WHEN Sir Robert went in somewhat reluctantly to Lily’s room—for he was not accustomed to illness, and did not know what to do or say, or even how to look, in a sick room—he found her fully conscious, very white, very worn, her eyes looking twice their usual size and full of that wonderful translucent clearness which exhaustion gives. Her face, he did not know why, disposed the old gentleman to shed tears, though he was very far indeed from having any inclination that way in general. There was a smile upon it, a smile of wistful appeal to him, such a claim upon his sympathy and help as perhaps no other human creature had ever made before.
“Uncle!” she cried, holding out two thin hands which seemed whiter than the mass of white linen about her. “Uncle Robert! oh! are you there? I have been an ill bairn to you, Uncle Robert. I have not been faithful nor true. You sent me here for my good, and I’ve turned it to harm. But you’re my only kin and my only friend, and all that I have in the world.”
“Lily, my dear, compose yourself, my poor lassie. I am not blaming you: why should I blame you? When you were ill, what could you do but lie in your bed and be taken care of? Woman, have ye no sense? She is not fit yet to be troubled with visits; you might have seen that!”
“Oh, Sir Robert, and so I did! But how could I cross her when she just said without ceasing: ‘I want my uncle. I want to see my uncle!’ She was not to be crossed, the doctor said.”
“It was not Beenie’s fault.” Lily stretched out her hands till they reached her uncle’s, who stood by her bedside, yet as far off as he could, not to appear unkind. He was a little horrified by the touch of those hot hands. She threw herself half out of the bed to reach him, and caught his hard and bony old hand, so firm still and strong, between those white quivering fingers, almost fluid in their softness, which enveloped his with a sudden heat and atmosphere, so strange and unusual that he retreated still a step, though he could not withdraw his hand.
“Uncle Robert, you will not forsake me!” Lily cried. “I have only you now, I have only you. I have been ill to you, but, oh, be good to me! I am a very lonely woman. I have nobody. I have put my trust in—other things, and they have all failed me! I’ve had a long dream and now I’ve awakened. Uncle Robert, I have nobody but you in all the world!”
“Now, Lily, you must just compose yourself, my dear. Who thought of forsaking you? It is certain that you are my only near relation. Your father was my only brother. What would ail me at you? My poor lassie, just let yourself be covered up, and put your arms under the clothes and try if you cannot sleep a little. A good sleep would be the best thing for her, Robina, wouldn’t you say? Compose yourself, compose yourself, my dear.”
Lily still clung to his hand, though he tried so hard to withdraw it from her hold. “And I will be different,” she said. “You will never need to complain of me more. My visions and my dreams they are all melted away, like the snow yon winter-time, when my head was just carried and I did not know what I was doing. Oh, I have been ill to you, ill to you! Eaten your bread and dwelt in your house and been a traitor to you. If they tell you, oh, Uncle Robert, do not believe I was so bad as that. I never meant it, I never intended—— It was a great delusion, and it is me that has the worst to bear.”
“Robina!” cried Sir Robert, “this will never do. What disjointed nonsense has the poor thing got into her head? She will be as bad as ever if you do not take care. No more of it, no more of it, Lily. You’ve been very ill; you must be quiet, and don’t trouble your head about any thing. As for your old uncle, he will stand by you, my poor lassie, whatever you may have done—not that I believe for a moment you have done any thing.” He was greatly relieved to get his hand free. He went so far as to cover her shoulders with the bedclothes, and to give a little pat upon the white counterpane. Poor little thing! Her head was not right yet. Great care must be taken of the poor lassie. He had heard they were fond of accusing themselves of all kinds of crimes after an attack of this sort.
“I suppose the doctor will be coming to-day?” he said to Beenie as he hastily withdrew toward the door.
“It’s very near his hour, Sir Robert.”
