She was sitting as he had left her, in a large chair drawn out almost into the centre of the room—a sort of chair of state, where she, as the object of all sympathy, had been surrounded by her compassionate friends. It chilled him a little to see her there. She wanted that encirclement the ladies behind her, supporting her, the surrounding ofsympathetic faces. Now that position meant only isolation, separation; it gave the aspect of one alone in the world. He went up to her, making a little use of this as a man skilled in taking advantage of every incident, and took her hand. “Lily, my darling, let me put you in another place. Here is the chair you used to sit in. Come, it will be more like yourself.”
“I am very well where I am,” she said.
There was the chair beside the fire where she had once been used to sit. How suggestive these dumb things, these mere articles of furniture, are when they have once taken the impress of our mortal moods and ways! It had been pushed by chance, by the movement of many people in the room, into the very position which Lily had occupied so often, with her lover, her husband, hanging over her or close beside her, in all the closeness of their first union, when the snow had built its dazzling drifts on every road, and shut them out from all the world. To both their minds there came for a moment the thought of that, the sensation of the chill fresh air, the white silence, the brilliance of the sun upon the sparkling crystals. But it was a hard and bitter frost that enveloped them now—black skies and earth alike, every sound ringing harshly through. Lily sat unmoving. She looked at him with what seemed a stern calm. She seemed to herself to have suffered all that could be suffered in so short a space of time, the shame of her story all laid bare—her story, which had so different an aspect now, no longer the story of a true, if foolish and imprudent, love, but of calculation, of fraud, of a long, bold, ably planned deception for the sake of money. Her neighbors did not, indeed, think so of her, or speak so of her, as they jogged along the frost-bound roads, talking of nothing but this strange incident; but she thought they were doing so, and her heart was seared and burned up with shame.
He drew a chair near to her and laid his hand upon hers. “Lily!” he said.
She did not move; the touch of his hand made her start,but did not affect her otherwise. “There is no need for that,” she said, somehow with an air as if she scorned even to withdraw her hand, which was so cold and irresponsive. She added with a long-drawn breath: “You can tell me what you want—now that you have got what you want. It is all that need be said between you and me.”
“Lily,” he said, lifting her hand, which was like a piece of ice, and holding it between his, “what I want is you. What is any thing I can get or wish for without you?”
She withdrew her hand with a little force. “All that,” she said, “is over and past. Why should so sensible a man as you are try to keep up what is ended, or to go on speaking a language which is—which has lost its meaning? You and I are not what we were; I at least am not what I was.”
“You are my wife, Lily.”
“Yes, the more’s the pity—the more’s the pity!” she cried.
“That’s not what I should ever have expected from you. You are angry, Lily, and I confess there are things which I have done—in haste, or on the spur of the moment, or considering our joint interests perhaps more, my dear, than your feelings——”
“It would be well,” cried Lily with some of her old animation, “to decide which it was—a hasty impulse, as you say, on the spur of the moment, or our joint interests, which I deny for one! I never for a day was for any thing but honesty and openness, and no interest of mine was in it. But at least make up your mind. It was either in your haste or it was your calculation—it could not be both.”
“I did not think you would ever bring logic against me,” he said.
“Because I was an ignorant girl—and so I was, believing every thing you said, so many things that turned out one after another to be untrue: that you were to take me home at once as soon as the snow was over; that you were to get a house at Whit-Sunday, at Martinmas, and then at another Whit-Sunday, and then——” Lily had allowedherself to run on, having once begun to speak, as women are apt to do. She stopped herself now with an effort. “Of these things words can be said, but of what remains there are no words to speak. I will not try! I will not try! You have trampled on my heart and my soul and my life to your own end—my uncle’s money, my poor uncle that believed me, every word I said! And now I ask, what do you want more? Let me know it, and if I can, I will do it.”
“Do you know,” he cried, suddenly grasping her hand again with an almost fierce clutch, “that you can do nothing but what I permit? You are my wife, you have nothing, your uncle’s money or any other, but what I give you. You’re not your own to do what you like with yourself, as you seem to think, but mine to do what I like, and nothing else. If we’re to play at that, Lily, you must know that the strong hand is with me!”
“So it appears,” she said, with a fierce smile, looking at her fingers, crushed together, with the blood all pressed out of them, as he dropped her hand. His threat, his defiance, did not enter into her mind in all its force. Even in those days such a bondage of one reasonable creature to another was at first impossible to conceive. And Ronald was quick to change his tone. Of all things in the world the last he wanted was to enter into the enjoyment of Sir Robert’s fortune without his wife.
“Lily,” he said, “Heaven knows it is far from my wish to be tyrannical to you. There is no happiness for me in this world without you. If you can do without me, I cannot do without you. Am I saying I am without fault? No, no! I’ve done wrong, I’ve done many things wrong. But not beyond forgiveness, Lily—surely not that? What I did I thought was for the best. If I had thought you would not understand me, would not make allowance for me—but I believed you would trust me as I trusted you. Anyway, Lily, forgive me. We’re bound till death us part. Forgive me; a man can say no more than that.”
He was sincere enough at least now. And Lily’s heartwas torn with that mingling of attraction and strong repulsion which is the worst of all such unnatural separations. She said at last: “I am going away to-morrow, Beenie and me. I had it settled before. You will not stop that. If you will give your help, I will be thankful. Nothing in this world, you or any other, can come between me andthat! If it is a living bairn, or if it is a green grave——” Lily stopped, her voice choked, unable to say a word more.
Lilywas no more visible that day. She retired to her room, having, indeed, much need of repose, and to be alone and think over all that had passed. He said a great deal more to her than is here recorded; but Lily’s powers of comprehension were exhausted, or she did not listen, or her mind was so much absorbed in her own projects that she was not aware what he said. His presence produced an agitation in her mind which was indescribable. At first the sense that he was there, the mere sight of him, after all that had come and gone, was intolerable to her. But after a while this changed; his voice became again familiar to her ears, his presence recalled a hundred and a hundred recollections. This was the man whom she had chosen from all the world, whose coming had made this lonely house bright, who had changed her lonely life and every thing in it, who was hers, her love, her husband, the one man in the world to Lily. There was no such man living, she said to herself sternly, as the Ronald of her dreams; but yet this was the being who bore his name, who bore his semblance, who spoke to her in a voice which had tones such as no other voice had, and made her heart beat in spite of herself. This was Ronald—not her Ronald, but Ronald himself—the man who had deceived her and made her a deceiver, who had robbed her of her child in her weakness, when she could not go after him, and swore toher a lie that the child was dead. All that was true; but it is not much of a love which dies with the discovery that the object of it is unworthy. She had thought it had done so; all things had seemed easy to her so far as he was concerned. But now Lily discovered that life was not so easy as that. The sound of his voice, that so familiar voice which had said so much to her, had gone through all these delusions like a knife. Was he to blame that she had made a hero of him, that she had endowed him with qualities he did not possess? This was Ronald, the real man, and there was between him and her the bond of all bonds, that which can never be broken. And she saw confusedly that there had been no false pretences on his part, that he had been the same throughout, if it had not been that her eyes were blinded and she saw her own imagination only. The same man; she did not do him the injustice to think that he had been a cheat throughout, that he had not loved her. It was not so simple as that either; but he had determined with that force which some men have that she should not lose her fortune. Already her heart, excusing him, put it that way; and he had, through all obstacles, carried out this determination. Was it her part to blame him? and even if that were her part, was it the part of a woman never to forgive?
