There were many circumstances to add to the passionate annoyance and irritation with which Margaret became aware of the deception, as she conceived it, of which she had been the victim. She saw now a hundred indications by which she ought to have been able to make sure from the beginning who and what the stranger was: his sudden appearance at Murkley, a place calculated to attract nobody, which even "those tourist-cattle," who roused Miss Margaret's wrath, had left out, where nobody came but for the fishing; his anxiety to secure their acquaintance, to recommend himself to them, his suit to Miss Jean, so unlike anything that had ever come in the way of the sisters before, even his conversations, of which she recollected now disjointed scraps and fragments quite enough to have betrayed him. Twice over had he come to her to explain his wishes; the last time, she believed now (though that was a mistake), that he had meant to confess everything. And she would not listen to him. Well, that was all honest enough; it had not been a wilful attempt to deceive her on his part: but yet she had been completely deceived. How blind she had been! Had it not been plain to every eye but hers? Had the Setons suspected something? Had Jean known anything? Was it possible—Margaret started up and rang the bell with great vehemence. She was so little in the habit of doing this that it brought Simon rushing from below and Susan flying from above, and Miss Jean in consternation to listen at the head of the stairs.
"Is my sister ill?" Jean said, trembling with apprehension.
"She would like if you would go and speak to her, mem," said Susan, who had outstripped the heavier-footed man. Simon was standing ready to open the door for her into the little room in which Margaret was sitting.
"Is my sister ill?" she asked again.
"I reckon, mem, that something is wrong," Simon said, in his deliberate voice.
"There is nothing wrong with me," said Miss Margaret. "Sit down, sit down, and make no fuss, if you will not drive me doited: I am well enough. But there is a matter to be cleared up between you and me. Will you tell me frankly, Jean, eye to eye, what you know about this young Murray that has just been haunting our house?"
"About Mr. Murray?" said Jean, looking more guilty than ever criminal looked, innocent guilt faltering and ready to betray itself in every line of her face.
"Just about Mr. Murray. I have said always he was of no kent Murrays—were you in this secret all the time, you, my sister, the other part of me? Oh! Jean, was this well done? I can read it in your face. You were in his secret all the time."
"Margaret! what do you call his secret?" the culprit said.
She was of the paleness of ashes, and sat twisting her fingers nervously together, feeling her treachery, her untruth to her first allegiance, weigh upon her like something intolerable. Her very eyelids quivered as she stole a glance at Margaret's face.
"Do you mean his secret at Murkley," poor Miss Jean said, breathless, "or his secret—here?"
Margaret laughed aloud. The tones in this laugh were indescribable—wrath, and scorn, and derision, and underneath all a pitiful complaint.
"It is evident you are further ben than me, for I know of but one secret," she said, "but we'll take them in succession, if you please."
"Oh! Margaret," said poor Jean, trembling, "was there any harm in it? There was harm in me, perhaps, but what in him? For who could see Lilias and not be in love with her? And then, when he saw us in London just a little forlorn, and knowing so few folk, and him that had everybody at his beck and call——"
"Him that had everybody at his beck and call—Yes?—and then? He took pity upon us and——What are you meaning? Our friends in London," said Margaret, with dignity, forgetting how she had, by the light of Mr. Allenerly's statement, glimpsed the truth on this point as well as on others, "are persons we have met at other friends' houses in the ordinary way of society. There was nobody came to me from him, except just perhaps that old duchess who takes you to the music. Your friend's compassion, Jean, I think, might have been spared."
"Oh, Margaret!" faintly said the accused at the bar.
"What do you mean by 'Oh, Margaret'?—is it not true that I say? What did it advantage us, I ask you, that this young lad had everybody, as you say, at his beck and call?"
Jean gave a deprecatory, wistful glance at her sister, and said nothing—but it was the look of one that had a great deal to say: and there was that mixture of pity in it by which Margaret had been moved to a passing wonder before.
