It was a Lover and his Lass

"But that would be taking you from your friends," said Miss Jean, with wondering eyes and much-divided wishes. As, however, even in this moment, she was already separated from Margaret, there was nothing to be done but accept his companionship.

Jean was in a ferment of excitement and anxiety. It was what she had wished and hoped for – it was delightful – it filled her with an exhilarating sense of help and satisfaction; but, at the same time, if it should turn out to be going against Margaret! How difficult it is in such a terrible, unlooked-for crisis to know exactly what to do! She did what her heart desired, which is the most general solution.

"They will probably turn at the end, and then I can go back to them," she said. "And why should Margaret object? for you have always been my friend."

"Yes," said Lewis, "you will recollect it was you I knew first in the family: and I was always supposed to be your visitor. What pleasant hours those were at the piano! Ah, you could not be so cruel as to pass me, to treat me like a stranger. We are in each other's confidence," he said, looking so kindly, tenderly at her, with a meaning in his eyes which Miss Jean understood, and which delivered her at once out of her little flutter of timidity. She answered him with a look, and became herself once more.

"It is so indeed," she said. "We have both opened our hearts to one another, though I might be your mother. And glad, glad I am to see you. I feel a little lost among all these people, though it is very interesting to watch them: but I am just most happy when I come upon a kent face. And have you been long in London, and have you friends here? Without that there is but little pleasure in it," Miss Jean said, with a suppressed sigh.

Then Lewis began to tell her that he had been in town for a week or two, and had gone everywhere looking for her and her sisters; that he had found abundance of friends, people whom he had met abroad, who had known him "in my god-father's time," he said.

"I think I know almost all the diplomatic people, and they are a host; and it is wonderful to find how many people one has come across, for everybody goes abroad."

Jean listened with admiration and a sigh.

"There are few," she said, "of these kind of persons that come in our way, either at Murkley or Gowanbrae."

Something in her tone attracted his attention, especially to the sentiment of this remark, and Lewis was too sympathetic to be long unacquainted with its meaning.

"No doubt," he said, "it is a long time since you have been here: and you find your old friends gone, and strangers in their place."

"That is just it," said Miss Jean. "It has been perhaps a little disappointment – oh, not to Lilias and me, who are delighted to see everything, and never think of parties and things – but Margaret will vex herself about it, wanting the child to enjoy herself, and to see all that's worth seeing. You will understand the feeling. There is some great ball now," she added, with vague hopes for which she could not account to herself, "which everybody is speaking of – "

"It is perhaps the Greek ball? Is she going?" cried Lewis, eagerly. "Ah, that will be what you call luck – great luck for me."

"I cannot say that she is going – if you mean Margaret," said Miss Jean, trembling to feel success within reach. "It is not a thing, you know, that tempts the like of us at our age – but just for Lilias. Well, I cannot say. I hear people are asking for invitations, which, to my mind, is a wonderful way of going about it. I do not think Margaret, who is a proud person, would ever bring her mind to that."

"She shall not need," said Lewis. "Would she go? Would you go? Dear Miss Jean, will not you do this for me? They are my dear friends, those people. They know me since I was a boy. They will call at once, and send the invitation. If I were not out of favour with your sister, I would come with my friends. But not a word! Do not say a word! It will all pass as if we had nothing to do with it, you and I. That is best; but in return you will see that Miss Lilias saves for me a dance, two dances perhaps."

"Poor thing!" said Miss Jean, "my fear just is that she will have all her dances to spare; for we do not know many people, and the people we know are not going – and it is perhaps just a little unfortunate for Lilias."

"That will not happen again," cried Lewis, with a glow of pleasure. "I am not of any good in Murkley, but I can be of some use here."

In the mean time Lilias, very much disappointed, was demanding an explanation from her sister.

"It was Mr. Murray, Margaret! I would have liked to speak to him. He was always nice. And you liked him well enough at Murkley. He was dressed all right, not like poor Philip. Why might not I stop and speak to him? I had to give him my left hand, for you pulled me away."

"There was no need for giving him any hand at all. He is just a person we know nothing about – what his family is, if he belongs to anybody," Miss Margaret said.

"But we know him," said Lilias, with that perfectly inconclusive argument which sounds so powerful to the foolish speaker, but which in reality means nothing.

