It was a Lover and his Lass

It might have been thought very natural too, that, after his early flirtations with the minister's daughter, whose mother brought her far too much forward, his fancy should have turned legitimately in a higher direction as his taste improved. Mrs. Stormont heard of her son's proceedings with the liveliest delight, giving God thanks indeed, poor lady, in her deceived heart that He had turned her boy's thoughts in the right direction, and given her this comfort when she needed it most. And she also applauded somewhat her own cleverness in having seen the right means for so desirable an end, and secured the début of Lilias at Philip's ball, an event which connected their names, and no doubt would make them feel themselves more or less bound to each other. Mrs. Stormont felt that little Katie was routed horse and foot, and also that poor Mrs. Seton, whom she considered a designing woman and manœuvring mother (entirely oblivious of her own gifts of that kind), was discomfited and thrown out, a thought almost as sweet to her mind as that of Philip's deliverance. And it would be wrong to say that Mrs. Seton herself did not feel a certain sense of defeat. When she met Philip going up the village towards the castle, the smile and banter with which she greeted him were bitter-sweet.

"I am really glad to see that you are finding some entertainment at Murkley," she would say. "I have so often been sorry for you with nothing to occupy you. Yes, yes, whatever women may think, a young man wants something to amuse him; and the ladies at the castle are most entertaining. Miss Margaret has just an uncommon judgment, and dear Miss Jean, we are all fond of her; and as for Lilias, that speaks for itself. Yes, yes, Mr. Philip, with a face like that, there is nothing more to say."

Philip listened to all this with wonderful composure. He secretly chuckled now and then at the ease with which everybody was taken in. "Even her own mother," he said to himself, with the greatest admiration of his Katie. Deception looks like a high-art to the simple intelligence when it is exercised to his own advantage, and even the highest moralist winks at the artifices with which a couple of young people contrive to conceal their courtship. It is supposed that the supreme necessity of the end to be obtained justifies such means: at least that would seem to be the original cause of such a universal condonation of offence.

Miss Margaret did not share Mrs. Stormont's sentiments. She had always been afraid of this long-leggit lad. He was just the kind of well-grown, well-looking production of creation that might take a young girl's eye, she felt, before she had seen anything better: and she blamed herself as much for permitting the ball as Philip's mother applauded herself for contriving it. Margaret was very far from happy at this period. The more Philip talked about the weather, and the more minute were the observations he made about the glass rising, or the dew falling, the more she looked at him, with a growing consternation, wondering if it were possible that Lilias could be attracted by such qualities as he exhibited.

"He is just a gomeril," she said, indignantly.

"Indeed, Margaret," Jean would say, "he is very personable, there is no denying that."

"He is just a great gowk," growing in vehemence, Miss Margaret said.

But, in fact, her milder, less impassioned statement was, after all, the true one. His chief quality was that he was a long-leggit lad, a fine specimen of rural manhood. There was nothing wrong, or undersized, or ill-developed about him. He had brain enough for his needs. He was far from being without sense. He had a very friendly regard for his neighbours, and would not have harmed them for the world. There was nothing against him; but then Lilias was the apple of the eye to these two ladies, who were entirely visionary in their ambition for her, and in all the hopes they had set on her head. That she should make a premature choice of one of whom all that could be said was, that there was nothing against him, was a terrible humiliation to all their plans and thoughts.

And in the afternoons, while July lingered out, with its warm days and rosy sunsets, the month without frost, the genial heart of the year, Lilias' walks were invariably accompanied by Katie, who, liberated as she was from visitors at home by Philip's desertion, ran in and out of the castle at all hours, and was the constant attendant of her friend. Philip would join them in their walks, which were always confined to the park, almost every day, and Lilias, at one moment or other, would generally stroll off by herself to leave them free. She got a habit of haunting New Murkley very much during these afternoon walks. She would wander round and round it, studying every corner, returning to all her dreams on the subject, peopling the empty place with guests, hearing through its vacant windows the sound of voices and society, of music and talk. How it was that those half-comprehended notes which entranced Jean and had established so warm a bond of union between her and the young stranger at Murkley should always be sounding out of these windows, Lilias could not tell, for she had professed openly her want of understanding and even of interest. But, notwithstanding her ignorance, there was never a day that in her dreams she did not catch an echo, among all the imagined sounds of the great house, from some room or other, from some corner, of Lewis Murray's music. Perhaps it was that she met himself so often about this centre of her lonely wanderings.

Generous though Lilias was, and ready to sacrifice herself for the advantage of her friends, it is not to be supposed that when she left those two together to the mutual explanations and consultations and confidences which took so long to say, she herself found much enjoyment in the solitude even of her own words, with the sense in her mind all the time that for the sake of the lovers she was deceiving her sisters, whom she loved much better, and in a lesser sense helping to deceive Katie's parents and Philip's mother, all of whom were more or less under the same delusion. It did not make Lilias happy; she fled to her dreams to take refuge from the questions which would assail her, and the perpetual fault-finding of her conscience. When Lewis appeared she was glad, for he answered the purpose of distracting her from these self-arraignments better even than her dreams; yet sometimes would be vexed and angry, disposed to resent his interest in the place as an impertinence, and to wonder what he had to do with it that he should go there so often and study it so closely, for he had always his sketch-book in his hand. She was so restless and uncomfortable that there were moments when Lilias felt her sense of propriety grow strong upon her, and felt disposed to treat the young man haughtily as an intruder, just as there were other moments when his presence was a relief, when she would plunge almost eagerly into talk, and betray to him, only half consciously, only half intentionally, the visions of which her mind was full. There got to be a great deal of talk between them on these occasions, and almost of intimacy as they wandered from subject to subject. It was very different from the conversation which Lilias carried on with her other companions, though she had known them all her life – conversations in which matters of fact were chiefly in question, affairs of the moment. With Lewis she spread over a much wider range. With that curious charm which the mixture of intimacy and new acquaintance produces, the sense of freedom, the certainty of not being betrayed or talked over, Lilias opened her thoughts to the new friend, whom she scarcely knew, as she never could have done to those whom she had been familiar with all her life. It was like thinking aloud. Her innocent confidences would not come back and stare her in the face, as the revelations we make to our nearest neighbours so often do. She did not reason this out, but felt it, and said to Lewis, who was at once a brother and a stranger, the most attractive conjunction – more about herself than Margaret knew, or even Jean, without being conscious of what she was doing, to the great ease and consolation of her heart.

But one of these afternoons Lilias met him in a less genial mood. She had been sadly tried in patience and in feeling. Mrs. Stormont had paid one of her visits that day. She had come in beaming with triumphant looks, with Philip in attendance, who, in his mother's presence, was even less amusing than usual. Mrs. Stormont had been received with very cold looks by Margaret, and with anxious, deprecating politeness by Jean, who feared the explosion of some of the gathering volcanic elements; and Lilias perceived to her horror that Philip's mother indemnified and avenged herself on Jean and Margaret by the triumphant satisfaction of her demeanour towards herself, making common cause with her, as it were, against her elder sisters, and offering a hundred evidences of a secret bond of sympathy. She said "we," looking at Lilias with caressing eyes. She called her by every endearing name she could think of. She made little allusions to Philip, which drove the girl frantic. And Philip himself sat by, having indeed the grace to look terribly self-conscious and ashamed, but by that very demeanour increasing his mother's urbanity and her triumph. Lilias bore this while she could, but at last, in a transport of indignation and suppressed rage, made her escape from the room and from the house, rushing out into the coolness of the air and silence of the park, with a sense that her position was intolerable, and that something or other she must do to escape from it. So far from escaping from it, however, she had scarcely got out of sight of the windows when she was joined by Katie, whose fondness and devotion knew no limits, and who twined her arm through that of Lilias with a tender familiarity which made her more impatient still.

The climax was reached when Philip's steps were heard hurrying after them, and Lilias knew as if she had seen the scene, what must have been the delight of Mrs. Stormont as he rose to follow her, and what the dismay and displeasure of Margaret and Jean. She seemed to hear Mrs. Stormont declare that "like will draw to like" all the world over, and to see the gloom upon the face of her mother-sisters.

"Oh! Lilias," Katie cried, "here he is coming; he can thank you better than I can; all our happiness we owe to you."

Lilias turned blazing with quick wrath upon her persecutor.

"Why should you be happy," she cried, "more than other people – and when you are making me a liar? Yes, it is just a liar you are making me!"

"Oh, Lilias, you are just an angel!" cried Katie, "and that is what Philip thinks as well as me."

"Philip!" cried Lilias, with a passion of disdain. She cast a look at him as he came up, of angry scorn, as if his presumption in forming such an opinion was intolerable. She drew her arm out of Katie's almost with fury, pushed them towards each other, and walked on swiftly with a silent step of passion which devoured the way. She was so full of heat and excitement that when she reached the new house of Murkley, and almost stumbled against Lewis, who was standing against a tree opposite the door, she gave a start of passion, and immediately turned her weapons against him. She cast a glance of angry scorn at the sketch-book in his hand.

"Are you here, Mr. Murray?" she cried, "and always your sketch-book, though I never see you draw anything. I wonder what you come for, always to the same spot every day; and it cannot be of any interest to you."

Lewis, who had not been prepared for this sudden attack, grew red with an impulse of offence, but checked himself instantly.

"You have entirely reason," he said, with his hat in his hand in his foreign way. "I do nothing; I am not, indeed, worth my salt. The sketch-book is no more than an excuse; and it is true," he added, "that I have no right to be here, or to claim an interest – "

There is nothing that so covers with discomfiture an angry assailant as the prompt submission of the person assailed, and Lilias was doubly susceptible to this way of putting her in the wrong. She threw down her arms at once, and blushed from head to foot at her own rudeness.

"Oh, what was I saying?" she cried – "what business have I to meddle with you, whether you were sketching or not? But it was not you – it was just vexation about – other things."

His tone, his look (though she was not looking at him), everything about him, expressed an indignant partisanship, which went to Lilias' heart.

"Why should you have any vexation? It is not to be borne!" he cried.

Lilias was so touched with this sympathy that it at once blew her cloud away, and made her feel its injustice more than ever, which is a not unusual paradox of feeling.

"Oh, what right have I to escape vexation?" she said. "I am just like other people." And then she paused, and, looking back, saw the two figures which she had abandoned in such angry haste turning aside into the woods. They cared nothing about her vexation, whoever did so. She laughed in an agitated way, as though she might have cried. There was no concealing her feelings from such a keen observer. "I suppose," she said, "that you are in the secret too?"

"I am in no secret," said Lewis, and his eyes were full of indignation; "but that you should be made the scapegoat – oh, forgive me! but that is what I cannot persuade myself to bear."

"Ah!" said Lilias, "how nice it is to meet with some one who understands without a word! But I am no scapegoat – it is not quite so bad as that."

"It ought not to be so at all," Lewis said, with a touch of severity that had never been seen in his friendly face before.

Lilias looked at him with a little alarm, and with a great deal of additional respect. And then she began to defend the culprits, finding them thus placed before a judge so much more decided than herself.

"They don't think I mind – they don't mean to hurt me," she said.

"But they do hurt you – your delicate mind, your honour, and sense of right. It is much against my interest," said Lewis, "I ought to plead for them, to keep it all going on, for otherwise I should not see you, I should not have my chance too; but it is more strong than me. It ought not to be."

Lilias did not know what to answer him. His words confused her, though she understood but dimly any meaning in them. His chance, too! – what did he mean? But she did not ask anything about his meaning, though his wonder distracted her attention, and made her voice uncertain.

"It is not so bad for me as it would be for them," Lilias said.

