It was a Lover and his Lass

And during the rest of the afternoon no other subject was thought of. When the ladies assembled over their tea in delightful relaxation and coolness after the fuss and flutter of their walks and drives, and those afternoon calls, which had brought nothing but vexation, the little scene was worthy of any comedy. The delight of Lilias, which was entirely natural and easy, had no such impassioned character about it as the restrained and controlled exultation which showed in Margaret's quietest words and movements. Jean, who was still pale and trembling with the dread of detection and the strain of excitement, by-and-by began to regard, with a wonder for which there were no words, her sister's perfect unconsciousness and absence of suspicion. To associate this envied distinction with Jean or anything she could have done, or with the slight person whom she had declined to have anything to say to in the morning, whose overtures she had negatived so sternly, never entered Margaret's thoughts. In the happiness and calm that came over her after the first ecstasy, she indulged, indeed, in a number of speculations. But, after all, what so natural as that the lady with the wonderful name, which none of them ventured to pronounce, had heard that the Miss Murrays of Murkley were in town, and perhaps had them pointed out to her somewhere, and felt that without Lilias the ball would be incomplete.

"It might be the countess, but I can hardly think it, or she would have let fall something to that effect," Margaret said; "and as for Mrs. Maxwell, they are just in a sort of House-of-Commons circle, and know little about fashion. But I am not surprised for my part: for, after all, family is a thing that does tell in society, and I have always felt that what was wanted was just to have it known we were here. Yes, it is a great pleasure, I do not deny it – though if anybody had told me I would have been so pleased to get an invitation to a ball at my age – "

"It is not for yourself, Margaret."

" – But I am not surprised. The wonder has been the little attention we have received: but I make little doubt we'll have even too much to fill up our time now it is known we are here. And, Lilias, you must remember I will not allow too much of it, to turn your head."

Lilias did not make any reply. She was studying the face of Jean, who was very intent upon Margaret, following her looks with wondering admiration, and half-struggling against her better knowledge to believe that her sister must be in the right after all.

"You see," said Margaret, discoursing pleasantly and at her ease, as she leant back in her chair, "we are all apt to judge the world severely when we are not just getting what we want. I confess that I was in a very ill key the other night. To be in the middle of a large company all enjoying themselves, and acquainted with each other, and to know nobody, is a trial for the temper. And as I am a masterful person by nature, and perhaps used to my own way, I did not put up with it as I ought. And if I had left town in a pet – as I had a great mind to do – the impression would just never have been removed. But you see what a little patience does. Indeed I have remarked before this that, when you see everything at its blackest, Providence is just preparing a surprise for you, and things are like to mend."

"If one can say Providence, Margaret," said Jean, a little shocked, "about such a thing as a ball!"

"Do you think there is anything, great or small, that is beneath that?" Margaret cried; but she felt herself abashed at having gone so far. "I am not meaning the ball," she said. "What I am meaning is just the recognition that we had a kind of a right to look for, and the friendship and understanding which is the due of a family long established, and that has been of use to its country, like ours. I hope you do not think that beneath the concern of Providence – for the best of life is in it," she added, taking high ground. "Little things may be signs of it: but you will not say it is a little thing to be well thought upon and duly honoured among your peers."

To this Jean listened with her lips dropping a little apart, and her eyes more wide open than their wont, altogether abashed by the importance of the doctrine involved, not knowing how to fit it into her own ideal of existence, and half-tempted to confess that it was by her simple instrumentality, and not in so dignified a way, that the event had come about.

"But, Margaret – " she said.

"My dear, I wish you would not be always so ready with your buts. You are just becoming a sort of Thomas, aye doubting," Margaret said. "But, Jean – if you are going to the play, as you are so fond of, we will have to be earlier than usual – and, in that case, it is time to dress: though I am so tired, and have so much to think of, that I would rather stay at home."

"There will be your ticket lost," said Jean, though in her heart she was almost glad to have a little time out of Margaret's presence to realize all that had passed on this agitating day.

"You can send it to Philip Stormont," said Margaret, moved to unusual good humour, "and take him with you. To look for your carriage and all that, he will be more use than old Simon. No, it is true I have no great opinion of him. He is just a long-leggit lad. He has little brains, and less manners, and his family is just small gentry; but still he's maybe a little forlorn, and in a strange place he will look upon us as more or less belonging to him."

