It may be imagined that after this there was very little said of the
house in Edinburgh, which now, indeed, it was impossible to do any thing
about till the term at Martinmas. But Lily, I think, never alluded to
the Martinmas term. Her heart sank so that it recovered itself again
with great difficulty, and the very suggestion of the thing she had so
longed for, and fixed all her wishes upon, now brought over her a
sickness and faintness both of body and soul. When some one talked by
chance of the maids going to their new places at the term, the color
forsook her face, and Helen Blythe was much alarmed on one such
occasion, believing her friend was going to faint. Lily did not faint.
What good would that do? she said to herself with a sort of cynicism
which began to appear in her. She dug metaphorically her heels into the
soil, and stood fast, resisting all such sudden weaknesses. Perhaps
Ronald was surprised, perhaps he was not quite so glad as he expected to
be, when she ceased speaking on that subject; but, on the whole, he
concluded that it was something gained. If he could but get her to take
things quietly, to wait until he was quite ready to set up such an
establishment as he thought suitable, or, better still, till Sir Robert
died and rewarded her supposed obedience by leaving her his fortune,
which was her right, how fortunate that would be! But Lily was taking
things too quietly, he thought, with a little tremor. It was not natural
for her to give in so completely. He watched her with a little alarm
during that short stay of his. Not a word of the cherished object which
had always been coming up in their talk came from Lily’s lips again.
She made no further allusion to their possible home or life together;
her jests about cooking his dinner for him, about the Scotch collops and
the howtowdie, were over. Indeed, for that time all her jests were over;
she was serious as the gravest woman, no longer his laughing girl,
running over with high spirits and nonsense. This change made Ronald
very uncomfortable, but he consoled himself with thinking that in a
light heart like Lily’s no such thing could last, and that she would
soon recover her better mood again.
He did not know, indeed, nor could it have entered into his heart to
conceive--for even a clever man, as Ronald was, cannot follow further
than it is in himself to understand the movements of another mind--the
effect that all this had produced upon Lily, the sudden horrible pulling
up in the progress of her thoughts, the shutting down as of a black wall
before her, the throwing back of herself upon herself. These words could
not have had any meaning to Ronald. Why a blank wall? Why a dead stop?
He had said nothing that was not profoundly reasonable. All that about
the vacation was quite true. Edinburgh is empty as a desert when the
courts are up and the schools closed. The emptiness of London after the
season, which is such perfect fiction and such absolute truth, is
nothing to the desolation of Edinburgh in the time of its holiday. To
live, as he said, in a garret in the old town, or even in the top story
of one of the newer, more convenient houses in the modern quarter, while
every-body was away, instead of here on the edge of the glorious
heather, among the summer delights of the moor, was folly itself to
think of. It was impossible but that Lily must perceive that, the moment
she permitted herself to think. Dalrugas might be dreary for the winter,
especially in the circumstances of their separation, he was ready to
allow; but in August, with the birds strong on the wing, and the heather
rustling under your stride, and no separation at all but the punctual
return of the husband to dinner and the evening fire--what was there,
what could there be, to complain of? Sir Robert’s house an ill place
for him! he said to himself, with a laugh. Luckily he was not so
squeamish. Such delicate troubles did not affect his mind. He could see
what she meant, of course, and he was not very sure that he liked Lily
to remind him of it; but he was of a robust constitution. He was not
likely to be overwhelmed by a fantastic idea like that.
And the autumnal holiday was, as he anticipated, actually a happy moment
in their lives. Before it came Lily had time to go through many fits of
despair, and many storms of impatience and indignation. To have one
great struggle in life and then to be forever done, and fall into a
steady unhappiness in one portion of existence as you have been
persistently happy in another, is a thing which seems natural enough
when the first break comes in one’s career. But Lily soon learned the
great difference here between imagination and reality. There was not a
day in which she did not go through that struggle again, and sank into
despair and flamed with anger, and then felt herself quieted into the
moderation of exhaustion, and then beguiled again by springing hopes and
insinuating visions of happiness. Thus notwithstanding all the
bitterness of Lily’s feelings on various points, or rather, perhaps, in
consequence of the evident certainty that nothing would make Ronald see
as she did, or even perceive what it was that she wanted and did not
want--the eagerness of her passion for the house, which meant honor and
truth to her, but to him only a rash risking of their chances, and
foolish impatience on her part to have her way, as is the worst of
women--and her bitter sense of the impossibility of his calm
establishment here in her uncle’s house, a thing which he regarded as
the simplest matter in the world, with a chuckle over the discomfiture
of the old uncle--all these things, by dint of being too much to grapple
with, fell from despair into the ordinary of life. And Lily agreed with
herself to push them away, not to think when she could help it, to
accept what she could--the modified happiness, the love and sweetness
which are, alas! of themselves not enough to nourish a wholesome
existence. She was happy, more or less, when he came in with his gun
over his shoulder, and a bag at which Dougal looked with critical but
unapproving eyes. Dougal himself took, or had permission, to shoot over
Sir Robert’s estate, which was not of great extent. These were not yet
the days when even a little bit of Highland shooting is worth a better
rent than a farm, and the birds had grown wild about Dalrugas with only
Dougal’s efforts at “keeping them down.” What the country thought of
Ronald’s position it would be hard to say. He gave himself out as living
at Tam Robison’s, the shepherd’s, and being favored by Sir Robert
Ramsay’s grieve in the matter of the shooting, which there was nobody to
enjoy. No doubt it was well enough known that he was constantly at
Dalrugas, but a country neighborhood is sometimes as opaque to perceive
any thing doubtful as it is lynx-eyed in other cases. And as few people
visited at Dalrugas, there was no scandal so far as any one knew.
