The house of Gowanbrae was not an old historical house, like the castle of Murkley. It had no associations ranging back into the mists. It was half a cottage, half a country mansion-house, built upon a slope, so that the house was one story higher on one side than on the other. The ground descended from the back to a wooded dell, in which ran a sparkling, noisy burn, like a cottage girl, always busy, singing about its work as it trickled over its pebbles. The view from the higher windows commanded a great sweep of country, long moorlands and pastures, with here and there a comfortable farm-steading, and a group of carefully cultivated fields. The noble Tay sweeping down into its estuary was not more unlike the burn than this modest, cosy villa was unlike the old ancestral house, with its black wainscot and deep walls. The grandfather of Margaret and Jean had built it with his Indian money when he came back after a lifetime of service in the East—hard, and long, and unbroken, such as used to be, when a man would not see his native country or belongings for twenty years at a stretch. This old officer's daughter had not been a sufficient match for the heir of Murkley, but it was a fortunate circumstance afterwards for Margaret and Jean that their mother's little property was settled upon them. Everything in the house was bright but homely. It had always been delightful to Lilias, to whom Gowanbrae meant all the freedom of childhood, open air, and rural life. She was not the lady or princess there, and even Margaret acknowledged the relaxation of state which this made possible. But when the little family travelled thither on this occasion, the charm of the old life was a little broken. Not a word had been said to Lilias of Lewis' proceedings. She was told drily in Jean's presence by Miss Margaret, who gave her sister a severe look of warning, that Mr. Murray had called to say good-bye, but that it had not been thought necessary to call her.
"You have seen but little of him," Margaret said.
Lilias did not make any remark. She did not think it necessary to tell how much she had seen of Lewis, and, to tell the truth, she did not think it certain that an opportunity of saying good-bye to him personally would not be afforded to her. But, as a matter-of-fact, there was no further meeting between the two, and Lilias left Murkley with a little surprise, and not without a little pique, that he should have made no attempt to take his leave of her. She had various agitating scenes with Katie to make up for it, and on the other hand an anxious visit from Mrs. Stormont, full of excitement and indignation.
"What can take Margaret away at this moment? it is just extraordinary," that lady said, in the stress of her disappointment. "For I cannot suppose, Jean, my dear, that you have anything to do with it. Dear me, can she not let well alone? Where could you be better than at Murkley?"
"We are both fond of our own house," Jean said, with gentle self-assertion.
"Bless me!" cried Mrs. Stormont, "are you not just the same as in your own house? I am sure, though it belongs to Lilias, that Margaret is mistress and more."
"—And Lilias is fain, fain to get to Gowanbrae. She was always fond of the place—and we think her looking white, and that a change will do her good."
"Oh! I am very well aware Margaret will never want for reasons for what she does," cried the indignant mother.
Meanwhile Katie was sobbing on Lilias' shoulder. "He says he will go away. He says he cannot face it, his mother will just drive him out of his senses; and what is to become of me with nobody to speak to?" Katie cried.
"Oh! Katie, cannot you just wait awhile?—you are younger than I am," said Lilias, in desperation.
"And when I think that we might just have been going on as happy as ever, if it had not been you forsaking us!" cried Katie.
Lilias was too magnanimous to defend herself. She treated the departure as a great ordinance of Nature against which there was not a word to be said. But when the last evening passed, and nowhere in park or wood did there appear any trace of the figure which had grown so familiar to her, to say a word or look a look, it cannot be denied that a certain disappointment mingled with the surprise in Lilias' heart. She could not understand it. Though Margaret thought they had seen so little of each other, there had been, indeed, a good deal of intercourse. Lilias was very sure it had always been accidental intercourse, but still they had met, and talked, and exchanged a great many opinions, and that he should not have felt any desire to see her again was a bewilderment to the girl. She did not say a syllable on the subject, by which even Miss Jean concluded that it was of no importance to her, but, as in most similar cases, Lilias thought the more. She looked out with a little anxiety as her sisters and she drove to the station in their little brougham. They passed on the road the rough, country gig which belonged to the "Murkley Arms," which Adam was driving in the same direction.
