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different content
unsuitable suitor long ago. But to have it even imagined, by the greatest old
fool that ever was, that Lily’s terror of being obliged by her uncle to accept
another man had upset her very brain and brought on a deadly fever was too
much for any man to bear. And old Blythe was not an old fool, though he
had behaved like one. If he thought so, other people would think so, and he
—Robert Ramsay, General, K. C. B., a man almost as well known as the
Prince of Wales himself, a member of the best clubs, an authority on every
social usage—he, the venerated of Edinburgh, the familiar of London—he
would be branded, in a miserable hole in the country, with the character of a
domestic tyrant, with the still more contemptible character of a match-
maker, like any old woman! Sir Robert’s rage and annoyance were
increased by the consciousness that he was not himself cutting at all a
dignified figure on the country road mounted upon Rory, for whom his legs
were too long (though he was not a tall man) and his temper too short. Rory
tossed his shaggy head to the winds, and did battle with his master, when
the pace did not please him. He all but threw the old gentleman, who was
famed for his horsemanship. And it was in the last phase of exasperation,
having dismounted, and, with a blow of his light switch, sent Rory
careering home to his stable riderless, that Sir Robert encountered the
doctor returning from his morning’s visit. Mr. Macalister’s face was grave.
He turned back at once, and eagerly, desiring, he said, a few minutes’
conversation. “I cannot well speak to you with your people and those
women always about.”
“I am afraid, then,” said Sir Robert, “you have something very serious to
say.”
“Maybe—and maybe not. In the first place there are indications this
morning of a change—we will hope for the better. The pulse has fallen.
There’s been a little natural sleep. I would say in an ordinary subject, and
with no complications, that perhaps, though we must not just speak so
confidently at the first moment, the turn had taken place.”
“I’m delighted to hear it!” cried Sir Robert. It was really so great a relief
to him that he put out his hand in sudden cordiality. “I will never forget my
obligations to you, Macalister. You have given me the greatest relief. When
the turn has really come, there is nothing, I’ve always heard, but great care
wanted—care and good food and good air.”
 “That was just what I wanted to speak to you about, Sir Robert,” said the
doctor, with one of those little unnecessary coughs that mean mischief.
“Good air there is—she could not have better; and good food, for I’ve
always heard your housekeeper is great on that; and good nursing—well,
yon woman, that is, your niece’s maid, Bauby or Beenie, or whatever they
call her, is little more than a fool, but she’s a good-hearted idiot, and sticks
to what she’s told—when there’s nobody to tell her different. So we may
say there’s good care. But when that’s said, though it’s a great deal, every
thing is not said.”
“Ay,” said Sir Robert, “and what may there be beyond that?” He had
become suspicious after his experiences, though it did not seem possible
that from such a quarter there should come any second attack.
“I’m very diffident,” said the doctor in his strong Northern accent, with
his ruddy, weather-beaten countenance cast down in his embarrassment, “of
mentioning any thing that’s not what ye might call strictly professional, or
taking advantage of a medical man’s poseetion. But when a man has a bit
tender creature to deal with, like a flower, and that has just come through a
terrible illness, the grand thing to ask will be, Sir Robert, not if she has
good food and good nursing, which is what is wanted in most cases, but just
something far more hard to come by—if she’s wanting to live——”
“Wanting to live!” cried Sir Robert. “What nonsense are you speaking?
A girl of that age!”
“It’s just precisely that age that fashes me. Older folk have got more
used to it: living’s a habit with the like of us. We just find we must go on,
whatever happens; but a young lass is made up of fancies and veesions. She
says to herself: ‘I would like better a bonnie green turf in the kirkyard than
all this fighting and striving,’ and just fades away because she has no will to
take things up again. I’ve seen cases like that before now.”
“And what’s my part in all this?” cried Sir Robert. “You come to me
with your serious face, as if I had some hand in it. What can I do?”
“Well, Sir Robert,” said the doctor, “that is what I cannot tell. I’m not
instructed in your affairs—nor do I wish to be; but if there is any thing in
this young lady’s road that crosses her sorely—the state of the brain that
made this attack so dangerous evidently came from some mental shock—if
it’s within the bounds of possibility that you can give in to her, do so, Sir
Robert. I am giving you a doctor’s advice—not a private man’s that has
nothing ado with it. If you can give her her own way, which is dear to us all,
and more especially to women folk, give it to her, Sir Robert! It will be her
best medicine. Or if you cannot do that, let her think you will do it—let her
think you will do it! It’s lawful to deceive even in a case like this—to save
her life.”
“You are trying to make me think, doctor, that my niece has been
pretending to be ill all this time in order to get her own way.”
“You may think that if you like, Sir Robert. It’s a pretending that has
nearly cost you a funeral, and I will not say may not do so yet—but me, out
of my own line, my knowledge is very imperfect. You know your own
affairs best. But you cannot say I have not warned you of the
consequences,” Dr. Macalister said.
All the world seemed in a conspiracy against Sir Robert. He took off his
hat formally to the doctor, who responded, somewhat overawed by such a
solemn civility. What was it that this man, a stranger, supposed him to be
doing to Lily? It was ridiculous, it was absurd! first old Blythe, and then the
doctor. He had never done any harm to Lily; he had stopped a ridiculous
love affair, a boy and girl business, with a young fellow who had not a
penny. He did not mean his money to go to fit out another lot of long-
legged Lumsdens, a name he could not bear. No, he had done no more than
was his right, which he would do again to-morrow if necessary. But then in
the meantime here was another question. Her life, a lassie’s life! Nothing
was ever more ridiculous: her life depending on what lad she married, a
red-headed one, or a black-headed one, the silly thing! But nevertheless it
seemed it was true. Here was the doctor, a serious man, and old Blythe,
both in a story. Well, if she were dying for her lad, the foolish tawpy, he
would have to see what could be done. To think of a Ramsay, the last of his
race, following her passions like that! But it would be some influence from
the other side, from the mother, James’s wife, who, he had always heard,
was not over-wise.
