But Mrs. Stormont's visit was far from being destitute of results. It caused a great many discussions and much agitation at Murkley, where Lilias was in the greatest commotion all the evening, and could scarcely sleep the whole night through. If it was not necessary, as Mrs. Stormont had hinted, to be absolutely in a state of innocence, unacquainted with all balls and parties, and every sort of dissipation, before the Queen would admit you to the drawing-room, why then, oh! why might not she go to Philip's ball?
"I was sure the Queen would never mind," Lilias said. "If it was for nothing else, she is far too kind; unless she was obliged for etiquette; and if she is not obliged——"
"Oh, my dear, the Queen is the fountain-head—how could she be obliged? She is never obliged to do this or that. Whatever she does, that is the right thing," cried Jean, shocked by the girl's bold words. Margaret was quite as loyal, but not quite so confident. She shook her head.
"There is nobody that has a greater respect for her Majesty than me; but, nevertheless, I cannot but think there are things she has to make a point of just for the sake of good order. Mrs. Stormont is no judge—she is not in the position; her Majesty would be little likely to take any trouble about small gentry of that kind; but the Murrays are not small gentry, and your mother was Lady Lilias Abernethy—that makes all the difference. You would be inquired about where an ordinary person would not, and there's an interest about a motherless girl. The Queen, who, they say, forgets nothing, will remember your mother, and that you never had that advantage; her heart will be sore for you, poor thing: and if it comes to her ears that Lilias Murray has been seen by everybody dancing at all the small country balls and dances——"
"Now, Margaret!" cried Lilias, jumping to her feet, "how could the Queen hear that, when it would be only one, only one at the most?"
"One would be just the beginning," said Miss Margaret. "When you had been to Mrs. Stormont's ball (for it is nonsense to call it Philip's), everybody else that was going to give a dance would be after you, and they would say, with reason, if she went to Stormonts, you cannot refuse to let her come to me; or else if you go to no other place, worse will be said, and it will go through the country that there is Some Reason why you should go there and nowhere else."
"Some reason!—but what reason could there be?" cried Lilias, appalled by this solemnity, and, in spite of herself, growing pale.
"They would invent some story or other," said her sister. "You see, there is nothing stands by itself in this world—one thing is always connected with another, so that ye can never just do a simple action without taking into account what comes after and what has gone before."
Miss Margaret enunciated this alarming doctrine in the evening, with the light of the lamp falling upon her face and the widespread whiteness of her newspaper, and showing against the dark background the scared looks of her two companions, one of whom listened with a gasp of alarm, while the other made a mild remonstrance.
"Margaret! you will frighten the poor thing out of her life."
"Is it true, or is it not true?" said Margaret. "You have lived long enough, Jean, to know. There is always," she added, with a little sense of success which is seductive, "a little of the next morning and the night before in every day."
Now Lilias had a lively mind, and, though she had been struck by the first statement, this repetition took away her alarm. Her reverential attitude towards her sisters prevented her from making any demonstration, but she was no longer cowed.
"To be sure," she said, "in a ball you are asked ever so long before, and it is sure to last till next morning. I see now what you mean."
"Oh, if that is all," said Jean, relieved.
"Whether that is all or not, it is time for bed," Miss Margaret said, which is always a good way of evading an argument with a young person. But she was somewhat severe upon her sister when they were left alone. "Do you not see," she said, "that all this is just to get Lilias for that long-leggit lad of hers? If it had been any other person I would have consented at once; but Philip Stormont! It would be like falling into a man-trap just outside your own gate."
"But you were just the same, Margaret—I'm not blaming you, for I am sure you have your reasons—about the little bits of tea-parties at the manse that could harm nobody."
"And where there was just the same danger," said Margaret. "Not that I would have any fear of Philip Stormont if there were others to compare with him; but, where there's nobody else, any young man would be dangerous. I want her when she goes from here to be fancy free."
"But there will be plenty to compare with him; there will be the best in the county—for Mrs. Stormont is much respected," said Jean. "And even at the manse, you forgot, Margaret, there was that young Mr. Murray."
"The lad that plays the music," said Miss Margaret, with a smile. "I would not hurt your feelings, Jean: but a young man that has nothing better to do than play the piano——"
"Oh, Margaret!" Miss Jean said.
