The ladies were very tired when they got home. It is a long journey
from London to the north. They were late next morning, and still
languid with the fatigue, and with the curious sense of having
dropped out of another sphere which came after their strange London
experiences. To come into the old house, and see everything unchanged,
was very wonderful. It made the past look like a dream. To Lilias,
above all, for whom life had sustained an entire revolution, there was
something extraordinary, weird, and uncanny about the old existence,
which seemed to wait for her here like a distinct and separate thing,
receiving her once more into its bosom, going on with her as if the
other had never been. As she lingered with Jean over the late breakfast
from which Margaret had risen an hour before, she looked round upon
the wainscot, with all those gleams of reflection in it which she
remembered all her life, and the old pictures, and the furniture all in
its place, with a sort of dismay.
"Do you think we have ever been away?" she said, with a scared look
in her eyes. She was afraid of the stillness, which seemed to close
over her, making all the colour and commotion of the past season, and
all the new thoughts with which it had filled her mind, die away like
things that had never been.
"That is just the feeling every time you make a change," said Jean,
"for life is a very strange thing. I've sometimes thought it was never
more than half-real at the best of times: and whiles you would like to
put forth your hand and grip to feel if it is true."
This was beyond the experience of little Lilias; but there was a
sensation of suspense and uncertainty in her mind which made her old
sister's contemplative thoughts very congenial to her.
"It will turn out," she said, with a laugh, the sound of which
half-frightened her, "that we have all been sleeping and dreaming.
But no!--for now I remember. I am not so silly now as when I went
away. London was very bonnie, but not grand like what I thought,
and, oh, do you remember, Jean, about the Queen in the Court, what a
fool--what a fool I was!" Lilias clapped her hands together in shame
and self-impatience. "You should have told me," she cried.
"But, my dear," said Miss Jean, "I cannot affirm that I know any
better, even now: for it was not me but Margaret that went with you to
see Her Majesty. You are more experienced than I am. You have had a
grand setting-out in the world, Lilias; none of our house for many a
day has done what you have done. Even your bonnie young mother, though
she was an earl's daughter--you have had, you may say, the world at
your feet, my bonnie dear. And it has not turned her head either," said
Miss Jean, smiling upon her with pride and happiness, "you are just our
little Lilias all the same."
"The world at my feet! I wonder what that means?" cried Lilias, with a
little scoff; but, after all, the suggestion was pleasant to her. She
was silent a little, thinking, with a smile, of two or three acts of
homage that had been done her, that had made the little girl aware that
she was a woman in her moment of power. It pleased and flattered, and
at the same time it amused her to recall those scenes in the brief and
bright drama which seemed, as she looked back upon it, like something
she had seen in the theatre, a curious, vivid, all-interesting
performance, in which the chief character was herself: and yet not
herself, a visionary creature, whose proceedings she, Lilias Murray,
at home in Murkley, could gaze at from afar with wonder and amusement.
She put her hands softly together, and said, "But if this is what it
all comes to in the end!" But even as she said these words there came a
delightful sense of expectation to her heart, and she laughed, knowing
that this was not all it was coming to. Jean, for her part, gave a soft
little sigh.
"When you are older, my darling," she said, "you will find a great
soothing is always coming back. Home is just like an old friend holding
its arms open to you, always waiting for you, aye ready, whatever
troubles you may be in."
Lilias listened, smiling. It was not the aspect of home which pleased
her fancy at the moment. Of all unrealities in the world nothing
seemed so unreal to her as the idea that a refuge from trouble would
ever be needful for the long young life that was in her heart and her
thoughts. She looked at her sister with a loving pity, tinged with
amusement too. It was natural that Jean should look upon it so. Dear
Jean! with all her pretty, old-fashioned ways, the tranquillity of her
gentle soul. She was in her element at Murkley, not in London. Lilias
knew that the old table-cover, with all its silken flowers half done,
would come out in another half-hour, and the basket of silks be set
forth upon the little table: and that Jean, with her fine head relieved
against the window, would look as if she had never moved from that
spot. She laughed at the thought, which was sweet, comical, pleasant.
For her own part she would sit down with a book in the other window and
look back, and behold the performances of that other Lilias who had the
world at her feet, and wonder--wonder and dream what was going to come
of it all! as if in her heart she did not know very well what was going
to come.
But, as they were preparing to go to the drawing-room to carry out this
performance, a voice reached their ears from the hall with a somewhat
excited, anxious tone in it.
"I could not have been more surprised if they had told me the Queen had
come: for I expected you all to-morrow. And what have you done with my
Philip?" Mrs. Stormont said. She came into the dining-room, followed by
Margaret, and came forward to the table, holding out her hands with an
air of joyous welcome under which there was a certain restlessness of
anxiety. "Oh, fie! this is your London hours, still at breakfast when
other people are thinking of their luncheon. But we must forgive you
this time on account of your journey; and what have you done with my
Philip?" she said again.