He was turning over these thoughts in his mind as he approached close
to the house, when he was suddenly aware of some one flying out toward
him with arms extended and a lock or two of red hair dropped out of all
restraint and streaming in the wind. Beenie had waited and watched and
lived half in a dream, never sleeping, scarcely eating, absorbed in that
devotion which has no bounds, for the last six weeks. Her trim aspect, her
careful neatness, her fresh and cheerful air, had faded in the air of the sick
room. Combs do not hold nor pins attach after such a long vigil. She flew
out, running wildly toward him with arms extended and hair streaming
until, unable to stop herself, she fairly ran into the old gentleman’s arms.
“Oh, Sir Robert,” cried Beenie, gasping and trying to recover her breath,
but too far gone for any apology, “she’s come to herself! She’s as weak as
water, and white as death. But she’s come to herself and she’s askin’ for
you. She’s crying upon you and no to be silenced. ‘I am wanting Uncle
Robert, I am wanting Uncle Robert!’ No breath to speak, and no strength to
utter a voice, but come to hersel’, come to hersel’! And, oh! the Lord knows
if it’s for death or life, for none of us can tell!”
 CHAPTER XXXVII
When Sir Robert went in somewhat reluctantly to Lily’s room—for he
was not accustomed to illness, and did not know what to do or say, or even
how to look, in a sick room—he found her fully conscious, very white, very
worn, her eyes looking twice their usual size and full of that wonderful
translucent clearness which exhaustion gives. Her face, he did not know
why, disposed the old gentleman to shed tears, though he was very far
indeed from having any inclination that way in general. There was a smile
upon it, a smile of wistful appeal to him, such a claim upon his sympathy
and help as perhaps no other human creature had ever made before.
“Uncle!” she cried, holding out two thin hands which seemed whiter
than the mass of white linen about her. “Uncle Robert! oh! are you there? I
have been an ill bairn to you, Uncle Robert. I have not been faithful nor
true. You sent me here for my good, and I’ve turned it to harm. But you’re
my only kin and my only friend, and all that I have in the world.”
“Lily, my dear, compose yourself, my poor lassie. I am not blaming you:
why should I blame you? When you were ill, what could you do but lie in
your bed and be taken care of? Woman, have ye no sense? She is not fit yet
to be troubled with visits; you might have seen that!”
“Oh, Sir Robert, and so I did! But how could I cross her when she just
said without ceasing: ‘I want my uncle. I want to see my uncle!’ She was
not to be crossed, the doctor said.”
“It was not Beenie’s fault.” Lily stretched out her hands till they reached
her uncle’s, who stood by her bedside, yet as far off as he could, not to
appear unkind. He was a little horrified by the touch of those hot hands. She
threw herself half out of the bed to reach him, and caught his hard and bony
old hand, so firm still and strong, between those white quivering fingers,
almost fluid in their softness, which enveloped his with a sudden heat and
atmosphere, so strange and unusual that he retreated still a step, though he
could not withdraw his hand.
“Uncle Robert, you will not forsake me!” Lily cried. “I have only you
now, I have only you. I have been ill to you, but, oh, be good to me! I am a
very lonely woman. I have nobody. I have put my trust in—other things,
and they have all failed me! I’ve had a long dream and now I’ve awakened.
Uncle Robert, I have nobody but you in all the world!”
“Now, Lily, you must just compose yourself, my dear. Who thought of
forsaking you? It is certain that you are my only near relation. Your father
was my only brother. What would ail me at you? My poor lassie, just let
yourself be covered up, and put your arms under the clothes and try if you
cannot sleep a little. A good sleep would be the best thing for her, Robina,
wouldn’t you say? Compose yourself, compose yourself, my dear.”
Lily still clung to his hand, though he tried so hard to withdraw it from
her hold. “And I will be different,” she said. “You will never need to
complain of me more. My visions and my dreams they are all melted away,
like the snow yon winter-time, when my head was just carried and I did not
know what I was doing. Oh, I have been ill to you, ill to you! Eaten your
bread and dwelt in your house and been a traitor to you. If they tell you, oh,
Uncle Robert, do not believe I was so bad as that. I never meant it, I never
intended—— It was a great delusion, and it is me that has the worst to
bear.”
“Robina!” cried Sir Robert, “this will never do. What disjointed
nonsense has the poor thing got into her head? She will be as bad as ever if
you do not take care. No more of it, no more of it, Lily. You’ve been very
ill; you must be quiet, and don’t trouble your head about any thing. As for
your old uncle, he will stand by you, my poor lassie, whatever you may
have done—not that I believe for a moment you have done any thing.” He
was greatly relieved to get his hand free. He went so far as to cover her
shoulders with the bedclothes, and to give a little pat upon the white
counterpane. Poor little thing! Her head was not right yet. Great care must
be taken of the poor lassie. He had heard they were fond of accusing
themselves of all kinds of crimes after an attack of this sort.
“I suppose the doctor will be coming to-day?” he said to Beenie as he
hastily withdrew toward the door.
“It’s very near his hour, Sir Robert.”
“That’s well, that’s very well! Keep her as quiet as you can, that’s the
great thing, and tell her from me that she is not to trouble her head about
any thing—about any thing, mind,” said Sir Robert with an emphasis which
had no real meaning, though it awakened a hundred alarms in Beenie’s
mind. She thought he must have been told, he must have found out
something of the history of these past months. But, indeed, the old
gentleman knew nothing at all, and meant nothing but to express, more or
less in the superlative, his conviction that poor Lily was still under the
dominion of her delusions, and that it was her fever, not herself, which
brought from her lips these incomprehensible confessions. He understood
that it was often so in these cases; probably, if he had let her go on, she
would have confessed to him that she had tried to murder—Dougal, say, or
somebody else equally likely. The only thing was to keep her quiet, to
impress upon her that she was not to trouble her head about any thing, not
about any thing, in the strongest way in which that assurance could be put.
