ALICK Duff went away from the valley of the Rugas, calling on heaven and earth to witness that he would never be seen there more, and that from henceforward he was to be considered as an altogether shipwrecked and ruined man. “There is nobody that will contradict you there,” the minister said sternly, “and nothing but the grace of God, my man, for all you threep and swear to make my poor Eelen meeserable, that would ever have made any difference.” “And who will say,” cried Duff, “that it was not just her that would have been the grace o’ God?” The minister shook his head, yet was a little startled by the argument. As for Helen, she said little more to her strange lover. “It is no use speaking now. There is nothing more to say. I cannot leave my father.” Lily, to whom this story had come like a revelation in the midst of the quiet country life which seems, especially in Scotland, never to be ruffled by emotion, much less passion, and on whom it acted powerfully, restoring her mental balance and withdrawing at least a portion of her thoughts from herself, was a great deal at the Manse during this agitating period, which was all the more curious that nothing was ever said about it on the surface of the life which flowed on in an absolutely unbroken routine, as if there was no impassioned despairing man outside in the darkness waiting the moment to fling himself and his terrible needs and wishes at Helen’s feet, and no terrible question tearing her heart asunder. That it was there underneath all the time was plain enough to those who were in the secret. The minister had an anxious look, even when he laughed and told his stories; and Helen, though her serenity was extraordinary, grew pale and red with an unconscious listening for every sound which Lily divined. He might burst in at any moment and make a scene in the quiet Manse parlor, destroying all the pretence of composure with which they had covered their life, or, worse still, he might do something desperate—he might disappear in the river or end his existence with a shot, leaving an indelible shame on his memory, and upon those who belonged to him, and upon her who, as the country folk would say, “had driven him to it.” If she had married Alick Duff and gone away with him, there would have been an unanimous cry over her folly; but if in his despair he had cut the thread in any such conclusive way, Helen never would have been mentioned afterward but as the woman who drove poor Alick Duff to his death. There was a thrill of this possibility even in the air of the little town, where he was seen from time to time wandering about the precincts of the Manse, and where every-body knew him and his story. But the most exciting thing of all to Lily was to see the face and watch the ways of the excellent young minister, Mr. Blythe’s assistant and successor, who went and came through these troubled days, talking of the affairs of the parish, sedulously restraining himself that he might not appear to think of, or be conscious of, any thing else, but with a countenance which reflected Helen’s, which followed every change of hers, yet when her attention was attracted toward him, closed up in a moment, with the most extraordinary effort dismissing all meaning from his countenance. Lily became fascinated by Mr. Douglas, through whom she could read, as in a mirror, every thing that was happening. He said not a word on this subject, which, indeed, nobody spoke of, nor did he betray any consciousness of the other man’s presence, about which even the maid in the kitchen and the minister’s man, who never had been so assiduous in the discharge of his duties as now, were so perfectly informed; but yet she felt sure that something in him tingled to the neighborhood of his rival like an elastic chord. He would come in sometimes pale, with a stern look in his closely drawn mouth, and then Lily would feel sure that he had seen Alick Duff in the way, waiting till Helen should appear. And sometimes the lines of his countenance would relax, so that she felt sure he had heard good news and believed that haunting figure to have gone away; and then at a sound which was no sound outside, at the most trifling change in Helen’s face, the veil, the cloud, would shut again over his face.
The manner in which Lily attained the possibility of making these studies was that by the minister’s invitation, seconded, but not with very much warmth, by Helen, she had come to the Manse on a visit of a few days. Whatever prejudice Mr. Blythe had against her—and she was sure he had a prejudice, though she could not imagine any cause for it—had disappeared under the pressure of his own sore need. He himself was helpless either to watch over or to protect his daughter, and in despair he had thought of the other girl, herself caught in a tangle of the bitter web of life, and full of secret knowledge of its difficulties, who, though she was so much younger, had learned to some degree the lesson which Helen was so slow to learn. “She’s but a girl, but I’ll warrant she could give Eelen a fine lesson what it is to lippen to a man,” the minister said to himself. He had no high view of human nature, for his part. To lippen to a man seemed to him, though he had been in that respect severely virtuous himself, the last thing that a woman should do. For his own part he lippened to, that is, trusted, nobody very much, and thought he was wise in so doing. To have Lily there, seeing every thing with those young eyes, no doubt throwing her weight on the other side, allowing it at least to be seen that a man was not so easily turned round a woman’s little finger as poor Helen thought, would be something gained in the absence of all other help. Mr. Blythe had a tacit conviction that Lily’s influence would be on the opposite side, though his chief reason for thinking so was one that was fictitious.
This was how Lily came to be acquainted with all that was going on. They all appealed to her behind backs, each hoping he or she was alone in calling for her sympathy. “You will tell her better than I can; they all distrust an old man. They think the blood’s dry in his veins and he has forgotten he was once like the rest. And she will listen to him at the last. The thought that he’s going away, to fall deeper and deeper, and that strong delusion she has got that she can save him, will overcome her, and I’ll be left in the corner of the auld Manse sitting alone.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Blythe, never think that; Helen will not leave you.”
