Lily’s room was faintly illuminated by a couple of candles, which, as it
was a large room with gloomy furniture, made little more than darkness
visible, except about the table on which they stood, the white cover of
which, and the dressing-glass that stood upon it, diffused the light a
little. It was not one of those dainty chambers in which our Lilys of
the present day are housed. One side of the room was occupied by a large
wardrobe of almost black mahogany, polished and gleaming with many
years’ manipulation, but out of reach of these little lights. The bed
was a large four-post bed, which once had been hung with those moreen
curtains which were the triumph of the bad taste of our fathers, and had
their appropriate accompaniment in black hair-cloth sofas and chairs.
Lily had been allowed to substitute for the moreen white dimity, which
was almost as bad, and hung stiff as a board from the valance ornamented
with bobs of cotton tassels. She could not help it if that was the best
that could be done in her day. Every thing, except the bed, was dark,
and the distance of the large room was black as night, except for the
relief of an open door into a small dressing-room which Robina occupied,
and in which a weird little dip candle with a long wick unsnuffed was
burning feebly. Nobody can imagine nowadays what it was to have candles
which required snuffing, and which, if not attended to, soon began to
bend and topple over, with a small red column of consumed wick, in the
midst of a black and smoking crust. A silver snuffer tray is quite a
pretty article nowadays, and proves that its possessor had a
grandfather; but then! The candles on the dressing-table, however, were
carefully snuffed, and burned as brightly as was possible for them while
Robina took off her young mistress’s great white Indian mantle, with its
silken embroideries, and undid her little pearl necklace. Lily had the
milk-white skin of a Scotch girl, and the rose-tints; but she was brown
in hair and eyes, as most people are in all countries, and had no glow
of golden hair about her. She was tired and pale that night, and the
tears were very near her eyes.
“Ye’ve been dancing more than ye should; these waltzes and new-fangled
things are real exhaustin’,” Robina said.
“I have been dancing very little,” said Lily; “my heart was too heavy.
How can you dance when you have got your sentence in your pocket, and
the police coming for you to haul you away to the Grassmarket by skreigh
of day?”
“Hoot, away with ye!” cried Robina, “what nonsense are ye talking? My
bonnie dear, ye’ll dance many a night yet at a’ the assemblies, and go
in on your ain man’s airm----”
“It’s you that’s talking nonsense now. On whose arm? Have we not got our
sentence, you and me, to be banished to Dalrugas to-morrow, and never to
come back--unless----”
“Ay, Miss Lily, unless! but that’s a big word.”
“It is, perhaps, a big word; but it cannot touch me, that am not of the
kind that breaks my word or changes my mind,” said Lily, raising her
head with a gesture full of pride.
“Oh, Miss Lily, my dear, I ken what the Ramsays are!” cried the faithful
maid; “but there might be two meanings till it,” and she breathed a half
sigh over her young mistress’s head.
“You think, I know--and maybe I once thought, too; but you may dismiss
that from your mind, as I do,” said the girl, with a shake of the head
as if she were shaking something off. And then she added, clasping her
hands together: “Oh, if I were strong enough just to say, ‘I am not
caring about your money. I am not afraid to be poor. I can work for my
own living, and you can give your siller where you please!’ Oh, Beenie,
that is what I want to say!”
“No, my darlin’, no; you must not say that. Oh, you must not say that!”
Robina cried.
“And why? I must not do this or the other, and who are you that dares to
say so? I am my mother’s daughter as well as my father’s, and if that’s
not as good blood, it has a better heart. I might go there--they would
not refuse me.”
“Without a penny,” said Robina. “Can you think o’t, Miss Lily? And is
that no banishment too?”
Lily rose from her chair, shaking herself free from her maid, with her
pretty hair all hanging about her shoulders. It was pretty hair, though
it was brown like every-body else’s, full of incipient curl, the
crispness yet softness of much life. She shook it about her with her
rapid movement, bringing out all the undertones of color, and its wavy
freedom gave an additional sparkle to her eyes and animation to her
look. “Without a penny!” she cried. “And who is caring about your
pennies? You and the like of you, but not me, Beenie--not me! What do I
care for the money, the filthy siller, the pound notes, all black with
the hands they’ve come through! Am I minding about the grand dinners
that are never done, and the parties, where you never see those you want
to see, and the balls, where---- Just a little cottage, a drink of milk,
and a piece of cake off the girdle, and plenty to do: it’s that that
would please me!”