Lily lay quite still for a long time after Sir Robert had escaped from the
room. She was very weak and easily exhausted, but happily the weakness of
both body and brain dulled, except at intervals, the active sense of misery,
and even the memory of those events which had ravaged her life. She was
still quite quiet when the doctor came, and smiled at him with the faint
smile of recovered consciousness and intelligence, though with scarcely a
movement as she lay on her pillows, recovered, yet so prostrated in strength
that she lay like one cast up by the waves, half dead, unable to struggle or
even to lift a finger for her own help. A much puzzled man was the doctor,
who had brought her successfully through this long and dreadful illness, but
whose mind had been sorely exercised to account for many things which
connected this malady with what had gone before. That he divined a great
deal of what had gone before there was little doubt; but he had no light
upon Lily’s real position, and his heart was sore for a young creature, a
lady, in such sore straits, and with probably a cloud hanging over her which
would spoil her entire life. And he was a prudent man, and asked no
questions which he was not compelled to ask. Had it been a village girl he
would have formed his conclusions with less hesitation, and felt less
deeply; but it was a very different matter with Sir Robert Ramsay’s niece,
who would be judged far more severely and lose much more than any
village maiden was likely to do. Poor girl! he tried as best he could, like a
good man as he was, to save her as much as possible even from the
suggestion of any suspicion. “What has she been doing? You have allowed
her to do too much,” he said.
“She would see her uncle, doctor; she just insisted that she would see Sir
Robert. If I had crossed her in that, would it no have been just as bad?”
 The white face on the pillow smiled faintly and breathed, rather than
said: “It was my fault.”
“And he said she was not to trouble her head about ainy thing, not about
ainy thing, doctor, and that was a comfort to her—she was so vexed, him
coming for the first time to his ain house, and her no able to welcome him,
nor do any thing for him.”
“That’s a very small matter; she must think of that no more. What you
have to do now, Miss Ramsay, is just to think of nothing, to trouble your
head about nothing, as Sir Robert judiciously says; to take what you can in
the way of nourishment, and to sleep as much as you can, and to think about
nothing. I absolutely proheebit thinking,” he said, bending over her with a
smile. She was so touching a sight in her great weakness, and with even his
uncertain perception of what was behind and before her, that the moisture
came into the honest doctor’s eyes.
Lily gave him another faint smile, and shook her head, if that little
movement on the pillow could be called shaking her head, and then he gave
Beenie her instructions, and with a perplexed mind proceeded to the
interview with Sir Robert to which he had been summoned. He did not
know what he would say to Sir Robert if his questions were of a penetrating
kind. But Sir Robert’s questions were not penetrating at all.
“She has been havering to me, poor lassie,” said the old gentleman,
“about being alone in the world and with nobody but me to look after her. It
is true enough. We have no relations, either her or me, being the last of the
family. But why should she think I would forsake her? And she says she has
been an ill bairn to me, and other things that have just no sense in them. But
that’s a common thing, doctor? Is it not quite a common thing that people
coming out of such an illness take fancies that they have done all sorts of
harm?”
“The commonest thing in the world,” said the doctor cheerfully. “Did
she say she had stolen your gear, or broken into your strong-box?”
“There is no saying what she would have said if I had let her go on,” said
Sir Robert, with a laugh, “though, indeed, I was nearer crying than laughing
to see her so reduced. But all that will come right in time?”
“It will all come right in time. She’s weaker than I like to see, and you
must send for me night or day, at any moment, if there is any increase of
weakness. But I hope better things. Leave her to the women: they’re very
kind, and not so silly as might reasonably be expected. Don’t go near her, if
I might advise you, Sir Robert.”
“Indeed, I will obey you there,” said the old gentleman; “no fear of that.
I can do her no good, poor thing, and why should I trouble both her and
myself with useless visits? No, no, I will take care of that.”
And the doctor went away anxious, but satisfied. If there was a story to
tell, it was better that the poor girl should tell it at least when she was full
mistress of herself—not now, betrayed by her weakness, when she might
say what she would regret another time.
But Lily asked no more for Sir Robert. It was but the first impulse of her
suddenly awakened mind. She relapsed into the weakness which was all the
greater for that brief outburst, and lay for days conscious, and so far calm
that she had no strength for agitation, often sleeping, seldom thinking,
wrapped by nature in a dream of exhaustion, through which mere emotion
could not pierce. And thus youth and the devoted attendance of her nurses
brought her through at last. It was October when she first rose from her bed,
an advance in recovery which the women were anxious to keep back as
long as possible, while the doctor on the other hand pressed it anxiously.
“She will lose all heart if she is kept like this, with no real sign of
improvement,” he said. “Get her up; if it’s only for an hour, it will do her
good.”
“It will bring it all back,” said Beenie in despair. She stopped herself
next moment with a terrified glance at him; but he knew how to keep his
own counsel. And he gave no further orders on this subject. Lily, however,
was not to be restrained. When she was first led into the drawing-room, she
went to the window and looked out long and with a steadfast look upon the
moor. It had faded out of the glory of heather which had covered it
everywhere when she last looked upon that scene. Nearly two months were
over since that day, that wonderful day of fate. Lily looked out upon the
brown heather, still with here and there a belated touch of color upon the
end of the long stalks rustling with the brown husks of the withered bells.
The rowan-trees gave here and there a gleam of scarlet or a touch of bright
yellow in the scanty leaves, ragged with the wind, which were almost as
bright as the berries. The intervals of turf were emerald green, beginning to
shine with the damp of coming winter. The hills rose blue in the noonday
warmth with that bloom upon them, like a breaking forth of some
efflorescence responsive to the light, which comes in the still sunshine,
disturbed by no flying breezes. Lily looked long upon the well-known
landscape which she knew by heart in every variation, resisting with great
resolution the endeavors of Beenie to draw her back from that perilous
outlook.
“Oh, look nae mair, my bonnie leddy!” Beenie said. “You’ve seen it mair
than enough, that awfu’ moor!”
“What ails you at the moor, Robina?” Sir Robert said, coming briskly in.
“You are welcome back, my dear; you are welcome back to common life.
Don’t stand and weary yourself; I will bring you a chair to the window. I’m
glad, Lily, that you’re fond of the moor.”
