Маргарет Олифант
It was a Lover and his Lass
"It would be nothing of the kind," said Katie, indignantly. "Do you think I'm asking you to go to Mrs. Stormont and tell her that Philip is in love with you? Oh! Lilias, don't be angry. It's just this. Let him come here sometimes – Miss Margaret would not mind; and then if you will come out with me for a walk in the afternoons? Oh! Lilias, it is not so much to do for a friend. It is quite natural that, when he sees you much, he should like you best. If he had never come to our house when he did, if he had never met me, if there had been no Katie at all," said the girl, with pathos; "of course it would have been you that Philip would have thought of. There would never have been another fancy in his mind; he would have loved you, and all would have gone well. Oh! what a pity," she cried, "what a pity that ever, ever there was a Katie at all!"
"You are the silliest little thing in the world," cried Lilias, starting up in her white night-dress, with her hair floating about her. "All would have gone well? Oh! you think I would have taken Mr. Philip Stormont? You think Margaret would have let me? Was there nothing to do but for him to take a fancy to me? Oh! that is just too much, Katie; that is more than I can put up with," she cried, with a spring on the floor. "Will you go away, please, and let me get up?"
Katie was prudent, though she was offended, and she was determined to gain her point.
"I will go into the library and wait there," she said. "But oh! Lilias, why will you be so angry with me?"
"I am not angry, if you would not speak such nonsense," Lilias cried.
"I will not speak nonsense, I will say nothing to displease you; but oh! Lilias, what will happen to me if you turn your back upon me?" said the girl.
She went away so humbly, with such deprecating looks, that Lilias not only felt her anger evaporate, but took herself severely to task for her sharpness with poor little Katie.
"After all, she is a whole year younger than me, whatever she says," Lilias said, sagely, to herself, "and a year makes a great difference at our age." Then her heart softened to Katie; if anything she could do would smooth over her poor little friend's troubles, what a hard-hearted girl she would be to deny it – "Me that does nothing for anybody, and everybody so good to me!" Lilias said in her heart. It began to seem to her a kind of duty to take upon her the task Katie proposed. If it did them good, it would do nobody harm. If Margaret got a fright and thought that she – she, Lilias Murray of Murkley – was going to fix her choice upon Philip Stormont, it would serve Margaret right for entertaining such an unworthy idea. "Me!" Lilias cried, with a smile of profound disdain. But for Katie it was all very well. For Katie it was entirely unobjectionable. Philip was just the right person for her, and she for him. Lilias made as short work of any romantic pretensions which the Stormonts might put forth as her sister could have done. What were they, to set up for being superior to the minister's daughter? The Setons were well born, for anything Lilias knew to the contrary, and the others were but small lairds, not great persons. Perhaps Mrs. Stormont's favourite claim upon her as one who might have been her mother had irritated the temper of the daughter of Lady Lilias Murray. She had a scorn of the pretensions of the smaller family. Katie was "just as good," she declared to herself. All this process of thought was going on while Lilias went through the various processes of her toilet. When she went into the book-room, which was sacred to her studies, and found Katie there, she gave her little friend a condescending kiss, though she did not say much. And Katie, who was very quick-witted, understood. She did not tease her benefactress with questions. She was ready to accept her protection without forcing it into words.
And no doubt, in the days that followed, Margaret and Jean were much perplexed, it might even be said distressed. Philip Stormont began to pay them visits with a wearisome pertinacity. When he came he had not much to say; he informed them about the weather, that it was a fine day or a bad day, that the glass was falling, that the dew had been heavy last night, with many other very interesting scraps of information. But, when he had exhausted this subject, he fell to sucking the top of his cane. He was very attentive when anyone else spoke, especially Miss Margaret, and he looked at Lilias, perhaps as Katie had instructed him to look, with a gaze which indeed was more like anxiety than anything else, but which might do duty as admiration and interest with those who did not know the difference. To the outside spectator, who knew nothing about the conspiracy entered into by these young people, it would indeed have appeared very evident that Philip had been converted to his mother's opinion by the apparition of Lilias at the ball. And indeed the beauty of Lilias, like her position, was so much superior to that of Katie that nobody could have been surprised at the young man's change of opinion.
