“So you are there, Lily,” Sir Robert said.
“Yes, uncle, I am here.”
“There is one thing about you,” he said, with a laugh: “you never shirk.
Now judicious shirking is not a bad thing. I might have forgotten all
about it----”
“But I couldn’t forget,” said Lily firmly. These words, however, roused
her to sudden self-reproach. If she had not been so exact, perhaps the
crisis might have been tided over and nothing happened. It was just like
her! Supposing her little affairs were of more importance than any thing
else in the world! This roused her from the half-passive condition in
which she had spent the morning, the feeling that every thing depended
on her uncle, and nothing on herself.
“Now that you are here,” he said, not at all unkindly, “you may as well
sit down. While you stand there I feel that you have come to scold me
for some fault of mine, which is a reversal of the just position, don’t
you think?”
“No, uncle,” replied Lily, “of course I have not come to scold you--that
would be ridiculous; but I am not come to be scolded either, for I have
not done any thing wrong.”
“We’ll come to that presently. Sit down, sit down,” he said with
impatience. Lily placed herself on the chair he pushed toward her, and
then there was a moment’s silence. Sir Robert was an old man (in Lily’s
opinion) and she was a young girl, but they were antagonists not badly
matched, and he had a certain respect for the pluck and firmness of this
little person who was not afraid of him. They were indeed so evenly
matched that there ensued a little pause as they both looked at each
other in the milky-white daylight, full of mist and cold, which filled
the great windows. Sir Robert had a fire, though fires had been given
up in the house. It burned with a little red point, sultry and
smouldering, as fires have a way of doing in summer. The room was large
and sombre, with pale green walls hung with some full-length portraits,
the furniture all large, heavy, and dark. A white bust of himself stood
stern upon a black pedestal in a corner--so white that amid all the
sober lines of the room it caught the eye constantly. And Sir Robert was
not a handsome man. His features were blunt and his air homely; his head
was not adapted for marble. In that hard material it looked frowning,
severe, and merciless. The bust had lived in this room longer than Sir
Robert had done, and Lily had derived her first impressions of him from
its unyielding face. The irregularities of the real countenance leaned
to humor and a shrewdness which was not unkindly; but there was no
relenting in the marble head.
“Well,” he said at last, “now we’ve met to have it out, Lily. You take
me at my word, and it is best so. How old are you now?”
“I don’t see,” said Lily breathlessly, “what that can have to do with
it, uncle! but I’m twenty-two--or at least I shall be on the 20th of
August, and that is not far away.”
“No, it is not far away. Twenty-two--and I am--well, sixty-two, we may
say, with allowances. That is a great difference between people that
meet to discuss an important question--on quite an equal footing, Lily,
as you suppose.”
“I never pretended--to be your equal, uncle!”
“No, I don’t suppose so--not in words, not in experience, and such
like--but in intention and all that, and in knowing what suits
yourself.”
Lily made no reply, but she looked at him--silent, not yielding, tapping
her foot unconsciously on the carpet, nervous, yet firm, not disposed to
give way a jot, though she recognized a certain truth in what he said.
“This gives you, you must see, a certain advantage to begin with,” said
Sir Robert, “for you are firmly fixed upon one thing, whatever I say or
any one, and determined not to budge from your position; whereas I am
quite willing to hear reason, if there is any reason to show.”
“Uncle!” Lily said, and then closed her lips and returned to her
silence. It was hard for her to keep silent with her disposition, and
yet she suddenly perceived, with one of those flashes of understanding
which sometimes came to her, that silence could not be controverted,
whereas words under Sir Robert’s skilful attack would probably topple
over at once, like a house of cards.
“Well?” he said. While she, poor child, was panting and breathless, he
was quite cool and collected. At present he rather enjoyed the sight of
the little thing’s tricks and devices, and was amused to watch how far
her natural skill, and that intuitive cunning which such a man believes
every woman to possess, would carry her. He was a little provoked that
she did not follow that impetuous exclamation “Uncle!” with any thing
more.
“Well,” he repeated, wooing her, as he hoped, to destruction, “what
more? Unless you state your case how am I to find out whether there is
any justice in it or not?”
“Uncle,” said Lily, “I did not come to state my case, which would not
become me. I came because you objected to me, to hear what you wanted me
to do.”
“By Jove!” said Sir Robert, with a laugh; and then he added, “To be so
young you are a very cool hand, my dear.”
“How am I a cool hand? I am not cool at all. I am very anxious. It does
not matter much to you, Uncle Robert, what you do with me; but,” said
Lily, tears springing to her eyes, “it will matter a great deal to me.”
“You little----” He could not find an epithet that suited, so left the
adjective by itself, in sheer disability to express himself. He would
have said hussy had he been an Englishman. He was tempted to say cutty,
being a Scot--innocent epithets enough, both, but sufficient to make
that little---- flare up. “You mean,” he said, “I suppose, that you have
nothing to do with it, and that the whole affair is in my hands.”
“Yes, uncle, I think it is,” said Lily very sedately.
He looked at her again with another ejaculation on his lips, and then he
laughed.
