It was a Lover and his Lass

CHAPTER XLVI

The days were very long in Murkley that winter. It was not a brisk, frosty winter, with ice and skating and curling, and all the cheerful activities with which the strong and young set winter at defiance. Everything of the kind, every attempt at pleasure out of doors, melted away in the rain. The roads were deep in mud, the fields were sodden, the river almost in flood, the skies so laden and so low that you could almost have touched them, with your hand – so, at least, the country folk in their bold phraseology, described them. Jean's table-cover was almost done. She was able to sit at it, she said, as she never had been before. There was little variety in the life of the ladies at Murkley. There had never been much variety in their life; though, now that Lilias was acknowledged to be "out," it might have been supposed that their engagements would have increased. But this was not the case. Lilias had signalized herself by closing two houses in the country upon them at once. Murray was a name which was not now pronounced before the Countess, who was gayer than usual, and gave several parties, as Margaret firmly believed, for the sole purpose of making it appear that the sisters were shut out.

"But I never blame her, poor woman; for no doubt it was a great mortification," Margaret said, with proud triumph.

And the break with Mrs. Stormont had never been healed. Philip indeed had returned to his old friendliness, as he had returned to other bonds, but his mother stood out. Thus they were shut up a little more than usual to their own resources, and Lilias, if she had taken advantage of her opportunities, ought to have known all about the thirty years' war. It was a long, long time before any reply came to their letters, and, when it arrived, it was not satisfactory. Lewis had been travelling with his chief. He was so engaged to his chief that he could not get free to answer in person, as he would have wished. He answered Margaret by the intimation that, in case he should die in the mean time, he had left everything by will to Lilias, which was an arrangement which could not be found fault with, though he hoped to find some other immediate solution when he came home. Even his letter to Jean was subdued and sad in tone. He seemed unable to believe that she was right in the confidence of her hopes; he thought his good-fortune had forsaken him, and that it was contempt, not tenderness, which had made Lilias tear up his offering. "She would not take even her right from my hands." Miss Jean wept much over this epistle. She avowed that she ought to have understood the perversity of man.

"When you think it is all just plain and easy, and nothing to do but to enter upon your happiness, it is just then that they will turn the wrong way," she said. They were all somewhat humiliated by the non-success of the overtures, which they had expected to be received with enthusiasm. Lilias, who did not know all, felt the discouragement fall back upon her with a sudden sense of failure and shame, which gave an altogether new aspect to life. It seemed to her that she had been offered and rejected; her pride sprang to arms, and all the force of her nature rallied in self-defence. When Margaret addressed her little conclave on the subject, Lilias, with fire in her eyes, would scarcely hear her speak.

"It is possible," Margaret said, "that there is some mistake in the whole matter. We, perhaps, did not understand him at the first, and perhaps we may not understand him now."

"What does it matter?" cried Lilias, with passion. "Who is it you are wanting to understand? Oh! will you just forget about it, and never let us say a word on the subject any more!"

"This was what I was going to say," said Margaret, firmly. "It may very well be that a mistake has been made; but it's not for our dignity or for our peace of mind to dwell upon that. We will just consider this a closed chapter, Lilias. There has no harm been done. The young man meant well, it was in his mind to do justice. He had my approval, as ye all know. And no doubt but it was a great effort. For a man to give up all his living and everything he has, is never a small matter. You will mind that even the young man that our Lord loved had not the strength of mind to do that. It is just an extraordinary thing to the credit of the lad that he did find it in his heart to do it. But when his sacrifice was thrown back upon him, which was what Lilias in a manner forced upon me to do – "

"I am glad I did that! I am glad – glad I did it," Lilias cried.

"Well – I am saying nothing against that. When he has got it thrown back into his bosom, he very likely thinks he has done all, and more than ought to be required, and there's just an end of it. I have not a word to say concerning Mr. Grantley. He has done all – and more – that honour could require. But now we're done with him, and that chapter closed."