"Bless me!" said Margaret, "to think I should have been so far left
to myself as to forget all about that. It is true Philip was to have
travelled with us to-morrow; but circumstances made it more convenient
for me to come away sooner, and I never let him know. But I dare to
say," she added, "that he will not be ill-pleased; for to attend upon
three women and their boxes is a trial for any man."
Mrs. Stormont shot a keen look at the speaker over the shoulder of
Lilias, whom she was just then embracing with great fervour.
"Margaret is always severe upon men, as is perhaps natural enough,"
she said; "but I would have thought my bonnie Lily would have had more
feeling. And so my poor lad is left to kick his heels at the railway
station waiting for them that never come? I cannot thank you for that,
Margaret. I think you might have had a little more consideration. There
was perhaps something due to me--if Philip, poor man, was not grand
enough to merit a thought----"
"Indeed I can assure you," cried Miss Jean, anxiously, "there was
no want of thought. But, you see, we had serious business to attend
to, and Margaret was very much taken up at the end, and we were just
hurried away----"
Mrs. Stormont did not make any reply. It was evident that she was
anxious underneath the offence, and full of uneasy thoughts. She drew
Lilias into a chair by her side, and held her hand, and stroked it
tenderly.
"And you have just had a great success, by all I hear. The Lily of
Murkley has been blooming in the King's gardens. But I hope it has not
turned your little head. For whatever strangers may say, there are no
hearts so leal as those are at home."
"You must think me a very silly little thing," said Lilias, "if
you suppose that would turn my head. It was never for us; it was
just because of----" Here she caught Margaret's eye, and divined by
something in it, and perhaps also by a rising something in her own
breast which brought the colour to her cheeks, that her intended
attribution of honour where honour was due was for the moment
unnecessary. "Because of friends," she said, with hesitation and a
blush. "Because of him, because of him!" she added to herself in her
heart, with an indignant glance at Margaret.
If she were prevented from saying it out, all the more would she
maintain it to herself.
"Good introductions," said Margaret, significantly, "are, as everybody
knows, the half of the battle; and it would be strange if the Murrays
of Murkley could not get that advantage. It is all very well over, I
am glad to say. And Lilias has enjoyed herself, and we have all seen
a great deal of company; but for my part I enjoy nothing so much as
getting home."
"And what did you make of my Philip?" said Mrs. Stormont. "That is a
crow I have to pick with you, Lilias; for he would have been home long
ago, but for somebody that kept him hanging-on in town. 'I have put off
for another day; for I'm going to a ball at Lady So-and-so's, where the
Miss Murrays will be----' And then, 'I've put off a week; for I'm going
to travel with the Murrays.' That is what his letters have been, poor
fellow--and then to be left in the lurch at the end. Ye little fairy!
If your head's not turned, I am afraid you have turned other people's
heads," said Philip's mother, with a laughing flattery, which concealed
much graver feelings.
Lilias was somewhat alarmed by this personal attack. She looked at her
sisters for help, and it was Jean who came first into the breach.
"You need not be in any way uneasy about that; for Philip has plenty of
friends," said Miss Jean. "We met him no doubt from time to time, and
he was extremely kind in coming to see us; but he had always a number
of friends--he was not depending upon us. I assure you it could not
make that difference to him," she said, anxiously.
Mrs. Stormont confronted her with a superior smile.
"My dear Jean," she said, "do you think I was supposing my son had no
friends, or was just depending upon his country neighbours for a little
society? No, no, I am not such an ignoramus as that, though I have
myself been little in London, and never was at the expense of a season:
but I am not just so ignorant as that. There are other reasons that
influence a young man, and one that has had every encouragement----"
"Encouragement!" Margaret said, whose eyes were full of the light of
battle.
"Encouragement!" said Miss Jean, deprecating. "We were just kind, as
was natural."
The mother returned the look of defiance, and took no notice of Jean.
"Indeed, my dear Margaret," she said, "I was not addressing myself to
you. It is well known in the countryside what your ambition is, and
that nothing less than a duke or a prince would please you, if you had
any chance of getting them. I am speaking to Lilias, not to you, and
I am not a person to stand by and see a young thing's heart crushed,
especially one that might, had matters taken another turn, have been my
own. Yes, my bonnie pet, it is you that I am speaking to; and you know
you have given my boy a great deal of encouragement. You will not be
persuaded by thoughts of a grand match, or by worldly inducements, or
by the fear of man--or woman either--to turn against one----"
Here she stopped, perhaps with a sense of the rashness of this appeal.
