The spring advanced with many a break and interval of evil weather. The
east winds blew fiercely over the moor, and the sudden showers of April
added again a little to the deceitful green that covered bits of the
bog. But May was sweet that year; in these high-lying regions the whins,
which never give up altogether, lighted a blaze of color here and there
among the green knowes and hollows where there was solid
standing-ground, and where one who did not mind an occasional dash from
the long heads of the ling which began to thrill with sap, or an
occasional sinking of a foot on a watery edge, might now venture again
to trace the devious way upon the most delicious turf in the world here
and there across the moor. The advancing season brought many a thrill of
rising life to Lily. It seemed impossible to dwell upon the darker side
of any prospect while the sunshine so lavished itself upon the gold of
the whins and the green of the turf, and visibly moved the heather and
the rowan-trees to all the effort and the joyous strain of life. I do
not pretend that the sun always shone, for the history of the north of
Scotland would, I fear, contradict that; but the number of heavenly
mornings there were--mornings which lighted a spark in every glistening
mountain burn and wet flashing rock over which it poured, and opened up
innumerable novelties of height and hollow, projecting points and deep
withdrawing valleys, in a hillside which seemed nothing but a lump of
rock and moss on duller occasions--were beyond what any one would
believe. They are soon over: the glory of the day is often eclipsed by
noon; but Lily, whose heart, being restless, woke her early, had the
advantage of them all. And many a tiny flower began to peep by the edges
of the moor--little red pimpernels, little yellow celandines, smaller
things still that have no names. And the hills stood round serenely
waiting for summer, as with a smile to each other under the hoods which
so often came down upon their brows even while the sun was shining. What
did it matter, a storm or two, the wholesome course of nature? Summer
was coming with robes of purple to clothe them, and revelations of a
thousand mysteries in the hearts of the silent hills.
Amid such auguries and meditative expectations it was not possible that
Lily could remain unmoved. And thus her expectation, if not so sublime
as that of nature, was at least as exact and as well defined. Alas, the
difference was that nature was quite sure of her facts, while an
unfortunate human creature never is so. The course of the sun does not
fail, however he may delay that coming forth from his chamber, like a
bridegroom, which is the law of the universe. But for the heart of man
no one can answer. It was such a little thing to do, such an easy
thing--no trouble, no trouble! Lily said to herself. To find the little
house they wanted, oh, how easily she could do it if she could but go
and see herself to this, which was really a woman’s part of the
business. Lily imagined herself again and again engaged in that
delightful quest. She saw herself running lightly up and down the long
stairs. Why take Ronald from his work when she could do it so easily, so
gladly, so pleasantly, with so much enjoyment to herself? And though she
had been banished for so long, there was still many a house in Edinburgh
which would take her in with kindly welcome, and rejoice over her
marriage, and help and applaud the young couple in their start. Oh, how
easy it all was were but the first step sure. She had thought, in her
childishness, that the mere fact of marriage would be enough; that it
would bring all freedom, all independence, with it; that the moment she
stood by Ronald’s side as his wife the path of their life lay full in
the sunshine and light of perfect day. Alas, that had not proved so!
He came again another time between March and May. It was wonderful the
journeys he took, thinking nothing of a long night in the coach coming
and going, to see his love, for the sake of only a couple of days in her
society. The women at Dalrugas were very much impressed, too, by the
money it must cost him to make these frequent visits. “Bless me,” Katrin
said, “he is just throwing away his siller with baith hands; and what
are they to do for their furnishing and to set up their house? I am not
wanting you to go, Beenie--far, far from that. It will be like the sun
gone out of the sky when we’re left to oursel’s in the house, nothing
but Dougal and me. But, oh! only to think of the siller that lad is
wastin’ with a’ his life before him. They would live more thrifty in
their own house than him there and her here, and thae constant traiks
from one place to another, even though her and you at present cost him
naething--but what, after a’, is a woman’s meat?”
“I wot weel it would be more thrift, and less expense, not to say
better in every way; but if the man does not see it, Katrin, what can
the wife do?”
“I ken very weel what I would do,” said Katrin, with a toss of her head.
