Sir Robert's Fortune

“Sir: My mistress has been at the point of death with what they call a brain-fever. It has lasted the longest and been the fiercest that ever the doctor saw. She is coming round now—the Lord be praised—but very slow. She has but one thought—you will know well what that is—and will never rest till she has got satisfaction, night or day.

“I am, sir,“Your obedient servant,“Robina Rutherford.

“P. S.—I was to tell you the last part, for it is not from me.”

There was not much satisfaction to be got from this letter, and, indeed, his mind got little relief from any thing, and the time of Lily’s illness was a time of mental trouble for the husband, which was not, perhaps, more easy to bear. Had he lost her altogether? It seemed like that, though he could not think it possible that the child at least should be allowed to drop, or that the fever could have made her forget, which it was evident she had not done in his own case. The courts had begun again, and Lumsden was more occupied than he had ever been in his life. He made one furtive visit to Kinloch-Rugas, where he heard something of Lily’s state, and engaged Helen Blythe to communicate with him any thing that reached her ears. But no one was allowed to see her in her illness, and this gave him small satisfaction. He did not dare to go near the house, which Sir Robert guarded more effectually than a squadron of soldiers. There was nothing for him to do but to wait. The unusual rush of occupation which came upon him with the beginning of the session had a certain irony in it, that irony which is so often apparent in life. Was he about to become a successful man now that the chief thing which made life valuable was slipping out of his grasp? He went about his business briskly, and rose to the claims of his business and profession, so that he began to be mentioned in the Parliament House and among his contemporaries, and even by elder men of still more importance, who said of him that young Lumsden, old Pontalloch’s son, though he had hung fire at first, was now beginning at last to come to the front. Was it possible that this was coming to him, this exhilarating tide of success, just at the moment when Lily, who would have stood by him in evil fortune and never failed him, had dropped away from his side? To do him justice, he had never thought of success, of wealth, of prosperity, without her to share it. And he did not understand it now. He could not understand how even a woman, however ignorant or unreasonable by nature, could be so narrow as not to see that all he had done had been for the best. The last step, no doubt, might be allowed to be hard upon her, but what else was possible? Could she for a moment have entertained the idea of keeping the child—a baby that cried and made a noise, and could not be hid—at Dalrugas? Even if there had been no word of Sir Robert, it still would have been impossible; and he had done no more than he had a right to do. He had considered, and considered most carefully—he did himself but justice in this—what as her head and guardian it was best for him to do. It was his duty as well as his right; and the responsibility being upon him as the husband, and not upon her as the wife, he had done it. Was it possible that Lily—a creature full of intelligence on other matters, who even now and then picked up a thing quicker than he did himself—should not have sense enough and judgment enough to see this? But these thoughts, though they mingled with all he did, and accompanied him night and day, did not make things any better. The fact that she had taken no notice of him all this time, that she had not written to him even to upbraid him, that she had not even asked him for news of the child, was very heavy on Lumsden’s mind—almost, I had said, upon his heart, for he still had a heart, notwithstanding all that had come and gone. Perhaps it might have relieved him a little had he known that news had been obtained of the child, though not through him. Marg’ret—who, though she had been unfaithful to the young mother, to whom at the same time she had been so kind, certainly had a heart, which smote her much as being a party to a proceeding which became more and more doubtful the more she thought of it—had written twice to Beenie, altogether superior to the question of the eightpence to pay, to assure her of the baby’s health. He was well, he was thriving, his mother would not know him he had grown so big and strong, and Marg’ret hoped that ere long she would put him, just a perfect beauty, into his mother’s arms. These queer missives, sealed with a wafer and a thimble, had been better than all the eloquent letters in the world to Lily. When those from Ronald, full of excellent reason and all the philosophy that could be brought to bear on the circumstances, were given to her on her recovery, they had but made her wound more bitter and her resentment more warm; but the nurse’s letters had given her strength. They had made her able to charm and please her uncle; they had enabled her to face life again and fight her way back to a certain degree of health; they had sustained her in her journey, and this first set out upon the world to manage her own affairs, which was as novel to her as if she had been fifteen, instead of twenty-five. They wanted only one thing—they had no address. The postmark was Edinburgh, but Edinburgh was (to these inexperienced women) a very wide word.