Margaret was full of irritation and annoyance, and a sense of danger to come.

"What does that matter?" she cried. "Him! We know no harm of him, if that is what you mean. But his belongings are unknown to me, and with a man of his name, that cannot be but harm. If it was one of your English names, it might just be any ignoramus: but there is no good Murray that has not a drop's blood, as people say, between him and Murkley. I will have no traffic with that young man."

"But he came to us at home!" said Lilias, in great surprise, "and I saw him – often."

"Where did you see him, you silly thing? Twice, thrice, at the utmost!"

"Oh, Margaret! I used to see him with Katie. Katie was always about the park, you know; and he was so fond of the new castle, and always making sketches – "

Margaret looked at her with severe eyes. And indeed Lilias, who had revealed perhaps more than was expedient, coloured, and was embarrassed by her observation, though she indignantly declared to herself that there was "no cause."

"So you saw him – often?" the elder sister said. "This is news to me – and the more reason we should see nothing of him now; for a young man that will thrust himself upon a girl's company when she is out of the protection of her friends – "

"Margaret!" cried Lilias, with a flash of indignation. "Are you going to leave Jean behind?" she added, hastily, in a voice of horror, as Margaret, instead of turning back at the end of the walk, hurriedly directed her steps homeward, crossing with haste and trepidation the much crowded road.

"Jean must just take the risk upon herself. It is no doing of mine. She will tell him no doubt where we are living, and the likelihood is he will see her home. But mind you," said Margaret, turning round upon the girl with that little pause in her walk to emphasize her words, which is habitual with all eloquent persons, "I will not have that young lad coming about us here. There must be no seeing – often, here – no, nor seldom either. I am your guardian, and I will not be made light of. He is not a person that I consider good enough for your acquaintance, and I will not have it. So you must just choose between him and me."

"Margaret!" cried Lilias again, in consternation.

Her mind had been agreeably moved by the sight of Lewis. He was more than a kent face, he was a friend: and indeed he was more than a friend. Whatever might be her feelings towards him, on which she had not at all decided, Lilias had a very distinct idea of what his feelings were towards her, and, let theorists say what they will, there is nothing more interesting to a girl than the consciousness that she is – thought of, dreamed of, admired, present to the mind of another, even if she does not permit herself to say beloved. The sight of him had brought back all those vague pleasures and embarrassments, those shynesses, yet suddenly confidential outbursts, which had beguiled the afternoon hours at Murkley. How friendly he looked! how ready to listen! how full of talk! and how his face had lighted up at the sight of her! He was very different from Philip sucking his stick, not knowing what to do, and from the young men of society, who stared, inspecting the ladies as if that impertinence was a certain duty. Lewis had expanded with pleasure. He had detached himself from his friends in a moment. The sun had shone full upon his head as he stood uncovered, eager to speak. He was not handsome. He was not even tall or big, or in any way imposing. As for the hero of whom Lilias had dreamt so long, Lewis was not in the smallest degree like that paladin; there need be no alarm on that subject. But he was a friend, and to be swept away from a friend in this desert place where there were so few of them, was at once a pain and an injury. What did Margaret mean? Lilias felt herself insulted by the suspicion expressed, which she was too proud to protest against. Her indignant exclamation, "Margaret!" was all that she would condescend to. And they walked homeward through the streets, which Margaret, in despite and alarm, had hastily chosen instead of returning by the park, without saying a word to each other. It was the first time that this had happened in Lilias' life. Her heart grew fuller and fuller as she went home. Was Margaret, the ruler, the universal guide, she who up to this time had been infallible, was she prejudiced, was she unkind? When they reached the house, they separated, neither saying a word. But this was intolerable to Lilias, who by-and-by ran down to Margaret's room, and flung herself into her sister's arms.

"I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it! Scold me, if you like, but speak to me, Margaret," cried the little girl.

It was a very small matter, yet it was a great matter to them. Margaret took the girl in her arms with a trembling in her own strong and resolute figure.