Lily turned to him with the same overwhelming smile which had nearly
made an end of Sir Robert before, which shone from her pale face and from
her wide, lucid, liquid eyes, still so large and bright with weakness; but she
did not wait for him to bring her a chair to the window. She tottered to one
that had been placed for her near the fire, which, however bright the day,
was always necessary at Dalrugas. “I am better here,” she said. She looked
so fragile seated there opposite to him that the old gentleman’s heart was
moved.
“My poor lassie! I would give something to see you as bright-faced and
as light-footed as when you came here.”
“Ah, that’s so long ago,” she said. “I was light-hearted, too, and perhaps
light-headed then. I am not light in any way now, except, perhaps, in
weight. It makes you very serious to live night and day and never change
upon the moor.”
“Do you think so, Lily? I’m sorry for that. I thought you were so fond of
the moor. They told me you were out upon it when you were well, rambling
and taking your pleasure all the day.”
“Yes,” she said, “it’s always bonnie. The heather is grand in its time, and
it’s fine, too, in the gray days, when the hills are all wrapped in their gray
plaids, and a kind of veil upon the moor. But it cannot answer, Uncle
Robert, when you speak, or give you back a look or say a word.”
“That’s true, that’s true, Lily. I was thinking only that it’s a peaceful
place, and quiet, where an old man like me can get his sleep in peace;
though there’s that Dougal creature with his pails and pony that is aye
stirring by the skreigh of day.”
 “The pony was a great diversion,” said Lily, “and Dougal, too, who was
always very kind to me.”
“Kind! It was his bounden duty, the least he could do. I would like to
know how he would have stood before me if he had not been kind, and far
more, to the only child of the old house!”
“Thank you, Uncle Robert,” said Lily, “for saying so. They were all
kind, and far more than kind. They have just been devoted to me, and
thought of nothing but to make me happy. You will think of that—in case
that any thing should happen.”
“Lily!” said Sir Robert with an angry tone, “I’m thinking you’re both
ungrateful and unkind yourself. God has spared you and brought you back
out of a dreadful illness, and these two women have nursed you night and
day, and though I could do little for you, having no experience that way, yet
perhaps I’ve felt all the more. And here are you speaking of ‘any thing that
might happen,’ as if you had not just been delivered out of the jaws of
death.”
“Yes, I am very grateful,” said Lily, holding out her thin hand, “to both
them and you, Uncle Robert, and most of all to you, for it was out of your
way indeed; but as for God, I am not sure that I am grateful to him, for he
might have taken me out of all the trouble while he was at it, and that would
have been the best for us all. But,” she added, looking up suddenly with one
of her old quick changes of feeling and countenance, “how should you think
I meant dying? There are many, many things that might happen besides that.
I might go away, or you might send me away.”
“I’ll not do that, Lily.”
“How do you know, Uncle Robert? You sent me away once before when
you sent me here. You might do it again—or, what is more, I might ask you
—— Oh, Uncle Robert, let me go away a little, let me leave the sight of it,
and the loneliness that has broken my heart!” Lily put her transparent hands
together and looked at him with a pathetic entreaty in her face.
“Go away!” he said, startled, “as soon as I come here—the first time you
come into the drawing-room to ask that!”
“It is true,” said Lily, “it’s ungrateful, oh, it’s without heart, it’s unkind,
Uncle Robert, as you say; but only for a little while, till I get a little better. I
will never get better here.”
 “This is a great disappointment to me,” he said. “I thought I would have
you, Lily, to keep me company. I thought you would be my companion and
take care of me for a year or two. I am not likely at my age to trouble any
body for very long,” he added with a half-conscious appeal for sympathy.
“And so I will,” said Lily; “I will be your companion. I will be at your
side to do whatever you please—to read or to write, to walk or to talk. I will
look for nothing else in this world, and I will never leave you, Uncle
Robert, and there is my hand upon that. But I must be well first,” she added
rapidly. “And I will never get well here. Oh, let me go! If it was but for a
week, for a fortnight, for two or three days. Is it not always said of ill folk
that when they get better they must have a change? Let me have a change,
Uncle Robert! I want to look out at something that is not the moor. Oh, how
long, how long, if you will only think of it, I have been looking at nothing
but the moor! I am tired, tired of the moor! Oh, I am wearied of it! I have
liked it well, and I will come back and like it again. But for a little while,
uncle, only for a little while, let me go away from the moor.”
“Is it so long a time?” he said. “I was not aware you had been here so
long a time. Why, it is not two years! If you think two years is a long time,
Lily, wait till you know what life is, and that a year’s but a moment when
you look back upon it.”
“It looks like a hundred years to me,” she said, “and before I can look
back as you do it will be a hundred years more. And how am I to bear them
all without a break or a rest? If I were even like you, a soldier marching
here and there, with your colors flying and your drums beating! but what
has a woman to do but to sit and think and count the days? Uncle Robert,”
she said, putting her hand on his arm as he stood near her, with his back to
the fire, “I’m not unwilling at all to die. I would never have minded if it had
been so. I would have asked for nothing but a warm green turf from the
moor, and maybe a bush of heather at my feet. But it has not ended like that,
which would have been God’s doing—only I will never get well unless I get
away, unless I breathe other air; and if you refuse me, that will be your
doing!” she cried with something of her old petulance and fire.
“Did the doctor say any thing about this change?” Sir Robert asked
Beenie, with a cloud upon his face.
“He said she was to be crossed in naething,” Beenie replied.
