The morning rises dimly,There are clouds and there is rain,But always the sun is there—So softly breaking, parting like the mistsAbout the hills, the dismayed sorrow loosesHer heavy veil and cloak of mourning from her,And sometimes smiling, sometimes weeping, likeThe skies in April, lifts her head again,And looks upon the light.
The morning rises dimly,There are clouds and there is rain,But always the sun is there—So softly breaking, parting like the mistsAbout the hills, the dismayed sorrow loosesHer heavy veil and cloak of mourning from her,And sometimes smiling, sometimes weeping, likeThe skies in April, lifts her head again,And looks upon the light.
The morning rises dimly,There are clouds and there is rain,But always the sun is there—So softly breaking, parting like the mistsAbout the hills, the dismayed sorrow loosesHer heavy veil and cloak of mourning from her,And sometimes smiling, sometimes weeping, likeThe skies in April, lifts her head again,And looks upon the light.
“Miss Maxwell,” said Hope Oswald, as she sat on a low chair by the side of Lilias on the morning of Hallowe’en, the last day she was to spend at home: “you have never seen Helen Buchanan yet;—I should like so much to let you see her before I go away.”
“And you are going away to-morrow, Hope?” said Lilias.
“Yes,” said Hope, disconsolately; “my father is to take me to-morrow. I should be so glad, Miss Maxwell, if you only knew Helen.”
“Well, Hope,” said Lilias, “you must contrive to introduce us to each other to-night. I see no other way of accomplishing it.”
“But, Miss Maxwell,” said Hope, with some confusion, “Helen will not be at our house to-night,—she never comes to our house—she always stays at home.”
“And why does she always stay at home?”
Hope’s face flushed indignantly.
“Because she has to keep a school—not a school for young ladies—and because she is proud, and other people are foolish and do not know what it is to be a gentlewoman;—and because my father—”
Hope paused, perceiving that it might not be necessary to publish the faults of her father. At the same time Hope was very anxious to make Lilias useful in her absence as a means of proclaiming the excellencies of Helen; and there was yet another thing which Hope desired to make Lilias understand,—that William was by no means an eligibleparti, whatever his father or Mossgray might say to the contrary.Hope had never heard yet of the mysterious Indian letters, and did not know that Lilias was as completely fortified against the attractions of William as he was from hers.
“Because she keeps a school, and because she is proud,” repeated Lilias; “but she has been here in Fendie all her life—and she must have friends.”
“Oh, yes,” answered Hope, promptly, “she has plenty of friends; only you know, Miss Maxwell, nobody she cares about—I don’t mean that either—I mean there is nobody like herself—I never saw any one like Helen but you.”
“And am I like Helen?”
Hope looked up at the calm, pensive face before her with its fair still features, and faint colour, and thoughtful melancholy eyes—and confessed to herself that it was not so.
“No—I don’t mean you are like in the face—only—” Hope paused and was puzzled, “only you are Helen’s age—and you are alone—and—you are a gentlewoman.”
Lilias smiled.
“Thank you, Hope, for your good opinion; but perhaps if Miss Buchanan is so proud she would not like me to call on her.”
“Oh, would you go?” exclaimed Hope—“Oh, Miss Maxwell, if you would only go! I did not mean that Helen was proud—only she does not care for people who do not care for her.”
“Mossgray bids me go out,” said Lilias;—she had very soon adopted the kindly territorial name which was at once respectful and familiar, and by which her guardian liked to be called; “and the day is bright—will you take me with you, Hope, and we shall go to see Miss Buchanan?”
Hope was full of delight and thanks.
“But if you come to Fendie now, mind you are not to go back till night;—for you promised to be with us at Hallowe’en—mind, Miss Maxwell.”
Miss Maxwell did mind, and gently promised she would remain, though the mirth of the youthful party was scarcely very congenial to her subdued spirits; and when she had equipped herself for her walk, and had received the smiling permission which she asked from Mossgray, and with Hope’s hand in hers, was walking down the water-side to Fendie, she resumed the subject,—
“And so you think, Hope, that Miss Buchanan could not be induced to meet us to-night?”
Hope looked up with some alarm.
“My mother has not asked her to come. Oh, Miss Maxwell, do you think my father would not be angry if I did?”
Lilias shook her head;—she did not know.
“But to be sure Helen would not come,” said Hope, ruefully. “Do you know, Miss Maxwell—”
“Do I know what, Hope?”
But Hope still hesitated.
“I mean, Miss Maxwell—if you like Helen—you are sure to like her—at least I think you will—perhaps; if you do like Helen, will you tell my father sometime how good she is—for my father does not know Helen.”
Lilias looked at Hope with a smile, and Hope returned the look with a very sagacious, perplexed, deliberative expression upon her fresh, candid face.
“You seem to be very fond of Miss Buchanan, Hope?”
“And so I am,” said Hope, blythely, “and so is everybody—only—my father does not know Helen.”
This anxious affection of Hope’s, childish at once, and chivalrous, had a great deal of interest for Lilias, and she was silent now, her thoughts almost as much occupied about Helen as were those of Helen’s youthful champion.
“Helen will like you, Miss Maxwell,” said Hope, suddenly. “I know she will; for the people have been saying so much about you since you came.”
The colour rose gently on the cheek of Lilias.
“What have they said about me, Hope?”
“Oh, not very much—only that they were sorry you were ill, and thought you would be so solitary at Mossgray. Helen saw you at church, Miss Maxwell, and when the people speak about the strange young lady, she calls you the lily of Mossgray; but I called you—”
“What did you call me, Hope?”
