But Mrs. Stormont's visit was far from being destitute of results.
It caused a great many discussions and much agitation at Murkley,
where Lilias was in the greatest commotion all the evening, and could
scarcely sleep the whole night through. If it was not necessary, as
Mrs. Stormont had hinted, to be absolutely in a state of innocence,
unacquainted with all balls and parties, and every sort of dissipation,
before the Queen would admit you to the drawing-room, why then, oh! why
might not she go to Philip's ball?
"I was sure the Queen would never mind," Lilias said. "If it was
for nothing else, she is far too kind; unless she was obliged for
etiquette; and if she is not obliged----"
"Oh, my dear, the Queen is the fountain-head--how could she be obliged?
She is never obliged to do this or that. Whatever she does, that is the
right thing," cried Jean, shocked by the girl's bold words. Margaret
was quite as loyal, but not quite so confident. She shook her head.
"There is nobody that has a greater respect for her Majesty than me;
but, nevertheless, I cannot but think there are things she has to
make a point of just for the sake of good order. Mrs. Stormont is no
judge--she is not in the position; her Majesty would be little likely
to take any trouble about small gentry of that kind; but the Murrays
are not small gentry, and your mother was Lady Lilias Abernethy--that
makes all the difference. You would be inquired about where an ordinary
person would not, and there's an interest about a motherless girl. The
Queen, who, they say, forgets nothing, will remember your mother, and
that you never had that advantage; her heart will be sore for you, poor
thing: and if it comes to her ears that Lilias Murray has been seen by
everybody dancing at all the small country balls and dances----"
"Now, Margaret!" cried Lilias, jumping to her feet, "how could the
Queen hear that, when it would be only one, only one at the most?"
"One would be just the beginning," said Miss Margaret. "When you had
been to Mrs. Stormont's ball (for it is nonsense to call it Philip's),
everybody else that was going to give a dance would be after you, and
they would say, with reason, if she went to Stormonts, you cannot
refuse to let her come to me; or else if you go to no other place,
worse will be said, and it will go through the country that there is
Some Reason why you should go there and nowhere else."
"Some reason!--but what reason could there be?" cried Lilias, appalled
by this solemnity, and, in spite of herself, growing pale.
"They would invent some story or other," said her sister. "You see,
there is nothing stands by itself in this world--one thing is always
connected with another, so that ye can never just do a simple action
without taking into account what comes after and what has gone before."
Miss Margaret enunciated this alarming doctrine in the evening,
with the light of the lamp falling upon her face and the widespread
whiteness of her newspaper, and showing against the dark background the
scared looks of her two companions, one of whom listened with a gasp of
alarm, while the other made a mild remonstrance.
"Margaret! you will frighten the poor thing out of her life."
"Is it true, or is it not true?" said Margaret. "You have lived long
enough, Jean, to know. There is always," she added, with a little sense
of success which is seductive, "a little of the next morning and the
night before in every day."
Now Lilias had a lively mind, and, though she had been struck by
the first statement, this repetition took away her alarm. Her
reverential attitude towards her sisters prevented her from making any
demonstration, but she was no longer cowed.
"To be sure," she said, "in a ball you are asked ever so long before,
and it is sure to last till next morning. I see now what you mean."
"Oh, if that is all," said Jean, relieved.
"Whether that is all or not, it is time for bed," Miss Margaret said,
which is always a good way of evading an argument with a young person.
But she was somewhat severe upon her sister when they were left alone.
"Do you not see," she said, "that all this is just to get Lilias for
that long-leggit lad of hers? If it had been any other person I would
have consented at once; but Philip Stormont! It would be like falling
into a man-trap just outside your own gate."
"But you were just the same, Margaret--I'm not blaming you, for I am
sure you have your reasons--about the little bits of tea-parties at the
manse that could harm nobody."
"And where there was just the same danger," said Margaret. "Not that I
would have any fear of Philip Stormont if there were others to compare
with him; but, where there's nobody else, any young man would be
dangerous. I want her when she goes from here to be fancy free."
"But there will be plenty to compare with him; there will be the best
in the county--for Mrs. Stormont is much respected," said Jean. "And
even at the manse, you forgot, Margaret, there was that young Mr.
Murray."
"The lad that plays the music," said Miss Margaret, with a smile. "I
would not hurt your feelings, Jean: but a young man that has nothing
better to do than play the piano----"
"Oh, Margaret!" Miss Jean said.