It might have been thought very natural too, that, after his early flirtations with the minister's daughter, whose mother brought her far too much forward, his fancy should have turned legitimately in a higher direction as his taste improved. Mrs. Stormont heard of her son's proceedings with the liveliest delight, giving God thanks indeed, poor lady, in her deceived heart that He had turned her boy's thoughts in the right direction, and given her this comfort when she needed it most. And she also applauded somewhat her own cleverness in having seen the right means for so desirable an end, and secured the début of Lilias at Philip's ball, an event which connected their names, and no doubt would make them feel themselves more or less bound to each other. Mrs. Stormont felt that little Katie was routed horse and foot, and also that poor Mrs. Seton, whom she considered a designing woman and manœuvring mother (entirely oblivious of her own gifts of that kind), was discomfited and thrown out, a thought almost as sweet to her mind as that of Philip's deliverance. And it would be wrong to say that Mrs. Seton herself did not feel a certain sense of defeat. When she met Philip going up the village towards the castle, the smile and banter with which she greeted him were bitter-sweet.
"I am really glad to see that you are finding some entertainment at Murkley," she would say. "I have so often been sorry for you with nothing to occupy you. Yes, yes, whatever women may think, a young man wants something to amuse him; and the ladies at the castle are most entertaining. Miss Margaret has just an uncommon judgment, and dear Miss Jean, we are all fond of her; and as for Lilias, that speaks for itself. Yes, yes, Mr. Philip, with a face like that, there is nothing more to say."
Philip listened to all this with wonderful composure. He secretly chuckled now and then at the ease with which everybody was taken in. "Even her own mother," he said to himself, with the greatest admiration of his Katie. Deception looks like a high-art to the simple intelligence when it is exercised to his own advantage, and even the highest moralist winks at the artifices with which a couple of young people contrive to conceal their courtship. It is supposed that the supreme necessity of the end to be obtained justifies such means: at least that would seem to be the original cause of such a universal condonation of offence.
Miss Margaret did not share Mrs. Stormont's sentiments. She had always been afraid of this long-leggit lad. He was just the kind of well-grown, well-looking production of creation that might take a young girl's eye, she felt, before she had seen anything better: and she blamed herself as much for permitting the ball as Philip's mother applauded herself for contriving it. Margaret was very far from happy at this period. The more Philip talked about the weather, and the more minute were the observations he made about the glass rising, or the dew falling, the more she looked at him, with a growing consternation, wondering if it were possible that Lilias could be attracted by such qualities as he exhibited.
"He is just a gomeril," she said, indignantly.
"Indeed, Margaret," Jean would say, "he is very personable, there is no denying that."
"He is just a great gowk," growing in vehemence, Miss Margaret said.
But, in fact, her milder, less impassioned statement was, after all, the true one. His chief quality was that he was a long-leggit lad, a fine specimen of rural manhood. There was nothing wrong, or undersized, or ill-developed about him. He had brain enough for his needs. He was far from being without sense. He had a very friendly regard for his neighbours, and would not have harmed them for the world. There was nothing against him; but then Lilias was the apple of the eye to these two ladies, who were entirely visionary in their ambition for her, and in all the hopes they had set on her head. That she should make a premature choice of one of whom all that could be said was, that there was nothing against him, was a terrible humiliation to all their plans and thoughts.
And in the afternoons, while July lingered out, with its warm days and rosy sunsets, the month without frost, the genial heart of the year, Lilias' walks were invariably accompanied by Katie, who, liberated as she was from visitors at home by Philip's desertion, ran in and out of the castle at all hours, and was the constant attendant of her friend. Philip would join them in their walks, which were always confined to the park, almost every day, and Lilias, at one moment or other, would generally stroll off by herself to leave them free. She got a habit of haunting New Murkley very much during these afternoon walks. She would wander round and round it, studying every corner, returning to all her dreams on the subject, peopling the empty place with guests, hearing through its vacant windows the sound of voices and society, of music and talk. How it was that those half-comprehended notes which entranced Jean and had established so warm a bond of union between her and the young stranger at Murkley should always be sounding out of these windows, Lilias could not tell, for she had professed openly her want of understanding and even of interest. But, notwithstanding her ignorance, there was never a day that in her dreams she did not catch an echo, among all the imagined sounds of the great house, from some room or other, from some corner, of Lewis Murray's music. Perhaps it was that she met himself so often about this centre of her lonely wanderings.
