WhenSir Robert went in somewhat reluctantly to Lily’s room—for he was not accustomed to illness, and did not know what to do or say, or even how to look, in a sick room—he found her fully conscious, very white, very worn, her eyes looking twice their usual size and full of that wonderful translucent clearness which exhaustion gives. Her face, he did not know why, disposed the old gentlemanto shed tears, though he was very far indeed from having any inclination that way in general. There was a smile upon it, a smile of wistful appeal to him, such a claim upon his sympathy and help as perhaps no other human creature had ever made before.
“Uncle!” she cried, holding out two thin hands which seemed whiter than the mass of white linen about her. “Uncle Robert! oh! are you there? I have been an ill bairn to you, Uncle Robert. I have not been faithful nor true. You sent me here for my good, and I’ve turned it to harm. But you’re my only kin and my only friend, and all that I have in the world.”
“Lily, my dear, compose yourself, my poor lassie. I am not blaming you: why should I blame you? When you were ill, what could you do but lie in your bed and be taken care of? Woman, have ye no sense? She is not fit yet to be troubled with visits; you might have seen that!”
“Oh, Sir Robert, and so I did! But how could I cross her when she just said without ceasing: ‘I want my uncle. I want to see my uncle!’ She was not to be crossed, the doctor said.”
“It was not Beenie’s fault.” Lily stretched out her hands till they reached her uncle’s, who stood by her bedside, yet as far off as he could, not to appear unkind. He was a little horrified by the touch of those hot hands. She threw herself half out of the bed to reach him, and caught his hard and bony old hand, so firm still and strong, between those white quivering fingers, almost fluid in their softness, which enveloped his with a sudden heat and atmosphere, so strange and unusual that he retreated still a step, though he could not withdraw his hand.
“Uncle Robert, you will not forsake me!” Lily cried. “I have only you now, I have only you. I have been ill to you, but, oh, be good to me! I am a very lonely woman. I have nobody. I have put my trust in—other things, and they have all failed me! I’ve had a long dream and now I’ve awakened. Uncle Robert, I have nobody but you in all the world!”
“Now, Lily, you must just compose yourself, my dear. Who thought of forsaking you? It is certain that you are my only near relation. Your father was my only brother. What would ail me at you? My poor lassie, just let yourself be covered up, and put your arms under the clothes and try if you cannot sleep a little. A good sleep would be the best thing for her, Robina, wouldn’t you say? Compose yourself, compose yourself, my dear.”
Lily still clung to his hand, though he tried so hard to withdraw it from her hold. “And I will be different,” she said. “You will never need to complain of me more. My visions and my dreams they are all melted away, like the snow yon winter-time, when my head was just carried and I did not know what I was doing. Oh, I have been ill to you, ill to you! Eaten your bread and dwelt in your house and been a traitor to you. If they tell you, oh, Uncle Robert, do not believe I was so bad as that. I never meant it, I never intended—— It was a great delusion, and it is me that has the worst to bear.”
“Robina!” cried Sir Robert, “this will never do. What disjointed nonsense has the poor thing got into her head? She will be as bad as ever if you do not take care. No more of it, no more of it, Lily. You’ve been very ill; you must be quiet, and don’t trouble your head about any thing. As for your old uncle, he will stand by you, my poor lassie, whatever you may have done—not that I believe for a moment you have done any thing.” He was greatly relieved to get his hand free. He went so far as to cover her shoulders with the bedclothes, and to give a little pat upon the white counterpane. Poor little thing! Her head was not right yet. Great care must be taken of the poor lassie. He had heard they were fond of accusing themselves of all kinds of crimes after an attack of this sort.
“I suppose the doctor will be coming to-day?” he said to Beenie as he hastily withdrew toward the door.
“It’s very near his hour, Sir Robert.”
“That’s well, that’s very well! Keep her as quiet as you can, that’s the great thing, and tell her from me that she isnot to trouble her head about any thing—about any thing, mind,” said Sir Robert with an emphasis which had no real meaning, though it awakened a hundred alarms in Beenie’s mind. She thought he must have been told, he must have found out something of the history of these past months. But, indeed, the old gentleman knew nothing at all, and meant nothing but to express, more or less in the superlative, his conviction that poor Lily was still under the dominion of her delusions, and that it was her fever, not herself, which brought from her lips these incomprehensible confessions. He understood that it was often so in these cases; probably, if he had let her go on, she would have confessed to him that she had tried to murder—Dougal, say, or somebody else equally likely. The only thing was to keep her quiet, to impress upon her that she was not to trouble her head about any thing, not about any thing, in the strongest way in which that assurance could be put.