And with the winter there came something else to occupy Lily’s thoughts
and comfort her heart. It made her position ten times more difficult had
she thought of that, but it requires something very terrible indeed to
take away from a young wife that great secret joy and preoccupation
which arise with the first expectation of motherhood. Besides, it must
be remembered that there was in Lily’s mind no terror of discovery.
Perhaps it was this fact which kept her story from awakening the
suspicious and the scandal mongers of the neighborhood. There was no
moment at which she would not have been profoundly relieved and happy to
be found out. She desired nothing so much as that her secret should be
betrayed. This changes very much the position of those who have
unhappily something to conceal, or rather who are forced to conceal
something. If you fear discovery, it dodges you at every step, it is
always in your way. But if you desire it, by natural perversity the
danger is lessened, and nobody suspects what you would wish found out.
So that even this element added something to Lily’s happiness in her new
prospects. That hope in the mind of most women needs nothing to enhance
it; the great mystery, the silent joy of anticipation, the overwhelming
thought of what is, by ways unknown, by long patience, by suffering, by
rapture, about to be, fills every faculty of being. I am told that these
sentiments are old-fashioned, and that it is not so that the young women
of this concluding century regard these matters. I do not believe it:
nature is stronger than fashion, though fashion is strong, and can
momentarily affect the very springs of life. But when it did come into
Lily’s mind as she sat in a silent absorption of happiness, not thinking
much, working at her “seam,” which had come to be the most delightful
thing in heaven or earth, that the new event that was coming would
demand new provisions and create new necessities which it seemed
impossible could be provided for at Dalrugas, the thought gave an
additional impetus to the secret joy that was in her. Such things, she
said to herself, could not be hid. It would be impossible to continue
the life of secrecy in which she had been kept against her will so long.
Whatever happened, this must lead to a disclosure, to a home of her own
where in all honor her child should see the light of day.
For a long time Lily had no doubt on this point. She began to speak
again about the term and the upper story in the old town. “But I would
like the other better now,” she said; “it would be better air for----,
and more easy to get out to country walks and all that is needed for
health and thriving.” It had been an uncomfortable sensation to Ronald
when she had renounced all the talk and anticipation of the house to be
taken at the term. But now that he was accustomed to exemption from
troublesome enquiries on that point he felt angry to have it taken up
again. He was disposed to think that she did it only to annoy him, at a
time, too, when he was setting his brain to work to think and to plan
how the difficulties could be got over, and how in the most satisfactory
way, and with the least trouble to her, every thing could be arranged
for Lily’s comfort. But he did not betray himself; he took great pains
even to calm all inquietudes, and not to irritate her or excite her
nerves (as he said) by opposition. He tried, indeed, to represent mildly
that of all country walks and good air nothing could be so good as the
breeze over the moors and the quiet ways about, where every thing
delicate and feeble must drink in life. But Lily had confronted him with
a blaze in her eyes, declaring that such a thing was not possible, not
possible! in a tone which she had never taken before. He said nothing
more at that time. He made believe even, when Whit-Sunday returned, that
he had seen a house, which he described in detail, but did not commit
himself to say he had secured it. Into this trap Lily fell very easily.
She had all the rooms, the views from the windows, the arrangement of
the apartment described to her over and over again, and for the great
part of that second summer of her married life there was no drawback to
the blessedness of her life. She spent it in a delightful dream, taking
her little sober walks like a woman of advanced experience, no longer
springing from hummock to hummock like a silly girl about the moor,
taking in, in exquisite calm, all its sounds and scents and pictures to
her very heart. In the height of the summer days, when the air was full
of the hum of the bees, Lily would sit under the thin shade of a
rowan-tree, thinking about nothing, the air and the murmur which was one
with the air filling her every consciousness. Why should she have sought
a deeper shadow. She wanted no shadow, but basked in the warm shining of
the sun, and breathed that dreamy hum of life, and watched, without
knowing it, the drama among the clouds, shadows flitting like breath as
swift and sudden, coming and going upon the hills. All was life all
through, constant movement, constant sound, alternation and change, no
need of thinking, foreseeing, fore-arranging, but the great universe
swaying softly in the infinite realm of space, and God holding all--the
bees, the flickering rowan-leaves, the shadows and the mountains and
Lily brooding over her secret--in the hollow of his hand.