These were the comments below stairs. But when May came and went, and it
was not till early June that Lily received her husband, the fever of
expectation and anxiety which consumed her was beyond expression. She
met him at the head of the spiral stair as usual, but speechless,
without a word to say to him. Her cheeks flamed with the heat of her
hopes, her terrors, her wild uncertainty. She held out her hands in
welcome with something interrogative, enquiring, in them. She did not
wish to be taken to his heart, to be kept by any caress from seeing his
face and reading what was in it. Was it possible that it was not Ronald
at all she was thinking of, but something else--not her husband’s visit,
his presence, his love, and the delight of seeing him? And how common,
how trivial, how paltry a thing it was which Lily was thinking of first,
before even Ronald! Had he found the little house? Had he got it, that
hope of her life? was it some business connected with that that had
detained him? Had he got the key of it, something resembling the key of
it, to lay at her feet, to place in her hand, the charter of her rights
and her freedom? But he did not say a word. Was it natural he should
when he had just arrived, barely arrived, and was thinking of nothing
but his Lily? It was his love that was in his mind, not any secondary
thing such as filled hers. He led her in, with his arms around her and
joy on his lips. His bonnie Lily! if she but knew how he had been
longing for a sight of her, how he had been stopped when he was on the
road, how every exasperating thing had happened to hold him back! Ah,
she said to herself, it would be the landlord worrying for more money,
or some other wicked thing. “But now,” cried Ronald, “the first look of
my Lily pays for all!” That was how it was natural he should speak. She
supported it all, though her bosom was like to burst. She would not
forestall him in his story of how he had secured it, nor yet chill him
by showing him that while the first thought in his mind was love, the
first in hers was the little house. Oh, no, she would respond, as,
indeed, her heart did; but she was choked in her utterance, and could
speak few words. If he would only say a word of that, only once: “I have
got it, I have got it!” then the floodgates would have been opened, and
Lily’s soul would have been free.
Ronald spoke no such word; he said nothing, nothing at all upon that
subject, or any thing that could lead to it. He was delighted to see her
again, to hold her in his arms. Half the evening, until Beenie brought
the dinner, he was occupied in telling her that every time he saw her
she was more beautiful, more delightful, in his eyes. And Lily gasped,
but made no sign. She would wait, she would wait! She would not be
impatient; after all, that was just business, and this was love. She
would have liked the business best, but perhaps that was because she was
common, just common, not great in mind and heart like--other folk, a
kind of a housewife, a poor creature thinking first of the poorest
elements. He should follow his own way, he that was a better lover, a
finer being, than she; and in his own time he would tell her--what,
after all, was no fundamental thing, only a detail.
The dinner passed, the evening passed, and Ronald said not a word, nor
Lily either. She had begun to get bewildered in her mind. Whit-Sunday!
Whit-Sunday! Was it not Whit-Sunday that was the term, when houses were
to be hired in Edinburgh, and the maids went to their new places? And it
was now past, and had nothing been done for her? Was nothing going to be
done? Lily began to be afraid now that he would speak; that he would say
some word that would take away all hope from her heart. Rather that he
should be silent than that! There was a momentary flagging in the
conversation when the dinner was ended, and in the new horror that had
taken possession of her soul Lily, to prevent this, rushed into a new
subject. She told Ronald about Alick Duff and Helen Blythe, and how she
had received them at Dalrugas, and had passed some days at the Manse
seeing the end of it. Ronald, with the air of a benevolent lord and
master, shook his head at the first, but sanctioned the latter
proceeding with a nod of his head. “Keep always friends with the Manse
people,” he said; “they are a tower of strength whatever happens; but I
would not have liked to see my Lily receiving a black sheep like Alick
Duff here.”
What had he to do with the house of Dalrugas, or those who were received
there? What right had he to be here himself that he should give an
authoritative opinion? Oh, do not believe that Lily thought this, but it
flashed through her mind in spite of herself, as ill thoughts will do.
She said quickly: “And the worst is I took his part. I would have taken
his part with all my heart and soul.”
Ronald did nothing but laugh at this protestation. And he laughed
contemptuously at the thought that Helen could have saved the man who
loved her. “That’s how he thinks to come over the women. He would not
dare say that to a man,” he cried. “Helen Blythe, poor little thing!” He
laughed again, and Lily felt that she could have struck him in the
sudden blaze out of exasperation which somewhat relieved her troubled
mind.
“When you laugh like that, I think I could kill you, Ronald!”
“Lily!” he cried, sitting up in his chair with an astonished face, “why,
what is the matter with you, my darling?”
“Nothing is the matter with me! except to hear you laugh at what was
sorrow and pain to them, and deadly earnest, as any person might see.”
