When it was settled that Lily was to have the change upon which she
insisted, her health improved day by day, and with the increase of her
strength, or perhaps as the real fountain-head and cause of her
increased strength, her elasticity of spirit returned to her. By one of
those strange gifts of temperament which triumph over every thing that
humanity can encounter, this young creature, overwhelmed by so many
griefs--a deserted wife, a mother whose child had been torn from her,
her secret life so full of incidents and emotion ending all at once in a
blank--became in the added grace of her weakness and of the spirit and
courage which overcame it as sweet a companion to her old uncle, as full
of variety and freshness, as the heart could desire. He, indeed, had
never known such company before. She had been younger by an age when she
left him in Edinburgh, less developed, half a child, at least in his
eyes, and he had been surrounded by company and cronies of his own of a
very different character. But now, in this lonely spot where there was
nobody, Lily, rising from her sick-bed, with her eyes still large in
their white sockets, her hands still transparent, her touch and her step
still tremulous with weakness, became his diversion, his delight, making
the long lonely days short, and even the rain supportable when it swept
against the narrow windows, and intensified the brightness of the
fireside and the pleasant talk, or even, when there was no talk, the
sense of companionship within. Sometimes Lily would fall asleep in the
afternoon or at the falling of the day, unawares, in the feebleness of
her convalescence, and perhaps these were the moments in which most of
all the old man of the world felt completely what this companionship
was. He would lay down his paper or his book and look at her--the light
of the fire playing on her face, giving it a faint touch of rose, and
dissimulating the deep shadows under the eyes--feeling to his heart that
most intimate confidence and trust in him, the reliance, almost
unconscious, of a child, the utter dependence and weakness which could
put up no barriers of the conventional, nor stop to think what would be
agreeable: these things found out secret crevices in Sir Robert’s armor
of which neither he nor any one else had dreamed. The water stood in his
eyes as he looked at her, saying “Poor lassie, poor little lassie!”
secretly in his heart. She was as good company then, though she did not
know it, as when she started from her brief sleep and exerted herself to
make him talk, to make him laugh, to feel himself the most interesting
of _raconteurs_ and delightful of companions. Many people had flattered
Sir Robert in his day--he had been important enough in much of his life
for that--but he had never found flattery so sweet as Lily’s demands
upon the stores of his long experience, her questions upon his history,
her interest in what he told her. It was not only that she was herself
such a companion as he had not dreamed of, but that he never had been
aware before what excellent company he was himself. He almost grudged to
see her growing stronger, though he rejoiced in it from the bottom of
his old world-worn heart.
“And so you are going to leave me, Lily--you’ve settled, that Robina
woman and you--and you’re off in two days seeking adventures?”
“Yes, uncle--in two days; but only for a little while.”
“Without a thought of an old man left desolate--upon the edge of the
moor.”
“Yes, with a thought that is very pleasant--that there’s somebody there
wanting me back”--she paused a moment with a faint sigh and added: “and
that I am coming back to in a little while. And then, as for the moor,
it is full of diversion. You’re never lonely watching the clouds and the
shadows and all the changes: I have had much experience of it, Uncle
Robert--two years, that were sometimes long, long.”
“I never knew,” said Sir Robert, a little abashed, “how lonely it was,
Lily, and that all the old neighbors were gone. I pictured you
surrounded with young folk, and as merry as the day was long.”
“It was not exactly that,” she said, with a smile; and then her face
changed, as it did from moment to moment, like the moor which she loved,
yet hated--shadows flying over it as swift, as sudden, and as deep. “But
it’s all past, and why should we think more of it? When I come back,
Uncle Robert, we’ll be cheery, you and me together by the fireside all
the winter through, and never ask whether there are neighbors or not--or
other folk in the world.”
“I would not go so far as that,” said the old gentleman. “We’ll get the
world to come to us, Lily, a small bit at a time. But you have never
told me where you are going when you leave me here.”
“To Edinburgh,” she said.
“To Edinburgh! I thought you had consulted with the doctor, and were
going to the seaside, or to the Bridge of Allan, or some of the places
where invalids go.”
“Uncle,” said Lily, “I have been two years upon the moor, and in all
that time I have not got a new gown, nor a bonnet, nor any thing
whatsoever. Oh, yes, we will go to the sea, or the Bridge of Allan, or
to some place. But we are not fit to be seen, neither Beenie nor me.