“Well, my dear,” he said, “if that is the case, we can make short work
of it--as you are in such a submissive frame of mind and have no will or
intentions on your own part.”
Here Lily’s impatient spirit got the better of the hasty impulse of
policy which she had taken up by sudden inspiration. “I never said
that!” she cried.
“Then you will be so good as to explain to me what you did say, or
rather what you meant, which is more important still,” Sir Robert said.
“I meant--just what I have always meant,” said Lily, drawing back her
chair a little and fixing her eyes upon her foot, which beat the floor
with a nervous movement.
“And what is that?” he asked.
Lily drew back a little more, her foot ceased to tap, her hands clasped
each other. She looked up into his face with half-reproachful eyes full
of meaning. “Oh, Uncle Robert, you know!”
Sir Robert jumped up from his chair, and then sat down again.
Demonstrations of wrath were of no use. He felt inclined to cry, “You
little cutty!” again, but did not. He puffed out a quick breath, which
was a sign of great impatience, yet self-repression. “You mean, I
suppose, that things are exactly as they were--that you mean to pay no
attention to my representations, that you choose your own will above
mine--notwithstanding that I have complete power over you, and can do
with you what I will?”
“Nobody can do that,” said Lily, only half aloud. “I am not a doll,”
she said, “Uncle Robert. You have the power--so that I don’t like to
disobey you.”
“But do it all the same!” he cried.
“Not if I can help it. I would like to do it. I would like to be
independent. It seems dreadful that one should be obliged to do, not
what one wishes, but what another person wills. But you have the
power----”
“Of the ways and means,” he said; “I have the purse-strings in my hand.”
It was Lily’s turn now to start to her feet. “Oh, how mean of you, how
base of you!” she said. “You, a great man and a soldier, and me only a
girl. To threaten me with your purse-strings! As if I cared for your
purse-strings. Give it all away from me; give it all--that’s what I
should like best. I will go away with Beenie, and we’ll sew, or do
something else for our living. I’m very fond of poultry--I could be a
henwife; or there are many other things that I could do. Give it all
away! Tie them up tight. I just hate your money and your purse-strings.
I wish they were all at the bottom of the sea!”
“You would find things very different if they were, I can tell you,” he
said, with a snort.
“Oh, yes, very different. I would be free. I would take my own way. I
would have nobody to tyrannize over me. Oh, uncle! forgive me! forgive
me! I did not mean to say that! If you were poor, I would take care of
you. I would remember you were next to my father, and I would do any
thing you could say.”
He kept his eyes fixed on her as she stood thus, defiant yet
compunctious, before him. “I don’t doubt for a moment you would do every
thing that was most senseless and imprudent,” he said.
Then Lily dropped into her chair and cried a little--partly that she
could not help it, partly that it was a weapon of war like another--and
gained a little time. But Sir Robert was not moved by her crying; she
had not, indeed, expected that he would be.
“I don’t see what all this has to do with it,” he said. “Consider this
passage of arms over, and let us get to business, Lily. It was necessary
there should be a flash in the pan to begin.”
Lily dried her eyes; she set her little mouth much as Sir Robert set
his, and then said in a small voice: “I am quite ready, Uncle Robert,”
looking not unlike the bust as she did so. He did not look at all like
the bust, for there was a great deal of humor in his face. He thought he
saw through all this little flash in the pan, and that it had been
intended from the beginning as a preface of operations and by way of
subduing him to her will. In all of which he was quite wrong.
“I am glad to hear it, Lily. Now I want you to be reasonable: the
thunder is over and the air is clearer. You want to marry a man of whom
I don’t approve.”
“One word,” she said with great dignity. “I am wanting to marry--nobody.
There is plenty of time.”
“I accept the correction. You want to carry on a love affair which you
prefer at this moment. It is more fun than marrying, and in that way you
get all the advantages I can give you, and the advantage of a lover’s
attentions into the bargain. I congratulate you, my dear, on making the
best, as the preacher says, of both worlds.”
Lily flushed and clasped her hands together, and there came from her
expanded nostrils what in Sir Robert’s case we have called a snort of
passion. Lily’s nostrils were small and pretty and delicate. This was a
puff of heated breath, and no more.
“Eh?” he said; but she mastered herself and said nothing, which made it
more difficult for him to go on. Finally, however, he resumed.
“You think,” he said, “that it will be more difficult for me to restrain
you if you or your lover have no immediate intention of marrying. And
probably he--for I do him the justice to say he is a very acute
fellow--sees the advantage of that. But it will not do for me. I must
have certainty one way or another. I am not going to give the comfort of
my life over into your silly hands. No, I don’t even say that you are
sillier than most of your age--on the contrary; but I don’t mean,” he
added deliberately, “to put my peace of mind into your hands. You will
give me your word to give up the lad Lumsden, or else you will pack off
without another word to Dalrugas. It is a comfortable house, and Dougal
and his wife will be very attentive to you. What’s in a locality? George
Square is pleasant enough, but it’s prose of the deepest dye for a lady
in love. You’ll find nothing but poetry on my moor. Poetry,” he added,
with a laugh, “sonnets such as you will rarely match, and moonlight
nights, and all the rest of it; just the very thing for a lovelorn
maiden: but very little else, I allow. And what do you want more? Plenty
of time to think upon the happy man.”