"What did he ever do," she repeated, scornfully, "when he saw us, as you say, forlorn in London, and knowing few folk? It is a pretty description, but I cannot recognize it as a picture of me," Margaret said, with a laugh of resentment. The conviction that had flashed upon her concerning their life in London had been intolerable, and she had pushed it from her. She was ready now to resist to desperation any suggestion that Lewis had served them in society, or been instrumental in opening to them so many fashionable houses. The consciousness in her mind that this was so, gave heat and passion to her determination to ignore it, and gave a bravado of denial to her tone. "All this," she added, "is nothing, nothing to the main subject; but, as we are on it, let us be done with it. What has your friend done for us I—I am at a loss to know."
Jean was in a terrible strait, and knew not what to do. She was divided between her desire to do justice to Lewis and her desire to save Margaret pain. She hesitated, almost prevaricated in her anxiety, but at last the story burst forth. The Greek ball, the beginning of all, Margaret had firmly believed all along, was a homage to the importance of the Miss Murrays of Murkley, a natural acknowledgment of their claims to be considered. She could not help remembering the change that had occurred in the aspect of affairs from the moment that Lewis had appeared on the scene, but the invitation for which she had wished so much, and the others that flowed from it, Margaret had endeavoured to believe were natural: at least the first—she had always clung to that. But when Jean's story, extracted in fragments, with many a protestation and many an unintended admission, fell upon her ears, the sudden disenchantment was terrible. To think that everything was his doing from beginning to end, that he, this upstart, this minion, this foreign favourite, should have been able to open the doors of fashion to those whom he had so injured and supplanted, whose chief enemy he was! Was it to humiliate them still more, to smite them down into deeper abasement, to triumph over them in every way? The pang which it gave Margaret was too bitter for speech. There had been an appeal made to him, and in his magnanimity—that easy magnanimity of the conqueror—he had responded to the appeal, and had taken compassion upon them. It was a bitter pill for a proud woman to swallow. Jean had appealed to him, and he had been kind—oh! these were the words. He had been kind to the poor country ladies, and no doubt presented them as originals, out of whom a little amusement could be had, to his fine friends. Margaret would not even tell her sister, with whom she was indignant beyond all possibility (she thought) of forgiveness, what she had heard this morning. Her mortification, her sense of having been tricked and cheated, was too great: the only thing she could think of was to turn her back upon this hated place with all its delusions.
"I am just sick of London," she said; "my very heart is sick. Get your packing done this afternoon. I will not spend another day here. I think we will go home to-night."
"To-night!" cried Jean, with dismay. To oppose a decision of Margaret was impossible, and she felt guilty, and wounded, and miserable, out of favour, out of heart. But yet to be obliged to cut off her little leave-takings, and not to see him, the cause of all this, the friend who had been so kind, so tender, so eager to carry out all her wishes, was very hard. And even to travel at night was alarming and terrible to Miss Jean: she thought the dangers of the way were doubled by the darkness, and that very likely there would be a railway accident. "It is very sudden," she said. "Oh! Margaret, I know you are ill-pleased at me. I am sorry—sorry! if I have done what was foolish, it was with a good intention; but will you change all our plans just for that, only for that?"
"Only for that!" said Margaret. "Only for what is burnt in on me in shame, and should on you still more, if you had the heart—to have been indebted to our enemy, to have sought the help of him, if there had not been another man in the world, that should have been the last——"
"Oh! Margaret," cried poor Miss Jean, "you are unjust. You are cruel. He is nobody's enemy. You may think him not good enough for Lilias,—for who would seem good enough for Lilias to you and me?—but an enemy he is none. Oh, no enemy, but a friend: or more like a son, a brother."
Margaret rose with a stern intensity of tone and look that made her sister tremble.
"Do you know who this friend is," she said, grimly, "this brother, this lover, this benefactor? His name is not Murray, but Lewis Grantley, a name you have heard before. He is your grandfather's heir. He has gotten the inheritance of Lilias. And now, seeing she is a lovelier thing even than the inheritance, this creature of nothing, this subtile serpent, this practiser upon an old man's weakness, would have her too."
