WHEN it was settled that Lily was to have the change upon which she insisted, her health improved day by day, and with the increase of her strength, or perhaps as the real fountain-head and cause of her increased strength, her elasticity of spirit returned to her. By one of those strange gifts of temperament which triumph over every thing that humanity can encounter, this young creature, overwhelmed by so many griefs—a deserted wife, a mother whose child had been torn from her, her secret life so full of incidents and emotion ending all at once in a blank—became in the added grace of her weakness and of the spirit and courage which overcame it as sweet a companion to her old uncle, as full of variety and freshness, as the heart could desire. He, indeed, had never known such company before. She had been younger by an age when she left him in Edinburgh, less developed, half a child, at least in his eyes, and he had been surrounded by company and cronies of his own of a very different character. But now, in this lonely spot where there was nobody, Lily, rising from her sick-bed, with her eyes still large in their white sockets, her hands still transparent, her touch and her step still tremulous with weakness, became his diversion, his delight, making the long lonely days short, and even the rain supportable when it swept against the narrow windows, and intensified the brightness of the fireside and the pleasant talk, or even, when there was no talk, the sense of companionship within. Sometimes Lily would fall asleep in the afternoon or at the falling of the day, unawares, in the feebleness of her convalescence, and perhaps these were the moments in which most of all the old man of the world felt completely what this companionship was. He would lay down his paper or his book and look at her—the light of the fire playing on her face, giving it a faint touch of rose, and dissimulating the deep shadows under the eyes—feeling to his heart that most intimate confidence and trust in him, the reliance, almost unconscious, of a child, the utter dependence and weakness which could put up no barriers of the conventional, nor stop to think what would be agreeable: these things found out secret crevices in Sir Robert’s armor of which neither he nor any one else had dreamed. The water stood in his eyes as he looked at her, saying “Poor lassie, poor little lassie!” secretly in his heart. She was as good company then, though she did not know it, as when she started from her brief sleep and exerted herself to make him talk, to make him laugh, to feel himself the most interesting of raconteurs and delightful of companions. Many people had flattered Sir Robert in his day—he had been important enough in much of his life for that—but he had never found flattery so sweet as Lily’s demands upon the stores of his long experience, her questions upon his history, her interest in what he told her. It was not only that she was herself such a companion as he had not dreamed of, but that he never had been aware before what excellent company he was himself. He almost grudged to see her growing stronger, though he rejoiced in it from the bottom of his old world-worn heart.
“And so you are going to leave me, Lily—you’ve settled, that Robina woman and you—and you’re off in two days seeking adventures?”
“Yes, uncle—in two days; but only for a little while.”
“Without a thought of an old man left desolate—upon the edge of the moor.”
“Yes, with a thought that is very pleasant—that there’s somebody there wanting me back”—she paused a moment with a faint sigh and added: “and that I am coming back to in a little while. And then, as for the moor, it is full of diversion. You’re never lonely watching the clouds and the shadows and all the changes: I have had much experience of it, Uncle Robert—two years, that were sometimes long, long.”
“I never knew,” said Sir Robert, a little abashed, “how lonely it was, Lily, and that all the old neighbors were gone. I pictured you surrounded with young folk, and as merry as the day was long.”
“It was not exactly that,” she said, with a smile; and then her face changed, as it did from moment to moment, like the moor which she loved, yet hated—shadows flying over it as swift, as sudden, and as deep. “But it’s all past, and why should we think more of it? When I come back, Uncle Robert, we’ll be cheery, you and me together by the fireside all the winter through, and never ask whether there are neighbors or not—or other folk in the world.”
“I would not go so far as that,” said the old gentleman. “We’ll get the world to come to us, Lily, a small bit at a time. But you have never told me where you are going when you leave me here.”
“To Edinburgh,” she said.
“To Edinburgh! I thought you had consulted with the doctor, and were going to the seaside, or to the Bridge of Allan, or some of the places where invalids go.”