“I would not trust her, nor one of them,” he cried, and there in the dark, sitting almost unseen beside the fire, his voice came forth toneless, like that of a dead man. “I have never been thought to make much work about my bairns: one has gone and another has gone, and it has been said that the minister never minded. But there was once an auld man that said: ‘When I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.’”
Lily put her hand upon the large, soft, limp hand of the old minister in quick sympathy. “She will never leave you,” she repeated: “you need fear nothing for that—she will never go away.”
He shook his head and put his other hand for a moment over hers. “You may have been led astray,” he said, “poor little thing! but your heart is in the right place.”
Lily did not think or ask herself what he meant about being led astray. She was too much occupied with Helen, who came in at the moment with the thrill and quiver in her which was the sign that she had seen her lover. The waning sunset light from the window which had seen so many strange sights indicated this movement too, the tremor that affected her head and slight shoulders like a chill of colder air from without. She said softly as she passed Lily: “There is one at the door would fain speak a word to you.” It was not a call which Lily was very ready to obey. She had kept as far as possible out of the reach of Duff, and she had not the same sympathy for him as for the others involved; indeed, it must be allowed that, notwithstanding the charm of the romance, Lily’s feelings were far more strongly enlisted on the side of the gentle and patient young minister than on any other. She lingered, putting away some scraps of work which had been on the table, until she could no longer resist Helen’s piteous looks. “Oh, go, go!” she whispered close to Lily’s ear. It was a blustering March night, the wind and the dust blowing in along the passage when the Manse door was opened, and Lily obeyed, very reluctantly, the gesture of the dark figure outside, which moved before her to a corner sheltered by the lilac bushes, which evidently was a spot very familiar. She felt that she could almost trace the steps of Helen on the faint line which was not distinct enough to be a path, and that opening among the branches—was it not the spot where she had leaned for support through many a trying interview? Duff tacitly ceded that place to Lily, and then turned upon her with his eyes blazing through the faint twilight. “You are with them all day, you hear all they’re saying. They’re all in a conspiracy to keep me hanging on, and no satisfaction. Tell me: am I to be cast off again like an old clout, or is there any hope that she’ll come at the last?”
“There is no hope that she’ll come; how could she?” cried Lily. “Her father is old and infirm, Mr. Duff, she has told you. It is cruel to keep her like this, always in agitation. She cannot; how could she? Her father——”
“Confound her father!” he cried, swinging his fist through the air. “What’s her father to her own life and mine? You think one person should swamp themselves for another, Lily Ramsay. You’ve not been so happy in doing that yourself, if all tales be true.”
“What tales?” cried Lily, breathless with sudden excitement; and then she paused and said proudly: “Take notice, Mr. Duff, that I am not Lily Ramsay to you!”
“What are you, then?” he cried, with a laugh of scorn. “If you’ve kept your father’s name, you are just Lily Ramsay to Alick Duff, and nothing else. Our forefathers have known each other for hundreds of years. There was even a kind of a cousinship, a grandmother of mine that was a Ramsay, or yours that was a Duff, I cannot remember; but if you expect me, that knew you before you were born, to stand on ceremony—and Lumsden too,” he added, in a lower tone, “whatever you may be to him.”
“If it was my concerns you asked me out here to discuss, I think I will go in,” said Lily, “for it is cold out of doors, and I have nothing to say to you.”
“You know well whose concerns it was. Is she coming? Does she understand that it’s for the last time? I know what she thinks. I’ve been such a fool hitherto she thinks I will be as great a fool as ever, and come hankering after her to the stroke of doom. If she thinks that, let her think it no more. This time I will never come back. I will just let myself go. Oh, it’s easier, far easier, than to hold yourself in, even a little bit, as I’ve done. I’ve always had the fear of her before my eyes. I’ve always said to myself: ‘Not that! not that! or she will never speak to me again;’ but now——” He swung his fist once more with a menacing gesture through the dim air. It seemed to Lily as if he were shaking it in the face of Heaven.
“And you don’t think shame to say so!” cried Lily, tremulous with cold and agitation, and finding no argument but this, which she had used before.
“Why should I think shame? There are things a woman like Eelen Blythe can look over, but there are some you would not let her hear of, not to save your soul. It’s a matter of saving a man’s soul, Lily Ramsay, whatever ye may think. The worst is she knows every word I have to say: there’s nothing new to tell her—except just this,” he said with vehement emphasis: “that this time I will never come back!”
“And that is not new either. I have heard you tell her so fifty times. Oh, man,” cried Lily, “cannot you go and leave her at peace? She will never forget you, but she will accept what cannot be helped. Me, I fight against it, but I have to submit too. And Helen will not fight. She will just live quiet and say her prayers for you night and day.”
“Her prayers! I want herself to stand by my side and keep my heart.”
“You would be better with her prayers than with many a woman’s company. Your heart! Can you not pluck up a spirit and stand for God and what is right without Helen? How will you do it with her, then? You would mind her at first—oh, I do not doubt every word she said—but then you would get impatient, and cry: ‘Hold your tongue, woman!’”
“Is that,” he cried quickly, “what he says to you? He is just a sneaking coward, and that I would tell him to his face!”