"You are the apple of my eye, you are the light of my eyes," she said, which was all the explanation that passed between them. For Lilias was awed by the solemnity of her sister's rarely-expressed love. It thrilled her with a wonderful sense of something too great for her own littleness, an undeserved adoration that made her humble. It did not occur to her that great tyrannies are sometimes the outspring of such a passion. On the contrary, she felt that in the presence of this, her little liking for a cheerful face was as nothing, too trifling a matter to be thought of; and yet there was in her mind a little hankering after that pleasant countenance all the same.

It was some time later before Jean returned, and there was in her a wonderful flutter of embarrassment and delight, and of fictitious composure, and desire to look as if nothing had happened, which filled Lilias with curiosity and Margaret with an angry contempt for her sister, as for an old fool, who was allowing her head to be turned by the attentions of that young man. That young man was the name Lewis took in the agitated mind of the elder sister. He was not even a long-leggit lad, a member of a well-defined and honourable caste, which it is permissible to women to be foolish about. Did the old haverel think that it was really her he was wanting? – Margaret asked herself: with a disdain which it wounded her to entertain for her sister.

"He would say he had been just wearying to see you," she said, when Jean entered late for luncheon, and with her hair hastily brushed, which the wind had blown about a little under her bonnet. Jean was not too old to indulge in hairdressing, in fringes and curls on her forehead, had she so chosen, and indeed the wind would sometimes do as much for her as fashion did for others, finding out unexpected twists and fantasies in her brown locks. She had smoothed herself all down outwardly, but had not quite succeeded in patting down those spiritual signs of a ruffling breeze of excitement which answer to the incipient curls and secret twists in the hair.

"He said he was very glad to see us all, poor lad! It was a great disappointment to him, Margaret, when you just sailed away like that – without a word."

"I hope," said Miss Margaret, "that I am answerable to nobody for the choice I make of my friends, and this young man is one that gives no satisfaction to me."

"Oh, but, Margaret – " cried Miss Jean, in eager remonstrance.

"I am laying down no laws for you – you are your own mistress, as I am mine; but I will have none of him," Margaret said, decisively.

This sudden judgment had a great effect upon the gentler sister.

"Oh! but, Margaret," she repeated, again looking wistfully at the head of the house. Then her anxious eyes sought Lilias. "I am sure," she said, "that one more respectful or more anxious to be of any use – "

"And what use do you expect a lad like that to be?" cried Margaret, with high disdain. "I hope the Murrays of Murkley will be able to fend for themselves without help from any unknown person," she added, with lofty superiority.

Jean looked at her with a glance in which there was disappointment, impatience, wistfulness, and something else which Lilias could not divine. There was more in it than mere regret for this ignoring of Lewis' excellencies. There was – could it be possible? – a kind of compassion for the other side. But this was so very unlikely a sentiment to be entertained by Jean for Margaret that Lilias, secretly observing, secretly ranging herself on Jean's side, felt that she must be mistaken. But Jean was not herself; she was so crushed by this conversation that she became silent, and said no more, though it was evident that there came upon her again and again an impulse to talk, which it was scarcely possible to restrain. Something was on her lips to say, which she had driven back almost by force. A concealed triumph was bursting forth by every outlet. When she sat down to her work, secret smiles would come upon her face. A quiver was in her hands which made her apparent industry quite ineffectual. She would start and look at Lilias when any sound was heard without. Once when Margaret left the room for a moment, Jean made a rush at her little sister and kissed her with an agitation to which Lilias had no clue.

"Just you wait a little; it will come perhaps this afternoon," cried Miss Jean in her ear.

"Do you expect Mr. Murray, Jean? Oh! Margaret will not be pleased," Lilias cried, in alarm.

Jean shook her head violently and retreated to the window, where, when Margaret returned to the room, she was standing looking out.

"Dear me! can you not settle to something?" said Margaret. "I have no nerves to speak of, but to see you whisking about like this is more than I can put up with. The meeting this morning has been too much for you."

"Oh, how little you know," cried Jean, under her breath – and this time there was no mistaking the compassion, the reproachful pity in her eyes; but then she added – "Perhaps I am a little agitated, but it is to think you should be so prejudiced – you that have always had more insight than other folk."

"If I have had the name of more insight, cannot you believe that I'm right this time?" said Margaret.

Jean, standing at the window looking out, did nothing but shake her head. She was entirely unconvinced. When, however, Margaret announced some time after that she had ordered the victoria, and was going out to make some calls with Lilias, this intimation had a great effect upon Jean. She turned round with a startled look to interpose.