“That’s well, that’s very well! Keep her as quiet as you can, that’s the great thing, and tell her from me that she is not to trouble her head about any thing—about any thing, mind,” said Sir Robert with an emphasis which had no real meaning, though it awakened a hundred alarms in Beenie’s mind. She thought he must have been told, he must have found out something of the history of these past months. But, indeed, the old gentleman knew nothing at all, and meant nothing but to express, more or less in the superlative, his conviction that poor Lily was still under the dominion of her delusions, and that it was her fever, not herself, which brought from her lips these incomprehensible confessions. He understood that it was often so in these cases; probably, if he had let her go on, she would have confessed to him that she had tried to murder—Dougal, say, or somebody else equally likely. The only thing was to keep her quiet, to impress upon her that she was not to trouble her head about any thing, not about any thing, in the strongest way in which that assurance could be put.
Lily lay quite still for a long time after Sir Robert had escaped from the room. She was very weak and easily exhausted, but happily the weakness of both body and brain dulled, except at intervals, the active sense of misery, and even the memory of those events which had ravaged her life. She was still quite quiet when the doctor came, and smiled at him with the faint smile of recovered consciousness and intelligence, though with scarcely a movement as she lay on her pillows, recovered, yet so prostrated in strength that she lay like one cast up by the waves, half dead, unable to struggle or even to lift a finger for her own help. A much puzzled man was the doctor, who had brought her successfully through this long and dreadful illness, but whose mind had been sorely exercised to account for many things which connected this malady with what had gone before. That he divined a great deal of what had gone before there was little doubt; but he had no light upon Lily’s real position, and his heart was sore for a young creature, a lady, in such sore straits, and with probably a cloud hanging over her which would spoil her entire life. And he was a prudent man, and asked no questions which he was not compelled to ask. Had it been a village girl he would have formed his conclusions with less hesitation, and felt less deeply; but it was a very different matter with Sir Robert Ramsay’s niece, who would be judged far more severely and lose much more than any village maiden was likely to do. Poor girl! he tried as best he could, like a good man as he was, to save her as much as possible even from the suggestion of any suspicion. “What has she been doing? You have allowed her to do too much,” he said.
“She would see her uncle, doctor; she just insisted that she would see Sir Robert. If I had crossed her in that, would it no have been just as bad?”
The white face on the pillow smiled faintly and breathed, rather than said: “It was my fault.”
“And he said she was not to trouble her head about ainy thing, not about ainy thing, doctor, and that was a comfort to her—she was so vexed, him coming for the first time to his ain house, and her no able to welcome him, nor do any thing for him.”
“That’s a very small matter; she must think of that no more. What you have to do now, Miss Ramsay, is just to think of nothing, to trouble your head about nothing, as Sir Robert judiciously says; to take what you can in the way of nourishment, and to sleep as much as you can, and to think about nothing. I absolutely proheebit thinking,” he said, bending over her with a smile. She was so touching a sight in her great weakness, and with even his uncertain perception of what was behind and before her, that the moisture came into the honest doctor’s eyes.
Lily gave him another faint smile, and shook her head, if that little movement on the pillow could be called shaking her head, and then he gave Beenie her instructions, and with a perplexed mind proceeded to the interview with Sir Robert to which he had been summoned. He did not know what he would say to Sir Robert if his questions were of a penetrating kind. But Sir Robert’s questions were not penetrating at all.
“She has been havering to me, poor lassie,” said the old gentleman, “about being alone in the world and with nobody but me to look after her. It is true enough. We have no relations, either her or me, being the last of the family. But why should she think I would forsake her? And she says she has been an ill bairn to me, and other things that have just no sense in them. But that’s a common thing, doctor? Is it not quite a common thing that people coming out of such an illness take fancies that they have done all sorts of harm?”
“The commonest thing in the world,” said the doctor cheerfully. “Did she say she had stolen your gear, or broken into your strong-box?”
“There is no saying what she would have said if I had let her go on,” said Sir Robert, with a laugh, “though, indeed, I was nearer crying than laughing to see her so reduced. But all that will come right in time?”