“You will not be angry?—It was only because your name is like the names in the old ballads—I called you the Laird’s Lilias.”
“So my name reminded you of the Laird’s Jock, and the Laird’s Wat, did it, Hope?” said Lilias, smiling; “but it is an excellent title you give me, for I should have been a very solitary sad Lilias, but for the Laird;—and was Miss Buchanan sorry for me because I was alone?”
“She never said that,” said Hope, honestly, “because Helen is always alone herself—only she is with her mother.”
Lilias walked on silently and put her hand over her eyes: how great a difference did that brief sentence make!
Helen Buchanan’s scholars were flocking out when Hope and Lilias reached the house. There was a considerable number of them, from awkward hoydens of Hope’s own years, whose shyness their graceful teacher had mellowed into something not unhandsome, down to little sunburnt fairies of four or five, who, spite of clogs and coarse dresses, had still the unconscious charm of childhood upon them, and needed no mellowing. They all knew Hope, and with her were much more friendly than deferential, for Hope with her buoyant spirits and frank young life could not always be kept within the bounds of the circle of Misses who were proper acquaintances for the Banker’s daughter; and most of them had heard of the young lady of Mossgray. Some, touched with reverence for the paleness of Lilias’ face, saluted her with a shame-faced curtsey; the rest hung back, crowding upon each other in little groups, and looked at her with curiosity only softened by their shyness—for all were shy. The young teacher, like the poet, had a sympathy for “sweet shame-facednesse,” and thought it sat well upon children; so that she rather cherished than found fault with the native bashfulness of her pupils. People think otherwise in these precocious days; but the little ones in Fendie are happily still shy.
Helen sat in her presiding chair in the school-room with thumbed books and copies, and slates covered with armies of sprawling figures heaped upon the table before her. She was leaning her head upon her hand and looking somewhat wearied; the lessons were over for the day, for the placid work of sewing—a most weary one to the young practitioners—occupied the afternoon. There was a certain mist upon her face, and she sighed. Her sky was rather wayward at this present time, and had various passing shadows; and though her mother had already two or three times called her to the parlour, Helen still lingered alone—not that she was thinking deeply or painfully; her changeful nature had times which did not think at all, and in the mist of an unconscious reverie, slightly sad, but which a single touch could raise into buoyant exhilaration or depress into melancholy, she sat by the large work-table in the empty school-room leaning her head upon her hand.
“Helen,” said Hope Oswald, “this is Miss Maxwell.” Hope intended to add something pretty—to say that they were like each other, and should be friends; but it would not do, for Hope too, after her own peculiar fashion, was shy; so she withdrew abruptly and left her friends to improve their acquaintance by themselves.
“I am very glad to see you, Miss Maxwell,” said Helen, earnestly; and then she too stopped and became embarrassed, and looked at the door for her mother—but her mother did not come: and Helen glanced up with admiration and quick liking into the quiet pensive face whose steadiness she could not but envy, and felt her own variable countenance burn as she repeated,—“indeed I am very glad to see you.”
“You are very kind,” said the composed and gentle Lilias, who was less swiftly moved than Helen. “Hope told me you had compassion on my solitude, Miss Buchanan, and encouraged me to ask you to cheer it;—and I had confidence in Hope.”
“But you must have no confidence in Hope as regards us,” said Helen, recovering herself, “for Hope is my sworn knight, and has been my mother’s favourite all her life:—will you come and see my mother?”
Mrs Buchanan was prepared for them by Hope’s kind warning, and had little more than time to remove some small matters of preparation for their simple mid-day meal from the fire, when the famed young lady of Mossgray entered the parlour with Helen.
And then as Lilias, the motherless, received the cheerful kindly greeting which people callmotherly, Helen saw that the face of the Lily of Mossgray was not an unexpressive one; that the large dark blue eyes were cast down to hide unshed tears, and that even in the pleasure which Mrs Buchanan’s welcome gave her, the anguish of the solitary and desolate came over the orphan’s heart.
They were soon friends—friends so warmly and speedily that Hope Oswald started in glad surprise when Mrs Buchanan invited Lilias to remain with them, until it should be time for Mrs Oswald’s juvenile Hallowe’en party, and Lilias consented with goodwill. Here was a master-stroke! To have the Lily of Mossgray, at present the admired of all admirers, come direct from the humble house of Helen Buchanan! Hope repeated to herself as she went home the commendation of Miss Swinton, and ventured to believe it true.
“What will my father think?” mused Hope; and she hurried to the office to beg him, as an especial favour, himself to come with her to the grocer’s to lay in a stock of nuts for the important transactions of the evening.
“Wait till after dinner, Hope,” said the banker, graciously; and Hope waited till after dinner; then, when the lights began to shine out one after another in the main street of Fendie—the more dignified shops of Fendie are resplendent in the glories of gas—and Hope was quite sure that her friend Adelaide would be getting ready to start, and that she herself would scarcely have time to assume the new silk frock which Mrs Oswald feared could not fail to receive extensive damage this evening, her father at last was ready to accompany her, and they proceeded to make their important purchase.
There was a good deal of the mist of frost in the bracing, pleasant air; but high above the haze was a cold, distinct, full moon. It did not cast down a very clear light however through the veil which hung between the earth and the sky, and the youngsters in the Main Street of Fendie decidedly preferred the shop-windows.