His laugh was fiendish, Lily thought, who held herself with both her
hands to keep still and to retain command of herself. She made no
answer, though the self-restraint was almost more than she could bear.
“Well,” he said, after a pause, “is this what you are going to decide
upon? There is something to balance all these advantages. While you are
thinking of him he will probably _not_ return the compliment. Out of
sight, out of mind. He will most likely find another Lily not so closely
guarded as you, and while you are out of the way he will transfer his
attention to her. It will be quite natural. There are few men in the
world that would not do the same. And while you are gazing over the
moor, thinking of him, he will be taking the usual means to indemnify
himself and forget you.”
“I am not afraid,” said Lily tersely.
“Oh, you are not afraid? It’s little you know of men, my dear. Lumsden’s
a clever, ambitious young fellow. He perhaps believes he’s fond of you.
He is fond of any thing that will help him on in the world and give him
what he wants--which is a helping hand in life, and ease of mind, and
money to tide him over till he makes himself known. Oh, he’ll succeed in
the end, there is little doubt of that; but he shall not succeed at my
expense. Now, Lily, do not sit and glare, like a waxen image, but give
me an answer like a sensible girl, as you can be if you like. Will you
throw away your happy life, and society and variety and pleasure, and
your balls and parties, all for the sake of a man that the moment your
back is turned will think no more of you?”
“Uncle,” said Lily, clearing her throat. But she could not raise her
voice, which extreme irritation, indignation, and the strong effort of
self-restraint seemed to have stifled. She made an effort, but produced
nothing but a hoarse repetition of his name.
“I hope I have touched you,” he said. “Come, my dear, be a sensible
lassie, and be sure I am speaking for your good. There are more fish in
the sea than ever came out in a net. I will find you a better man than
Lumsden, and one with a good house to take you home to, and not a
penniless----”
“Stop!” she cried, with an angry gesture. “Stop! Do you think I am
wanting a man? Me! Just any man, perhaps, you think, no matter who? Oh,
if I were only a laddie instead of a useless girl you would never, never
dare, great man as you are, to speak like that to me!”
“Certainly I should not,” he said, with a laugh, “for you would have
more sense, and would not think any woman was worth going into exile
for. But, girl as you are, Lily, the choice is in your own hands. You
can have, not love in a cottage, but love on a moor, which soon will be
unrequited love, and that, we all know, is the most tragic and
interesting of all.”
“Uncle,” said Lily, slowly recovering herself, “do you think it is a
fine thing for a man like you, a grand gentleman, and old, and that
knows every thing, to make a jest and a mockery of one that is young
like me, and has no words to make reply? Is it a joke to think of me
breaking my heart, as you say, among all the bonnie sunsets and the
moonlight nights and the lonely, lonely moor? I may have to do it if
it’s your will; but it’s not for the like of you, that have your
freedom and can do what you choose, to make a mock at those that are
helpless like me.”
“Helpless!” he said. “Nothing of the sort; it is all in your own hands.”
And then there was again a pause. He thought she was making up her mind
to submit to his will. And she was bursting with the effort to contain
herself, and all her indignation and wrath. Her pride would not let her
burst forth into cries and tears, but it was with the greatest
watchfulness upon herself that she kept in these wild expressions of
emotion, and the hot refusals that pressed to her lips--refusals to obey
him, to be silenced by him, to be sentenced to unnatural confinement and
banishment and dreary exile. Why should one human creature have such
power of life and death over another? Her whole being revolted in a
passion of restrained impatience and rage and fear.
“Well,” he said lightly, “which is it to be? Don’t trifle with your own
comfort, Lily. Just give me the answer that you will see no more of
young Lumsden. Give him no more encouragement; think of him no more.
That is all I ask. Only give me your promise--I put faith in you. Think
of him no more; that is all I ask.”
“All you ask--only that!” said Lily in her fury. “Only that! Oh, it’s
not much, is it? not much--only that!” She laughed, too, with a sort of
echo of his laugh; but somehow he did not find it to his mind.
“That is all,” he said gravely; “and I don’t think that it is very much
to ask, considering that you owe every thing to me.”
“It would have been better for me if I had owed you nothing, uncle,”
said Lily. “Why did you ever take any heed of me? I would have been
earning my own bread and had my freedom and lived my own life if you had
left me as I was.”
“This is what one gets,” he said, as if to himself, with a smile, “for
taking care of other people’s children. But we need not fall into
general reflections, nor yet into recriminations. I would probably not
do it again if I had it to do a second time; but the thing I want from
you at the present moment is merely a yes or no.”
“No!” Lily said almost inaudibly; but her tightly closed lips, her
resolute face, said it for her without need of any sound.
“No?” he repeated, half incredulous; then, with a nod, flinging back his
head: “Well, my dear, you must have your wilful way. Dalrugas will daily
be growing bonnier and bonnier at this season of the year; and to-morrow
you will get ready to go away.”