“Havers!” cried Ronald; “he had his tongue in his cheek all the time,
yon fellow. He thought, no doubt, her father must have money, and it
would be worth his while----”
“If you believe that every-body thinks first of money----” Lily said,
her hand, which was on the table, quivering to every finger’s end.
“Most of us do,” he said quietly; “but what does it mean that my Lily
should be so disturbed about Alick Duff, the ne’er-do-well, and Helen
Blythe?”
“I can’t tell you,” cried Lily, struggling with that dreadful,
inevitable inclination to tears which is so hard upon women. “I am--much
alone in this place,” she said, with a quiver of her mouth, “and you
away.”
“My bonnie Lily!” he cried once more, hastening to her, soothing her in
his arms, as he had done so often before. That was all, that was all he
could say or do to comfort her; and that does not always answer--not, at
least, as it did the first or even the second or third time. To call her
“My bonnie Lily!” to lean her head upon his breast that she might cry it
all out there and be comforted, was no reply to the demand in her heart.
And the hysteria passion did not come to tears in this case. She choked
them down by a violent effort. She subdued herself, and withdrew from
his supporting arm, not angrily, but with something new in her
seriousness which startled Ronald, he could not tell why. “We will go
upstairs,” she said, “or, if you would like it, out on the moor. It is
bonnie on the moor these long, long days, when it is night, and the day
never ends. And then you can tell me the rest of your Edinburgh news,”
she said, suddenly looking into his face.
Oh, he understood her now! His face was not delicate like Lily’s to show
every tinge of changing color, but it reddened through the red and the
brown with a color that showed more darkly and quite as plainly as the
blush on any girl’s face. He understood what was the Edinburgh news she
wanted. Was it that he had none to give?
“Let us go out on the moor,” he said. “Where is your plaid to wrap you
round? It may be as beautiful as you like, but it’s always cold on a
north country moor.”
“Not in June,” she cried, throwing the plaid upon his shoulder. It was
nine o’clock of the long evening, but as light still as day, a day
perfected, but subdued, without sun, without shadow, like, if any thing
human can be like, the country where there is neither sun nor moon, but
the Lamb is the light thereof. The moor lay under the soft radiance in a
perfect repose, no corner in it that was not visible, yet all mystery,
spellbound in that light that never was on sea or shore. At noon, with
all the human accidents of sun and shade, they could scarcely have seen
their own faces, or the long distance of the broken land stretched out
beyond, or the hills dreaming around in a subdued companionship, as
clearly as now, yet all in a magical strangeness that overawed and
hushed the heart. Even Lily’s cares--that one care, rather, which was so
little, yet so great, almost vulgar to speak of, yet meaning to her
every thing that was best on earth--were hushed. The stillness of the
shining night, which was day; the silence of the great moor, with all
its wild fresh scents and murmurs of sound subdued; the vast round of
cloudless sky, still with traces on it of the sunset, but even those
forming but an undertone to the prevailing softness of the blue--were
beyond all reach of human frettings and struggles. They were on the eve
of discovering that the earth had been rent between them, closely though
they stood together, but in a moment the edges of the chasm had
disappeared, the green turf and the heather, with its buds forming on
every bush, spread over every horrible division. Lily put her arm within
her husband’s with a long, tremulous sigh. What did any uneasy wish
matter, any desire even if desperate, compared with this peace of God
that was upon the hills and the moor and the sky?
I doubt, however, whether all of this made it easier for Ronald to clear
himself at last of the burden of the unfulfilled trust. When she said
next morning, with a catch in her breath, but as perfect an aspect of
calm as she could put on: “You have told me nothing about our house,”
his color and his breath also owned for a moment an embarrassment which
it was difficult to face. She had said it while he stood at the window
looking out, with his back toward her. She had not wished to confront
him, to fix him with her eyes, to have the air of bringing him to an
account.
Ronald turned round from the window after a momentary pause. He came up
to her and took both her hands in his. “My bonnie Lily!” he said.
“Oh,” she cried with sudden impatience, drawing her hands from him,
“call me by my simple name! I am your wife; I am not your sweetheart. Do
I want to be always petted like a bairn?”
“Lily!” he said, startled, and a little disapproving, “there is
something wrong with you. I never thought you were one to be affected
with nerves and such things.”
“Did you ever think I was one to live all alone upon the moor? to belong
to nobody, to see nobody, to be married in a secret, and get a visit
from my man now and then in a secret, too? and none to acknowledge or
stand by me in the whole world?”
