Lionel went away in a frame of mind very different from that with which he had followed his mother upstairs. He looked into the parlour with a countenance so solemn that the little party assembled there, and congratulating themselves on everything having gone off so well, were entirely chilled. Mrs. Joscelyn, reposing in her chair with her hands clasped, was smiling with relief and pleasure, while Joan described all the pangs with which she had looked forward to the arrival of my Lady. “I thought she would be so stiff and so grand,” said Joan, “Lord, I don’t know what I didn’t think; but she’s as nice a woman as mother or myself, and takes nothing upon her. As long as I live I’ll never be afraid of a fine lady again.” Here Lionel’s solemn voice was heard at the door.
“I have come to say good night,” he said; “no, thank you, I will not sit down. I have a long walk before me; not anything, thank you. My mother is very comfortable, and much obliged to you, Mrs. Joscelyn. I beg I may not trouble anyone to open the door.”
“What is the matter with him with all his ‘thank yous,’ and his ‘not troubling any ones,’” cried Joan when he went away without a smile. It was generally Lydia who let him out, which perhaps Mrs. Joscelyn should not have permitted. But to-night Lydia was checked by his cold looks, and held back shyly, and it was Philip Selby who opened the door. This was a slight matter; but it seemed to prove to Lionel everything his mother had said. He felt rather glad to have left a chill behind him, as he had evidently done; and he was very much tempted to steal to the window and peep in at them, and enjoy the wonder with which no doubt they would ask each other “What is the matter?” It was well he did not do so, for he would have seen the company in the parlour laughing—all but Lydia, who was wondering by herself in a corner, what was the matter?—at a witticism of Joan’s, who had made a solemn face in imitation of poor Lionel the moment his back was turned. Lionel was fortunately not aware of this; but felt that he had produced a sensation, and was not sorry; and so went away gloomily, not to say misanthropically, down into the village and across the bridge and along the river’s side to Birrenshead. On the way he met with old Isaac, who had once more been beguiled into the “Red Lion,” and was now making his way home with much stumbling.
“It was you as kept me, Master,” the old man said, “you know ’twas you as kept me. I’d never have stayed out so long if it hadn’t been for you. If you would mention it to t’missis I would take it kind, for women is very onreasonable.”
“T’auld sinner,” cried a voice in the dark, “to larn t’young gentleman a pack o’ lies. D’ye think I dunuo know where you’ve been just to hear your voice?”
“My good woman,” said Lionel, “don’t be hard upon poor Isaac.”
He was still so terribly serious, and spoke in tones so hollow and tragical, that Jane Oliver was alarmed. She darted forward in the dark and caught hold of his arm.
“Oh! my bonnie young gentleman,” she cried, “tell me! Something’s happened to my silly auld man?”
At this hint Isaac began to moan, and grasped at Lionel’s other arm, leaning heavily upon it.
“It’s nothing, Missis, nothing; that is, not much, nothing to frighten you. T’ young Master’s been that kind, he’s given me his arm to lean upon all along t’ water-side,” Isaac said, with a limp which would have been much too demonstrative had it been addressed to the eye; but in the dark it answered well enough. For once the Missis fell into the trap, and Lionel, dragged round by his pretended patient to the back door, with blessings called down upon his head by the deceived woman, went through the little fiction with the gravest countenance, and without the least inclination even to smile. It was not till he had left Isaac with his foot elevated on a chair, elaborating the story of a supposed sprain, and had groped his way round to the other entrance, and climbed the dilapidated stairs to the musty old sitting-room, in which his solitary lamp was flaring, that he burst into a short laugh, as he threw himself into a chair. If it was Isaac’s little comedy that called forth this sudden outburst, it was only as the climax of a hundred other comedies which were not mirthful. His disappointment, and the confusion of all his thoughts, which his mother’s revelation had brought about, made him, as was natural, misanthropical and bitter. He laughed at the tragical folly and falsehood of everything, himself included; from the Joscelyns making all sorts of efforts to appear better, more refined and comfortable, than they were, by way of pleasing, i.e., deceiving, Lady Brotherton—and Lady Brotherton accepting everything, adding her own fanciful interpretation, not only deceived, but deceiving herself—down to old Isaac, who had so often tried in vain to dupe his wife, and his wife, who was now duped so easily, not by Isaac, but, save the mark! by himself, Lionel, without intention or purpose. “And I, who am the biggest fool of all!” the poor youth said to himself. What had he been doing all these weeks? making a fool’s paradise out of this squalid ruin, and princes and princesses out of the Joscelyns, half farmers, half horse-coupers as they were—all because he had believed in the sweet looks of a girl who the whole time had been aiming these sweet looks over his head at a better match, and a greater personage than himself. What an idiot he had been! the scales seemed to fall from his eyes. He saw everything round him, he thought, in its true colour. What would his mother think if she came and saw the wretched place in which he had been living? She would ask, like the village folk, what could his motive be? His motive, what was it? Even now, mortified and discouraged as he was, he sat upright in his chair with a thrill of alarm, when he imagined a research into his motives. Lady Brotherton might stop the expedition altogether if she found them out. Lydia’s perfidy was terrible, but it would be more terrible still to leave her behind, perhaps to lose sight of her, to miss the opportunity to which he had been looking forward with so much delight. When he came to think of it, his mother had not said Lydia was in love with Lord Eldred, but only that Lord Eldred was in love with Lydia—which was so different. At this Lionel roused himself, and the sight of his portmanteaux packed and ready to be shut up, roused him still more. After all it was to-morrow they were to start, and he, and not Lord Eldred, was to be for the present Lydia’s daily companion. There would be time to do many things before that hero could arrive, even if, as Lady Brotherton suggested, he should join them afterwards. To-morrow, nay, to-day, for it was already past midnight, was all his own, with nobody to interfere.