She was wounded by so much ignorance and prejudice. She went away
softly, and lighted her candle with a sort of quiet dejection, shaking
her head. A young man that had such a gift! Yet Margaret, though she
scoffed at Philip as a long-leggit lad, thought more of him than of
the young musician. Her own profound respect for Margaret's superior
judgment made it all the harder to bear. And Miss Jean was aware that
Margaret expressed the general sentiment, and that there was nobody
about who would not esteem the quality of him whose highest gift was
to stand up to his waist in the water catching trout, far above that
of the man who drew her very soul out of her breast with such strains
as she had never heard before. She could not argue in favour of the
more heavenly accomplishment. How could she speak of it even, to those
who were insensible to it, and Margaret, who was so much cleverer than
she was? The sense of helplessness and inability to explain herself,
yet of a certain humble, natural superiority, and happiness in her own
understanding, filled her mind.
Margaret, whose heart had smote her for wounding her sister, stopped
her as she was going out, candle in hand.
"You must just set it down to my ignorance, if I have vexed you, Jean;
and you will remember that I was ill enough pleased to see your friend
(as we know nothing about him) in the company of Lilias the other day;
so I'm meaning no disrespect to him."
"He is not my friend, Margaret--any more than yours, or any person's,"
said Jean, with gentle deprecation.
"I will not allow that," said Margaret, with a smile.
It was something of an uneasy smile, between ridicule and indignation,
but Jean had not the smallest conception what its meaning was. She
went upstairs with her candle somewhat consoled, but yet feeling that
her favourite had scant justice, and grieved that Margaret, and even
Lilias, should be incapable of the pleasure which was to herself so
great. Both so much more clever than she was, and yet indifferent to,
almost contemptuous of, music! Miss Jean shook her head as she went up
the dark oak staircase with the candle, and her shadow stalking behind
her, twice as large as she, nodded its head too, with a dislocated
bend, upon the darkness of the panelled walls.
Next morning, however, Margaret astonished them all by a decision which
went entirely against all the arguments of the night.
"I have been thinking," she said, as they sat at breakfast. "There are
a great many things to be taken into account. You see, it is in our own
parish, at our very doors. The horse-ferry is troublesome, but still it
is a thing that is in use both day and night, and there is no danger in
it."
"Oh, no danger!" cried Jean, who divined what was coming.
"It was you I was thinking of, to make your mind easy; for you are
the timorous one," Miss Margaret said. "Lilias there, with her eyes
leaping out of her head, would wade the water rather than stay at home,
and, for my part, I'm seldom afraid. So it's satisfactory, you think;
there's no danger, Jean? Well! and, for another thing, if we were to
refuse, it might be thought there was a reason for it. That's very
likely what would be said. That there was an Inclination, or something
that you and me, Jean, had occasion to fear."
"It would never do to give anybody a chance of saying that, Margaret,"
said Jean, with dismay.
"That is what I have been thinking," Miss Margaret said.
And then Lilias jumped from her chair again, with impatience and wild
excitement.
"Oh, will you speak English, Margaret, or Scots, or something that one
can understand! What do you mean about Reasons and Inclinations? Is it
philosophy you are talking--or is it something about the ball?"
"You are a silly thing with your balls. You don't know your steps even.
You have never had any lessons since you were twelve. I am not going to
a ball with a girl that will do me no credit."
"Me--not know my steps! And, if I didn't, Katie would teach me. Oh,
Margaret! will I go after all?"
And Lilias flung herself upon her sister's neck, and spilt Miss
Margaret's tea in the enthusiasm of her embrace. The tea was hot, and
a much less offence would have been almost capital from any other
sinner; but when Margaret felt the girl's soft arms about her neck, and
received her kiss of enthusiasm, her attempt at fault-finding was very
feeble.
"Bless me, child, mind, I have on a clean collar. And you'll ruin my
gown: a purple gown with tea spilt upon it! Is that a way of thanking
me, to spoil my good clothes? There will be all the more need to take
care of them, for you'll want a new frock, and all kinds of nonsense.
Sit down--sit down, and eat your egg like a natural creature. And,
Jean, you must just give me another cup of tea."
"I will do that, Margaret; and, as for the dress, it will be better to
write about it at once----"
"The dress is not all; there will be shoes, and gloves, and flowers,
and fans, and every kind of thing. If you had waited till the right
time, we would have been in London, where it is easy to fit out a
princess; but I must just write to Edinburgh."
