IT was not without much thought that Lumsden decided to leave his wife unmolested when she fled from him. It did not cost him much trouble to discover where she had gone, and he watched her proceedings and those of Beenie carefully, and had little difficulty in discovering what their object was. But he had foreseen all that and taken his precautions, and he had no doubt as to the result. With Lily’s absolute inexperience, and the few facilities which existed at that period, a very simple amount of care would have been enough to baffle her. But he had taken a great deal of care. Margaret Bland and her charge were out of the reach of any researches made in Scotland, and his mind was quite easy as to the chances of further investigation, for Scotland was very much more separated from the rest of the world in those days than it is now. I do not say that it did not cost him a pang to know that Lily herself was within reach and to refrain from seeing her, from saying a word further to excuse or explain, and from making at least an endeavor to recover her confidence. But he had gone too far now for excuses and expedients, and he felt that it was wiser to refrain from every thing of the kind until the moment came when, in the course of nature, he would be liberated from all restrictions and be able to go to her and claim her freely, without fear of interference. If he could do so, bringing a great joy and surprise in his hand, he felt that he was more likely to be received and forgiven than if he were able only to establish a reconciliation upon the old basis of concealment and clandestine meetings, which now, indeed, would be impossible. He thought that absence would draw her heart toward him, and that in the silence she would make his excuses to herself better than he could do; and what would not a man merit who would bring back to a mother, who had mourned for him as dead, her living child? He said over to himself, being a man of literary taste, some verses of Southey’s, who was more thought of then as a poet than now:
“When the fond mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy.”
Would not all be forgiven for the sake of that? But then came in the question, had they believed him? Had they not believed him? Had there been some channel of which he knew nothing by which they had procured information in respect to the child? This was the one doubtful matter which would be enough to crush all his most careful schemes. But he could not see how it was possible they could have obtained any information. That Margaret Bland should have written did not occur to him. Persons of her class did not write letters daily then as they do now; and he thought he had secured her devotion wholly to himself, and made it quite clear to her that for his wife’s sake this was the only thing that could be done. Margaret had understood him completely. She was a person of superior intelligence. She was an admirable nurse and devoted to the baby. But she was quite unaware at first that the arrangement made with her was unknown to Lily, nor had she known that in writing to Robina she had transgressed her contract with the child’s father. It was her duty to be silent now, she was informed, in order to avoid all danger of a correspondence that might be discovered; but nothing even now had been said to Margaret which could have made her feel herself in the wrong, or led her to confess what she had done. Thus the one thing which would have made him see how fatally he had risked all his possibilities was concealed from Lumsden. He could still honestly, or almost honestly, persuade himself that, though what he had done might be cruel for the moment, it was, in reality, the best thing for Lily. Nothing else would have satisfied her, nothing less. She would never have had a moment’s peace had she understood that her child might be found. She would have thought nothing of any sacrifice involved. Her inheritance would have been of no value to her in comparison with the possession of her baby. She was capable of making every thing known to her uncle at any moment if by this means she could have secured the child. He had not ceased to love her, nor to entertain for her the admiration, mingled with indulgence, which makes a young woman’s faults almost more attractive than her virtues to her lover. It would be like Lily to do all that; it was like Lily to give him all that trouble about the house which he never intended to get for her, but which it cost him so many fictions, so much exercise of ingenuity, to satisfy her about. There were very pardonable points in that foolishness. The desire to be with him, to identify her life altogether with his, was sweet: he loved her the better for it, though, as the wiser of the two, he knew that it was impracticable, and that it must be firmly, but gently, denied to her. And to desire to have her baby was very natural and very sweet, too. What prettier thing could there be than a young mother with her child? But there were more serious things in the world than those indulgences of natural affection, which are in themselves so blameless and so sweet, and this, in her own best interests, he, her husband, her natural head and guide, was forced to deny her, too.