Opposite the important shop of Mr Elliot Bell, the principal grocer of Fendie, a group of little girls were enjoying themselves in the bright spot illuminated by the lights within. They were performing one of those childish dramas which look like relics of some early stage not without a certain art in their construction. Who that has had the good fortune to be born a girl in Scotland does not remember the monotonous expectancy of the first act, and the quite startling nature of the last in that famous play of “Janet Jo?” It made rather a pretty scene in the quiet street of Fendie. A pile of packing-cases and empty boxes standing securely in a street innocent of thieves because the premises of the great drapers, Messrs Scott and Armstrong, had no room for them, formed the back-ground; demurely arranged in the shelter of these stood a row of little girls; while advancing and retiring before them was another line of little figures, keeping time to their chant. The light shone pleasantly upon the small, sparkling faces—every Jean and Mary, and Maggie among them, had been already summoned by their respective mothers, but the play was not played out, and the young performers remained at their post. The banker stood at Mr Elliot Bell’s door with his daughter, very graciously pleased and admiring. The other part of the street lay inshadow; the soft, brown haze faintly lighted by the moonbeams hung between them and the serene unclouded sky, and through the mist, the spire of the church at the other end of the street shot strangely up, making its sharp point visible against the clear, blue arch above; and the sweet voices of the children, in their monotonous chant, were in harmony with the time.
The banker was not easily moved by the æsthetics of common life; but the society of his favourite melted his heart.
“Where have these children learned to move so gracefully, Hope?” asked Mr Oswald, in the incautiousness of his gracious mood; “they might have been with the French dancing-master, whom your friend Adelaide speaks so much about.”
“The French dancing-master, papa!” exclaimed Hope; “he could not make people graceful. Adelaide Fendie is not graceful; she only knows how to put her feet—”
Mr Oswald laughed.
“Well then, Hope, what about these little girls?—it must be natural to them.”
Hope began to tremble as she adventured her first direct experiment.
“I think I know what it is, father.”
“Well, Hope?”
“It’s because—because they have a gentlewoman to teach them,” said the brave Hope, with a considerable tremor.
Mr Oswald looked grave and frowned; he had lost his interest in the children; but his frown only provoked the bold spirit of his favourite daughter, who knew her own power.
“They are only common people’s children,” continued Hope, with a good deal of warmth; “but they have a gentlewoman to teach them, papa; and Miss Swinton says that is the way to make people graceful. I am sure it is too—for if you only saw the girls who are not with Helen Buchanan!—because it’s not being rich that does any good;—people might have all the money in the world, and only be common people; but Helen Buchanan is a gentlewoman born!”
The banker wisely withdrew into the shop, and, busying himself about the nuts, pretended not to have noticed the energetic speech which made Hope’s cheek burn and her eyes glow in the delivery. Mr Oswald was considerably afraid, for he saw that Hope was by no means an antagonistto be despised, and did not well know how to meet her fiery charges. Hope was indifferent about the nuts: she had begun her campaign, and felt all the glow and excitement of her first declaration of war.
In the mean time, Lilias Maxwell had settled down quietly into her corner of Mrs Buchanan’s parlour. The rapid sympathy of Helen had already gathered up the loneliness, the wants and yearnings of the orphan, and all that were in sorrow had an unfailing claim upon the pity and tenderness of her mother. The calm face, so pensive and pale, and thoughtful, and the unquiet face with its constant life and motion, contrasted strangely, so near to each other; but their diverse currents of life had yet many points of harmony. Each was the only child of her mother: each had the self-knowledge which comes in solitude, and as they talked together, each came to recognise thoughts like her own, in a guise and form so different, that strange smiles almost mirthful brightened even the face of Lilias as they grew familiar. The stranger very soon ceased to be a stranger then, for even Mossgray was not so like home.
The auld guidwife’s weelhoordet nitsAre round and round divided,And monie lads and lasses’ fatesAre there that night decided.Some kindle, couthy, side by side,An’ burn thegither trimly,Some start awa’ wi’ saucy prideAn’ jump out owre the chimlie,Fu’ high that night.—Hallowe’en.
The auld guidwife’s weelhoordet nitsAre round and round divided,And monie lads and lasses’ fatesAre there that night decided.Some kindle, couthy, side by side,An’ burn thegither trimly,Some start awa’ wi’ saucy prideAn’ jump out owre the chimlie,Fu’ high that night.—Hallowe’en.
The auld guidwife’s weelhoordet nitsAre round and round divided,And monie lads and lasses’ fatesAre there that night decided.Some kindle, couthy, side by side,An’ burn thegither trimly,Some start awa’ wi’ saucy prideAn’ jump out owre the chimlie,Fu’ high that night.—Hallowe’en.
Thejuvenile party had assembled in Mrs Oswald’s drawing-room. The Fendies of Mount Fendie, the Maxwells of Firthside, the son and daughter of Dr Elliot, who rented Greenshaw, and several other scions of rural magnates. Hope had a secret feeling that she would have liked an auxiliary party of Helen Buchanan’s scholars in the kitchen, and should have had much better fun with themthan among the young ladies and the young gentlemen, with their incipient flirtations and full dress.
The eldest Miss Maxwell of Firthside was eighteen; she sat apart and dignified beside Mrs Oswald and Lilias on a sofa, thinking William Oswald a great lout, and herself much too important a person to countenance the follies of “the children.” Lilias did not think so; but their gay laughter and active sport made her shrink now and then, and by its very contrast recalled her grief.