"Oh, Margaret!" cried Jean, almost with tears in her eyes, "that is a thing I would never have thought of. There is nobody like you for a kind heart."

Margaret said "Toot!" but did not resent the imputation. "When you find that you are thought upon yourself, it makes you more inclined to think upon other people. And I'll not deny that I am pleased. To think you and me, Jean, should be making all this work about a ball! I am just ashamed of myself," she said, with a little laugh of pleasure.

But Jean did not make any response. She sent off old Simon to the address which Philip even in the few moments they had seen him had found time to give, and went upstairs to prepare in the silence of bewilderment, not able to explain to herself the curious self-deception and mistake of the sister to whom she had always looked up. She had been afraid of being seen through at once: her tremor, her excitement, her breathless consciousness, all, Jean had feared would betray her yet: Margaret had never observed them at all! She was glad, but she was also bewildered on her sister's account, and half-humiliated on her own. For to have been suspected would have been something. Not to have even been suspected at all, with so many signs of guilt about her, was so wonderful that it took away her breath. And, tenderly respectful as her mind was, she felt a little ashamed, a little to blame that Margaret had been so easily deceived. Her satisfaction in her delusion abashed Jean. She saw a grotesque element in it, when she knew how completely mistaken it was. Lilias, who had been questioning her with her eyes without attracting much attention from Jean, whose mind was busy elsewhere, followed her upstairs. If Margaret did not suspect the secret with which she was running over, Lilias did. She put her arm round the conspirator from behind, making her start.

"It is you, Jean," she whispered in her ear.

"Oh! me, Lilias! How could it be me? Do I know these kind of foreign folk?"

"Then you know who it is, and you are in the secret," Lilias said.

Jean threw an alarmed glance towards Margaret's closed door.

"You are to keep two dances for him," she whispered, hurriedly; "but if I had thought what a deception it would be, Lilias! It just makes me meeserable!"

"I hope you will never have anything worse to be miserable about," said the girl, with airy carelessness.

"Oh! whisht, whisht!" cried Miss Jean, "it would go to her very heart," and she led the indiscreet commentator on tiptoe past Margaret's door. Lilias sheltered herself within her own with a beating heart. To keep two dances for him! Then it was he who had done it. It did not occur to Lilias that to call any man he was dangerous and significant. She had not a doubt as to who was meant. Though she had not been allowed to speak to him, scarcely to look at him, yet he had instantly exerted himself to do her pleasure. Lilias sat down to think it over, and forget all about the early dinner and the play. Her heart beat high as she thought of the contrast. She had no knowledge of the world, or the way in which girls and boys comport themselves to each other now-a-days, which is so different from the way of romance. To think that he should have set to work to procure a gratification for her, though she had been made to slight him, pleased her fancy. Why did he do it? It could not be for friendship, because she was not allowed to show him any. Was it – perhaps – for the sake of Jean? In the unconscious insolence of her youth, Lilias laughed softly at this hypothesis. Dear Jean! there was nobody so kind and sweet; but not for such as Jean, she thought, were such efforts made. It would have disappointed her perhaps a little had she known that Lewis was entirely capable of having done it for Jean's sake, even if he had not had the stronger inducement of doing it for herself. But this did not occur to her as she sat and mused over it with a dreamy smile wavering upon her face. She did not ask herself anything about her own sentiments, or, indeed, about his sentiments. She only thought of him as she had done more or less since the morning in a sort of happy dream, made up of pleasure in seeing him again, and of a vague sense that herself and the future were somehow affected by it, and that London was brighter and far more interesting because he was in it. To think of walking any morning round the street corner, and seeing him advancing towards her with that friendly look! It had always been such a friendly look, she said to herself, with a little flutter at her heart. The bell ringing for dinner startled her suddenly out of these thoughts, and she had to dress in haste and hurry downstairs, where they were all awaiting her, Philip looking red and sunburnt in his evening clothes. He was never a person who had very much to say, and he was always overawed by Margaret, though she was kind to him beyond all precedent. He told them about his voyage and the Mediterranean, and the places he had seen – with diffidence, drawn out by the elder ladies, who wished to set him at his ease. But Lilias was pre-occupied, and said little to him. She felt that she was on no terms of ceremony with Philip. She knew a great deal more about him than the others did. She had borne inconveniences and vexations for him such as nobody knew of – even now to think of his mother's affectionate adoption and triumph in the supposed triumph of her son brought an angry red on Lilias' cheek. All this made her entirely at her ease with Philip. There could be no mistake between them. She behaved to him as she might have behaved to a younger brother, one who had cost her a great deal of trouble – that is to say, that he might have been a gooseberry-bush or a cabbage-rose for anything Lilias cared. She took his attendance as a matter of course, and gave him the orders about the carriage with perfect calm. Philip on his part was by no means so composed. There was a certain suppressed excitement about him. He had been chilled to find that Lilias was not down when he came in, and feared for the moment that he was to go to the theatre with the elder ladies: but the appearance of the younger set this right. Lilias immediately decided in her own mind that some new crisis had occurred in the love struggle of which she was the confidant, and that it was his anxiety to speak to her on the subject which agitated Philip. She took the trouble to contrive that she should sit next to him, letting Jean pass in before her, and as soon as there was an opportunity, when Jean's attention was engaged, she took the initiative, and whispered, "You have something to tell me?" in Philip's ear.

