Philip Stormont did not return home for a week, during which period Lilias had ample reason to share her sister's annoyance. She was received wherever she appeared with congratulations and good wishes, though it was a very daft-like thing, the village people thought, for young folk, who had known each other all their lives and might have spoken whenever they pleased, to go away up to London, and meet in strange houses there before they could come to an understanding.
"No true! hoot, Miss Lilias! It must be true, for I had it from the leddy hersel'," was the reception her denial got: and there was not unfrequently a glance aside at Katie, which showed the consciousness of the speaker of another claim. It was a curious study in human nature for the neighbourhood, and, though it was perhaps cruel, the interest of the race in mental phenomena generally may have accounted for the pleasure mingled with compassion with which one after another offered in Katie's presence their good wishes to Lilias, keenly observing meantime the air and aspect of the maiden forsaken.
"It'll no have been true about Miss Katie and him, after all," Janet, at the 'Murkley Arms,' announced to her husband, "for she took it just as steady as a judge."
"Oh, ay, it was true enough; but men are scarce, and he's just ta'en his pick," said Adam.
"My word, but he's no blate," said Janet, in high indignation. "Two of the bonniest and best in a' the countryside for Philip Stormont to take his pick o'! I would soon learn him another lesson. And it's just a' lees—a' lees from beginning to end."
"In that case," said Adam, with philosophic calm, "I would not fash my thoom about it, if I were you." But the philosophy was more than Janet was capable of. She bade him gang aff to his fishing for a cauld-hearted loon, that took nae interest in his fellow-creatures.
"It's naething to you if a young thing breaks her bit heart," Janet said; and she added, with a sigh, "No to say that I had ither views for Miss Lilias mysel'."
Perhaps it was some glimmer of these "ither views," some implication of another name, never mentioned, but understood between them by a subtle feminine freemasonry, which made Lilias insist so warmly to Janet upon the falsehood of the common report. The girls went on to the manse after this explanation, Lilias walking with great dignity, but with a flush of offence and annoyance on her face.
"I wish he would just come back, and let them see it is all lies," Lilias cried.
Katie dried a furtive tear when they got within the shelter of the manse garden. Would Philip, when he came, show that it was all lies? or was he minded, like his mother, to make it true? And, if he put forth those persuasive powers which Katie felt so deeply, could Lilias resist him? These questions kept circling through Katie's brain in endless succession. "It would maybe be better if he never came back," she said, with a sigh.
Mrs. Seton was in all the bustle of her morning's occupations. She came into the drawing-room a little heated, and with some suppressed excitement in her eyes. Katie's mother was not entirely in Katie's confidence, but she knew enough of her child's mind to take an agitated and somewhat angry interest in the news of Lilias' supposed engagement. Perhaps indeed she was not without a guilty sense of intention in her former hospitality to Philip, which turned now, by a very common alchymy of the mind, into an angry feeling that she had been kind to him, and that he had been very ungrateful. She came in with a little bustle, unable to chase from her countenance some traces of offence.
"Well, Lilias, so you have come to be congratulated," she said. "I am sure I wish you every prosperity. Nobody will doubt that we wish you well, such great friends as you have always been with Katie, and all the old connection between us and Murkley." Here she kissed the girl on both cheeks sharply, conveying a little anger even in the kiss. "But I think, you know, you were a little wanting—oh! just a little wanting, I'll not say much—considering all the intimacy, not to write at once and let Katie know——"
"I would like to hear what there was to let Katie know," cried Lilias, with indignation. "And why you should wish me prosperity? You never did it before. I am just as I always was before; and as for Philip Stormont," cried the girl, "he is nothing to me. Oh, yes, he is something—he is a great trouble and bother, and makes Margaret angry, and everybody talk nonsense. I wish he was at the other end of the world!" Lilias cried, with a little stamp of her impatient foot upon the floor.
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Seton, "but this is very different from what we heard. No, no, it must be just a little temper, Lilias, and Margaret's scolding that makes you turn it off like this. I can well understand Margaret being angry," said the minister's wife, with a gleam of satisfaction. "Her that thought nobody too grand for you; but there is no calculating upon young folk. Here is Lilias, Robert; but she is just in an ill way. She will have none of my good wishes. She has quarrelled with him, I suppose. We all know what a lovers' quarrel is. Yes, yes, she'll soon come to herself. And it would be a terrible thing, you know, to tell a fib to your clergyman," Mrs. Seton said, with an attempt at raillery; but she was anxious in spite of herself.
"Miss Lilias," said the minister, who had come in, and who was more formal, "will have little doubt of our good wishes in all circumstances, and especially on a happy——"
"Oh, will you hold all your tongues!" cried Lilias, driven out of recollection of her good manners, and of the respect she owed, as Mrs. Seton said, to her clergyman. "There's no circumstances at all, and nothing happy, nor to wish me joy about. I am no more engaged than you are," she said, addressing Mr. Seton, who stood, interrupted in his little speech, in a sort of consternation. "I am not going to be married. It is all just lies from beginning to end."