Lily lay quite still for a long time after Sir Robert had escaped from the room. She was very weak and easily exhausted, but happily the weakness of both body and brain dulled, except at intervals, the active sense of misery, and even the memory of those events which had ravaged her life. She was still quite quiet when the doctor came, and smiled at him with the faint smile of recovered consciousness and intelligence, though with scarcely a movement as she lay on her pillows, recovered, yet so prostrated in strength that she lay like one cast up by the waves, half dead, unable to struggle or even to lift a finger for her own help. A much puzzled man was the doctor, who had brought her successfully through this long and dreadful illness, but whose mind had been sorely exercised to account for many things which connected this malady with what had gone before. That he divined a great deal of what had gone before there was little doubt; but he had no light upon Lily’s real position, and his heart was sore for a young creature, a lady, in such sore straits, and with probably a cloud hanging over her which would spoil herentire life. And he was a prudent man, and asked no questions which he was not compelled to ask. Had it been a village girl he would have formed his conclusions with less hesitation, and felt less deeply; but it was a very different matter with Sir Robert Ramsay’s niece, who would be judged far more severely and lose much more than any village maiden was likely to do. Poor girl! he tried as best he could, like a good man as he was, to save her as much as possible even from the suggestion of any suspicion. “What has she been doing? You have allowed her to do too much,” he said.
“She would see her uncle, doctor; she just insisted that she would see Sir Robert. If I had crossed her in that, would it no have been just as bad?”
The white face on the pillow smiled faintly and breathed, rather than said: “It was my fault.”
“And he said she was not to trouble her head about ainy thing, not aboutainy thing, doctor, and that was a comfort to her—she was so vexed, him coming for the first time to his ain house, and her no able to welcome him, nor do any thing for him.”
“That’s a very small matter; she must think of that no more. What you have to do now, Miss Ramsay, is just to think of nothing, to trouble your head about nothing, as Sir Robert judiciously says; to take what you can in the way of nourishment, and to sleep as much as you can, and to think about nothing. I absolutely proheebit thinking,” he said, bending over her with a smile. She was so touching a sight in her great weakness, and with even his uncertain perception of what was behind and before her, that the moisture came into the honest doctor’s eyes.
Lily gave him another faint smile, and shook her head, if that little movement on the pillow could be called shaking her head, and then he gave Beenie her instructions, and with a perplexed mind proceeded to the interview with Sir Robert to which he had been summoned. He did not know what he would say to Sir Robert if hisquestions were of a penetrating kind. But Sir Robert’s questions were not penetrating at all.
“She has been havering to me, poor lassie,” said the old gentleman, “about being alone in the world and with nobody but me to look after her. It is true enough. We have no relations, either her or me, being the last of the family. But why should she think I would forsake her? And she says she has been an ill bairn to me, and other things that have just no sense in them. But that’s a common thing, doctor? Is it not quite a common thing that people coming out of such an illness take fancies that they have done all sorts of harm?”
“The commonest thing in the world,” said the doctor cheerfully. “Did she say she had stolen your gear, or broken into your strong-box?”
“There is no saying what she would have said if I had let her go on,” said Sir Robert, with a laugh, “though, indeed, I was nearer crying than laughing to see her so reduced. But all that will come right in time?”
“It will all come right in time. She’s weaker than I like to see, and you must send for me night or day, at any moment, if there is any increase of weakness. But I hope better things. Leave her to the women: they’re very kind, and not so silly as might reasonably be expected. Don’t go near her, if I might advise you, Sir Robert.”
“Indeed, I will obey you there,” said the old gentleman; “no fear of that. I can do her no good, poor thing, and why should I trouble both her and myself with useless visits? No, no, I will take care of that.”
And the doctor went away anxious, but satisfied. If there was a story to tell, it was better that the poor girl should tell it at least when she was full mistress of herself—not now, betrayed by her weakness, when she might say what she would regret another time.
But Lily asked no more for Sir Robert. It was but the first impulse of her suddenly awakened mind. She relapsed into the weakness which was all the greater for that brief outburst, and lay for days conscious, and so farcalm that she had no strength for agitation, often sleeping, seldom thinking, wrapped by nature in a dream of exhaustion, through which mere emotion could not pierce. And thus youth and the devoted attendance of her nurses brought her through at last. It was October when she first rose from her bed, an advance in recovery which the women were anxious to keep back as long as possible, while the doctor on the other hand pressed it anxiously. “She will lose all heart if she is kept like this, with no real sign of improvement,” he said. “Get her up; if it’s only for an hour, it will do her good.”
“It will bring it all back,” said Beenie in despair. She stopped herself next moment with a terrified glance at him; but he knew how to keep his own counsel. And he gave no further orders on this subject. Lily, however, was not to be restrained. When she was first led into the drawing-room, she went to the window and looked out long and with a steadfast look upon the moor. It had faded out of the glory of heather which had covered it everywhere when she last looked upon that scene. Nearly two months were over since that day, that wonderful day of fate. Lily looked out upon the brown heather, still with here and there a belated touch of color upon the end of the long stalks rustling with the brown husks of the withered bells. The rowan-trees gave here and there a gleam of scarlet or a touch of bright yellow in the scanty leaves, ragged with the wind, which were almost as bright as the berries. The intervals of turf were emerald green, beginning to shine with the damp of coming winter. The hills rose blue in the noonday warmth with that bloom upon them, like a breaking forth of some efflorescence responsive to the light, which comes in the still sunshine, disturbed by no flying breezes. Lily looked long upon the well-known landscape which she knew by heart in every variation, resisting with great resolution the endeavors of Beenie to draw her back from that perilous outlook.