"Are you leaving the country too, Adam?—all the good folk are going away," Miss Margaret said, as they passed.
"It's no me, mem, it's our gentleman. He's away twa-three days ago, and this is just his luggitch," said Adam.
"Dear me, when the season's just begun!"
"The season is of awfu' little importance to a gentleman that is nae hand at the fishing, nor at naething I ken of, except making scarts upon a paper," said Adam, contemptuously. He was left speaking like the orators in Parliament, and only half of this sentence reached the ears of the ladies as they drove on. This was all Lilias heard of the young man who had been the first stranger with whom she had ever formed any friendship: which was the light in which she thought she regarded him. She had never talked so much to anyone who was not connected with her by some tie of relationship or old connection, and that very fact had added freshness and reality to their intercourse. It had been a new element introduced into her life. Why had he gone away without any reason? He had said nothing of any such purpose. On the contrary, they had talked together of the woods in autumn and the curling in winter, all of which he had intended, she was sure, to make acquaintance with. Why had everything changed so suddenly in his plans as well as in theirs? It did not seem possible that there should be any connection between the one and the other; but a vague curiosity and bewilderment arose in the girl's mind. But it did not occur to her to ask Jean or Margaret for information. He was Jean's friend: it would have been natural enough to ask her where he had gone, or why he had left Murkley? But she did not, though she could not explain to herself any reason why.
And the question was one which returned often to her mind during the winter. The nearest post-town was several miles off, and there were no very near neighbours, so that by times when the roads were bad or the weather wild, they were lonely in Gowanbrae. Of old, Lilias had never known what it was to have time hang heavy on her hands. She had a hundred things to do; but now insensibly her childish occupations had fallen from her, she could scarcely tell how. She missed the park, she missed the river-side. She missed, above all, the great, vacant, unfinished palace, with its eyeless windows staring into the gloom. Her dreams seemed now to have no settled habitation, they roamed about the world, now here, now there, wondering about a great many things which had never excited her curiosity before. It seemed to Lilias for the first time that she would take to travel, to see new scenes, to make acquaintance with the places spoken of in books—indeed, she turned to books themselves with a feeling very different from anything she had felt before. Till now they had been inextricably associated with lessons. Now lessons, though she still continued a semblance of work under Margaret's eye, seemed to have floated away from her as things of the past, and Lilias began to read poetry eagerly, to dive into the mysteries of sentiment which hitherto had only wearied her. She was growing older, she thought, and that was the reason. Pages of measured verse which a few months before her eye had gone blankly over in search of a story now became delightful to her. Things that even Margaret and Jean turned from, she devoured with avidity. She became familiar with those seeming philosophies which delight the youthful intelligence, and liked shyly and silently to enter, in her own mind, into questions about constancy and the eternal duration of love, and whether it was possible to love twice,—a question, of course, decided almost violently in the negative in Lilias' heart. No one knew anything of those developments, nor were they in any way consciously connected with the events of the summer. Indeed, no change had taken place officially in the character of Lilias' dreams. The hero of six feet two, with his hair like night, and his mystical dark eyes, had not been dethroned—heaven forbid!—in favour of any smiling middle-sized person, with a complexion the same colour as his hair. No such desecration had happened. The hero still stood in the background, serene and magnificent; he saved the heroine's life periodically in a variety of ways, always at the hazard of his own. He had never been amusing in conversation; it was not part of his rôle; and when she thought of another quite insignificant individual occupying an entirely different position, who would talk and smile, and tell of a hundred unknown scenes, beguiling away the hours, or play as no one had ever played in her hearing, Lilias felt that the infidelity to her hero was venial. It was indeed an effort on her part to think not less but more of her friend on this latter account, for, as has been said, "the piano" was not a popular attribute of a young man in those days in Scotland. People in general would have almost preferred that he should do something a little wrong. Gambling, perhaps, was excessive, but a little high-play was pardonable in comparison. Music was a lady's privilege—the prerogative of a girl who was accomplished. But Lilias forgave Lewis his music. She resorted to his idea in those dull days somewhat fondly, if such a word may be used, but not with love—far from it. She had never thought of love in connection with him. That was entirely an abstract sentiment, so far as she was aware, vaguely linked to six-feet-two and unfathomable eyes.
