“I HAVE been thinking of bringing up my mother to live with me,” said the Mr Lithgow in whom Mrs Laurie and her daughter were beginning to forget the humble Johnnie: “I see no reason why she should live in poverty in Kirklands, while I am comfortable here.”
His face flushed slightly as he concluded, and he began to drum with his fingers in mere shyness and embarrassment upon Miss Annie Laurie’s work-table. Randall, a little distance from him, was turning over with infinite scorn Miss Annie’s picture-books. The two young men had grown familiar in the house, though it was not yet a month since they entered it first.
“And I think you are very right,” said Mrs Laurie cordially, “though whether Mrs Lithgow might be pleased with a town-life, or whether—”
She paused: it was not very easy to say “whether your mother would be a suitable housekeeper for you.” Mrs Laurie could not do violence either to her own feelings or his by suggesting such a doubt.
“I think it would be a great risk,” said Randall, “and, if you consulted me, would certainly warn you against it. Your mother knows nothing of London—she would not like it; besides, a young man seeking his fortune should be alone.”
“Cold doctrine,” said Lithgow, smiling, “and to come from you.”
His eye fell unconsciously upon Menie; then as he met a quick upward glance from her, he stammered, blushed, and stopped short—for Johnnie Lithgow was as shy and sensitive as a girl, and had all the reverence of youthful genius for womanhood and love. With compunction, and an idea that he had been jesting profanely, Lithgow hurriedly began again.
“I am so vain as to think I myself would be London to my mother—old ground long known and well explored. If she would not like the change, of course—but I fancy she might.”
“I advise you against it, Lithgow,” said Randall “in your case I should never entertain such an idea. There is my father—no one can have a greater respect for him than I—but to bring him to live with me—to bring him to London—I should think it the merest folly, injurious to us both.”
“Your wisdom is very safe at least,” said Mrs Laurie, with a little asperity, “since there is no chance of your good father leaving his own respectable house for an unknown and strange place in any case; but I think your wish a very natural one, and very creditable to you, Mr Lithgow; and whether she comes or not, the knowledge that you wish for her will be joy to your mother’s heart.”
With his usual half-disdainful smile Randall had turned away, and there was a slight flush of anger upon Mrs Laurie’s face. Indignation and scorn,—there was not much hope of friendliness where such unpromising elements had flashed into sudden existence. Menie looking on with terror, and perceiving a new obstacle thrown into her way, hastily endeavoured to make a diversion.
“Do you know, Mr Lithgow, that July Home is coming up to London to see me?”
There came a sudden brightening to all the kindly lines of the young man’s face. “July Home! if I am too familiar, forgive me, Randall—but I have so many boyish recollections of her. She was such a sweet little timid simple womanly child too. I wonder if July minds me as I mind her.”
Randall stood apart still, with his smile upon his lips. True, there had been a momentary curve on his brow at Lithgow’s first mention of his sister’s name, but his face cleared immediately. Poor little July! Randall might know her sufficiently timid and simple—but July was a baby, a toy, a good-hearted kindly little fool to her intellectual brother—and any higher qualities sweet or womanly about her remained to be found out by other eyes than his.
“And Miss Annie has promised us all the sightseeing in the world,” said Menie with forced gaiety, anxious to talk, and to conciliate—to remove all trace of the little breaking of lances which had just passed. “July and Jenny and I, we are to see all manner of lions; and though they will be very dull at Crofthill when she is gone, Mr Home and Miss Janet have consented—so next week July is to come.”
“Poor July! she will have enough to talk of all her life after,” said her brother.
“Yes; our kindly country seems such a waste and desert place to you London gentlemen,” said Mrs Laurie; “and it is wonderful, after all, how we manage to exist—ay, even to flourish and enjoy ourselves—in these regions out of the world.”