“Uncle,” said Lily, “I have been two years upon the moor, and in all that time I have not got a new gown, nor a bonnet, nor any thing whatsoever. Oh, yes, we will go to the sea, or the Bridge of Allan, or to some place. But we are not fit to be seen, neither Beenie nor me. You do not take these things into consideration. You think, when I speak to you like a rational creature, that I am above the wants of my kind; but rational or not, a woman must always have some clothes to wear!”
Sir Robert laughed and clapped his hands. “Bravo, Lily!” he cried. “You cannot do better, my dear, than own you’re just a woman and are as fond of your finery as the rest. By all means, then, go to Edinburgh and fit yourself out; but do not stay there, go out to Portobello, if you do not care to go farther, or a little more to the West, where it’s milder, and you will get a warm blink before the winter weather sets in. And that reminds me that you will want money, Lily.”
“A good deal of money, Uncle Robert,” she said, with a smile. “You know I have had none for two years.”
It was with a sensation of shame that he heard her allusions to those two years, and perhaps Lily was aware of it. She wanted money, she wanted freedom, and that her steps should not be watched nor her movements constrained. And the old gentleman was startled and humiliated when he realized that his heiress, his only relation, his brother’s child, had been banished to this wilderness without a shilling in her pocket or a friend to help her. He could not imagine how he could have forgotten so completely her existence or her claims upon him and right to his support. He was glad to wipe that recollection from his own mind as well as hers by his liberality now. And Lily received from him an order upon his “man of business” in Edinburgh for an amount which seemed to her almost fabulous—for she knew nothing of money, had never had any, nor required it, although when she retired to her room with that piece of paper in her hand which meant so much, the reflection of what might have happened and what she could have done had she only at any time during these two years possessed as much, or half as much, came upon her with almost a convulsive sense of opportunities lost. She flung herself upon Beenie’s shoulder when she reached the safe shelter of her room, where it was no longer necessary to keep herself up and make a smile for her uncle. “Oh, Beenie!” she cried, “if he had given me the half of that before, or the quarter! how every thing might have been changed.”
“Oh, mem, my bonnie leddy,” cried Beenie, who never now addressed her mistress as Miss Lily, “it’s little, little that siller can do!”
Anger flashed in Lily’s eyes. “It could just have done every thing!” she said. “Do you think I would have been put off and off if I could have put my hand in my pocket and taken the coach and gone, you and me, to see to every thing ourselves? Oh! many a time I have wished for it, and longed for it—but what could we do, you and me, and nothing, nothing to take us there? Oh, never say siller can do little! It might have spared us all that’s happened—think! all that’s happened! I might be thinking now as I thought yon New Year’s time in the snow. I might be as sure and as full of trust. I might never have learned what it was to deceive and to be deceived. I might never have been a desolate woman without man or bairn—without my little bairn, my little baby!”
“Oh, my darlin’ leddy! but you’ll get him again, you’ll get him again!” cried Beenie, with streaming eyes.
“I hope in God I shall,” said Lily, tearless, lifting her eyes and clasping her hands. “I hope in God I shall, or else that he’ll let me just lay down my head and die!”
“He has raised you up from the very grave,” said Beenie. “We had nae hope, Katrin and me; we had nae hope at all. Here she is hersel’ that will tell you. There was ae night—oh, come Katrin, come and bear me out—when you and me just stood over her, and kissed the bonnie white face on the white pillow, and wrung each other’s hands, and said: ‘If the baby’s lost and her reason gane, God bless her, she’ll be better away.’”
“Whisht with your nonsense,” said Katrin; “that’s a’ past, and now we have nae such thoughts in our heads. But what will you do, my dear leddy, my bonnie leddy? Will ye bring him back here? A fine thriving bairn like yon you canna hide him. The first day, the first night, and the secret would be parish news. I was frichtened out of my wits the first days for Dougal, who is not a pushing man, to do him justice, or one that asks questions; but with Sir Robert in the house, oh, mem, my bonnie dear, what will ye do?”
“I have never wanted to make any secret, Katrin,” Lily said.
“I ken that; but there will be an awfu’ deal to tell when once you begin. And the bairn he is an awfu’ startling thing to begin with. Do ye no think an auld gentleman like Sir Robert had better be prepared for it? It would give him a shock. It might even hairm him in his health. I would take counsel about it. Oh, I would take counsel! Do naething in a hurry, not to scandalize the country, nor to give our auld maister a fright that might do him harm.”