I do not say that these were voluntarily Lily’s thoughts; but she had become, as she had never been before, the field of battle where a combat raged in which she herself seemed to have comparatively little part. When the one side had made its fiery assault, then the other came in. There rose up in her with all these meltings and softenings a revulsion of her whole being against Ronald, the man who had made her lie. Into what strange thing had he turned her life for all these years? A false thing, full of concealments, secrets, terrors of discovery. He had led her on from lie to lie, and then when the climax of all came, there had been no mercy, no relenting, no remorse in his breast. He had torn her child from her without care for him or for her, risking the lives of both, and leaving in the bosom of theoutraged mother a wound which could never be healed. She felt it now as fresh as when she awakened from her illness and came to life again by means of the pain—even now, when perhaps, perhaps that wrong was to be put right and her child given back to her. If he were in her arms now, it would still be there. Such a blow as that was never to be got over; and it had been inflicted for what? For no high motive of martyrdom—for the money, the horrible money, which now, at the cost of so many lies and outrages of nature, had fallen into his hands.
Oh, no, no! things are not so easy in this world between human creatures made of such strange elements as those of which it has pleased the Master of all things to compound us. It is not all straightforward: love—or else not love, perhaps hate. Love was on every side, the heart crying out toward another that was its mate, and at the same time an insupportable repugnance, revulsion, turning away. He was all that she had in the world; all protection, companionship, support, that was possible to her was in him; and yet her heart sickened at him, turning away, feeling the great gulf fixed which was between them. This great conflict within deadened Lily to all that was going on outside. She was too much occupied with the struggle even to see, much less feel, the state of affairs round her. What she did herself she did mechanically, carrying on what she had intended beforehand, with the waning strength of that impulse which had originated in her before this battle began. She remembered still what she had resolved to do then, and did it dully, without much consciousness. She had made up her mind to go off at once upon her search. Had any thing occurred to prevent her doing this? She could not tell, but she went on in so different a way, carrying out her resolution. She counted her money, which was all hers now, about which she could have no scruples. There was some of the housekeeping money, which still she herself felt was her uncle’s, intrusted to her, but which certainly, when she came to think of it, was her own now, and some which Sir Roberthad given her, about which there could be no question. It seemed a large sum of money to her inexperience—if only she knew where to go, and what to do!
Robina was packing, or appearing to pack—a piece of work which ought to have been done before now. Lily reproved her for being so late, but not with any energy. The things outside of her were but half realized, she was so busy within. Beenie was in a curious state, not good for much. She wept into the box over which she stooped, dropping tears on her mistress’s linen when she did not succeed in intercepting them with her apron. But though she wept all the time, she sometimes broke into a laugh under her breath, and then sobbed. It was evident that she had no heart for her packing. She put in the most incongruous things and then took them out again, and would rise up stealthily from her knees when Lily’s back was turned, and run to the window, coming back again with a hasty “Naething, naething, mem!” when her mistress remarked this, and asked what she wanted. Down stairs—but Lily did not see it, nor would have remarked it had she seen—Katrin stood at the open door. She had her hand curved over her eyes, though there was no sunshine to prevent her from seeing clearly any thing that might appear on the long, dark, frost-bound road. Half the morning, to the neglect of every thing within, Katrin stood looking out. It was a curious thing for the responsible housekeeper of the house—the cook, with her lunch and her dinner on her mind—to do; and so the other servants said to themselves, watching her with great curiosity. Were there any more “ferlies” coming, or what was it that Katrin was expecting from the town?
Of these things Lily took no notice. She went into the drawing-room ready for her journey, conscious that she must see her husband before she left the house, but with a great failing of heart and strength, wishing only to get away, to be alone, to go on with the terrible struggle in her thoughts. There was no one there when she went in, and it was a relief to her. She sat down to recover herstrength, to recover her breath. She had told him that she was going, and so far as she could remember he had made no opposition. She had appealed to him to help her, but so far as she knew he had not attempted to do so. It was not yet quite time to go, and Beenie was behindhand, as she always was. Lily was glad, if the word could be used at all in respect to her feelings at this moment, of the little quiet, the time to breathe.
There was, however, some strange commotion going on in the house—a sound outside of cries and laughter, a loud note of Beenie’s voice in the adjacent room, and then the rush of her heavy footsteps downstairs. There arose in Lily’s mind a vague wonder at the evanescence of all impressions in the women’s minds. They had all wept plentifully the day before at the funeral, and spoken with sickly stifled voices, as if they had been not only sorrowful, but bowed down with trouble. And now there was Beenie, loud with a shriek of what sounded like joy, and Katrin’s voice rising over a little babel of confused sound, in exclamations and outcries of delight. What could have changed their tone so suddenly? But Lily asked herself the question very vaguely, having no attention to give to them. The only external thing that could have thoroughly roused her would have been her husband’s step, and the thrill of being face to face with him again.
It was not long before the sound of approaching footsteps made her heart leap into the wildest agitation again. The noise had gone on down stairs, the cries of delight, the sound of sobbing, and for one moment something—a small brief note which made Lily start even in her self-absorption. But she had not heeded more than that one quick heart-beat of surprise. Was that at last Ronald’s step coming quickly up the winding stair? She clasped her hands firmly together, and wound herself up as best she could for this meeting, the interview which would perhaps be their last. Her eyes were fixed upon the door. She was conscious of sitting there rigidly, like a figure of stone, though her being was full of every kind of agitation.And then there was a pause. He had not come in. Why did he not come in?