He started as if he had been shot; and looked at her eagerly, guiltily.

"Yes – there's a good deal to tell you: if you will listen," he said, with something between an entreaty and a defiance, as if he scarcely believed that her benevolence would go so far.

"Of course I will listen," said Lilias; and she added, "I have not heard from her for a long time, Philip. Wasn't she very wretched about it when you came away?"

A guilty colour came over Philip's face. He had looked a sort of orange brown before, but he now became a dusky crimson.

"I don't know what you mean," he said, "by she," and stared at Lilias with something like a challenge.

Lilias, for her part, opened her eyes twice as large as usual, and gazed upon him.

"You – don't – know! I think you must be going out of your senses," she said, briskly, with elder-sisterly intolerance. "Who should it be but one person? Do you think I am some one else than Lilias that you speak like that to me!"

"Indeed," said Philip, growing more and more crimson, "it is just because you are Lilias that I am here."

This speech was so extraordinary that it took Lilias an entire act to get over its startling effect, which was like a dash of cold water in her face. By the time the act was over, she had made out an explanation of it: which was that the something he had to tell her was something that only a listener so entirely sympathetic and well-informed as herself could understand. Accordingly, as soon as the curtain had fallen, she turned to him again.

"Philip, I am afraid it must be something very serious that has happened, and you want me to interfere. Perhaps you have quarrelled with her – but you used to do that almost every day."

"There is nothing about her at all – whoever you mean by her," Philip replied, with angry embarrassment, and a little shrinking from her eyes.

"Nothing about Katie! Then you have quarrelled?" Lilias cried. "I had a kind of instinct that told me; and that is why you are looking so glum, poor boy."

If Philip was crimson before, he became purple now.

"I wish," he said, "that you would not try like this to fix me down to a childish piece of nonsense that nobody approved. Do you think a man doesn't outgrow such things? – do you think he can shut his eyes and not see that others – "

Philip had never said so many words straight on end in all his life, nor, if he had not been tantalized beyond bearing, would he have said them now. Lilias fixed her eyes upon him gravely, without a sign of any consciousness that she was herself concerned. She was very serious, contemplating him with a sort of scientific observation; but it was science touched with grief and disapproval, things with which scientific investigation has nothing to do.

"Do you mean to say that you are inconstant?" she said, with solemnity. "I have never met with that before. Then, Philip," she added, after a pause, "if that is so, everything is over betwixt you and me."

"What do you mean by saying everything is over?" he cried – "everything is going to begin."

She drew a little away from him with an instinctive movement of delicacy, withdrawing her cloak, which had touched him. She disapproved of him, as one of a superior race disapproves of a lower being. She shook her head quietly, without saying any more. If he were inconstant, what was there that could be said for him or to him? He was outside the pale of Lilias' charity. She turned round and began to talk to Jean at the other side. There had been a distinct bond between him and her; she had been Katie's friend, their confidant, and she had been of use to them. There must always be, while this lasted, a link between Philip and herself; but all was over when that was broken. Lilias was absolute in her horror and disdain of every infidelity; she was too young to take circumstances into consideration. Inconstant! – it almost made her shudder to sit beside him, as if it had been a disease – worse than that, for it was his own fault. She had read of such things in books, and burned with indignation in poetry over the faithless lover. But here it was under her own eyes. She looked at it severely, and then she turned away. She heard Philip's voice going on in explanation, and she made him a little bow to show that she heard him. She would not be uncivil, even to a person of whom she so thoroughly disapproved.