 CHAPTER XXXVIII
When it was settled that Lily was to have the change upon which she
insisted, her health improved day by day, and with the increase of her
strength, or perhaps as the real fountain-head and cause of her increased
strength, her elasticity of spirit returned to her. By one of those strange gifts
of temperament which triumph over every thing that humanity can
encounter, this young creature, overwhelmed by so many griefs—a deserted
wife, a mother whose child had been torn from her, her secret life so full of
incidents and emotion ending all at once in a blank—became in the added
grace of her weakness and of the spirit and courage which overcame it as
sweet a companion to her old uncle, as full of variety and freshness, as the
heart could desire. He, indeed, had never known such company before. She
had been younger by an age when she left him in Edinburgh, less
developed, half a child, at least in his eyes, and he had been surrounded by
company and cronies of his own of a very different character. But now, in
this lonely spot where there was nobody, Lily, rising from her sick-bed,
with her eyes still large in their white sockets, her hands still transparent,
her touch and her step still tremulous with weakness, became his diversion,
his delight, making the long lonely days short, and even the rain
supportable when it swept against the narrow windows, and intensified the
brightness of the fireside and the pleasant talk, or even, when there was no
talk, the sense of companionship within. Sometimes Lily would fall asleep
in the afternoon or at the falling of the day, unawares, in the feebleness of
her convalescence, and perhaps these were the moments in which most of
all the old man of the world felt completely what this companionship was.
He would lay down his paper or his book and look at her—the light of the
fire playing on her face, giving it a faint touch of rose, and dissimulating the
deep shadows under the eyes—feeling to his heart that most intimate
confidence and trust in him, the reliance, almost unconscious, of a child, the
utter dependence and weakness which could put up no barriers of the
conventional, nor stop to think what would be agreeable: these things found
out secret crevices in Sir Robert’s armor of which neither he nor any one
else had dreamed. The water stood in his eyes as he looked at her, saying
“Poor lassie, poor little lassie!” secretly in his heart. She was as good
company then, though she did not know it, as when she started from her
brief sleep and exerted herself to make him talk, to make him laugh, to feel
himself the most interesting of raconteurs and delightful of companions.
Many people had flattered Sir Robert in his day—he had been important
enough in much of his life for that—but he had never found flattery so
sweet as Lily’s demands upon the stores of his long experience, her
questions upon his history, her interest in what he told her. It was not only
that she was herself such a companion as he had not dreamed of, but that he
never had been aware before what excellent company he was himself. He
almost grudged to see her growing stronger, though he rejoiced in it from
the bottom of his old world-worn heart.
“And so you are going to leave me, Lily—you’ve settled, that Robina
woman and you—and you’re off in two days seeking adventures?”
“Yes, uncle—in two days; but only for a little while.”
“Without a thought of an old man left desolate—upon the edge of the
moor.”
“Yes, with a thought that is very pleasant—that there’s somebody there
wanting me back”—she paused a moment with a faint sigh and added: “and
that I am coming back to in a little while. And then, as for the moor, it is
full of diversion. You’re never lonely watching the clouds and the shadows
and all the changes: I have had much experience of it, Uncle Robert—two
years, that were sometimes long, long.”
“I never knew,” said Sir Robert, a little abashed, “how lonely it was,
Lily, and that all the old neighbors were gone. I pictured you surrounded
with young folk, and as merry as the day was long.”
“It was not exactly that,” she said, with a smile; and then her face
changed, as it did from moment to moment, like the moor which she loved,
yet hated—shadows flying over it as swift, as sudden, and as deep. “But it’s
all past, and why should we think more of it? When I come back, Uncle
Robert, we’ll be cheery, you and me together by the fireside all the winter
through, and never ask whether there are neighbors or not—or other folk in
the world.”
“I would not go so far as that,” said the old gentleman. “We’ll get the
world to come to us, Lily, a small bit at a time. But you have never told me
where you are going when you leave me here.”
“To Edinburgh,” she said.
 “To Edinburgh! I thought you had consulted with the doctor, and were
going to the seaside, or to the Bridge of Allan, or some of the places where
invalids go.”
“Uncle,” said Lily, “I have been two years upon the moor, and in all that
time I have not got a new gown, nor a bonnet, nor any thing whatsoever.
Oh, yes, we will go to the sea, or the Bridge of Allan, or to some place. But
we are not fit to be seen, neither Beenie nor me. You do not take these
things into consideration. You think, when I speak to you like a rational
creature, that I am above the wants of my kind; but rational or not, a woman
must always have some clothes to wear!”
Sir Robert laughed and clapped his hands. “Bravo, Lily!” he cried. “You
cannot do better, my dear, than own you’re just a woman and are as fond of
your finery as the rest. By all means, then, go to Edinburgh and fit yourself
out; but do not stay there, go out to Portobello, if you do not care to go
farther, or a little more to the West, where it’s milder, and you will get a
warm blink before the winter weather sets in. And that reminds me that you
will want money, Lily.”
“A good deal of money, Uncle Robert,” she said, with a smile. “You
know I have had none for two years.”
It was with a sensation of shame that he heard her allusions to those two
years, and perhaps Lily was aware of it. She wanted money, she wanted
freedom, and that her steps should not be watched nor her movements
constrained. And the old gentleman was startled and humiliated when he
realized that his heiress, his only relation, his brother’s child, had been
banished to this wilderness without a shilling in her pocket or a friend to
help her. He could not imagine how he could have forgotten so completely
her existence or her claims upon him and right to his support. He was glad
to wipe that recollection from his own mind as well as hers by his liberality
now. And Lily received from him an order upon his “man of business” in
Edinburgh for an amount which seemed to her almost fabulous—for she
knew nothing of money, had never had any, nor required it, although when
she retired to her room with that piece of paper in her hand which meant so
much, the reflection of what might have happened and what she could have
done had she only at any time during these two years possessed as much, or
half as much, came upon her with almost a convulsive sense of
opportunities lost. She flung herself upon Beenie’s shoulder when she
reached the safe shelter of her room, where it was no longer necessary to
keep herself up and make a smile for her uncle. “Oh, Beenie!” she cried, “if
he had given me the half of that before, or the quarter! how every thing
might have been changed.”
“Oh, mem, my bonnie leddy,” cried Beenie, who never now addressed
her mistress as Miss Lily, “it’s little, little that siller can do!”