The banker was very gracious to Lilias. He had some indefinite hope that she might possibly withdraw William from his foolish fancy. He hoped her walk from Mossgray had not wearied her.
“Oh no,” said Lilias, “I have had a long rest. Hope has done me the favour to make a very important addition to my list of Fendie friends to-day.”
Hope paused in the midst of the tumult of burning nuts to listen. Her father glanced at her quickly with an eye which presaged a storm. Hope drew herself up and defied it.
“I have been in Mrs Buchanan’s since the morning—do you know her, Mrs Oswald?”
“Yes, I know her,” said Mrs Oswald, quietly, with secret satisfaction, only less warm than Hope’s. “Mrs Buchanan is an old friend of mine. You liked her, no doubt?”
“Perhaps one must be alone as I have been,” said Lilias, faltering slightly, “before one can know what a pleasure it is—I mean, to be in the atmosphere of a mother; but Hope’s Helen, Mrs Oswald—I wonder I have been here so long, and have not heard of her before.”
“That will be the Miss Buchanan that keeps the school,” interrupted Miss Maxwell of Firthside.
Lilias smiled.
“If you knew her you would not need that distinction, though it is a very good one; but one runs no risk of losing her, Miss Maxwell, though all the other Miss Buchanans in Scotland were congregated in Fendie.”
“Oh, is she so pretty?” asked the young lady, with some curiosity.
William Oswald stood at some distance, leaning upon the mantelpiece. At his feet little Agnes Elliot looked up, vainly pleading that he would put those two nuts, representing herself and Harry Stewart of Fairholm, into some safe corner of the ruddy fire; but William had no ear for little Agnes.
The banker sat in a great chair near his wife’s sofa, looking, as he wished it to appear, towards the young merrymakers round the fire-place, and pretending to be extremely indifferent to the conversation, but listening with all his might.
“It is not that she is pretty,” said Lilias; “I cannot tell what the charm is—but the charm is great, I know. Hope, you know Miss Buchanan best—tell Miss Maxwell what it is.”
“But, Miss Maxwell, I am sure you know better than me,” said Hope, dubiously, her triumph checked by fear, lest her own powers of description should fail. “I don’t know what it is except it is just because Helen is a gentlewoman.”
Miss Maxwell of Firthside elevated her good-looking small head, with itsnez retroussé, and looked contemptuous. Mr Oswald pushed back his chair hastily.
“Hope is very right,” said Lilias; “but there are gentlewomen, many of them, to whom nothing could give that singular refinement. It is not conventional grace of manner at all, either; one cannot tell what it is.”
“Is that Miss Buchanan? Oh, I know her—I know her!” cried one of the Firthside boys. “She hit me once; but I think I like her for all that.”
“Miss Buchanan struck you?” said his sister. “What did she do that for?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you, Georgina!” said a smaller youth. “He was hitting Robbie Carlyle’s cuddie with his switch—he’s a cuddie himself—he was hitting me just before; and the young lady came up and took the switch from him and loundered him. Oh, didn’t he deserve it!”
“She didna lounder me!” cried the first speaker, indignantly, forgetting in his haste that his vernacular should not be spoken before ears polite. “She only hit me once, and laughed, and asked me how I likit it. She never hurt me; and we’re good friends now.”
“Is that a way to speak, Hector?” cried the young lady-sister, in dismay. “What a vulgar boy you are!”
Hope with difficulty restrained a retort as to the superior elegance of our kindly Scottish tongue, when little Agnes Elliot came running forward with the nuts which William Oswald could not be induced to put into the fire for her.
“This is Harry Stewart, and this is me,” said the innocent little Agnes, too young yet to have any sort of bashfulness about her juvenile sweetheart, “and if you please, Hope, will you put them in?”
Hope put them in as she was requested, and Hope also placed another couple of nuts in the glowing heat of the fire, and stood watching them with much anxiety. There were a great many eager gazers about the hearth—a great many youthful fates were being determined; but Hope’s nuts were still burning merrily when the destiny of all the others had been sealed. “Who is it, Hope? who is it?” cried blythe voices on every side; but Hope closed her lips firmly and shook her head, and would not tell.
“Oh, I know!” said Hector Maxwell; “it’s Hope and me—Hope’s burning herself and me!”
Hope’s indignant denial was lost in the general chorus—“Hope’s burning herself and Hector Maxwell!” Hope was very much offended; she pushed the joyous Hector away, and scolded little Agnes Elliot; it was too bad; but she still stood perseveringly by the fire, watching the nuts: they were at the most dangerous stage, and there was still the risk of one starting from the side of the other.
The crisis past; lovingly they subsided together into white ashes.
“It’s William and Helen, Miss Maxwell,” whispered Hope, secretly clapping her hands, and Lilias was prepared for the revelation, and received it with becoming gravity.
All the young faces in the room were red and glowing; they were tired of burning nuts, and Mrs Oswald’s old nurse, Tibbie, was brought in state from the kitchen to superintend and interpret the mysterious process of “dropping the egg.”
“Oh, goodness!” cried Victoria Fendie, “look—look! it’s a sword and a grand cocked hat—isn’t it, Tibbie? and that’s for our Adelaide. I wonder what it means.”
“A cocked hat!” said Hector Maxwell, indignantly, “it’s more like a triangle—the thing the showfolk play tunes on; and a sword!—it’s the bow of a fiddle.”
“Whiskt!” said Tibbie, “it’s just a sword; and what should it mean, bairns; just that Miss Adie’s to get a grand sodger officer—see if I dinna say true.”
