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CHAPTER XLII

Philip Stormont did not return home for a week, during which period Lilias had ample reason to share her sister's annoyance. She was received wherever she appeared with congratulations and good wishes, though it was a very daft-like thing, the village people thought, for young folk, who had known each other all their lives and might have spoken whenever they pleased, to go away up to London, and meet in strange houses there before they could come to an understanding.

"No true! hoot, Miss Lilias! It must be true, for I had it from the leddy hersel'," was the reception her denial got: and there was not unfrequently a glance aside at Katie, which showed the consciousness of the speaker of another claim. It was a curious study in human nature for the neighbourhood, and, though it was perhaps cruel, the interest of the race in mental phenomena generally may have accounted for the pleasure mingled with compassion with which one after another offered in Katie's presence their good wishes to Lilias, keenly observing meantime the air and aspect of the maiden forsaken.

"It'll no have been true about Miss Katie and him, after all," Janet, at the 'Murkley Arms,' announced to her husband, "for she took it just as steady as a judge."

"Oh, ay, it was true enough; but men are scarce, and he's just ta'en his pick," said Adam.

"My word, but he's no blate," said Janet, in high indignation. "Two of the bonniest and best in a' the countryside for Philip Stormont to take his pick o'! I would soon learn him another lesson. And it's just a' lees – a' lees from beginning to end."

"In that case," said Adam, with philosophic calm, "I would not fash my thoom about it, if I were you." But the philosophy was more than Janet was capable of. She bade him gang aff to his fishing for a cauld-hearted loon, that took nae interest in his fellow-creatures.

"It's naething to you if a young thing breaks her bit heart," Janet said; and she added, with a sigh, "No to say that I had ither views for Miss Lilias mysel'."

Perhaps it was some glimmer of these "ither views," some implication of another name, never mentioned, but understood between them by a subtle feminine freemasonry, which made Lilias insist so warmly to Janet upon the falsehood of the common report. The girls went on to the manse after this explanation, Lilias walking with great dignity, but with a flush of offence and annoyance on her face.

"I wish he would just come back, and let them see it is all lies," Lilias cried.

Katie dried a furtive tear when they got within the shelter of the manse garden. Would Philip, when he came, show that it was all lies? or was he minded, like his mother, to make it true? And, if he put forth those persuasive powers which Katie felt so deeply, could Lilias resist him? These questions kept circling through Katie's brain in endless succession. "It would maybe be better if he never came back," she said, with a sigh.

Mrs. Seton was in all the bustle of her morning's occupations. She came into the drawing-room a little heated, and with some suppressed excitement in her eyes. Katie's mother was not entirely in Katie's confidence, but she knew enough of her child's mind to take an agitated and somewhat angry interest in the news of Lilias' supposed engagement. Perhaps indeed she was not without a guilty sense of intention in her former hospitality to Philip, which turned now, by a very common alchymy of the mind, into an angry feeling that she had been kind to him, and that he had been very ungrateful. She came in with a little bustle, unable to chase from her countenance some traces of offence.

"Well, Lilias, so you have come to be congratulated," she said. "I am sure I wish you every prosperity. Nobody will doubt that we wish you well, such great friends as you have always been with Katie, and all the old connection between us and Murkley." Here she kissed the girl on both cheeks sharply, conveying a little anger even in the kiss. "But I think, you know, you were a little wanting – oh! just a little wanting, I'll not say much – considering all the intimacy, not to write at once and let Katie know – "

"I would like to hear what there was to let Katie know," cried Lilias, with indignation. "And why you should wish me prosperity? You never did it before. I am just as I always was before; and as for Philip Stormont," cried the girl, "he is nothing to me. Oh, yes, he is something – he is a great trouble and bother, and makes Margaret angry, and everybody talk nonsense. I wish he was at the other end of the world!" Lilias cried, with a little stamp of her impatient foot upon the floor.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Seton, "but this is very different from what we heard. No, no, it must be just a little temper, Lilias, and Margaret's scolding that makes you turn it off like this. I can well understand Margaret being angry," said the minister's wife, with a gleam of satisfaction. "Her that thought nobody too grand for you; but there is no calculating upon young folk. Here is Lilias, Robert; but she is just in an ill way. She will have none of my good wishes. She has quarrelled with him, I suppose. We all know what a lovers' quarrel is. Yes, yes, she'll soon come to herself. And it would be a terrible thing, you know, to tell a fib to your clergyman," Mrs. Seton said, with an attempt at raillery; but she was anxious in spite of herself.