“It will all come right in time. She’s weaker than I like to see, and you must send for me night or day, at any moment, if there is any increase of weakness. But I hope better things. Leave her to the women: they’re very kind, and not so silly as might reasonably be expected. Don’t go near her, if I might advise you, Sir Robert.”
“Indeed, I will obey you there,” said the old gentleman; “no fear of that. I can do her no good, poor thing, and why should I trouble both her and myself with useless visits? No, no, I will take care of that.”
And the doctor went away anxious, but satisfied. If there was a story to tell, it was better that the poor girl should tell it at least when she was full mistress of herself—not now, betrayed by her weakness, when she might say what she would regret another time.
But Lily asked no more for Sir Robert. It was but the first impulse of her suddenly awakened mind. She relapsed into the weakness which was all the greater for that brief outburst, and lay for days conscious, and so far calm that she had no strength for agitation, often sleeping, seldom thinking, wrapped by nature in a dream of exhaustion, through which mere emotion could not pierce. And thus youth and the devoted attendance of her nurses brought her through at last. It was October when she first rose from her bed, an advance in recovery which the women were anxious to keep back as long as possible, while the doctor on the other hand pressed it anxiously. “She will lose all heart if she is kept like this, with no real sign of improvement,” he said. “Get her up; if it’s only for an hour, it will do her good.”
“It will bring it all back,” said Beenie in despair. She stopped herself next moment with a terrified glance at him; but he knew how to keep his own counsel. And he gave no further orders on this subject. Lily, however, was not to be restrained. When she was first led into the drawing-room, she went to the window and looked out long and with a steadfast look upon the moor. It had faded out of the glory of heather which had covered it everywhere when she last looked upon that scene. Nearly two months were over since that day, that wonderful day of fate. Lily looked out upon the brown heather, still with here and there a belated touch of color upon the end of the long stalks rustling with the brown husks of the withered bells. The rowan-trees gave here and there a gleam of scarlet or a touch of bright yellow in the scanty leaves, ragged with the wind, which were almost as bright as the berries. The intervals of turf were emerald green, beginning to shine with the damp of coming winter. The hills rose blue in the noonday warmth with that bloom upon them, like a breaking forth of some efflorescence responsive to the light, which comes in the still sunshine, disturbed by no flying breezes. Lily looked long upon the well-known landscape which she knew by heart in every variation, resisting with great resolution the endeavors of Beenie to draw her back from that perilous outlook.
“Oh, look nae mair, my bonnie leddy!” Beenie said. “You’ve seen it mair than enough, that awfu’ moor!”
“What ails you at the moor, Robina?” Sir Robert said, coming briskly in. “You are welcome back, my dear; you are welcome back to common life. Don’t stand and weary yourself; I will bring you a chair to the window. I’m glad, Lily, that you’re fond of the moor.”
Lily turned to him with the same overwhelming smile which had nearly made an end of Sir Robert before, which shone from her pale face and from her wide, lucid, liquid eyes, still so large and bright with weakness; but she did not wait for him to bring her a chair to the window. She tottered to one that had been placed for her near the fire, which, however bright the day, was always necessary at Dalrugas. “I am better here,” she said. She looked so fragile seated there opposite to him that the old gentleman’s heart was moved.
“My poor lassie! I would give something to see you as bright-faced and as light-footed as when you came here.”
“Ah, that’s so long ago,” she said. “I was light-hearted, too, and perhaps light-headed then. I am not light in any way now, except, perhaps, in weight. It makes you very serious to live night and day and never change upon the moor.”
“Do you think so, Lily? I’m sorry for that. I thought you were so fond of the moor. They told me you were out upon it when you were well, rambling and taking your pleasure all the day.”
“Yes,” she said, “it’s always bonnie. The heather is grand in its time, and it’s fine, too, in the gray days, when the hills are all wrapped in their gray plaids, and a kind of veil upon the moor. But it cannot answer, Uncle Robert, when you speak, or give you back a look or say a word.”
“That’s true, that’s true, Lily. I was thinking only that it’s a peaceful place, and quiet, where an old man like me can get his sleep in peace; though there’s that Dougal creature with his pails and pony that is aye stirring by the skreigh of day.”