Adelaide Fendie blushed her dull blush, and whispered,—
“Oh, Hope, do you think she knows?”
“She knows what it looks like,” said Hope.
But Adelaide was not satisfied.
“Do you not think she knows more than that? Oh, Hope, what if it was to come true?”
Hope laughed; but it was her own turn now, to watch the mysterious evolutions of the egg.
“It’s a ship! it’s a ship!” cried Hector Maxwell, in an ecstacy. “Tibbie, I am sure you meant this for me.”
“Never you heed, Maister Hector,” said the oracular Tibbie; “it’s Miss Hope’s; but you’re to get her, ye ken, so it’s a’ ane.”
Hope swept away in high disdain from Hector’s vicinity.
“Tibbie,” she whispered, “try one for a young lady; she is not here, but I like her, and I’ll tell you after who she is.”
Tibbie obeyed.
“It’s like a book,” cried Victoria.
“It’s a letter,” said Hector.
“Oh, Tibbie, what does it mean?” inquired the perplexed Hope.
Tibbie was slightly puzzled too; the rules of her simple art gave her no assistance.
“Well, bairns, I canna just tell—wait a minute. Ay, Miss Hope, that’s it—the young lady will get her fortune out of a book.”
“Out of a book, Tibbie?”
“Deed, ay, Miss Hope; we’re no to ken hoo till the time comes—but see if she disna get her fortune out of a book.”
Hope drew back to cogitate; she could make nothing of this mysterious deliverance of Tibbie’s.
By and by, Adam Graeme’s old-fashioned, brown-hooded conveyance (all classes of vehicles are called by the generic name, conveyance, in Fendie), driven by “Mossgray’s man,” Saunders Delvie, arrived to take Lilias home. Hope accompanied her to the door.
“If you please, Miss Maxwell,” said Hope, “will you see Helen sometimes when I am away?”
“Yes, Hope,” answered Lilias.
“And, Miss Maxwell, will you just speak of her sometimes before my father—I don’t meantomy father—but you know what I mean.”
“Yes, Hope,” repeated Lilias, “I shall do what I can; don’t be afraid, and now good-bye.”
The carriage drove off, but Hope still lingered at the door, looking down the dim, hazy, quiet street. There were veryfew passengers, but as she stood looking out, she perceived a certain tall, plaided figure rapidly advancing upon the opposite side, in shadow of the houses. Hope turned and shut the door in sudden wrath. What could the Reverend Robert Insches have to do at the “townend” on this Hallowe’en night? It looked suspicious; he had been seeing Helen Buchanan!
The next morning early, Hope herself traversed the same road to bid Helen good-bye. The coach started at eleven, and it was only a little after eight when Hope looked in upon Mrs Buchanan’s breakfast-table. Helen looked in excellent spirits; the ring of her pleasant laugh had reached Hope’s ear before she opened the parlour-door.
“Do you like Miss Maxwell, Helen?” inquired Hope.
“Very much, Hope,” was the quick answer; “we shall be excellent friends.”
“Because she likes you, Helen,” continued Hope. “If you had only heard her last night, Mrs Buchanan.”
The blood flushed at once over Helen’s face. It was not disagreeable to be praised—not even before the Oswalds; but it excited pride as well as curiosity.
“Helen,” resumed Hope, “Mr Insches comes here very often, does he not?” Hope looked immensely jealous.
Helen did not answer; there was some annoyance, and a good deal of mirth upon her face.
“Yes, Hope,” said Mrs Buchanan, sedately, “Mr Insches is a good lad. He visits far better than any minister that has been in Fendie since I came.”
“Ah, but he does not visit everybody else as often as he visits you!” exclaimed the jealous Hope. “Helen, do you like him?”
The merry ring of Helen’s laugh did not by any means please Hope this morning.
“Surely,” she said; “why should I not like him, Hope?”
“Ah, I don’t mean that,” said Hope; “but—I am sure you don’tcarefor him, Helen?”
Helen blushed again; but her answer was more satisfactory this time.
“No, indeed, Hope; not the very least in the world.”
“Mr Insches is a fine lad,” repeated Mrs Buchanan, significantly.
“Oh yes, so is everybody,” said Hope; “but do youknow, Mrs Buchanan, I think he thinks he is good-looking.”
“And so he is, Hope.”
“But he is a man, and a minister! what right has he to think about such a thing?”
Mrs Buchanan shook her head, and did not refuse to smile; for men and ministers too have their vanities.
“Helen,” said Hope, “I made our Tibbie try your fortune last night, and what do you think it was? We could not make it out at first, but Tibbie said it was a book; and you’re to get your fortune out of a book. Now, mind, and we’ll just see what happens—and, Helen, I burnt you.”
The unquiet face grew suddenly grave, and flushed over cheek and brow with the hot blush of pride; the tone changed in a moment.
“Did you, Hope? you were very cruel.”
“Oh, but you know that’s not what I mean!” said Hope; “and, Helen, you need not be angry at me.”
“Who did you burn with Helen, Hope?” said Mrs Buchanan.
Hope dared not answer; and yet there was some curiosity in the kindled indignation of that strangely moving face.
“It is time for me to go away,” said Hope, disconsolately. “Good-bye, Mrs Buchanan; and, Helen, you need not be angry when I am just going away.”
Helen rose and accompanied her favourite to the door.
“I am not angry, Hope; but you must never speak of me again at home; mind—or I shall be very much offended.”