Finally the door was slowly opened, but at first no one appeared. Then there was a whisper and another sound—a sound that went through and through the listening, waiting, agitated woman, who seemed to have no power to move, and then——
There came in something white into the room, a little speck upon the darkness of the walls and carpet—low down, white, with something like a rose above the whiteness. This was what Lily saw: her eyes were dim and every thing was confused about her. Then the speck moved forward slowly with tottering, uncertain movements, the whiteness and the rose wavering. There came a great cry in Lily’s heart, but she uttered not a word; a terror, lest any movement of hers should dispel the vision, took possession of her. She rose up noiselessly, and then, not knowing what she did, dropped upon her knees. The little creature paused, and Lily, in her semi-conscious state, became aware of the blackness of her own figure in her mourning, and the great bonnet and veil that covered her head. Noiselessly she undid the strings and threw them behind her, scarcely breathing in her suspense. The child moved again toward her, relieved, too, by the removal of that blackness, and Lily put out her arms. How can I tell what followed? She could not, nor ever knew. The child did not shriek or cry, as by all rules he should have done. He rolled and wavered, the rose growing distinct into a little face, with a final rush into his mother’s arms. And for a moment, an hour—how long was it?—Lily felt and knew nothing but that again she had her baby in her arms—her baby, that had been snatched from her unconscious, that came back to her with infantile perceptions, smiles, love in its face! She had her baby in her arms, not shrinking from her, as she had figured him to herself a hundred times, but putting up his little hands to her face, pleased with her, not discomposed with her kisses, putting his soft cheek against hers; the one was as soft as theother, and as the warm blood rose in Lily’s veins and the light came to her eyes and the joy to her heart, as softly, warmly tinted, too, one rose against another. She forgot herself and all about her—time and space, and all her resolutions and her struggle and strain with herself, and her mourning and her wrongs. Other people came into the room and stood round, women crying, laughing, unable to do any thing but exclaim and sob in their delight. But Lily took no notice. She had her child against her heart, and her heart was healed. She could not think where all the pain had gone. Her breath came free and soft, her life sat lightly on her, her cares were over. She wanted to know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing more.
But this could not be. In another minute Ronald came into the room quickly, no doubt full of anxiety, but full also of the energy of a man who has the command of the situation and means to settle it in every way, not unkindly, but yet authoritatively. With a word he dispersed the women, stopping their outcries, which had been a sort of accompaniment to the song of content that was in Lily’s heart, and then he came quickly forward and put his arm round the group of the mother and child. He pressed them to him and kissed them, first his wife and then the baby, who sat on her knee. “Now all is well,” he said; “my Lily, all is well! Every thing is forgiven and forgotten, and you and me are to begin again!”
Then Lily came suddenly back out of her rapture. She came back to the life to which he called her, in which he had played so strange a part. How her heart had melted toward him when he was not there! To be Ronald had seemed to her by moments to be every thing. But now that he was here, kneeling before her, his child on her knee, his arms around her, his kiss on her cheek, there rose up between them a wall as of iron, something which it seemed impossible should ever give way, a repulsion stronger than her own will, stronger than herself. She made an involuntary movement to free herself. And her face changed, the rose-hues went out of it, the light fromher eyes. All well! How could all be well? Two years, during which this child had been growing into consciousness in another house, with other care, with neither father nor mother; and she left widowed and bereft, to play a lying part and be another creature—not what she was! And all for money, money—nothing better! And now the money was won by all those lies and deceptions, now all was to be well?
“Let me be,” she said hoarsely, “let me be! A little rest, I want a rest. I am not equal to any more.”
He got up to his feet, repulsed and angry. “You do not think what I am equal to,” he said, “or hesitate to inflict on me what punishment, what cruelty, you please! And yet every thing that has been done was done in your own interests, and who but you will get the good of it all?”
“My interests?” Lily cried.
And then there came an unexpected interruption. The baby, for all so young as he was, became aware of the change of aspect of things around him. His little roselip began to quiver, and then he set up a lamentable cry which, to the inexperienced heart of Lily, was far more dreadful than ever was the cry of a child. As she tried to soothe him there appeared in the doorway Margaret Bland, the woman who had taken him away. And Lily gave a cry like that of her child, and clung to the baby, who, for his small part, struggled to get to his nurse, the only familiar figure to him in all this strange place. “Not you,” cried Lily, “not that woman who stole him from me! Beenie! not you, not you!”
“And yet, mem,” said Margaret, “it is me that has been father and mother and all to him when none of you came near. And the darling is fond o’ me and me of him like my own flesh and blood.”
“Beenie, Beenie!” cried Lily, wild with terror, as the child slid and struggled out of her arms. “Katrin, Katrin! oh, don’t leave her, not for a moment—don’t let her take him away!”
Once more the cloud of women appeared at the door, all the maids of the house delighted over the child, and Beenie in the front, seizing Margaret by the skirts as she gathered up the child in her arms. “Na, na, she’ll no take him an inch out o’ my sight!” Beenie cried.
Lily stood up trembling, breathless, confronting her husband as this little tumult swept away. A passion of terror had succeeded her rapture of love and content; and yet there was a compunction in it and almost a touch of shame. That chorus of excited women did not add to the dignity of her position. He had not said any thing, but was walking up and down the room in impatience and annoyance. “Who do you think would take him from younow?” he cried in his exasperation, adding fuel to the fire.
Oh, not now! There were no interests to be involved now; the money was safe, for which all these hideous plans had been laid. If this was meant to soothe, it was an ill-chosen word. And for a moment these two people stood on the edge of one of those angry recriminations which aggravate every quarrel and take all dignity and all reason from the breach. Ronald perceived his mistake even before Lily could take any advantage of it, had she been disposed so to do.
“Lily,” he said, “your life and mine have to be decided now. There is neither credit nor comfort in the position of deadly opposition which you have taken up. I may have sinned against you. I told you what was not true about the child, I acknowledge that. I should not have pretended he was dead. I saw my mistake as soon as I had committed it, but it was as ineffectual as it was wrong. You did not believe me for a minute, therefore I did no harm. The rest was all inevitable; it could not be helped. Enough has been said on that subject. But all necessity for these expedients is over now. Every thing is plain sailing before us; we have the best prospects for our life. I can promise that no woman will have a better husband than you will find me. You have a beautiful healthy childwho takes to you as if you had never been parted from him for a day. We have a good house to step into——”
“What house?” she cried, surprised.
“Oh, not the garret you were so keen about,” he answered, a smile creeping about the corners of his mouth, “a house worthy of you, fit for you—the house in George Square!”
“Uncle Robert’s house!” she cried, almost with a shriek.
“Yes,” he said, “to which you are the rightful heir, as you are to his money. They are both very safe, I assure you, inmyhands.”
“You are,” she said breathlessly, “the proprietor—now?”
“Through you, my bonnie Lily; but there is no mistake or deception about that,” he said, with a short laugh; “they are very safe in my hands.”
No man could be less conscious than Ronald, though he was a man full of ability and understanding, of the effect of these words of his triumph upon his wife’s mind. He thought he was setting before her in the strongest way the advantages there were for her, and both, in agreement and peaceful accord, and how prejudicial to her own position and comfort any thing else would be. He was perhaps a little carried away by his success. Even the experiment of this morning—how thoroughly successful it had been! The child might have been frightened and turned away from the unknown mother: instead of this, by a providential dispensation, he had gone to her without hesitation and behaved himself angelically. How any woman in her senses could resist all the inducements that lay before her, all the excellent reasons there were to accept the present and ignore the past—in which nothing had been done that was not for her interest—he could not tell. He began to be impatient with such folly, and to think it might be well to let her have a glimpse of what, if she rejected this better part, lay on the other side.
