After the conversation with Miss Jean which has been reported, Lewis felt that he had begun the undertaking which brought him to Murkley. Before this it had been in a vague condition, a thing which might or might not come to anything. But now he had, to his own consciousness at least, committed himself. What effect his words might have had on Miss Jean's mind he was of course unable to tell; but, whatever she might do, there was now no retreat for him. He had given her to understand that the aspect in which she appeared to him was one of great interest and attraction. Having said so much, Lewis felt that it was incumbent on him to say more; and indeed, there was a sensation of thankfulness in his mind when he remembered that he had done so, and so made an end of his own freedom in the matter. He was glad that he had done this before the evening on which he saw Philip and Katie together, and recognized in their intercourse a something which was lacking, and always would be lacking, in his own case. What matter? he said to himself. He had much, though not all. If Miss Jean became his wife, he would have the satisfaction of redeeming a wrong for one thing, and he would not have to blush for the good woman he had chosen. Her middle-aged calm and propriety indeed suited much better the rôle of wife, to his thinking, than Katie's youthfulness and levity. He thought of her as an Englishman thinks of home, as something to return to after the occupations and excitements of the world. What he looked forward to was not perhaps a domestic life, but a life in which it would always be good to come back after every variety of experience and personal vicissitude to the same calm, smiling presence, the indulgence and tenderness of one who would never be weary, never impatient, but always ready to hear what he had to say, and to sympathize and advise.
The more he dwelt upon this idea, the more it pleased him. What he wanted was not the inseparable companion who would share all his life with him, but rather that domestic stronghold, that something to return to. There are always these differences in life. And after a while Lewis said to himself that he would have the best of it. Kate would want a great many observances which an elderly bride would not dream of; she would no doubt insist on knowing and sharing everything—her husband's thoughts as well as his home, and this was not an ideal which suited the pupil of Sir Patrick Murray. He had not been used to women, and they were no necessary part of his life. His mother, so far as he recollected her, had taken the place which he pleased himself to think his wife would naturally take. Many women rebel now-a-days at that ideal of a woman's existence which consists in being always at home, always ready to receive the wanderer, to kill innumerable fatted calves, and look out continually for the prodigal's return. Lewis would be no prodigal, but his idea was to live his own life unfettered, and to give no very great share in it to any woman. He would go back to her when tired, when sick or sorry; he would be always tenderly careful of her and kind. He would surround her, in that home where she should be always waiting for him, with everything a woman could wish for; but clearly he meant her to stay there while he should enjoy everything and come back to be sympathized with. Such an ideal watcher is pleasant to everybody's thoughts; the mere recollection of the dweller at home, uncritical, all-believing, to whom one can return, sure of eager attention, petting, and sympathy in every emergency, is in itself a consolation. It is the primitive idea of the woman's office.
Lewis meant no disrespect to womankind in adopting it as his idea of the relations to subsist between himself and his wife; he did not know any better, and nothing could be more entirely in accord with the position which Miss Jean, he thought, would naturally take. Few intending bridegrooms perhaps allot this character at once to their brides, but Lewis meant no harm; he subdued in himself the softer thoughts which the sight of Katie and Philip had roused in his mind, and in the morning was again fully awake to a state of satisfaction with his own scheme, and ready to proceed with it.