"Miss Lilias," said the minister, who had come in, and who was more formal, "will have little doubt of our good wishes in all circumstances, and especially on a happy – "

"Oh, will you hold all your tongues!" cried Lilias, driven out of recollection of her good manners, and of the respect she owed, as Mrs. Seton said, to her clergyman. "There's no circumstances at all, and nothing happy, nor to wish me joy about. I am no more engaged than you are," she said, addressing Mr. Seton, who stood, interrupted in his little speech, in a sort of consternation. "I am not going to be married. It is all just lies from beginning to end."

"Oh, my dear, you must not say that. It is dreadful to say that. If we are really to believe you, Lilias – "

"You need not believe me unless you like. You seem to think I don't know my own concerns. But it is all lies, and nothing else," cried Lilias, with a glow of momentary fury. "Just lies from beginning to end."

"Dear, dear me!" said Mrs. Seton. "My dear, we will not press it too far. But perhaps you have refused poor Philip, and he cannot make up his mind it has been final. If you are so sure of it on your side, it will perhaps just be a mistake on his."

"Oh, I wish I had refused him!" cried Lilias, setting her small teeth. "I wish he had asked me, and I would have given him his answer. I would have said to him, I would sooner marry Adam at the inn, I would sooner have little Willie Seton out of the nursery. Oh, there would have been no mistake!"

"But, my dear Miss Lilias, why this warmth?" said the minister. "After all, if the young man wanted you to marry him, it was a compliment, it was no offence. He is a fine young fellow, when all is said; and why so hot about it? It is no offence."

"It is just a – " Here Lilias paused, receiving a warning look from Katie, who had placed herself behind backs, but how gave a little furtive pull to her friend's dress.

"Margaret is very angry," she said, with dignity, "but not so angry as I am. To be away a whole year, and then, when I am so glad to come home, to have this thrown in my face! It is not Philip's fault, it is just Mrs. Stormont, who never would let me alone – and oh! will you tell everybody? You may say out of politeness that it is a mistake, but I say it is all lies, and that is true."

"Whisht, whisht, whisht, my dear!" cried Mrs. Seton. "If you are sure you are sincere – No, no; me doubting! I would never doubt your word, if you are sure you are in earnest, Lilias. I will just tell everybody with pleasure that some mistake has happened – just some mistake. You were old friends, and never thought what meaning was in his mind; or it was his mother who put a wrong interpretation. Yes, yes; you may rely upon me, Lilias: if you are sure, my dear, if you are quite sure that you are sincere!"

Lilias went home alone, in high excitement and anger with all the world, holding her head high, and refusing to pause to speak to the eager cottagers by their doors, who had all a word to say. This mode of treatment was unknown at Murkley, and produced many shakings of the head, and fears that London had made her proud. The wives reminded each other that they had never approved of it. "Why can they no bide at hame? It was never the custom in the auld days," the women said. But Lilias made no response to their looks. She went through the village with an aspect of disdain, carrying her head high; but, before she came to the gates of the old castle, she became aware of Mrs. Stormont's pony-carriage leisurely descending towards the river. With still stronger reason she tossed her head aloft and hurried on. But she was not permitted to escape so easily. Mrs. Stormont made her preparations to alight as soon as the girl was visible, and left her no possibility of escape. She thrust her hand through the unwilling arm of Lilias with confidential tenderness.

"It was you I was looking for," she said. She had not the triumphant look which had been so offensive on her previous visit. Her brow was puckered with anxiety. "My bonnie Lily," she said, "you are angry, and I have done more harm than good. What ails you at my poor laddie, Lilias? Who have we thought upon all this time but only you? When I took all the trouble of yon ball, which was little pleasure to me at my time of life, who was it for but you? Do you think I was wanting to please the Bairnsfaithers and the Dunlops, and all the little gentry about, or even the Countess and Lady Ida? I was wanting to please you: and my Philip – "

"He was wanting to please Katie Seton," said Lilias, with an angry laugh; "and he was quite right, for they were fond, fond of each other."