Lily had seated herself once more in her chair; it wasthe great chair she had occupied when the funeral party assembled, and gave her something of the aspect of a judge. She had lost altogether the color and brightness that had come into her face. She was very pale, and the blackness of her mourning made this more visible. And, she sat silent, oh, not convinced, as he hoped—far from that—but struck dumb, not knowing what to say.
At this moment, however, there was another interruption, and the little figure of Helen Blythe, covered, too, with crape and mourning, but with a natural glow and subdued brightness as always upon her morning face, appeared at the door.
Helenwas in all her crape, and yet her upper garment was not “deep,” like that of a woman in her first woe. It was a cloak which suggested travelling rather than any formality. And it appeared that the bright countenance with which she came in was one of sympathy for Lily, rather than of any cheerfulness of her own. She came forward holding out both her hands, having first deposited her umbrella against the wall. “I am glad, glad,” she said, “of all this that I hear of you, Lily: that you have got your husband to take care of you, and, it appears, a delightful bairn. I knew there was something more than ordinary between you two,” she said, stopping to shake hands with Ronald in his turn. “And vexed, vexed was I to see that Mr. Lumsden disappeared when old Sir Robert came. It must have been a dreadful trial to you, my poor Lily. But I never knew it had gone so far. Married in my own parlor, by my dear father, and not a word to me—Lily, it was not kind!”
Lily had no reply to make to this. It carried her away into a region so far distant, so dim, like a fairy-tale.
“But my dear father,” said Helen, “had little confidencein my discretion, and he might think it better I should know nothing, in case I should betray myself—and you. Oh, how hard it must have been many a time to keep your secret; and when your child came, poor Lily, poor Lily! But I do not yet understand about the bonnie bairn. They tell me he is a darlin’. But did he come to you in a present, as we used to think the babies did when we were children, or by what witchcraft did you manage all that, Lily, my dear?”
“And where did you hear this story that you have on your fingers’ ends?” said Ronald, interrupting these troublesome questions.
“Well,” said Helen, half offended, “if I have it on my fingers’ ends, it is that I take so much interest in Lily and all that concerns her—and you, too,” she added, fearing that what she had said might sound severe. “You forget that there were two years when we saw you often, and then two years that we saw you not at all; and often and often my father would ask about you. ‘Where is that young Mr. Lumsden?’ ‘Have you no word of that young Mr. Lumsden?’ He was very much taken up about you, and why you did not come back, nor any word of you. To be sure, he had his reasons for that, knowing more than the like of me.”
“Those very reasons should have shown him how I could not come back!” said Ronald sharply. “But you have not told me where it was you got this story, which few know.”
“Well—not to do her any harm if you think she should have been more discreet—it was Katrin that told me. She is a kind, good, honest woman. She was just out of herself with joy at the coming of the dear bairn. You will let me see him, Lily?”
“You look as if you were going on a journey. Oh, Helen, where are you going?” cried Lily, glad to interrupt the questions, and to give herself also a moment’s time to breathe.
“Yes, I am going on a journey,” Helen said, steadfastlylooking her friend in the face. Her eyes were clear; her color, as usual, softly bright, not paled by the crape, or by her genuine, but not excessive, grief. She had mourned for her father as truly as she had nursed him, but not without an acknowledgment that he had lived out his life and departed in the course of nature. By this time, though but ten days of common life had succeeded the excitement and commotion of Mr. Blythe’s funeral, at which the whole countryside had attended, Helen had returned to the ordinary of existence, and to the necessity of arranging her own life, upon which there was now no bond. The plea of the assistant and successor (now minister) of Kinloch-Rugas that there should be no breach in it at all, that she should accept his love and remain in the house where she was born as his wife, had not moved her mind for a moment. She had shaken her head quietly, but very decisively, sorry to hurt him or any creature, yet fully knowing her own mind; and, in so far as she could do so in the village, Helen had made her preparations. She had a little land and a little money, the one in the hands of a trustworthy tenant, the other very carefully, very safely, invested by her father with the infinite precautions of a man to whom his little fortune was a very great matter, affecting the very course of the spheres. Helen had boldly, with indeed an unspeakable hardihood, notwithstanding the horror and remonstrances of the man of business, taken immediate steps to withdraw her money and get it into her possession. All this was done very quietly, very quickly, and, by good luck, favorably enough. And then she made arrangements for her venture, the great voyage into the unknown.
“Yes,” she said, “I am going on a journey. You will perhaps guess where—or if not where, for I am not just clear on that point myself, you will at least know with what end. I have nothing to keep me back now”—a little moisture came into Helen’s eyes, but that did not affect her steady, small voice—“and only him in the world that needs me. I am going to Alick, Lily. You will tell meit’s rash, as every-body does, and maybe it is rash. If he has wearied at the last and given up all thoughts of me, I will never blame him; but that I cannot think, and it is borne in on my mind that he has more need of me than ever. So I am just taking my foot in my hand and going to him,” she said, looking at Lily, with a smile.
“Helen! oh, you will not do that! Go to him, to you know not where, to circumstances you are quite, quite ignorant of? Oh, Helen, you will not do that!”
“Indeed, and that will I,” said Helen, with the same calm and steady smile. “I am feared for nothing, but maybe that he might hear the news and start to come to me before I could get to him.”
“That is enough!” cried Lily. “Oh, wait till he comes; send for him! Rather any thing than go all that weary way across the sea alone.”
“I am feared for nothing,” Helen said, still smiling, “and who would meddle with me? I am not so very bonnie, and I am not so very young. I am just as safe, or safer, than half the women in the world that have to do things the other half do not understand.”
“Like myself, you think,” Lily said; and it was on her lips to add: “If you succeed no better than me!” But the bondage of life was upon her, and of the pride and the decorum of life. Ronald had taken no part in this conversation, but he was there all the time, standing against the window, looking out. He was very impatient that his conversation with his wife, so important in every way, should be interrupted. His own affairs were so full in his mind, as was natural, that any enforced pause in the discussion of them appeared to him as if the course of the world had been stopped. And this country girl’s insignificant little story, perfectly wild and foolish as it was, that it should take precedence of his own at so great a crisis! He turned round at last and said in a voice thrilling with impatience: “I hope, as Lily does, that you will do nothing rash, Miss Blythe. We have a great deal to do ourselves with our own arrangements.”
“And I am keeping Lily from you? You will excuse me,” cried Helen, wounded, “but I am going to do something very rash, as you say, and I may never come back; and I cannot leave a friend like Lily, and one my father was proud of, and thought upon on his death-bed, and one that knows where I am going and why, without a word. There is perhaps nobody but Lily in the world that knows what I mean, and what I am doing, and my reasons for it,” Helen said. She took her friend’s hands once more into her own. “But I will not keep you from him, Lily, when no doubt you have so much to say.”
“You shall not go,” said Lily, with something of her old petulance, “till you have seen what I have to show you, and till you have told me every thing there is to tell. Oil, my baby, my little bairn, my little flower! I could be angry that you have put him out of my head for a moment. Come, come, and see him now.”