“Oh, look nae mair, my bonnie leddy!” Beenie said. “You’ve seen it mair than enough, that awfu’ moor!”
“What ails you at the moor, Robina?” Sir Robert said, coming briskly in. “You are welcome back, my dear; you are welcome back to common life. Don’t stand and weary yourself; I will bring you a chair to the window. I’m glad, Lily, that you’re fond of the moor.”
Lily turned to him with the same overwhelming smile which had nearly made an end of Sir Robert before, which shone from her pale face and from her wide, lucid, liquid eyes, still so large and bright with weakness; but she did not wait for him to bring her a chair to the window. She tottered to one that had been placed for her near the fire, which, however bright the day, was always necessary at Dalrugas. “I am better here,” she said. She looked so fragile seated there opposite to him that the old gentleman’s heart was moved.
“My poor lassie! I would give something to see you as bright-faced and as light-footed as when you came here.”
“Ah, that’s so long ago,” she said. “I was light-hearted, too, and perhaps light-headed then. I am not light in any way now, except, perhaps, in weight. It makes you very serious to live night and day and never change upon the moor.”
“Do you think so, Lily? I’m sorry for that. I thought you were so fond of the moor. They told me you were out upon it when you were well, rambling and taking your pleasure all the day.”
“Yes,” she said, “it’s always bonnie. The heather is grand in its time, and it’s fine, too, in the gray days, when the hills are all wrapped in their gray plaids, and a kind of veil upon the moor. But it cannot answer, Uncle Robert, when you speak, or give you back a look or say a word.”
“That’s true, that’s true, Lily. I was thinking only that it’s a peaceful place, and quiet, where an old man like me can get his sleep in peace; though there’s that Dougal creature with his pails and pony that is aye stirring by the skreigh of day.”
“The pony was a great diversion,” said Lily, “and Dougal, too, who was always very kind to me.”
“Kind! It was his bounden duty, the least he could do. I would like to know how he would have stood before me if he had not been kind, and far more, to the only child of the old house!”
“Thank you, Uncle Robert,” said Lily, “for saying so. They were all kind, and far more than kind. They have just been devoted to me, and thought of nothing but to make me happy. You will think of that—in case that any thing should happen.”
“Lily!” said Sir Robert with an angry tone, “I’m thinking you’re both ungrateful and unkind yourself. God has spared you and brought you back out of a dreadful illness, and these two women have nursed you night and day, and though I could do little for you, having no experience that way, yet perhaps I’ve felt all the more. And here are you speaking of ‘any thing that might happen,’ as if you had not just been delivered out of the jaws of death.”
“Yes, I am very grateful,” said Lily, holding out her thin hand, “to both them and you, Uncle Robert, and most of all to you, for it was out of your way indeed; but as for God, I am not sure that I am grateful to him, for he might have taken me out of all the trouble while he was at it, and that would have been the best for us all. But,” she added, looking up suddenly with one of her old quick changes of feeling and countenance, “how should you think I meant dying? There are many, many things that might happen besides that. I might go away, or you might send me away.”
“I’ll not do that, Lily.”
“How do you know, Uncle Robert? You sent me away once before when you sent me here. You might do it again—or, what is more, I might ask you—— Oh, Uncle Robert, let me go away a little, let me leave the sight of it, and the loneliness that has broken my heart!” Lily put her transparent hands together and looked at him with a pathetic entreaty in her face.
“Go away!” he said, startled, “as soon as I come here—the first time you come into the drawing-room to ask that!”
“It is true,” said Lily, “it’s ungrateful, oh, it’s without heart, it’s unkind, Uncle Robert, as you say; but only for a little while, till I get a little better. I will never get better here.”
“This is a great disappointment to me,” he said. “I thought I would have you, Lily, to keep me company. I thought you would be my companion and take care of me for a year or two. I am not likely at my age to trouble any body for very long,” he added with a half-conscious appeal for sympathy.
“And so I will,” said Lily; “I will be your companion. I will be at your side to do whatever you please—to read or to write, to walk or to talk. I will look for nothing else in this world, and I will never leave you, Uncle Robert, and there is my hand upon that. But I must be well first,” she added rapidly. “And I will never get well here. Oh, let me go! If it was but for a week, for a fortnight, for two or three days. Is it not always said of ill folk that when they get better they must have a change? Let me have a change, Uncle Robert! I want to look out at something that is not the moor. Oh, how long, how long, if you will only think of it, I have been looking at nothing but the moor! I am tired, tired of the moor! Oh, I am wearied of it! I have liked it well, and I will come back and like it again. But for a little while, uncle, only for a little while, let me go away from the moor.”