Anger flashed in Lily’s eyes. “It could just have done every thing!” she
said. “Do you think I would have been put off and off if I could have put
my hand in my pocket and taken the coach and gone, you and me, to see to
every thing ourselves? Oh! many a time I have wished for it, and longed for
it—but what could we do, you and me, and nothing, nothing to take us
there? Oh, never say siller can do little! It might have spared us all that’s
happened—think! all that’s happened! I might be thinking now as I thought
yon New Year’s time in the snow. I might be as sure and as full of trust. I
might never have learned what it was to deceive and to be deceived. I might
never have been a desolate woman without man or bairn—without my little
bairn, my little baby!”
“Oh, my darlin’ leddy! but you’ll get him again, you’ll get him again!”
cried Beenie, with streaming eyes.
“I hope in God I shall,” said Lily, tearless, lifting her eyes and clasping
her hands. “I hope in God I shall, or else that he’ll let me just lay down my
head and die!”
“He has raised you up from the very grave,” said Beenie. “We had nae
hope, Katrin and me; we had nae hope at all. Here she is hersel’ that will tell
you. There was ae night—oh, come Katrin, come and bear me out—when
you and me just stood over her, and kissed the bonnie white face on the
white pillow, and wrung each other’s hands, and said: ‘If the baby’s lost and
her reason gane, God bless her, she’ll be better away.’ ”
“Whisht with your nonsense,” said Katrin; “that’s a’ past, and now we
have nae such thoughts in our heads. But what will you do, my dear leddy,
my bonnie leddy? Will ye bring him back here? A fine thriving bairn like
yon you canna hide him. The first day, the first night, and the secret would
be parish news. I was frichtened out of my wits the first days for Dougal,
who is not a pushing man, to do him justice, or one that asks questions; but
with Sir Robert in the house, oh, mem, my bonnie dear, what will ye do?”
“I have never wanted to make any secret, Katrin,” Lily said.
 “I ken that; but there will be an awfu’ deal to tell when once you begin.
And the bairn he is an awfu’ startling thing to begin with. Do ye no think an
auld gentleman like Sir Robert had better be prepared for it? It would give
him a shock. It might even hairm him in his health. I would take counsel
about it. Oh, I would take counsel! Do naething in a hurry, not to scandalize
the country, nor to give our auld maister a fright that might do him harm.”
“To scandalize the country!” said Lily, pale with anger. “Oh! to think it’s
me, me that she says that to! Do you think it is better to deceive every-body
and be always a lie whatever way you turn?”
“Mem,” said Katrin, “my dear, you’ll excuse me; I must just say the
truth. It’s an awfu’ thing to deceive, as you say, and well I ken it was never
your wyte. But the worst of it is that when you begin you cannot end. You
just have to go on. I’m no saying one thing or another. It’s no my business,
if it wasna that I just think more of you than one mortal creature should
think of another. Oh! just take thought and take counsel! The maister is an
old man. You’ve beguiled him with your winsome ways just as you’ve
beguiled us a’. Can I see a thing wrong you do, whatever it is? And yet I
have a glimmerin’ o’ sense between whiles. If he’s looking for you back to
be his bonnie Lily and his companion, and syne sees you come in with a
bairn in your arms and another man’s name, what will the auld man do? Oh,
mem, the dear bairn, God bless him, and grant that you may soon have him
in your airms! But if you hold by the auld gentleman and his life and
comfort, for God’s sake take thought! for that is in it, too.”
“There is nothing, nothing,” cried Lily, “that should keep a mother from
her bairn! You are a kind woman, Katrin, but you’ve never had a bairn.
When once I get him here, how can I ever give him up again?” she said,
straining her arms to her breast as if the child was within them. Beenie wept
behind her mistress’s shoulder, overwhelmed with sympathy, but Katrin
shook her head.
“When you see Mr. Lumsden there, and go over it all——”
Lily’s face became instantly as if the windows of her mind had been
closed up. Her lips straightened, her eyes became blank. She said nothing,
but turned away, not looking at either of them nor saying a word. “And it
was no me breathed his name or as much as thought upon him,” Beenie said
a little later in an aggrieved tone, when she had rejoined Katrin down stairs.
 “It was me that breathed his name, and I’ll do it again till some heed is
paid to what I say. We should maybe have refused yon day to be his
witnesses. But being sae, Beenie, the burden is on you and me as well as on
him. They should have owned each other and spoke the truth from that day.
But now that it has all gone so far and no a whisper risen, and the
countryside just as innocent as if they were two bairns playing, oh, I
wouldna now just burst it all upon the auld man’s head! He’s no an ill auld
man. He’s provided for her all her life; he is very muckle taken up with her
now, maybe in a selfish way, for he’s feeling his age and his mainy
infirmities, and he’s wanting a companion. But, oh! I would not burst it on
him now! He could never abide her man, and, to tell the truth, Beenie, I’m
not that fond of him mysel’, and she, poor thing, has had a fearfu’ opening
to her eyes. How could ye have the bairn here and no the father? Could she
say to her uncle: ‘I was very silly about him once and married him, and now
I canna abide him’? Oh, no! that is what she will never say.”
“And I hope she’ll never think it either,” Beenie said.
“Beenie,” said the other solemnly, “you are a real innocent if such a
thing ever was.”
“No more than yoursel’,” said Beenie, indignant; but she had to return to
her mistress, and further discussion could not be held on this question.
They went away on the second morning, which was a little frosty,
though bright. The establishment had widened out by this time. Sir Robert
was not a man to be driven to kirk or market in the little geeg, drawn at his
wilful pleasure by Rory, which had answered all Lily’s purposes. There was
now a phaeton and a brougham, and three or four horses accommodated
tant bien que mal in the old stables, which had to be cleared of much
rubbish and Dougal’s accumulations of years before they were in a state to
receive their costly inmates. It was in the brougham that Lily, wrapped up in
every kind of shawl and comforter, drove with her maid to Kinloch-Rugas
to take the coach, where the best places had been reserved for them.
Beenie’s pride in this journey exceeded the anxiety with which her mind
was full, in respect to her mistress’s health in the first place, and the many
issues of their journey. But it was not a “pride” which met with much
sympathy from her dear friends and fellow-servants. Dougal for his part
stood out in the stable-yard carefully isolated from all possible connection
with the new grooms and the new horses, though neither was he without a
thrill of pride in the distinction of a kind of part-proprietorship with Sir
Robert in these dazzling articles. He kept apart, however, with an air of
conscious superiority to such innovations. “I wish ye a good journey,” he
said; “maybe it’ll be warmer this fine morning in a shut-up carriage, but,
Lord! I would rather have Rory and the little geeg than all the coaches in
England!”