Jean had risen also, with eyes full of horror, in the extremity of her astonishment. She lifted her arms, she opened her lips to cry out, but no sound came. She stood an image of dumb consternation and misery gazing at her sister. No doubt of Jean's innocence from all complicity in the secret could be entertained by any one who saw her. She stood dumb, staring at Margaret for some minutes. Then her breast began to labour with choking sobs.
"Oh! no, no. Oh! no, no—no, no," she ran on, unable to restrain herself. It was a protest which was pitiful, like the cry of a dumb creature unable to articulate. Hysterics were unknown in the family, and Margaret was alarmed. It subdued her anger in a moment, and relieved her own oppressed and excited mind by giving her a new subject of concern. She put Jean into the easy-chair, and brought her wine, and soothed her: in the midst of which process Lilias came into the room, all fresh and radiant, untouched by any darker knowledge.
"Just run away, my dear, Jean is not very well. I want her to stay quite quiet just for two or three minutes, and then she will come to you upstairs."
"But why should I run away? Let me take care of her, Margaret. How pale she is!" cried Lilias, in alarm.
"There is—no—nothing the matter with me," said Jean, tremulously, making shift to smile, and waving her hand to her darling. "I'll be better—in two or three minutes."
"Just run away, my dear," Margaret repeated: and Lilias, as she was told, ran away, in considerable alarm and uneasiness. But, after all, there was nothing so alarming in the fact that Jean was pale, and wanted to be quiet for two or three minutes, and the fear soon dissipated itself. When the door was closed upon her, the two sisters looked at each other: the shadow of anger that had been between them had passed away. It even brought them nearer together, this secret which was so momentous but which she, that young creature whom it was their happiness to guard from all evil, knew nothing of. Jean pressed Margaret's hand which held hers.
"You will not tell her?" she said.
"That is what we must see—and judge," said the elder sister. "We must think of it when you are better."
Margaret said I oftener than we. It was a pledge of renewed union and closer fellowship, which brought back Jean's smile.
And next morning they left London. It had not been intended that they should go away till the end of the week, and their abrupt departure was the occasion of various disturbances of other people's plans. The person whom it was chiefly designed to affect was Lewis, who, knowing as he did the crisis that had been reached, and occupied indeed with the still more extraordinary crisis in his own existence, was not affected by it at all. He had never, during all the intercourse of those six weeks, been invited to Cadogan Place. He had been admitted occasionally when he called, latterly almost always, and it had been supposed by all the ladies that he would come to bid them good-bye. But after the interview between Margaret and Mr. Allenerly there was an end to that intention, and it was only by chance he discovered their premature departure, which did not move him; for he had run through all the gamut of emotion, and nothing seemed now to matter. But as Lewis stood, more pensive than disappointed, gazing at the house, in the window of which once more hung the intimation that it was to let, and where a charwoman appeared at the door in place of Simon, some one else strode up, to whom it was, to all appearance, much more important. This was Philip Stormont, who, though he could not follow the ladies into the fashionable world, had hung about them whenever and wherever he could, following them to the park, turning up in all their walks, and attaching himself like a sort of amateur footman to the party. Lilias had been very cold to him for some time after that evening at the theatre, but by-and-by had slid into her old habit of a sort of sisterly indifference, thinking it not necessary to make much account of what Philip said or did. And her sisters were always "kind—enough," as Miss Jean said, to the young man whose lands marched with Murkley, their nearest county neighbour, whom they had known all his life. When it was fully apparent to them that Lilias was entirely indifferent to this long-leggit lad, they were very kind to him, though they gave him much good advice on the subject of going home. He had hung on, following their steps, without any clear explanation of the reason why, always postponing his departure until the time of theirs approached. When that date was settled, he speedily found out that it was important he should get home by the 26th, and it was settled that he should travel with them. But in the hurry of sudden departure no one had thought of Philip. He came "round," as he called it, to make the final arrangements, and to settle where he should meet them, just at the moment when Lewis, walking slowly past, looking up at the windows, had concluded within himself, in a sort of stupor of over-feeling which made the discovery almost unimportant to him, that they were gone. What did it matter to Lewis? They were as far from him in Cadogan Place as if they had been in Murkley. It made no difference; between him and them there was a great gulf fixed. And yet he would have liked to see her once more! but it made no difference—this was what he was saying to himself. To Philip, however, it made a very great difference. He went briskly up to the door, undismayed by a certain vacant air, and the ticket in the window. Indeed he had not observed these signs. And, when he was met by the charwoman with the news, his astonishment and indignation knew no bounds.