"Oh! Margaret, bide a little," cried Jean. "Oh! Lilias, listen to your own heart; is there nothing there that speaks for him? He is under engagements: he cannot just hurry away, and leave his duty. Give him a little time, and let him speak for himself."

"I agree with Margaret," said Lilias, hotly. "It is Margaret that is right. There has been too much about it – too much! and now that chapter is closed."

"It is for the best that it should be so," Margaret said.

"Oh! Margaret, you were always hard upon him! What have you ever done but discourage him and put him away? And now will this be for ever – will you just reject him without a hearing?" Jean cried. Margaret gave her a look in which there was at once judgment and warning.

"There is no hearing," said Margaret, "there is nothing but just to put him out of our lives and all the thoughts he has raised. That chapter is closed," she said, with great dignity and gravity. It was a decision against which no further protest could be made.

And indeed there was a long time in which this seemed a final decision. The chapter was to all appearance closed. Even Jean, hard though she found it, was obliged to hold-in all demonstrations of sympathy, to leave Lilias to herself. And Margaret, putting real force upon her inclinations, such as no one appreciated, left her to herself. Jean was coerced by her elder sister, and obeyed with a mute protest, with tearful, appealing looks, with a continual lifting up of her testimony to earth and heaven, against the fate which she could not resist. But Margaret had no one to coerce her, no one to protest against. She was her own tyrant, more hard to herself than to Jean. She resisted the impulse to take her little sister into her bosom, to soothe and caress her, to weep over her, to open up to her all the secret hoards of her own love and tenderness. Margaret, whom they all thought so severe, so contemptuous of sentimentality, had too much reverence for the child of her adoration to intrude into her little sanctuary of pain, and innocent shame, and wounded affection. It was better for Lilias that no eye should penetrate into that refuge – her mother-sister heroically shut the door, and stood longing, wistful, without. In the mean while the household, for no one out of the household knew anything of the matter, was very hard upon Margaret. Old Simon declared to the cook that the pride of her was just more than any person could put up with.

"She'll see that bairn buried afore her een, or she let her wed the lad she likes," Simon said.

"And wha is the lad she likes?" the maids asked in chorus, all but Susan, who held her tongue, and looked all the knowledge she possessed. Upon which old Simon bid them go all to their work for a set of idle taupies that had no eyes in their heads.

"But I'll never forgive Miss Margaret, if harm comes of it; and what but harm can come of it?" the oracle of the kitchen said.

The wet winter was succeeded by a wistful and doubtful spring, and then by summer gay as northern summers sometimes are, with long days, all monotonous and feelingless, such as oppress the heart. If the year had been specially arranged to look longer than ever year looked before, it could not have been more successfully done. It lingered and dragged along, never gracious nor genial, a tedious, unfruitful year. And the same change which had come over the seasons, seemed to have come over the life of Murkley. There were no longer the little varieties of old; just as the winter's frost, and brisk March winds, and the caprices of April, and the disappointments of May were all lost in one fretful dulness, so the little impatiences and mock quarrels, the little routine of work and play, the little entertainments and hopes of the past, all seemed to have dropped into one settled rule, rigid and immovable, in which no relaxation or variety was. What she did one day, Lilias did the next, unwavering, shutting herself up within herself. She could not have borne it, had she said a word. The sense of having come to nothing, the defeat and failure of her whole independent existence, cut short and ended off, overwhelmed her both with trouble and shame. That any man could have it in his power to turn all her brightness and hopes, all her youthful gaiety and adventure, her delightful beginning, her innocent triumph, into a mere episode suddenly broken off, having no connection with the rest of her life, was a thing intolerable to her; nor could she endure to think that whatever happened to her in the future must be like a second life, another beginning; rather, much rather, she would have had nothing happen to her at all, but relapse into the dimness for ever. This indeed was what Lilias thought she had done. But yet now and then a sudden gale of expectation, a stirring of life, would breathe over her – as if all were not ended, as if something must still be coming. There were days in which she felt sure that something would certainly come: after which she would rise up and slay herself in shame and indignation, asking herself if she could be so poor a creature as still to wish him to return. But all this passed in silence; and the shame of those relentings, of those renewed disappointments, of those involuntary hopes and awakenings, were to herself alone. Thus the year went on. It had passed the meridian, and the long evenings were beginning to "creep in" a little, soothing somewhat the spirits wearied with this greyness of living. It was a good thing, whatever happened, to be rid of those endless days. Nothing so beautiful when the heart is light, or even moderately tranquil and at ease, but, in suspense or waiting, they were intolerable. Lilias told herself that she was not in suspense any longer, that there was nothing to wait for; but still she was glad when the long days were over, when autumn began to whiten the fields, and a little fire to glimmer in the dark wainscoted rooms. By the end of August that was natural in Murkley. The house in the evening looked more cheerful with the glow of the ruddy fire, and when sometimes, with a sudden perverse fit, she would steal out in the twilight after dinner, the lights gleaming in all the windows gave her a certain pleasure to see. They looked warm, and the world so cold; they were bright, and it was so dim. What did she know about the world, this nursling of love and tenderness? Nothing at all: only that her first venture in it had turned, as it seemed, into bitterness, and it was the privilege of her youth to generalize, and to adopt as her own experience the conclusions of world-worn men.