“The pony was a great diversion,” said Lily, “and Dougal, too, who was always very kind to me.”
“Kind! It was his bounden duty, the least he could do. I would like to know how he would have stood before me if he had not been kind, and far more, to the only child of the old house!”
“Thank you, Uncle Robert,” said Lily, “for saying so. They were all kind, and far more than kind. They have just been devoted to me, and thought of nothing but to make me happy. You will think of that—in case that any thing should happen.”
“Lily!” said Sir Robert with an angry tone, “I’m thinking you’re both ungrateful and unkind yourself. God has spared you and brought you back out of a dreadful illness, and these two women have nursed you night and day, and though I could do little for you, having no experience that way, yet perhaps I’ve felt all the more. And here are you speaking of ‘any thing that might happen,’ as if you had not just been delivered out of the jaws of death.”
“Yes, I am very grateful,” said Lily, holding out her thin hand, “to both them and you, Uncle Robert, and most of all to you, for it was out of your way indeed; but as for God, I am not sure that I am grateful to him, for he might have taken me out of all the trouble while he was at it, and that would have been the best for us all. But,” she added, looking up suddenly with one of her old quick changes of feeling and countenance, “how should you think I meant dying? There are many, many things that might happen besides that. I might go away, or you might send me away.”
“I’ll not do that, Lily.”
“How do you know, Uncle Robert? You sent me away once before when you sent me here. You might do it again—or, what is more, I might ask you—— Oh, Uncle Robert, let me go away a little, let me leave the sight of it, and the loneliness that has broken my heart!” Lily put her transparent hands together and looked at him with a pathetic entreaty in her face.
“Go away!” he said, startled, “as soon as I come here—the first time you come into the drawing-room to ask that!”
“It is true,” said Lily, “it’s ungrateful, oh, it’s without heart, it’s unkind, Uncle Robert, as you say; but only for a little while, till I get a little better. I will never get better here.”
“This is a great disappointment to me,” he said. “I thought I would have you, Lily, to keep me company. I thought you would be my companion and take care of me for a year or two. I am not likely at my age to trouble any body for very long,” he added with a half-conscious appeal for sympathy.
“And so I will,” said Lily; “I will be your companion. I will be at your side to do whatever you please—to read or to write, to walk or to talk. I will look for nothing else in this world, and I will never leave you, Uncle Robert, and there is my hand upon that. But I must be well first,” she added rapidly. “And I will never get well here. Oh, let me go! If it was but for a week, for a fortnight, for two or three days. Is it not always said of ill folk that when they get better they must have a change? Let me have a change, Uncle Robert! I want to look out at something that is not the moor. Oh, how long, how long, if you will only think of it, I have been looking at nothing but the moor! I am tired, tired of the moor! Oh, I am wearied of it! I have liked it well, and I will come back and like it again. But for a little while, uncle, only for a little while, let me go away from the moor.”
“Is it so long a time?” he said. “I was not aware you had been here so long a time. Why, it is not two years! If you think two years is a long time, Lily, wait till you know what life is, and that a year’s but a moment when you look back upon it.”
“It looks like a hundred years to me,” she said, “and before I can look back as you do it will be a hundred years more. And how am I to bear them all without a break or a rest? If I were even like you, a soldier marching here and there, with your colors flying and your drums beating! but what has a woman to do but to sit and think and count the days? Uncle Robert,” she said, putting her hand on his arm as he stood near her, with his back to the fire, “I’m not unwilling at all to die. I would never have minded if it had been so. I would have asked for nothing but a warm green turf from the moor, and maybe a bush of heather at my feet. But it has not ended like that, which would have been God’s doing—only I will never get well unless I get away, unless I breathe other air; and if you refuse me, that will be your doing!” she cried with something of her old petulance and fire.
“Did the doctor say any thing about this change?” Sir Robert asked Beenie, with a cloud upon his face.
“He said she was to be crossed in naething,” Beenie replied.