What Lily had intended to do when she had found out Marg’ret and recovered her child—as she was so confident of doing—I cannot tell. She did not herself know. This was the first step to be taken: every thing else came a world behind. Whether she was to carry the baby back in her arms, to beard Sir Robert with it and make her explanation—though with the conviction that she would then be turned from the door of her only home forever—or whether she intended, having escaped, to do what always seems so easy and natural to a girl’s imagination: to fly away somewhere and hide herself with her child, and be fed by the ravens, like the prophet—she herself did not know and I cannot tell. The only thing certain was that she thought of the little house among the Edinburgh roofs—that house which could only be got at the term, and which it now made her heart sick to think of—no more. Had she found the door open for her and every thing ready Lily would have turned her back on that open door. She could not endure the thought of it; she could not even think of the time when it would have been paradise to her, the realization of her dearest hopes. In the depths of her injured soul she would have desired to find her child without even making her presence known to her husband. She had no desire even to see him again—he seemed to have alienated her too completely for any repentance. And up to this moment, her mind being altogether occupied by her child, none of those relentings toward those whom we have loved and who have wronged us, which make the heart bleed, had come upon Lily. She thought of nothing but her child, her child! to have him again in her arms, to possess him again, the one thing in the world that was entirely her own, altogether her own. The fact that this was not so, that the child was not and never could be entirely her own, did not disturb Lily’s mind. Had she been reminded of it she would not have believed. She thought, as every young mother thinks in the wonderful closeness of that new relation and the sense of all it has cost her, that to this at least there could be no contradiction and no doubt—that her baby was hers, hers! and that no one in the world had the right to him that she had. It was for him that she hurried, as much as any one could hurry in these days, to Edinburgh, grudging every moment of delay—the time of changing the horses, which she felt inclined to get out and do herself, so slow, so slow was every-body concerned; the time for refreshments, as if one wanted to eat and drink when one was hastening to recover one’s child. But however slow a journey is the end of it comes at last. It was a comfort to Lily that she knew where to go to—to the house of a very decent woman, known to Beenie, who kept lodgings, and where she could be quite quiet, out of the way of her former friends. But they arrived only in the evening, and there was another long night to be gone through before any thing could be done.

CHAPTER XL

Robina had become more and more anxious and uneasy as they approached Edinburgh. She did not seem to share the anxious elation with which her mistress hailed the well-known features of the country, and recognized the Castle on its rock, and the high line of houses against the sky. Lily was in a state of feverish excitement, but it was mingled with so many hopes and anticipations that even her anxiety was a kind of happiness. “To-morrow! to-morrow!” she said to herself. Beenie listened with much solemnity to this happy tone of certainty. She would have liked to moralize, and bid her mistress modify her too great confidence. As the moment approached when it should be justified Beenie’s mind became more and more perturbed. It was she who had been instrumental in bringing Marg’ret from Edinburgh, pretending, indeed, that the woman was her cousin, and she had till now taken it for granted, as Lily had done, without any doubt in her mind, that where Marg’ret had been found once she would be found again. But as the hour came nearer Beenie’s confidence in this became much shaken. If he wanted to hide the child from his mother—a course which Beenie acknowledged to herself would be the wisest one, for how could the baby and Sir Robert ever live under the same roof?—would he have allowed the nurse to settle there, where her address was known and she could be found in a moment? Beenie’s intellect was not quick, but she did not think this was probable. She was not accustomed to secrecy or to the tricks of concealment: they had not even occurred to her till now; but when she realized that she was to be her mistress’s guide on the next morning to the house where Lily had persuaded herself she was certain to find her child, her heart sank to her boots, and there was no more strength left in her. “And what if we dinna find her there? and wherefore should we find her there?” Beenie asked herself. It stood to reason, as she saw now, that Lumsden would never have permitted her to remain. Why had she not thought of it before? Why had she come on such a fool’s errand, to plunge her mistress only into deeper and deeper disappointment? Beenie did not sleep all night, though Lily slept, in her great fatigue, like a child. Beenie was terrified of the morning, and of the visit which she now felt sure would be in vain. Oh, why had she not seen it before? He must have known that the mother would not give up her child without an attempt to recover him (“Though what we are to do with him, poor wee man, when we get him!” Beenie said to herself), and he would never have left the baby where it could be found at once, and all his precautions made an end of. Beenie saw now, enlightened by terror, that this plan must have been in Lumsden’s head all the time, though Sir Robert’s sudden arrival gave the opportunity for carrying it out. She saw now that after all that had been done to keep the secret he was not likely to allow it to be thrown to the winds by the presence of the child at Dalrugas if he could help it. She divined this under the influence of her own alarm and anxiety. And would he let the woman bide there in a kent place where Lily could lay her hands upon the child whenever she pleased, night or day? Oh, no, no, no! he would never do that, was the refrain that ran through Beenie’s mind all the night. She had thought how delightful it would be to hear the clocks striking and the bells ringing after the deep, deep silence of the moor. But this satisfaction was denied her, for all the bells and the clocks seemed to upbraid her for her foolishness. “Sae likely! Sae likely!” one of them seemed to say in every chime. “Cheating himself! Cheating himself!” said another. And was there not yet one, heavier than the rest—St. Giles himself for any thing she could tell—which seemed to echo out: “You fool, Beenie! You fool, Beenie!” over all the listening town?

“Oh, my bonnie leddy!” said Beenie, when Lily, all flushed and eager with anticipation, took her place in the old-fashioned hackney coach that was to take them to Marg’ret’s abode. This was in a narrow street, or rather close, leading off the Canongate—one of those places hidden behind the great houses which lead to tranquil little spots of retirement, and openings into the fresh air and green braes, which no stranger could believe possible. “Oh, my bonnie leddy, dinna, dinna be so terrible sure! I’ve been thinking a’ the way—what if she should have flitted? There was nae address to her letter. She may have flitted to another house. She may be away at other work.”

“What! and leave my baby!” cried Lily, “when she said in her letter he was all her occupation, as well as all her pleasure! I almost forgave her what she’s done to me for saying that.”

“And so she did,” said Beenie doubtfully. “Oh, I’m no saying a word against Marg’ret—she would be faithfu’ to her trust. But she might flit to another house for a’ that. In Edinburgh the folk are aye flittin’. I canna tell what possesses them. Me—I would bide where I was well off; I would never think of making a change just for change’s sake. But that is what they’re aye doing here.”

“Have you heard any thing, Beenie?” cried Lily, turning pale. She had been so sure that the cup of joy was within reach, that the thirsting of her heart would be at once satisfied, that she felt as if a disappointment would be more than she could bear.

“Oh, mem,” cried Beenie, producing a bottle of salts from her capacious pocket, “dinna let down your heart! I have heard naething. I was just speaking of a common fact that every-body kens. And if she had flitted, they would maybe ken where she had gone. Oh, ay, they would certainly ken where she has gone—a woman and a bairn canna disappear leaving no sign. It’s not like a single person, that might just be off and away, and nobody the wiser, mem! I am maybe just speaking nonsense, and we’ll see her at her door in a moment, with our bonnie boy in her airms.”