You do not take these things into consideration. You think, when I speak
to you like a rational creature, that I am above the wants of my kind;
but rational or not, a woman must always have some clothes to wear!”
Sir Robert laughed and clapped his hands. “Bravo, Lily!” he cried. “You
cannot do better, my dear, than own you’re just a woman and are as fond
of your finery as the rest. By all means, then, go to Edinburgh and fit
yourself out; but do not stay there, go out to Portobello, if you do not
care to go farther, or a little more to the West, where it’s milder, and
you will get a warm blink before the winter weather sets in. And that
reminds me that you will want money, Lily.”
“A good deal of money, Uncle Robert,” she said, with a smile. “You know
I have had none for two years.”
It was with a sensation of shame that he heard her allusions to those
two years, and perhaps Lily was aware of it. She wanted money, she
wanted freedom, and that her steps should not be watched nor her
movements constrained. And the old gentleman was startled and humiliated
when he realized that his heiress, his only relation, his brother’s
child, had been banished to this wilderness without a shilling in her
pocket or a friend to help her. He could not imagine how he could have
forgotten so completely her existence or her claims upon him and right
to his support. He was glad to wipe that recollection from his own mind
as well as hers by his liberality now. And Lily received from him an
order upon his “man of business” in Edinburgh for an amount which seemed
to her almost fabulous--for she knew nothing of money, had never had
any, nor required it, although when she retired to her room with that
piece of paper in her hand which meant so much, the reflection of what
might have happened and what she could have done had she only at any
time during these two years possessed as much, or half as much, came
upon her with almost a convulsive sense of opportunities lost. She flung
herself upon Beenie’s shoulder when she reached the safe shelter of her
room, where it was no longer necessary to keep herself up and make a
smile for her uncle. “Oh, Beenie!” she cried, “if he had given me the
half of that before, or the quarter! how every thing might have been
changed.”
“Oh, mem, my bonnie leddy,” cried Beenie, who never now addressed her
mistress as Miss Lily, “it’s little, little that siller can do!”
Anger flashed in Lily’s eyes. “It could just have done every thing!” she
said. “Do you think I would have been put off and off if I could have
put my hand in my pocket and taken the coach and gone, you and me, to
see to every thing ourselves? Oh! many a time I have wished for it, and
longed for it--but what could we do, you and me, and nothing, nothing to
take us there? Oh, never say siller can do little! It might have spared
us all that’s happened--think! all that’s happened! I might be thinking
now as I thought yon New Year’s time in the snow. I might be as sure and
as full of trust. I might never have learned what it was to deceive and
to be deceived. I might never have been a desolate woman without man or
bairn--without my little bairn, my little baby!”
“Oh, my darlin’ leddy! but you’ll get him again, you’ll get him again!”
cried Beenie, with streaming eyes.
“I hope in God I shall,” said Lily, tearless, lifting her eyes and
clasping her hands. “I hope in God I shall, or else that he’ll let me
just lay down my head and die!”
“He has raised you up from the very grave,” said Beenie. “We had nae
hope, Katrin and me; we had nae hope at all. Here she is hersel’ that
will tell you. There was ae night--oh, come Katrin, come and bear me
out--when you and me just stood over her, and kissed the bonnie white
face on the white pillow, and wrung each other’s hands, and said: ‘If
the baby’s lost and her reason gane, God bless her, she’ll be better
away.’”
“Whisht with your nonsense,” said Katrin; “that’s a’ past, and now we
have nae such thoughts in our heads. But what will you do, my dear
leddy, my bonnie leddy? Will ye bring him back here? A fine thriving
bairn like yon you canna hide him. The first day, the first night, and
the secret would be parish news. I was frichtened out of my wits the
first days for Dougal, who is not a pushing man, to do him justice, or
one that asks questions; but with Sir Robert in the house, oh, mem, my
bonnie dear, what will ye do?”
“I have never wanted to make any secret, Katrin,” Lily said.
“I ken that; but there will be an awfu’ deal to tell when once you
begin. And the bairn he is an awfu’ startling thing to begin with. Do ye
no think an auld gentleman like Sir Robert had better be prepared for
it? It would give him a shock. It might even hairm him in his health. I
would take counsel about it. Oh, I would take counsel! Do naething in a
hurry, not to scandalize the country, nor to give our auld maister a
fright that might do him harm.”