“Oh, my bonnie Miss Lily!” was all that Beenie said.
“And when I see,” said the girl, pacing up and down the room, her hair
swinging about her shoulders, her white under-garments all afloat about
her in the energy of her movements, “that other folk think of that
first. Whatever you do, you must not risk your fortune. Whatever you
have to bear, you must not offend your uncle, for he has the
purse-strings in his hand. Oh, my uncle, my uncle! It’s not,” she cried,
“that I wouldn’t be fond of him if he would let me, and care for what he
said, and do what he wanted as far as I was able: but his money! I
wish--oh, I wish his money--his money--was all at the bottom of the
sea!”
“Whisht! whisht!” cried Beenie, with a movement of horror. “Oh, but
that’s a dreadful wish! You would, maybe, no like it yourself, Miss
Lily, for all you think now; but what would auld Sir Robert be without
his money? Instead of a grand gentleman, as he is, he would just be a
miserable auld man. He couldna bide it; he would be shootin’ himself or
something terrible. His fine dinners and his house, and his made dishes
and his wine that costs as much as would keep twa-three honest families!
Oh, ye dinna mean it, ye dinna mean it, Miss Lily! You dinna ken what
you are saying; ye wouldna like it yoursel’, and, oh, to think o’ him!”
Lily threw herself down in the big chair, which rose above her head with
its high back and brought out all her whiteness against its sober cover.
She was silenced--obviously by the thought thus suggested of Sir Robert
as a poor man, which was an absurdity, and perhaps secretly, in that
innermost seclusion of the heart, which even its possessor does not
always realize, by a faint chill of wonder whether she would indeed and
really like to be poor, as she protested she should. It was quite true
that a drink of milk and a piece of oatcake appeared to her as much
nourishment as any person of refinement need care for. In the novels of
her day, which always affect the young mind, all the heroines lived upon
such fare, and were much superior to beef and mutton. But there were
undoubtedly other things--Robina, for instance; although no thought of
parting from Robina had ever crossed Lily’s mind as a necessary part of
poverty. But she was silenced by these thoughts. She had not, indeed,
ever confessed in so many words even to Robina, scarcely to herself,
that it was Ronald who cared for the money, and that it was the want of
any impulse on his part to do without it that carried so keen a pang to
her heart. Had he cried, “A fig for the money!” then it might have been
her part to temporize and be prudent. The impetuosity, the recklessness,
should not, she felt, be on her side.
It was on the very next day that her decision was to be made, and it had
not been till all other means had failed that Sir Robert had thus put
the matter to the touch. He had opposed her in many gentler ways before
it came to that. Sir Robert was not a brute or a tyrant--very far from
it. He was an old gentleman of fine manners, pluming himself on his
successes with “the other sex,” and treating all women with a superfine
courtesy which only one here and there divined to conceal contempt. Few
men--one may say with confidence, no elderly man without wife or
daughters--has much respect for women in general. It is curious, it is
to some degree reciprocal, it is of course always subject to personal
exceptions; yet it is the rule between the two sections of humanity
which nevertheless have to live in such intimate intercourse with each
other. In an old bachelor like Sir Robert, and one, too, who was
conscious of having imposed upon many women, this prepossession was more
strong than among men of more natural relationships. And Lily, who was
only his niece, and had not lived with him until very lately, had not
overcome all prejudices in his mind, as it is sometimes given to a
daughter to do. He had thought first that he could easily separate her
from the young man who did not please him, and bestow her, as he had a
right to bestow his probable heiress, on whom he pleased. When this
proved ineffectual, he cursed her obstinacy, but reflected that it was a
feature in women, and therefore nothing to be surprised at. They were
always taken in by fictitious qualities--who could know it better than
he?--and considered it a glory to stick to a suitor unpalatable to
their belongings. And then he had threatened her with the loss of the
fortune which she had been brought up to expect. “See if this fine
fellow you think so much of will have you without your money,” he said.
Lily had never in so many words put Lumsden to the trial, never proposed
to him to defy Sir Robert; but she had made many an attempt to discover
his thoughts, and even to push him to this rash solution, and, with an
ache at her heart, had felt that there was at least a doubt whether the
fine fellow would think so much of her if she were penniless. She had
never put it to the test, partly because she dared not, though she had
not been able to refrain from an occasional burst of defiance and hot
entreaty to Sir Robert to keep his money to himself. And now she was to
decide for herself--to give Ronald over forever, or to give over
Edinburgh and the society in which she might meet him, and keep her love
at the cost of martyrdom in her uncle’s lonely shooting-box on the
moors. There was, of course, a second alternative--that which she had so
often thought of: to refuse, to leave Sir Robert’s house, to seek refuge
in some cottage, to live on milk and oatcake, and provide for herself.