And then his countenance, which she had thought colourless often and unimportant, startled her as he turned towards her, so glowing was it with generous indignation. She had used the same words herself, or at least the same idea, but somehow they had not struck her in their full meaning till now.

"Why should they be spared at your expense? But you have no hand nor share in it," he said. "We must bear our own burdens."

"But, Mr. Murray," said Lilias, "what should you think of a friend that would not take your burden upon her shoulders and help you to bear it?" The argument restored her to herself.

"I should think such a friend was more than half divine," he said.

Lilias knew very well that she was not half divine, and Katie's declaration that she was an angel roused nothing but wrath in her mind; nevertheless she was curiously consoled in her troubles by this other hyperbole now.

CHAPTER XXIX

"This will never do," said Miss Margaret to Miss Jean.

They were sitting together with very serious faces after the triumphant departure of Mrs. Stormont, who had declared with a countenance full of smiles that to wait for Philip would be nonsense, since "when these young creatures get together there is no telling when we may see them again." The ladies had listened with grave looks, presenting a sort of blank wall of disapproval to their visitor's effusiveness, and when she had been seen to the door with stern politeness and cleared, as it were, out of their neighbourhood, they had returned and sat down for a few minutes without speaking, with many thoughts in their hearts.

"No," said Miss Jean, deprecating yet decided. "It is very natural, no doubt, on her side; but to expect you to be pleased with it – "

"Pleased with it! What is there to be pleased with?" cried Miss Margaret. "It is just a plot and a conspiracy – that is what it is, and Lilias has no more to do with it than you or me."

"If I thought that, Margaret – "

"If you just apply your mind to it, you will soon see that. She could not put up with that woman's petting and phrasing. If we had not brought her up to politeness, she would have said something. She just flew off when she could bear it no longer. And then that long-leggit Philip – if it had not been a look from his mother, he would not even have had the spirit to go after her. That woman is just a – "

"Oh! whisht, Margaret. I would not call her that woman; long-leggit or not, he is just her son, and she thinks much of him. Very likely," said Jean, "she thinks it would be a grand thing for Lilias if – "

"The impertinence of her is just boundless!" Margaret said; "but we cannot let ourselves be beaten and put out of all our plans, and our bonnie Lilias turned into just a common country laird's wife – not for all the Mistress Stormonts and all the long-leggit loons in Scotland!"

When Miss Margaret was excited, it was her habit to take advantage of a few strenuous words of what she would have called "broad Scots." She was no more Scotch perhaps at these moments than in her most dignified phraseology, to a southern ear; but to herself the difference was intense, and marked a crisis. It was as if she had sworn an oath.

"No, no, Margaret," said Miss Jean, soothingly – "no, no; we will never do that."

"And how are we to help it if we sit with our hands in our laps?" Miss Margaret cried. She got up in her excitement and began to pace through the room, which was such a home of quiet, with its brown wainscot and the glimmer of its many windows, that this agitation seemed to disturb it as if it had been a living thing. Jean followed her sister's movements with anxious eyes.

"Oh! Margaret," she said, "I am not afraid but you will think of something. If it was only me, it would be different; but, so long as there is you to watch over her – "

"What can I do, or anybody, if they will not be watched over, these young things?" Margaret said, sitting down as suddenly as she had sprung up. And then there was a moment of profound silence, as if the very walls were relieved by the cessation of that thrill of human movement. They had seen a great deal worse, these old walls, bloodshed and violence, and struggle and tumult; they seemed to treat with contempt, in their old-fashioned experience, a mere question about the managing of a silly little girl, or even her wooing, which was less important still.

Lilias was of opinion that she had already put up with quite too much annoyance on the subject when she got home. She had taken with great docility and sweetness the disapproval of Lewis, and been grateful to him for taking her part; but when Katie fell upon her with tears and kisses, and Philip, standing by with confused looks, sucked his stick, and murmured an assent to the praises and entreaties poured upon her, Lilias had not been able to withstand the importance of the position and the benedictions of the lovers. What should they do without her? She herself was not disinclined, when it was thus put before her, to recognise the necessity for her help, and that without her they must be ruined altogether; such a catastrophe, she felt, must be averted at all hazards. "It would just be my death," Katie said, weeping; "and oh, Lilias, we have been brought up together all our lives, and how could you see me perish like that?" Philip did not count for much in the matter. He was not unwilling perhaps that there should be a question of some one perishing for his sake, but he wanted to enjoy his walks and talks with Katie. Lilias, however, was altogether subdued by the idea of a funeral procession, and all the black hat-bands tied up by white ribbons. She felt that if Katie were to perish, it would be murder on her part. She yielded, notwithstanding her sense of wrong, and the disapproval of Lewis. After all, he had nothing to do with it – nobody had anything to do with it. If she chose to make herself a shield for the loves of Katie and Philip, it was her own business. Even Margaret had no right to interfere. But Lilias felt she had enough of it when she went home. She did not want to hear even the names of the people whom she was thus serving at so great a cost, and the remembrance of the scene with Mrs. Stormont and all her caresses was odious to her. She put it severely out of her mind. She resolved that for no inducement would she be present when Mrs. Stormont paid another visit, and that Philip should never be permitted to accompany his mother to the castle. These things she would insist upon, and then nothing so disagreeable as this past afternoon could happen again.

She stole in, a little breathless, and desirous of getting to her room unperceived. The result of so much agitation was that she had lingered longer than usual. There had been Lewis in the first place, who had a great deal to say, and then the lovers, from whom she had broken away in anger, had taken a long time to reconcile her. It was late, accordingly, when she got in, and by the time she had changed her dress, and was ready to appear in the drawing-room, it was very late, and her sisters were both waiting for her. They did not say anything at that moment, but contemplated her with very serious looks during their evening meal. Even old Simon perceived that something was coming. He showed his sympathy to "little missie" by offering her everything twice over, and anxiously persuading her in a whisper to eat.

"It will do you good, missie," he said in her ear; "you're taking nothing." He even poured out some wine for her, though she never took wine, and adjured her to drink it. "It will just be a support," he said.

These signs were not wanted to show Lilias that a storm was brewing. She was a little frightened, yet plucked up a courage when she heard Margaret clearing her throat. After all, she had done nothing that was wrong. But the form which the assault took was one which Lilias had not foreseen. They returned to the drawing-room before a word was said. By this time it was quite evening, the sunshine gone, and a twilight much more advanced than that out of doors lay in all the corners. Except the space in front of the windows, the room, indeed, was almost dark, and the bare walls seemed to contract and come close to hear what was going to be said.

"Lilias," said Miss Margaret, "Jean and I have been consulting about many things. You see, this is rather a dear place, there are so many tourists; and especially in the autumn, which is coming on, and the meat is just a ransom. Even in a little place like Murkley there are strangers, and Kilmorley just eats up all the provisions in the country."

Lilias' heart, which had been beating high in anticipation, sank down at this in her bosom with a delicious sense of relief and rest. There was nothing to be said then on any troublous subject, for who could be excited about the tourists and the price of meat? She was glad she had not taken the wine, for there could be no need for it – evidently no need.

"I don't know anything about that, Margaret," she said. "I wish there was no meat at all."

"Yes, you are just a perverse thing about your eating," said Miss Margaret – "we all know that."

"And it is not good for you, my dear; it keeps you delicate," said Miss Jean.

"Oh!" cried Lilias, springing from her chair, "was that all you were going to speak to me about? And even Simon saw it, and brought me wine to drink to do me good; and it is only about the price of meat and provisions being dear! What do you frighten people for, if it is nothing but that?"

If Lilias had been wise, she would have perceived by Margaret's serious looks and the wistful sympathy in Jean's face that she was far as yet from being out of the wood; but, after the little bound of impatience which was habitual to her, she calmed down immediately, and made them a curtsey.