“Is it so long a time?” he said. “I was not aware you had been here so long a time. Why, it is not two years! If you think two years is a long time, Lily, wait till you know what life is, and that a year’s but a moment when you look back upon it.”
“It looks like a hundred years to me,” she said, “and before I can look back as you do it will be a hundred years more. And how am I to bear them all without a break or a rest? If I were even like you, a soldier marching here and there, with your colors flying and your drums beating!but what has a woman to do but to sit and think and count the days? Uncle Robert,” she said, putting her hand on his arm as he stood near her, with his back to the fire, “I’m not unwilling at all to die. I would never have minded if it had been so. I would have asked for nothing but a warm green turf from the moor, and maybe a bush of heather at my feet. But it has not ended like that, which would have been God’s doing—only I will never get well unless I get away, unless I breathe other air; and if you refuse me, that will be your doing!” she cried with something of her old petulance and fire.
“Did the doctor say any thing about this change?” Sir Robert asked Beenie, with a cloud upon his face.
“He said she was to be crossed in naething,” Beenie replied.
Whenit was settled that Lily was to have the change upon which she insisted, her health improved day by day, and with the increase of her strength, or perhaps as the real fountain-head and cause of her increased strength, her elasticity of spirit returned to her. By one of those strange gifts of temperament which triumph over every thing that humanity can encounter, this young creature, overwhelmed by so many griefs—a deserted wife, a mother whose child had been torn from her, her secret life so full of incidents and emotion ending all at once in a blank—became in the added grace of her weakness and of the spirit and courage which overcame it as sweet a companion to her old uncle, as full of variety and freshness, as the heart could desire. He, indeed, had never known such company before. She had been younger by an age when she left him in Edinburgh, less developed, half a child, at least in his eyes, and he had been surrounded by company and cronies of his own of a very different character. But now, in this lonely spot where there was nobody, Lily, rising from hersick-bed, with her eyes still large in their white sockets, her hands still transparent, her touch and her step still tremulous with weakness, became his diversion, his delight, making the long lonely days short, and even the rain supportable when it swept against the narrow windows, and intensified the brightness of the fireside and the pleasant talk, or even, when there was no talk, the sense of companionship within. Sometimes Lily would fall asleep in the afternoon or at the falling of the day, unawares, in the feebleness of her convalescence, and perhaps these were the moments in which most of all the old man of the world felt completely what this companionship was. He would lay down his paper or his book and look at her—the light of the fire playing on her face, giving it a faint touch of rose, and dissimulating the deep shadows under the eyes—feeling to his heart that most intimate confidence and trust in him, the reliance, almost unconscious, of a child, the utter dependence and weakness which could put up no barriers of the conventional, nor stop to think what would be agreeable: these things found out secret crevices in Sir Robert’s armor of which neither he nor any one else had dreamed. The water stood in his eyes as he looked at her, saying “Poor lassie, poor little lassie!” secretly in his heart. She was as good company then, though she did not know it, as when she started from her brief sleep and exerted herself to make him talk, to make him laugh, to feel himself the most interesting ofraconteursand delightful of companions. Many people had flattered Sir Robert in his day—he had been important enough in much of his life for that—but he had never found flattery so sweet as Lily’s demands upon the stores of his long experience, her questions upon his history, her interest in what he told her. It was not only that she was herself such a companion as he had not dreamed of, but that he never had been aware before what excellent company he was himself. He almost grudged to see her growing stronger, though he rejoiced in it from the bottom of his old world-worn heart.
“And so you are going to leave me, Lily—you’ve settled,that Robina woman and you—and you’re off in two days seeking adventures?”
“Yes, uncle—in two days; but only for a little while.”
“Without a thought of an old man left desolate—upon the edge of the moor.”
“Yes, with a thought that is very pleasant—that there’s somebody there wanting me back”—she paused a moment with a faint sigh and added: “and that I am coming back to in a little while. And then, as for the moor, it is full of diversion. You’re never lonely watching the clouds and the shadows and all the changes: I have had much experience of it, Uncle Robert—two years, that were sometimes long, long.”
“I never knew,” said Sir Robert, a little abashed, “how lonely it was, Lily, and that all the old neighbors were gone. I pictured you surrounded with young folk, and as merry as the day was long.”
“It was not exactly that,” she said, with a smile; and then her face changed, as it did from moment to moment, like the moor which she loved, yet hated—shadows flying over it as swift, as sudden, and as deep. “But it’s all past, and why should we think more of it? When I come back, Uncle Robert, we’ll be cheery, you and me together by the fireside all the winter through, and never ask whether there are neighbors or not—or other folk in the world.”
“I would not go so far as that,” said the old gentleman. “We’ll get the world to come to us, Lily, a small bit at a time. But you have never told me where you are going when you leave me here.”
“To Edinburgh,” she said.
“To Edinburgh! I thought you had consulted with the doctor, and were going to the seaside, or to the Bridge of Allan, or some of the places where invalids go.”
“Uncle,” said Lily, “I have been two years upon the moor, and in all that time I have not got a new gown, nor a bonnet, nor any thing whatsoever. Oh, yes, we will go to the sea, or the Bridge of Allan, or to some place. Butwe are not fit to be seen, neither Beenie nor me. You do not take these things into consideration. You think, when I speak to you like a rational creature, that I am above the wants of my kind; but rational or not, a woman must always have some clothes to wear!”
Sir Robert laughed and clapped his hands. “Bravo, Lily!” he cried. “You cannot do better, my dear, than own you’re just a woman and are as fond of your finery as the rest. By all means, then, go to Edinburgh and fit yourself out; but do not stay there, go out to Portobello, if you do not care to go farther, or a little more to the West, where it’s milder, and you will get a warm blink before the winter weather sets in. And that reminds me that you will want money, Lily.”
“A good deal of money, Uncle Robert,” she said, with a smile. “You know I have had none for two years.”
It was with a sensation of shame that he heard her allusions to those two years, and perhaps Lily was aware of it. She wanted money, she wanted freedom, and that her steps should not be watched nor her movements constrained. And the old gentleman was startled and humiliated when he realized that his heiress, his only relation, his brother’s child, had been banished to this wilderness without a shilling in her pocket or a friend to help her. He could not imagine how he could have forgotten so completely her existence or her claims upon him and right to his support. He was glad to wipe that recollection from his own mind as well as hers by his liberality now. And Lily received from him an order upon his “man of business” in Edinburgh for an amount which seemed to her almost fabulous—for she knew nothing of money, had never had any, nor required it, although when she retired to her room with that piece of paper in her hand which meant so much, the reflection of what might have happened and what she could have done had she only at any time during these two years possessed as much, or half as much, came upon her with almost a convulsive sense of opportunities lost. She flung herself upon Beenie’s shoulder when shereached the safe shelter of her room, where it was no longer necessary to keep herself up and make a smile for her uncle. “Oh, Beenie!” she cried, “if he had given me the half of that before, or the quarter! how every thing might have been changed.”
“Oh, mem, my bonnie leddy,” cried Beenie, who never now addressed her mistress as Miss Lily, “it’s little, little that siller can do!”
Anger flashed in Lily’s eyes. “It could just have done every thing!” she said. “Do you think I would have been put off and off if I could have put my hand in my pocket and taken the coach and gone, you and me, to see to every thing ourselves? Oh! many a time I have wished for it, and longed for it—but what could we do, you and me, and nothing, nothing to take us there? Oh, never say siller can do little! It might have spared us all that’s happened—think! all that’s happened! I might be thinking now as I thought yon New Year’s time in the snow. I might be as sure and as full of trust. I might never have learned what it was to deceive and to be deceived. I might never have been a desolate woman without man or bairn—without my little bairn, my little baby!”
“Oh, my darlin’ leddy! but you’ll get him again, you’ll get him again!” cried Beenie, with streaming eyes.
“I hope in God I shall,” said Lily, tearless, lifting her eyes and clasping her hands. “I hope in God I shall, or else that he’ll let me just lay down my head and die!”
“He has raised you up from the very grave,” said Beenie. “We had nae hope, Katrin and me; we had nae hope at all. Here she is hersel’ that will tell you. There was ae night—oh, come Katrin, come and bear me out—when you and me just stood over her, and kissed the bonnie white face on the white pillow, and wrung each other’s hands, and said: ‘If the baby’s lost and her reason gane, God bless her, she’ll be better away.’”
“Whisht with your nonsense,” said Katrin; “that’s a’ past, and now we have nae such thoughts in our heads. But what will you do, my dear leddy, my bonnie leddy?Will ye bring him back here? A fine thriving bairn like yon you canna hide him. The first day, the first night, and the secret would be parish news. I was frichtened out of my wits the first days for Dougal, who is not a pushing man, to do him justice, or one that asks questions; but with Sir Robert in the house, oh, mem, my bonnie dear, what will ye do?”
“I have never wanted to make any secret, Katrin,” Lily said.
“I ken that; but there will be an awfu’ deal to tell when once you begin. And the bairn he is an awfu’ startling thing to begin with. Do ye no think an auld gentleman like Sir Robert had better be prepared for it? It would give him a shock. It might even hairm him in his health. I would take counsel about it. Oh, I would take counsel! Do naething in a hurry, not to scandalize the country, nor to give our auld maister a fright that might do him harm.”
“To scandalize the country!” said Lily, pale with anger. “Oh! to think it’s me, me that she says that to! Do you think it is better to deceive every-body and be always a lie whatever way you turn?”
“Mem,” said Katrin, “my dear, you’ll excuse me; I must just say the truth. It’s an awfu’ thing to deceive, as you say, and well I ken it was never your wyte. But the worst of it is that when you begin you cannot end. You just have to go on. I’m no saying one thing or another. It’s no my business, if it wasna that I just think more of you than one mortal creature should think of another. Oh! just take thought and take counsel! The maister is an old man. You’ve beguiled him with your winsome ways just as you’ve beguiled us a’. Can I see a thing wrong you do, whatever it is? And yet I have a glimmerin’ o’ sense between whiles. If he’s looking for you back to be his bonnie Lily and his companion, and syne sees you come in with a bairn in your arms and another man’s name, what will the auld man do? Oh, mem, the dear bairn, God bless him, and grant that you may soon havehim in your airms! But if you hold by the auld gentleman and his life and comfort, for God’s sake take thought! for that is in it, too.”