If the alternative had been to run away with her lover, to be married to
him in humility and poverty, to keep his house and cook his dinners and
iron his linen, Lily would not have hesitated for a moment. But he had
not asked her to do this--had not dreamed of it, it seemed; and to run
away alone and work for herself would be, Lily felt, to expose him to
much animadversion as well as herself; and, most of all, it would betray
fully to herself and to her uncle, with that sneer on his face, the
certainty that Ronald would not risk having her without her money, that
discovery which she held at arm’s-length and would not consent to make
herself sure of. All these thoughts were tumultuous in her mind as she
opened her eyes to the light of a new day. This was the final moment,
the turning-point of her life. She thought at first when she woke that
it was still the same misty moonlight on which she had shut her eyes,
and that there must still be some hours between her and the day. But it
was only an easterly haar with which the air was full--a state of
atmosphere not unknown in Edinburgh, and which wraps the landscape in a
blinding shroud as of white wool, obliterating every feature in a place
which has so many. Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Craigs and the Castle
Rock had all disappeared in it from those who were in a position to see
them; and here, in George Square, even the brown houses opposite had
gone out of sight, and the trees in the garden loomed dimly like ghosts,
a branch thrust out here and there. Lily asked herself, was it still
night? And then her mind awoke to a state of the atmosphere not at all
unusual, and a sense that the moment of her fate had arrived, and that
every thing must be settled for her for good or for evil this day.
She was very quiet, and said scarcely any thing even to Robina, who
dressed her young mistress with the greatest care, bringing out a dress
of which Sir Robert had expressed his approval, without consulting Lily,
who indeed paid little attention to this important matter. Considering
the visions of poverty and independence that ran in her mind, it was
wonderful how peaceably she resigned herself to Robina’s administration.
Sometimes, when a fit of that independence seized her, she would push
Robina away and do every thing for herself. Beenie much exaggerated the
misfortunes of the result in such moments. “Her hair just a’ come down
tumbling about her shoulders in five minutes,” she said, which was not
true: though Lily did not deny that she was not equal to the elaborate
braids which were in fashion at the moment, and could not herself plait
her hair in any thing more than three strands, while Beenie was capable
of seven, or any number more.
But to-day she was quite passive, and took no interest in her
appearance. Her hair was dressed in a sort of coronet, which was a mode
only used on grand occasions. Ordinarily it was spread over the back of
the head in woven coils and circles. There was not any thing
extraordinary in Lily’s beauty. It was the beauty of youth and
freshness and health, a good complexion, good eyes, and features not
much to speak of. People did not follow her through the streets, nor
stand aside to make way for her when she entered a room. In Edinburgh
there were hundreds as pretty as she; and yet, when all was said, she
was a pretty creature, good enough and fair enough to be a delight and
pride to any one who loved her. She had innumerable faults, but she was
all the sweeter for them, and impulses of temper, swift wrath, and
indignation, and impatience, which proved her to be any thing but
perfect. Sometimes she would take you up at a word and misinterpret you
altogether. In all things she was apt to be too quick, to run away with
a meaning before you, if you were of slow movement, had got it half
expressed. And this and many other things about her were highly
provoking, and called forth answering impatience from others. But for
all this she was a very lovable, and, as other girls said, nice, girl.
She raised no jealousies; she entertained no spites. She was always
natural and spontaneous, and did nothing from calculation, not even so
much as the putting on of a dress. It did not occur to her even to
think, to enquire whether she was looking her best when the hour had
come at which she was to go to Sir Robert. Robina took her by the
shoulders and turned her slowly round before the glass; but Lily did not
know why. She gave her faithful servant a faint smile over her own
shoulder in the mirror, but it did not enter into her mind that it was
expedient to look her best when she went down stairs to her uncle. If
any one had put it into words, she would have asked, what did he care?
Would he so much as notice her dress? It was ridiculous to think of such
a thing--an old man like Sir Robert, with his head full of different
matters. Thus, without any thought on that subject, she went slowly down
stairs--not flying, as was her wont--very sedately, as if she were
counting every step; for was it not her fate and Ronald’s which was to
be settled to-day?