“Lily! Lily!” he cried, “how far is that from the fact? Am I not here
whenever I can find a moment to spare, and ready to come at any time for
any need if you but hold up your little finger? Why is it you are not
acknowledged and set by my side as I would be proud to do? Can you ever
doubt I would be proud to do it? But many a couple have kept their
marriage quiet till circumstances were better. You and I are not the
first--I could tell you of a score--that would not keep apart half their
days and lose the good of their life, but just kept the fact to
themselves till better times should come.”
“You said nothing to me about better times coming,” said Lily; “you
spoke of the term, and that you could not get a house to live in till
the term.”
“And I said quite true,” said Ronald. As soon as he got her to discuss
the matter he felt sure of his own triumph. “You knew that as well as I
did. And now here is just the truth, Lily: I am not very well off, and
it does not mend my practice that I’ve been so often here in the North.
Don’t tell me I need not come unless I like; that’s a silly woman’s
saying, it is not like my Lily. I am not very well off, and you have
nothing if there is a public breach with Sir Robert. And for a little
while I have been beginning to think----”
He paused, hoping she would say something, but Lily said nothing. She
had covered her face with her hands.
“I have been beginning to think,” he continued slowly, “that this is a
bad time for beginning life in Edinburgh. You are not ignorant of
Edinburgh life, Lily; you know that in the vacations, when the courts
are up, nobody is there. If we had twenty houses, we could not stay in
them in August and September, when every-body is away. As this is a bad
time for beginning in Edinburgh, I was thinking that to take the expense
of a house upon me now would be a foolish thing. Think of a garret in
the old town from this to autumn, with all the smoke and the bad air
instead of the bonnie moor! And in six weeks or a little more, Lily, I
would be able to get some shooting hereabouts, which will be a grand
excuse, and we could be together without a word said, with nobody to
make any criticisms.”
She cried out, stamping her foot: “Will you never understand? It is the
grand excuse and the nobody to criticise that is insufferable to me. Why
should there be any excuse? Why should there be a word said? I am your
wife, Ronald Lumsden!”
“My dear, you are ill to please,” he said. “But nobody can see reason
better than you if you will but open your eyes to it. See here, Lily:
two months and more are coming when our house, if we had it, would be
useless to us, and in the meantime you are very well off here.”
She gave him a sudden glance, and would have said something, but
arrested herself in time.
“You are very well here,” he repeated, “far better than even going upon
visits, or at some other little country place, where we might take
lodgings, and be very uncomfortable. Your moor is a little estate to
you, Lily; it’s company and every thing. And if I had a little shooting
which I could manage--a man with a gun is not hard to place in Scotland,
and up in the north country there is many an opportunity; and there is
always Tom Robison’s cottage to fall back on, where you are very well
off as long as you neither need to eat there nor to sleep there. Your
servants here are used to me. Whatever explanations Dougal has made to
himself, he has made them long ago. I have no fears for him. Where would
you be so well, my Lily, as in your home?”
“And where would you be so ill, Ronald,” she cried, “as in--as in----”
But Lily could not finish the sentence. How could it be that he did not
say that to himself, that he left it to her to say--to her, who was
incapable, after all, of saying to the man she loved such hard words?
Her own home, her uncle’s house, who had sent her here to separate her
once for all from Ronald Lumsden, while Ronald arranged so easily to
establish himself under his enemy’s roof.
“Where would I be so ill as in Sir Robert’s house?” he said, with a
laugh. “On the contrary, Lily, I am very happy here. I have been happier
here than in any other house in the world, and why should I set up
scruples, my dear, when I have none? If Sir Robert had been a wise man
he never would have tried to separate you and me; and now that we have
turned his evil to good, and made his prison a palace, why should we
banish ourselves when all is done to do him a very doubtful pleasure? He
will never hear a word of it in my belief, and if he does, he will hear
far more than that I have come to share your castle for another
vacation. It was the first step that was the worst: yon snow-storm,
perhaps, at the New Year; but that was the power of circumstances, and
no Scots householder would ever have turned a man out into the snow.
When we did that, we did the worst. A few weeks, more or less, after
that--what can it matter? And, short time or long time, it is my belief,
Lily, that he will never be a pin the wiser. Then why should we trouble
ourselves?” Ronald said.
As for Lily, this time she answered not a word.