She was wounded by so much ignorance and prejudice. She went away softly, and lighted her candle with a sort of quiet dejection, shaking her head. A young man that had such a gift! Yet Margaret, though she scoffed at Philip as a long-leggit lad, thought more of him than of the young musician. Her own profound respect for Margaret's superior judgment made it all the harder to bear. And Miss Jean was aware that Margaret expressed the general sentiment, and that there was nobody about who would not esteem the quality of him whose highest gift was to stand up to his waist in the water catching trout, far above that of the man who drew her very soul out of her breast with such strains as she had never heard before. She could not argue in favour of the more heavenly accomplishment. How could she speak of it even, to those who were insensible to it, and Margaret, who was so much cleverer than she was? The sense of helplessness and inability to explain herself, yet of a certain humble, natural superiority, and happiness in her own understanding, filled her mind.
Margaret, whose heart had smote her for wounding her sister, stopped her as she was going out, candle in hand.
"You must just set it down to my ignorance, if I have vexed you, Jean; and you will remember that I was ill enough pleased to see your friend (as we know nothing about him) in the company of Lilias the other day; so I'm meaning no disrespect to him."
"He is not my friend, Margaret—any more than yours, or any person's," said Jean, with gentle deprecation.
"I will not allow that," said Margaret, with a smile.
It was something of an uneasy smile, between ridicule and indignation, but Jean had not the smallest conception what its meaning was. She went upstairs with her candle somewhat consoled, but yet feeling that her favourite had scant justice, and grieved that Margaret, and even Lilias, should be incapable of the pleasure which was to herself so great. Both so much more clever than she was, and yet indifferent to, almost contemptuous of, music! Miss Jean shook her head as she went up the dark oak staircase with the candle, and her shadow stalking behind her, twice as large as she, nodded its head too, with a dislocated bend, upon the darkness of the panelled walls.
Next morning, however, Margaret astonished them all by a decision which went entirely against all the arguments of the night.
"I have been thinking," she said, as they sat at breakfast. "There are a great many things to be taken into account. You see, it is in our own parish, at our very doors. The horse-ferry is troublesome, but still it is a thing that is in use both day and night, and there is no danger in it."
"Oh, no danger!" cried Jean, who divined what was coming.
"It was you I was thinking of, to make your mind easy; for you are the timorous one," Miss Margaret said. "Lilias there, with her eyes leaping out of her head, would wade the water rather than stay at home, and, for my part, I'm seldom afraid. So it's satisfactory, you think; there's no danger, Jean? Well! and, for another thing, if we were to refuse, it might be thought there was a reason for it. That's very likely what would be said. That there was an Inclination, or something that you and me, Jean, had occasion to fear."
"It would never do to give anybody a chance of saying that, Margaret," said Jean, with dismay.
"That is what I have been thinking," Miss Margaret said.
And then Lilias jumped from her chair again, with impatience and wild excitement.
"Oh, will you speak English, Margaret, or Scots, or something that one can understand! What do you mean about Reasons and Inclinations? Is it philosophy you are talking—or is it something about the ball?"
"You are a silly thing with your balls. You don't know your steps even. You have never had any lessons since you were twelve. I am not going to a ball with a girl that will do me no credit."
"Me—not know my steps! And, if I didn't, Katie would teach me. Oh, Margaret! will I go after all?"
And Lilias flung herself upon her sister's neck, and spilt Miss Margaret's tea in the enthusiasm of her embrace. The tea was hot, and a much less offence would have been almost capital from any other sinner; but when Margaret felt the girl's soft arms about her neck, and received her kiss of enthusiasm, her attempt at fault-finding was very feeble.
"Bless me, child, mind, I have on a clean collar. And you'll ruin my gown: a purple gown with tea spilt upon it! Is that a way of thanking me, to spoil my good clothes? There will be all the more need to take care of them, for you'll want a new frock, and all kinds of nonsense. Sit down—sit down, and eat your egg like a natural creature. And, Jean, you must just give me another cup of tea."
"I will do that, Margaret; and, as for the dress, it will be better to write about it at once——"
"The dress is not all; there will be shoes, and gloves, and flowers, and fans, and every kind of thing. If you had waited till the right time, we would have been in London, where it is easy to fit out a princess; but I must just write to Edinburgh."
"She is a kind of a princess in her way," said Miss Jean, looking fondly at the young heroine.
Lilias was touched by all these tender glances, though she felt them to be natural.
"I only want a white frock," she said, with humility. "I want to go for fun, not for finery."
Miss Jean nodded her head with approval.
"But there is your position that we must not forget," she said.
"You are too innocent," said Miss Margaret, "you don't know the meaning of words. You shall just have a white frock. What do you think you could wear else?—black velvet, perhaps, because of your position, as Jean says? But there are different kinds of white frocks. One kind like Katie Seton's, which is very suitable to her father's daughter, and another—for Lilias Murray of Murkley. You may trust that to me. But it's a fortnight off, this grand ball, and if I hear another word about it betwixt this and then, or find it getting into your head when you should be thinking of Queen Elizabeth——"
"I will think of nothing but Queen Elizabeth," cried Lilias, clasping her hands with all the fervour of a confession of faith. And she kept her word. But, nevertheless, when Miss Jean was taking her little stroll in the Ghost's Walk, in the hush of noon, when studies were over and Margaret busy with her account-books, she felt a sudden waft of air and movement, a soft breeze of youth blowing, an arm wound round her waist.
"Oh! Jean," cried a soft voice in her ear, "will it come true?"
"My darling, why should it not come true? It is just the most natural thing in the world. I am never myself against a little pleasure; but Margaret has always," said Miss Jean, with a little solemnity, "your interest at heart."
"And you too, Jean—and you too."
"But I am silly," said Miss Jean. "I would not have the heart to go against whatever you wanted. I am just a weak-minded creature. The moment you wish for anything, that is just enough for me. But you have a great deal of sense, Lilias, and you can see that would never do. Now Margaret takes everything into consideration, and she has the true love to deny you when it is needful—that is true love," Jean said, with moisture in her eyes.
Lilias, who was responsive to every touch of emotion, acknowledged this with such enthusiasm as delighted her sister.
"But it is far nicer when she is not always thinking of my best interests. It is delightful to be going!" she cried. "You have been at a hundred balls, and you know how to behave. Tell me what I am to do."
This appeal was embarrassing to Miss Jean, who, indeed, had not been at a ball for a great many years, and understood that things were greatly changed since her day. For one thing, waltzes were looked but coldly on in those past times, and now she understood they were all the vogue. Jean was far too delicate in mind to suggest to her little sister that the waltz had been considered indelicate in her own day. It was the fashion now, and to put such a thought into a young creature's head, she said to herself, was what nobody should do. But she said, with a little faltering,
"What you are to do? But, Lilias, it is very hard to answer that. The gentlemen will come and ask you to dance, and all you have to do is just to——"
"To choose," said Lilias. "I know as much as that."
"Yes," said Jean, a little doubtfully, "I suppose you may say you have to choose; but you would not like to hurt a gentleman's feelings by giving him a refusal. I don't think that is ever done, my dear. You will just make them a curtsey and give them a smile, and they will write down their name upon a card."
"What! everybody that asks?" cried Lilias, "whether I like them or not?" and her face clouded over. "There will be sure to be some that are disagreeable, and there are some, Katie says, that cannot dance. Will I be obliged to curtsey to them, and smile too? But I will not do it," Lilias said, with a pout. "I do not see the good of going to a ball if it is like that."
"It is not just perfection, no more than other things," said Jean; "but most of the young men will, no doubt, be very nice, and you would not like to hurt their feelings."
Upon this Lilias pondered for some moments, with a countenance somewhat overcast.
"It is always said that a lady has to choose," she said; "but if it is only to say yes whoever asks you——"
Jean shook her head. She could not resist the chance of a little moralizing.
"My dear," she said, "with the most of women, I'm sorry, sorry to say it, it comes to very little more."
