Sir Robert's Fortune. Маргарет Олифант
begin.”
Lily dried her eyes; she set her little mouth much as Sir Robert set his, and then said in a small voice: “I am quite ready, Uncle Robert,” looking not unlike the bust as she did so. He did not look at all like the bust, for there was a great deal of humor in his face. He thought he saw through all this little flash in the pan, and that it had been intended from the beginning as a preface of operations and by way of subduing him to her will. In all of which he was quite wrong.
“I am glad to hear it, Lily. Now I want you to be reasonable: the thunder is over and the air is clearer. You want to marry a man of whom I don’t approve.”
“One word,” she said with great dignity. “I am wanting to marry—nobody. There is plenty of time.”
“I accept the correction. You want to carry on a love affair which you prefer at this moment. It is more fun than marrying, and in that way you get all the advantages I can give you, and the advantage of a lover’s attentions into the bargain. I congratulate you, my dear, on making the best, as the preacher says, of both worlds.”
Lily flushed and clasped her hands together, and there came from her expanded nostrils what in Sir Robert’s case we have called a snort of passion. Lily’s nostrils were small and pretty and delicate. This was a puff of heated breath, and no more.
“Eh?” he said; but she mastered herself and said nothing, which made it more difficult for him to go on. Finally, however, he resumed.
“You think,” he said, “that it will be more difficult for me to restrain you if you or your lover have no immediate intention of marrying. And probably he—for I do him the justice to say he is a very acute fellow—sees the advantage of that. But it will not do for me. I must have certainty one way or another. I am not going to give the comfort of my life over into your silly hands. No, I don’t even say that you are sillier than most of your age—on the contrary; but I don’t mean,” he added deliberately, “to put my peace of mind into your hands. You will give me your word to give up the lad Lumsden, or else you will pack off without another word to Dalrugas. It is a comfortable house, and Dougal and his wife will be very attentive to you. What’s in a locality? George Square is pleasant enough, but it’s prose of the deepest dye for a lady in love. You’ll find nothing but poetry on my moor. Poetry,” he added, with a laugh, “sonnets such as you will rarely match, and moonlight nights, and all the rest of it; just the very thing for a lovelorn maiden: but very little else, I allow. And what do you want more? Plenty of time to think upon the happy man.”
His laugh was fiendish, Lily thought, who held herself with both her hands to keep still and to retain command of herself. She made no answer, though the self-restraint was almost more than she could bear.
“Well,” he said, after a pause, “is this what you are going to decide upon? There is something to balance all these advantages. While you are thinking of him he will probably not return the compliment. Out of sight, out of mind. He will most likely find another Lily not so closely guarded as you, and while you are out of the way he will transfer his attention to her. It will be quite natural. There are few men in the world that would not do the same. And while you are gazing over the moor, thinking of him, he will be taking the usual means to indemnify himself and forget you.”
“I am not afraid,” said Lily tersely.
“Oh, you are not afraid? It’s little you know of men, my dear. Lumsden’s a clever, ambitious young fellow. He perhaps believes he’s fond of you. He is fond of any thing that will help him on in the world and give him what he wants—which is a helping hand in life, and ease of mind, and money to tide him over till he makes himself known. Oh, he’ll succeed in the end, there is little doubt of that; but he shall not succeed at my expense. Now, Lily, do not sit and glare, like a waxen image, but give me an answer like a sensible girl, as you can be if you like. Will you throw away your happy life, and society and variety and pleasure, and your balls and parties, all for the sake of a man that the moment your back is turned will think no more of you?”
“Uncle,” said Lily, clearing her throat. But she could not raise her voice, which extreme irritation, indignation, and the strong effort of self-restraint seemed to have stifled. She made an effort, but produced nothing but a hoarse repetition of his name.
“I hope I have touched you,” he said. “Come, my dear, be a sensible lassie, and be sure I am speaking for your good. There are more fish in the sea than ever came out in a net. I will find you a better man than Lumsden, and one with a good house to take you home to, and not a penniless–”
“Stop!” she cried, with an angry gesture. “Stop! Do you think I am wanting a man? Me! Just any man, perhaps, you think, no matter who? Oh, if I were only a laddie instead of a useless girl you would never, never dare, great man as you are, to speak like that to me!”
“Certainly I should not,” he said, with a laugh, “for you would have more sense, and would not think any woman was worth going into exile for. But, girl as you are, Lily, the choice is in your own hands. You can have, not love in a cottage, but love on a moor, which soon will be unrequited love, and that, we all know, is the most tragic and interesting of all.”
“Uncle,” said Lily, slowly recovering herself, “do you think it is a fine thing for a man like you, a grand gentleman, and old, and that knows every thing, to make a jest and a mockery of one that is young like me, and has no words to make reply? Is it a joke to think of me breaking my heart, as you say, among all the bonnie sunsets and the moonlight nights and the lonely, lonely moor? I may have to do it if it’s your will; but it’s not for the like of you, that have your freedom and can do what you choose, to make a mock at those that are helpless like me.”
“Helpless!” he said. “Nothing of the sort; it is all in your own hands.”
And then there was again a pause. He thought she was making up her mind to submit to his will. And she was bursting with the effort to contain herself, and all her indignation and wrath. Her pride would not let her burst forth into cries and tears, but it was with the greatest watchfulness upon herself that she kept in these wild expressions of emotion, and the hot refusals that pressed to her lips—refusals to obey him, to be silenced by him, to be sentenced to unnatural confinement and banishment and dreary exile. Why should one human creature have such power of life and death over another? Her whole being revolted in a passion of restrained impatience and rage and fear.
“Well,” he said lightly, “which is it to be? Don’t trifle with your own comfort, Lily. Just give me the answer that you will see no more of young Lumsden. Give him no more encouragement; think of him no more. That is all I ask. Only give me your promise—I put faith in you. Think of him no more; that is all I ask.”
“All you ask—only that!” said Lily in her fury. “Only that! Oh, it’s not much, is it? not much—only that!” She laughed, too, with a sort of echo of his laugh; but somehow he did not find it to his mind.
“That is all,” he said gravely; “and I don’t think that it is very much to ask, considering that you owe every thing to me.”
“It would have been better for me if I had owed you nothing, uncle,” said Lily. “Why did you ever take any heed of me? I would have been earning my own bread and had my freedom and lived my own life if you had left me as I was.”
“This is what one gets,” he said, as if to himself, with a smile, “for taking care of other people’s children. But we need not fall into general reflections, nor yet into recriminations. I would probably not do it again if I had it to do a second time; but the thing I want from you at the present moment is merely a yes or no.”
“No!” Lily said almost inaudibly; but her tightly closed lips, her resolute face, said it for her without need of any sound.
“No?” he repeated, half incredulous; then, with a nod, flinging back his head: “Well, my dear, you must have your wilful way. Dalrugas will daily be growing bonnier and bonnier at this season of the year; and to-morrow you will get ready to go away.”
CHAPTER IV
“I have been a fool,” said Lily. “I have not said any thing that I meant