"Dear me, you are not going out again, Margaret! and me so sure you would be at home. You will just tire yourself, and Lilias too: and if you remember that we are going to the play to-night. There are no calls surely that are so urgent as that."

"Bless me!" said Margaret, taken by surprise, "what is all this earnestness for? You are perhaps expecting a visit from your friend; but in that case it is far better that Lilias and me should be out of the way."

"I am expecting no visit from him. I had to tell him, poor lad, that it would be best not to come; but I wish you would stay in, Margaret: I think it is going to rain, and you have just an open carriage, no shelter. And you can never tell who may call. You said yourself that when you went out in the afternoon you missed just the people you most wanted to see."

"I am expecting nobody to-day," said Margaret; "and, if anybody comes, there is you to see them."

"Me!" cried Jean, with a nervous tremor. "And what could I say to them? What if it should be strangers?"

"I hope you have a good Scots tongue in your head," said Miss Margaret, somewhat warmly perhaps. But Lilias lingered to console the poor lady, whose look of alarm and trouble was greater than any mere possibility could have produced.

"Oh! my darling, try to persuade her to stay at home; but mind you do not say a word," cried Jean in the ear of Lilias, holding her two arms. "I think there may perhaps be – some grand people coming. And how could I speak to them?"

"What grand people?" the girl cried.

"Oh, hold your tongue – hold your tongue, Lilias! I would not have her suspect – but who can tell what kind of people may be coming? Something always happens when people are out; and then this ball – "

"Margaret," cried Lilias, "don't go out this afternoon. Jean thinks that people may be calling – somebody who could get us tickets – "

"Oh! not me, not me," cried Jean, putting her hand on the girl's mouth. "I never said such a thing. It was just an imagination – or a presentiment – "

"Well," said Margaret, with her bonnet on, "Jean is just as able to receive the finest company as I am. She is looking very nice, she has a little colour. To be silly now and then is good for the complexion; she is fluttered with the sight of her young friend – is it friend you call him, Jean?"

"What could I call him else?" cried Jean, with dignity. "I will never call a man more, as you well know; and besides, I might be his mother. And why should I call him less, seeing he has always been so good to me, and one that I think much of? But I am not expecting Mr. Murray, you need not be feared for that. It is just a kind of presentiment," Miss Jean said.

CHAPTER XXXV

Miss Jean sat down to her work at the window when the others went out. There was a balcony full of flowers which prevented her from seeing anything more distinct than the coming and going of the carriages, but that was enough to keep her in a flutter of awed and excited expectation. Lewis had said that his friends would call at once, and the idea of receiving a foreign lady, a foreign ambassadress, who perhaps did not speak English, made Miss Jean tremble from the lace of her cap to the toe of her slipper. She tried to remember the few words of school-book French which lingered in her mind; but what if the lady spoke only Greek? In that case, their intercourse would need to be carried on by signs: or, since she was an ambassadress, she would perhaps carry an interpreter with her. Jean did not know the manners and habits of such people. To be left to encounter such a formidable person alone was terrible to her. And what would so great a lady think if she came in expecting Margaret, whom no doubt Lewis would have described, and found only Jean? "We saw nobody but a homely sort of country person," – that was what she would say. But the case was desperate, and though, when the moment actually arrived, and an imposing carriage and pair dashed up with all the commotion possible to the door, and the knocker resounded through the house, Miss Jean's heart beat so loudly in her ears that it drowned the very knocker, yet still there was a sort of satisfaction in thus venturing for the sake of Lilias, facing such an excitement for her benefit, and obtaining for her what even Margaret had not been able to obtain.

Simon, creaking along the passage in his creaking shoes, seemed to tread upon Miss Jean's heart. Would he never be ready? She waited, expecting every moment the door to open, the sweep of silken draperies, or perhaps – who could tell? – the entrance of a resplendent figure in costume other than that of fashion; for Jean was aware that Greece was in the east, and had been delivered in her youth out of its subjection to the Turks, and that the men wore kilts, and the women probably – These were long before the days of the dual dress, and the idea filled her with alarm. She put away her work with trembling hands, and stood listening, endeavouring to calm herself and make her best curtsey, but in a whirl of anxiety lest Simon should not say the name right or else be unable to catch it. But when, instead of this extraordinary ordeal, she heard the clang, the stir, the glittering sound of hoofs and wheels and harness, and became aware that the carriage had driven away, Jean came to herself quite suddenly, as if she had fallen to the ground. It was a relief unspeakable, but perhaps, also, it was a little disappointment. She dropped back upon her chair. To go through so many agonies of anticipation for nothing is trying too. And Simon came upstairs as if he were counting his steps, as if it was of no consequence!