Lily was thrilling with nervous excitement, scarcely able to contain
herself, but she made an effort to give a word and a smile to the whilom
arbiter of all the movements of Dalrugas. “I would rather have you and
Rory in the summer weather,” she said. “If it is a warm day when I come
back, you will come for me, Dougal.”
“Na, mem, no me; we’re no grand enough now to carry leddies: which I
wouldna care much for, for leddies, as ye ken, are whiles fantastic and put
awfu’ burdens on a beast—but just because his spirit is broken with trailing
peats from the hill, and visitors’ boxes from the toun. They’re sensitive
creatures, pownies. I just begin to appreciate the black powny’s feelings
now I see the effect upon my ain.”
“He shall drive me when I come back,” said Lily, waving her hand as the
brougham flashed away, the coats of the horses shining in the frosty
sunshine, and the carriage panels sending back reflections. It was certainly
more comfortable than the geeg. But the light went out of Lily’s face as
they left Dalrugas behind. The little color in her cheeks disappeared. She
leaned back in her corner and once more pressed her arms against her
breast. “Oh, shall I find him? shall I find him?” she cried.
“You’ll do that—wherefore should you no do that?” said Beenie
encouragingly.
“He’ll be grown so big we will not know him, Beenie, and he will not
know his mother; that woman Margaret that took him away will have all his
smiles—she will be the first face that he sees, now that he’s old enough to
notice. Oh, my little bairn! my little bairn!”
“A bairn that is two months auld takes but little notice, mem,” said
Beenie, strong in her practical knowledge. “You need not fash your head
about that. They may smile, but if ye were to ask me the very truth, I
wouldna hide from you that what they ca’ smiling is just in my opinion the
——”
 “If you say that word, I will kill you!” cried Lily. She laughed and then
she cried in her excitement. “How will I contain myself? how will I keep
quiet and face the world, and the folk in the world, and every-body about,
till the moment comes—oh, the moment, Beenie!—when I will get my baby
into my arms?”
“Eh, mem! but you must not make yoursel’ sae awfu’ sure about that,”
said Beenie. “We might not find them just at first—or he might have a little
touch of the cauld, or maybe the thrush in his wee mouth, or measles, or
something. You must not make yourself so awfu’ sure.”
“He is ill!” cried Lily, seizing her in a fierce grip. “He is ill, oh, you
false, false woman, and you have never said a word to me!”
“There is naething ill about him; he is just thriving like the flowers. But I
canna bide when folk are so terrible sure. It seems as if you were tempting
God.”
“It’s you that are tempting me—to believe in nothing, neither Him nor
women’s word. But what would make a woman deceive a baby’s mother
about her own child? A man might do it, that knows nothing about what that
means; but a woman never would do it, Beenie—a woman that has been
about little babies and their mothers all her days?”
“No, mem, I never thought it,” said Beenie in dutiful response.
At the coach, where they were received with all the greater honor on
account of Sir Robert’s brougham, and the beautiful prancing horses, Helen
Blythe met them. “They would not let me come to see you,” she said. “It’s
long, long, since I’ve seen you, Lily, and worn and white you’ve grown—
but just as bonnie as ever: there comes up the color just as it used to do—
but you must look stronger when you come back.”
“I am going away for that,” Lily said.
“And it is just the wisest thing she could do,” said the doctor, who had
come also to see her off. “And stay away as long as you can, Miss Ramsay,
and just divert yourself a little. You have great need of diversion after that
long time at the old Tower.”
“She is not one that is much heeding diversion,” said Helen, looking at
her affectionately.
“We’re all needing it whether we’re heeding it or no,” said the doctor.
“And if you will take my advice, you will just take a little pleasure to
yourself, as you would take physic if I ordered it. Good-by, Miss Ramsay,
and mind what I say.”
“He’s maybe right,” said Helen; “they say he’s a clever man. I know
little about diversion. But, oh! I would like to see you happy, Lily—that
would be better than all the physic in the world.”
“Perhaps I will bring it back with me,” said Lily, with a smile.
 CHAPTER XXXIX
It was not with a very easy mind that Ronald Lumsden had executed the
great coup which had, so far as Lily was concerned, such disastrous
consequences. He had been deeply perplexed from the moment of the
baby’s birth, nay, before that, as to what his future action was to be. It had
been apparent to him from the first that the child could not remain at
Dalrugas. Much had been ventured, much had been done, to all appearance
successfully enough. No scandal had been raised in the countryside by his
own frequent visits. What might be whispered in the cottages no one knew;
but, apart from such a possibility, nothing that could be called public, no
rumor of the least importance, had arisen. Every thing was safe up to that
point. And he was not much concerned even had there been any subdued
scandal floating about. At any moment, should any crisis arise, Lily could
be justified and set right. What could it matter, indeed, if any trouble of a
moment should arise? He was not indifferent to his wife’s good name. He
considered himself as the best guardian of that, the best judge as to how and
when it should be defended. He had (he thought) the reins in his hands, the
command of all the circumstances. If he should ever see the moment come
when the credit of his future family should be seriously threatened, and the
position of Lily become an affair of vital importance, he was prepared to
make any sacrifice. The moment it became serious enough for that he was
ready to act; but in the meantime it was his to fight the battle out to the last
step, and to defend her rights as her uncle’s heir, and to secure the fortune
for her behalf and his own. He regarded the situation largely as from the
point of view of a governor and supreme authority. As long as the
circumstances could be managed, the world’s opinion suppressed or kept in
abeyance, and the one substantial and important object kept safe, what did a
little imaginary annoyance matter, or Lily’s fantastic girlish notions about a
house of her own, and a public appearance on her husband’s arm, wearing
her wedding ring and calling herself Mrs. Lumsden? He liked her the better
for desiring all that, so far as it meant a desire to be always with him;
otherwise the mere promotion of being known as a married lady was silly
and a piece of vanity, which did not merit a thought on the part of the
arbiter of her affairs. All the little by-play about the house which could not
be got till the term, etc., had been a jest to him, though it had been so
serious to Lily. He had never for a moment intended that she should have
that house. To keep her quiet, to keep her contented, Ronald did not stint at
such a small matter as a lie. Between lovers, between married people, there
must be such things. If a man intends to keep at the head of affairs, and yet
to keep the woman, who has no experience and knows nothing of the world,
satisfied and happy, of course there must be little fictions made up and
fables told. Lily would be the first to justify them when the necessity was
over, when the money was secured and their final state arrived at—a
dignified life together, with every thing handsome about them. He had no
compunctions, therefore, about the original steps. It might have been more
prudent, perhaps, if they had not married at all, if they had waited till Sir
Robert died and Lily was free, in the course of nature, to give her hand and
her fortune where she pleased. That, no doubt, was a rash thing to do, but
the wisest of men commit such imprudences. And, with the exception of
that, Ronald approved generally of his own behavior. He did not find any
thing to object to in his conduct of the matter altogether.