"Oh, my dear, you must not say that. It is dreadful to say that. If we are really to believe you, Lilias——"
"You need not believe me unless you like. You seem to think I don't know my own concerns. But it is all lies, and nothing else," cried Lilias, with a glow of momentary fury. "Just lies from beginning to end."
"Dear, dear me!" said Mrs. Seton. "My dear, we will not press it too far. But perhaps you have refused poor Philip, and he cannot make up his mind it has been final. If you are so sure of it on your side, it will perhaps just be a mistake on his."
"Oh, I wish I had refused him!" cried Lilias, setting her small teeth. "I wish he had asked me, and I would have given him his answer. I would have said to him, I would sooner marry Adam at the inn, I would sooner have little Willie Seton out of the nursery. Oh, there would have been no mistake!"
"But, my dear Miss Lilias, why this warmth?" said the minister. "After all, if the young man wanted you to marry him, it was a compliment, it was no offence. He is a fine young fellow, when all is said; and why so hot about it? It is no offence."
"It is just a——" Here Lilias paused, receiving a warning look from Katie, who had placed herself behind backs, but how gave a little furtive pull to her friend's dress.
"Margaret is very angry," she said, with dignity, "but not so angry as I am. To be away a whole year, and then, when I am so glad to come home, to have this thrown in my face! It is not Philip's fault, it is just Mrs. Stormont, who never would let me alone—and oh! will you tell everybody? You may say out of politeness that it is a mistake, but I say it is all lies, and that is true."
"Whisht, whisht, whisht, my dear!" cried Mrs. Seton. "If you are sure you are sincere——No, no; me doubting! I would never doubt your word, if you are sure you are in earnest, Lilias. I will just tell everybody with pleasure that some mistake has happened—just some mistake. You were old friends, and never thought what meaning was in his mind; or it was his mother who put a wrong interpretation. Yes, yes; you may rely upon me, Lilias: if you are sure, my dear, if you are quite sure that you are sincere!"
Lilias went home alone, in high excitement and anger with all the world, holding her head high, and refusing to pause to speak to the eager cottagers by their doors, who had all a word to say. This mode of treatment was unknown at Murkley, and produced many shakings of the head, and fears that London had made her proud. The wives reminded each other that they had never approved of it. "Why can they no bide at hame? It was never the custom in the auld days," the women said. But Lilias made no response to their looks. She went through the village with an aspect of disdain, carrying her head high; but, before she came to the gates of the old castle, she became aware of Mrs. Stormont's pony-carriage leisurely descending towards the river. With still stronger reason she tossed her head aloft and hurried on. But she was not permitted to escape so easily. Mrs. Stormont made her preparations to alight as soon as the girl was visible, and left her no possibility of escape. She thrust her hand through the unwilling arm of Lilias with confidential tenderness.
"It was you I was looking for," she said. She had not the triumphant look which had been so offensive on her previous visit. Her brow was puckered with anxiety. "My bonnie Lily," she said, "you are angry, and I have done more harm than good. What ails you at my poor laddie, Lilias? Who have we thought upon all this time but only you? When I took all the trouble of yon ball, which was little pleasure to me at my time of life, who was it for but you? Do you think I was wanting to please the Bairnsfaithers and the Dunlops, and all the little gentry about, or even the Countess and Lady Ida? I was wanting to please you: and my Philip——"
"He was wanting to please Katie Seton," said Lilias, with an angry laugh; "and he was quite right, for they were fond, fond of each other."
"Oh, my bonnie pet, what a mistake!" cried Mrs. Stormont, growing red. "Katie Seton! I would not have listened to it for a moment! The Setons would never have been asked but just for civility. Philip to put up with all that little thing's airs, and the vulgar mother! Oh! my darling, do not you be deceived. What said he in London? Was there ever a word of Katie? You would not cast up to him a folly of his youth now that he's a man, and all his heart is set on you?"
"Even if it was so," cried Lilias, "my heart is not set on him; I do not like him—Oh! yes, I like him well enough. He is just a neighbour; but, Mrs. Stormont, nothing more."
"Lilias, Lilias, you don't know what you are doing! Oh! my dear, just think a little. He has never come home; he has taken it sore, sore to heart that you left town like that, and never let him know. How do I know what my boy is doing, left by himself, with a disappointed heart, among all yon terrible temptations? Oh, my lovely Lily, whom I have petted and thought much of all your life, one word from you would bring Philip home!"
"I cannot send him a word," cried Lilias. "Oh, how can you ask me, when, wherever I go, everybody is at me wishing me joy; and, though it is all lies, they make me think shame, and I don't know how to look them in the face; but I am not ashamed—I am just furious!" Lilias cried, with burning blushes. "And then you ask me to send him a word——"
"To bring him home! He is everything I have in the world. Oh! Lilias, you would not be the one to part a mother from her only son; you would not be so hard-hearted as that, my Lily. If he has been wanting in any way, if he has not been so bold in speaking out——"
It was all that Lilias could do to contain herself.
"Do I want him to speak out?" she cried. "I do not want Philip at all, Mrs. Stormont. Will you believe what I tell you? If you want to get him home, let him come back to Katie."