As the summer advanced, however, troubles began to steal in. She was
anxious, very anxious, to be taken to the house, which he allowed her to
believe was ready for her. It must be said that Ronald was very
assiduous in his visits, very anxious to please her in every way, full
of tenderness and care, though always avoiding or evading the direct
question. It went to his heart to disappoint her, as he had to do again
and again. The house was not ready; there were things to be done which
had been begun, which could not be interrupted without leaving it worse
than at first. And then was it not of the greatest importance for her
own health that she should remain as long as possible in the delicious
air of the North--the air which was, if not her own native air, at least
that of her family? Lily had been deeply disappointed, disturbed in her
beautiful calm, and a little excited, perhaps, in the nerves, which she
had never been conscious of before, but which Ronald assured her now
made her “ill to please”--by his unreasonable resistance to her desire
to take refuge in the house which she believed to be awaiting her--when
a curious incident occurred. Beenie appeared one morning with a very
confused countenance to ask whether her mistress would permit her to
receive the visit of a cousin of hers, “a real knowledgable woman,” who
was out of a place and in want of a shelter. “You had better ask Katrin
than me, Beenie,” cried Lily; “I’ve filled the house too much and too
long already. It is not for me to take in strangers.” “Eh, mem,” cried
Katrin, her head appearing behind that of Beenie in the doorway, “it
will be naething but a pleasure to me to have her.” Katrin’s countenance
was anxious, but Beenie’s was confused. She could not look her mistress
in the face, but stood before her in miserable embarrassment, laying
hems upon her apron. “Speak up, woman, canna ye?” cried Katrin, “for
your ain relation. Mem [Katrin never said Miss Lily now], I ken her as
weel as Beenie does. She’s a decent woman and no one that meddles nor
gies her opinion. I’ll be real glad to have her if you’ll give your
consent.” “Oh, I give my consent,” Lily cried lightly. And in this easy
way was introduced into Dalrugas a very serious, middle-aged woman, not
in the least like Beenie, of superior education, it appeared, and a
quietly authoritative manner, whose appearance impressed the whole
household with a certain awe. It was a few days after the termination of
one of Ronald’s visits that this incident occurred, and Lily could not
resist a certain instinctive alarm at the appearance of this new figure
in the little circle round her. “You are sure she is your cousin,
Beenie? She is not like you at all.” “And you’re no like Sir Robert,
Miss Lily, that is nearer to ye than a cousin,” said Beenie promptly.
She added hurriedly: “It’s her father’s side she takes after, and she’s
had a grand education. I’ve heard say that she kent as much as the
doctors themselves. Education makes an awfu’ difference,” said Beenie
with humility. I am not sure that Lily was more attached to this new
inmate on account of her grand education. But that was, after all, a
matter of very secondary importance; and so the days and the weeks went
on.
There occurred at this time an interval longer than usual between
Ronald’s visits, and Lily lost all her happy tranquillity. She became
restless, unhappy, full of trouble. “What is to become of me, what is to
become of me?” she would cry, wringing her hands. Was she to be left
here at the crisis of her fate in a solitude where there was no help, no
one to stand by her? She felt in herself a reflection, too, of the
visible anxiety of the two women, Beenie and Katrin, who never would let
her out of their sight, who seemed to tremble for her night and day. The
sight of their anxious faces angered her, and roused her occasionally to
send them off with a sharp word, half jest, half wrath. But when she was
freed from these tender yet exasperating watchers, Lily would cover her
face with her hands and cry bitterly, with a helplessness that was more
terrible than any other pain. For what could she do? She could not set
out, inexperienced, alone, without money, without knowing where to go.
She had, indeed, Ronald’s address; but had he not changed into the new
house, if new house there was? Lily began to doubt every thing in this
dreadful crisis of her affairs. She had no money, and to travel cheaply
in these days was impossible. And how could she get even to
Kinloch-Rugas, she who had avoided being seen even by Helen Blythe? She
wept like a child in the helplessness of her distress. She did not hear
any knock at the door or permission asked to come in, but started to
find some one bending over her, and to see that it was the strange woman
Marg’ret, Beenie’s supposed cousin. Lily made this discovery with
resentment, and bid her hastily go away.
“Mem, Mrs. Lumsden,” Marg’ret said.