"Oh, my bonnie pet, what a mistake!" cried Mrs. Stormont, growing red. "Katie Seton! I would not have listened to it for a moment! The Setons would never have been asked but just for civility. Philip to put up with all that little thing's airs, and the vulgar mother! Oh! my darling, do not you be deceived. What said he in London? Was there ever a word of Katie? You would not cast up to him a folly of his youth now that he's a man, and all his heart is set on you?"

"Even if it was so," cried Lilias, "my heart is not set on him; I do not like him – Oh! yes, I like him well enough. He is just a neighbour; but, Mrs. Stormont, nothing more."

"Lilias, Lilias, you don't know what you are doing! Oh! my dear, just think a little. He has never come home; he has taken it sore, sore to heart that you left town like that, and never let him know. How do I know what my boy is doing, left by himself, with a disappointed heart, among all yon terrible temptations? Oh, my lovely Lily, whom I have petted and thought much of all your life, one word from you would bring Philip home!"

"I cannot send him a word," cried Lilias. "Oh, how can you ask me, when, wherever I go, everybody is at me wishing me joy; and, though it is all lies, they make me think shame, and I don't know how to look them in the face; but I am not ashamed – I am just furious!" Lilias cried, with burning blushes. "And then you ask me to send him a word – "

"To bring him home! He is everything I have in the world. Oh! Lilias, you would not be the one to part a mother from her only son; you would not be so hard-hearted as that, my Lily. If he has been wanting in any way, if he has not been so bold in speaking out – "

It was all that Lilias could do to contain herself.

"Do I want him to speak out?" she cried. "I do not want Philip at all, Mrs. Stormont. Will you believe what I tell you? If you want to get him home, let him come back to Katie."

"Put Katie out of your mind," said Mrs. Stormont, sharply. "There is no question of Katie. It is just an insult to me to speak of her at all."

Upon which Lilias threw her head higher still.

"And it is just an insult to me," she cried – "oh, far, far worse! for I am little and young, and not able to say a word, and you are trying to force me into what nobody wants. And Margaret will scold me as if it were my fault."

"You are able to say plenty for yourself, it appears to me," said Mrs. Stormont; and then she changed her tone. "Oh, Lilias, I have always been fond, fond of you, my bonnie dear. I have always said you should have been my child; and now, when there's a chance that you may be mine – What ails ye at my Philip? Where will you find a finer lad? Where will ye get a better son, except just when he loses his judgment with disappointment and love? Oh, my bonnie Lily, he will come back – he will come to his duty and his mother, if you will only send him a word – just a word."

This conversation was interrupted in the strangest way by the sudden apparition of a dog-cart driven at full speed down the road, which Lilias had vaguely perceived approaching with a little flutter of her heart, not knowing at any minute who might appear out of the unseen. When it drew up suddenly at the roadside for a single moment the light wavered in her eyes. But she came to herself again at once as Philip Stormont jumped out and advanced to his mother, whose evident relief and pleasure at the sight of him touched Lilias' heart. The poor lady trembled so that she could scarcely stand. She could do nothing but gaze at her son. She forgot in a moment the half-quarrel, the pathetic plea which she was urging with Lilias. "Oh, my boy, you've come back!" she said, throwing herself upon him. Lilias was far too young to fathom what was in the mother's heart, but she was touched in spite of herself. The change in Mrs. Stormont's face, the disappearance of all the curves in her forehead, the melting of all the hard lines in her face, was like magic to the watching girl. A little awe seized her of the love that worked so profoundly, and which she had made so little account of. It was true love, though it was not the form of true love of which one thinks at eighteen. She withdrew a little from them in the first moment of their meeting with natural delicacy, but did not go away, feeling it would be somewhat cowardly to attempt to escape.

As for Philip, when he had greeted his mother, he turned from her to Lilias with a countenance by no means love-like.

"You played me a pretty trick," he said. "Lucky for me that I went to Cadogan Place first. I might have been at the station now kicking my heels."