In the pre-occupation of his mind, Adam's fishing had ceased to amuse him, and he did not want to meet Philip, whose conduct in compromising Katie, our young man highly disapproved of, even when he felt envious of his happiness. When he went out, he turned his steps in the opposite direction, going up the river, past the spot at which he had seen the lovers, and reaching, by that détour through the wood, the park of Murkley, and the neighbourhood of the great unfinished palace which had made him first acquainted with the family history. He had not returned to visit that memorial of ambition again. Perhaps there was nobody in the world who could regard it with the same feelings as those which moved Lewis. Sir Patrick had not left a good name behind him in the countryside. His tastes had never been those of a Scotch country-gentleman. The building of this prodigious and pretentious house had offended all his neighbours, to whom it was almost a personal offence that he should attempt in this way to excel all their houses and put himself on so much higher a level. When it turned out that he was not able to complete what he had begun so ambitiously, a great deal of bitterness and unfriendly humour exhaled in the pitiless laughter with which his failure had been received, and there was nobody about who did not more or less remember it against him—with a scorn of failure which is very strong in Scotland—that he had thus attempted a superiority which he was not able to maintain. His own family contemplated the stately folly with modified feelings. Such a standing proof of greatness had a certain effect upon their pride; but the failure was bitter to them, and there was the sense besides that their money had been wasted in the erection of a monstrosity which was of use to no one, and of which they could make nothing. To Lewis alone this great shell spoke eloquently of something which touched the heart. The dreams of old Sir Patrick's life, its aspirations, its pride, and hopes, all seemed to him embodied in these walls. The old man had scarcely spoken of it. It was only after seeing it that Lewis was able to recall words, incomprehensible at the moment, which he had now no doubt referred to this proud intention, this ambitious vanity. As he walked round it, he framed to himself an image of the young man, impulsive, proud, and full of a hundred hasty projects, who had turned into the old man he knew so well. If he had not been hasty, full of sudden impulses, would he ever, Lewis asked himself, have taken up the charge of a friendless orphan, and made himself responsible for the life of a stranger in whom, save for tender charity and pity, he was in no way involved?
He thought of himself as another Castle of Murkley. Sir Patrick had wronged his children for the sake of both; his generosity had been as rash as his ambition. He had trained and formed his dependent for a life entirely above his natural prospects, and, if he had left Lewis in the lurch, the case would have been an exact parallel to that of the abandoned and uncompleted house. But the old man had done more for love than he had done for pride, and it was not the part of Lewis at least to blame him that he had again wronged his family for the sake of an impulse of his own. But as he roamed round and round this pale, half-ruined palace, with all its princely avenues and foreign trees, a great tenderness arose in the young man's heart for his old patron. What sanguine dreams must have been his while he was rearing these fine walls—what intentions of liberal life! In Lewis's imagination the picture rose all illuminated with sympathy and understanding. That sanguine, hasty mind would never look at all on the other side; failure would not seem possible to him till it had come. He could imagine him over his plans, superintending his workmen, elate and dauntless. A smile came upon his face and tears to his eyes as he realized what young Sir Patrick in his pride and hope must have been, and what old Sir Patrick, exiled and disappointed, but still sanguine and prodigal, was. Lewis was the creation of his old age, as this castle was the creation of his youth, both of them in their way injustices, but the one capable of affording no compensation, the other so willing, so ready, so anxious to atone. This inspired him while he stood gazing up at the vacant windows of Sir Patrick's folly. It was wonderful to comprehend how he could ever have believed himself rich enough for such a habitation. It was a house for a prince: but this idea, which made most people angry and impatient with the rash and vain man, who had not paused to count the cost, melted altogether the heart of Lewis. Anyone but Sir Patrick would have hesitated before taking upon himself the charge of a young life; any man but Sir Patrick would have trained the orphan lad to lowlier uses. He had made a son of him, and given him the happiest, most beautiful life. Dear old Parrain! it had been wrong, perhaps, but it was not for Lewis to judge. For him there was a greater privilege left, a more delightful duty—to atone.
He was walking round this silent, shut-up, windowless, and lifeless mansion, looking up at it with moisture in his eyes, when the sound of voices suddenly made him aware that he was not the only person thus occupied. He heard them but vaguely from the other side—voices in animated talk, but not near enough to hear what they were saying. The voices were all feminine, and by-and-by he made sure that they were the ladies of Murkley whom he was about to meet. Presently three figures became visible round the angle of the great house, one in advance of the others, walking backward, with a form very unlike that of Miss Margaret and Miss Jean, apparently gazing up at the walls, a blue veil flying about her, her head raised, her light figure lightly poised upon elastic feet, not like the sober attitude of the ladies he knew. A momentary wonder crossed the mind of Lewis as to this third sister, whom he had never seen, but he was too much pre-occupied to dwell upon it. He divined that there was a little commotion among them at the sight of a stranger. He heard Miss Margaret say something about a veil, and then there came a protest in a voice full of complaining.
"Oh, Margaret, let my veil alone; there is no sun to spoil anybody's complexion, is there, Jean?"