The whole house was a little out of joint. They had come to Gowanbrae when they had not intended to do so, for one thing. All their previous plans had been formed for Murkley, and various things were wanting to their comfort, which, under other circumstances, would have been supplied. For instance, there were new curtains and carpets wanted, which Miss Margaret must have seen to had they intended from the first to winter there, but which, with the prospect of a season in London before them, could not be thought of. The garden was to have been re-modelled under the eye of a new gardener, and a new greenhouse was to have been built during their absence; but they had returned while these improvements were in course of carrying out.
Gowanbrae, in fact, was better adapted for summer than for winter. When the hills were covered with snow, the prospect was melancholy, and down by the burn, though it was lovely, it was damp in the autumn rains. The broad drive in the park between old Murkley and new, had always supplied a dry and cheerful walk, and even the well-gravelled road by the Tay was sumptuous in comparison with the muddy roads wending by farmsteadings over boggy soil towards the moors. Indoors, to be sure, all was cheerful, but even there disturbing imaginations would enter. Miss Jean would spend hours playing the music which Lewis had left with her, and which was a little above her powers. Her pretty "pieces," the gentle "reveries" and compositions that were quite within her range, the Scotch airs which she played so sweetly, were given up, with a little contempt and a great deal of ambition, for Mozart and Beethoven; and the result was not exhilarating. When Margaret said, "I would far rather hear your Scotch tunes," Jean would smile and sigh, with a little conscious pride in her own preference of the best, and play the "Flowers of the Forest" or "Tweedside" with an air of gentle condescension, which made her sister laugh, and took the charm out of the pretty performance, which once had been the pride of the house. As for Lilias, she was more indulgent to these reminiscences of the past. It did not trouble her, as it might have done had her ear been finer, to hear the stumbling and faltering of Jean's fingers in her attempt to render what the practised hands of the other had done so easily. On the contrary, in the long winter evenings, when the house was shut up by four o'clock, Lilias, with her book of poetry, whatever it might be—and her appetite was so large that she was not so fastidious as perhaps she ought to have been—half-buried in a deep easy-chair by the fire, would catch, as it were, an echo of the finer strain as her sister laboured at it, and liked it as it linked itself, broken yet full of association, with the other kind of music she was reading. Sometimes, when Margaret was absent, there would be a little colloquy between the pair.
"That is bonnie, Jean. Play just that little bit again."
"Which bit, my darling?—the beginning of the andante?"
Miss Jean had learned from Lewis to speak more learnedly than was natural.
"Oh, what do I know about your andantes? Play that—just that little flowery bit—it's like the meadows in the spring."
"I wish Mr. Murray, poor lad, could have heard you call it that."
"Why is he a poor lad? I thought he was very well off. You always speak of him in that little sighing tone."
"Do I, my dear? Oh, he is well enough in fortune—but there are more things needed than fortune to make a young man happy."
Upon which Lilias laughed, yet blushed as well—not for consciousness, but because she was at the stage when the very name of love brings the colour to a girl's cheek.
"He must have a story, or you would not speak of him so. He must be in love——"
"He is just that: and little hope. I think of him many a day, poor lad, and with a sore heart."
"Did he tell you? did he say who it was? Is it anybody we know? Tell me, tell me the story, Jean!"
"Not for the world. Do you think I would break his trust and tell his secret? And whisht, whisht; Margaret is not fond of the name of him," Jean would say; while Lilias dropped back into her book, and the "Andante" was slowly beaten out of the old piano again.