But Randall made no response. A shivering chill came over Menie Laurie; this half-derisive silence on one side, this eager impulse of contradiction and opposition on the other, smote her to the heart. It had been rising gradually for some days past, and Menie, without being quite aware of it, had noticed the bias with which her mother and her betrothed listened and replied to each other; the unconscious inclination of each to give an unfavourable turn to the other’s words, a harshness to the other’s judgment, an air of personal offence to a differing opinion, of grave misdemeanour to a piece of blameless jesting. Lithgow, stranger as he was, discovered in a moment, so quick and sensitive was his nature, the incipient estrangement, and grew embarrassed and annoyed in spite of himself—annoyed, embarrassed, it looked so much like the last ebullition of some domestic quarrel; but Lithgow was a stranger, and had no interest farther than for the harmony of the moment in any strife of these conflicting minds.
But here sits one whose brow must own no curve of displeasure, whose voice must falter with no embarrassment. She is sitting by the little work-table in the window, her eyes, so wistful as they have grown, so large and full, and eloquent with many meanings, turning from one to the other with quick earnest glances, which are indeed whispers of deprecation and peace-making. “He means something else than he says; he is not cold-hearted nor insincere; you mistake Randall,” say Menie’s eyes, as they labour to meet her mother’s, and gaze with eager perturbation in her face, deciphering every line and wrinkle there. “Do not speak so—you vex my mother; but she does not mean to be angry,” say the same strained and ever-changing eyes, as they turn their anxious regards to Randall’s face. She sits between us and the light—you can see her girlish figure outlined against the window—her face falling from light to shadow, brightening up again from shadow to light, as she turns from one to the other; you can see how eagerly she listens, prompt to rush forward with her own softening gentle speech upon the very border of the harsher words, whose utterance she cannot prevent. The very stoop of her head—the changeful expression of her face, which already interprets the end of the sentence ere it is well begun—her sudden introduction of one subject after another, foreign to their former talk—her sudden interest in things indifferent, and all the wiles and artifices with which she hedges off all matters of personal or individual interest, and abstracts the conversation into the channel of mere curiosity, of careless and every-day talk—are all sufficiently visible exponents of Menie’s new position and new trials. She is talking to Lithgow now so rapidly, and with so much demonstration of interest—you would almost fancy this poor loving Menie had caught a contagious enthusiasm from Miss Annie Laurie’s juvenile delights—talking of these sights of the great unknown London, which have grown so indifferent and paltry to this suddenly enlightened and experienced mind of hers; but in the midst of all you can see how steadily her wakeful eyes keep watch upon Randall yonder by Miss Annie’s miniature bookcases, and Mrs Laurie here, with that little angry flush upon her brow.
So slow the hours seem—so full of opportunities of discussion—so over-brimming with subjects on which they are sure to differ; till Menie, in her gradually increasing excitement, forgets to note the progress of time; but is so glad—oh, so glad and joyful—to see the evening fall dark around them, to hear Maria’s step drawing near the door, while the lights she carries already throw their glimmer on the wall. It is late; and now the visitors take leave, somewhat reluctantly, for Lithgow begins to like his new friends greatly; and Randall, though something of irritation is in the face, where his smile of disdain still holds sway, is Menie’s ardent wooer still, and feels a charm in her presence, simple though he has discovered her to be. But at last they are gone—safely gone; and Menie, when she has watched them from the door, and listened to their steps till they die away a distant echo upon the silent air, steals away in the dark to her own room—not for any purpose—simply to rest herself a little; and her manner of rest is, sitting down upon a low stool close by the window, where some pale moonlight comes in faintly, and bending down her face into her clasped hands, to weep a little silently and alone.
Is it but to refresh the wistful eyes which this night have been so busy? is it but to wash and flood away the pain that has been in their eager deprecating looks, their speeches of anxious tenderness? But Menie does not say even to herself what it is for, nor why. For some weeks now, Menie has been sadly given to “crying for nothing,” as she herself calls it. She thinks she ought to be ashamed of her weakness, and would be afraid to acknowledge it to any living creature; but somehow, for these few days, Menie has come away about this same hour every night into the solitude here, to cry, with sometimes a little impatient sob bursting out among her tears—though she cannot tell you, will not tell you—would not whisper even to her own very secret heart, the reason why.