CHAPTER XXXVI

But there is no lasting satisfaction in this world. Margaret had no sooner received the invitation she longed for, the opportunity of introducing Lilias to a brighter and gayer circle than any that had been within their reach, than a sudden chill struck to her heart. A mother has many special anguishes and anxieties all of her own which nobody shares or even suspects, and Margaret had assumed the position of a mother, and was bearing her burden with susceptibility all the more intense that she had no right to it. Other women in society find a satisfaction in the civilities and attentions that are shown to themselves individually, but the mother-woman is so intent upon what is going on in respect to her belongings that she cannot take into account as she ought these personal solacements. It does not matter to her if she is taken in first to supper, and has all the ladies in the neighbourhood put, so to speak, under her feet, if, in the midst of this glory, she is aware that her girls are not dancing, or that her son is considered by some important maiden an awkward lout.

The poor lady with half a dozen ungainly daughters, who appears everywhere, and who is held up to so much ridicule, how her heart cries out against the neglect which they have to suffer! Her struggles to get them partners, her wistful looks at everybody who can befriend them, which are all ridiculous and humiliating enough, have a pathos in them which is heart-rending in its way. The cause of the sudden coldness which crept over Margaret, into her very heart like the east-wind, and paralyzed her for the moment, was not perhaps a very solemn one. It was no more than tragi-comic at the best; it was the terrible question, suddenly seizing upon her like a thief in the night, how, now that she had secured her ball, she was to secure partners for Lilias? Those who laugh at such an alarm have never had to encounter it. What if, after this unexpected good-fortune, almost elevated in its unexpectedness and greatness into a gift from heaven, what if it should only be a repetition of the other night? Visions of sitting against the wall all the night through, looking out wistfully upon an ungenial crowd, all occupied with themselves, indifferent to strangers, rose suddenly before her troubled eyes. To see the young men come in drawing on their gloves, staring round them at the girls all sitting expectant, of whom Lilias should be one, and passing her by, was something which Margaret felt no amount of philosophy, no strength of mind, could make her able to bear. She grew cold and then hot at the prospect. It was thus they had passed an hour or two in the countess's drawing-room, ignored by the fine company; but in a ball it would be more than she should be able to bear. She had scarcely time to feel the legitimate satisfaction in her good-fortune, when the terror of this contingency swooped down upon her. She had stayed at home with the intention of having a few peaceful hours, and thinking over Lilias' dress, and anticipating her triumph, when suddenly in a moment came that black horseman who is always at our heels, and who had been unhorsed for a moment by the shock of good-fortune – got up again and careered wildly about and around her, putting a hoof upon her very heart.

It is not to be supposed that Margaret was unconscious of the fact, which the simplest moralist could perceive, that to regard a frivolous occurrence like a ball with feelings so serious was excessive and inappropriate. Nobody could be more fully aware of this. She, Margaret, a woman not without pretensions, if not to talent, at least to the still more wonderful gift of capacity, that she should give herself all this fyke and trouble, and just wear her very heart out about a thing so unimportant! But who can regulate his feelings by such thought? Who can hold a fire in his hand by thinking on the frosty Caucasus? But all her self-reminders to this effect did nothing for her. Her scorn of any other woman who concentrated her being on such frivolity would have been as scathing as ever, but the fact remained that of all the many objects of desire in this world not one seemed to her at the moment half so important. Poor Margaret! her very goodness and piety added torments to her pain; for she had been so used to pray for everything she desired warmly that in the fervour of her heart she had almost formulated a new petition, before she bethought herself, and stopped abashed. "Lord send partners for Lilias!" Could any travesty of piety be more profane? Margaret checked herself with unmingled horror, yet returned to the subject unawares, and almost had uttered that innocent blasphemy a second time, so great was her confusion – a fact which was not without some pathos, though she herself, grieved and horrified, was unaware of this. The overwhelming character of this new care disturbed all her plans, and, instead of sitting tranquil enjoying her solitude and thinking over her preparations, Margaret hastened to bed on pretence of weariness, but in reality to escape, if possible, from herself. Pausing first to look at the cards which had been left in the afternoon, and which the delight of the invitation had made her neglect, she found the card of Lewis, and stood pondering over it for full five minutes. Simon, who had been summoned to put out the lamps, gave a glance over his mistress's shoulder, with the confidence of a rural retainer, to see what it was that occupied her. Margaret put the card down instantly. She said,