I do not think that Lily was aware of the tenor of these reasonings. She made very little allowance for her husband; at no time had she been disposed to allow that in these matters, which were of such great importance in her life, he knew best. He had deceived her first of all, and then he had made her a reluctant accomplice in deceiving others. Nature, truth, honor, honesty, had all been from the beginning on her side, and she had thought Ronald as little wise as he was right in setting them all at defiance for the preservation of a secret which ought never to have been made a secret at all. She had endured it all when there was only herself in question, but from the moment in which there was hope of the baby Lily had felt with a leap of the heart that here was the solution of the problem, and that every thing must now be made open to the light of day. It may be supposed that when, after all this dreadful episode, she returned alone, like, yet so unlike, the Lily Ramsay who was sent to Dalrugas two years before into banishment with Robina, her maid, the whole matter was turned over and over in her mind with all those dreadful visions of past chances, steps which, if taken, might have changed every thing, which are the stings of such a review. To Lily, as she pondered, there seemed so many things she might have done. She might have resisted the marriage first of all. She might have refused to be married in secrecy, in a corner—the very minister, she had always felt sure, though he had been kind, disapproving of her all the time; but then (she excused herself) she had not foreseen that the marriage was to be kept a secret: it was only, she had understood, an expedient to secure quietness and speed without preliminaries that would have called the attention of the whole parish. And then, when she followed her own story to that time after Whit-Sunday, when she had expected her husband to secure the house, which could not, he swore, be obtained till the term, Lily now saw that she should have taken the matter into her own hand, that she should have permitted no more playing with the question, that, whether he liked it or not, she should have insisted on having some home and shelter of her own. Especially before the birth of her baby should she have insisted upon this. She clasped her hands with impatience and a sense of bitter failure as she thought it all over. She ought not to have allowed herself to be silenced or hindered. Her child should have been born in her own house, where he could have been welcomed and rejoiced over, not hidden away. She cried out in her solitude, with that clasp of her hands, that it was all her fault, her own fault, that she was responsible for the child above all, and that it was she who should have done this had not only her husband, but all the powers of the earth gone against it. Then Lily reflected, with the impulse of self-defence, that she had no money, and did not know how to get any, and that it would have been hard, very hard for her, without her present enlightenment, to have gone against Ronald, to have flown in his face and thwarted him so completely in a matter upon which he had so firmly made up his mind. Oh, what a difference there was between the Lily of that time—hesitating, miserable to yield and yet unable to resist, not knowing how to take a great step on her own authority, to oppose her husband and all the lesser chain of circumstances, the unconscious influence even of the women who held her with a softer bond of watchfulness and affection—and this Lily now, braced to any effort, having withdrawn and separated herself from him and from every other restraint of influence, as she thought, standing alone against all the world, deeply disenchanted, and considering every pretence of love and happiness as false and deceitful. Had it been now how little would she have hesitated! But was not this the bitterness of life: that it was then only she could have acted effectually, and not now?