“There is nothing, nothing,” cried Lily, “that should keep a mother from her bairn! You are a kind woman, Katrin, but you’ve never had a bairn. When once I get him here, how can I ever give him up again?” she said, straining her arms to her breast as if the child was within them. Beenie wept behind her mistress’s shoulder, overwhelmed with sympathy, but Katrin shook her head.
“When you see Mr. Lumsden there, and go over it all——”
Lily’s face became instantly as if the windows of her mind had been closed up. Her lips straightened, her eyes became blank. She said nothing, but turned away, not looking at either of them nor saying a word. “And it was no me breathed his name or as much as thought upon him,” Beenie said a little later in an aggrieved tone, when she had rejoined Katrin down stairs.
“It was me that breathed his name, and I’ll do it again till some heed is paid to what I say. We should maybe have refused yon day to be his witnesses. But being sae, Beenie, the burden is on you and me as well as on him. They should have owned each other and spoke the truth from that day. But now that it has all gone so far and no a whisper risen, and the countryside just as innocent as if they were two bairns playing, oh, I wouldna now just burst it all upon the auld man’s head! He’s no an ill auld man. He’s provided for her all her life; he is very muckle taken up with her now, maybe in a selfish way, for he’s feeling his age and his mainy infirmities, and he’s wanting a companion. But, oh! I would not burst it on him now! He could never abide her man, and, to tell the truth, Beenie, I’m not that fond of him mysel’, and she, poor thing, has had a fearfu’ opening to her eyes. How could ye have the bairn here and no the father? Could she say to her uncle: ‘I was very silly about him once and marriedhim, and now I canna abide him’? Oh, no! that is what she will never say.”
“And I hope she’ll never think it either,” Beenie said.
“Beenie,” said the other solemnly, “you are a real innocent if such a thing ever was.”
“No more than yoursel’,” said Beenie, indignant; but she had to return to her mistress, and further discussion could not be held on this question.
They went away on the second morning, which was a little frosty, though bright. The establishment had widened out by this time. Sir Robert was not a man to be driven to kirk or market in the little geeg, drawn at his wilful pleasure by Rory, which had answered all Lily’s purposes. There was now a phaeton and a brougham, and three or four horses accommodatedtant bien que malin the old stables, which had to be cleared of much rubbish and Dougal’s accumulations of years before they were in a state to receive their costly inmates. It was in the brougham that Lily, wrapped up in every kind of shawl and comforter, drove with her maid to Kinloch-Rugas to take the coach, where the best places had been reserved for them. Beenie’s pride in this journey exceeded the anxiety with which her mind was full, in respect to her mistress’s health in the first place, and the many issues of their journey. But it was not a “pride” which met with much sympathy from her dear friends and fellow-servants. Dougal for his part stood out in the stable-yard carefully isolated from all possible connection with the new grooms and the new horses, though neither was he without a thrill of pride in the distinction of a kind of part-proprietorship with Sir Robert in these dazzling articles. He kept apart, however, with an air of conscious superiority to such innovations. “I wish ye a good journey,” he said; “maybe it’ll be warmer this fine morning in a shut-up carriage, but, Lord! I would rather have Rory and the little geeg than all the coaches in England!”
Lily was thrilling with nervous excitement, scarcely able to contain herself, but she made an effort to give a wordand a smile to the whilom arbiter of all the movements of Dalrugas. “I would rather have you and Rory in the summer weather,” she said. “If it is a warm day when I come back, you will come for me, Dougal.”
“Na, mem, no me; we’re no grand enough now to carry leddies: which I wouldna care much for, for leddies, as ye ken, are whiles fantastic and put awfu’ burdens on a beast—but just because his spirit is broken with trailing peats from the hill, and visitors’ boxes from the toun. They’re sensitive creatures, pownies. I just begin to appreciate the black powny’s feelings now I see the effect upon my ain.”
“He shall drive me when I come back,” said Lily, waving her hand as the brougham flashed away, the coats of the horses shining in the frosty sunshine, and the carriage panels sending back reflections. It was certainly more comfortable than the geeg. But the light went out of Lily’s face as they left Dalrugas behind. The little color in her cheeks disappeared. She leaned back in her corner and once more pressed her arms against her breast. “Oh, shall I find him? shall I find him?” she cried.
“You’ll do that—wherefore should you no do that?” said Beenie encouragingly.
“He’ll be grown so big we will not know him, Beenie, and he will not know his mother; that woman Margaret that took him away will have all his smiles—she will be the first face that he sees, now that he’s old enough to notice. Oh, my little bairn! my little bairn!”