"She is a kind of a princess in her way," said Miss Jean, looking
fondly at the young heroine.
Lilias was touched by all these tender glances, though she felt them to
be natural.
"I only want a white frock," she said, with humility. "I want to go for
fun, not for finery."
Miss Jean nodded her head with approval.
"But there is your position that we must not forget," she said.
"You are too innocent," said Miss Margaret, "you don't know the meaning
of words. You shall just have a white frock. What do you think you
could wear else?--black velvet, perhaps, because of your position, as
Jean says? But there are different kinds of white frocks. One kind
like Katie Seton's, which is very suitable to her father's daughter,
and another--for Lilias Murray of Murkley. You may trust that to me.
But it's a fortnight off, this grand ball, and if I hear another word
about it betwixt this and then, or find it getting into your head when
you should be thinking of Queen Elizabeth----"
"I will think of nothing but Queen Elizabeth," cried Lilias, clasping
her hands with all the fervour of a confession of faith. And she kept
her word. But, nevertheless, when Miss Jean was taking her little
stroll in the Ghost's Walk, in the hush of noon, when studies were over
and Margaret busy with her account-books, she felt a sudden waft of air
and movement, a soft breeze of youth blowing, an arm wound round her
waist.
"Oh! Jean," cried a soft voice in her ear, "will it come true?"
"My darling, why should it not come true? It is just the most natural
thing in the world. I am never myself against a little pleasure; but
Margaret has always," said Miss Jean, with a little solemnity, "your
interest at heart."
"And you too, Jean--and you too."
"But I am silly," said Miss Jean. "I would not have the heart to go
against whatever you wanted. I am just a weak-minded creature. The
moment you wish for anything, that is just enough for me. But you have
a great deal of sense, Lilias, and you can see that would never do. Now
Margaret takes everything into consideration, and she has the true love
to deny you when it is needful--that is true love," Jean said, with
moisture in her eyes.
Lilias, who was responsive to every touch of emotion, acknowledged this
with such enthusiasm as delighted her sister.
"But it is far nicer when she is not always thinking of my best
interests. It is delightful to be going!" she cried. "You have been at
a hundred balls, and you know how to behave. Tell me what I am to do."
This appeal was embarrassing to Miss Jean, who, indeed, had not been at
a ball for a great many years, and understood that things were greatly
changed since her day. For one thing, waltzes were looked but coldly on
in those past times, and now she understood they were all the vogue.
Jean was far too delicate in mind to suggest to her little sister that
the waltz had been considered indelicate in her own day. It was the
fashion now, and to put such a thought into a young creature's head,
she said to herself, was what nobody should do. But she said, with a
little faltering,
"What you are to do? But, Lilias, it is very hard to answer that. The
gentlemen will come and ask you to dance, and all you have to do is
just to----"
"To choose," said Lilias. "I know as much as that."
"Yes," said Jean, a little doubtfully, "I suppose you may say you
have to choose; but you would not like to hurt a gentleman's feelings
by giving him a refusal. I don't think that is ever done, my dear. You
will just make them a curtsey and give them a smile, and they will
write down their name upon a card."
"What! everybody that asks?" cried Lilias, "whether I like them or
not?" and her face clouded over. "There will be sure to be some that
are disagreeable, and there are some, Katie says, that cannot dance.
Will I be obliged to curtsey to them, and smile too? But I will not do
it," Lilias said, with a pout. "I do not see the good of going to a
ball if it is like that."
"It is not just perfection, no more than other things," said Jean; "but
most of the young men will, no doubt, be very nice, and you would not
like to hurt their feelings."
Upon this Lilias pondered for some moments, with a countenance somewhat
overcast.
"It is always said that a lady has to choose," she said; "but if it is
only to say yes whoever asks you----"
Jean shook her head. She could not resist the chance of a little
moralizing.
"My dear," she said, "with the most of women, I'm sorry, sorry to say
it, it comes to very little more."
Lilias looked at her old sister with keen, unbelieving eyes. She ran
over in her mind, in spite of herself, all that is said of old maids
in books, and even in such simple talk as she had heard; her mind
revolted against it, yet she could not forget it. She wondered in
her heart whether this might account for so strange a version of the
prerogative of women. She did not believe Jean's report. She raised her
fair head in the air with a little fling of pride and power. She was
not disposed to give up that stronghold of feminine imagination. A girl
must have something to believe in to make her confront with composure
the position that is allotted to her. If she is to give up all active
power of choice, she must at least have faith that the passive one, the
privilege of refusal, is still to be hers. She thought that Jean, in
her old maidenhood, in her sense, perhaps, of failure or inacquaintance
with the ways of more fortunate women, must be mistaken in her
judgment. That she herself, Lilias, should have no greater lot in the
world than to sit and smile, and accept whatever might be offered to
her, was a conception too humbling. She smiled, not believing it.
Jean was good, she was unspotted from the world, but perhaps her
very excellence made her slow of understanding. Lilias concluded her
thoughts on the subject by giving her old sister a compassionate,
caressing look.
"It is you that never would hurt anybody's feelings," she said. But she
did not ask any more questions. She concluded that it would be better,
perhaps, on the whole, to trust to instinct and her own perception of
the circumstances as they occurred. And then there was always Katie to
fall back upon--a young person of much more immediate experience and
practical knowledge than could be expected from Jean.
Miss Jean was conscious on her side that she had not satisfied the
girl's curiosity, or given the right answer--the answer that was
expected of her--and this troubled her much; for she said to herself,
"Where is she to get understanding if not from Margaret or me?" Her
first idea was to refer Lilias with humility to Margaret, but in this
she paused, reflecting that Margaret had never "troubled her head" with
such matters, that she had always been a masterful woman that took
her own way, and preferred the management of the house and the estate
to any sort of traffic with gentlemen or other frivolous persons.
Margaret, then, perhaps, after all, would in this respect be a less
qualified guide than herself, though it was a long time since she had
entered into anything of the kind. And Jean, besides her tremulous
eagerness to direct Lilias so that as much of the pleasure and as
little of the pains that are involved in life should come to her as
possibly could be, was not without a natural desire to teach and convey
the fruits of her experience into another mind. She walked along in
silence for a short time, and then she resumed the broken thread of her
discourse.
"My dear," she said, "you may think my ways of knowing are small: and
that is true, for Margaret and me have had none of the experiences of
married women, or of the manners of men, and the commerce of the world.
But you always learn something just by looking on at life, and, indeed,
they say that the spectators sometimes see the game better than those
who are playing at it. But there is just the danger, you know, that
when we say what we've seen, it may be discouraging to a young creature
who is just upon the beginning of life, and thinks all the world (which
is natural) at her feet."
"I am sure," said Lilias, half offended, "I don't think all the world
at my feet."
"When I was like you," said Jean, "I thought it was all before me to
pick and choose, but you see that little has come of it: and many a
girl has thought like me. It is very difficult not to think so when
you start out upon the road with everything flattering, and the sun
shining, and the heart in your bosom just as lightsome as a bird."
"Am I like that?" said Lilias, half to herself, and a conscious smile
came upon her face. She was conscious of herself for the moment, of
the lightness with which she was walking, the ease, the freedom, the
easily-diverted mind, the happy constitution of everything. She had no
thought of own beauty, or any special excellence in herself, for her
mind had been rather directed to the wholesome consideration of her
defects than of her advantages; but as she walked there, all young and
light by her elderly sister's side, for the first time that conscious
possession of the world and heirship of all that was in it became
apparent to her. She felt like a young queen; everything in it was hers
to possess, all the beauty of it and the pleasure--indeed, it was all
in her, in the power she had to enjoy, to see, and hear, and admire,
and love: her young fresh faculties all at their keenest--these were
her kingdom. She could not help feeling it. It came over her in a
sudden rush of sweetness and perception.
"Perhaps it is so--I never thought of it before," she said.
"Ah, but it is so, Lilias; and I hope, my darling, you will have your
day, and get the good of it; none of us have more than our day. It is
not a thing that will last."
To this Lilias answered only with a smile. She was not afraid either
of not having her day, or that it would not last. She required to look
forward to no future. The present to her was endless; it extended into
the light on either hand. It was as good as an eternity. She smiled,
confident, in the face of Fate. Jean walking beside her with her faded
sweetness and no expectation any longer in her life, did not effect
in the smallest degree the mind of her younger sister. Jean was Jean,
and Lilias Lilias. How the one could develop out of the other, how the
warm stream of living in herself could ever fall low and faint, and
trickle in a quiet stream like that of her sister, she was all unable
to understand. She smiled at the impossibility as it presented itself
to her, but neither of that, nor of any failure in her opportunities of
enjoyment, had she any fear.