Lilias looked at her old sister with keen, unbelieving eyes. She ran over in her mind, in spite of herself, all that is said of old maids in books, and even in such simple talk as she had heard; her mind revolted against it, yet she could not forget it. She wondered in her heart whether this might account for so strange a version of the prerogative of women. She did not believe Jean's report. She raised her fair head in the air with a little fling of pride and power. She was not disposed to give up that stronghold of feminine imagination. A girl must have something to believe in to make her confront with composure the position that is allotted to her. If she is to give up all active power of choice, she must at least have faith that the passive one, the privilege of refusal, is still to be hers. She thought that Jean, in her old maidenhood, in her sense, perhaps, of failure or inacquaintance with the ways of more fortunate women, must be mistaken in her judgment. That she herself, Lilias, should have no greater lot in the world than to sit and smile, and accept whatever might be offered to her, was a conception too humbling. She smiled, not believing it. Jean was good, she was unspotted from the world, but perhaps her very excellence made her slow of understanding. Lilias concluded her thoughts on the subject by giving her old sister a compassionate, caressing look.
"It is you that never would hurt anybody's feelings," she said. But she did not ask any more questions. She concluded that it would be better, perhaps, on the whole, to trust to instinct and her own perception of the circumstances as they occurred. And then there was always Katie to fall back upon—a young person of much more immediate experience and practical knowledge than could be expected from Jean.
Miss Jean was conscious on her side that she had not satisfied the girl's curiosity, or given the right answer—the answer that was expected of her—and this troubled her much; for she said to herself, "Where is she to get understanding if not from Margaret or me?" Her first idea was to refer Lilias with humility to Margaret, but in this she paused, reflecting that Margaret had never "troubled her head" with such matters, that she had always been a masterful woman that took her own way, and preferred the management of the house and the estate to any sort of traffic with gentlemen or other frivolous persons. Margaret, then, perhaps, after all, would in this respect be a less qualified guide than herself, though it was a long time since she had entered into anything of the kind. And Jean, besides her tremulous eagerness to direct Lilias so that as much of the pleasure and as little of the pains that are involved in life should come to her as possibly could be, was not without a natural desire to teach and convey the fruits of her experience into another mind. She walked along in silence for a short time, and then she resumed the broken thread of her discourse.
"My dear," she said, "you may think my ways of knowing are small: and that is true, for Margaret and me have had none of the experiences of married women, or of the manners of men, and the commerce of the world. But you always learn something just by looking on at life, and, indeed, they say that the spectators sometimes see the game better than those who are playing at it. But there is just the danger, you know, that when we say what we've seen, it may be discouraging to a young creature who is just upon the beginning of life, and thinks all the world (which is natural) at her feet."
"I am sure," said Lilias, half offended, "I don't think all the world at my feet."
"When I was like you," said Jean, "I thought it was all before me to pick and choose, but you see that little has come of it: and many a girl has thought like me. It is very difficult not to think so when you start out upon the road with everything flattering, and the sun shining, and the heart in your bosom just as lightsome as a bird."
"Am I like that?" said Lilias, half to herself, and a conscious smile came upon her face. She was conscious of herself for the moment, of the lightness with which she was walking, the ease, the freedom, the easily-diverted mind, the happy constitution of everything. She had no thought of own beauty, or any special excellence in herself, for her mind had been rather directed to the wholesome consideration of her defects than of her advantages; but as she walked there, all young and light by her elderly sister's side, for the first time that conscious possession of the world and heirship of all that was in it became apparent to her. She felt like a young queen; everything in it was hers to possess, all the beauty of it and the pleasure—indeed, it was all in her, in the power she had to enjoy, to see, and hear, and admire, and love: her young fresh faculties all at their keenest—these were her kingdom. She could not help feeling it. It came over her in a sudden rush of sweetness and perception.
"Perhaps it is so—I never thought of it before," she said.
"Ah, but it is so, Lilias; and I hope, my darling, you will have your day, and get the good of it; none of us have more than our day. It is not a thing that will last."
To this Lilias answered only with a smile. She was not afraid either of not having her day, or that it would not last. She required to look forward to no future. The present to her was endless; it extended into the light on either hand. It was as good as an eternity. She smiled, confident, in the face of Fate. Jean walking beside her with her faded sweetness and no expectation any longer in her life, did not effect in the smallest degree the mind of her younger sister. Jean was Jean, and Lilias Lilias. How the one could develop out of the other, how the warm stream of living in herself could ever fall low and faint, and trickle in a quiet stream like that of her sister, she was all unable to understand. She smiled at the impossibility as it presented itself to her, but neither of that, nor of any failure in her opportunities of enjoyment, had she any fear.