“MY Lord Stanton, ma’am,” said Eastwood, with a certain expansion in the throat and fulness of voice, like that swell and gurgle which accompanies in a bird the fullest tide of song. Who has not heard that roll in the voice of the man who mouths a title like a succulent morsel? A butler who loves his family, and who has the honour of announcing to them the visit of the greatest potentate about, is a happy man. And this was what Eastwood felt, as he uttered with a nightingale trill and swell of satisfaction this honoured name.
“Lord—whom——?” Mary rose to her feet so much startled that she did not know what she said.
“Lord Stanton, ma’am,” the butler repeated. “He asked if you would receive him. He said as he would not come in till I asked would you receive him, ma’am. I said you was at home, and not engaged—but he said—— ”
“Lord Stanton!” The name seemed to hurt her, and a kind of dull fear rose in Mary’s mind. She knew, of course, who it was! the young successor of the man who, with intention or not, her brother had brought to his death. She knew well enough about Geoff. It had not been possible to hear the name at any time without interest, and in this way Mary had learned as much as strangers knew of the young lord. But what could he want here? A subdued panic seized her. She did not know what he could do, or if he could do anything; but that he should come merely as a friend did not seem probable. And how then had he come? She made a tremendous pause before she said, “Let him come in, Eastwood.” Eastwood thought Miss Musgrave was very properly impressed by the name of the young lord.
Geoff, for his part, waited outside, anxious as to how he was to be received, and very desirous in his boyish generosity to make a good impression. He had driven to Penninghame, a long way, and his horses, drawn up at the door, made a great show, when the children passed, stealing round the corner like little intruders, but so much attracted by this sight, that they almost forgot their orders never to approach the hall door. Geoff himself was standing at some distance from his phaeton, waiting for his answer; but even Lilias was old enough to know that to address commendatory remarks and friendly overtures to a horse or a dog is more easy and natural than to address a man. She said, “Oh, look, Nello, what lovely horses!” but only ventured to look up shyly into the friendly face of their owner, though she was not without an impression that he, too, was nice, and that he might give his friends a drive perhaps, with the lovely horses, a service which was not in the power of the animals themselves.
Geoff went up to them, holding out his hand. “You are the little Musgraves, I suppose?” he said.
The boy hung back, as usual, hanging by Martuccia’s skirts. “Yes,” said Lilias, looking at him intently, as she always did; and she added at once, “This is Nello,” and did her best to put her small brother in the foreground, though he resisted, holding back and close to his protector.
“Is he shy, or is he frightened? He need not be frightened of me,” said Geoff, unconsciously conscious of the facts between them which might have caused the child’s timidity had he been old enough to know. “Nello is an odd name for a boy.”
“Because you do not know where he came from,” said Lilias quickly. “Nello is born in Florence. Here you will call him John. It is not so pretty. And me, I am born in France,” she continued; “but we are English children. That does not make any difference.”
“Don’t you think so?” said simple Geoff. The little woman of twelve who thus fixed him with her great beautiful eyes, made him feel a boy in comparison with her mature childhood. She never relaxed in her watchful look. This was a habit Lilias had got, a habit born of helplessness, and of the sense of responsibility for her brother which was so strong in her mind. That intent, half-suspicious vigilance, as of one fully aware that he might mean harm, and quick to note the approach of danger, disconcerted Geoff, who meant nothing but good. “I know two little girls,” he said, trying to be conciliatory, “who would like very much to know you.”
“Ah!” said Lilias, melting a little, but shaking her head. “I have to take care of Nello; but if they would come here, and would not mind Nello,” she added, “perhaps I might play with them. I could ask—Mary—— ”
“Who is—Mary?”
“Oh! don’t you know? If you do not know Mary we should not talk to you—we only ought to talk to friends—and besides, you have no right to call her Mary if you do not know her,” said Lilias. She turned back to say this after she had gone a few steps away from him, following Nello, who, tired of the conversation, had gone on with his guardian to the Chase.
“That is quite true, and I beg your pardon,” said Geoff; “it must be Miss Musgrave you mean.”
Lilias nodded approving. She began to take an interest in this big boy. He was not strictly handsome, but had a bright, attractive countenance, and the child scarcely ever saw any male creature except Eastwood and Mr. Pen. “Have you come to see her?” she asked wistfully; “are you going to be a—friend?”
“Yes,” said Geoff with a little emotion, “if she will let me. I am waiting to know. And tell me your name?” he added, with a slight tremor in his voice, for he was young and easily touched. “I will always be a friend to you.”
“I am Lilias,” she said shyly, giving him her hand, for which he had held out his. And this was how Eastwood found them when he came bustling out to inform my lord that Miss Musgrave would see his lordship, if he would be good enough to step this way. Eastwood was much “struck” to see his lordship holding “little Miss’s” hand. It raised little Miss in the butler’s opinion. “If she had been a bit older, now!” he said to himself. Geoff was half reluctant to leave this little new acquaintance for the audience which he had come here expressly to ask. Mary was not likely to be so easily conciliated as little Lilias. And being a lord did not make him less shy. He waved his hand and took off his hat with a little sigh, as he followed Eastwood into the house; and Lilias, for her part, followed Nello slowly, with various thoughts in her small head. These it must be allowed were chiefly about the little girls who wanted to make friends with her—and of whom her lonely imagination made ecstatic pictures—and of the lovely horses who could spin her away over the broad country, if that big boy would let them. But Lilias did not think very much about the big boy himself.
Geoff went in blushing and tremulous to Miss Musgrave’s drawing-room. It was not a place so suitable to Mary as her favourite hall, being dark and somewhat low, not worthy either of her or of Penninghame Castle. She was standing, waiting to receive him, and after the bow with which he greeted her, Geoff did not know what to say to disclose his object. His object itself was vague, and he had no previous knowledge of her, as his cousin Mary had, to warrant him in addressing her. She offered him a chair, and she sat down opposite him; and then there began an embarrassing pause which she would not, and which he did not seem able to, break. At last, faltering and stammering—
“I came, Miss Musgrave,” he began, “to say—I came to tell you—I came to ask—Circumstances,” cried Geoff, impatient of his own incapacity, “seem to have made our families enemies. I don’t know why they should have done so.”
“If the story is true, Lord Stanton, it is easy enough to see how they should have done so. My brother was concerned, they say, in your brother’s death.”
“No one could prove that he did it, Miss Musgrave.”
“He did not do it with intention, I am sure,” she said. “But so much is true. It was done, and how could we be friends after? We should have been angels—you to pardon the loss you had sustained, we to pardon the wrong we had done.”
There was a gleam of agitation and pain in her eyes which might well have been taken for anger. The young man was discouraged.
“May I not say anything, then?” he said, wistfully. “My cousin Mary, Lady Stanton, whom you know, told me—but if you are set against us too, what need to say anything? I had hoped indeed, that you—— ”
“What did you hope about me? I should be glad of any approach. I grieved for your brother as if he had been mine. Oh more, I think, more! if it had been poor John who had died—— ”
“It would have been better,” said the young man. “Yes, yes, Miss Musgrave, that is what I feel; Walter had the best of it. Your brother has been more than killed. But I came to say, that so far as we are concerned, there need not be any more misery. Let him come home, Miss Musgrave, let him come home! We none of us can tell now how Walter died.”
Mary was moved beyond the power of words. She got up hastily and took his hand, and pressed it between her own.
“Thank you, I shall always thank you!” she cried, “whether he comes home or not. Oh, my dear boy, who are you that come with mercy on your lips? You are not like the rest of us!”
Mary was thinking of others, more near, whose wrongs were not as the Stantons’, but whom nothing could induce to forgive.
“I am my mother’s son,” said Geoff, his eyes brighter than usual, with a smile lighting up the moisture in them. What Mary said seemed a tribute to his mother, and this made him glad. “She does not know, but she would say so. Let him come home. I heard of the children, and that your brother—— ”
“Yes,” said Miss Musgrave, “from Mary. She told you. She always took an interest in him. Do you know,” she added in a low voice of horror, “that there is a verdict against him, a coroner’s verdict of murder?”
She shuddered at the word as she said it, and so did he.
“But not a just one. No jury would say it was—that: not now—— ”
“Heaven knows what a jury would say. It is all half forgotten now; and as for the dates, and all those trifles that tell in a trial, who knows anything about them? Even I—could I swear to the hour my brother went out that morning? I could once, and did, and it is all written down. But I don’t seem sure of anything now, not that there ever was a Walter Stanton, or that I had a brother John; and I am one of the interested; the people who were not specially interested, do you think they would have better memories? Ah, no; and he fled; God help him! I don’t know why he did it. That was against him; though I don’t think anyone believes that John Musgrave did that, now.”
“I am sure they do not, and that is why I came. Let him come home, Miss Musgrave. He would not have been convicted had he been tried. I have been reading it all up, and I have taken advice. He would be cleared. And if there is risk in it, we would all stand by him. I would stand by him,” said the young man with a generous flush of resolution, “so much as I am worth. I want you to tell him so. Tell him to come home.”
Mary shook her head. How long she had been calm about this terrible domestic tragedy, and how it all rose upon her now! She got up, in her agitation, and walked about the room.
“How could he risk it—how could he risk it—with that sentence against him?” she said; then after a while she came back to her seat, and looked at Geoff piteously with a heartrending look in her eyes. She was past crying, which would have relieved her. “That is not all,” she said in a low voice. “Alas, alas! if all was well, and he might come home when he pleased, it would matter less. I know nothing about him, Lord Stanton. I don’t know my brother any longer, nor where he is, nor how he is living now.”
“But his children have just come to you!”
“Yes, out of the unknown. No one knows anything about him; and suddenly they came out of the darkness, as I tell you. That is where he is: out in the world, in the dark, in the unknown—— ”
“There are ways of penetrating the unknown,” said Geoff, cheerfully. “There are advertisements; everybody sees the Times nowadays. It goes all over the world. Wherever there is an Englishman he sees it somehow. Let us advertise.”
“He would not see it.”
“Then a detective—let us send some one—— ”
“Oh no, no, no,—not that. I could not bear that. We must let him alone till he comes of his own accord. Let well alone,” said Mary, in her panic. She scarcely knew what she said.
“Well! do you call it well, Miss Musgrave, that your brother should be away from his home, from everything he loves—his country lost to him, his position, all his friends?”
“He has not been separated from everything he loves; he had wife and children; does a man care for anything else? What was this old house to him, and—us—in comparison? His wife is dead—that was God’s doing; and his children have come home—that is his own choice. I say, let well alone, Lord Stanton; when he wishes it he will—come—back; but not to those he loves,” Mary said in a low tone.
Geoff could not fathom her meaning, it was beyond him. The accusation under which John Musgrave lay was bad enough. It was cowardly of him (he thought) to fly and leave this stigma, uncontested, upon his own name; but that there should be any further mystery did not seem possible to the young man. Perhaps there was something wrong with the family, some incipient insanity, monomania, eccentricity. He could not understand it. But at least he had shown his goodwill, if no more.
“I must not dictate to you, Miss Musgrave,” he said; “you know best,” and he rose to go away, but stood hesitating, reluctant to consent to the failure of his generous mission. “If I can be of any use, at any time,” he added, blushing and faltering; “not that I can do much: but if you should—change your mind—if you should—think—— ”
She took his hand once more in both of hers.
“I shall always think that you have the kindest and most generous heart: and are a friend—a true friend—to John, and everybody in trouble.”
“I hope so,” said the youth, fervently; “but that is nothing;—to you, Miss Musgrave, if I can ever be of any use.”
“I will ask you, if it ever can be,” she said. “I will not forget.”
He kept hold of her hands when she loosed them, and with a confused laugh and change of tone, asked “About the children? I met them just now. Might I bring my little cousins, Lady Stanton’s children, to see them? They want to meet.”
“Sir Henry would not like it, though she might. Sir Henry is not like you.”
“I know; he is plus royalist que le roi. But the children would. And they don’t deny me anything,” said Geoff, with a little laugh.
He scarcely knew why this was—but it was so; nothing was denied to him; he was the enfant gâté of Elfdale. Miss Musgrave was not, however, quite so complacent. She gave an assent which was cold and unwilling, and which quenched Geoff’s genial enthusiasm. He went back to his phaeton quite subdued and silent. “But I will see that little thing again,” he said to himself.