Beenie, however, had succeeded better than she had hoped. She had conveyed to her mistress that sickening of the heart which, from the most ancient days of humanity, has been the consequence of hope deferred. The light went out of Lily’s eyes. She leaned back in her corner, closing them upon a world which had suddenly grown black and void. She did not lose consciousness, being far too strongly bound to life by hope and despair and pain to let the thread drop even for a moment; but Beenie thought she had fainted, and, heartstruck with what seemed to her her own work, produced out of the reticule she carried a whole magazine of remedies—precious eau-de-Cologne, which was no common thing in those days, and vinegar with a sharp, aromatic scent, more used then than now, and even as the last resort a small bottle of whiskey, which she tried hard, though with a hand that trembled, to administer in a teaspoon. Lily had strength enough to push her away, and, in self-defence, opened her eyes again, seeing grayly once more the firmament, and the high houses on either side, and the dull day from which all light seemed to have gone. It was she, however, who sprang out of the coach when it stopped at the entrance to the close. Every-body knows what the Canongate of Edinburgh is—one of the most noble streets, yet without question the most squalid and spoiled of any street in Europe, with beautiful stately old houses standing sadly among the hideous growths of yesterday, and evil smells and evil noises enough to sicken every visitor and to shame every man who has any thing to do with such a careless and wicked sacrifice of the city’s pride and ornament.1 But even in the midst of this disgraceful debasement there remain beyond the screen of the great old houses glimpses of the outlets which the old citizens provided for themselves—old court-yards, even old gardens, old houses secure within their little enclosures where the air is still pure and the sky is still visible. Lily’s heart rose a little as she came out of the narrow entrance of the close into one of these unexpected openings. If he were here, he would be well. She could see the green beyond and the high slopes of Salisbury Crags. There was something in the vision of greenness, in the noble heights flung up against the sky, which restored her confidence.

But it was perhaps well that Beenie had spoken even so little adroitly on the way, for, indeed, Marg’ret was not found at her old address. She had never gone back there, they were told, since the time when she was called away in the summer to attend a lady in the North. She had not, indeed, been expected back. She had given up her rooms on going away, and removed her little furniture, and the rooms had been relet at once to a member of the same profession, who hoped to be sometimes mistaken for Marg’ret, a person of high reputation in her own line. The landlady knew nothing of the baby she had now to take care of nor where she was. The furniture? Oh, yes, she could find out where the furniture had been taken, but Marg’ret herself, she felt sure, had never come back. She was maybe with the lady still—the lady in the North. She was so much thought upon that whiles they would keep her, if the baby were delicate, for months and months. She had a wonderful way with babies, the woman said. (At this Lily, who had been leaning heavily on her attendant’s arm, with her pale face hidden under her veil, and all her courage gone, began to gather a little spirit and looked up again.) Oh, just a wonderful way! They just throve wi’ her like flowers in May. What she did different from ither folk there was not one could tell: if it was the way she handled them, or the way she fed them, or the pittin’ on o’ their claithes, with fykes and fancies that a puir buddy with the man’s meat to get and the house to keep clean had no time for. But the fack was just this, that there was nobody like Marg’ret Bland for little bairns. They were just a different thing a’thegither when they were in her hands.

As this little harangue went on Lily’s feeble figure hanging on Beenie’s arm straightened itself by degrees. She put up her veil and beamed upon the homely woman, who showed evident signs that she had little time, as she said, to keep herself tidy for one thing. Lily was not discouraged by so small a matter. She said, holding out her hand: “Then you would leave a baby in her hands and have no fear?”

“Eh, my bonnie leddy,” cried the woman, with a half shriek, wiping her hands upon her apron before she ventured to touch the lady’s glove, “I would trust Marg’ret Bland maist to bring them back from the deid.”

“We must find her, that is all,” said Lily, as they turned away, Beenie trembling and miserable, with subdued sniffs coming from under her deep bonnet. Her mistress, in the petulance which neither anxiety nor trouble could quench, gave her “a shake” with her arm, which still leaned upon hers, though Lily for the moment was the more vigorous of the two. “We must find her, that is all! She must be clever indeed if she can hide herself in Edinburgh and you and me not find her, Beenie! We must search every street till we find her!” Lily cried. The color had come back to her cheeks and the light to her eyes. That blessed assurance that, wherever Marg’ret might be, the baby was safe, doubly safe in her skilled and experienced hands, was to the young mother like wine. The horror of the disappointment seemed to be disguised, almost to pass away, in that unpremeditated testimony. If it was for to-morrow rather than for to-day so long as he was so safe, so well, so assured against all harm, as that! “We have only to find her,” Lily said, dragging Beenie back to the hackney coach, in which they immediately drove to the place where Marg’ret, now to be spoken of as Mistress Bland, had been supposed to place her furniture. But this was no more than a warehouse, where the person in charge allowed disdainfully that twa-three auld sticks o’ furniture in that name were in his charge, but knew nothing more of the wumman than just that they were hers, and that that was her name. Lily, however, was not discouraged. She drove about all day in her hackney coach, catching at every clue. She went to the hospitals, where Mrs. Bland was known but supposed to be still with the lady in the North who had secured her services in the summer.

“If you know where she’s to be heard of,” one of the matrons said, “I will be too thankful, for there is another place waiting for her or somebody like her.”

“And is she such a good nurse as that?” cried Lily, glowing with eagerness all in a moment, though her face had relapsed into pallor and anxiety.

“She is one of the best nurses we have; and especially happy with delicate children,” the matron answered with some astonishment. And she tapped Beenie on the shoulder and said an indignant word in her ear. “Woman!” she said, “are you mad to let your mistress wander about like this, when it’s well to be seen she’s just out of her bed, and in my opinion not long past her time?”

“My mistress,” said Beenie, with a gasp, “is just a young lady—in from the country.”

“Just you get her back as fast as you can,” said the experienced woman, “or you’ll have her worse than ever on your hands again.”

But this was what Beenie could not do. She had to follow Lily’s impetuous lead on many a wild-goose-chase and hopeless expedition here and there from one place to another during the rest of the day; and when they returned to their lodgings, worn out and cast down, in the evening, it was still the mistress who had the most strength and spirit left. “There is only one thing to do now,” she said, while Beenie placed her on the hard sofa beside the fire, and endeavored to induce her to rest. Her face was very pale and her eyes very bright, with a faint redness round the eyelids accentuating the absence of color. “There is one thing to do. Mr. Lumsden”—she paused a little after the name, as if it made her other words more difficult or exhausted her breath—“will have come back now to his lodging. You know where that is as well as I do. You will go and tell him that he is to come to me here.”

“Mem!” cried Beenie in great perturbation.

“Did you think,” said Lily, very clear, in a high, scornful tone, “that I would come to Edinburgh and not see my husband? Is it not my duty to see my husband? You will go to him at once!”

“It is no that,” cried Beenie; “I thought you would see him first of all. He’s your man, oh! my dear, dear lassie—you’re married upon him never to be parted till death comes atween you. I would have had you see him first of a’, and weel ye ken that; but now when you’re wearied out body and mind, and nae satisfaction in your heart, and every thing that is atween ye worse and worse by reason of muckle pondering and dwelling on it—oh, mem, my dear, no to-night, no to-night! You have a sharp tongue, though you never mean it, and he is a gentleman that is not used to be crossed and has aye had his ain way. Oh, mem, he’s a masterful man, though he’s never been but sweet as sugar to you. Try to take a sleep and rest, and wait for the morn. The morn is aye a new day.”

“I am glad,” said Lily, with shining eyes, “that you think I have a sharp tongue, Beenie; and you may be sure, if ever I meant it in my life, I will mean it now. But I will not discuss Mr. Lumsden with you or any one. You will just go to him–”

“Mem, let me speak once, if I’m never to say a word again!” cried Beenie. “That your heart should be sore to see the dear bairn, to take him back into your airms, oh, that I can weel understand. So is mine, though I’m far, far from being what you are to him, and no to be named in the same breath. But, mem, oh, my dear leddy, my bonnie Miss Lily! if I may just say that once again, what will ye do with him when you have him? Oh, let me speak—just this once. You canna, canna take him to that auld gentleman at hame; you canna do it. He has maybe not been much to you in the years that are past, but he’s awfu’ fond of you now. He looks to you to make him a home, to be the comfort of his old age. Oh! I’m no saying he deserves it at your hands. But what do the best of us deserve? We just get what we dinna deserve from God the first, and sometimes from a tender he’rt here below. And he is an auld man and frail; he has maybe no long to live. Will you tell him a’ that long story, how we’ve deceived him and the whole world, and about your marriage, and about the birth, and a’ in his house, that he meant for such different things?”