CHAPTER II.

Close by the sunshine is the cloud; And yonder o’er the hills, the shadows pass Like breath; across this field they flit, they hover-- And now ’tis bright, and now ’tis dim, and now There’s not a cloud in heaven. Look up again; Lo! all the sky is veiled, the sun shut out-- There’s nothing here but sadness.--ANONYMOUS.

Mrs Buchanan was in high spirits. The friendship of Lilias, and the honour intended for her by the Reverend Robert Insches, had opened a new life to Helen. She was no more the neglected and solitary schoolmistress. The young lady of Mossgray was a frequent visitor at their humble house. Mrs Whyte of Kirkmay had called to make a definite beginning of their friendship--the plaintive Mrs Gray became a regular visitor. Mr Insches took every possible opportunity of stealing into William Oswald’s vacant corner in the quiet parlour. It pleased the good mother “to see her bairn respected like the lave.”

And the change was also very pleasant to Helen. She had been at Kirkmay, and much enjoyed the hospitalities of the Manse--she saw Lilias frequently; and even the handsome head of the Reverend Robert was an agreeable variety, breaking the blank of the dim wall, which for whole years of past evenings had been the only thing she had to look across to. She was still much alone; but the much was not always, and the monotony thus occasionally broken became monotony no longer. The firmament of their quiet life was brightened; it was a pleasant change.

But other changes were progressing; as the spring grew into summer some shadow fell upon Lilias Maxwell. No one knew what it was, nor how produced, but the old paleness returned to her cheek, and the old sinking to her heart. There was no external sign of sorrow or suffering. The change fell upon her like a cloud--such a cloud as does sometimes glide across the sun in the early glory of his shining. She was very calm, very quiet, very thoughtful, but in moments when she fancied no one saw her, her fingers sought each other painfully, and were clasped together, as hands are clasped only in grief or in prayer. But the cause of this she told to no one; and even to her guardian’s affectionate inquiries, she only answered, “It is nothing, Mossgray; indeed it is nothing.”

Very early on a bright May day, Lilias went hastily up along the banks of the wan water, to the house of Murrayshaugh. She had been up that morning earlier than even the wakeful Janet Mense, as if she could not rest; and now she had stolen forth, avoiding any company. She walked more quickly than was usual to her, and over the face, which still wore its look of constitutional calmness, shades of unwonted colour were wavering to and fro; for the Lily of Mossgray was sick at heart--sick with the fever of anxiety--the hope and the fear.

She had become a frequent visitor of Isabell Brown; the old woman was fretfully kind to Lilias; and when the days were warm enough to permit her to receive those calls in Miss Lucy’s parlour, Isabell was very communicative, and told tales of the Murrays, their old grandeur and their present exile with much satisfaction to herself. Lilias meanwhile sat on one of the faded high-backed chairs, opposite the wall on which hung the portrait, and listened pleasantly. Isabell took the young lady of Mossgray’s admiration of the picture as a personal compliment to herself, and there began to spring up a genuine liking for her in the breast of the little sharp old woman; she almost thought Lilias worthy to take rank next to Miss Lucy.

On this particular day Isabell’s dissertation began as usual.

“Ye see, I canna tell what gars Murrayshaugh stay away in thae foreign pairts, and him has a guid house o’ his ain to bide in; but there’s nae accounting for folk’s tastes. For my ain pairt, I wadna gie Murrayshaugh just where ye’re sitting this minute, for a king’s palace; but he’s an awfu’ proud man, Murrayshaugh, and nae doubt he has a guid richt.”

Lilias made some indistinct response; it did not much matter what it was, for Isabell desired a good listener more than anything else.

“It’s maist folk’s pride to be thought rich,” continued the little old housekeeper, with some ostentation; “but Murrayshaugh’s a man far frae the common; it’s his notion to hae the house bare, like as he was puir. It’s naething but folk’s fancy--ane likes ae thing, and ane anither. I wadna wonder noo but ye’ve heard that the Murrays were gaun doun the brae? there’s aye some havers rattling at the heels o’ a gentleman’s ain fancy; as if it was needcessity, when it’s naething but his pleasure.”

Lilias involuntarily glanced round the faded bare room; its look of decayed gentility made a dreary comment on the assumption of the old adherent of the ruined family; but her eye rested again, where it rested so often, on the portrait, and she sighed and did not answer.

“You’re no weel the day,” said Isabell, sympathetically; “and yet it’s bonnie cheerie weather that should be guid for young folk. Eh Miss Maxwell! ane wad think ye kent that picture, ye tak sic weary looks at it; but ye wad never see onybody like that?”

“I think I have,” said Lilias, with a faint smile.

“Like the auld picture that was like Mr Hew? tell us where. It bid to be himsel; there’s only the twa o’ them in the world, and wha should hae the kindly face but their ainsels? I’m saying tell me where ye saw him--for charity tell me where!”

“It was not Mr Murray, Isabell,” said Lilias; “it was a friend--a person I knew in England.”

“And he was like that!” said Isabell. “Do ye think I dinna ken that nae fremd man could be like that? will you tell me what they ca’ed him? Ye’ll read in books whiles, o’ gentles for their ain pleasure taking anither name--it bid to be Mr Hew.”

“His name was Grant,” said Lilias, “he was not Mr Hew; he was a young man--quite young.”

“And what should he be else but young?” said the little old woman, pattering up and down with her short, unequal, agitated steps. “Div ye think he’s withered and auld like me? I tell ye he’s the gallantest lad ye ever set your e’e upon; ye may ca’ that like him, but it’s naething till him--the spark that was in his bonnie e’en, and his brent broo--as if I didna mind! If he was far blythe and lightsomer like than that, and yet had a face that could be wae when need was, for ither folk afore himsel; and if he had a presence o’ his ain that gar’t ye bow, and a smile that made ye fain; then I say it was Mr Hew ye saw, and nae ither living man!”

There was some wonderful power in the old woman’s words. The sad pale head of Lilias slowly followed her motions, as if by some magnetic attraction. She did not speak; but as Isabell ceased, she closed her eyelids painfully, perhaps the better to see again the person thus truthfully described--perhaps to shut in the tears.

The housekeeper pattered up and down for a while in silence; at length she stopped short immediately before Lilias, and repeated with emphasis,--

“I’m telling ye it was Mr Hew.”

“It was not Mr Hew, Isabell,” said Lilias gently, as she rose to go away. “It was one whose home is very far from this; who came from the northern islands far away; and it is a mere fancy of mine that he is like the portrait. He was not Mr Hew.”

Isabell was not satisfied--she accompanied her visitor to the door with many mutterings; the “kindly face” could belong only to a Murray, “it bid to be Mr Hew.”

Lilias turned away across the unsafe bridge, and went hastily up a steep lane which led to the Fendie high-road; she was not going home, and excited and anxious as she was she could not bear the meditative calm of the Waterside.

It was a somewhat long walk, and Lilias was not like herself; her feverish hasty pace, and the painful flushes of colour which now and then crossed her brow, were unnatural. It was the first time she had been tried by this trial--the deadly anxiety with which we shiver and burn, when our sole hope is in peril, and there comes to us no tidings. She thought she could endure to hear of any certain calamity, but that blank of suspense was terrible to her--she could not bear it.

There had been mail after mail from the far East, but no letter for Lilias; and this was the day again. She had gone to Murrayshaugh to fill up the feverish blank of those slow moments; to look once more upon the face which never perhaps she should look upon with faith and trust again; and now she was hurrying to the decision of all those tremulous doubts and fears; if there was a letter to-day--and if there was none--

Her lips were parched--they would hardly meet to ask that question--“No.” Lilias looked into the postmaster’s face wistfully again; she would not hear the denial. “No, there were no letters for Miss Maxwell.”

And immediately there fell upon her a dead calm; a dull slow pain of quietness. She went out in her noiseless way, and glided down the street like a shadow; her heart was sick--she could have seated herself by the road-side, and wept out the slow tears that were gathering under her eyelids, unconscious of any passers-by; but those who did pass by saw only the grave, pale, pensive Lily of Mossgray. The fever was over--there remained no present hope to distract her now, and she was calm again.

And then she began to think, and laboured bravely to put away from her those doubts and fears--but Lilias had not the impulsive energy of hope; the elastic life, which can fight and wrestle with sorrow at its strongest, was not in her; but she could do what the more buoyant could not have done--she could wait--and knowing the time that she must wait, she became calm.

She had intended going home, but as the shock softened, she changed her purpose. She went to borrow hope from Helen Buchanan, in one of those sudden yearnings for gentle company, with which sad hearts are sometimes seized. In her hush and faintness she wanted to have some living thing come in between her and her secret pain--she wanted to forget herself.

It was a holiday with Helen, and she was in a holiday mood, withstanding, with her natural enthusiasm, the gloomy dogmas of Mrs Gray, who was making a gracious call upon Mrs Buchanan. Mrs Buchanan did not much like the melancholy lady; her sanguine gentle temper recoiled from the sombre atmosphere which suited Mrs Gray; but she was Mrs Whyte’s sister, and a “very respectable” acquaintance for Helen; so the good mother submitted pleasantly.

“Are you ill, Lilias?” said Helen.

“No, Helen, it is nothing,” answered Lilias, gently. It was her universal answer; the melancholy cloud was indeed very visible, but she would not speak of the cause.

“My dear,” said Mrs Gray--she was very affectionate, this good doleful woman--her very gloom increased her tenderness; “I am very much afraid you are not taking sufficient care of yourself. I am sure you got damp feet that day you were at the Manse, and Elizabeth would never think of asking you to change them. Elizabeth is really very careless about damp feet; she never heeds them herself--and I have known many a one get a consumption with them. You are looking very white, my dear; you must really take care.”

“I am quite well, Mrs Gray,” said Lilias; “perfectly well, I assure you.”

Mrs Gray shook her head.

“Really, my dear, people never know. We are well to-day, and ill to-morrow: it is a strange world.”

The proposition in this case being very abstract no one controverted it.

“When I see,” continued Mrs Gray, oratorically, “young people going out on the world with such false notions as most of them have, poor things, it grieves me, Mrs Buchanan. So little as there is to enjoy after all, even if they get all they expect.”

Mrs Buchanan, like Mr Oswald, had an old-fashioned prejudice that there was something orthodox in all this; a prejudice which made her diffident of answering.

“Poor things!” she echoed, with a slight falter; “but after all, Mrs Gray, we had light hearts in our own youth, and why should we discourage them? Sorrow aye comes soon enough.”

A sigh from Lilias sounded like an assent: and the Lily of Mossgray indeed bent her weary head and assented. She began to believe that sorrow--nothing but sorrow--was the common lot.

But Helen’s face was flushing--her small head growing erect. Mrs Gray turned round--she was no coward--to face her vowed antagonist.

“Miss Buchanan, my dear, I am speaking the truth. People say that the happiest part of life is youth; now just look at yourself. Toiling and labouring with these children; wearied with them every night, but just having to begin again every morning! with little time to yourself--to visit your friends, or read, or whatever you might choose. My dear, just look at it yourself. What have you to enjoy?”

Helen started.

“I have all the world--not this little humble house--not that school-room only; but the earth, and the sky, and the sea! Look at them--look at what God gives us--the sunshine and the clouds--the hills and the rivers--and you ask me what I have to enjoy? I have all the world! the weariness and the rest, the labour and the sleep, the night and the day, they are all given us, waiting our pleasures like the spirits of the old dreams. There is no one born into the earth who is not born rich, richer than kings, for we have all the world.”

Mrs Gray was not prepared to answer this; she turned away to look from the window at the flowers, and prudently shook her head, half at the wild doctrine, and half at the eager manner; but she tilted no more at that time with Helen.

“Will you walk up with me to Mossgray, Helen?” said Lilias, in the subdued melancholy voice which made the petition more urgent than a command; and Helen consented at once. As they descended the steps at the bridge, and waded through the long, thick grass, which spread between the backs of the Fendie houses and the river, the pensive calm of Lilias touched the variable spirit of her friend. They began to talk in that tone of half-playful sadness which often veils over griefs which the speakers would not tell. It is the mood of speculation; and they were neither of them too old for the girlish dreamy fancies, half-superstitious, which belong to our imaginative years.

“I wonder,” said Lilias, “whether our minds are formed, Helen, to suit our fate? I mean that our griefs are made for us, like our dwellings, with an individual fitness in them all. It seems so strange sometimes, as if on one person had fallen the fate which properly belonged to another; yet it must be that we are suited always--our minds with our trials.”

“It must be,” said the bolder Helen, “for what would be joy to one is nothing to another, Lilias. I think I could fancy what my troubles would be, and yours?”

“Tell me, Helen.”

“Calm, grave, quiet sorrows, which will not have the fever of doubt and hope in them, which you will know certainly, and be able to weep silent tears for. Lilias, I think these will be yours; and for me--I do not know--I think strong troubles that I can fight and battle with; unquiet, living griefs that will keep me strained and labouring. Lilias, is it not my foolish fancies that make you sad?”

“No. I do not see the sun just now, that is all,” said the pale calm Lilias, shutting the eyes which were again full. “Helen, Helen, let us not say any more.”