Ronald paced up and down the room when he was left alone; his impatience was not, perhaps, without some excuse. He was very anxious to come to some ground of agreement with Lily, some basis upon which their life could be built. He had hoped much from the greatcoupof the morning, from the bringing back of the child, which he had intended to do himself, taking advantage of the first thrill of emotion, and identifying himself, its father, with the infant restored to her arms; but the women, with their folly, had spoiled that moment for him, and lost him the best of the opportunity, and now there was another woman thrusting her foolish story into the midst of that crisis in his life. Ronald was out of heart and out of temper. He began to see, as he had never done before, the difficulties that seemed to close up his path. He had feared, and yet not feared, the tempest of reproaches which no doubt Lily would pour upon him. He did not know her any better than this, but expected what the conventional woman would do in a book, or a malicious story, from his wife; and he had expected that there would be a great quarrel, a heaping up of every grievance,and then tears, and then reconciliation, as in every story of the kind that had ever been told. But even if she could resist the sight of him and of his pleading, Ronald felt a certainty that Lily could not resist the return of her child; for this she would forgive every thing. This link that held them together was one that never could be broken. He had calculated every thing with the greatest care, but he had not thought it necessary to go beyond that. When she had her child in her arms, Lily, he felt sure, would return to his, and no cloud should ever come between them more.
But now this delusion was over. She had not showered reproaches upon him. She had not done any thing he expected her to do. The dreadful, the astounding revelation that had been made to him was that this was not Lily any longer. It was another woman, older, graver, shaped by life and experience, without faith, with a mind too clear, with eyes too penetrating. Would she ever turn to him otherwise than with that look, which seemed to espy a new pretence, a new deception, in every thing he said? Ronald still loved his wife; he would have given a great deal, almost, perhaps, the half of Sir Robert’s fortune, to have his Lily back again as she had been; but he began now for the first time to feel that it would be necessary to give up that vision, to arrange his life on another footing. If she would but consent at least to fulfil the decorums of life, to remain under his roof, to be the mistress of his house, not to flaunt in the face of the world the division between these two who had made a love-marriage, who had not been able to keep apart when every thing was against their union, and now were rent asunder when every thing was in its favor! What ridicule would be poured upon him! What talk and discussion there would be! His mind flashed forward to a vision of himself alone in Sir Robert’s great house in George Square, and Lily probably here at Dalrugas with her child. Sir Robert’s house was his, and Sir Robert’s fortune was his. Except what he chose to give her, out of this much desired fortune—forwhich, indeed, it was he who had planned and suffered, not she—she had no right to any thing. There was so much natural justice in Ronald Lumsden’s mind that he did not like this, though, as it was the law, and he a lawyer, it cost him less than it might have done another man; but he meant to make the strongest and most effective use of it all the same. He meant to show her that she was entirely dependent upon him—she and her child; that she had nothing and no rights except what he chose to allow her: and that it was her interest and that of her child (whom, besides, he could take from her were he so minded) to keep on affectionate terms with him.
This, though it gave him a certain angry satisfaction, was a very different thing, it must be allowed, from what he had dreamed. He had thought of recovering Lily as she was in the freshness of her love and faith before even the first stroke of that disappointment about the house, the garret in Edinburgh, upon which her hopes had been fixed: full of brightness and variety, a companion of whom one never would or could tire, whose faith in him would make up for any failure of appreciation on the part of the rest of the world, nay, make an end of that—for would not such a faith have inspired him to believe in himself, to be all she believed him to be? Did he live a hundred years, and she by his side, Ronald now knew that he would never have that faith again. And the absence of it would be more than a mere negative: it would inspire him the wrong way, and make him in himself less and less worthy—a man of calculations and schemes—all that she most objected to, but of which he felt the principle in himself. It is not to be supposed that he himself called, or permitted himself to imagine, these calculations base. He thought them reasonable, sagacious, wise, the only way of getting on in the world. They had succeeded perfectly in the present instance. He was conscious, with a sort of pride, that he had thus fairly gained Sir Robert’s fortune, which he had set before him as an object so long ago. He had won it, as it were, with his bow and his spear, and it was such again to a young man as was unspeakable, helping him in every way, not only in present comfort, but in importance, in his profession, in the opinion of the solicitors, who had always more confidence in a man who had money of his own. Ah, yes, he had won in this struggle—but then something cold clutched at his heart. He was a young man still, and he loved his wife—he wanted her and happiness along with all those other possessions; but when he won Sir Robert’s money, he had lost Lily. Was this so? Must he consent that this should be so? Were they separated forever by the thing that ought to unite them? He said to himself: “No, no!” but in his heart he felt that cold shadow closing over him. They might be together as of old—more than of old—each other’s constant companions. But Lily would never be to him what she had been; they would be two, living side by side, unconsciously or consciously criticising each other, spying upon each other. They would no more be one!
To meet this, when one had expected the flush and assurance of success, has of all things in the world the most embittering and exasperating effect upon the mind. Ronald had looked for trouble with Lily—the ordinary kind of trouble, a quarrel, perhapsà outrance, involving many painful scenes—but he had never thought of the real effect of his conduct upon her mind, the tremendous revulsion of her feelings, the complete change of his aspect in her eyes, and of that which she presented to him. A moment of disgust with every thing—with himself, with her, with his success and all that it could produce—succeeded the other changes of feeling. It is not unnatural at such a moment to wish to do harm to somebody, to throw off something of that sense of the intolerable that is in one’s own mind upon another. And Ronald bethought himself of what Helen Blythe had said, her complete acquaintance with the story which had been so carefully concealed from her, and her confession that she had it from Katrin. A wave of wrath went over him. Katrin had been in the secret from the beginning, not by anydesire of his, but because the circumstances rendered it inevitable that she should be so, and nothing could be done without her complicity. He said to himself that he had never liked her, nor her surly brute of a husband, who had looked at him with so much suspicion on many of his visits here. They thought themselves privileged persons, no doubt; faithful servants, who had been of use, to whom on that account every thing was to be forgiven; who would be in his own absence, as they had been in Sir Robert’s, a sort of master and mistress to Dalrugas, recounting to every-body, and to the child when he grew up, the history of his parents’ marriage, entertaining all the country neighbors with it—an intolerable suggestion. With them at least short work could be made. He rang the bell hastily and desired that Katrin should be sent to him at once, she and her husband, and awaited their appearance impatiently, forming sharp phrases in his mind to say to them, with the full purpose of pouring on their heads the full volume of his wrath.