Generous though Lilias was, and ready to sacrifice herself for the advantage of her friends, it is not to be supposed that when she left those two together to the mutual explanations and consultations and confidences which took so long to say, she herself found much enjoyment in the solitude even of her own words, with the sense in her mind all the time that for the sake of the lovers she was deceiving her sisters, whom she loved much better, and in a lesser sense helping to deceive Katie's parents and Philip's mother, all of whom were more or less under the same delusion. It did not make Lilias happy; she fled to her dreams to take refuge from the questions which would assail her, and the perpetual fault-finding of her conscience. When Lewis appeared she was glad, for he answered the purpose of distracting her from these self-arraignments better even than her dreams; yet sometimes would be vexed and angry, disposed to resent his interest in the place as an impertinence, and to wonder what he had to do with it that he should go there so often and study it so closely, for he had always his sketch-book in his hand. She was so restless and uncomfortable that there were moments when Lilias felt her sense of propriety grow strong upon her, and felt disposed to treat the young man haughtily as an intruder, just as there were other moments when his presence was a relief, when she would plunge almost eagerly into talk, and betray to him, only half consciously, only half intentionally, the visions of which her mind was full. There got to be a great deal of talk between them on these occasions, and almost of intimacy as they wandered from subject to subject. It was very different from the conversation which Lilias carried on with her other companions, though she had known them all her life – conversations in which matters of fact were chiefly in question, affairs of the moment. With Lewis she spread over a much wider range. With that curious charm which the mixture of intimacy and new acquaintance produces, the sense of freedom, the certainty of not being betrayed or talked over, Lilias opened her thoughts to the new friend, whom she scarcely knew, as she never could have done to those whom she had been familiar with all her life. It was like thinking aloud. Her innocent confidences would not come back and stare her in the face, as the revelations we make to our nearest neighbours so often do. She did not reason this out, but felt it, and said to Lewis, who was at once a brother and a stranger, the most attractive conjunction – more about herself than Margaret knew, or even Jean, without being conscious of what she was doing, to the great ease and consolation of her heart.
But one of these afternoons Lilias met him in a less genial mood. She had been sadly tried in patience and in feeling. Mrs. Stormont had paid one of her visits that day. She had come in beaming with triumphant looks, with Philip in attendance, who, in his mother's presence, was even less amusing than usual. Mrs. Stormont had been received with very cold looks by Margaret, and with anxious, deprecating politeness by Jean, who feared the explosion of some of the gathering volcanic elements; and Lilias perceived to her horror that Philip's mother indemnified and avenged herself on Jean and Margaret by the triumphant satisfaction of her demeanour towards herself, making common cause with her, as it were, against her elder sisters, and offering a hundred evidences of a secret bond of sympathy. She said "we," looking at Lilias with caressing eyes. She called her by every endearing name she could think of. She made little allusions to Philip, which drove the girl frantic. And Philip himself sat by, having indeed the grace to look terribly self-conscious and ashamed, but by that very demeanour increasing his mother's urbanity and her triumph. Lilias bore this while she could, but at last, in a transport of indignation and suppressed rage, made her escape from the room and from the house, rushing out into the coolness of the air and silence of the park, with a sense that her position was intolerable, and that something or other she must do to escape from it. So far from escaping from it, however, she had scarcely got out of sight of the windows when she was joined by Katie, whose fondness and devotion knew no limits, and who twined her arm through that of Lilias with a tender familiarity which made her more impatient still.
The climax was reached when Philip's steps were heard hurrying after them, and Lilias knew as if she had seen the scene, what must have been the delight of Mrs. Stormont as he rose to follow her, and what the dismay and displeasure of Margaret and Jean. She seemed to hear Mrs. Stormont declare that "like will draw to like" all the world over, and to see the gloom upon the face of her mother-sisters.
"Oh! Lilias," Katie cried, "here he is coming; he can thank you better than I can; all our happiness we owe to you."