Lily quickly uncovered her face. “You know!” she cried with a mixture,
which she could not explain to herself, of increased suspicion, yet
almost pleasure; for nobody had as called yet her by that name.
“I would be a stupid person indeed if I didna know. Oh, madam, I’ve made
bold to come in, for I know more things than that. Beenie would tell you
I’ve had an education. I’ve come to beg you, on my bended knees, to give
up all thoughts of moving--it’s too late, my dear young leddy--and just
make yourself as content as you can here.”
“Here!” cried Lily, with a scream of distress. “No, no, no, I must be in
my own house. Woman, whoever you are, do you know I’m Miss Ramsay here?
It’s not known who I am, and what will they think if any thing--any
thing--should happen?”
“Are you wanting to conceal it, Mrs. Lumsden?”
“No, no, no! Any thing but that! If you will go to the cross of
Kinloch-Rugas and say Lily Ramsay has been Ronald Lumsden’s wife for
more than a year, I will--I will kiss you,” cried Lily, as if that was
the greatest sacrifice she could make.
“Then why should you not bide still? If it’s found out, it’s found out,
and you’re pleased. And if it’s not found out, maybe the gentleman’s
pleased. Mrs. Lumsden, I’m a real, well-qualified nurse. I will tell you
the truth: they were frightened, thae women. I said, when Beenie told
me, I would come and just be here if there was any occasion. Mistress
Lumsden, I will show you my certificates. I am just all I say, and maybe
a little more. Will you trust yourself to me?”
And what could Lily do? She was in no condition to enquire into it, to
satisfy herself if it was a plot of Ronald’s making, or only, as this
woman said, a scheme of the women. To think over such subjects was no
exercise for her at that moment. She yielded, for she could do nothing
else. And a very short time after there was an agitated night in the old
tower. It was the night of the market, and Dougal had come in, in the
muzzy condition which was usual to him on such occasions, and
consequently slept like a log and was conscious of nothing that was
going on. Ronald had arrived the day before. And when the morning came,
there was another little new creature added to the population of the
world.
It was more like a dream than ever to Lily--a dream of rapture and
completion, of every trouble calmed, and every pang over, and every
promise fulfilled. She was surrounded by love and the most sedulous
watching. She seemed to have no longer any wishes, only thanks in her
heart. She even saw her husband go away without trouble. “Come back soon
and fetch us. Come back and fetch us,” she said, smiling at him through
half-closed eyes.
It was not, however, much more than a week after when Ronald, without
warning or announcement, rushed into her room, pale with fatigue, and
dusty from his journey. “I have come here post-haste!” he cried. “Lily,
your Uncle Robert is in Edinburgh. He is coming on here for the
shooting, and other men with him. If I’m a day in advance, that is all.
I have thought of the only thing that is to be done if you will but
consent.”
“The only thing to be done,” said Lily, raising herself in her bed,
with sparkling eyes, “is what I have always wished: to tell him all
that’s happened, and, oh! what a light conscience I will have, and what
a happy heart!”
“He would turn you out of his doors!” cried Ronald in dismay.
“Well!” cried Lily, who felt capable of every thing, “I may not be a
great walker yet, but I’ll hirple on till a cart passes or something,
and they’ll take me in at the Manse.”
“Oh, my darling, don’t think of such a risk!” he cried. “For God’s sake,
keep quiet! Say nothing and do nothing till you hear from me again. I
have thought of a plan. Will you promise to do nothing, to make no
confession, till I’m at your side, or till you hear from me?”
“Are you not going to stay with me, to meet him?”
“I cannot, I cannot! I’ve come now at the greatest risk. Lily, you will
promise?”
“I am going to dress the baby for the night,” said the nurse,
interposing. “Will ye give him a kiss, mem, before I take him away?”
Lily’s lips settled softly on the infant’s cheeks like a bee on a
flower. “He’s sweeter and sweeter every day. Ronald, you must not ask me
too much. But I will try, so long as all is well and safe with him.”
“I will see that all is safe with him,” Ronald cried. He lingered a
little with the young mother, half jealous of the looks she cast at the
door for the return of the child in Margaret’s arms.
“You have told her not to bring him back,” she said with smiling
reproach, “but I’ll have him all to myself after.” She was not afraid of
his news, she was not shaken by his excitement. The approach of this
tremendous crisis seemed only to exhilarate Lily. She was so glad, so
glad, to be found out. It was the only thing that was wanting to her
perfect happiness.
Ronald’s gig had been waiting all the time while he lingered. He had to
rush away at last in order to catch the night coach from Kinloch-Rugas,
he said; and Lily waited, with smiles shining through the tears in her
eyes, to hear the sound of the wheels carrying him away. And then she
cried impatiently: “Marg’ret, Marg’ret, bring me my baby!”
But Marg’ret, it seemed, did not hear.