Some word or sign, proceeding from one of the other ladies, made the speaker turn round, and Lewis had a momentary glimpse of a face which was very different from that of the other sisters; large, wondering eyes darted one glance at him, then the unknown turned again and hurried back to the group, dropping the blue veil in her hurry and astonishment. It was only a moment, and the sensation in Lewis's mind was not more than surprise. The glimpse was momentary, his mind was pre-occupied, and Miss Margaret advanced immediately to meet him, covering the retreat of the others.
"You are looking at our grandfather's grand castle," Miss Margaret said.
"It is a wonderful place to find here, out in the wilderness; it is like a palace that has been walking about and has lost its way," Lewis said, with an attempt to cover the quickened movement of his own pulses in the surprise of the encounter.
"I would not call this the wilderness," said Miss Margaret, with a momentary tone of pique. "A great deal of care was taken about the place before this great barrack was built—it's more like a barrack, in my opinion, than a palace."
"It is like the Louvre," said Lewis; "it must have been planned by some one who had travelled, who knew the French renaissance." He felt a little jealous for the credit of his old friend.
"Oh, as for that," Miss Margaret said, with a wave of her hand, "knowledge was not wanting, nor taste either. Our grandfather, Sir Patrick Murray, was a man of great instruction: all the worse for his descendants. This is how he wasted our substance—and in other ways."
"He was a collector, I suppose?"
"I perhaps don't understand what you call a collector—a gatherer of costly things that are of no use to any mortal? Oh, he was that, and more. And there are other ways in which a man can wrong his family; but it's not a subject that can be interesting to a stranger," Miss Margaret added, closing her mouth with a certain peremptory firmness, as if to conclude the discussion. "Yon," she resumed, "was to have been the great banqueting hall: and the drawing-rooms, you see—there were to be three of them, the outer and the inner, and the lady's bouédwore—were to occupy the other side; where he was to get the lady and the banquet Sir Patrick never took thought. He was not a man to take thought; but he was very well instructed, and knew what he was doing—from that point of view. If he had known better about the money, and counted the cost like the man in the Gospel, it would have been better for them who came after him. But the Murrays were never careful at counting the cost,"—that air of pride with which prodigality in a family is always confessed came over Miss Margaret as she said this, throwing up her head and animating her countenance. Nobody ever yet made a statement of thrift and carefulness with the same proud gratification. It is unpleasant to be poor, but Nature is always more pleased with the lavish than the careful. Lewis suffered himself to be led round the further side of the building, while she talked and pointed out the position of the rooms. It was a moment full of excitement for the young man; he listened eagerly while she spoke of Sir Patrick, with the strongest sense of that link between them to which she had not the slightest clue. Nor had he the slightest clue to the motive which induced her to expatiate upon the building and lead him round by the other side. The blue veil and the wondering, youthful face it guarded had not done more as yet than touch his mind with a momentary suspicion; his interest was engaged, not in secret questionings about Lilias, as the elder sister thought, but in recollections and associations of a very different kind.
"Perhaps," he said, following out his own thoughts, "had he waited and gone more softly there would have been no imprudence."
"Waiting and going softly are not in our nature: no: I'm but a woman, with little money, and very seriously brought up—and with my youth past, and no motive; but if I were to let myself go—even now!"
A sudden flush came over her face, her eyes shone, and then Lewis perceived that Miss Margaret, if she had not made up her mind to be elderly and homely, would still be a handsome and imposing personage, whom the society he had known would have admired and followed. He thought that if she had been Sir Patrick's companion his salon might have been very different. With this view he could not help gazing at her with a great curiosity, wondering how she would have filled that place, and thinking what a pity that this, which would have ruined his own prospects, had not been.
She looked at him quickly, meeting his gaze, and her eyes fell momentarily under it.
"You think me an old fool," she said, "and no wonder. Imprudence—that is always folly when it takes the power of beginning what you cannot finish—would be worse folly than ever in a person like me; but, you see, I never let myself go."
"That is not what I was thinking," said Lewis. "I was thinking—wondering, though I had no right—why you did not go to him when he was old."
"Go to him—to whom?" she cried, astonished.
"Ah! pardon! I have met Sir Patrick—abroad."
Miss Margaret turned upon him, and made a close and, as Lewis thought, suspicious inspection of his face.
"If you met Sir Patrick abroad, you must have seen that he had no need of his natural family, nor wish for them. There was no place for us there. Perhaps you have not heard that he withdrew his property from his family and gave it to one that was not a drop's blood to him—a creature that had stolen into a silly old man's favour? But no, that would not be known abroad," she added, with a long-drawn breath. Lewis felt himself shrink from her eye; he made a step backward, with a sense of guilt which in all the many discussions of the subject had never affected him before.
"No," he said, with an involuntary tone of apology, "no, it was not known, I think, that he had—any relations——"
Miss Margaret turned on him again with indignation more scathing than before.
"Not known that he had relations!" then she paused, and gave vent to a little laugh, "that must have been by persons who were very ignorant—by people out of society themselves," she said.
To this Lewis made no reply. What could he say? It was true that he had no standing in society himself, and he now perceived that he had been guilty of one of his usual imprudences in drawing the attention of a mind much more keen than Miss Jean's, and able to put things together, to himself and his antecedents. After a moment she resumed.
"I am speaking too strongly perhaps to you, a stranger. It was perhaps not to be expected—abroad—that everybody should know the Murrays of Murkley. That is just one of the evils of that life abroad, that it is lost sight of who you belong to. In your own country everybody knows. If you put a friendly person, in the place of your flesh-and-blood, the whole country cries out; but among strangers, who thinks or cares? No, no, I was wrong there; I ask your pardon. In Scotland, or even in England, Sir Patrick Murray's relations would be as well known as the Queen's, but not abroad—that was his safeguard, and I forgot. Poor, silly old man!" Miss Margaret said, after a pause, with energy, "he was little to me. I have scarcely seen him all my days, and Lilias never at all."
It seemed to Lewis that in this, perhaps, there was some explanation and apology for the unfortunate position of affairs; but he was so glad to escape from further questions that he did not attempt to follow the subject further. They had by this time come round the other corner of the building, and he perceived that the two other ladies had not waited for Miss Margaret, but were already half-way along the broad and well-kept drive which led from the unfinished palace to the old house. The blue veil fluttering in advance caught his eye, and he said, more with the desire to divert his companion from the previous subject than out of any special interest in this,
"Your sister, whom I have not seen, is the youngest?"
Here Miss Margaret, with a little start, recalled herself to a recollection which had temporarily dropped from her mind. She fixed him with her eye.
"Yes, she is the youngest," she replied. And what of that? her tone seemed to say.
"I had made one of the ridiculous mistakes strangers make," he said, very conciliatory, his reason for this being, however, totally different from the one she attributed to him. "I had supposed—you will say I had no right to suppose anything, but one guesses and speculates in spite of one's self—I had supposed that Miss Lilias was the eldest, and in bad health; whereas by the glimpse I had she is——"
"Quite young," said Miss Margaret, taking the words out of his mouth—"that is, quite young in comparison with Jean and me: but not so strong perhaps as might be desired, and an anxious and careful charge to us. Are you staying long here?"
"That will depend upon—various matters," Lewis said. "It is your sister Miss Jean whom I have had the pleasure to see most. You will pardon me if I say to you that I find a great attraction in her society. It is presumptuous perhaps on my part, but it is thought right where I have been brought up that one should say this when it occurs, without delay, to the family——"
Miss Margaret looked at him with eyes of unfeigned astonishment.
"Say—what?" she asked, pausing to survey him once more. Was the young man out of his senses? she said to herself.
"I mean," said Lewis, with that smile with which he assured everybody that he was anxious to please them, "that in all other countries but England things are so. The head of the family is consulted first before a man will dare to speak to a lady; I understand it is not so here."
"And you mean to speak to me as the head of the family?" said Miss Margaret. "Well, perhaps you are not far wrong; but my sister Jean and I are equals—there is no superior between us. The only thing is, that being a sweet and submissive creature, a better woman than I will ever be, she leaves most things in my hands."
"That was my idea," Lewis said.