This was all Miss Jean dared to do on behalf of Lewis; but she had a great many thoughts of him, as she said. She had imagined many situations in which they might meet again, but as the time drew nearer it occurred to her often to wonder whether he would find it so easy as she had once thought to find the Miss Murrays of Murkley in town. Margaret had been receiving circulars from house-agents, communications from letters of lodgings, counsels from friends without number—from all which it began to become apparent to Miss Jean that, big place as Edinburgh was, it was nothing to London. Would they be so sure to meet as he had thought? He did not know London any more than they did, and there rose before Miss Jean's eyes a melancholy picture of two people vainly searching after each other, and meeting never. Naturally as the year went on, they talked a great deal on this subject. Margaret decided at last that to take lodgings would be the best, as the transportation of servants to London would be an extensive matter, besides their inacquaintance with the ways of town: while, on the other hand, she herself shrank from the unknown danger of temporary London servants, if all was true that was said of them.
"Though half of it at least will be nonsense," Miss Margaret remarked. "You would think they were not human creatures to hear what is said in the papers; in my experience, men and women are very like other men and women wherever you go."
"And do you think it will be so very big a place that without an address—if such a thing were to happen," said Miss Jean—in her own opinion, with great astuteness—"you would not be able to find out a friend?"
"Your friend would be a silly one indeed if she went about the world without an address," said Miss Margaret; but after a moment she added—"It would depend, I should say, whether she was in what is called society or not. When you are in society you meet every kind of person. You cannot be long without coming across everybody."
"And shall we be in society, Margaret?" said Lilias, unexpectedly interposing.
"My dear," said Miss Margaret, "what do you suppose we are going to London for?—to see the pictures, which are no such great things to see when all's done; or to hear the concerts, which Jean may go to, but not me for one? Or perhaps you think to the May-meetings, as they call them, to hear all the missionary men giving an account of the way to save souls. I would like to be sure first how to take care of my own."
"We must see all the pictures and go to the concerts; and the play and whatever is going on, of course?" said Lilias. "Yes, I know society means something more. We are going into the world, we are going to Court. Of course that must be the very best society," the girl said, with her serious face.
"Well, then, there is no need for me to answer your question," said Miss Margaret, composedly. "Society is just the great object in London. It is a big place, the biggest in the world; but society is no bigger than a person with her wits about her can easily, easily learn by headmark. I understand that you will meet the same people at all the places, as you do in a far smaller town."
"Then in that way," said Miss Jean, with a little eagerness, "you could just be sure to foregather with your friend, even though he had no address?"
"And who may this friend be," said Miss Margaret, "that you are so anxious to meet?"
"Oh, nobody!" said Miss Jean, confused. "I mean," she added, "I was just thinking of a chance that might happen. You and me, Margaret, we have both old friends that have disappeared from us in London——"
"And that is true," Miss Margaret said. The words seemed to awaken old associations in her mind. She sighed and shook her head. "Plenty have done that," she said. "It is just like a great sea where the shipwrecks are many, and some sail away into the dark, and are never heard of more."
Under cover of this natural sentiment, Miss Jean sailed off too out of her sister's observation. She had given a sudden quick look at Lilias, and it had occurred to her with a curious sensation that Lilias knew what she meant. It was a momentary glance, the twinkling of an eye, and no more; but that is enough to set up a private intelligence between two souls. Jean felt a little guilty afterwards, as if she had been teaching her young sister the elements of conspiracy. But this was not at all the case. She had done nothing, or so very little, to bring Lewis to her mind that it was not worth thinking of. Nevertheless, it was a great revelation to her, and startled her much, that Lilias understood. No, no, there was no conspiracy! Margaret herself could not object to meet him in society; and, if they did not succeed in this, Jean had no notion where the young stranger, in whom she took so great an interest, was to be found.