Katrin received that summons without surprise. She had thought it likely that something would be said to her of gratitude for her faithful service, and for her care of Lily; perhaps a little present given, which Katrin did not want, but yet would have prized and guarded among her chief treasures. She called in Dougal from the stable, and hastily brushed the straws and dust from his rough coat. “But they ken you’re aye among the beasts!” she said. She herself put on a spotless white apron, and tied the strings of her cap, which in the heat of the kitchen were often flying loose. Dougal followed her, with no such look of pleasure on his face. To him Ronald was still “that birky from Edinburgh,” whose visits and absences, and all the mystery of his appearance and disappearance, had so often upset the house and wrought Miss Lily woe. The wish that he could just have got his two hands on him had not died out of his mind, and it was bitter to Dougal to feel that this man was to be henceforth his master, even though he believed he was about to receivenothing but compliments and gratification from his hand. Ronald was still walking up and down the room when the pair—Katrin with her most smiling and genial looks—appeared at the door.
“Oh, you are there!” he said hastily with a tone of careless disdain. “I wished to speak to you at once to let you know what I have settled, that you may have time to make your own arrangements. There are likely to be many changes in the house—and the way of living altered altogether. I think it best to tell you that, after Whit-Sunday, Mrs. Lumsden will have no further occasion for your services.”
He had not found it so easy as he thought, in face of Katrin’s changing face, which clouded a little with surprise and disappointment at his first words, then rose into flushed amazement, and then to consternation. “Sir!” she cried, when he paused, aghast, and without another word to say.
“I kent it would be that way,” Dougal muttered, behind her, in the opening of the door.
“Well!” said Ronald sharply, “have you any thing to say against it? I am aware you have for a long time considered this house your own, but that was simply because of the negligence of the master. That time is over, and it is in new hands. You will understand, though it is not the usual time for speaking, that I give you lawful notice to leave before the Whit-Sunday term in this current year.”
“Sir,” said Katrin again, “I’m thinking I canna rightly trust to my ears. Are you meaning to send me—me and Dougal, Sir Robert’s auld servants, and Miss Lily’s faithful servants—away? and take our places from us that we’ve held this twenty year? I think I maun be bewitched, for I canna believe my ears!”
“Let us have no more words on the subject,” said Ronald; “arguing will make it no better. You are Sir Robert’s old servants, no doubt, but Sir Robert is dead and buried; and how far you were faithful servants to him—after allthat I know of my own experience—the less said of that the better, it seems to me.”
“Dougal,” said Katrin, with a gasp, “haud me, that I dinna burst! He is meaning the way we’ve behaved to him!”
“And he has good reason!” said Dougal, his shaggy brows meeting each other over two fiery sparks of red eyes. “’Od, if I had had my will, many’s the time, I would have kickit him out o’ the house!”
Dougal’s words were but as a muttering—the growl of a tempest—but the two people blocking the door, meeting him with sudden astonishment and a quick-rising fury of indignation which matched his own, wrought Ronald’s passion to a climax; he seized up his hat, which was on the table, and pushed past them, sending the solid figures to right and left. “That’s enough. I have nothing more to say to you!” he said.
It was Katrin that caught him by the arm. “Maister Lumsden,” she said, “ye’ll just satisfy me first! Is it because of what we did for you—takin’ ye in, makin’ ye maister and mair, keepin’ your secret, helpin’ a’ your plans—that you’re now turnin’ us out of our daily bread, out o’ our hame, out o’ your doors?”
“Cheating your master in every particular,” said Ronald, “as you will me, no doubt, whenever you have a chance. Yes; that is one of my reasons. What did you say?”
He raised the cane in his hand. The movement was involuntary, as if to strike at the excited and threatening countenance of Dougal behind. They were huddled in a little crowd on the top of the winding stair. Ronald had turned round, on his way out, at Katrin’s appeal, and stood with his back to the stair, close upon the upper step. “What did you say?” he cried again sharply. Dougal’s utterances were never clear. He said something again, in which “Go-d!” was the only articulate word, and made a large step forward, thrusting his wife violently out of the way.
It all happened in a moment, before they could drawbreath. Roland, it is to be supposed, made a hasty, involuntary step backward before this threatening, furious figure, with his arm still lifted, and the cane in it ready to strike, but lost his footing, and thus plunged headforemost down the deep well of the spiral stair.
Lilywas very reluctant to let Helen go. She kept her on pretence of the child, who had to be exhibited and adored. A great event annihilates time. It seemed already to Lily that the infant had never been out of her arms, that he had always found his natural refuge pressed close to her, with his little head against her breast. She had at first, with natural but unreasonable feeling, ordered Margaret out of her sight, she who had been the instrument of so much suffering to her; but the woman had defended herself with justice. “It is me that have done every thing for him all this time,” she said. “It is me that have trained him up to look for his mammaw. Eh, it would have been easy to train the darlin’ to look to nobody but me in the world; but I have just made it his daily thought that he was to come to his mammaw, and summer and winter and night and day I have thought of nothing but that bairn.” Lily had yielded to that appeal, and Beenie had already made Margaret welcome. They sat in the little outer room, already established in all the old habits of their life, sitting opposite to each other, with their needle-work, and all its little paraphernalia of workboxes and reels of thread, brought out as if there had never been any interruption of their life, and the faint, half-whispered sound of their conversation making a subdued accompaniment; while Lily, with her child on her knee, pausing every moment to talk to him, to admire him, to respond to the countless little baby appeals to her attention, appeared to Helen an image of that perfecthappiness which is more completely associated to women with the possession of a child than with any other circumstance in the world. Helen did not know, except in the vaguest manner, of any thing that lay below. She divined that there might be grievances between the two who had been so long parted. But Helen herself would have forgiven Ronald on the first demand. His sins would have been to her simply sins, to be forgiven, not a character with which her own was in the most painful opposition. She would have entered into no such question. Lily detained her as long as possible, enquiring into all her purposes, which it was far too late to attempt to shake. Helen, in her rustic simplicity and complete ignorance of the world, was going to America, to its most distant and rudest part, the unsettled and dubious regions of the West, the backwoods, as they were then called, which might have been in another planet for any thing this innocent Pilgrim knew of them, and, indeed, at that time, unless to those who had made it a special study, those outskirts of civilization were known scarcely to any. “There will aye be conveyances of some kind. I can ride upon a horse if it comes to that,” Helen said, with her tranquil smile. “And no doubt he will come to meet me, which will make it all easy.”
“And that is the whole of your confidence!” cried Lily.
“No, no! my confidence is in God, that knows every thing; and, Lily, you should bless his name that has brought you out of all your trouble, and given you that darlin’, God bless him, and a good man to stand by you, and your settled home. Oh, if I can but get Alick to come back, to settle, to work my bittie of land, and live an honest, quiet life like our forbears”—the tears stood for a moment in Helen’s eyes—“but I will think of you, a happy woman, my bonnie Lily, and it will keep my heart.”