“To scandalize the country!” said Lily, pale with anger. “Oh! to think it’s me, me that she says that to! Do you think it is better to deceive every-body and be always a lie whatever way you turn?”
“Mem,” said Katrin, “my dear, you’ll excuse me; I must just say the truth. It’s an awfu’ thing to deceive, as you say, and well I ken it was never your wyte. But the worst of it is that when you begin you cannot end. You just have to go on. I’m no saying one thing or another. It’s no my business, if it wasna that I just think more of you than one mortal creature should think of another. Oh! just take thought and take counsel! The maister is an old man. You’ve beguiled him with your winsome ways just as you’ve beguiled us a’. Can I see a thing wrong you do, whatever it is? And yet I have a glimmerin’ o’ sense between whiles. If he’s looking for you back to be his bonnie Lily and his companion, and syne sees you come in with a bairn in your arms and another man’s name, what will the auld man do? Oh, mem, the dear bairn, God bless him, and grant that you may soon have him in your airms! But if you hold by the auld gentleman and his life and comfort, for God’s sake take thought! for that is in it, too.”
“There is nothing, nothing,” cried Lily, “that should keep a mother from her bairn! You are a kind woman, Katrin, but you’ve never had a bairn. When once I get him here, how can I ever give him up again?” she said, straining her arms to her breast as if the child was within them. Beenie wept behind her mistress’s shoulder, overwhelmed with sympathy, but Katrin shook her head.
“When you see Mr. Lumsden there, and go over it all——”
Lily’s face became instantly as if the windows of her mind had been closed up. Her lips straightened, her eyes became blank. She said nothing, but turned away, not looking at either of them nor saying a word. “And it was no me breathed his name or as much as thought upon him,” Beenie said a little later in an aggrieved tone, when she had rejoined Katrin down stairs.
“It was me that breathed his name, and I’ll do it again till some heed is paid to what I say. We should maybe have refused yon day to be his witnesses. But being sae, Beenie, the burden is on you and me as well as on him. They should have owned each other and spoke the truth from that day. But now that it has all gone so far and no a whisper risen, and the countryside just as innocent as if they were two bairns playing, oh, I wouldna now just burst it all upon the auld man’s head! He’s no an ill auld man. He’s provided for her all her life; he is very muckle taken up with her now, maybe in a selfish way, for he’s feeling his age and his mainy infirmities, and he’s wanting a companion. But, oh! I would not burst it on him now! He could never abide her man, and, to tell the truth, Beenie, I’m not that fond of him mysel’, and she, poor thing, has had a fearfu’ opening to her eyes. How could ye have the bairn here and no the father? Could she say to her uncle: ‘I was very silly about him once and married him, and now I canna abide him’? Oh, no! that is what she will never say.”
“And I hope she’ll never think it either,” Beenie said.
“Beenie,” said the other solemnly, “you are a real innocent if such a thing ever was.”
“No more than yoursel’,” said Beenie, indignant; but she had to return to her mistress, and further discussion could not be held on this question.
They went away on the second morning, which was a little frosty, though bright. The establishment had widened out by this time. Sir Robert was not a man to be driven to kirk or market in the little geeg, drawn at his wilful pleasure by Rory, which had answered all Lily’s purposes. There was now a phaeton and a brougham, and three or four horses accommodated tant bien que mal in the old stables, which had to be cleared of much rubbish and Dougal’s accumulations of years before they were in a state to receive their costly inmates. It was in the brougham that Lily, wrapped up in every kind of shawl and comforter, drove with her maid to Kinloch-Rugas to take the coach, where the best places had been reserved for them. Beenie’s pride in this journey exceeded the anxiety with which her mind was full, in respect to her mistress’s health in the first place, and the many issues of their journey. But it was not a “pride” which met with much sympathy from her dear friends and fellow-servants. Dougal for his part stood out in the stable-yard carefully isolated from all possible connection with the new grooms and the new horses, though neither was he without a thrill of pride in the distinction of a kind of part-proprietorship with Sir Robert in these dazzling articles. He kept apart, however, with an air of conscious superiority to such innovations. “I wish ye a good journey,” he said; “maybe it’ll be warmer this fine morning in a shut-up carriage, but, Lord! I would rather have Rory and the little geeg than all the coaches in England!”