In the mean time, while this conversation had been going on, Lilias had wandered forth alone into the Chase. Martuccia had gone before with Nello, while Lilias talked to the young man; and now the child followed dreamily, as she was in the habit of doing, her eyes abstracted, her whole being rapt in a separate consciousness, which surrounded her like an atmosphere of her own. She knew vaguely that the little brother and his nurse were in front of her; but the watchfulness of Lilias had relaxed, and she was not thinking of Nello. He was safe; here was no one who could interfere with him. She had taken up a branch of a tree which lay in her path and had caught her childish fancy, and with this she went on, using it like a pilgrim’s staff, and saying a kind of low chant, without words, to herself, to which the rough staff was made to keep time. What was she thinking of? everything, nothing; thought indeed was not necessary to the fresh soul in that subdued elation and speechless gladness. There was a vague sense in her mind of the brisk air, the sunshine, the blue sky, the floating clouds, all in one; but had the clouds been low upon the trees, and the air all damp instead of all exhilaration, it would have made little difference to Lilias. Her spring of unconscious blessedness was within herself. Her song was not music nor her movements harmony in any way that could be accounted for by rule; and indeed the low succession of sounds which came from her lips unawares, and to which her little steps and the stroke of the rough stick kept time, was more inartificial than even the twittering of the birds. A small, passive, embodied happiness went roaming along the rough, woodland path, with soft-glowing abstracted eyes that saw everything, yet nothing; with a little abstracted soul, all freshness and gladness, that took note of everything, yet nothing; a little pilgrim among life’s mysteries and wonders, herself the greatest wonder of all, throbbing with a soft consciousness, yet knowing nothing. Thus she went pacing on under the bare trees, and murmured her inarticulate chant, and kept time to it, a poet in being, though not in thought. Not far off the lake splashed softly upon the stones of the beach, and that north country air, which is vocal as the winds of the south, sounded a whole mystery of tones and semi-tones, deep through the fir-trees, shrill through the beeches, low and soft over the copse; and the brook, half-hidden in the overgreenness of the grass, added its tinkle; all surrounding the little figure which gave the central point of conscious intelligence to the landscape; but were all quite unnecessary to Lilias marching along in her dream to her own music, a something higher than they, a thing full of other and deeper suggestions, the wonder of the world.
Lilias woke up, however, out of this other world, all in a moment, into the conscious existence of a lively, brave, fancifully-timid child, when she found herself suddenly confronted by a stranger, who did not pass on as strangers usually did, making a mere momentary jar and pause in the visionary atmosphere, but who made a decided pause, and stopped her. A little thrill of fear sprang up in the child’s breast, and she would have hurried on, or even run away, but for the pride of honour and courage in her little venturesome spirit which made it impossible to fly. It was an old woman who stood in her path, tall but stooping, dressed in a large grey cloak, the hood of which covered her white thick muslin cap. She was a woman considerably over sixty, with handsome features and brilliant dark eyes, and, notwithstanding her stooping figure, full of vigour and power. She carried a basket on her arm under her cloak, and had a stick in her hand, and at her neck a red handkerchief just showed, which would have replaced the hood on her cap had it been less cold. Just so the fairy in the fairy-tales appears to the little maiden in the wood, the Cinderella by the kitchen-fire. Lilias was not at all sure that it was not that poetical old woman who looked at her with those shining eyes. She made a brief, instantaneous resolution to draw water for her, or pick up sticks, or do anything she might require.
“Little Miss, you belong to the Castle, don’t you now? and where may you come from?” was what the problematical fairy said, with a something wet and gleaming in her eyes such as never obscures the sight of fairies. Lilias was overawed by the tone of eager meaning, though she did not understand it, in the questioning voice, yet might not have answered but for that feeling that it was unsafe, as much experience had proved, to be less than obsequiously civil to old women with wands in their hands who could make (if you were so naughty as to give a rude answer) toads and frogs drop from your mouth.
“Yes,” she said, with a little tremble in her clear, childish voice. “We come a very, very long way—over the mountains, and then over the sea.”
“Do you know the name of the place you came from, little Miss?”
“Oh yes, I know it very well, we were so often there. It was Bagni di Lucca. It was a very, very long way. Nello—— ”
But the child paused. Why introduce Nello? who was not visible, to the knowledge of this uncertain person? who, if she was a fairy, might be a wicked one, or, if she was a woman, might be unkind, for anything Lilias knew. She stopped short nervously, and it was evident that the old woman had not taken any notice of the name.
“Little Miss, your mamma would be sorry to send you away?”
