The days were very long in Murkley that winter. It was not a brisk,
frosty winter, with ice and skating and curling, and all the cheerful
activities with which the strong and young set winter at defiance.
Everything of the kind, every attempt at pleasure out of doors, melted
away in the rain. The roads were deep in mud, the fields were sodden,
the river almost in flood, the skies so laden and so low that you could
almost have touched them, with your hand--so, at least, the country
folk in their bold phraseology, described them. Jean's table-cover
was almost done. She was able to sit at it, she said, as she never had
been before. There was little variety in the life of the ladies at
Murkley. There had never been much variety in their life; though, now
that Lilias was acknowledged to be "out," it might have been supposed
that their engagements would have increased. But this was not the case.
Lilias had signalized herself by closing two houses in the country upon
them at once. Murray was a name which was not now pronounced before
the Countess, who was gayer than usual, and gave several parties, as
Margaret firmly believed, for the sole purpose of making it appear that
the sisters were shut out.
"But I never blame her, poor woman; for no doubt it was a great
mortification," Margaret said, with proud triumph.
And the break with Mrs. Stormont had never been healed. Philip indeed
had returned to his old friendliness, as he had returned to other
bonds, but his mother stood out. Thus they were shut up a little
more than usual to their own resources, and Lilias, if she had taken
advantage of her opportunities, ought to have known all about the
thirty years' war. It was a long, long time before any reply came to
their letters, and, when it arrived, it was not satisfactory. Lewis had
been travelling with his chief. He was so engaged to his chief that
he could not get free to answer in person, as he would have wished.
He answered Margaret by the intimation that, in case he should die
in the mean time, he had left everything by will to Lilias, which
was an arrangement which could not be found fault with, though he
hoped to find some other immediate solution when he came home. Even
his letter to Jean was subdued and sad in tone. He seemed unable to
believe that she was right in the confidence of her hopes; he thought
his good-fortune had forsaken him, and that it was contempt, not
tenderness, which had made Lilias tear up his offering. "She would
not take even her right from my hands." Miss Jean wept much over this
epistle. She avowed that she ought to have understood the perversity of
man.
"When you think it is all just plain and easy, and nothing to do but
to enter upon your happiness, it is just then that they will turn
the wrong way," she said. They were all somewhat humiliated by the
non-success of the overtures, which they had expected to be received
with enthusiasm. Lilias, who did not know all, felt the discouragement
fall back upon her with a sudden sense of failure and shame, which gave
an altogether new aspect to life. It seemed to her that she had been
offered and rejected; her pride sprang to arms, and all the force of
her nature rallied in self-defence. When Margaret addressed her little
conclave on the subject, Lilias, with fire in her eyes, would scarcely
hear her speak.
"It is possible," Margaret said, "that there is some mistake in the
whole matter. We, perhaps, did not understand him at the first, and
perhaps we may not understand him now."
"What does it matter?" cried Lilias, with passion. "Who is it you are
wanting to understand? Oh! will you just forget about it, and never let
us say a word on the subject any more!"
"This was what I was going to say," said Margaret, firmly. "It may very
well be that a mistake has been made; but it's not for our dignity or
for our peace of mind to dwell upon that. We will just consider this
a closed chapter, Lilias. There has no harm been done. The young man
meant well, it was in his mind to do justice. He had my approval, as ye
all know. And no doubt but it was a great effort. For a man to give up
all his living and everything he has, is never a small matter. You will
mind that even the young man that our Lord loved had not the strength
of mind to do that. It is just an extraordinary thing to the credit
of the lad that he did find it in his heart to do it. But when his
sacrifice was thrown back upon him, which was what Lilias in a manner
forced upon me to do----"
"I am glad I did that! I am glad--glad I did it," Lilias cried.
"Well--I am saying nothing against that. When he has got it thrown back
into his bosom, he very likely thinks he has done all, and more than
ought to be required, and there's just an end of it. I have not a word
to say concerning Mr. Grantley. He has done all--and more--that honour
could require. But now we're done with him, and that chapter closed."
"Oh! Margaret, bide a little," cried Jean. "Oh! Lilias, listen to your
own heart; is there nothing there that speaks for him? He is under
engagements: he cannot just hurry away, and leave his duty. Give him a
little time, and let him speak for himself."