Thus, with many a consultation and many an arrangement, often modified and changed as time went on, the winter stole away. It seemed very long as it passed, but it was short to look back upon, and, after the new year, a gradually-growing excitement took possession of the quiet household. From Simon, who, the other servants thought, gave himself great airs, and could scarcely open his mouth without making some reference to the memorable time when he was body-servant to the General, and had been in London, and seen the clubs and all the sights, or uttering some doubt as to the changes which might have passed since that time; to Miss Margaret, upon whose shoulders was the charge of everything, there was no one who did not feel the thrill of the coming change. The maids who were not going were loud in their declarations that they did not care, and would not have liked it, if Miss Margaret had asked them—but they were all bitterly derisive of Simon, as an old fool who thought he knew London, and was just as proud of it as if it were a strange language.
"You could not make much more fuss if it was to France you were going," the women said.
"To France! As if there was onything in France that was equal to London, the biggest ceety in the world, the place where you could get the best of everything; where there were folk enough to people Scotland, if onything went amiss."
"And what should go amiss? Does the man think the world will stand still when he's no here," the maids said.
"Aweel, I do not know what ye will do without me. But to let the ladies depart from here, alone in the world, and me not with them, is what I could not do," Simon said.
Miss Margaret was almost as deeply moved by the sense of her responsibilities. Many of them she kept to herself, not desiring to overwhelm the gentle mind of Jean, or to frighten Lilias with the numberless difficulties that seemed to arise in the way. The choice of the lodgings alone was enough to have put a feebler woman distraught altogether, and Margaret, who had never been in London, found it no easy task to choose a neighbourhood which should be unexceptionable, and from whence it would be a right thing to produce a lovely débutante. When we say that there were unprincipled persons who recommended Russell Square to her as a proper place of residence, the perils with which Margaret was surrounded may be imagined. It was almost by chance that she selected Cadogan Place, which is a place no lady need be ashamed of living in. It was Margaret's opinion ever after, pronounced whenever her advice was asked as to the ways and means of settling in town, of which her experience was so great, that this was a matter in which advice did more harm than good.
"There is just one thing," she would say, with the conscious superiority of one who had bought her information dearly, and understood the subject au fond, "and everything else is of little importance in comparison. Never you consult your friends. Just hear what the business persons have to say, and form your own opinion. You know what you want yourself, and they have to give—but friends know neither the one nor the other."
This was severe, but no doubt she knew what she was saying. For two months beforehand her mind was occupied with little else, and every post brought shoals of letters on the subject. You would have thought the half of London was stirred with expectation. To Miss Jean it seemed only natural. She was pleased that the advent of Margaret should cause so much emotion, and that the way would be thus prepared for Lilias.
"Of course it will be a treat for them to see Margaret; there are not many people like Margaret: and then, my darling, you, under her wing, will be just like the bonnie star that trembles near the moon."
"I hope you don't mean that Margaret is like the moon," said Lilias, recovering something of her saucy ways since this excitement had got into the air.
She laughed, but she, too, felt it very natural. There was no extravagance of pride about these gentlewomen. They were aware indeed of their own position, but they were not proud. It was all so simple: even Lilias could not divest herself of the idea that it would be something for the London people to see Margaret in her velvet with all her point lace, and the diamonds which had been her mother's. There was, however, another great question to be decided, which the head of the house herself opened in full family conclave as one upon which it was only right that the humbler members of the family should have their say.
"The question is, who is to present us?" Miss Margaret said. "Her aunt, my Lady Dalgainly, would be the right person for Lilias. But I'm not anxious to be indebted to that side of the house."
"Would it not be a right thing to ask the countess?" said Miss Jean.
It had already been decided that one Court dress was as much as each property could afford, and that Jean was not to go; a decision which distressed Lilias, who wanted her sister to see her in all her glory, and could scarcely resign herself to any necessity which should make Jean miss that sight.
"The countess would be the proper person," said Margaret; "but blood is thicker than water, and suppose she had not you and me to care for her, Jean, where could she turn to but her mother's family?"
Here Lilias made a little spring into the centre of the group, as was her way.
"I have read in the papers," she said, "all about it. Margaret, this is what you will do: the countess will present you—for who else could do it?—and then you will present me. I will have no other," cried Lilias, with a little imperative clap of her hands.
"Was there ever such a creature? She just knows everything," Miss Jean cried.