"Simon, I see Mr. Murray, who was at Murkley, has been here this afternoon."

"Yes, Miss Margaret," said Simon; "he has been here. He asked for you all, and he said he was glad to see me, and that I must be a comfort (which I have little reason to suppose); but maist probably that was just all blethers to get round me."

"And why should Mr. Murray wish to get round you?" said Margaret; but she did not wait for any reply. "If he calls again, and Miss Jean happens to be in, you will be sure to bring him upstairs; but if she is not in the house, and me alone, it will perhaps not be advisable to do that. You must exercise your discretion, Simon."

"No me, mem," said Simon. "I'll exercise no discretion. I hope I know my place better than that. A servant is here to do what he is bid – and no to think about his master's concerns; but if you'll take my advice – "

"I will take none of your advice," cried Margaret, almost angrily.

What contemptible weakness was it that made her give directions for the problematical admission of the stranger whom she had made up her mind to shut out and reject? Alas for human infirmity! It was because it had suddenly gleamed upon her as a possibility that Lewis might be going to the ball too!

When the momentous evening arrived, Lilias herself, though, with unheard of extravagance, another new and astonishing dress had been added to her wardrobe, did not quiver with excitement like Margaret. The girl was just pleasantly excited; pleased with herself, her appearance, her prospect of pleasure, and if with a little thrill of keener expectation in the recollection of "two dances" mysteriously reserved for "him," of whom Jean, even in moments of confidence, would speak no more clearly – yet still entirely in possession of herself, with none of the haze of suspense in her eyes or heart, of anxiety in her mind, which made her elder sister unlike herself. Margaret was so sorely put to it to preserve her self-control that she was graver than usual, without a smile about her, when, painfully conscious that she did not even know her hostess, she led her little train into the dazzling rooms, decorated to the last extremity of artistic decoration, of the Greek Embassy. A dark lady, blazing with diamonds, made a step forward to meet her: and then our three strangers, somewhat bewildered, passed on into the fairyland, which was half Oriental, half European, as became the nationality of the hosts. Even the anxiety of Margaret was lulled at first by the wonder of everything about her. They had come early, as inexperienced people do, and the assembled company was still a little fragmentary. The country ladies discovered with great relief that it was the right thing to admire and to express their admiration, which gave them much emancipation; for they had feared it might be vulgar, or old-fashioned, or betray their inacquaintance with such glories, if they ventured openly to comment upon them. But, after all, to find themselves, a group of country ladies knowing nobody, dropped as from the skies on the skirts of a magnificent London mob belonging to the best society, was an appalling experience, when the best was said; and they had all begun to feel as they did at the countess's party, before aid and the guardian angel in whom Miss Jean trusted, but whom even Lilias knew little about, who he was – appeared. They had not ventured to go far from the door, having that determination never to intrude into high places probably intended for greater persons, which turns the humility of the parable into the most strenuous exhibition of pride that the imagination can conceive. Nobody should ever say to Margaret, "Give this man place." She stood, with Lilias on one side of her, and Jean on the other, half a step in advance of them, and felt herself stiffening into stone as she gazed at the stream of new arrivals, and watched all the greetings around her. Every new group was more splendid, she thought, than the other. If now and then a dowdy person, or an old lady wrapped in dirty lace, appeared among the grand toilettes, the eyes of the three instinctively sought her as perhaps a sister in distress: but experience soon showed that the dowdy ladies were often the most elevated, and that no fellowship of this description was to be looked for. Dancing began in the large rooms while this went on, and, with a sensation of despair, Margaret felt that all her terrors were coming true.