"I agree with Margaret," said Lilias, hotly. "It is Margaret that is
right. There has been too much about it--too much! and now that chapter
is closed."
"It is for the best that it should be so," Margaret said.
"Oh! Margaret, you were always hard upon him! What have you ever
done but discourage him and put him away? And now will this be for
ever--will you just reject him without a hearing?" Jean cried. Margaret
gave her a look in which there was at once judgment and warning.
"There is no hearing," said Margaret, "there is nothing but just to put
him out of our lives and all the thoughts he has raised. That chapter
is closed," she said, with great dignity and gravity. It was a decision
against which no further protest could be made.
And indeed there was a long time in which this seemed a final decision.
The chapter was to all appearance closed. Even Jean, hard though she
found it, was obliged to hold-in all demonstrations of sympathy, to
leave Lilias to herself. And Margaret, putting real force upon her
inclinations, such as no one appreciated, left her to herself. Jean
was coerced by her elder sister, and obeyed with a mute protest, with
tearful, appealing looks, with a continual lifting up of her testimony
to earth and heaven, against the fate which she could not resist. But
Margaret had no one to coerce her, no one to protest against. She was
her own tyrant, more hard to herself than to Jean. She resisted the
impulse to take her little sister into her bosom, to soothe and caress
her, to weep over her, to open up to her all the secret hoards of her
own love and tenderness. Margaret, whom they all thought so severe, so
contemptuous of sentimentality, had too much reverence for the child
of her adoration to intrude into her little sanctuary of pain, and
innocent shame, and wounded affection. It was better for Lilias that
no eye should penetrate into that refuge--her mother-sister heroically
shut the door, and stood longing, wistful, without. In the mean while
the household, for no one out of the household knew anything of the
matter, was very hard upon Margaret. Old Simon declared to the cook
that the pride of her was just more than any person could put up with.
"She'll see that bairn buried afore her een, or she let her wed the lad
she likes," Simon said.
"And wha is the lad she likes?" the maids asked in chorus, all but
Susan, who held her tongue, and looked all the knowledge she possessed.
Upon which old Simon bid them go all to their work for a set of idle
taupies that had no eyes in their heads.
"But I'll never forgive Miss Margaret, if harm comes of it; and what
but harm can come of it?" the oracle of the kitchen said.
The wet winter was succeeded by a wistful and doubtful spring, and
then by summer gay as northern summers sometimes are, with long days,
all monotonous and feelingless, such as oppress the heart. If the
year had been specially arranged to look longer than ever year looked
before, it could not have been more successfully done. It lingered
and dragged along, never gracious nor genial, a tedious, unfruitful
year. And the same change which had come over the seasons, seemed to
have come over the life of Murkley. There were no longer the little
varieties of old; just as the winter's frost, and brisk March winds,
and the caprices of April, and the disappointments of May were all lost
in one fretful dulness, so the little impatiences and mock quarrels,
the little routine of work and play, the little entertainments and
hopes of the past, all seemed to have dropped into one settled rule,
rigid and immovable, in which no relaxation or variety was. What she
did one day, Lilias did the next, unwavering, shutting herself up
within herself. She could not have borne it, had she said a word. The
sense of having come to nothing, the defeat and failure of her whole
independent existence, cut short and ended off, overwhelmed her both
with trouble and shame. That any man could have it in his power to turn
all her brightness and hopes, all her youthful gaiety and adventure,
her delightful beginning, her innocent triumph, into a mere episode
suddenly broken off, having no connection with the rest of her life,
was a thing intolerable to her; nor could she endure to think that
whatever happened to her in the future must be like a second life,
another beginning; rather, much rather, she would have had nothing
happen to her at all, but relapse into the dimness for ever. This
indeed was what Lilias thought she had done. But yet now and then a
sudden gale of expectation, a stirring of life, would breathe over
her--as if all were not ended, as if something must still be coming.