"Gone! Why, I was to go with them. Are you sure they are gone?" he said, with a dismay that was almost ludicrous. When he perceived Lewis a little way off, he hurried up to him. "Do you understand anything about this?" he said, with a sense of injured antagonism to everybody who could be supposed to be in the ladies' confidence. There had always been a jealous feeling in his mind in respect to Lewis, whose constant presence at all the fine places of which Lilias spoke, to which he himself had no way of procuring admittance, had given him a feasible ground of complaint. But a common grievance is a great bond. When Lewis had declared his ignorance, in a tone from which even his insensibility to further pain could not take a certain pathos, Philip, in the excitement of his feelings, obliged to talk to some one, seized upon his arm, and poured out his heart.
"They just play with a man," he cried, "these women! They don't care a bit what they do to you, so long as it doesn't touch themselves. I was to go with them. It was all settled. Our way was the same, as far as the railway goes—as far as the water-side, for that matter; for you remember how near we are. And here they are, off without a word, without a single word! not so much as to say, 'We are going sooner than we thought,' or anything like that—but no, not a word! I was coming to ask where I was to meet them, and if I should take the tickets, and so forth."
Lewis did his best to dissipate the victim's dilemma. He suggested a sudden change in their plans, a lost message, a mistake of one kind or another, till Philip was somewhat mollified. But in his heart he was not displeased to see another man suffer. That the ladies had been agitated by the revelation made to them, and had changed their plans, and forgotten their secondary engagements in consequence, soothed him and gave him a faint sensation of pleasure. Besides, it is never disagreeable to one man, whose heart is devoted to a certain woman, to see another man left in the lurch. So far as he was able to enjoy at all, Lewis enjoyed it, and this made him very amiable to the other, who was certainly not a successful rival, or likely to be so. He who had affected their minds so much as to make them alter all their arrangements at the last moment had no reason to be uncharitable to the man whose very existence they had evidently forgotten. And Philip, in his ignorance, took refuge in the sympathy of Lewis. He had not seen him much in the company of Lilias; they had revolved in different spheres, and had rarely come in contact, and, so far as Philip knew, Lewis was little more than an acquaintance of the ladies, who never invited him, and seldom talked of him. He had forgotten by this time the position of companion to Lilias which Katie and he had thrust upon the stranger at Murkley. All that stage of existence had faded away from Philip's thoughts.
"You see," he said, thrusting his arm through that of his sympathetic friend, "I came here at first with no will of mine. A man should be left free one way or other. If the mother is to have so much say as my mother has, the son should be free to go where he likes, and make his own way; but, as it is, I am neither laird nor loon, if you understand what that means. I have the name of being independent; but, if my mother were to take away her share and leave me with that house to keep up, where would I be? So I have to be guided by her in many ways, whether I will or not."
"I do not suppose that she is very hard to please," said Lewis, politely.
"Oh, I don't know about that! She has always had her own way, and she likes it. So do I, for that matter. But, you see, for years past there has never been but a craik about Lilias Murray. She was the only girl my mother would ever hear of: our lands march; and then the Murrays are a great family, and then——"
"Do you think it is right to talk of things so private to me?"
"Oh, you!—you are just the person to talk to them about. You are a stranger, you are an outsider; it cannot be any concern of yours. And then you know what an ass I made of myself last year," Philip said, reddening, and with an embarrassed laugh.
"I do not know about the ass," said Lewis, gravely; "I know—what was happening last year."
"Well, it comes to the same thing, you know. My mother would not hear of that——It is all very well for a fellow like you, that are independent, that never needs to think of pleasing anybody but yourself. But I can do nothing without my mother. As for marrying or that sort of thing, it would be out of the question. If she gave me up, I should be as poor as a church-mouse: so I am obliged to mind what she says. And then, if truth must be told, I got just a little tired of the affair itself."