What a strangely different apprehension of her own position was in Lily’s heart as she sat alone when Helen had gone. The baby had gone to sleep and had been laid on the bed, and she began to pace slowly about in her room,as Ronald was doing so near to her, with a heavy heart, notwithstanding her joy, wondering and questioning with herself what the life was to be that lay before her. A settled home, a good man to stand by her, a lovely child. What more could woman want in this world? The crisis could not continue as it was now; some ground of possibility must be come to, some foundation on which to build their future life. To think of accompanying her husband to Edinburgh, taking possession of her uncle’s house, establishing herself in it, he the master of every thing, made her heart sick. If they had stolen his money from old Sir Robert, it would have been less dreadful than thus to take every thing from him, in defiance of all his wishes, as soon as he was dead, when he could assert his own will no more. If she could remain where she was, Lily felt that she could bear it better. But this was only one part of the question before her which had to be settled. She—who had become Ronald’s wife in the fervor and enthusiasm of a foolish young love, who had lived on his coming, on the hope of his return, on the dream of that complete and perfect union before God and man in which nobody could shame them or throw a shadow on their honor—to find herself now, after being betrayed and deceived and outraged, her heart torn out of her breast, her child out of her arms, the truth out of her life, in the position of the happy woman, her home assured, her husband by her side, her child in her arms—to be called upon to thank God for it, to take up her existence as if no cloud had covered it, and face the world with a smiling face, forgetting all that interval of misery and deprivation and falsehood! Her steps became quicker and quicker as the tide of her thoughts rose. Amid all the surroundings, which were those of perfect peace—the child asleep in its cradle, the soft undertones of the attendant women—yet all that passion and agony within!
But Lily knew this could not be. Dreadful reason and necessity faced her like two dumb images of fate. Some way of living had to be found, some foundation on whichto build the new, changed, disenchanted life. She had no desire to shame Ronald in the sight of his friends, to make her indignation, her disappointment, the property of the world. There would be critics enough to judge him and his schemes to secure Sir Robert’s money. It was hers, in the loyalty of a wife, to take her share of the burden, to let it be believed, at least, that all had been done with her consent; and obnoxious as this was to Lily, she forced her mind to it as a thing that had to be. That was, however, an outside matter; the worst of the question was within: how were they to live together side by side, to share all the trivialities of life, to watch over together the growth of their child, to decide together all the questions of existence, like two who were one, who were all in all to each other—these two who were so far and so fatally apart? But Lily did not disguise from herself that this must be done. She calmed herself down with a strong exertion of her will, and prepared herself to meet her husband, to discuss with him, as far as was possible, the future conditions of their life.
She had turned to leave her room in order to join Ronald and proceed to this discussion when the silence of the house was suddenly disturbed by a shriek of horror and dismay: no little cry, but one that pierced the silence like a knife, sharp, sudden, terrible, followed by a voice, in disjointed sentences, declaiming, praying, crying out like a prophet or a madman. The two women came rushing to Lily from the outer room, struck with terror. What was it? Who was it that was speaking? The voice was not known to any of them; the sound of the broken words, loud, as if close to their ears, gradually becoming intelligible, yet without any meaning they could understand, drove them wild with terror. “What is it?” they all cried. Was it some madman who had broken into the house? Lily cast a glance—the mother’s first idea—to see that all was safe with the child, and then hastened through the empty drawing-room, where she expected to find Ronald. The door was open, and through the doorway there appeareda tragic, awful figure, a woman with her hands sometimes lifted to her head, sometimes wildly flung into the air, her voice growing hoarser, giving forth in terrible succession those broken sentences, in wild prayer, exhortation, invective, it was impossible to say which. Some locks of her hair, disturbed by the motion of her hands, hung loose on her forehead, her eyes were wildly enlarged and staring, her lips loose and swollen with the torrent of passionate sound. For a moment Lily stood fixed, terrified, thinking it a stranger, some one she had never seen before, and the first words were like those of a prayer.
“Lord hae mercy! Lord hae mercy! Swear ye didna lay a finger on him, no a finger! Swear ye didna touch him, man! Oh, the bonnie lad! oh, the bonnie lad!” Then a shriek again, as from something she saw. “Tak’ him up gently, tak’ him softly! his head, his head! tak’ care of his head! Oh, the bonnie lad, the bonnie lad! Lord hae mercy, mercy! Say ye didna lay a finger on him! Swear ye didna touch him! Oh, his head, his head, it’s his head! Oh, men, lift him like a bairn! Lord hae mercy, hae mercy! Say ye didna lay a finger on him! Oh, the bonnie lad, the bonnie lad!” The wild figure clasped its hands, watching intently something going on below, which now became audible to the terrified watchers also—sounds of men’s footsteps, of hurried shuffling and struggling, audible through the broken shrieks and outcries of the woman at the top of the stairs.
“Who is it?” cried Lily, breathless with terror, falling back upon her attendants behind her.
“Katrin, Katrin, Katrin!” cried Beenie, carried away by the wild contagion of the moment; “she’s gone mad, she’s gone out of her senses! Mem, come back to your ain room; come back, this is nae place for you!”
Katrin! was it Katrin, this wild figure? Lily darted out and caught her by the arm.
“Katrin! what has happened? Is it you that have been crying so? Katrin, whatever it is, compose yourself.Come and tell me what has happened! Is it Dougal? What is it? We will do every thing, every thing that is possible.”
Katrin turned her changed countenance upon her mistress; her swollen lips hanging apart ceased their utterance with a gasp. She looked wildly down the stairs, then, putting her hands upon Lily’s shoulders, pushed her back into the room, signing to Robina behind. “Keep her away, keep her——” she seemed to them to say, making wild motions with her hands to the rooms beyond. Her words were too indistinct to be understood, but her gestures were clear enough.
“Oh, mem,” cried Beenie, “it will be something that’s no for your eyes! For mercy’s sake, bide here and let me gang and see!”
“Whatever has happened, it is for me to see to it,” said Lily. And then, disengaging herself from them, she said, for the first time very gravely and calmly: “My husband must have gone out. Go and look for him. Whatever has happened, it is he who ought to be here.”
She got down stairs in time to see the stumbling, staggering figures of the men carrying him into the library. But it was not till some time afterward that Lily had any suspicion what it was. She thought it was Dougal, who had met with some dreadful accident. She had the calmness in this belief to send off at once for a doctor in two different directions; and, having been begged by her uncle’s valet not to go into the room till the doctor came, obeyed him without alarm, and went out to the door to look for Ronald. It was strange he should have gone out at this moment, but how could he know that any thing would be wanted to make his presence indispensable? Most likely he was angry with her for keeping him waiting, for talking to Helen Blythe when there were things so much more important in hand. She went out to the door to look for him, not without a sense that to have him to refer to in such an emergency was something good, norwithout the thought that it would please him to see her looking out for him over the moor.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ronald never spoke again. If his death was not instantaneous in point of fact, it was so virtually, for he never recovered consciousness. He had fallen with great force down the stairs from the worn upper step, which had failed his foot as he made that recoil backward from Dougal’s threatening advance—the step of which he had so often spoken in half derision, half seriousness, as a danger for any old man. Neither he nor any one else could have supposed it was a danger for Ronald, so young, so full of energy and strength. And many were the reflections, it need not be said, upon the vicissitudes of life and the fate of the young man, just after long waiting come into possession of all that was best in life—fortune and happiness, and all the rest. The story was told all over the country, from one house to another, and in Edinburgh, where he was so well known. To have waited so long for the happiness of his life and then not to enjoy it for a week, to be seized by those grim fangs of fate in the moment of his victory, in the first hour of his joy! The papers were not as bold in those days as now. The fashion of personalities had not come in unless when something very scandalous, concealed under initials, was to be had. But there was nothing scandalous in Ronald Lumsden’s story.
