
dignity had gone out of his face; instead of these, there came a smile
which had some pathos in it. There was a slight quiver in his sensitive
mouth. It was not vanity, but a certain sorrowful pleasure, a sort
of compassionate satisfaction which was in the smile; it checked the
lawyer's laugh more effectually than any big words could have done. But
he looked with great and growing surprise into the young man's face.
"Miss Jean?" he said, almost timidly, with a sudden sense of something
that lay behind.
"Miss Jean," Lewis said, with a little affirmative nod several times
repeated. "She loves music very much. She has a fine and tender soul. I
think no one knows what she is. They think her only gentle and weak."
"That is true--that is true. She is a good woman; but----"
"I will confess to you," said Lewis, "I heard that there were three,
and it troubled me. I had thought there would be one who was the heir
after your English way. I was in much trouble what to do. Then it was
evident that this good Miss Jean was she whom I could have most access
to, and I loved her on account of the music; but I did not know," he
added, ingenuously, with a sigh, "I will acknowledge it to you--I did
not know that the other lady was young; I did not know she was--what I
found her yesterday. Ah! I saw her only yesterday for the first time."
Mr. Allenerly, who had jumped up in great interest and excitement, and
had been pacing about the room all this time, here came up to Lewis and
struck him on the shoulder.
"You are neither Scotch nor English," he said, "but you're a fine
fellow; I would say that before the world. You came here to restore the
money to them in a real generous way without thinking of yourself; but
cheer up, my lad! Miss Jean has nothing to do with it. It is Lilias
that is the heir. What do I mean? I will soon tell you what I mean.
Margaret and Jean have a small estate in the south country that was
their mother's. They have nothing to do with Murkley. Boys are always
looked for, and little thought was taken for them. But when the general
married his second wife, the Castle and a bit of the old land, too
little, far too little, was put in the marriage settlement--and Lilias
is the heir of that--Lilias the little one, the young one, the bonnie
one. You are in greater luck than you thought."
"Then it will be no restoration at all," said Lewis, his face growing
longer and paler with disappointment and dismay.
"Not if you persevere in your present fancy--but that is just
nonsense--you must turn your thoughts into another channel."
"You speak," said Lewis, "as if one's thoughts were like a stream of
water. That is not to be considered at all; it is too late."
"Then it is all settled----Has Miss Jean--the Lord preserve
us--accepted ye?" Mr. Allenerly said.
"Does that matter?" said Lewis. "I have laid my homage at her feet; it
is for her to take, if she will."
"But--" cried the lawyer, in dismay, "don't ye see that all will be
spoiled? that your very purpose will be balked--that everything will go
wrong? If it is not settled beyond remedy, you must just do what many a
man has done before. You must draw back before it is too late----"
"Draw back--and leave a lady insulted----You forget"--the young man
spoke with much dignity--"that, though I am not a Murray, I am a
gentleman," Lewis said.