"Not for a week, I hope."

"I might have been there all night: and thinking all the time that something must have happened. I did not take it kind," said Philip. His mother was holding his arm, and already making little demonstrations upon it to stop him in these ill-advised complaints; but Philip paid little attention. "I wonder how you would have liked it yourself to be left in the lurch without a word!"

"We were all very sorry," Lilias said, with an air of penitence, and then she added, "when we remembered," with an inclination to laugh, which was all the stronger because of the gravity of the situation a few moments past.

He was somewhat travel-worn, covered with dust, and bearing marks of the fact that he had left London the night before, and had not paused long upon the way. His looks, as he regarded Lilias, were not those of a lover, and as she said the last words he coloured high with not unpardonable resentment.

"I can well believe that you took little pains to remember me at all," he said.

"Oh! Philip, how I have wearied for you," said his mother, anxiously, making a diversion. "We were speaking of you, Lilias and I: and I was going to send a message – "

"You are always so impatient," cried Philip, "pursuing a fellow with telegrams as if he were a thief! Yes, I waited a day or two. There was something I wanted to see. You can see nothing while that confounded season is going on. But I'm tired, mother, and by your leave I'll get home at once."

"You'll excuse him, Lilias," cried Mrs. Stormont, once more with anxiety; "he'll pay his respects to you at a more fitting moment. Yes, my dear boy, certainly we will go home; you can drive me back – "

"I've got a dog-cart from Kilmorley," said Philip; "and a better beast than yours. I'll just go on in that. I'll be there half-an-hour before you."

He took off his hat carelessly to Lilias, who was looking after him almost with as much astonishment as his mother. The two ladies looked at each other as he drove away. Poor Mrs. Stormont, after her agitation and joy, had grown white and troubled. She gazed at Lilias wistfully with deprecating eyes. The situation was ruefully comic, but she did not see it. To have compromised the name of Lilias for Philip's sake – to have compromised Philip by pleading with Lilias: and then to have it proved by both before her eyes how useless were her pains – so broadly, so evidently that she could not pretend to disbelieve it, was hard. She said, quickly, as if with an attempt to convince herself, "He is wearied with his journey; he is dusty, and not fit for a lady's eye." But after that the situation was too strong for her; for a moment there was humility in her tone. "My dear, perhaps I have made a mistake; I will do what I can to put it right," she said. Then the inalienable instinct of defence awoke again. "It is just that he is turned the wrong way with all these slights and disappointments, to be taken up one moment and cast away the next. He'll have taken an ill notion against women. Men are always keen to do that. It's their justification; and there is no doubt," she continued more briskly, nerving her courage, "whatever you may say now, that he got a great deal of encouragement at one time, Lilias. And now he's just turned the wrong way," Mrs. Stormont ended with a sigh, slowly mounting into her pony-carriage. Her old servant sat there motionless as he had sat through all this conversation. "I hope you may never repent your handiwork," she said.

CHAPTER XLIII

There is something in the unchangeableness of rural scenery, and in the unaltered method and order of a long established and carefully governed household, which gives the sensitive spirit, returning to them after great changes have passed over itself, a sort of shock as of pitiless permanence and a rigid machinery of existence which must triumph over every mere vicissitude of happiness or unhappiness.