Lily was thrilling with nervous excitement, scarcely able to contain herself, but she made an effort to give a word and a smile to the whilom arbiter of all the movements of Dalrugas. “I would rather have you and Rory in the summer weather,” she said. “If it is a warm day when I come back, you will come for me, Dougal.”
“Na, mem, no me; we’re no grand enough now to carry leddies: which I wouldna care much for, for leddies, as ye ken, are whiles fantastic and put awfu’ burdens on a beast—but just because his spirit is broken with trailing peats from the hill, and visitors’ boxes from the toun. They’re sensitive creatures, pownies. I just begin to appreciate the black powny’s feelings now I see the effect upon my ain.”
“He shall drive me when I come back,” said Lily, waving her hand as the brougham flashed away, the coats of the horses shining in the frosty sunshine, and the carriage panels sending back reflections. It was certainly more comfortable than the geeg. But the light went out of Lily’s face as they left Dalrugas behind. The little color in her cheeks disappeared. She leaned back in her corner and once more pressed her arms against her breast. “Oh, shall I find him? shall I find him?” she cried.
“You’ll do that—wherefore should you no do that?” said Beenie encouragingly.
“He’ll be grown so big we will not know him, Beenie, and he will not know his mother; that woman Margaret that took him away will have all his smiles—she will be the first face that he sees, now that he’s old enough to notice. Oh, my little bairn! my little bairn!”
“A bairn that is two months auld takes but little notice, mem,” said Beenie, strong in her practical knowledge. “You need not fash your head about that. They may smile, but if ye were to ask me the very truth, I wouldna hide from you that what they ca’ smiling is just in my opinion the——”
“If you say that word, I will kill you!” cried Lily. She laughed and then she cried in her excitement. “How will I contain myself? how will I keep quiet and face the world, and the folk in the world, and every-body about, till the moment comes—oh, the moment, Beenie!—when I will get my baby into my arms?”
“Eh, mem! but you must not make yoursel’ sae awfu’ sure about that,” said Beenie. “We might not find them just at first—or he might have a little touch of the cauld, or maybe the thrush in his wee mouth, or measles, or something. You must not make yourself so awfu’ sure.”
“He is ill!” cried Lily, seizing her in a fierce grip. “He is ill, oh, you false, false woman, and you have never said a word to me!”
“There is naething ill about him; he is just thriving like the flowers. But I canna bide when folk are so terrible sure. It seems as if you were tempting God.”
“It’s you that are tempting me—to believe in nothing, neither Him nor women’s word. But what would make a woman deceive a baby’s mother about her own child? A man might do it, that knows nothing about what that means; but a woman never would do it, Beenie—a woman that has been about little babies and their mothers all her days?”
“No, mem, I never thought it,” said Beenie in dutiful response.
At the coach, where they were received with all the greater honor on account of Sir Robert’s brougham, and the beautiful prancing horses, Helen Blythe met them. “They would not let me come to see you,” she said. “It’s long, long, since I’ve seen you, Lily, and worn and white you’ve grown—but just as bonnie as ever: there comes up the color just as it used to do—but you must look stronger when you come back.”
“I am going away for that,” Lily said.
“And it is just the wisest thing she could do,” said the doctor, who had come also to see her off. “And stay away as long as you can, Miss Ramsay, and just divert yourself a little. You have great need of diversion after that long time at the old Tower.”
“She is not one that is much heeding diversion,” said Helen, looking at her affectionately.
“We’re all needing it whether we’re heeding it or no,” said the doctor. “And if you will take my advice, you will just take a little pleasure to yourself, as you would take physic if I ordered it. Good-by, Miss Ramsay, and mind what I say.”
“He’s maybe right,” said Helen; “they say he’s a clever man. I know little about diversion. But, oh! I would like to see you happy, Lily—that would be better than all the physic in the world.”
“Perhaps I will bring it back with me,” said Lily, with a smile.