“It was papa,” said the little girl, with wondering eyes. “Poor mamma;—I was quite little when—it was when Nello was a little, little small baby. Now we have nobody but papa.”
The old woman staggered and almost fell, but supported herself by her stick for a moment, while Lilias uttered a scream of terror; then sat down with a groan upon a fallen tree. “It’s nothing new, nothing new,” she said to herself; “I felt it long ago,” and covered her face with her hands, with once more a heavy groan. Little Lilias did not know what to do. She had screamed when the old woman staggered, not knowing what was going to happen; but what was she to do now, alone with this strange companion, seated there on the fallen trunk and rocking herself to and fro, with her face hidden in her hands. It did not occur to the child to associate this sudden trouble with the information she had herself given. What could this stranger have to do with her? And poor mamma had receded far into the background of Lilias’s memory, not even now an occasion of tears. She did not, however, need to go into this reasoning, but simply supposed that the poor old fairy was ill, or that something had happened to her, and never at all connected effect and cause. She stood for a little time irresolute, then, overcoming her own fears, went up to the sufferer and stroked her compassionately on the shoulder. “Are you ill, old woman?” she said.
“Oh, call me Granny—call me Granny, my pretty dear!”
Lilias was more puzzled than ever; but she made up her mind that she would do whatever was asked of her by this disguised personage, who might turn into—anything, in a moment. “Yes, Granny,” she said, trembling, and still stroking the old woman’s shoulder. “I hope you are not ill.”
The answer she made to this was suddenly to clasp her arms round Lilias, who could scarcely suppress a cry of horror. What a strange—what a very strange old woman! Fortunately Lilias, brought up in a country where servants are friends, had no feeling of repulsion from the embrace. She was a little frightened, and did not understand it—that was all. The old woman’s breast heaved with great sobs; there could be no doubt that she was very deeply, strongly moved. She was “very sorry about something,” according to Lilias’ simple explanation. She clasped the child close, and kissed her with a tearful face, which left traces of its weeping upon the fresh cheeks. The little girl wiped them off, wondering. How could she tell why this was? Perhaps it was only to try her if she was the kind of little girl who was uncivil, or not; but she did not indeed try to account for it. It was not very pleasant, but she put up with it, partly in fear, partly in sympathy, partly because, as we have said, she had no horror of the too near approach of a poor old woman, as an English-bred child might have had. Poor old creature, how sorry she was about something! though Lilias could not imagine what it was.
“God bless you, honeysweet,” said the old woman. “You’ve got her dear face, my jewel. It isn’t that I didn’t know it years and years ago. I was told it in my sleep; I read it in the clouds and on the water. Oh, if you think I wasn’t warned! But you’ve got her bonnie face. You’ll be a beauty, a darling beauty, like the rest of us. And look you here, little Miss, my jewel. If you see me when the gentry’s with you you’ll take no notice; but if you see me by myself you’ll give me a kiss and call me Granny. That’s fixed between us, honey, and you won’t forget? Call me Granny again, to give me a little comfort, my pretty dear.”
“Yes, Granny,” said the child, trembling. The old woman kissed her again, drying her tears.
“God bless you, and God bless you!” she said. “You can’t be none the worse of your old Granny’s blessing. And mind, if you’re with the gentlefolks you’ll take no notice. Oh, my honeysweet, my darling child!”
Lilias looked after her with wondering, disturbed eyes. What a strange old woman she was! How strange that she should behave so! and yet Lilias did not attempt to inquire why. Grown-up people in her experience did a great many strange things. It was of no use trying to fathom what they meant, and this strange old person was only a little more strange than the rest, and startling to the calm little being who had grown in the midst of family troubles and mysteries without divining any of them. Strangely enough, the old woman felt equally independent of any necessity for explanation. It seemed so clear in her mind that everybody must know the past and understand her claims, whatever they were. She had no more idea of the tranquillity of innocent ignorance in Lilias’s mind than the little girl had of the mysteries of her experience. Lilias watched her going away through the high columns of the trees with great wonder yet respect, and it was not till she had disappeared that the little girl went on after Nello. Nello would have been frightened by that curious apparition. He would have cried perhaps, and struggled, and would not have said Granny. Perhaps he would have angered her. What a good thing that Nello had not been here!