“Why?” said Hope, boldly.
But it was not quite so easy to answer why.
“Because I shall promise if you will tell me the reason,” said the sensible Hope.
But Helen could give no reason; so she bit her lip and looked half angry, and laughed.
“Do you know, Hope, I begin to think you are to be very clever,” she said at last.
“Miss Swinton says I am sensible,” said Hope, steadily; “and when you have no reason, why should you be angry?—but mind, you are to get your fortune out of a book; and now I must go away.”
The farewell was said, and Hope gone; but Helen still stood leaning over the garden-gate, looking after herwith an embarrassed smile upon her face. It was a sunny morning, though the haze of the beginning frost was still in the air; the morning always brought new hopes and a buoyant upspringing to the elastic nature of Helen Buchanan, and she felt more than usually light-hearted to-day. As was her habit, she revealed this in every unconscious movement. Mrs Buchanan knew by the very measure of her step as she reëntered the house, that there was no mist in her sunny atmosphere—no cloud upon her sky. A certain shy pleasure hovered upon her face, prompting her to laugh at sundry times with embarrassed uncertain gladness, and swaying about the colour in her cheek, as a mist is swayed by the wind. It did not seem certainly that Hope Oswald had much offended her.
But it was not that; neither was it the evident pleasure which the young minister, who thought himself good-looking, found in Mrs Buchanan’s humble parlour, nor yet the friendship of Lilias Maxwell. The bright nature did indeed in its own warm alembic combine all these together, and draw from them a certain exhilaration; but itself in the involuntary elasticity which was its best inheritance was the source of its own happiness. A rare and precious gift, chequered as it was with the infinite variety of shadows, and all the depths of sudden depression which calmer spirits could not know.
But it was very true that the Reverend Robert Insches had called very many times of late on Mrs Buchanan, and that Helen talked to him as she would have talked to any indifferent acquaintance, in her own varied wayward fashion, and that the young minister seemed exceedingly glad to respond; whereupon Mrs Buchanan, in spite of her great favour for William Oswald, began to perceive more clearly the obstacles which stood between Helen and him, and to grow more indignant at his father. His father, the harsh, stern man whose rigid strength had done so much injury to her gentle husband, and who now cast his severe shadow over the lot of her daughter. And William had been long in possession of the field; it pleased the good mother to see it entered by another competitor, and if ordinary signs held good, a competitor the Reverend Robert Insches was beginning to be.
All this was very true; but very true it was also that Helen was supremely indifferent to the good looks of theyouthful minister, and that the Reverend Robert himself had by no means decided whether he had or had not any “intentions” respecting the young schoolmistress of Fendie. Shewasthe schoolmistress; to call her by the more ornamental name of teacher or governess would not do; and the Reverend Robert was himself of somewhat plebeian origin, and knew how apt congregations are to scrutinize the pedigree and breeding of a new minister’s wife. So he was wise though he was fascinated, and Mrs Buchanan was a little premature.
But Hope Oswald, on the journey to Edinburgh, contrived to let the banker know how assiduously the minister visited her friend, and had the consolation to perceive that her arrow did not miss its mark. It by no means weakened the resolution which the obstinate man had formed in respect to the daughter of his former friend; but acting upon the suggestive praise of Lilias Maxwell, it gave him a little misgiving about the wisdom of his unalterable decision. It was humiliating to make a mistake, but the very possibility made him cling more closely to his obstinate resolve. He would never receive Walter Buchanan’s daughter—never! He had fulminated his sentence on the matter once, and it was decided as the Medes and Persians decide—beyond the power of change.
I would not have a speck rest on his fameNot if it gave me kingdoms—’Tis very true that I am poor and friendless,But think you for that reason I would stealKinsman and lands from yet another orphan?No, no—ah, no!
I would not have a speck rest on his fameNot if it gave me kingdoms—’Tis very true that I am poor and friendless,But think you for that reason I would stealKinsman and lands from yet another orphan?No, no—ah, no!
I would not have a speck rest on his fameNot if it gave me kingdoms—’Tis very true that I am poor and friendless,But think you for that reason I would stealKinsman and lands from yet another orphan?No, no—ah, no!
Lilias Maxwellsat in the old-fashioned window-seat of the Mossgray drawing-room busy with some household sewing. It was an appropriate work then, with its licence of unlimited thought, though it had often been unwholesome enough for the solitary orphan. She was looking forward now, in that freshness of feeling with which those look who,after a long interregnum of pain, may again dare to turn their eyes to the future. Her heart was convalescent, and the haze of subdued sadness which remained about her present self made the prospect only the fairer. She was thinking of her guardian’s delicate care of her, and of the one living voice which should yet thank him for his tenderness.
The old man upstairs in his study was reading one of his philosophical favourites with some restlessness, as a duty. He was slightly ashamed of himself for so much preferring the society of his young charge to that of his old, learned, constant friends. The dust that lay upon his scientific tools, and the unusual order and solemn regularity with which these folio and quarto inhabitants of his shelves were arranged, came upon him like a reproof. His hand rested upon the fanciful records of Bishop Berkeley’s mystic system. Open before him lay the steadier disquisitions of a grave philosopher of Scotland. Upon the same table were some of those strange, wild charts which reveal to us the dreamy sea of German thought. The volumes round bore all on kindred subjects—writings of men who had given consistence to the reveries of the unformed world before their time, and of men who had but skill enough to spin their spider’s thread about the obscure college or unknown scholar’s cell in which they lived and died. Divine philosophy in its strength and its weakness encircled the Laird of Mossgray.