But the baby put every thing out. The prospect, indeed, occupied Lily
and kept her quiet and reasonable for a long time, but the moment he knew
what was coming a new care came into Lumsden’s mind. A baby is not a
thing to be hid. It was certain that nothing would induce Lily to part with it,
or to be reasonable any longer. She would throw away the result of all his
precautions, of all his careful arrangements, of his self-denial and thought,
in a moment, for the sake of this little thing, which could neither repay her
nor know what she was doing for it. Many an hour’s reflection, night and
day, had he given to this subject without seeing any way out of it. With all
his powers and gifts of persuasion he had not ventured even to hint to Lily
the idea of sending away the child. Courage is a great thing, but sometimes
it is not enough to face a situation of the simplest character. He could not do
it. After the child arrived, when the inconveniences of keeping it there
became apparent, he had thought it might perhaps be easier; and many
times he had attempted to arrange how this could be done, but never had
succeeded in putting it into words. To do him justice, it was he who had
sought out and chosen with the utmost care the nurse Marg’ret, in whose
hands both mother and child would be safe, and he looked forward with that
vague and foolish hope in some indefinite help to come which the wisest of
men, when their combinations fail, still believe in, like the most foolish;
perhaps some suggestion might come from herself, who could tell? some
sense of the trouble and inconvenience arising in Lily’s own mind might
assist him in disposing of the little intruder. Why do babies thrust
themselves into the world so determinedly where they are not wanted? Why
resist the most eager calls and welcomes where they are? This confusing
question was no joke to Ronald. It made him hate this meddling baby,
though he was not without a young father’s sense of pride and satisfaction,
too.
He had instructed Marg’ret fully beforehand in the part she might be
called upon to play, though he could not tell her either how or when he
would accomplish the purpose which had gradually grown upon him as a
necessity. In these circumstances, while he yet pondered and turned every
thing over in his mind, failing as yet to perceive any way in which it could
be accomplished, the suddenness of Sir Robert’s coming, which he learned
by accident, was like sudden light in the most profound darkness. Here was
the necessity made ready to his hands. Lily could not doubt, could not
waver; whatever might happen afterward, it was quite clear Sir Robert
could not be greeted on his first arrival by the voice of an infant—an infant
which had no business to be there, and whose presence would have to be
accounted for on the very threshold, without any preliminary explanation—
in the face, too, of his friends whom he brought with him, revealing all the
secrets of his house. This was a chance which made Ronald himself, with
all his coolness, shiver. And Lily, still in her weakness, not half recovered—
what might the effect be upon her? It might kill her, he decided; for her own
sake, in her own defence, not a moment was to be lost. The reader knows
how he flashed into his wife’s room in haste, but not able even then, in face
of Lily’s perfect calm, and utter inability to conceive the real difficulty of
the situation, to suggest it to her, accomplished his design, secretly leaving
her—not even then with any unkind intention, very sorry for her, but not
seeing any other way in which it was to be done—to discover her loss and
bear it as she might. He was any thing but happy as he drove away with the
traitor woman by his side and the baby hidden in its voluminous wrappings.
Marg’ret was not such a traitor either as she seemed. She had been made to
believe that, though no parting was to be permitted to agitate the young
mother, Lily, too, was aware, and had consented to this proceeding. “The
poor little lassie, the poor wee thing!” Marg’ret had said, even while
wrapping up the baby for its journey; and she had slipped out into the
darkness and waited at the corner for the geeg with a heavy heart.
It startled Lumsden very much that no wail of distress, no indignant
outcry, came from Lily on discovering her loss. These were not the days of
frequent communications. People had not yet acquired the habit of constant
correspondence. They were accustomed to wait for news, with no swift
possibility of a telegram or even a penny post to make them impatient; not,
perhaps, that they would have grudged—certainly not that Ronald would
have grudged—the eightpence which was then, I think, the price of the
conveyance of a letter from one end of Scotland to the other, but that they
had not acquired the custom of frequent writing. When no protest, no
remonstrance, no passionate outcry, reached him for a week or two after the
event, Lumsden became exceedingly alarmed. He said to himself at first
that it was a relief, that Lily herself recognized the necessity and had
yielded to it; but he did not really believe this, and as the days went on,
genuine anxiety and terror were in his mind. Had it killed her? Had his Lily,
in her weakness, bowed her head and died of this outrage? the worst, he
now felt in every fibre of his being, to which a woman could be subjected.
He wrote, enclosing his letter to Beenie; then he wrote to Beenie herself,
entreating her to send him a line, a word. But Lily was unconscious of
every thing, and Beenie of all that did not concern her mistress, when these
letters arrived. They were not even opened until Lily was convalescent, and
then Beenie by her mistress’s orders, in her large sprawling handwriting,
and with many tears, replied briefly to the three or four anxious demands
for news which had arrived one after the other. Beenie wrote: