The only thing which had shaken Lilias in the virginal calm of her thoughts was the example of little Katie Seton, a younger girl than herself, and whose system of education had been so different. While Lilias had been kept under the wing of her sisters, apart from any encounter, Katie had been introduced to everything their little world contained of wild sensation and adventure. She had entered upon the agitations of love-making almost as soon as she was in her teens, and her sixteenth birthday was scarcely past when she appeared one afternoon, as Lilias put away her books, evidently in all the excitement of some great news to communicate, which Miss Margaret's presence kept in, though Katie was bursting with it. Miss Margaret, as was natural, stayed in the school-room, which was still the special haunt of Lilias, much longer than was usual. It was a rainy day, and no walk was possible. Is it from perversity and desire to interfere with the pleasures of the young—pleasures now out of their own reach—that the elder people will linger and keep girls and boys on the rack when they have things to say to each other not intended for elder ears? Katie thought so as she sat biting her lips, hardly able to keep still, brimming over with her news; and Lilias, who divined that there was something unusual, almost was tempted to think so too, as Miss Margaret considered over the book-shelves, looking for she did not know what, and opened all the drawers to find an old exercise-book which was of no interest at the moment.
"Oh! if you will just leave it to me, I will find it, Margaret," Lilias cried.
"You would find it the easier for knowing what it is," said Margaret, grimly, "which is almost more than I do myself. I will know it by head-mark when I see it."
"Let me turn out the drawer," cried Katie, officiously.
Miss Margaret looked at the girl with humorous perversity.
"What nonsense are you plotting between you?" she said. "Katie, your eyes are just leaping out of your head, and you have not been still a moment since you came into this room, every flounce in motion——"
"Could anybody help it?" cried Katie. "Such a day!—and me just wanting Lilias to come out and see the garden. The lilacs are all out, and everything so sweet: and now this pouring rain will spoil them all. I am just like to cry," said Katie, the corners of her mouth drooping. But Miss Margaret knew very well it was not for the lilacs or the rain, but for excitement and impatience, that Katie was like to cry.
"Well, well," she said, "I suppose you must have your bits of secrets at your age; there will be no great harm in them. I will find my book another time. But mind you don't stay too long in this room, which is cold when there is no sun, but come into the drawing-room to your tea. You will find me there, and Jean—and sense," said Miss Margaret, with her back turned to them, calmly selecting a book from the shelves—"if you should happen to stand in any need of that last——"
"Oh, no, no!" cried Katie, when at last Miss Margaret went away, running to shut the door after her, and make sure at least of being alone with her friend, "we stand in no need of that. Oh, Lilias!" she said, rushing up to her companion and flinging her arms round her with such vehemence that the slight girl swayed with the sudden shock.
"What is it, Katie!" Lilias cried. "What is it? Tell me, but do not knock me down."
"Oh, it is you that are sense," cried Katie, with a sort of fury, pushing her friend into the big chair, and falling down herself at the side of it, with her arms on Lilias' knee. There was a degree of violence in these preliminaries; for Katie, though full of a woman's secret, was still half girl, half boy in her early development, as the sister of many brothers is apt to be. Lilias, so much more delicate and dainty, took hold of the hands which had numberless scratches upon them, nails cut to the quick, and other indications of having been put to boyish uses, and held them in her own white fingers closely clasped.
"I am as anxious to hear as you are to tell," she said. "Quick, quick, tell me! What is the matter? Have they sent him away?"
"Oh, Lily! Something far more wonderful. There is no knowing what they may do. They will do something dreadful—they will do anything to part us. Oh, Lily! you'll never, never tell anybody, not even Miss Jean—not a word! I'll never, never speak to you all my life, if you tell upon me now!"
"I tell upon you! Did I ever tell upon you?" said Lilias, indignant. "That about Robbie Bairnsfather was found out. It was never me."
"I know you will not tell," said Katie. "You are just my own Lily. You will never say a word. Lilias! I'm——oh, can't you guess? We are—engaged—It is quite true. Look," the girl cried, with a glowing countenance, opening a button of her boddice and drawing forth from under it a little ring, attached to a ribbon. Her hand trembled, though it was the hand of a tom-boy. Her face shone; tears were in the eyes which were, as Miss Margaret said, "leaping out of her head."
"Engaged!" cried Lilias. "Oh, you gave me such a fright. When I saw the ring, I thought you were going to say you were—married. Let me get my breath."
"Married!" Katie said, with a certain contempt. To be married would be the prose of the transaction. She felt herself upon a higher, more ethereal altitude. "That would be nothing," she said. "There would be no secret then. Oh, Lily, isn't it wonderful? This is a ring that is his very own, that an old lady gave him when he was a boy. Look at it! It's all turquoise, and turquoise means happiness. He put it on my finger, but I dare not wear it on my finger, for mamma would be sure to notice. She notices everything. Old people," said Katie, aggrieved, "pretend to wear spectacles, and all that, as if they couldn't see: but nothing escapes them! I can't put a pin in my collar, but mamma will see it. 'Katie, Katie!' she always says; and I know in a moment what it is. Oh, but she would say, 'Katie, Katie!' twice as loud, if she saw this! So I wear it round my neck: but I may put it on here," Katie said. "Look, Lilias! Isn't it bonnie? I always wanted a ring, but I never thought I would get the engaged ring the very first of all."
There was a little triumph in Katie's tone. Not only was Lilias far, very far, from being the proud possessor of an "engaged" ring, but she had scarcely been allowed "to speak to a gentleman"—a thing Mrs. Seton thought the worst policy—in all her life.
"But never mind the ring. Tell me about—what happened," said Lilias. "You have not even told me who it is."
"Oh!" cried Katie, red with indignation, "who could it be but him? I am sure I have never said a word, or even thought of anybody but him for—for ages," she added, with a little vagueness, sinking from the assumed superiority of her former tone.
"Well, dear," said Lilias, soothingly, "but then, you know, there was Mr. Dunlop."
"I never cared a bit about him. He was only just in the way. You have to let a gentleman speak to you when he is in your way."
"I suppose so," said Lilias, with a faint sigh. Such an experience had never happened to herself. "But how was I to know? And it is not very long since—but it is Philip? Oh, yes, I supposed so all along, especially as it is such a secret. If it had been Mr. Dunlop it would have been no secret—or Robbie—or—"
"I wish you would not speak such nonsense. I never, never thought—it was only just for fun. I never in all my life cared for anybody but him! Oh, never; you may say what you please, but it's only me that can know."
"That is true," said Lilias, with gentle conviction. "But tell me how it happened, and when—and what he said, and what you said. It will be like a story, but only far, far more interesting," Lilias said.
"It was not like a story at all," said Katie, with some indignation. "Am I that kind of person? We just happened to meet down by the waterside. Oh yes, I am fond of walking there; and the boys were after a water-rat, as they always are, and the little girls were somewhere—I am sure I never can tell where they go. Mamma scolds me when they tear their frocks, but is it likely I can run into all their hiding holes with them at my age?"
"And then?" said Lilias, conducting her penitent skilfully over this obstacle.
"And then—oh, well, nothing particular. He happens often to be that way himself. It is the prettiest walk. I was rather glad to see him coming; for, you know, neither the boys nor the girls are just companions for me. And then I asked him when he was going away, and he said would I be sorry? and I said, oh yes, I would be sorry; for he was always somebody to speak to. And he said, was that all? And I said, oh, you know that we danced the same step, and that was always nice. And then he said—oh, just nonsense; that I was always nice, or something like that; and then he said he would never go away, if he could help it. And I said, what was he going for, then? And he said, because he was too fond of somebody that never thought upon him. Of course I knew well enough what he meant, but I pretended to be very sorry, and said, who could that be?"
Katie made a very pretty picture as she told her story. She was leaning her elbows on Lilias' lap, and playing with the long chain which Lilias, after the fashion of the time, wore to her watch, and which was the object of Katie's warmest admiration. She was twisting this in her fingers, tying knots in it, occupying her eyes with it, and escaping her friend's gaze, though she sometimes paused for a moment and gave a glance upward. Her little blooming face was in a glow of colour and excitement, ready to laugh, ready to cry. As for Lilias, she was full of attention, bending forward, her face following every variation of her friend's.
"But," Lilias said, "I thought it was not he that wanted to go away, but Mrs. Stormont that was sending him."
"Oh," cried Katie, "I wish you would not insist upon everything like a printed book. I am telling you what he said—I was never saying it was all true. They never tell exactly the truth," Katie interrupted herself to say, with conviction. "There is always a little more—or just a little twist to make you believe——But you can understand that, if you have any sense. I said—who could that be? and he said, 'Oh, Katie!' just like mamma."
"And then?" cried Lilias, breathless.
"Oh, there was nothing particular then," said Katie, all one blush, "but just nonsense, you know; and fancy, he had been carrying this about all the time, always wanting to give it to me! He just put it on, and then we were engaged," Katie said.
"Oh, Katie, what a terrible thing to happen! And then did you just go home as usual, and never say a word?"
"What could I say? I would not tell mamma for all the world. She would want to make a business of it, and tell Mrs. Stormont, and get it all settled. She would want us to be married; but I don't want to be married—I want to have my fun."
"Oh, Katie!"
"Everybody says 'Oh, Katie!'" said the girl, plaintively; "but that does not make any difference. It is not dreadful at all—it is very nice. I belong to him, and he belongs to me; he tells me everything, and I tell him everything. But we don't want to make a fuss; we are quite happy as we are. Mrs. Stormont would just go daft, you know. She knows quite well that is what it is coming to—oh, I can see it in her eyes! I think she would like to send me to prison, if she could, to get me out of Philip's way."
"But, Katie, if you think that——"
"Oh, it does not make any difference to me; perhaps I would do the same myself. There's our Robbie, if he wanted to be married, I would think he was mad, and mamma would be—I don't know what mamma wouldn't do. I suppose it's natural. Everybody wants their own people to do well for themselves, and I have no money, not a penny. Mrs. Stormont would have been quite pleased, Lilias, if it had been you."
"Me!" said Lilias, with a blush, but a slight erection of her head; she laughed to carry off the slight shock of offence. "But that would not have done at all," she said.
"Oh, no, it is just the same thing; you are too good, and I'm not good enough. If it had been you, Miss Margaret would have tried to have him sent to prison; and perhaps, when there is somebody found grand enough for you, Lilias, his folk will not be pleased. That is always the way," said the shrewd Katie, shaking her head; "but it happens, all the same. Isn't it bonnie?" she added, returning to the former subject, and holding up her hand with the ring on it. "Turquoise is the right thing for an engaged ring; but, when your one comes, never let him give you an opal, Lilias—that is such bad luck."
"Oh! if anyone were to come—as you say: I should think of something else than rings," Lilias said, and blushed at the thought. It seemed to her a little breach of modesty even to speak of any such incident. When, in the fulness of time, it came, with a strange and wonderful event! but not to be profaned by anticipation. Her heart gave a throb, then left the subject in silence. "But it will have to be known some time," she said.
Katie shrugged her little shoulders.
"It will not be through me," she said. "They say a girl can't keep a secret, but just you try me. He can do what he likes, but I will never tell—never, not if I were to be put on the rack."
"But, Katie, do you think it is right? To live at home and see your father and mother every day, and not tell them—you could not do it!"
"Just you try me," said Katie. "Do you think in the persecuting days I would have told where they were hidden—or Prince Charlie?" cried the girl, with pardonable confusion. "Never!—I would never have minded either the thumbscrew or the boot."
"But I don't think this is the same," said Lilias, doubtfully. "You will be always seeing him, meeting him, and they will not know; and you will have secrets, and he will tell you things, and you will tell him things, and yet at home they will not know."
"That is just the fun of it," Katie cried.
"Oh, I cannot see any fun in that. And it will be so difficult; you will forget, you will say something when you do not intend——"
"Not me," cried Katie. "I hope I have my wits about me. I will never betray him; whoever is not true, I will always be true."
Lilias was somewhat staggered by this view of the subject, but she was not convinced. She shook her head.
"I could not do it," she said.
"Oh, you! No, you could not do it; but then you could not do any of it," cried Katie. "You have been brought up by old maids; you are never let speak to a gentleman at all; it never could happen to you," she cried, with a little triumph.
And Lilias, for her part, had to allow to herself, with a certain sense of humiliation, that Katie was right. It never would happen to her. No Orlando would ever be able to hang verses on the trees at Murkley, even no Philip meet her out walking by the river-side, and woo her in Katie's artless way. She wondered how it ever could be permitted to happen at all—or would it never happen, and she herself live and die without any other experience, like Jean and Margaret? Her heart fluttered in her maiden bosom with the strangeness of the question. She did not believe in the depths of her heart that it never could happen. In some miraculous way, as it happened to the ladies of romance, it would come to her. But it would be very different from Katie's story—everything about it would be different. The news roused her mind and affected her dreams in spite of herself. That night, in her maiden sleep, never interrupted heretofore by such visions, she dreamed that some one took her hand and put a ring upon it—a big blob of blue, far bigger than Katie's turquoise, which changed as she looked at it into the strange changing tints of an opal. She thought it very strange that she should dream of this just after Katie's disquisition on the subject. The two things did not present themselves to Lilias' mind under the semblance of cause and effect. But it vexed her that she could not in the least make out who it was that put the ring upon her hand. She was not destitute of jewellery as Katie was, though Miss Margaret discouraged ornaments; but she had neither a turquoise nor an opal in her stones.
And there were other ways in which Katie's story affected Lilias. She could not help thinking of the meetings of the lovers. She had herself gone sometimes when she was younger, with Katie to the walk by the water-side, when the boys went after water-rats or rabbits, and the little girls made "little housies" in the sand of the old quarry. In those days Lilias and Katie strolled up and down, superior to the children, talking of a hundred things. Lilias knew how it would all be. She went out herself into the Ghost's Walk, where it was always permitted her to walk when she pleased, and thought wistfully, with a little sigh, of the water-side and all its freedom, the children busy, their voices softened in the distance, and the two in the centre of the landscape, whose whispering would be—something different. What it would be, Lilias did not know. In the very secretest corner of her imagination little broken dialogues had gone on between herself and—another. But they had been too secret, too vague even to come into the legitimate and acknowledged land of visions in which the old Australian cousin had played so large a part. Katie's story dismissed that benevolent old man with his full purse from Lilias' imagination, and brought those far less perfect germs of dreaming into prominence instead.
The sunset was still blazing over the river, when it was already twilight in the Ghost's Walk, which lay on the other side of the house, and saw no sunshine later than noon. Lilias paced about under the silken foliage of the limes in the still air, which was full of dreams, and felt herself left outside of life, looking at it from a distance with a visionary pensive sadness. There was something in the air, the subdued light, the sense of evening all about, which chimed in with this mood. It was curious to think of Katie, so much younger than herself, enjoying everything, the flush of youthful sunshine, while she was thus left out. But Lilias felt at the same time a certain gentle superiority, the elevation of the pensive vestal, in delicate solitude and retirement, over the common ways of the world. She walked about in a soft dream, with a sigh, yet with a sensation of gentle grandeur which made up for and was enhanced by the sadness. As she paused under the great old lime-tree which was in the centre of the walk, the soft sounds which distinguished the family spectre were very audible. She knew the story of that gentle lady who had died for love. None of the Murrays were afraid of her. To have seen her would have been a distinction—they had heard her from generation to generation. There was even a tradition in the family that one time or other, when the wedded mistress of the house should be at the same time a daughter of the house, a Murray born, the lady of the walk would appear to her, and pace by her side, and tell her something that would be well for the race.
Lilias paused, and looked about her with pride, and tenderness, and a thrill of anticipation. She had thought often that she herself might be that destined lady; but the thought had never moved her as now. It awoke a little tumult in her bosom as she stood there in the subdued evening air full of the recollection of the love-tale that had been told her. Margaret and Jean walked in the Ghost's Walk without any such movements or beatings of the heart. Lilias felt a great awe come over her as she stood and listened. If ever these soft steps that had paced about under the limes for two hundred years should turn aside from their habitual walk, and the air above them shape into a vision, what wonderful events must happen first? She stood silent, almost without breathing for a moment, and then she drew the skirt of her dress over her arm, and fled into the house as if something had been pursuing her. It was not that she was afraid of any ghostly appearance; but she was afraid of the rustling of the wings of the coming years, and of the events that were approaching her through the silence, the things that were to shape her life. What were they?—perhaps patience, perhaps sorrow, such as women so often have to dwell with. Perhaps, who could tell, Love, the unknown, the greatest of all. She fled from them and the thought of them, whatever they might be.