But from the high window of the projecting turret the ruddy winter sunshine stole in a line of dazzling light through the large low room. It was a mild day, so mild that the turret window was open, and the low hum of rural sounds ascended from beneath. Adam Graeme leant back in his chair, and looked at the steady line of sunlight, and forgot the philosophies of science. There rose in the gentle soul of the old man philosophies of older date than these, born before ever the restless mind of humanity had investigated its own formation or classified its feelings.
“The same sound is in mine earsWhich in those days I heard.”
“The same sound is in mine earsWhich in those days I heard.”
“The same sound is in mine earsWhich in those days I heard.”
Wonderful sights and sounds of nature unchangeable in all their varying—wonderful human heart which twines its memories about them, and growing old, dwells in the past, by aid of the great earth and greater sun!
By the fireside stood an old carved chair; the room wasso much the hermitage of its owner, that its furniture was very scanty; there was no accommodation for any companionship; but when every other article in the room was piled with books, this solitary chair remained always unencumbered. For years it had stood in the same position, turned towards the fire, its high carved back standing up, a kind of gloomy screen against the light. This day its position had been slightly altered, and the sunshine streaming in, threw its fantastic gilding over the antique carving and faded old embroidery of the unused seat. The old man started slightly as his eye fell upon it, and it was some time before he recollected himself. Lilias had been in the study early this morning, and she it was who had, unconsciously, made this alteration.
It was the chair of Charlie Graeme. This room, now the study of the thoughtful, aged man, had been the favourite haunt of the schoolboy cousins long ago. Rusty armour, and heavy swords and axes, borne by the chiefs of Mossgray, when peace was unknown upon the Border, hung still upon the low bare walls, and in one corner a pile of youthful implements, fishing-rods and the like, still bore witness to the different occupations once pursued under its roof; through all these long intervening years, since the household traitor left for the last time the house of the trustful friend, to whom his lost honour brought so severe a pang, “Charlie’s chair” remained as he had left it, unoccupied by the solitary fireside. Now for the first time the sunlight slanted on this relic of the false man, and Mossgray sat with his eyes fixed upon it, thinking of the dead.
That morning he had received a letter from the Reverend Matthew Monikie, the pragmatical licentiate of the church, who kept the Aberdeenshire school, where Charlie’s son had spent his youth. The letter was formally written, as became the man’s profession, age, and character, with deductions somewhat authoritative. Halbert Graeme was nearly one and twenty; it was absolutely necessary, Mr Monikie represented, that some provision should be made for his future life; that he should be placed in some situation where he could maintain himself.
Mossgray had made a resolution, and was determined to keep it. The son of Charlie Graeme should never be heir to the house in which his father had meditated so much treachery; it was better than the line of the old race should be utterlyextinguished, than that it should spring anew from a stock which displayed so much guile, and falsehood, and dishonour. Mossgray resolved to continue the yearly allowance he had given this youth, and to refuse him no specific aid or influence which he asked; but, “Let him not enter my presence,” repeated the old man; “let me not be brought into contact with one whose motives I cannot trust, whose conduct may steel my heart both against himself and others. I wish him well, but let him not come near me.”
It was unjust: it was almost the single conscious injustice with which even his own conscience could tax Adam Graeme of Mossgray, and in consequence he tried to banish it from his mind. As he sat thus musing, a melting of the heart came upon him. He could almost fancy, as he saw the sunbeams stealing over Charlie’s chair, that Charlie himself had risen from it even now.
Very shortly afterwards he joined Lilias. She was still sitting in the deep window-seat of the cheerful, old-fashioned drawing-room. The ruddy sunbeams just touched her pale head with a shadowy glory; her fingers were busily employed, her mind no less active. Not as Helen Buchanan would have done in the vivid dreams which took possession of her less serene spirit, but in the flush of a tranquil, gentle hope, weaving the mystic thread of her imagined destiny over the unknown future which lay before her.
“Lilias,” said her guardian, when they had been for some time engaged in conversation less personal, “I am the last of my race, but I have a fancy that I should like ill to be the last of my name. When I was as young as you are, there seemed to me a peculiar charm and grace in the name I would have you bear—you must be Lilias Graeme.”
“Gladly, if it pleases you, Mossgray,” answered Lilias.
“It pleases me,” said the old man, with his gentle smile; “it is strange how sometimes, Lilias, we have our early fancies realized in a way which, could we foresee it when we form them, we should think bitter mockery. This name! well, but the years fall tranquilly, and do a good work in the content they bring. I think they bring content—acquiescence at least in what Providence sends us.”
“Is it always so?” said Lilias. She was thinking of her fretful, repining father, whose discontent was not allayed by years.
“I think so,” said Mossgray: “we resist when we arestrong, but when this gentle hand of decay droops over us, we learn to think that what has befallen us was, after all, the best; but I did not intend to discuss melancholy matters with you, and youthful people, as I remember, think all sad that relates to the end. When that comes, Lilias—when you yourself are the lady of this old stronghold of the Graemes, remember that you have promised to bear their name.”
Lilias laid down her work and looked steadily into her guardian’s face.
“You shall call me by what name you please, but you must not give me Mossgray.”
The old man shook his head and smiled.