She had done this one evening early in September; the year had run round, and all her anniversaries were over: the time of his sacrifice, the time when she had given it back to him, the woeful day of his departure, all were past. It ought to be all over, she said to herself bitterly; what a servile thing it was to dwell upon every incident in this way, to keep thinking of them when it was clear he thought of them no more. Lilias began to take herself to task. She had taken a plaid from the hall and flung it round her; the evening was closing, the road through the park towards New Murkley was entirely deserted, no step but her own upon it, no fear of interruption. She began to say to herself as she went along that all this was unworthy; that, since the first chapter of her life had been broken off, she must let it break, and begin again; that it was like a slave to cling to the past, to bind herself to a recollection, to let all her life fade into a shadow. As she came in sight of the old visionary palace, with its vacant windows staring into the twilight, there came into her head the bitter fancy of associating herself with it. It was an emblem of her existence, she said to herself – unfinished: all ambitiously framed for life, life on a grand and beautiful scale; but never to be lived in, an empty memorial of what might have been, a house for dreams and nothing else, a place where never fire would be lighted, nor any sweet tumult of living arise. Oh! it was like her, her great deserted palace, her strong-built emptiness. Lilias stood and gazed at it, rising majestic against the greyness of the sky, her eyes flooding with tears, a poignant and sudden pang in her heart. Could any resemblance be more close? This old house was her fortune, all she had in the world; and she was like it. There was a mockery in it, yet sympathy; a vacant place, where no shelter was, a vacant life, in which there never would be any warmth of human interest. The greyness of everything about, the shadow-trees softly waving in the night wind, the faint clouds scarcely rounding against the cloudless sky, the mass of building all still and vacant, everything combined to enhance the effect. The two lakes of silent passion in her eyes blurred everything, and made that effect still greater. The old house in the distance, with its glimmers of ruddy light in all the window, had nothing in it so congenial with her mood. Her castle was like herself, empty and cold, an abode of dreams and nothing more.

Nevertheless, it gave Lilias a little thrill of alarm to see something more upon the broad steps, all overgrown with weeds and grass, that led to the never-opened door. Though she had been in her own consciousness but now so tragic a figure surveying the tragic desolation of her great house, yet she was in reality only a girl under twenty, in the grey evening, almost dark, out of hearing of any protector, and out of sight of her home. Some one moved upon the steps, and came slowly down and towards her. She was too proud to turn round and fly, but this had been her first thought. If it should turn out a neighbour, all was well; but if it should be a stranger, a vagrant, a wandering tramp, perhaps! Half for pride and half for fright, Lilias could not turn her back upon this unknown; but she stood and waited to see who it was, holding up her dress with her hands, ready for instant flight.