"I told them you were in, Miss Jean, but they just paid no attention to me: and I do not think you have lost much, for they were too flyaway, and not of your kind. I hope there's cards enough: and this big letter, with a seal as large as Solomon's," said Simon.

She took them with another jump of her heart. The envelope was too big for the little tray on which he had placed it; it was half covered with a great blazon. The cards were inscribed with a name which it taxed all Jean's powers to make out. She was so moved that she made a confidant of Simon, having no one else to confide in.

"It's an invitation," she said, "for one of the grandest balls in all London."

Simon, for his part, looked down upon the magnificent enclosure without any excitement, with a cynical eye.

"It's big enough to be from the Queen," he said, "and it will keep ye up to a' the hours of the night, and the poor horse just hoasting his head off. You'll excuse me, Miss Jean, but I cannot help saying rather you than me."

"I should have thought, Simon," said Miss Jean, reproachfully, "that you would have had some feeling for Miss Lilias."

"Oh! I have plenty of feeling for Miss Lilias; but sitting up till two or three, or maybe four in the morning is good for nobody," Simon said.

Miss Jean could not keep still. As for work, that was impossible. She met Margaret at the door, when the little victoria drove up, with a countenance as pale as ashes.

"God bless me!" cried Margaret, in alarm, "what has happened?"

Jean thrust the cards and the envelope into her hands.

"You will know," she said, breathless, "what they mean better than me." Miss Jean salved her conscience by adding to herself, "And so she will! for she understands everything better than I do."

"What is it, Margaret?" said Lilias.

The ladies had been engaged all the afternoon in a hopeless effort of which Lilias was entirely unconscious; they had gone to call on a number of people in whom the girl, at least, felt no interest, but to whom Margaret had condescended with a civility which her little sister could not understand – The countess, who was too much occupied to pay them any attention, and Lady Ida, who thought quite enough had been done for the country neighbours, and was inclined to show that she was bored; and the wife of the county member, who was on the other side in politics, and consequently received the Miss Murrays with respect but coldness, and some dowagers, who had almost forgotten Margaret, and some new people who were barely acquainted with her – Why did she take all that trouble?

"You are bound," Miss Margaret said, "when you are in London just to keep up everybody. You never can tell when they may be of use."

"Is it to make them of use that you are friends with people?" Lilias had asked, with wonder. But they were of no use. How was it possible? And, even if they had been likely to be so Margaret's heart had failed her. She was not used to such manœuvres. She came back in very low spirits, feeling that it was impossible, feeling impotent, and feeling humiliated not so much because of her impotence, as for a contempt of her own aim. Between the two her heart had sunk altogether. To think it possible that she, Margaret Murray, should be going from door to door in a strange place, seeking an invitation to a ball! Was such ignominy possible? She was angry with herself, angry with the world in which trifles were of so much importance, angry with that big, pitiless place, which had no knowledge of the Murrays of Murkley, and cared for neither an old race, nor a lovely young creature like Lilias, nor anything but just monstrous wealth and impudence: for that was how Margaret put it, being disheartened and disappointed and disgusted with herself. And coming in, in this state of mind, to meet Jean, pale as a ghost, what could she think of but misfortune? She expected to hear that Murkley Castle had been burnt to the ground, or that their "man of business" had run away. Poor Mr. Allenerly, who was as safe as Edinburgh Castle standing on a rock! but panic does not wait to count probabilities. When the big envelope was thrust into her hand she looked at it with alarm, as if it might wound her. And to think, after all this mortification, disgust, and terror, to think of finding, what at this moment looked like everything she desired, in her hand! For the time, forgetting the frivolous character of the blessing, Margaret was inclined to believe with a softening and grateful movement of her heart that it had fallen upon her direct from heaven.