“No, no!” exclaimed Lilias, hastily; “you have given me a home in my extremity—more than that, you have given me such kindness as perhaps no other in the world could give. You have been my protector, my true father, and I thank you with all my heart; but there is no gift you can give me now half so precious as those I have received already. You have made me your child; after this I will take no inferior gift, not though it is all your land. I will be Lilias Graeme your daughter; but only while Mossgray isyourhome must it be mine.”
Mossgray laid his hand gently on the young head which was inspired with energy so unusual.
“I thank you, my good Lilias; but even on your own showing you must take my inheritance; for I can have no heir so fitting as my own child.”
“Mossgray,” said Lilias, “you are not the last of your race.”
A slight colour passed over the old man’s face.
“You are right, Lilias,” he said, gravely, “there is yet one Graeme remaining of the blood; but even you must not speak to me of him.”
Her face had been lifted to him full of eagerness: when he said that her countenance fell—she was silent.
“Nay,” said her guardian, kindly, “I do not mean that there is anything, Lilias, of which you may not speak to me with the utmost freedom; but this youth, this Halbert—you do not and cannot know how strong my reasons are for resolving never to see him, nor to suffer his presence at Mossgray.”
“Is it for himself; has he displeased you himself, Mossgray?” asked Lilias, with some timidity.
Adam Graeme sat down near her, and met her shy glance with his own benign, unclouded smile.
“We will speak of him no more, Lilias, if you are afraid.”
“No, no, I am not afraid,” said Lilias, hurriedly; “but you must let me be proud—for myself and for you.”
The old man smiled again.
“Surely, Lilias, if you will tell me how and why.”
“For myself,” said Lilias, with some tremor in her voice, “because I would fain have you believe, Mossgray, that it is your own tenderness I prize, and not any gift—not any inheritance.”
“I believe it already, Lilias—I need no proof.”
“And besides,” continued Lilias, “for everybody—all our neighbours—‘the haill water,’ Mossgray. I must vindicate myself. I cannot have these good people think ill of me. They know you have given me everything I have; but they must not fancy that I grasp at all.”
“Hush, Lilias,” said the old man, “I cannot hear this. Well, I permit your own pride: it becomes you well enough; and now for me.”
“And for you, Mossgray,” said Lilias. “I am jealous that any one should have cause to say that once in your life you dealt unjustly—that you alienated his inheritance from one of your own blood because your kind heart had compassion on a stranger. I could not hear this said. For the very name’s sake which you say I am to bear, I would shrink from such a reproach as this.”
“It is unjust,” said the old man. “I almost believe you, Lilias; but suppose that I knew, and were sure, that far greater dishonour would come to the name, if Halbert Graeme inherited Mossgray, than could fall upon me for disowning him—what then? Would you still advise me to bestow all I have upon the son of a treacherous, false man?”
“I do not know him,” said Lilias; “if he does otherwise than well, I am grieved for himself; but it has no effect upon me—it does not alter the right and the wrong; and you, Mossgray, who have never done injustice!”
“How have you heard, Lilias, of Halbert Graeme?” said the old man. “Did you ever meet him in your wanderings that you plead his cause so warmly?”
“No—oh, no. I have only heard of him, principally here at home, where they cannot forget that he is a son of the house,” said Lilias; “and some one has brought them wordthat he is good and generous, and worthy to be your successor. Will you not see with your own eyes whether it is so?”
“You are a Quixote, Lilias,” said Mossgray, “you have the epidemic generosity of youth upon you just now. When you are old, you will be wiser, perhaps—who can tell?—than to throw away your own prospects for the sake of a stranger whom you never saw.”
“I do not know that it is well to be so wise,” said Lilias; “and I shall not learn from you, Mossgray.”
“In this point I cannot answer for myself,” said the old man. “I have had an experience bitterer than usual; but let us not speak of that: we have had enough of Halbert Graeme. Who are to be your guests, Lilias, in our first essay at hospitality? have you determined?”
“I specially beg an invitation for only one,” said Lilias; “and perhaps I do ill to ask that; but—I remember what it is to be poor and alone.”
“And who is your one guest?” said Mossgray.
“It is Helen Buchanan;—you have seen her, Mossgray; she is only a humble teacher in Fendie: but she is—”
“I know her,” said the courteous Adam Graeme, to whom the word gentlewoman was, as to Hope Oswald, the highest of feminine titles. “Why should you hesitate to invite her, Lilias?”
“Because,” said Lilias, with a smile, “the young ladies, the young landed ladies, Mossgray, may think her not good enough to meet them; but I made a promise to Hope Oswald to do what I could to honour Helen in the presence of Hope’s father.”
“So Hope begins to scheme,” said Mossgray, smiling; “and the cause, Lilias?”
“I think it has some connection with Mr William Oswald; indeed, Mrs Oswald almost told me that his father’s very stern resolution alone prevents—”
“I understand,” said the old man, as Lilias hesitated and blushed with a not unnatural sympathy. “His father’s resolution—pooh! his father will break it.”
“Do you think so, Mossgray?”
“I begin to think, Lilias,” said Mossgray, turning to leave the room, “that resolutions are made only to be broken. May it fare with Mr Oswald as it has done with me; but remember,” and the old man looked back from the door withsome humour in his face, “I do not mean in the matter of Halbert Graeme.”
He did not mean it—he was stillresolved; and yet when he returned to his study, it was to look long at the declining sunlight as it gilded the ancient carvings of Charlie’s chair, and to think gently of the dead. A certain poetic, half-superstitious feeling, which became him well, hindered him from restoring to its original position the old seat of Charlie Graeme. He suffered the sunshine to dwell upon it like a reconciling smile.