She settled down to the winter at Dalrugas with these thoughts. She was Miss Ramsay, the daughter and the mistress of the house. She did not know and did not care what was thought of her in the countryside. If stories were told of the gentleman who had come so often from Edinburgh, but now came no longer, Lily heard none of them. Some faltering questions from Helen Blythe, who, instinctively, though she did not know why, never referred to Ronald in presence of Sir Robert, were all the indications she ever had that his disappearance was commented on, and Lily did not care who spoke of Ronald, or how or where their secret might be betrayed; and this indifference delivered her from many doubts and questionings. She had no objection that any body should tell in detail the whole thing to Sir Robert. She held her head very proudly above all terrors of being found out. She was afraid of nothing now. Every thing, she thought, had happened that could happen. She was separated from her husband, not by any formality, not by any such motive as had kept the secret hitherto, but by a great gulf fixed, which Lily felt it was impossible should ever be bridged over. He had wronged her as surely never woman had been wronged before, lied to her, made her herself a lie, deprived her—last and greatest wrong of all—of her child. Oh, how much time, leisure, quiet, she had to think over and over all these thoughts, to persuade herself that happiness and truth were mere words, and that nothing but falsehood flourished in this world! Gradually she sank into silence on the subject even to Beenie. Her life-history, over, as it seemed, at twenty-five, dropped out of knowledge as if it had never been. She received no letters. Ronald, indeed, continued to write at intervals for some time, addressing his letters boldly to Miss Ramsay, but she never replied to them, and by degrees they ceased. She heard nothing at all from the outside world. She heard nothing of her child. They had concluded between them, Robina and she, that if “any thing happened” to the child, Margaret would be restrained by no man, but would let his mother know in any case. This was all the sustenance upon which Lily lived. Her enquiries far and near had come to nothing. The harmless detectives of the old-fashioned Edinburgh police had not succeeded in tracking the fugitive. They had no news of Margaret to send. They had never found out any thing about her, except what all the world knew. By one thread, and one only, Lily clung to life, and that was her vague faith in Margaret, notwithstanding all things, that the child’s life was safe as long as she made no sign.
Sir Robert found himself very comfortable in Dalrugas during that winter. He had no idea he could have been so comfortable in the old lonely place on the edge of the moor. It was wonderful how possible it was to live without amusement—nay, to feel thankful that he was no longer burdened with amusement and with the thought of what he was to do with himself and how he was to find a little distraction season after season. When a man is over seventy, the care of these things is perhaps more trouble than the advantage is worth when secured; but so long as he is in the old habitual round it is difficult to learn this. He had thought that he detested monotony, but now it appeared that he rather liked monotony—the comfort of getting up with the certainty that he had no trouble before him, no change to think of, no decision to make—to read his newspaper, to read his book, to take his walk or his drive. Sir Robert’s horses and carriages very much enlarged his sphere and modified its loneliness. A longish drive now brought him to a neighbor’s house, and introduced Lily to the ladies of the county, who made explanations to her and regrets not to have made her acquaintance before. And callers became, if not numerous, yet occasional, thus adding something to the little round of Sir Robert’s distractions. An old gentleman or two in the distant neighborhood who had known him as a boy would come occasionally with the ladies, or a younger one, whose father had known him. And there were occasional dinner-parties, though these occurred but seldom. Sir Robert liked them all, but at bottom was more than contented when the clouds hung low and the rain or snow fell and put it out of the question that he should be disturbed at all. He liked Lily’s talk best of all, or her silence, when they sat together by the fireside, where comfort and quiet reigned. He had not been such a good man in his life that he deserved any such halcyon time at its end, or to feel so virtuous, so satisfied, so peaceful as he did. But the sun shines and the rain falls alike on the just and the unjust, and he had, by good fortune, the art to take advantage of the good things which Providence sent him. Lily played a game of piquette with him, “not so very badly,” he said with happy condescension, and was in time advanced to chess; but there showed signs of beating her instructor, which made Sir Robert think chess was a little too much for his head. In moments of weakness they even came down to simple draughts, and thus got through the long evenings which the old gentleman had so much feared, but which now were the happiest part of the day.
“I am told you have been here for a long time, Miss Ramsay,” Lady Dalzell said, who was the great lady of the neighborhood: “how was it we never knew? We are here, of course, only for a short time in the year, but long enough to have driven over to Dalrugas had we known.”
“I have been here,” said Lily, “for two years—but how it is my neighbors have not known I cannot tell. I could scarcely send round a fiery cross to say that a small person of no great account had arrived at her uncle’s house.”
“I should have thought Sir Robert would have written or made some provision. Do you really mean that you have been without a chaperon, without protection?”
“Even as you see me,” said Lily, with a laugh.
“And nothing ever happened,” said the great lady, “to make you feel uncomfortable?”
Did she look at Lily with some meaning in her eyes? Did she mean nothing? Who could tell? There might have been a whole world of sous-entendus in what Lady Dalzell said, or there might be nothing at all. Lily met her gaze with perhaps a little more directness than was necessary, but she did not change color.
“There was no raid made upon the house,” said Lily. “I never was in any danger that I know of. There was Dougal, who would have fought for me to the death—perhaps, or, at all events, till some one came to help him. And I had two women who took only too much care of me.”
“Ah, it was not perils of that kind I was thinking of,” said Lady Dalzell, shaking her head.
“I am sorry,” said Lily—“or perhaps I should rather be glad—that I don’t know what perils your ladyship was thinking of.”
Then the young lady of the party, Lady Dalzell’s daughter, interposed, and began to talk of the approaching Christmas and the entertainments to be given in the neighborhood. “If we had only known, we should have had you to the ball,” she said. “We had not one last New Year, but the year before, and you were here then.”
“Yes, I was here then.”
“It was the year of that dreadful snow-storm. How lonely it must have been for you, shut up for that long fortnight. Mamma, imagine! Miss Ramsay was here all alone the year of the snow-storm, shut up in Dalrugas—and we had our ball and all sorts of things.”
“I hope Miss Ramsay had some friends or something to amuse her,” said Lady Dalzell.
“I had Helen Blythe from the Manse up to tea,” cried Lily, with a little burst of laughter, which did not seem out of place in the violent contrast which was thus implied, though she felt it herself almost like a confession. The two ladies looked at her strangely, she thought, and hastened to change the subject. Did they look at her strangely? Did they think of her at all? Or was it the thought of their own shortcomings in respect to this lonely girl, who was Sir Robert’s niece and heiress, which made a shade upon their brows? They invited her to the ball, which was to happen this year, with much demonstration of friendliness. Not to tire Sir Robert, she and her uncle were asked to go a day or two before this important festivity and join the home party, and Miss Dalzell conveyed to Miss Ramsay the delightful intelligence that there would be “plenty of partners”—all the county, and the officers from Perth, and a large party from Edinburgh. The girl spoke of all these preparations with sparkling eyes.
“Well, Lily,” said Sir Robert, when the visitors were gone, “this will be something for you: you will have one ball at least.” He did not much relish the prospect for himself, but he was grateful, and felt that he must face it for her.
“I don’t feel so much enchanted as I ought,” said Lily. “Would it disappoint you much, uncle, if I wrote to say we could not go?”
“Disappoint me, my dear! But you must go, for you would like it, Lily. Every girl of your age likes a ball.”
“My age, Uncle Robert! Do you know I am five-and-twenty? I would rather sit alone all night and sew, though I am not very fond of sewing. Unless you want to dance and flirt and behave yourself as gentlemen of your age ought not to do, I think we’ll stay at home and play piquette. I am going to no ball,” cried Lily, her patience breaking down for the moment, “not now, nor ever. I—to a ball! after all these years!”
“Lily,” said Sir Robert, with a disturbed look, “I have expressed my regret that you should have had such a lonely life, but it hurts me, my dear, to hear you express yourself with such bitterness about those years; there were but two of them, after all.”
“That is true,” she said, recovering herself quickly, “but when one has a great deal of time to think, one changes one’s mind about a great many things, especially balls.”
“That is true, too,” he said, “so long as you are not bitter about it, as I sometimes fear you are inclined to be, my dear.”
“Not bitter at all,” she cried, with a smile that quivered a little on her lip. She got up and stood at the window, with her back to him, looking out upon the moor. The clouds were hanging low, almost touching the hills, the sky so heavy that it seemed to be closing down, in one deep tone of gray, upon the dumb, unresisting earth. “I hope,” said Lily, “that they will get home before the snow comes down.” She stood there for some time looking out upon that scene, which had seen so much. “It was the year of that dreadful snow-storm,” the girl had said. And the ball to which they had asked her was on the anniversary of her wedding day.