"I don't think," said Lewis, disengaging his arm, "that it is quite comme il faut to say so."
"Com-eel—what do you mean by that? It began when I was too young to think of anything but the fun of it: and she liked the fun, too. It was a great joke to make a fool of everybody, and carry on behind their backs; but, when it comes to be serious, you can't go on like that."
"I don't think you can go on like that at any time," Lewis said, gravely.
Philip laughed.
"That is just your stiff, foreign way," he said; "you are always thinking harm—and there was no harm. Well, then, my mother insisted I was to go away, and, as there was a good opportunity to have a little yachting and see something of the world, I just consented. Absence makes a great difference, you know," he added, laughing again somewhat nervously. "I saw what an ass I had been making of myself. And then I heard from home that the Murrays were here, and that I had better stay and make myself agreeable. Now, you know, there's a great deal to be done in London that makes the time pass. So I just stayed, and made myself agreeable—as far as I could, you know——"
"Indeed it is not for me to know how far that is," said Lewis, with something between a jeer and a snarl: for it was not in flesh and blood to remain passive. "You are a dangerous fellow, no doubt, when you please."
"Oh, I don't know about that," said simple Philip; "it was a bore at first, but I couldn't help feeling that it was far the best way to get out of the other, you know. And that little Lilias has grown awfully pretty, don't you think?—whether it's the dress, or the way she's got of carrying herself, or having seen a little more of the world——"
Lewis would have liked to knock him down, but probably could not have done so, for the young Scot was much bigger and stronger than himself: and then, even if he could, he had no pretext for so doing, for there was no intentional disrespect in what Philip said.
"I never discuss ladies whom I respect—it is bad form," said Lewis, bringing forward a word which he had picked up, and generally found most effectual.
Philip reddened and grew serious all at once. He was one of the class who hold that vague but stinging accusation in special awe.
"It would be worse form, I think, to discuss ladies whom you do not respect," he said, very pertinently, but changing his tone. "Well," he said, "to please you, I will say nothing about that. I thought it a bore at first, but by-and-by it was different. And it is just the only way of coming out of the other business safe and sound; and it would be a fine thing for the property; and, to sum up all, the girl herself——"
Lewis raised his hand, for he felt that he could not bear much more.
"You mean that you fell in love, I suppose, since that is the English phrase," he said, with a slight inflection of contempt, which the ear of Philip was not keen enough to seize.
"Well, you may call it that, if you like," he said. "And I thought we were getting on very well—they all bully me, as if I were a small boy, and she too, but that's one way of showing that they consider me one of the family, you know. So I thought we were getting on as well as possible, and I wrote home word to my mother, and we were to travel together, which would have given us just the opportunity to settle everything before we got home: and that was what I wanted above all——"
Here poor Philip's face grew long once more, and the sense of the ludicrous which had been growing in the mind of his hearer—a sort of forlorn amusement to think of this little commonplace thread running smoothly through the tangled web of affairs—rose above the irritation and disdain, which were too serious for the occasion.
"Perhaps," he said, gravely, "it was the elder sisters. They might be afraid of you."
Philip turned upon him with a beaming face and gave him a blow of approval on his shoulder.
"Now that just shows," he said, "that you have an eye in your head. I always knew you were a clever fellow—it is just that. Margaret cannot abide me—my mother herself sees it. She has just held me at arm's length since ever I was that height; but, if Lilias takes to me, I will just snap my fingers at Margaret," cried the long-leggit lad, plucking up his courage.
Finally he made up his mind to follow them by the evening train, and pick them up at Stirling or Perth, where they would be sure, he thought, to stay for the night. And Lewis went home to his rooms, where also packing was going on, with a sense of exhaustion, through which faint sensations of amusement penetrated. He was sad as death, but, at the same time, he was worn out by a great mental conflict. At such a moment pain is deadened by its own excess. He was like a man newly out of a fever, not able to feel at all save in a muffled and ineffectual way: and it almost amused him to see Philip's self-complacency and confidence in "getting on very well." For such a rival he was not afraid.