There were days in which she felt sure that something would certainly
come: after which she would rise up and slay herself in shame and
indignation, asking herself if she could be so poor a creature as
still to wish him to return. But all this passed in silence; and the
shame of those relentings, of those renewed disappointments, of those
involuntary hopes and awakenings, were to herself alone. Thus the
year went on. It had passed the meridian, and the long evenings were
beginning to "creep in" a little, soothing somewhat the spirits wearied
with this greyness of living. It was a good thing, whatever happened,
to be rid of those endless days. Nothing so beautiful when the heart
is light, or even moderately tranquil and at ease, but, in suspense
or waiting, they were intolerable. Lilias told herself that she was
not in suspense any longer, that there was nothing to wait for; but
still she was glad when the long days were over, when autumn began to
whiten the fields, and a little fire to glimmer in the dark wainscoted
rooms. By the end of August that was natural in Murkley. The house
in the evening looked more cheerful with the glow of the ruddy fire,
and when sometimes, with a sudden perverse fit, she would steal out
in the twilight after dinner, the lights gleaming in all the windows
gave her a certain pleasure to see. They looked warm, and the world so
cold; they were bright, and it was so dim. What did she know about the
world, this nursling of love and tenderness? Nothing at all: only that
her first venture in it had turned, as it seemed, into bitterness, and
it was the privilege of her youth to generalize, and to adopt as her
own experience the conclusions of world-worn men.
She had done this one evening early in September; the year had run
round, and all her anniversaries were over: the time of his sacrifice,
the time when she had given it back to him, the woeful day of his
departure, all were past. It ought to be all over, she said to herself
bitterly; what a servile thing it was to dwell upon every incident in
this way, to keep thinking of them when it was clear he thought of them
no more. Lilias began to take herself to task. She had taken a plaid
from the hall and flung it round her; the evening was closing, the
road through the park towards New Murkley was entirely deserted, no
step but her own upon it, no fear of interruption. She began to say to
herself as she went along that all this was unworthy; that, since the
first chapter of her life had been broken off, she must let it break,
and begin again; that it was like a slave to cling to the past, to bind
herself to a recollection, to let all her life fade into a shadow. As
she came in sight of the old visionary palace, with its vacant windows
staring into the twilight, there came into her head the bitter fancy
of associating herself with it. It was an emblem of her existence, she
said to herself--unfinished: all ambitiously framed for life, life on a
grand and beautiful scale; but never to be lived in, an empty memorial
of what might have been, a house for dreams and nothing else, a place
where never fire would be lighted, nor any sweet tumult of living
arise. Oh! it was like her, her great deserted palace, her strong-built
emptiness. Lilias stood and gazed at it, rising majestic against the
greyness of the sky, her eyes flooding with tears, a poignant and
sudden pang in her heart. Could any resemblance be more close? This
old house was her fortune, all she had in the world; and she was like
it. There was a mockery in it, yet sympathy; a vacant place, where no
shelter was, a vacant life, in which there never would be any warmth
of human interest. The greyness of everything about, the shadow-trees
softly waving in the night wind, the faint clouds scarcely rounding
against the cloudless sky, the mass of building all still and vacant,
everything combined to enhance the effect. The two lakes of silent
passion in her eyes blurred everything, and made that effect still
greater. The old house in the distance, with its glimmers of ruddy
light in all the window, had nothing in it so congenial with her mood.
Her castle was like herself, empty and cold, an abode of dreams and
nothing more.
Nevertheless, it gave Lilias a little thrill of alarm to see something
more upon the broad steps, all overgrown with weeds and grass, that led
to the never-opened door. Though she had been in her own consciousness
but now so tragic a figure surveying the tragic desolation of her great
house, yet she was in reality only a girl under twenty, in the grey
evening, almost dark, out of hearing of any protector, and out of sight
of her home. Some one moved upon the steps, and came slowly down and
towards her. She was too proud to turn round and fly, but this had been
her first thought. If it should turn out a neighbour, all was well; but
if it should be a stranger, a vagrant, a wandering tramp, perhaps! Half
for pride and half for fright, Lilias could not turn her back upon this
unknown; but she stood and waited to see who it was, holding up her
dress with her hands, ready for instant flight.
He came slowly forward through the dusk; her heart beat with alarm,
with wonder, with displeasure, for no stranger had any right to be here
so late. But no suspicion of the reality touched her mind. Many times
she had expected vainly, and often, often felt that round the next
corner, at the next turning, he might come. But this expectation was
far from her mind to-night, nor was there light enough to see him as he
came nearer and nearer. He stopped when they were within a few paces of
each other.
"You are afraid of me, but I am no stranger. Ah! you do not know me?"
he said.
Then there rang through the silent woods and the grey night a wonderful
cry. Lilias was not mistress of herself; the whole world went round
and round with her, the great house behind him seemed to move, to
break into unequal outlines, to crash together and fall. Her voice
sounded like something independent of her, a wild creature crying out
in the night. She threw out her hands wildly to grasp at something, she
did not know what, to hold by and sustain herself. There was nothing
near her except him. He was trembling too. He took her hands into his
without any presumption or mistake of her meaning.
"I have frightened you," he said. "It is to do more harm, always more
harm, that I come. But lean upon me, you know that I mean no evil--it
is not to take any advantage."
Lilias did not hear what Lewis said. She heard his voice, that was
enough. She discovered that it was he with a revulsion of feeling
which there was nothing in her to withstand.
"Oh! where have you been so long--so long? and me that wanted you so!"
she cried.
POSTSCRIPT.
(_Which is scarcely necessary._)
Inside the lighted windows which threw so cheerful a gleam upon the
soft darkness of the night outside, Margaret and Jean were seated,
with their heads very close together, bending over a letter. They were
reading it both together, with great agitation and excitement. The
faces of both were flushed and eager; there was a controversy going
on between them. Nothing more peaceful than this interior, the little
fire burning brightly, the lamp on the table, the wainscot reflecting
the leap and sparkle of the burning wood, but nothing more agitated
than the little group, the faces so like each other, so close together,
lighted up with all the fire and passion of civil war.
"She is beginning to forget him," Margaret said. "I will send him his
answer to-night, and she need never know. Why should the little thing
be disturbed again? She has had a terrible year, but it is all over,
all over now."
"All over now he has come. In no other way will it ever be over."
"Oh! hold your peace with your romance, Jean. It was always sore, sore
against my will to entertain the thought of him--and now that she has
got over it----"
"She will never get over it," said Miss Jean. "Oh, Margaret, have ye no
mercy in you? Will you let her heart break just for a prejudice, just
for----"
"Do you call it a prejudice that the man should be a gentleman, that
his father before him should have been a gentleman?----"
"I care nothing for his father before him," exclaimed Jean, with the
energy of passion. "He is as true a gentleman as ever stepped. I call
it just a prejudice----"
"Hold your peace, Jean. Break her heart! when I tell you she is
mending, mending day by day. Her peace shall not be disturbed again.
I will write to him that it is too late. He is gentleman enough for
that, I allow; that he will go away, that he will do nothing disloyal
to me----"
"Would you have him disloyal to her?" Miss Jean cried. "No, Margaret! I
have done your bidding many a day, but I will not now. If you write and
bid him go, I will write and bid him stay. He will judge for himself
which of us knows best."
Margaret rose to her feet with an indignant gesture.
"Will you defy me--me, your own sister?" she said.
"Oh! Margaret, do not break my heart!--but I will defy all the world
for Lilias," cried Miss Jean. "She is more than my sister, she is my
bairn; and yours too--and yours too!"
"It is for that," cried Margaret, with something like a sob, "that I
will just defend her to the death."
"Is it defending her?" cried the other, "to break her heart?"
"There is no question of breaking hearts," said Margaret, hurriedly
controlling herself, and taking up the letter; "but, Jean, for God's
sake, not a word, for here is Lilias at the door."
Neither of them remembered, in the excitement of the moment, that the
sight of them standing up to receive her, with the traces of their
struggle in their looks, must have shown Lilias, had there been no
other indication, that something extraordinary had happened. But that
mattered little, as the reader knows. Lilias came in smiling, her eyes
dazzled with the lights, her fair locks jewelled with the dews. She
kept Lewis behind her with her hand.
"I have brought somebody to see you, Margaret and Jean," she said.
Margaret let the letter fall from her hand. It was the final throwing
down of her arms before triumphant Love and Fate.
THE END.
PRINTED BY KELLY'S DIRECTORIES LIMITED, LONDON AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Missing punctuation has been added, as have occasional missing spaces.
Hyphenation is inconsistent throughout and has not been harmonised.
Errors in punctuation and misspellings have been corrected. These
include examples such as semetimes, solenm, consience, coolnesss,
grimcracks, drown for down, and one instance of the name Jean appearing
as Joan.
End of Project Gutenberg's It was a Lover and his Lass, by Margaret Oliphant