“To scandalize the country!” said Lily, pale with anger. “Oh! to think
it’s me, me that she says that to! Do you think it is better to deceive
every-body and be always a lie whatever way you turn?”
“Mem,” said Katrin, “my dear, you’ll excuse me; I must just say the
truth. It’s an awfu’ thing to deceive, as you say, and well I ken it was
never your wyte. But the worst of it is that when you begin you cannot
end. You just have to go on. I’m no saying one thing or another. It’s no
my business, if it wasna that I just think more of you than one mortal
creature should think of another. Oh! just take thought and take
counsel! The maister is an old man. You’ve beguiled him with your
winsome ways just as you’ve beguiled us a’. Can I see a thing wrong you
do, whatever it is? And yet I have a glimmerin’ o’ sense between whiles.
If he’s looking for you back to be his bonnie Lily and his companion,
and syne sees you come in with a bairn in your arms and another man’s
name, what will the auld man do? Oh, mem, the dear bairn, God bless him,
and grant that you may soon have him in your airms! But if you hold by
the auld gentleman and his life and comfort, for God’s sake take
thought! for that is in it, too.”
“There is nothing, nothing,” cried Lily, “that should keep a mother from
her bairn! You are a kind woman, Katrin, but you’ve never had a bairn.
When once I get him here, how can I ever give him up again?” she said,
straining her arms to her breast as if the child was within them. Beenie
wept behind her mistress’s shoulder, overwhelmed with sympathy, but
Katrin shook her head.
“When you see Mr. Lumsden there, and go over it all----”
Lily’s face became instantly as if the windows of her mind had been
closed up. Her lips straightened, her eyes became blank. She said
nothing, but turned away, not looking at either of them nor saying a
word. “And it was no me breathed his name or as much as thought upon
him,” Beenie said a little later in an aggrieved tone, when she had
rejoined Katrin down stairs.
“It was me that breathed his name, and I’ll do it again till some heed
is paid to what I say. We should maybe have refused yon day to be his
witnesses. But being sae, Beenie, the burden is on you and me as well as
on him. They should have owned each other and spoke the truth from that
day. But now that it has all gone so far and no a whisper risen, and the
countryside just as innocent as if they were two bairns playing, oh, I
wouldna now just burst it all upon the auld man’s head! He’s no an ill
auld man. He’s provided for her all her life; he is very muckle taken up
with her now, maybe in a selfish way, for he’s feeling his age and his
mainy infirmities, and he’s wanting a companion. But, oh! I would not
burst it on him now! He could never abide her man, and, to tell the
truth, Beenie, I’m not that fond of him mysel’, and she, poor thing, has
had a fearfu’ opening to her eyes. How could ye have the bairn here and
no the father? Could she say to her uncle: ‘I was very silly about him
once and married him, and now I canna abide him’? Oh, no! that is what
she will never say.”
“And I hope she’ll never think it either,” Beenie said.
“Beenie,” said the other solemnly, “you are a real innocent if such a
thing ever was.”
“No more than yoursel’,” said Beenie, indignant; but she had to return
to her mistress, and further discussion could not be held on this
question.
They went away on the second morning, which was a little frosty, though
bright. The establishment had widened out by this time. Sir Robert was
not a man to be driven to kirk or market in the little geeg, drawn at
his wilful pleasure by Rory, which had answered all Lily’s purposes.
There was now a phaeton and a brougham, and three or four horses
accommodated _tant bien que mal_ in the old stables, which had to be
cleared of much rubbish and Dougal’s accumulations of years before they
were in a state to receive their costly inmates. It was in the brougham
that Lily, wrapped up in every kind of shawl and comforter, drove with
her maid to Kinloch-Rugas to take the coach, where the best places had
been reserved for them. Beenie’s pride in this journey exceeded the
anxiety with which her mind was full, in respect to her mistress’s
health in the first place, and the many issues of their journey. But it
was not a “pride” which met with much sympathy from her dear friends and
fellow-servants. Dougal for his part stood out in the stable-yard
carefully isolated from all possible connection with the new grooms and
the new horses, though neither was he without a thrill of pride in the
distinction of a kind of part-proprietorship with Sir Robert in these
dazzling articles. He kept apart, however, with an air of conscious
superiority to such innovations. “I wish ye a good journey,” he said;
“maybe it’ll be warmer this fine morning in a shut-up carriage, but,
Lord! I would rather have Rory and the little geeg than all the coaches
in England!”