Lilias turned blazing with quick wrath upon her persecutor.
"Why should you be happy," she cried, "more than other people – and when you are making me a liar? Yes, it is just a liar you are making me!"
"Oh, Lilias, you are just an angel!" cried Katie, "and that is what Philip thinks as well as me."
"Philip!" cried Lilias, with a passion of disdain. She cast a look at him as he came up, of angry scorn, as if his presumption in forming such an opinion was intolerable. She drew her arm out of Katie's almost with fury, pushed them towards each other, and walked on swiftly with a silent step of passion which devoured the way. She was so full of heat and excitement that when she reached the new house of Murkley, and almost stumbled against Lewis, who was standing against a tree opposite the door, she gave a start of passion, and immediately turned her weapons against him. She cast a glance of angry scorn at the sketch-book in his hand.
"Are you here, Mr. Murray?" she cried, "and always your sketch-book, though I never see you draw anything. I wonder what you come for, always to the same spot every day; and it cannot be of any interest to you."
Lewis, who had not been prepared for this sudden attack, grew red with an impulse of offence, but checked himself instantly.
"You have entirely reason," he said, with his hat in his hand in his foreign way. "I do nothing; I am not, indeed, worth my salt. The sketch-book is no more than an excuse; and it is true," he added, "that I have no right to be here, or to claim an interest – "
There is nothing that so covers with discomfiture an angry assailant as the prompt submission of the person assailed, and Lilias was doubly susceptible to this way of putting her in the wrong. She threw down her arms at once, and blushed from head to foot at her own rudeness.
"Oh, what was I saying?" she cried – "what business have I to meddle with you, whether you were sketching or not? But it was not you – it was just vexation about – other things."
His tone, his look (though she was not looking at him), everything about him, expressed an indignant partisanship, which went to Lilias' heart.
"Why should you have any vexation? It is not to be borne!" he cried.
Lilias was so touched with this sympathy that it at once blew her cloud away, and made her feel its injustice more than ever, which is a not unusual paradox of feeling.
"Oh, what right have I to escape vexation?" she said. "I am just like other people." And then she paused, and, looking back, saw the two figures which she had abandoned in such angry haste turning aside into the woods. They cared nothing about her vexation, whoever did so. She laughed in an agitated way, as though she might have cried. There was no concealing her feelings from such a keen observer. "I suppose," she said, "that you are in the secret too?"
"I am in no secret," said Lewis, and his eyes were full of indignation; "but that you should be made the scapegoat – oh, forgive me! but that is what I cannot persuade myself to bear."
"Ah!" said Lilias, "how nice it is to meet with some one who understands without a word! But I am no scapegoat – it is not quite so bad as that."
"It ought not to be so at all," Lewis said, with a touch of severity that had never been seen in his friendly face before.
Lilias looked at him with a little alarm, and with a great deal of additional respect. And then she began to defend the culprits, finding them thus placed before a judge so much more decided than herself.
"They don't think I mind – they don't mean to hurt me," she said.
"But they do hurt you – your delicate mind, your honour, and sense of right. It is much against my interest," said Lewis, "I ought to plead for them, to keep it all going on, for otherwise I should not see you, I should not have my chance too; but it is more strong than me. It ought not to be."
Lilias did not know what to answer him. His words confused her, though she understood but dimly any meaning in them. His chance, too! – what did he mean? But she did not ask anything about his meaning, though his wonder distracted her attention, and made her voice uncertain.
"It is not so bad for me as it would be for them," Lilias said.
And then his countenance, which she had thought colourless often and unimportant, startled her as he turned towards her, so glowing was it with generous indignation. She had used the same words herself, or at least the same idea, but somehow they had not struck her in their full meaning till now.
"Why should they be spared at your expense? But you have no hand nor share in it," he said. "We must bear our own burdens."
"But, Mr. Murray," said Lilias, "what should you think of a friend that would not take your burden upon her shoulders and help you to bear it?" The argument restored her to herself.
"I should think such a friend was more than half divine," he said.
Lilias knew very well that she was not half divine, and Katie's declaration that she was an angel roused nothing but wrath in her mind; nevertheless she was curiously consoled in her troubles by this other hyperbole now.