She was very tremulous and anxious, and as she looked round upon the
three sisters, who had all been instrumental, as she thought, in
disappointing her and scorning her son and leaving him behind, it was
all the mother could do to restrain the flood of bitter words that came
pouring to her lips. She stopped, however, hastily, and with a little
agitated laugh.
"I am just taking the disappointment a great deal too seriously, you
will say; but I am disappointed, you see. I looked for my Philip
coming home happy and well pleased; and then to hear you were back
before your time, and not a word from him!--But no doubt he'll be home
to-morrow, and nothing changed. I am just going too fast; you will
think nothing of it. I'm of an anxious nature, and it's my way."
The elder ladies accepted the apology, according to their different
characters, Miss Jean eagerly agreeing that it was very disappointing
when you were looking for your only son, and found nothing but
strangers, and Miss Margaret receiving it stiffly with a dignity beyond
words.
"For," she said, "though we might be glad of the company of any friend
on a long journey, yet I never think it a good thing for women to
put their fashes about luggage and so forth upon a man, unless he
belongs to them. He is apt," she added, "to think more of it than it
deserves--as if the women could have done nothing without him, which is
not my way."
"No," said Mrs. Stormont, with a laugh which was in itself a confession
of excitement; "you're one of those that like to be independent. But
don't you copy your sister in that, Lilias, for it is a thing the men
cannot bide. They would rather you were silly, and always clinging to
them, than going your own gait in that bold manner. And though it may
suit Margaret, who is done with everything of the kind, it is not the
same for you."
Lilias had been watching the scene with anxious, half-amused eyes.
There had always been little passages of arms between Margaret and Mrs.
Stormont.
"Philip is not very clever about the luggage," she said. "He lost all
his own things, you know. I told him I could do it better myself."
"And what did he say?" said the mother, beaming upon her. "Oh, nothing
to say over again, I am sure, for he is not one for phrases, my Philip.
And so you had your fill of dancing and every pleasure? Well, well! it
is a grand thing to have your day: and now you've come back, Lilias,
just as you went, you must not scorn your old friends. 'Sneer na
British lads awa',' as Burns says."
"I hope she will sneer at nobody," said Miss Jean; "and two or three
months in London is not such a terrible time. There are few changes in
the parish, so far as I can hear. Old Mrs. Johnston at The Hillhead is
gone, poor lady; but that was to be looked for at her age; and young
Lauder married upon his housekeeper, which is a great pity, and must
vex all his friends; and----"
"No," said Mrs. Stormont, still looking at Lilias; "there's little
sneering in that bonnie face; but still hearing just one thing round
you may give a warp to your mind, and you must remember, Lilias, that
the grand folk in London, though they may be very smiling for a time,
they just go their own gait, and think no more of a country girl,
however she might be admired for the moment; but old friends are always
safe--they never change."
"Old friends or new friends, I would not advise her to be dependent
either upon one or the other," said Margaret. "It's best to stand on
your own ground. Lilias, will you go and tell Simon about getting out
the carriage, and bid him ask if we can have the horses, for there are
some visits that we ought to pay. You will forgive me," she said, when
the girl left the room, "for sending her away: for we must respect her
simplicity at her age. She is thinking nothing, neither of British
lads nor of any other. I am not one that likes to put such things in a
girl's head."
Mrs. Stormont blushed with anger and annoyance.
"It is the first time," she said, "that I have been blamed with putting
things that should not be there into a girl's head. But we all know
about maidens' bairns--and since Lilias is to be the immaculate one
that never thinks upon a lover--But, if that was your meaning, I wonder
you ever took her to London, which is just the grand marriage market,
if what everybody says is true."
"It was no marriage market, you may be sure," cried Margaret, growing
red in her turn, "for any child of mine."
"Well, that is proved, no doubt," said the other, with the composure of
successful malice, "since Lilias ye took her away, and Lilias ye have
brought her back."
"Oh, what is the use," cried Miss Jean, breaking in anxiously, "of the
like of us old friends casting out with each other about nothing? If
Lilias were to be married, it would be a terrible day for Margaret and
me."
"Oh, nobody will doubt that," cried Philip's mother. "After being
mistress and more at Murkley, and keeping that little thing that she
dare not say her soul's her own, it would be a terrible down-coming for
Margaret----"
"Mrs. Stormont!" Jean exclaimed, in terror and dismay.
As for Margaret, who had been moving about setting various things in
order, she came back at this to where the visitor was sitting, pale and
red by turns, in great nervous excitement. Margaret was very composed,
and smiled, though she was pale.
"I can make every allowance," she said, "for a disappointed mother."
She had the best of it, after all. She was able to regard with perfect
calmness the heat and passion of the other, whose long-leggit lad had
come so little speed.
"I am not the one to call disappointed," said Mrs. Stormont. "I am not
a woman with ambitions, like you. It is not me that has made a great
campaign, and nothing to show for it. But I would warn you just to mind
what you are about, for to play fast and loose with a high-spirited
lad----"
"Bless me!" said Margaret, in a tone which Jean herself could not but
allow to be very irritating, "who may that be? There were two or three,
I will allow, but they got their answer. Though I say it that should
not say it, having brought her up myself, Lilias is very clear in her
notions; she will never say no when she means yes, of that we may be
sure."
"Well," cried Mrs. Stormont, rising hurriedly, "I can only hope you'll
find things answer to your anticipations. It would be a terrible thing
to go through the wood and through the wood, and take up with a crooked
stick at the end."
"Or perhaps without a stick at all," said Margaret, with sarcastic
gravity, "which has happened with both Jean and me, you were going to
say."
"And so I was," said the angry woman--"you have just divined it; but
that beats all, Margaret Murray. If you are going to doom that bonnie
little thing to be an old maid like yourself, just that you may keep
the management and power in your hands----"
"It is such a grand scope for management, and so much power----"
"It's just as much as you ever had the chance of. Oh, I can see through
you. You just flatter her and stop the mouths of her friends with
giving her every opportunity, that you know will come to nothing--I see
through you like glass--and so keep her property in your hands, and
make her an old maid like yourself. And to keep up the farce," cried
Mrs. Stormont, "you'll keep one or two just hanging on, and give them
every encouragement. But just see if she does not turn upon you one of
these days, and choose for herself."
She hurried out, sending this shot after her from the door, and
leaving, it cannot be disputed, a great deal of the smoke and confusion
of a cannonade behind her. Even Margaret was confused, disturbed by
that sudden perception of how her proceedings might appear in the eyes
of others, which is so disenchanting. It is not a happy, though it may
be an improving process, to see ourselves as others see us. Though she
was so angry, she looked at her sister with a little dismay.
"The woman is daft," she said. "Who was it that encouraged that
long-leggit lad of hers? Never me, I'll answer for that. I hope it was
not you, Jean, that out of superabundant charity----"
"He came here more than you liked in the afternoons, Margaret, last
year."
"And what of that?" cried the mistress of Murkley. "If it had been
Donald Birnie, could I have turned him away from the door?"
"Donald Birnie knows his place," said Miss Jean, doubtfully; "but
Philip is just very suitable; and his mother might think----"
"I cannot tell what you mean with your 'very suitable.' Would you like
our Lilias to take up with the first long-leggit lad that comes to
hand? I thought we were agreed upon that point, you and me."
"Oh, Margaret, I am saying nothing else! I was only thinking that it
would not be so strange if his mother----And then there was always that
little Katie here."
"Now that is what _I_ would call very suitable," said Margaret,
regaining her composure. This recollection freed her at once from a
little fear that was beginning to creep upon her. "Katie! that would
just be the best thing in the world for him; for the Setons are very
well connected; and it would settle Philip Stormont, and make him
steady, and be company to his mother. There could be nothing better,"
Margaret said.
But, unfortunately, this was not how the matter presented itself to
those who were more immediately concerned. Mrs. Stormont went forth in
haste and heat, which old Simon, as he opened the door, perceived with
a chuckle, divining, with tolerable justice, the state of affairs; for
Simon, an old family retainer, was just as determined as Miss Margaret
that no long-leggit lad should carry off the young lady of Murkley.
Mrs. Stormont went away very hurriedly, and in so doing encountered
little Katie Seton hurrying towards the house. The very sight of the
girl added to the soreness and sense of downfall which was in the
mind of Philip's mother. She seemed to see Fate lowering upon her
over Katie's head. What if she were destined to accept the minister's
daughter for her son's wife after all!
"You are losing no time," she said. "Katie! you mean to hear all
the grand news and see the grand dresses the first moment that it's
possible. It is the best way."
"I am not so early as you, Mrs. Stormont," said Katie, who was pert,
and not inclined to yield her own cause.
"You will allow there is a difference," the angry woman said. "My son
was to have travelled with them; but he had a number of engagements,
having so many friends in London, and he left them in the lurch, which
gentlemen are too apt to do, even at the last moment. It is not pretty
of them, but it's just their nature," said Mrs. Stormont. This was an
arrow into Katie's heart as well as a forestalling of any report in
respect to Philip's unsuccess which she might hear. Katie replied with
a smile only, and went on to the house; but she had received the arrow.
And Philip's mother felt that she had in some degree redeemed the
fallen fortunes of the day.