"And you wanted to speak to me of something that concerned Jean? Well, there could be to me no more interesting subject: though what a young man like you that might be her son, and a stranger, can have to say to me about Jean——"
Lewis paused. He had not considered how awful it was to confront the keen, inquiring eyes of the head of the family, who looked him, he thought, through and through, and who, if he submitted his over-candid countenance for long to her inspection, would probably end by reading everything that was in him both what he meant to show and what he wished to conceal.
"Perhaps," he said, "I am premature. What I would have said was to ask if—I may come again? What further I wish will remain till later. If Miss Murray will afford to me the happiness of coming, or recommending myself so far as I can——"
"You speak," said Miss Margaret, somewhat grimly, and with a laugh, "as if you were wanting to come wooing to our house. Now speak out, and tell me to whom. I'll allow there's good in your foreign notions, if you give me this warning; and I will warn you in your turn, my young friend."
"I hope you will pardon my ignorance, if I do wrong," said Lewis. "It is your sister, Miss Jean, whom I have seen most. I have not known before such a woman. There is to me a charm—which I cannot explain. If I might see her—if it might be permitted to me to recommend myself——"
Miss Margaret had been gazing at him with eyes of such astonishment that he was disconcerted by the look. He came to a somewhat confused pause, and stood silent before her, with something of the air of a culprit on his trial. Then she cried out suddenly, "Jean!" and burst into a resounding laugh, which seemed to roll forth over all the landscape, and return from the tops of the trees. There is no more crushing way of receiving such a suggestion. The young man stood before her, silent, his face flushed, his eyes cast down for the moment. At length, being a sanguine youth, and too entirely good-humoured himself to impute evil intentions to anyone, he began to recover. He looked up at her with a deprecating smile.
"I amuse you, it seems——" he said.
"Amuse me!" said Miss Margaret, with another peal of laughter; and then she dried her eyes, and recovered her composure. "Mr. Murray—if your name is Murray—" she said; "if you mean this for a joke—but I will not do you that injustice; I see you mean it in earnest. It is very unexpected. Do you think you have had time enough to consider whether this is a wise resolution? Do you remember that she is twice your age? No, no, I would not advise you to go that length," Miss Margaret said.
"The question is, if you will forbid me," said Lewis; "if you will say I must not come."
"Ay! And what would you do then?"
"I think," he said, with a little hesitation, "I should then adopt the English way. I should submit my cause to your sister herself. But then there would be no deception, you would know."
He met her with such an open look that Miss Margaret was disarmed.
"You are a strange young man," she said, "with a strange taste for a young man: but I think you're honest: or else you are a terrible deceiver—and, if your meaning is what you say, you have no motive, that I can see, to deceive."
"I have told you my motive," said Lewis. "I speak the truth."
She looked at him again with her searching eyes.
"Perhaps you think we are rich?" she said.
"I have heard, on the contrary, that——"
She waved her hand. It was not necessary that he should say poor.
"Perhaps you think—but I cannot attempt to fathom you," she said. "You are a very strange young man. Jean! have you considered that she's twice your age? I have no right to interfere. I will not forbid you the house. But she will never take you, or any like you; she has more sense," Miss Margaret cried.
To this Lewis only answered with a bow and a smile, in which perhaps there was something of the conqueror; for indeed it did not occur to him, as a contingency to be taken into consideration, that she might refuse him. They walked on together for some time in silence, for Miss Margaret was too much confused and excited to speak, and Lewis had no more to say to her, feeling that it was only justice to the sister he had chosen that she should have the first and the best of the plea. It might be ten minutes after, and they were in sight of the old house, within which the two figures before them had disappeared, when Miss Margaret suddenly stopped short, and turned upon him with a very serious and indeed threatening countenance.
"Young man," she said, in a low and passionate voice, "if you should prove to be making a mask of my sister for other designs, if it should be putting forward one to veil a deeper design upon another, then look you to yourself—for I'll neither forgive you, nor let you slip out of my hands."
Lewis met this unexpected address with sincere astonishment.
"Pardon me, but I do not know what deeper design I could have. What is it that I could do to make you angry?" he said.
She looked at him once more from head to foot, as if his shoes or the cut of his coat (which was somewhat foreign) could have enlightened her as to his real motives: and then she said,
"I will take upon me to give you useful information. In the mornings I am mostly occupied. You will find my sister Jean by herself before one o'clock, and nobody to interfere."