In the enquiry that followed there was at first an attempt to suggest that Dougal, who was shown to have been always in opposition to him, and sometimes to have uttered half threats of what he would do if he could get his hands on that birky from Edinburgh, was instrumental in causing his death. And poor Katrin, changed into an old woman, with gray hair that would not be kept in order under her white cap, and lips that hung apart and could scarcely utter a word clearly, was examined before the procurator, especially as to what she meant by the words which she had been heard by all in the house to repeat asshe stood screaming at the head of the stairs: “Swear you never lifted a finger upon him!” Were these directions she was giving to her husband in case of any future investigation? or was she adjuring him to satisfy her, to let her know the truth? But Katrin was in no condition to explain to any one, much less to the procurator in his court, what she had meant. But there was no proof against Dougal, and every evidence of truth in his story; and any doubt that might subsist in the minds of persons apt to doubt every thing, and to believe the worst in every case, died away into silence after a while. It is possible that the possibility harmed him, though, as he retained his place and trust in Dalrugas, even that was of no great consequence; but Katrin never was, as the country folk said, “her own woman” again. She never could get out of her eyes the horror of that sudden fall backward, the sound against the stone wall, on the stone steps. In the middle of the night, years after, she would wake the house, calling upon her husband, with pathetic cries, to swear he never laid a finger on him. This made their lives miserable, though they did not deserve it; for Katrin knew at the bottom of her heart, as Dougal knew—but having said it once, would not repeat—that he laid no finger on Ronald, nor ever, save in the emptiest of words, meant him any harm.
Lily was lost for a time in a horror and grief of which compunction was the sharpest part. Her heart-recoil from her husband, her sense of the impossibility of life by his side, her revulsion against him, overwhelmed her now more bitterly, more terribly, than the poignant recollections of happiness past which overwhelm many mourners. The only thing that gave her a little comfort in those heavy depths was the remembrance of the moment when, all unknowing that he could never again come to her, she had gone out to look for Ronald over the moor. There might have been comfort to her after a while in that moor, which had been the confidant of so many of her thoughts of him; but to go up and down, in all the commonuses of life, the stairs upon which he died was impossible. She felt a compunction the more to leave the scene of all the happier days, the broken life which yet was often so sweet, which had been the beginning of all. It seemed almost an offence against him to leave a place so connected with his image, but still it was impossible to remain. There was a little mark upon the wall which made them all shudder. And Lily was terrified when her baby was carried up or down those stairs: the surest foot might stumble where he had stumbled, and it is not true that the catastrophes of life do not repeat themselves. Life is all a series of repetitions; and why not that as well as a more common thing?
It was this above all things else that made her leave the house of her fathers, the place where her tragedy had been played out, from its heedless beginning to its dreadful, unthought-of end. It was not so common then as now for the wrecked persons of existence to betake themselves over the world to the places where the sun shines brightest and the skies are most blue; but still, when the wars were all well over, it was done by many, and the young widow, with her beautiful child, and her two women attendants, was met with by many people who knew, or were told by those who knew, her strange story and pitied her with all their hearts. They pitied her for other sufferings than those which were really hers. Those that were attributed to her were common enough and belong to the course of nature; the others were different, but perhaps not less true. But it cannot be denied either that as there was a certain relief even in the first shock of Lily’s grief, a sense of deliverance from difficulties beyond her power to solve, so there was a rising of her heart from its oppression, a rebound of nature and life not too long delayed. Her child made every thing easy to her, and made, all the more for coming back to her so suddenly, a new beginning of life. And that life was not unhappy, and had many interests in it notwithstanding the fiery ordeal with which it began.
Helen Blythe came back to Kinloch-Rugas within the year, bringing her husband with her. He was not, perhaps, reformed and made a new man of, as he vowed he would be in her hands. Perhaps, except in moments of exaltation, she had not expected that. But she did what she had soberly declared to be the mission of many women—she “pulled him through.” They settled upon her little property and farmed it more or less well, more or less ill, according as Alick could be kept “steady,” and Helen’s patience. Two children came, both more or less pathetically careful, from their birth, of their father; and the household, though it bore a checkered existence, was happy on the whole. When Helen saw the Manse under the chill celibate rule of the new minister, she was very sorry for him, but entertained no regrets; and when, later in life, he married, the preciseness of the new establishment moved her to many a quiet laugh, and the private conviction, never broken, that, in her own troubled existence, always at full strain, with her “wild” Alick but partially reformed, and the many roughnesses of the farmer’s life, her ambitions for her boy, and her comfort in her girl, she was better off than in her old sphere. She did not make her husband perfect, but she “pulled him through.” Perhaps, had she taken the reins of that wild spirit into her hands at first, she might have made him all that could have been wished; but as it was she gave him a possible life, a standing-ground when he had been sinking in the waves, a habitation and a name.
Lily came back to the North to establish herself in a house more modern and comfortable, and less heavy with associations, than Dalrugas, some years after these events, and there was much friendship between her and the old minister’s daughter, who had been so closely woven with the most critical moments of her life. They were different in every possible respect, but above all in their view of existence. Helen had her serene faith in her own influence and power to shape the other lives which she felt to be in her charge, to support her always. But to Lily thereseemed no power in herself to affect others at all. She, so much more vivacious, stronger, to all appearance of higher intelligence, had been helpless in her own existence, able for no potent action, swept by the movements of others into one fated path, loved, yet incapable of influencing any who loved her. She was now a great deal better off, her life a great deal brighter, with all manner of good things within her reach, than Helen, on her little bit of land, pushing her rough husband, with as few detours as possible, along the path of life, and smiling over her hard task. Lily was a wealthy woman, with a delightful boy, and all those openings of new hope and interest before her in him which give a woman perhaps a more vivid happiness than any thing strictly her own. But the one mother trembled a little, while the other looked forward serenely to an unbroken tranquil course of college prizes and bursaries, and at the end a good manse, and perhaps a popular position for her son. What should Lily have for hers? She had much greater things to hope for. Would it be hers to stand vaguely in the way of Fate, to put out ineffectual hands, to feel the other currents of life as before sweep her away? Or could she ever stand smiling, like simple Helen, holding the helm, directing the course, conscious of power to defeat all harm and guide toward all good? But that only the course of the years could show.
THE END
ByW. D. HOWELLS.