He came slowly forward through the dusk; her heart beat with alarm, with wonder, with displeasure, for no stranger had any right to be here so late. But no suspicion of the reality touched her mind. Many times she had expected vainly, and often, often felt that round the next corner, at the next turning, he might come. But this expectation was far from her mind to-night, nor was there light enough to see him as he came nearer and nearer. He stopped when they were within a few paces of each other.

"You are afraid of me, but I am no stranger. Ah! you do not know me?" he said.

Then there rang through the silent woods and the grey night a wonderful cry. Lilias was not mistress of herself; the whole world went round and round with her, the great house behind him seemed to move, to break into unequal outlines, to crash together and fall. Her voice sounded like something independent of her, a wild creature crying out in the night. She threw out her hands wildly to grasp at something, she did not know what, to hold by and sustain herself. There was nothing near her except him. He was trembling too. He took her hands into his without any presumption or mistake of her meaning.

"I have frightened you," he said. "It is to do more harm, always more harm, that I come. But lean upon me, you know that I mean no evil – it is not to take any advantage."

Lilias did not hear what Lewis said. She heard his voice, that was enough. She discovered that it was he with a revulsion of feeling which there was nothing in her to withstand.

"Oh! where have you been so long – so long? and me that wanted you so!" she cried.

POSTSCRIPT

Inside the lighted windows which threw so cheerful a gleam upon the soft darkness of the night outside, Margaret and Jean were seated, with their heads very close together, bending over a letter. They were reading it both together, with great agitation and excitement. The faces of both were flushed and eager; there was a controversy going on between them. Nothing more peaceful than this interior, the little fire burning brightly, the lamp on the table, the wainscot reflecting the leap and sparkle of the burning wood, but nothing more agitated than the little group, the faces so like each other, so close together, lighted up with all the fire and passion of civil war.

"She is beginning to forget him," Margaret said. "I will send him his answer to-night, and she need never know. Why should the little thing be disturbed again? She has had a terrible year, but it is all over, all over now."

"All over now he has come. In no other way will it ever be over."

"Oh! hold your peace with your romance, Jean. It was always sore, sore against my will to entertain the thought of him – and now that she has got over it – "

"She will never get over it," said Miss Jean. "Oh, Margaret, have ye no mercy in you? Will you let her heart break just for a prejudice, just for – "

"Do you call it a prejudice that the man should be a gentleman, that his father before him should have been a gentleman? – "

"I care nothing for his father before him," exclaimed Jean, with the energy of passion. "He is as true a gentleman as ever stepped. I call it just a prejudice – "

"Hold your peace, Jean. Break her heart! when I tell you she is mending, mending day by day. Her peace shall not be disturbed again. I will write to him that it is too late. He is gentleman enough for that, I allow; that he will go away, that he will do nothing disloyal to me – "

"Would you have him disloyal to her?" Miss Jean cried. "No, Margaret! I have done your bidding many a day, but I will not now. If you write and bid him go, I will write and bid him stay. He will judge for himself which of us knows best."

Margaret rose to her feet with an indignant gesture.

"Will you defy me – me, your own sister?" she said.

"Oh! Margaret, do not break my heart! – but I will defy all the world for Lilias," cried Miss Jean. "She is more than my sister, she is my bairn; and yours too – and yours too!"

"It is for that," cried Margaret, with something like a sob, "that I will just defend her to the death."

"Is it defending her?" cried the other, "to break her heart?"

"There is no question of breaking hearts," said Margaret, hurriedly controlling herself, and taking up the letter; "but, Jean, for God's sake, not a word, for here is Lilias at the door."

Neither of them remembered, in the excitement of the moment, that the sight of them standing up to receive her, with the traces of their struggle in their looks, must have shown Lilias, had there been no other indication, that something extraordinary had happened. But that mattered little, as the reader knows. Lilias came in smiling, her eyes dazzled with the lights, her fair locks jewelled with the dews. She kept Lewis behind her with her hand.

"I have brought somebody to see you, Margaret and Jean," she said.

Margaret let the letter fall from her hand. It was the final throwing down of her arms before triumphant Love and Fate.

1

A dish, from the French assiette.