After the little incidents of the first days, which after all had had little to do with her own personal history, the absolute unchangedness of Murkley, not a leaf different, every branch drooping in the same line, the same flowers in the garden, the same arrangement of the flower-vases to which Jean was so glad to get back (for she had never been able to arrange the London bouquets to her own satisfaction in those terrible glass things in Cadogan Place), conveyed to Lilias a sense of some occult and secret power of passive authority in existence itself, as separate from any individual will or wish, which appalled her. London and all those wonderful scenes – the lights, the talks, the dances, the intoxication of flattery and delight which had mounted to her head – were all gone like a phantasmagoria. But life, which had been waiting for her just as of old, which had been going on just as of old, while she was flitting through that dream-world, had now taken her in again steadily to its steady routine which admitted no thought of change. It appalled her for the moment; her feet came down, with a power of gravitation over which her impulses seemed to have little or no influence, into the self-same line, upon the self-same path. She tried to laugh sometimes at what everybody called the force of habit, but she was frightened by it. She had acquired a great deal of experience in those six weeks of the season; her memory was full of scenes which flashed upon the inward eye whenever she was by herself, or even when she sat silent in the old rooms where Jean and Margaret were so silent too. And when some one called her, or something from the outer world came in, Lilias felt a momentary giddiness, an inability to arrange her thoughts or to be quite sure where she was, or which was real, the actual world or that other in which the moment before she had been. Her head seemed to turn round when she was spoken to. To feel herself surrounded by a smiling crowd in rooms all splendid with decoration, flowers, and lights, and fine pictures, with music and flattering voices in the air – and then to look up and see Jean's head somewhat paler than usual against the dark wainscot, and Miss Margaret's voice saying, "If you will put on your hat, Lilias, we will go out for our walk – " Which was true? She faltered as she rose up, stumbling among the real. She was afraid of it: it seemed to her to be a sort of ghost of existence from which she could not escape.

And in other respects there was no small agitation in the inner consciousness of Lilias. She had felt that there was much in the air on that last evening which never came to anything. The atmosphere of the place, in which neither he nor she had cared to dance, had tingled with something that had never been said. All those weeks, when she had seen him so often, had produced their natural effect upon the girl. She had never deceived herself, like Margaret, as to the many houses that had suddenly been thrown open to them. Lilias had not forgotten how it had been at the Countess's reception. She remembered the immediate alteration of everything as soon as Lewis had appeared. She had not been allowed to speak to him in the Row, but immediately after all the doors had been thrown open as by magic. She knew very well that this magic was in his hand. And how was it possible for her to believe that it was merely "kindness," as she at first thought? It was kindness, but there was something more. She saw not only the tenderness, but the generosity of his treatment of her with wonder, almost with a little offence at the magnanimity which she found it so difficult to understand. Lewis had brought to her everybody that was best and most attractive. She had looked again and again into eyes, bent upon her with admiration, that might have been the eyes of the hero of her dreams. Six-foot-two of fine humanity, in the Guards, in the Diplomatic Service, or, better still, in no service at all, endowed with the finest of English names and possessing the bluest blood, had exhibited itself before her in the best light again and again. We do not pretend to assert, nor did Lilias believe, that these paladins were all ready to lay their hearts and honours at her feet; but there was one at least who had done so, without even moving her to more than a little tingle of gratified vanity and friendly regret. But from all these tall heroes she had turned to middle-sized Lewis, with his eyes and hair of no particular colour. She had always been aware when he was in the most crowded room. Everybody had talked to her about him, believing her to be his relation. They had all met him abroad; they had all some grateful recollection of his services when they were ill, or where they were strangers; they poured forth praises of him on all sides, till Lilias felt her heart run over. Above even the attractions of six-feet, had been the enthusiasm in her mind for the good and true. She did not indeed want this enthusiasm to turn her thoughts to that first friend, as she had called him in her heart, the first companion who had been of her own choice and discovery, and whose absence had made to her a wonderful blank, of which she felt the effect without fully realizing the cause. But she realized the cause very well now: and felt the day blank indeed in which he had no share.

Also she knew by instinct that something was to have been said to her on that last evening. Was it merely his disappointment at finding his favourite nook under the palms in the conservatory already occupied, which prevented it being said? or was there some other cause? When they left London so abruptly, two days before the appointed time, without seeing Lewis, Lilias had been somewhat disturbed and wistful. She had wondered at it, however, without being greatly cast down: there was no fear, she thought, but that he would soon follow. He would come after them to Murkley. What he had to say would be more fitly said under the shadow of the great house, about which he too, like herself, had dreamed dreams: he could not stay away, she felt sure. And as for Margaret's opposition, that did not appal the young heroine greatly. All it meant was that Margaret wanted a prince of the royal blood for her child, and not even he unless he were handsome and gallant, a youth to please a lady's eye. Lilias felt a little humorous sympathy with Margaret: she felt that it would be hard for herself to give up the idea of a hero. Lewis was not like a hero. He was like a thousand other people, and nobody could identify him, or say, "who is that?" as the owners of great dark eyes, and dark hair, at the top of six-feet-two of stature, are ordinarily remarked upon. Lilias laughed as this thought crossed her mind, and, with a little sympathetic feeling, was sorry for Margaret. For herself she had ceased altogether to think of the other, and she was not afraid that her sister would stand out against Lewis. There would be a struggle: but a struggle in which the happiness of a beloved child is at stake is decided before it has begun. So on the whole, after finding this phantom life more ghostly because there was no Lewis in it, she reflected that when he came it would bloom into reality; and she was satisfied to bear it for a little – until the better time should come.