“You are a coward to call any man so that is not here to defend himself!” cried Lily, wild with rage and pain, “though who you mean I know not, and what you mean I care not. Never man spoke such words to me, but you would do it, you are of the kind to do it. You have thought and thought that she could save you, and then when you found it was not so, you would be fiercer at her and bitterer at her than you have been at your own self. Oh, let Helen be! She will never forget you, but she will never go with you so long as her old father sits there and cannot move in his big chair.”
“If I thought that——” he said, then paused. “If that’s what’s to come of it all after more than a dozen years! Would I have been a vagabond on the face of the earth if she had taken me then? I trow no. You will think I am not the kind good men are made of? Maybe no; but there’s more kinds than one, even of decent men. I would not drag what was her name in the dust.”
“You think not,” said Lily, “but if you have dragged your father’s——”
“You little devil,” he cried, “to mind me of that!” and then he took off his hat stiffly, and with ceremony, and said: “I beg your pardon, Miss Ramsay, or whatever your name may be.”
“You are very insulting to me!” said Lily. “Why should I stand out here and let you abuse me? What are you to me that I should bear it?” But presently she added, softening: “I’m very sorry for you, all the same.”
She was hurrying away when he seized her by the arm and held her back. “Do you see that? Am I to stand still and see that, and hold my peace forever?”
The corner among the lilacs had this advantage, carefully calculated, who could doubt, years ago? that those who stood there, though unseen themselves, could see any one who approached the door of the Manse. The young minister, Mr. Douglas, had come quietly in while they were speaking: his footstep was not one that made the gravel fly. He stood, an image of quietness and good order, on the step, awaiting admittance. Scotch ministers of that date were not always so careful in their dress, so regardful of their appearance, as this young Levite. He had his coat buttoned, his umbrella neatly folded. He was not impatient, as Duff would have been in his place, but stood immovable, waiting till Marget in the kitchen had snatched her clean apron from where it lay, and tied it on to make herself look respectable before she answered the bell. Duff gripped Lily’s arm, not letting her go, and shaking with fierce internal laughter, which burst forth in an angry shout when the door was closed again and the assistant and successor admitted. “Call that a man!” he said, “with milk in his veins for blood; and you’re all in a plot to take her from me, and give her to cauld parritch like that!”
“He would keep her like the apple of his eye. There would no wind blow rough upon her if he could help it!” cried Lily, shaking herself free.
“And you think that a grand thing for a woman?” he cried scornfully, “like a petted bairn, instead of the guardian of a man’s life.”
“Oh, Alick Duff!” cried Lily, half exasperated, half overcome, “come back, come back an honest man, for her father will not live forever.”
“What would I want with her then if I was all I wanted without her?” he said, with another harsh laugh, and then turned on his heel, grinding the gravel under his foot, and without another word stalked away.
How strange it was to go in with fiery words ringing in her ears and the excitement of such a meeting in her veins, and find these people apparently so calm, sitting in the little dimly lighted parlor, where two candles on the table and a small lamp by Mr. Blythe’s head on the mantel-piece were all that was thought necessary! Lily was too much moved herself to remark how they all looked up at her with a certain expectation: Helen wistful and anxious, the old minister closing his open book over his hand, the young one rising to greet her, with almost an appealing glance. They seemed all, to Lily’s eyes, so harmonious, the same caste, the same character, fated to spend their lives side by side. And what had that violent spirit, that uncontrollable and impassioned man, with his futile ideal, to do in such a place? Mr. Douglas belonged to it and fell into all its traditions, but the other could never have had any fit place within the little circle of those two candles on the table. When the pause caused by her entrance—a pause of marked expectation, though none of the party anticipated that she would say a word—was over, the usual talk was resumed, the conversation about the parish folk who were ill, and those who were in trouble, and those to whom any special event had happened. John Logan and the death of his cows, poor things, who were the sustenance of the bairns; and the reluctance of poor Widow Blair to part with her son, who was a “natural,” and had just an extraordinary chance of being received into one of those new institutions where they are said to do such wonderful things for that kind of poor imbecile creature: this was what Helen and her friend were talking of. The minister himself had a more mundane mind. He held his Scotsman fiercely, and read now and then out loud a little paragraph; and then he looked fixedly at Lily behind the cover of the newspaper, till his steady gaze drew her eyes to him. Then he put a question to her with his lips and eyes, without uttering any sound, and finding that unsuccessful, called her to him. “See you here, Miss Lily: there’s something here in very small print ye must read to me with your young eyes.”
“Can I do it, father?” said Helen.
“Just let me and Miss Lily be. She will do it fine, and not grudge the trouble. Is that man hovering about this house? Is he always there? I will have to send for the constable if he will not go away.”
“I hope he is gone for to-night, Mr. Blythe.”
“For to-night—to be back to-morrow like a shadow hanging round the place. You’re a young woman and a bonnie one, and that carries every thing with a man like him. Get him away! I cannot endure it longer. Get him away!”
“Mr. Blythe——”
“I am saying to you get him away!” said the minister in incisive, sharp notes. And then he added: “After all, the old eyes are not so much worse than the young ones. Many thanks to you all the same.”