“A bairn that is two months auld takes but little notice, mem,” said Beenie, strong in her practical knowledge. “You need not fash your head about that. They may smile, but if ye were to ask me the very truth, I wouldna hide from you that what they ca’ smiling is just in my opinion the——”
“If you say that word, I will kill you!” cried Lily. She laughed and then she cried in her excitement. “How will I contain myself? how will I keep quiet and face the world, and the folk in the world, and every-body about, till themoment comes—oh, the moment, Beenie!—when I will get my baby into my arms?”
“Eh, mem! but you must not make yoursel’ sae awfu’ sure about that,” said Beenie. “We might not find them just at first—or he might have a little touch of the cauld, or maybe the thrush in his wee mouth, or measles, or something. You must not make yourself so awfu’ sure.”
“He is ill!” cried Lily, seizing her in a fierce grip. “He is ill, oh, you false, false woman, and you have never said a word to me!”
“There is naething ill about him; he is just thriving like the flowers. But I canna bide when folk are so terrible sure. It seems as if you were tempting God.”
“It’s you that are tempting me—to believe in nothing, neither Him nor women’s word. But what would make a woman deceive a baby’s mother about her own child? A man might do it, that knows nothing about what that means; but a woman never would do it, Beenie—a woman that has been about little babies and their mothers all her days?”
“No, mem, I never thought it,” said Beenie in dutiful response.
At the coach, where they were received with all the greater honor on account of Sir Robert’s brougham, and the beautiful prancing horses, Helen Blythe met them. “They would not let me come to see you,” she said. “It’s long, long, since I’ve seen you, Lily, and worn and white you’ve grown—but just as bonnie as ever: there comes up the color just as it used to do—but you must look stronger when you come back.”
“I am going away for that,” Lily said.
“And it is just the wisest thing she could do,” said the doctor, who had come also to see her off. “And stay away as long as you can, Miss Ramsay, and just divert yourself a little. You have great need of diversion after that long time at the old Tower.”
“She is not one that is much heeding diversion,” said Helen, looking at her affectionately.
“We’re all needing it whether we’re heeding it or no,” said the doctor. “And if you will take my advice, you will just take a little pleasure to yourself, as you would take physic if I ordered it. Good-by, Miss Ramsay, and mind what I say.”
“He’s maybe right,” said Helen; “they say he’s a clever man. I know little about diversion. But, oh! I would like to see you happy, Lily—that would be better than all the physic in the world.”
“Perhaps I will bring it back with me,” said Lily, with a smile.
Itwas not with a very easy mind that Ronald Lumsden had executed the greatcoupwhich had, so far as Lily was concerned, such disastrous consequences. He had been deeply perplexed from the moment of the baby’s birth, nay, before that, as to what his future action was to be. It had been apparent to him from the first that the child could not remain at Dalrugas. Much had been ventured, much had been done, to all appearance successfully enough. No scandal had been raised in the countryside by his own frequent visits. What might be whispered in the cottages no one knew; but, apart from such a possibility, nothing that could be called public, no rumor of the least importance, had arisen. Every thing was safe up to that point. And he was not much concerned even had there been any subdued scandal floating about. At any moment, should any crisis arise, Lily could be justified and set right. What could it matter, indeed, if any trouble of a moment should arise? He was not indifferent to his wife’s good name. He considered himself as the best guardian of that, the best judge as to how and when it should be defended. He had (he thought) the reins in his hands, the command of all the circumstances. If he should ever see the moment come when the credit of his future family should be seriouslythreatened, and the position of Lily become an affair of vital importance, he was prepared to make any sacrifice. The moment it became serious enough for that he was ready to act; but in the meantime it was his to fight the battle out to the last step, and to defend her rights as her uncle’s heir, and to secure the fortune for her behalf and his own. He regarded the situation largely as from the point of view of a governor and supreme authority. As long as the circumstances could be managed, the world’s opinion suppressed or kept in abeyance, and the one substantial and important object kept safe, what did a little imaginary annoyance matter, or Lily’s fantastic girlish notions about a house of her own, and a public appearance on her husband’s arm, wearing her wedding ring and calling herself Mrs. Lumsden? He liked her the better for desiring all that, so far as it meant a desire to be always with him; otherwise the mere promotion of being known as a married lady was silly and a piece of vanity, which did not merit a thought on the part of the arbiter of her affairs. All the little by-play about the house which could not be got till the term, etc., had been a jest to him, though it had been so serious to Lily. He had never for a moment intended that she should have that house. To keep her quiet, to keep her contented, Ronald did not stint at such a small matter as a lie. Between lovers, between married people, there must be such things. If a man intends to keep at the head of affairs, and yet to keep the woman, who has no experience and knows nothing of the world, satisfied and happy, of course there must be little fictions made up and fables told. Lily would be the first to justify them when the necessity was over, when the money was secured and their final state arrived at—a dignified life together, with every thing handsome about them. He had no compunctions, therefore, about the original steps. It might have been more prudent, perhaps, if they had not married at all, if they had waited till Sir Robert died and Lily was free, in the course of nature, to give her hand and her fortune where she pleased. That, no doubt, wasa rash thing to do, but the wisest of men commit such imprudences. And, with the exception of that, Ronald approved generally of his own behavior. He did not find any thing to object to in his conduct of the matter altogether.
