Читать книгу Sir Robert's Fortune - Mrs. Oliphant - Страница 4

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Lily’s room was faintly illuminated by a couple of candles, which, as it was a large room with gloomy furniture, made little more than darkness visible, except about the table on which they stood, the white cover of which, and the dressing-glass that stood upon it, diffused the light a little. It was not one of those dainty chambers in which our Lilys of the present day are housed. One side of the room was occupied by a large wardrobe of almost black mahogany, polished and gleaming with many years’ manipulation, but out of reach of these little lights. The bed was a large four-post bed, which once had been hung with those moreen curtains which were the triumph of the bad taste of our fathers, and had their appropriate accompaniment in black hair-cloth sofas and chairs. Lily had been allowed to substitute for the moreen white dimity, which was almost as bad, and hung stiff as a board from the valance ornamented with bobs of cotton tassels. She could not help it if that was the best that could be done in her day. Every thing, except the bed, was dark, and the distance of the large room was black as night, except for the relief of an open door into a small dressing-room which Robina occupied, and in which a weird little dip candle with a long wick unsnuffed was burning feebly. Nobody can imagine nowadays what it was to have candles which required snuffing, and which, if not attended to, soon began to bend and topple over, with a small red column of consumed wick, in the midst of a black and smoking crust. A silver snuffer tray is quite a pretty article nowadays, and proves that its possessor had a grandfather; but then! The candles on the dressing-table, however, were carefully snuffed, and burned as brightly as was possible for them while Robina took off her young mistress’s great white Indian mantle, with its silken embroideries, and undid her little pearl necklace. Lily had the milk-white skin of a Scotch girl, and the rose-tints; but she was brown in hair and eyes, as most people are in all countries, and had no glow of golden hair about her. She was tired and pale that night, and the tears were very near her eyes.

“Ye’ve been dancing more than ye should; these waltzes and new-fangled things are real exhaustin’,” Robina said.

“I have been dancing very little,” said Lily; “my heart was too heavy. How can you dance when you have got your sentence in your pocket, and the police coming for you to haul you away to the Grassmarket by skreigh of day?”

“Hoot, away with ye!” cried Robina, “what nonsense are ye talking? My bonnie dear, ye’ll dance many a night yet at a’ the assemblies, and go in on your ain man’s airm——”

“It’s you that’s talking nonsense now. On whose arm? Have we not got our sentence, you and me, to be banished to Dalrugas to-morrow, and never to come back—unless——”

“Ay, Miss Lily, unless! but that’s a big word.”

“It is, perhaps, a big word; but it cannot touch me, that am not of the kind that breaks my word or changes my mind,” said Lily, raising her head with a gesture full of pride.

“Oh, Miss Lily, my dear, I ken what the Ramsays are!” cried the faithful maid; “but there might be two meanings till it,” and she breathed a half sigh over her young mistress’s head.

“You think, I know—and maybe I once thought, too; but you may dismiss that from your mind, as I do,” said the girl, with a shake of the head as if she were shaking something off. And then she added, clasping her hands together: “Oh, if I were strong enough just to say, ‘I am not caring about your money. I am not afraid to be poor. I can work for my own living, and you can give your siller where you please!’ Oh, Beenie, that is what I want to say!”

“No, my darlin’, no; you must not say that. Oh, you must not say that!” Robina cried.

“And why? I must not do this or the other, and who are you that dares to say so? I am my mother’s daughter as well as my father’s, and if that’s not as good blood, it has a better heart. I might go there—they would not refuse me.”

“Without a penny,” said Robina. “Can you think o’t, Miss Lily? And is that no banishment too?”

Lily rose from her chair, shaking herself free from her maid, with her pretty hair all hanging about her shoulders. It was pretty hair, though it was brown like every-body else’s, full of incipient curl, the crispness yet softness of much life. She shook it about her with her rapid movement, bringing out all the undertones of color, and its wavy freedom gave an additional sparkle to her eyes and animation to her look. “Without a penny!” she cried. “And who is caring about your pennies? You and the like of you, but not me, Beenie—not me! What do I care for the money, the filthy siller, the pound notes, all black with the hands they’ve come through! Am I minding about the grand dinners that are never done, and the parties, where you never see those you want to see, and the balls, where—— Just a little cottage, a drink of milk, and a piece of cake off the girdle, and plenty to do: it’s that that would please me!”

“Oh, my bonnie Miss Lily!” was all that Beenie said.

“And when I see,” said the girl, pacing up and down the room, her hair swinging about her shoulders, her white under-garments all afloat about her in the energy of her movements, “that other folk think of that first. Whatever you do, you must not risk your fortune. Whatever you have to bear, you must not offend your uncle, for he has the purse-strings in his hand. Oh, my uncle, my uncle! It’s not,” she cried, “that I wouldn’t be fond of him if he would let me, and care for what he said, and do what he wanted as far as I was able: but his money! I wish—oh, I wish his money—his money—was all at the bottom of the sea!”

“Whisht! whisht!” cried Beenie, with a movement of horror. “Oh, but that’s a dreadful wish! You would, maybe, no like it yourself, Miss Lily, for all you think now; but what would auld Sir Robert be without his money? Instead of a grand gentleman, as he is, he would just be a miserable auld man. He couldna bide it; he would be shootin’ himself or something terrible. His fine dinners and his house, and his made dishes and his wine that costs as much as would keep twa-three honest families! Oh, ye dinna mean it, ye dinna mean it, Miss Lily! You dinna ken what you are saying; ye wouldna like it yoursel’, and, oh, to think o’ him!”

Lily threw herself down in the big chair, which rose above her head with its high back and brought out all her whiteness against its sober cover. She was silenced—obviously by the thought thus suggested of Sir Robert as a poor man, which was an absurdity, and perhaps secretly, in that innermost seclusion of the heart, which even its possessor does not always realize, by a faint chill of wonder whether she would indeed and really like to be poor, as she protested she should. It was quite true that a drink of milk and a piece of oatcake appeared to her as much nourishment as any person of refinement need care for. In the novels of her day, which always affect the young mind, all the heroines lived upon such fare, and were much superior to beef and mutton. But there were undoubtedly other things—Robina, for instance; although no thought of parting from Robina had ever crossed Lily’s mind as a necessary part of poverty. But she was silenced by these thoughts. She had not, indeed, ever confessed in so many words even to Robina, scarcely to herself, that it was Ronald who cared for the money, and that it was the want of any impulse on his part to do without it that carried so keen a pang to her heart. Had he cried, “A fig for the money!” then it might have been her part to temporize and be prudent. The impetuosity, the recklessness, should not, she felt, be on her side.

It was on the very next day that her decision was to be made, and it had not been till all other means had failed that Sir Robert had thus put the matter to the touch. He had opposed her in many gentler ways before it came to that. Sir Robert was not a brute or a tyrant—very far from it. He was an old gentleman of fine manners, pluming himself on his successes with “the other sex,” and treating all women with a superfine courtesy which only one here and there divined to conceal contempt. Few men—one may say with confidence, no elderly man without wife or daughters—has much respect for women in general. It is curious, it is to some degree reciprocal, it is of course always subject to personal exceptions; yet it is the rule between the two sections of humanity which nevertheless have to live in such intimate intercourse with each other. In an old bachelor like Sir Robert, and one, too, who was conscious of having imposed upon many women, this prepossession was more strong than among men of more natural relationships. And Lily, who was only his niece, and had not lived with him until very lately, had not overcome all prejudices in his mind, as it is sometimes given to a daughter to do. He had thought first that he could easily separate her from the young man who did not please him, and bestow her, as he had a right to bestow his probable heiress, on whom he pleased. When this proved ineffectual, he cursed her obstinacy, but reflected that it was a feature in women, and therefore nothing to be surprised at. They were always taken in by fictitious qualities—who could know it better than he?—and considered it a glory to stick to a suitor unpalatable to their belongings. And then he had threatened her with the loss of the fortune which she had been brought up to expect. “See if this fine fellow you think so much of will have you without your money,” he said. Lily had never in so many words put Lumsden to the trial, never proposed to him to defy Sir Robert; but she had made many an attempt to discover his thoughts, and even to push him to this rash solution, and, with an ache at her heart, had felt that there was at least a doubt whether the fine fellow would think so much of her if she were penniless. She had never put it to the test, partly because she dared not, though she had not been able to refrain from an occasional burst of defiance and hot entreaty to Sir Robert to keep his money to himself. And now she was to decide for herself—to give Ronald over forever, or to give over Edinburgh and the society in which she might meet him, and keep her love at the cost of martyrdom in her uncle’s lonely shooting-box on the moors. There was, of course, a second alternative—that which she had so often thought of: to refuse, to leave Sir Robert’s house, to seek refuge in some cottage, to live on milk and oatcake, and provide for herself. If the alternative had been to run away with her lover, to be married to him in humility and poverty, to keep his house and cook his dinners and iron his linen, Lily would not have hesitated for a moment. But he had not asked her to do this—had not dreamed of it, it seemed; and to run away alone and work for herself would be, Lily felt, to expose him to much animadversion as well as herself; and, most of all, it would betray fully to herself and to her uncle, with that sneer on his face, the certainty that Ronald would not risk having her without her money, that discovery which she held at arm’s-length and would not consent to make herself sure of. All these thoughts were tumultuous in her mind as she opened her eyes to the light of a new day. This was the final moment, the turning-point of her life. She thought at first when she woke that it was still the same misty moonlight on which she had shut her eyes, and that there must still be some hours between her and the day. But it was only an easterly haar with which the air was full—a state of atmosphere not unknown in Edinburgh, and which wraps the landscape in a blinding shroud as of white wool, obliterating every feature in a place which has so many. Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Craigs and the Castle Rock had all disappeared in it from those who were in a position to see them; and here, in George Square, even the brown houses opposite had gone out of sight, and the trees in the garden loomed dimly like ghosts, a branch thrust out here and there. Lily asked herself, was it still night? And then her mind awoke to a state of the atmosphere not at all unusual, and a sense that the moment of her fate had arrived, and that every thing must be settled for her for good or for evil this day.