But when day followed day, and the better time did not come, a curious blight, like the atmospheric greyness which agricultural people call by that name, crept slowly over her, she could scarcely tell how. The earth looked as if a perpetual east-wind were blowing, yet as if there was no air to breathe; the skies were all overcast, the trees seemed to dry up and grow grey like everything else: and a certain air of consciousness, a perception that this was so, seemed to come into the house. Lilias perceived vaguely, as she went about with a heart growing heavier and a dull wonder which went through everything, that everybody was sorry for her. Why were they sorry for her? Jean said, "My poor darling!" and petted her as if she had been ill. Old Simon even put on a look of sympathy. In Margaret's eyes, there was something the girl had never seen there before. Anger, compunction, pity – which was it? All of these feelings were in it. Sometimes she would turn away as if she could not bear the sight of Lilias, sometimes would be so tender to her that the girl could have wept for herself. Why? for Margaret had never made an exhibition of the adoration with which she regarded her little sister, and it was only at some crisis that Lilias was allowed to suspect how dear she was. They studied all her little tastes, watched her steps, devoted themselves to please her: every one of which indications showed Lilias more and more that they were aware of something of which she was not aware, some reason why she should be unhappy. And she became unhappy to fulfil the necessities of the position. There was something which was being hid from her; what was it? Was it that he was only amiable and kind after all, and had merely wished to be serviceable, without any other feeling? But, if that was so, Margaret would be glad, not sorry; and how could they know that this would make any difference to her, Lilias? But, if not that, what could it be? And every day for many days she had expected to see him, when she walked down to the water-side, or wandered about New Murkley. She had thought that she would meet him round every corner, that Adam at the 'Murkley Arms' would be seen with his cart going for "the gentleman's" luggage, and Janet hanging the curtains and selecting the finest trout. It seemed so natural that he should come back. It seemed so certain that he must somehow seek the opportunity of telling that tale that had been left untold.

And as the time passed on, day following slowly after day, and he came not, Lilias felt that some explanation was necessary. There must be an explanation. What was it? That Margaret had sent him away? Margaret's eyes looked as if she had sent him away. Was it possible that he could have taken his dismissal from any one but herself? Then it was that Lilias had hot fits and cold fits of suppressed unhappiness. Sometimes she would be angry with Margaret for rejecting, and with Lewis for allowing himself to be rejected, and then would fall into a dreamy sadness, saying to herself that it was always so, and that this was the way of the world. But of all these troubles she said not a word, being too proud to signify to any one that her heart was engrossed by one who had not given her his. There were moments indeed in which she was tempted to throw herself upon Jean's sympathetic bosom: but then she recollected that Jean's story, such as it was, had been one of mutual love, whereas hers could only be that of an unfortunate attachment, words which made Lilias flame with resentment and shame. No, she must just pine and wait until he made some sign, or shake it all indignantly off, and make up her mind to think of it no more.

This was the state of affairs one afternoon when the next event in this history occurred. They were all seated together in the drawing-room, Jean, as usual, working at her table-cover, Margaret from behind her book casting wistful looks now and then at Lilias, who for her part was seated in one of the windows, in the recess, with her head relieved against the light, doing nothing. She had a book, it is true, but was not looking at it; her mind had turned inward. She was pondering her own story, which was more interesting than any romance. Margaret gave many glances at her as she sat, with her delicate profile and her fair locks, against the afternoon light. The post was late, and Simon brought the bag into the drawing-room, moving them all to a little excitement. Margaret opened it and took out its sole contents, a large blue envelope containing a bulky enclosure.