But the baby put every thing out. The prospect, indeed, occupied Lily and kept her quiet and reasonable for a long time, but the moment he knew what was coming a new care came into Lumsden’s mind. A baby is not a thing to be hid. It was certain that nothing would induce Lily to part with it, or to be reasonable any longer. She would throw away the result of all his precautions, of all his careful arrangements, of his self-denial and thought, in a moment, for the sake of this little thing, which could neither repay her nor know what she was doing for it. Many an hour’s reflection, night and day, had he given to this subject without seeing any way out of it. With all his powers and gifts of persuasion he had not ventured even to hint to Lily the idea of sending away the child. Courage is a great thing, but sometimes it is not enough to face a situation of the simplest character. He could not do it. After the child arrived, when the inconveniences of keeping it there became apparent, he had thought it might perhaps be easier; and many times he had attempted to arrange how this could be done, but never had succeeded in putting it into words. To do him justice, it was he who had sought out and chosen with the utmost care the nurse Marg’ret, in whose hands both mother and child would be safe, and he looked forward with that vague and foolish hope in some indefinite help to come which the wisest of men, when their combinations fail, still believe in, like the most foolish; perhaps some suggestion might come from herself, who could tell? some sense of the trouble and inconvenience arising in Lily’s own mind might assist him in disposing of the little intruder. Why do babies thrust themselves into the world so determinedly where they are not wanted? Why resist the most eager calls and welcomes where they are? This confusing question was no joke toRonald. It made him hate this meddling baby, though he was not without a young father’s sense of pride and satisfaction, too.
He had instructed Marg’ret fully beforehand in the part she might be called upon to play, though he could not tell her either how or when he would accomplish the purpose which had gradually grown upon him as a necessity. In these circumstances, while he yet pondered and turned every thing over in his mind, failing as yet to perceive any way in which it could be accomplished, the suddenness of Sir Robert’s coming, which he learned by accident, was like sudden light in the most profound darkness. Here was the necessity made ready to his hands. Lily could not doubt, could not waver; whatever might happen afterward, it was quite clear Sir Robert could not be greeted on his first arrival by the voice of an infant—an infant which had no business to be there, and whose presence would have to be accounted for on the very threshold, without any preliminary explanation—in the face, too, of his friends whom he brought with him, revealing all the secrets of his house. This was a chance which made Ronald himself, with all his coolness, shiver. And Lily, still in her weakness, not half recovered—what might the effect be upon her? It might kill her, he decided; for her own sake, in her own defence, not a moment was to be lost. The reader knows how he flashed into his wife’s room in haste, but not able even then, in face of Lily’s perfect calm, and utter inability to conceive the real difficulty of the situation, to suggest it to her, accomplished his design, secretly leaving her—not even then with any unkind intention, very sorry for her, but not seeing any other way in which it was to be done—to discover her loss and bear it as she might. He was any thing but happy as he drove away with the traitor woman by his side and the baby hidden in its voluminous wrappings. Marg’ret was not such a traitor either as she seemed. She had been made to believe that, though no parting was to be permitted to agitate the young mother,Lily, too, was aware, and had consented to this proceeding. “The poor little lassie, the poor wee thing!” Marg’ret had said, even while wrapping up the baby for its journey; and she had slipped out into the darkness and waited at the corner for the geeg with a heavy heart.
It startled Lumsden very much that no wail of distress, no indignant outcry, came from Lily on discovering her loss. These were not the days of frequent communications. People had not yet acquired the habit of constant correspondence. They were accustomed to wait for news, with no swift possibility of a telegram or even a penny post to make them impatient; not, perhaps, that they would have grudged—certainly not that Ronald would have grudged—the eightpence which was then, I think, the price of the conveyance of a letter from one end of Scotland to the other, but that they had not acquired the custom of frequent writing. When no protest, no remonstrance, no passionate outcry, reached him for a week or two after the event, Lumsden became exceedingly alarmed. He said to himself at first that it was a relief, that Lily herself recognized the necessity and had yielded to it; but he did not really believe this, and as the days went on, genuine anxiety and terror were in his mind. Had it killed her? Had his Lily, in her weakness, bowed her head and died of this outrage? the worst, he now felt in every fibre of his being, to which a woman could be subjected. He wrote, enclosing his letter to Beenie; then he wrote to Beenie herself, entreating her to send him a line, a word. But Lily was unconscious of every thing, and Beenie of all that did not concern her mistress, when these letters arrived. They were not even opened until Lily was convalescent, and then Beenie by her mistress’s orders, in her large sprawling handwriting, and with many tears, replied briefly to the three or four anxious demands for news which had arrived one after the other. Beenie wrote: