"This will never do," said Miss Margaret to Miss Jean.
They were sitting together with very serious faces after the triumphant
departure of Mrs. Stormont, who had declared with a countenance full
of smiles that to wait for Philip would be nonsense, since "when these
young creatures get together there is no telling when we may see them
again." The ladies had listened with grave looks, presenting a sort of
blank wall of disapproval to their visitor's effusiveness, and when
she had been seen to the door with stern politeness and cleared, as it
were, out of their neighbourhood, they had returned and sat down for a
few minutes without speaking, with many thoughts in their hearts.
"No," said Miss Jean, deprecating yet decided. "It is very natural, no
doubt, on her side; but to expect you to be pleased with it----"
"Pleased with it! What is there to be pleased with?" cried Miss
Margaret. "It is just a plot and a conspiracy--that is what it is, and
Lilias has no more to do with it than you or me."
"If I thought that, Margaret----"
"If you just apply your mind to it, you will soon see that. She could
not put up with that woman's petting and phrasing. If we had not
brought her up to politeness, she would have said something. She just
flew off when she could bear it no longer. And then that long-leggit
Philip--if it had not been a look from his mother, he would not even
have had the spirit to go after her. That woman is just a----"
"Oh! whisht, Margaret. I would not call her _that woman_; long-leggit
or not, he is just her son, and she thinks much of him. Very likely,"
said Jean, "she thinks it would be a grand thing for Lilias if----"
"The impertinence of her is just boundless!" Margaret said; "but we
cannot let ourselves be beaten and put out of all our plans, and our
bonnie Lilias turned into just a common country laird's wife--not for
all the Mistress Stormonts and all the long-leggit loons in Scotland!"
When Miss Margaret was excited, it was her habit to take advantage of
a few strenuous words of what she would have called "broad Scots." She
was no more Scotch perhaps at these moments than in her most dignified
phraseology, to a southern ear; but to herself the difference was
intense, and marked a crisis. It was as if she had sworn an oath.
"No, no, Margaret," said Miss Jean, soothingly--"no, no; we will never
do that."
"And how are we to help it if we sit with our hands in our laps?" Miss
Margaret cried. She got up in her excitement and began to pace through
the room, which was such a home of quiet, with its brown wainscot
and the glimmer of its many windows, that this agitation seemed to
disturb it as if it had been a living thing. Jean followed her sister's
movements with anxious eyes.
"Oh! Margaret," she said, "I am not afraid but you will think of
something. If it was only me, it would be different; but, so long as
there is you to watch over her----"
"What can I do, or anybody, if they will not be watched over, these
young things?" Margaret said, sitting down as suddenly as she had
sprung up. And then there was a moment of profound silence, as if the
very walls were relieved by the cessation of that thrill of human
movement. They had seen a great deal worse, these old walls, bloodshed
and violence, and struggle and tumult; they seemed to treat with
contempt, in their old-fashioned experience, a mere question about the
managing of a silly little girl, or even her wooing, which was less
important still.
Lilias was of opinion that she had already put up with quite too much
annoyance on the subject when she got home. She had taken with great
docility and sweetness the disapproval of Lewis, and been grateful to
him for taking her part; but when Katie fell upon her with tears and
kisses, and Philip, standing by with confused looks, sucked his stick,
and murmured an assent to the praises and entreaties poured upon her,
Lilias had not been able to withstand the importance of the position
and the benedictions of the lovers. What should they do without her?
She herself was not disinclined, when it was thus put before her, to
recognise the necessity for her help, and that without her they must
be ruined altogether; such a catastrophe, she felt, must be averted at
all hazards. "It would just be my death," Katie said, weeping; "and oh,
Lilias, we have been brought up together all our lives, and how could
you see me perish like that?" Philip did not count for much in the
matter. He was not unwilling perhaps that there should be a question of
some one perishing for his sake, but he wanted to enjoy his walks and
talks with Katie. Lilias, however, was altogether subdued by the idea
of a funeral procession, and all the black hat-bands tied up by white
ribbons. She felt that if Katie were to perish, it would be murder on
her part. She yielded, notwithstanding her sense of wrong, and the
disapproval of Lewis. After all, he had nothing to do with it--nobody
had anything to do with it. If she chose to make herself a shield for
the loves of Katie and Philip, it was her own business. Even Margaret
had no right to interfere. But Lilias felt she had enough of it when
she went home. She did not want to hear even the names of the people
whom she was thus serving at so great a cost, and the remembrance
of the scene with Mrs. Stormont and all her caresses was odious to
her. She put it severely out of her mind. She resolved that for no
inducement would she be present when Mrs. Stormont paid another visit,
and that Philip should never be permitted to accompany his mother to
the castle. These things she would insist upon, and then nothing so
disagreeable as this past afternoon could happen again.
She stole in, a little breathless, and desirous of getting to her room
unperceived. The result of so much agitation was that she had lingered
longer than usual. There had been Lewis in the first place, who had
a great deal to say, and then the lovers, from whom she had broken
away in anger, had taken a long time to reconcile her. It was late,
accordingly, when she got in, and by the time she had changed her
dress, and was ready to appear in the drawing-room, it was very late,
and her sisters were both waiting for her. They did not say anything at
that moment, but contemplated her with very serious looks during their
evening meal. Even old Simon perceived that something was coming. He
showed his sympathy to "little missie" by offering her everything twice
over, and anxiously persuading her in a whisper to eat.
"It will do you good, missie," he said in her ear; "you're taking
nothing." He even poured out some wine for her, though she never took
wine, and adjured her to drink it. "It will just be a support," he said.
These signs were not wanted to show Lilias that a storm was brewing.
She was a little frightened, yet plucked up a courage when she heard
Margaret clearing her throat. After all, she had done nothing that was
wrong. But the form which the assault took was one which Lilias had not
foreseen. They returned to the drawing-room before a word was said. By
this time it was quite evening, the sunshine gone, and a twilight much
more advanced than that out of doors lay in all the corners. Except the
space in front of the windows, the room, indeed, was almost dark, and
the bare walls seemed to contract and come close to hear what was going
to be said.
"Lilias," said Miss Margaret, "Jean and I have been consulting about
many things. You see, this is rather a dear place, there are so many
tourists; and especially in the autumn, which is coming on, and the
meat is just a ransom. Even in a little place like Murkley there
are strangers, and Kilmorley just eats up all the provisions in the
country."
Lilias' heart, which had been beating high in anticipation, sank down
at this in her bosom with a delicious sense of relief and rest. There
was nothing to be said then on any troublous subject, for who could be
excited about the tourists and the price of meat? She was glad she had
not taken the wine, for there could be no need for it--evidently no
need.
"I don't know anything about that, Margaret," she said. "I wish there
was no meat at all."
"Yes, you are just a perverse thing about your eating," said Miss
Margaret--"we all know that."
"And it is not good for you, my dear; it keeps you delicate," said Miss
Jean.
"Oh!" cried Lilias, springing from her chair, "was that all you were
going to speak to me about? And even Simon saw it, and brought me
wine to drink to do me good; and it is only about the price of meat
and provisions being dear! What do you frighten people for, if it is
nothing but that?"
If Lilias had been wise, she would have perceived by Margaret's serious
looks and the wistful sympathy in Jean's face that she was far as yet
from being out of the wood; but, after the little bound of impatience
which was habitual to her, she calmed down immediately, and made them a
curtsey.
"I don't know what is dear and what is not dear," she said.
"Ah," said Margaret, shaking her head, "but if you were to marry a poor
man, or into a struggling family that have more pretensions than they
have money, you would soon have to change your mind about that. You
would have to study what was dear and not dear then. You would have
just to spend your life in thinking what he would like, and what they
would put up with, and the price of butter, and how many eggs your hens
were laying. I'm not averse to such things myself, but how the like of
you would win through it----"
"I suppose," said Lilias, "when there is need for it, there is nobody
who cannot do that?"
"Oh, Lilias, that is far from being the case, my dear," said Miss Jean.
"It takes a great deal of thought, just like other things. Margaret
there has just a genius----"
"It was not me we were speaking of," said Margaret. "I don't wish you
to be exposed to that. It is a hard life for any young girl; and you
have been bred with--other thoughts. I don't wish you, Lilias, to be
exposed to that."
"You speak as if I wished it," said the girl. "Do I want to be poor?
What I want is to be rich, rich! to have a great fortune, and finish
the house, and fill it with people, and live like a lady----"
"You might do that without being rich," said Miss Jean, softly, which
was a sentiment quite inappropriate to the occasion, and at which
Margaret frowned.