"Put Katie out of your mind," said Mrs. Stormont, sharply. "There is no question of Katie. It is just an insult to me to speak of her at all."
Upon which Lilias threw her head higher still.
"And it is just an insult to me," she cried—"oh, far, far worse! for I am little and young, and not able to say a word, and you are trying to force me into what nobody wants. And Margaret will scold me as if it were my fault."
"You are able to say plenty for yourself, it appears to me," said Mrs. Stormont; and then she changed her tone. "Oh, Lilias, I have always been fond, fond of you, my bonnie dear. I have always said you should have been my child; and now, when there's a chance that you may be mine——What ails ye at my Philip? Where will you find a finer lad? Where will ye get a better son, except just when he loses his judgment with disappointment and love? Oh, my bonnie Lily, he will come back—he will come to his duty and his mother, if you will only send him a word—just a word."
This conversation was interrupted in the strangest way by the sudden apparition of a dog-cart driven at full speed down the road, which Lilias had vaguely perceived approaching with a little flutter of her heart, not knowing at any minute who might appear out of the unseen. When it drew up suddenly at the roadside for a single moment the light wavered in her eyes. But she came to herself again at once as Philip Stormont jumped out and advanced to his mother, whose evident relief and pleasure at the sight of him touched Lilias' heart. The poor lady trembled so that she could scarcely stand. She could do nothing but gaze at her son. She forgot in a moment the half-quarrel, the pathetic plea which she was urging with Lilias. "Oh, my boy, you've come back!" she said, throwing herself upon him. Lilias was far too young to fathom what was in the mother's heart, but she was touched in spite of herself. The change in Mrs. Stormont's face, the disappearance of all the curves in her forehead, the melting of all the hard lines in her face, was like magic to the watching girl. A little awe seized her of the love that worked so profoundly, and which she had made so little account of. It was true love, though it was not the form of true love of which one thinks at eighteen. She withdrew a little from them in the first moment of their meeting with natural delicacy, but did not go away, feeling it would be somewhat cowardly to attempt to escape.
As for Philip, when he had greeted his mother, he turned from her to Lilias with a countenance by no means love-like.
"You played me a pretty trick," he said. "Lucky for me that I went to Cadogan Place first. I might have been at the station now kicking my heels."
"Not for a week, I hope."
"I might have been there all night: and thinking all the time that something must have happened. I did not take it kind," said Philip. His mother was holding his arm, and already making little demonstrations upon it to stop him in these ill-advised complaints; but Philip paid little attention. "I wonder how you would have liked it yourself to be left in the lurch without a word!"
"We were all very sorry," Lilias said, with an air of penitence, and then she added, "when we remembered," with an inclination to laugh, which was all the stronger because of the gravity of the situation a few moments past.
He was somewhat travel-worn, covered with dust, and bearing marks of the fact that he had left London the night before, and had not paused long upon the way. His looks, as he regarded Lilias, were not those of a lover, and as she said the last words he coloured high with not unpardonable resentment.
"I can well believe that you took little pains to remember me at all," he said.
"Oh! Philip, how I have wearied for you," said his mother, anxiously, making a diversion. "We were speaking of you, Lilias and I: and I was going to send a message——"
"You are always so impatient," cried Philip, "pursuing a fellow with telegrams as if he were a thief! Yes, I waited a day or two. There was something I wanted to see. You can see nothing while that confounded season is going on. But I'm tired, mother, and by your leave I'll get home at once."
"You'll excuse him, Lilias," cried Mrs. Stormont, once more with anxiety; "he'll pay his respects to you at a more fitting moment. Yes, my dear boy, certainly we will go home; you can drive me back——"
"I've got a dog-cart from Kilmorley," said Philip; "and a better beast than yours. I'll just go on in that. I'll be there half-an-hour before you."
He took off his hat carelessly to Lilias, who was looking after him almost with as much astonishment as his mother. The two ladies looked at each other as he drove away. Poor Mrs. Stormont, after her agitation and joy, had grown white and troubled. She gazed at Lilias wistfully with deprecating eyes. The situation was ruefully comic, but she did not see it. To have compromised the name of Lilias for Philip's sake—to have compromised Philip by pleading with Lilias: and then to have it proved by both before her eyes how useless were her pains—so broadly, so evidently that she could not pretend to disbelieve it, was hard. She said, quickly, as if with an attempt to convince herself, "He is wearied with his journey; he is dusty, and not fit for a lady's eye." But after that the situation was too strong for her; for a moment there was humility in her tone. "My dear, perhaps I have made a mistake; I will do what I can to put it right," she said. Then the inalienable instinct of defence awoke again. "It is just that he is turned the wrong way with all these slights and disappointments, to be taken up one moment and cast away the next. He'll have taken an ill notion against women. Men are always keen to do that. It's their justification; and there is no doubt," she continued more briskly, nerving her courage, "whatever you may say now, that he got a great deal of encouragement at one time, Lilias. And now he's just turned the wrong way," Mrs. Stormont ended with a sigh, slowly mounting into her pony-carriage. Her old servant sat there motionless as he had sat through all this conversation. "I hope you may never repent your handiwork," she said.