She was very quiet, and said scarcely any thing even to Robina, who dressed her young mistress with the greatest care, bringing out a dress of which Sir Robert had expressed his approval, without consulting Lily, who indeed paid little attention to this important matter. Considering the visions of poverty and independence that ran in her mind, it was wonderful how peaceably she resigned herself to Robina’s administration. Sometimes, when a fit of that independence seized her, she would push Robina away and do every thing for herself. Beenie much exaggerated the misfortunes of the result in such moments. “Her hair just a’ come down tumbling about her shoulders in five minutes,” she said, which was not true: though Lily did not deny that she was not equal to the elaborate braids which were in fashion at the moment, and could not herself plait her hair in any thing more than three strands, while Beenie was capable of seven, or any number more.

But to-day she was quite passive, and took no interest in her appearance. Her hair was dressed in a sort of coronet, which was a mode only used on grand occasions. Ordinarily it was spread over the back of the head in woven coils and circles. There was not any thing extraordinary in Lily’s beauty. It was the beauty of youth and freshness and health, a good complexion, good eyes, and features not much to speak of. People did not follow her through the streets, nor stand aside to make way for her when she entered a room. In Edinburgh there were hundreds as pretty as she; and yet, when all was said, she was a pretty creature, good enough and fair enough to be a delight and pride to any one who loved her. She had innumerable faults, but she was all the sweeter for them, and impulses of temper, swift wrath, and indignation, and impatience, which proved her to be any thing but perfect. Sometimes she would take you up at a word and misinterpret you altogether. In all things she was apt to be too quick, to run away with a meaning before you, if you were of slow movement, had got it half expressed. And this and many other things about her were highly provoking, and called forth answering impatience from others. But for all this she was a very lovable, and, as other girls said, nice, girl. She raised no jealousies; she entertained no spites. She was always natural and spontaneous, and did nothing from calculation, not even so much as the putting on of a dress. It did not occur to her even to think, to enquire whether she was looking her best when the hour had come at which she was to go to Sir Robert. Robina took her by the shoulders and turned her slowly round before the glass; but Lily did not know why. She gave her faithful servant a faint smile over her own shoulder in the mirror, but it did not enter into her mind that it was expedient to look her best when she went down stairs to her uncle. If any one had put it into words, she would have asked, what did he care? Would he so much as notice her dress? It was ridiculous to think of such a thing—an old man like Sir Robert, with his head full of different matters. Thus, without any thought on that subject, she went slowly down stairs—not flying, as was her wont—very sedately, as if she were counting every step; for was it not her fate and Ronald’s which was to be settled to-day?