"Well, that is a digression," the elder sister said. "We cannot tell
whether you are to be rich or poor--we must just leave that in the
hands of Providence; but in the mean time, not just to be ruined and
over-run with those tourist cattle, I was thinking, and Jean was
thinking, that if we were to retire a little and economize, and save
two or three pounds before we go to London--to Gowanbrae."
"To Gowanbrae!" said Lilias, wondering, scarcely comprehending.
"My dear," they both said, together, "it will be far better for
you. You will never be free of engagements here," Margaret went on,
"after that unfortunate weakness of mine about letting you go to Mrs.
Stormont's; and then, you know, we can face the winter quietly, and
get all our things together for the season. And--what is it, Lilias?
What is it, my pet? What is it, my dear? Oh, Jean, you said true. It is
breaking her heart."
"Margaret! you will never be hard upon our darling--even if you cannot
approve----"
Here Lilias, who had flung herself upon her elder sister, with her
arms round her neck, sprang apart from her again, clasping her hands
together with the impatience of a child.
"What is it you are saying about me?" she said. "Breaking my heart!
when I am just like to dance with joy? Gowanbrae! that is what I
want, that is exactly what I want. Oh, yes, yes, let us go, let us go
to-morrow, Margaret. That will put everything right."
They sat in their high-backed chairs, looking at her like two judges,
yet not calm enough for judges, full of grave anxiety yet tremulous
hope. Margaret put up her hand to check Jean, who showed an inclination
to speak.
"Not a word," she said, "not a word. Lilias, this is more serious
perhaps than you think. All our plans and all our thoughts are for you.
It's your good we are thinking of. But don't you trifle with us. When
you say _that_, is it out of some bit quarrel or coolness? or is it to
cheat your own heart? or is it a real conviction that it is for your
safety and your good to go away?"
Lilias stamped her foot upon the floor. She clenched her hands in a
little outburst of passion.
"Oh! you are just two----Oh! what are you making such a fuss about? It
is neither for a quarrel nor for safety (safety! Am I in any danger?)
nor for any other silly thing. It is just because I want to go. Oh,
Gowanbrae! We have not been there for two years. I like it better than
any place in the world. That was what I was pining for all the time,
only I could not remember what it was!"
"It was just a little change she was wanting, Margaret," Miss Jean said.
Margaret did not make any immediate reply. She kept her eyes upon
Lilias as a physician keeps his finger upon a pulse.
"You will get your wish then," she said. "This takes away the only
doubt I had; and now we're all of one mind, which is a wonderful
blessing in a house. As soon as the washing is done, and the things
ready, we'll start; for that will just give them time to put up the
curtains, and put everything right."
This was a somewhat dry ending to so emotional a discussion, but Miss
Margaret, who was not fond of scenes, considered it best to restore
everything to its matter-of-fact basis as quickly as possible.
"Go away, and play some of your music," she said to her sister, in
an undertone, "and don't just carry this on, and put nonsense into
people's heads." She took up her stocking, which she had dropped.
"Bless me," she said, "how much shorter the days are growing, though we
are only in July. Gowanbrae is just beautiful in the autumn, and warm
for the winter. Your old castle, Lilias, is grander, but there is more
sun in the south country."
"Margaret, if you will make comparisons, I shall have to stand up for
Murkley," cried Lilias. "But I like the one just as well as the other,
winter and summer."
"Which is all that is necessary," said Miss Margaret, nodding her head.
"Now take your book or something in your hands to do, for I cannot bide
to see a young person sitting idle. It's not becoming either in young
folk or old; and work is best, in my opinion; for doing nothing but
reading books just bewilders the brain," Miss Margaret said.
Nevertheless, it was with a book in her arms that Lilias stole into
the window, where Miss Jean usually sat with her work. She took the
book, but she did not read. It was now dark enough to conceal from the
quick eyes of Margaret how far she was carrying out her injunction,
and Lilias was in so considerable a commotion of mind that she was
glad to retire into her own thoughts. Jean's music made no very strong
appeal to either of her listeners. She sat in the further part of the
room in the dimness, scarcely perceptible, and filled the silence with
soft strains which formed a sort of accompaniment to thought, and did
not interrupt it. Miss Margaret in the middle of the room, with such
light as remained centering in her face and the hose upon her hand,
sat motionless in her high chair. She had allowed her stocking to drop
upon her lap; though she had made that protestation against idleness,
she was herself doing nothing. Perhaps she was listening to the music,
for now and then she would say, "That is a very bonnie thing you have
just been playing," or, "What was that? for I liked it, Jean." She
said this, however, night after night, at the same place, so that it
is to be feared she did it purely out of sympathy, and not from any
appreciation of the "bonnie thing" of which she desired so often to
know the name.
The soft shadows gathered over the group thus composed. Lilias in the
window, her profile showing against the light, sat in a hush of relief
and calm, never stirring, half conscious only of the dim background,
of Margaret in the chair, and Jean at the piano; other pictures were
before her eyes. Katie all in tears, hearing with consternation the
news of this unlooked-for change; Philip sucking his cane; Lewis----Ah!
she could not but wonder a little what Mr. Murray would think of it.
He would be glad, no doubt; he would approve; he would think it a good
thing that she should go away, and no longer be a screen to the lovers.
Then Lilias wondered a little, with a faint sense of mingled amusement
and--no, not regret. Why should she regret or care at all about it? He
was Jean's friend, not hers. But it was not possible not to be moved
by a question or two in respect to him. Would he go to New Murkley as
often, would he stand with his sketch-book in his hand never drawing a
line, would he take as much interest in it all when she was no longer
there? A faint smile woke about the corners of her mouth. Nobody could
see it to ask what she was smiling at. To such a question she would
have answered, "Nothing;" and it was nothing, only a vague, amused
wonder in her own mind. He would be glad she was going away, but----The
road through the park and the grass-grown spaces round the great empty
house, would no one at all linger about them now? Not Katie, who could
no longer have the excuse of coming to her friend; nor Philip, whom
no doubt his mother, much disappointed, would keep a closer hold upon
than ever. But Lilias did not care so much about them. What would
the other do, who was a stranger, who took such an interest in the
vacant palace? The smile continued upon her face; perhaps, though she
said "No, no!" vehemently to herself, there was a slight sensation of
regret, a little blank in her heart. She wondered whether it would
all come to an end? whether, when the fishing was over (but he did
not care for the fishing), he would disappear and be seen no more? or
whether he would turn out to be somebody, and to have a real interest
in Murkley? He might be, not the Australian cousin, but perhaps a son
of that superseded benefactor, secretly inspecting his cousins before
he disclosed the link of kindred; he might be----But here Lilias turned
back again, quite illogically, breaking her self-argument off in the
middle, to repeat all these wonderings from the beginning. Would he
drop out of their knowledge when they left Murkley? would they ever
see him again? what would happen? But why should anything happen? No
doubt he would just go away when it began to grow dull in Murkley, and
be seen no more. Lilias had a consciousness that it would grow very
dull in Murkley when she herself went away, and perhaps it was this
that made her, after the first moment of pleasure with which she had
heard of the proposed change, feel something that it would be wrong to
call sadness--a little blank, a subdued sensation of regret, not for
herself, as if she were leaving anything, but for the others. And of
course it would be the stranger, he who had no other thing to amuse
him, who would feel it most.
The news of the revolution and radical change of all the conditions
of life which had thus been decided upon reached the stranger with
the utmost promptitude and distinctness. Miss Margaret herself was
not aware of having revealed it to anyone but her confidential maid
when it came like a thunderbolt upon Lewis, something which it had not
entered into his mind to fear. He had been engaged all the morning
in finishing a sketch of New Murkley which he meant to offer--to
Lilias, if permitted--if not, to her sisters, and which he had hoped
would bring about some new _rapprochement_, some further step in the
intercourse which had as yet so little sanction from the heads of the
house, and which he was almost nervously anxious to reveal; for even
his own chance meetings with Lilias, which had followed in the train
of the other imprudent business to which she had given her protection,
troubled the young man's conscience and aroused his prejudices,
although against himself. He was as anxious to get the sanction of
authority for these meetings, and even to betray himself, as Philip
was to shelter in the slender shadow of Lilias and keep his real
wooing secret. This had kept him from his usual morning saunter by the
river-side, and, when Adam arrived late for his dinner with a basket
of trout, Lewis, who had heard Janet's not very amiable greeting of
her husband from the open window, went down to see the results of the
fisherman's morning work. It was not very great, and Janet stood with
a disproportionately large _ashet_[1] in her hand, which she seemed to
have chosen from the biggest in her possession, while Adam took from
his basket deliberately one by one a few small fish. She greeted each
as it appeared with a little snort.
[Footnote 1: A dish, from the French _assiette_.]
"Well, that was worth the trouble! Eh, but that's just grand for a
day's work! It shows the valley o' a man to see that."
"Ye talk about the valley o' a man that ken nothing about it," said
Adam, "the smawller they are they gi'e the mair trouble whiles. But
here is ane that was a dour ane," he added, after a pause, producing
at last a fish of reasonable size. "He's taken me maist of my mornin'.
Up the water and down the water he's tried a' the ways o't. A fish is a
queer beast: it has nae sense o' what's possible. Would you or me, Mr.
Murray, think life worth leevin' with a hook through our jaws? though I
will not say but there are human creatures that gang through it little
better off."
"Some would be a' the better for a hook through their jaws; it would
keep them from havering," said Janet, tartly.
"Deil a bit. No if it was a woman, at least, wha will haver till her
last breath, if she had all the lines in Tay grippit to that souple
jaw o' hers. But you would think," said Adam, dropping into his usual
tranquil strain after this outburst, "that a trout, gey high up as I
have heard in the awquatic organizations, would have the sense to ken
that a glancing, darting thing like a fishing-line with a far cleverer
cratur at the other end o't----"
"Eh, but the troutie would be sair deceived! ye mean a blind,
blundering cratur that a bit thing like this can lead a bonnie dance
up the water and down the water, as you say yoursel'. Fishes maun ha'e
their ain thochts like the rest o' us, and ye mightna be flattered if
ye heard them, for a' you think so little o' their opinion."
"The inferior creation," said Adam, calmly, "have a' their bits o'
blasphemies against man, who is their lord and master; but nobody
could think little o' the opinion, if ye could get at it, of a cratur
that had such a warstle for its life. Think o' a' the cunning and the
cleverness, and what you would ca' calculation, and its wiles and its
feints to draw aff your attention. Na, I canna have a gallant beast
like that put into a frying-pan in my house."
"Then, Mrs. Janet," said Lewis, always courteous, "you will put it in a
basket and send it to the castle, and I will tell the ladies that it is
a hero, or a great general, to be eaten tenderly."
"My poor young gentleman," said Janet, with a sort of compassionate
contempt, "whatever you have to send to the Misses, you must send it
soon, soon! for a' is settled and packit, and they're starting for the
south country."
"The south country!" said Lewis, in dismay. The announcement was so
sudden that it bewildered him, and, once more deceived, he thought of
Italy. "But why--what is the matter? What has happened?" he cried;
"they are not _poitrinaires_. Ah, I forgot, it is something else you
mean by the south."
"I mean just their ain house, that is near Moffat, a bonnie enough
place, but no like Murkley. I thought, sir, you would have heard," said
Janet, fixing her eyes upon him. She had become greatly devoted to her
lodger, but human curiosity is stronger even than affection, and she
was anxious to know how he would take this blow which, she felt sure,
would crush all his hopes.
And, indeed, Lewis grew a little pale; his surprise was great, a
sickening disappointment came over him; but yet, along with it, a
certain relief. His mind had been greatly disturbed by the existing
position of affairs. He had a passing sense that he was glad in the
midst of his downfall. Janet could not comprehend how this was.
"It must be very sudden," he said, moistening his lips, which the
sudden shock had made dry: and he grew pale, and his face lengthened;
but nevertheless he had a smile which contradicted these signs, so that
the keen observer at his side was at a loss.
"The mair need to lose no time with the trout," said Adam; "and,
besides, it's always best caller from the water. Janet, have ye a
basket? I'll take it up mysel'."
"Oh, ay, onything that means stravaighin'," said Janet, bitterly. "Just
gi'e a glance round ye, my man, and see if ye canna capture a basket
for yersel'."
But these passages of arms amused Lewis no more. He walked upstairs
very gravely into his parlour, where his sketch stood upon a small
easel. Would there not be time even to finish it? His face had grown
a great deal longer. This was an end upon which he had not at all
calculated: and somehow an end of any kind did not seem so desirable as
it had done an hour ago, when none seemed likely. The reign of Philip
and Katie, after all, was not, perhaps, so much harm.