Lily was thrilling with nervous excitement, scarcely able to contain
herself, but she made an effort to give a word and a smile to the
whilom arbiter of all the movements of Dalrugas. “I would rather have
you and Rory in the summer weather,” she said. “If it is a warm day when
I come back, you will come for me, Dougal.”
“Na, mem, no me; we’re no grand enough now to carry leddies: which I
wouldna care much for, for leddies, as ye ken, are whiles fantastic and
put awfu’ burdens on a beast--but just because his spirit is broken with
trailing peats from the hill, and visitors’ boxes from the toun. They’re
sensitive creatures, pownies. I just begin to appreciate the black
powny’s feelings now I see the effect upon my ain.”
“He shall drive me when I come back,” said Lily, waving her hand as the
brougham flashed away, the coats of the horses shining in the frosty
sunshine, and the carriage panels sending back reflections. It was
certainly more comfortable than the geeg. But the light went out of
Lily’s face as they left Dalrugas behind. The little color in her cheeks
disappeared. She leaned back in her corner and once more pressed her
arms against her breast. “Oh, shall I find him? shall I find him?” she
cried.
“You’ll do that--wherefore should you no do that?” said Beenie
encouragingly.
“He’ll be grown so big we will not know him, Beenie, and he will not
know his mother; that woman Margaret that took him away will have all
his smiles--she will be the first face that he sees, now that he’s old
enough to notice. Oh, my little bairn! my little bairn!”
“A bairn that is two months auld takes but little notice, mem,” said
Beenie, strong in her practical knowledge. “You need not fash your head
about that. They may smile, but if ye were to ask me the very truth, I
wouldna hide from you that what they ca’ smiling is just in my opinion
the----”
“If you say that word, I will kill you!” cried Lily. She laughed and
then she cried in her excitement. “How will I contain myself? how will I
keep quiet and face the world, and the folk in the world, and every-body
about, till the moment comes--oh, the moment, Beenie!--when I will get
my baby into my arms?”
“Eh, mem! but you must not make yoursel’ sae awfu’ sure about that,”
said Beenie. “We might not find them just at first--or he might have a
little touch of the cauld, or maybe the thrush in his wee mouth, or
measles, or something. You must not make yourself so awfu’ sure.”
“He is ill!” cried Lily, seizing her in a fierce grip. “He is ill, oh,
you false, false woman, and you have never said a word to me!”
“There is naething ill about him; he is just thriving like the flowers.
But I canna bide when folk are so terrible sure. It seems as if you were
tempting God.”
“It’s you that are tempting me--to believe in nothing, neither Him nor
women’s word. But what would make a woman deceive a baby’s mother about
her own child? A man might do it, that knows nothing about what that
means; but a woman never would do it, Beenie--a woman that has been
about little babies and their mothers all her days?”
“No, mem, I never thought it,” said Beenie in dutiful response.
At the coach, where they were received with all the greater honor on
account of Sir Robert’s brougham, and the beautiful prancing horses,
Helen Blythe met them. “They would not let me come to see you,” she
said. “It’s long, long, since I’ve seen you, Lily, and worn and white
you’ve grown--but just as bonnie as ever: there comes up the color just
as it used to do--but you must look stronger when you come back.”
“I am going away for that,” Lily said.
“And it is just the wisest thing she could do,” said the doctor, who had
come also to see her off. “And stay away as long as you can, Miss
Ramsay, and just divert yourself a little. You have great need of
diversion after that long time at the old Tower.”
“She is not one that is much heeding diversion,” said Helen, looking at
her affectionately.
“We’re all needing it whether we’re heeding it or no,” said the doctor.
“And if you will take my advice, you will just take a little pleasure to
yourself, as you would take physic if I ordered it. Good-by, Miss
Ramsay, and mind what I say.”
“He’s maybe right,” said Helen; “they say he’s a clever man. I know
little about diversion. But, oh! I would like to see you happy,
Lily--that would be better than all the physic in the world.”
“Perhaps I will bring it back with me,” said Lily, with a smile.